Zuckerberg under legal pressure
META
By Eloi Suinot
Meta is facing a major antitrust lawsuit, which began in the United States this week. In the firing line is the alleged abusive takeovers of Instagram and WhatsApp, two acquisitions which the authorities say have distorted competition. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is leading the charge, with Mark Zuckerberg's hearing scheduled for Tuesday. If the courts rule in favor of the FTC, Meta could be forced to sell these two key platforms.
Filed under the Trump presidency, the complaint dates back five years. The trial is opening in a tense context for the Californian giant, already facing around a hundred summonses to appear in court in France for unfair practices, controversies surrounding its AI, accusations of copyright infringement and complaints for misleading advertising.
A procedure with major consequences
The trial will largely revolve around one decisive question: are TikTok and YouTube part of the same market as Facebook and Instagram? For the FTC, Meta dominates "personal social networks," a segment it isolates by excluding these two video giants. Conversely, Meta bases its defense on their inclusion, claiming that they capture the same audience, the same attention span, and compete directly with its products. This debate over market definition will be at the heart of the eight-week hearing.
Zuckerberg, who is no stranger to the courts, is facing a series of unprecedented proceedings this time. He testified for three hours on Monday, mainly about the early days of Facebook, and is due to appear again on Tuesday. His defense intends to prove that the success of Instagram and WhatsApp is due to Meta's massive investments, and not to an anti-competitive strategy.
The stakes are high: Instagram is now the group's most profitable platform in terms of revenue per user and accounts for 50% of the group's advertising revenue in the United States.
Meta's lawyer, Mark Hansen, claims that these acquisitions were aimed at "growing and improving the companies" and cannot be considered illegal. He describes them as "successes" that benefit consumers.
A high-tension trial
Expected to last eight weeks, the trial will largely revolve around the definition of the market. The FTC considers that Meta dominates "personal social networks", platforms dedicated to exchanges between relatives and excludes TikTok and YouTube, despite being at the heart of Meta's defense strategy to demonstrate the presence of real competition.
At the helm, Zuckerberg acknowledged that the mission of connecting loved ones remains important for Meta, but that it has become secondary: "Connections with loved ones represent an increasingly smaller part of our organization," he said.
This case is part of a broader offensive by the US authorities against the tech giants. Google (Alphabet) was found guilty of abusing its dominant position last year, while Apple and Amazon are currently subject to similar proceedings.
Instagram's beginnings at the heart of the case
The beginnings of Instagram are of particular interest to investigators. Mark Zuckerberg was questioned about his concerns at the time, when Facebook was struggling to develop its own photo application, which was quickly abandoned. The FTC notably relies on internal emails from 2011 and 2012. In one of them, he wrote: "The potential impact of Instagram is really scary, and that's why we should consider paying a lot of money."
The federal agency seeks to demonstrate that Meta's near-monopoly on personal social networks has harmed the user experience: advertising overload, imposed modifications, lack of alternatives.
Despite its victory against Google, the FTC has suffered several setbacks, including its failure to block the takeover of Within by Meta or that of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft.
A tense legal climate
Alongside this lawsuit, the FTC and the Ministry of Justice are pursuing four other actions against the digital giants. Amazon, Apple and Google (Alphabet) are also targeted, the latter will be back in court as early as next week in a case related to a possible forced resale of Chrome.
Meanwhile, Meta is accused by several French media outlets of violating the GDPR, which would have given it an unfair advantage in the advertising market. British authors also accuse it of illegally using their works to train its AI. The forced launch of Meta AI on WhatsApp was finally the subject of a European complaint on April 8. Despite these controversies, the group plans to invest $65bn in artificial intelligence by 2025.
Eloi Suinot