Here’s What Meta Argued to Fend Off Monopoly Claims in Landmark Trial

Meta rested its case on Wednesday in an antitrust trial in which the U.S. government has accused the company of illegally snuffing out nascent competition by purchasing Instagram and WhatsApp.

Meta’s lawyers spent roughly four days trying to convince Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that the government’s case, which claims that the company overpaid for the rival apps in a “buy or bury” strategy, was faulty.

Meta mounted its defense in Federal Trade Commission v. Meta Platforms by calling a handful of experts in economics and marketing, as well as current and former employees. They testified that the company formerly known as Facebook still faced plenty of competition and that its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp had ultimately benefited those apps.

Here are Meta’s main arguments.

Meta faces hefty competition

The F.T.C.’s case claims that Meta competes only with other services that connect people with their friends and family. That makes Snap’s Snapchat app the only significant rival, the government has said.

But Meta argued that wasn’t true: The company also competes with services like YouTube and TikTok, which are more focused on entertaining consumers, it said. And iMessage, the messaging app that comes installed on millions of Apple products, is a primary competitor to WhatsApp, Meta’s lawyers said.

Meta hired an expert, the University of Chicago professor John List, who installed software on the phones of 6,000 participants in an experiment that tracked how much time they spent using individual apps.