• by Wendy Davis , Yesterday

The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday appealed the dismissal of its antitrust lawsuit alleging that Meta Platforms monopolized a market for "personal social networking services."

The move comes around two months after U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C. threw out the FTC's suit, ruling that Meta is not a monopolist because it currently competes with YouTube and TikTok.

The FTC hasn't yet filed its substantive appellate arguments with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which will preside over the appeal.

FTC Bureau of Competition director Daniel Guarnera stated Tuesday, "The Trump-Vance FTC will continue fighting its historic case against Meta to ensure that competition can thrive across the country to the benefit of all Americans and U.S. businesses.” 

Meta countered through a spokesperson that Boasberg's decision "is correct, and recognizes the fierce competition we face."

The agency's appeal comes in a battle dating to 2020, when it claimed that Meta's acquisition of Instagram (purchased for $1 billion in 2012) and WhatsApp (bought for $19 billion in 2014) enabled the company to maintain a monopoly.

The agency claimed both purchases were part of an illegal “buy-or-bury scheme” that allowed the platform to preserve its dominance in the “personal social networking market."

The FTC sued soon after a Democratic majority report from the House Subcommittee on Antitrust said Facebook used its “data advantage” to identify nascent competitors and then “acquire, copy, or kill” them.

Last year, Boasberg presided over a trial at which the FTC attempted to prove both that Meta monopolizes the "personal social networking" market, and that the company's alleged monopoly allowed it to degrade users' experience by increasing the ad load on its services.

Meta argued in its post-trial brief that the evidence showed there was no independent market for "personal social networking services."

Instead, Meta contended, the evidence at trial showed that Meta had "evolved into a diverse global provider of entertaining and informative content" that competes with social apps such as TikTok and YouTube.

The company also said it has never charged U.S. users for Facebook or Instagram, and argued that the FTC failed to prove that more ads resulted in a worse experience for users.

The FTC had urged Boasberg to find that Facebook and Instagram serve different "core purposes" than TikTok or YouTube, contending that Facebook and Instagram focus on connecting users with friends and family, but TikTok and YouTube are focused on entertainment.

Boasberg sided with Meta, writing: "The Court ultimately finds that YouTube and TikTok belong in the product market, and they prevent Meta from holding a monopoly."

He added that the social media landscape "changed markedly" since the FTC filed suit, noting TikTok's relatively recent emergence as a competitor to Facebook.

The judge also said the FTC failed to prove that ads on Facebook and Instagram degraded users' experience.

"The effect of ads on users’ experience depends on not only their number but also on their quality and relevance," he wrote.

"An ad that is attractive, engaging, unobtrusive, and shows a user something that he wants imposes a much lower cost than an ad that is unsightly, disruptive, and irrelevant," he wrote.

The D.C.Circuit hasn't yet set a timetable for the appeal.