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Meta Will Face Antitrust Trial over Instagram, WhatsApp Acquisitions

Morning commute traffic streams past the Meta sign outside the headquarters of Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc in Mountain View, California, US, November 9, 2022. (Reuters)
Morning commute traffic streams past the Meta sign outside the headquarters of Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc in Mountain View, California, US, November 9, 2022. (Reuters)
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Meta Will Face Antitrust Trial over Instagram, WhatsApp Acquisitions

Morning commute traffic streams past the Meta sign outside the headquarters of Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc in Mountain View, California, US, November 9, 2022. (Reuters)
Morning commute traffic streams past the Meta sign outside the headquarters of Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc in Mountain View, California, US, November 9, 2022. (Reuters)

Facebook owner Meta Platforms must face trial in a US Federal Trade Commission lawsuit seeking its break-up over claims that it bought Instagram and WhatsApp to crush emerging competition in social media, a judge in Washington ruled on Wednesday.

Judge James Boasberg largely denied Meta's motion to end the case filed against Facebook in 2020, during the Trump administration, alleging that the company acted illegally to maintain its social network monopoly.

Meta, then known as Facebook, overpaid for Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 to eliminate nascent threats instead of competing on its own in the mobile ecosystem, the FTC claims.

Boasberg let that claim stand, but dismissed the FTC's allegation that Facebook bolstered its dominance by restricting third-party app developers' access to the platform unless they agreed not to compete with its core services.

"We are confident that the evidence at trial will show that the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp have been good for competition and consumers," a Meta spokesperson said on Wednesday.

FTC spokesperson Douglas Farrar said that the case filed during the Trump administration and refined under Biden "represents a bipartisan effort to curtail Meta’s monopoly power and restore competition to ensure freedom and innovation in the social media ecosystem."

At trial, Meta will not be allowed to argue the WhatsApp acquisition boosted competition by strengthening its position against Apple and Google, Boasberg ruled.

The judge said he would release a detailed order later on Wednesday after the FTC and Meta have had a chance to redact any sensitive commercial information.

A trial date in the case has not been set.

Meta had urged the judge to dismiss the entire case, saying it depended on an overly narrow view of social media markets, and did not take into account competition from ByteDance's TikTok, Google's YouTube, X, and Microsoft's LinkedIn.

The case is one of five blockbuster lawsuits where antitrust regulators at the FTC and US Department of Justice are going after Big Tech.

Amazon.com Inc and Apple are both being sued, and Alphabet's Google is facing two lawsuits, including one where a judge recently found it unlawfully thwarted competition among online search engines.

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A Social Media Ban for Under-16s Passes the Australian Senate and Will Soon be a World-first Law

A teenager uses his mobile phone to access social media, Sydney, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (Dean Lewins/AAP Image VIA AP)
A teenager uses his mobile phone to access social media, Sydney, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (Dean Lewins/AAP Image VIA AP)
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A Social Media Ban for Under-16s Passes the Australian Senate and Will Soon be a World-first Law

A teenager uses his mobile phone to access social media, Sydney, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (Dean Lewins/AAP Image VIA AP)
A teenager uses his mobile phone to access social media, Sydney, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (Dean Lewins/AAP Image VIA AP)

A social media ban for children under 16 passed the Australian Senate Thursday and will soon become a world-first law.

The law will make platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram liable for fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million) for systemic failures to prevent children younger than 16 from holding accounts, The AP reported.

The Senate passed the bill 34 votes to 19. The House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved the legislation 102 votes to 13.

The House has yet to endorse opposition amendments made in the Senate. But that is a formality since the government has already agreed they will pass.

The platforms will have one year to work out how they could implement the ban before penalties are enforced.

The amendments bolster privacy protections. Platforms would not be allowed to compel users to provide government-issued identity documents including passports or driver’s licenses, nor could they demand digital identification through a government system.

The House is scheduled to pass the amendments on Friday. Critics of the legislation fear that banning young children from social media will impact the privacy of users who must establish they are older than 16.

While the major parties support the ban, many child welfare and mental health advocates are concerned about unintended consequences.

Sen. David Shoebridge, from the minority Greens party, said mental health experts agreed that the ban could dangerously isolate many children who used social media to find support.

“This policy will hurt vulnerable young people the most, especially in regional communities and especially the LGBTQI community, by cutting them off,” Shoebridge told the Senate.

Opposition Sen. Maria Kovacic said the bill was not radical but necessary.

“The core focus of this legislation is simple: It demands that social media companies take reasonable steps to identify and remove underage users from their platforms,” Kovacic told the Senate.

“This is a responsibility these companies should have been fulfilling long ago, but for too long they have shirked these responsibilities in favor of profit,” she added.

Online safety campaigner Sonya Ryan, whose 15-year-old daughter Carly was murdered by a 50-year-old pedophile who pretended to be a teenager online, described the Senate vote as a “monumental moment in protecting our children from horrendous harms online.”

“It’s too late for my daughter, Carly, and the many other children who have suffered terribly and those who have lost their lives in Australia, but let us stand together on their behalf and embrace this together,” she told the AP in an email.

Wayne Holdsworth, whose teenage son Mac took his own life after falling victim to an online sextortion scam, had advocated for the age restriction and took pride in its passage.

“I have always been a proud Australian, but for me subsequent to today’s Senate decision, I am bursting with pride,” Holdsworth told the AP in an email.