Antitrust trial: Meta may be forced to split
This article was automatically translated from HIBAPRESS, the Arabic version:
Hibapress
Meta, Facebook’s mother company, Instagram and WhatsApp, risks being forced to split at the end of an antitrust trial engaged following accusations of illegal monopoly of social platforms.
During this trial, which opens on Monday in Washington, the Federal Commerce Commission (FTC) accuses Meta Platforms of illegally monopolized the social media market after buying Instagram and WhatsApp more than ten years ago.
According to FTC lawyer Daniel Matheson, the company led by Mark Zuckerberg, has broken the competition rules established in the United States for more than 100 years.
He insists that through the purchase of Instagram and Whatsapp, Meta prevented these two companies from competing with it or developing independently.
The trial will have to last for about two months. It will include testimonies this week of Mark Zuckerberg and the former senior Meta official, Sheryl Sandberg.
Speaking on Monday on the Fox News channel, the president of the FTC, Andrew Ferguson, insisted that “the antitrust laws contribute to guarantee that no company in the private sector becomes so powerful that it negatively affects our lives”.
If it were to be decided by the justice system, a split of Meta could bring a blow to the value of the social platform, and above all to raise serious questions on the way in which the government assesses and approves transactions.
