Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST NEWS: WLF, Chamber of Commerce back Meta in FTC case, (Aug 28, 2026)

By Jeff Williams, TR Daily

The district court in D.C. held last year that the FTC had failed to show that Meta held monopoly power in the social media market.

The Washington Legal Foundation (WLF) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have filed briefs urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to uphold a lower court’s decision rejecting the FTC’s determination that Meta Platforms, Inc., has a monopoly in the “personal social networking” market (FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc., Case No. 26-5028 (D.C. App. Aug. 27, 2026)).

In 2020, the FTC sued Facebook (now Meta) for maintaining a monopoly position in the market for personal social networking (PSN) services. The complaint asserted two counts of Sherman Act violations regarding (1) the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp entities themselves; and (2) Facebook's encouragement of apps and tools compatible with Facebook's system ostensibly to keep users from transferring their graphic, audio, and video data to competing PSN services.

In November 2024, the court denied summary judgment to Meta on the issue of monopoly power and Meta/Facebook anticompetitive conduct. D.C. District Court Chief Judge Boasberg specified, “This case must go to trial.” At trial last spring, the FTC claimed three pieces of evidence proved Meta’s monopoly power: (1) lavish profits; (2) the jacking up of the app’s quality-adjusted price; and (3) price discrimination.

A year after the original ruling, the D.C. court held that the FTC had failed to prove that Meta holds monopoly power in the PSN services market and entered judgment for Meta. The court reasoned that it no longer made sense to try to distinguish separate app markets for social networking and social media. The market landscape that existed only five years ago, when the FTC initiated this action, “changed markedly.” While the FTC argued that Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and minor player MeWe only compete with each other in the PSN market, the court found instead that Facebook competes for internet users’ time and attention in a “broader field” of social media. This broader field now includes, at a minimum, TikTok and YouTube. The court agreed with Meta that inclusion of TikTok and YouTube in the relevant market would bring Meta’s redacted market share below monopoly level as a matter of law. The court added that Meta also defended its acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp as beneficial to consumers.

The FTC announced that it has filed a notice of appeal to the D.C. appellate court. The FTC argued that “robust evidence at trial demonstrated, that for over a decade Meta has illegally maintained a monopoly in personal social networking services through anticompetitive conduct—by buying the significant competitive threats it identified in Instagram and WhatsApp.”

Amicus briefs. Stating that a “ready-fire-aim approach to antitrust enforcement does nothing good for consumers,” WLF argued that the FTC’s “market definition is wrong” because the market share of Meta’s platforms has “eroded” with the increased competition from YouTube and TikTok.

“When a ‘monopoly’ falls apart so swiftly, it compels the conclusion that the government has misidentified competitive conduct as unlawful exclusion,” WLF said.

The group also contended that “unnecessary antitrust enforcement will act as a prior restraint on tomorrow’s social-media products” that would hinder free speech.

“Constitutionally valuable innovation in online speech distribution will be chilled, leaving social-media users not just worse off as consumers, but as citizens,” WTA said.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said in a filing that the FTC’s appeal is “not only an attempt to rewrite” congressional intent in the Federal Trade Commission Act but would also have “substantial destabilizing effects” if granted.

“Breaking up a business is the most drastic remedy known to antitrust law, and Congress set a high bar to imposing it,” the Chamber of Commerce said, adding that the FTC “now seeks to avoid those safeguards” and “cannot point to a single case in the 50-plus years since Section 13(b) [of the FTC Act] was enacted that has recognized the power it asserts today.”

Companies: Meta Platforms, Inc.; Washington Legal Foundation; U.S. Chamber of Commerce

News: Antitrust FederalTradeCommissionNews