Meta Platforms (META) said Sunday that a Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit, set to begin on Monday, to break up its ownership of Instagram and WhatsApp, relies on a flawed understanding of social media competition.
The social media company said the FTC's approach wrongly ignores major players like TikTok and Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG) subsidiary YouTube, and instead defines the market so narrowly that it excludes obvious rivals. The agency is alleging that the company's only competitors are Snap's (SNAP) Snapchat and MeWe, according to Meta.
Meta argued that its investments turned Instagram and WhatsApp into secure, widely used platforms, with each now serving more than two billion users. It emphasized that both purchases were cleared by regulators over a decade ago, and said reopening those decisions now sends a troubling message about the reliability of US regulatory approval.
Shares of the company were 1.2% higher in recent Monday premarket activity.
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