Meta Platforms is set to face an antitrust trial in Washington beginning Monday, as the Federal Trade Commission seeks to dismantle what it alleges is an illegal social media monopoly built through the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg is overseeing the case, which could result in Meta being forced to divest from the two platforms.
The FTC, which brought the case in 2020 during President Trump’s first term, contends that Meta spent billions more than a decade ago to eliminate emerging threats to Facebook’s dominance in social networking. The agency argues that these deals were aimed at neutralizing future competition rather than fostering innovation.
The stakes for Meta are significant, as Instagram alone is estimated to generate nearly half of the company’s U.S. ad revenue. The FTC is seeking a breakup that could force Meta to sell both Instagram and WhatsApp.
Meta has maintained that its acquisitions were lawful and beneficial to consumers, pointing to intense current competition from TikTok, YouTube, and Apple’s messaging ecosystem. The company also intends to cite increased traffic to Facebook and Instagram during a brief TikTok shutdown earlier this year as proof that users view the platforms as interchangeable.
Zuckerberg is expected to testify at the trial, with FTC lawyers preparing to question him over past internal communications, including messages in which he suggested buying Instagram to neutralize a threat and expressed concern about WhatsApp evolving into a rival network. Meta has argued those remarks are outdated and irrelevant in today’s market.
The FTC contends that Meta still holds a monopoly over platforms for personal social sharing, with primary U.S. competitors being Snapchat and the smaller MeWe app. Other platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, and X are excluded from that definition, as the FTC views them as fundamentally different in purpose and audience.
Judge Boasberg, in a previous ruling, allowed the case to proceed but acknowledged that the FTC faces a difficult task in proving its claims at trial. If the agency wins, it will need to clear a second legal hurdle to demonstrate that unwinding the deals would restore competition.
The trial, which is expected to run through July, is part of a broader government push targeting major tech firms. In addition to Meta, the FTC and Department of Justice are pursuing antitrust cases against Amazon, Apple, and Google, the latter of which faces a separate trial next week focused on its Chrome browser.
FTC spokesperson Joe Simonson said, “The Trump-Vance FTC could not be more ready for this trial.”
