Meta Wins Antitrust Case as Big Tech Moves from a Monopoly to a Macro-Economic Problem
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
-
United States v. Microsoft Corp.
13 min read
The landmark 2001 antitrust case against Microsoft provides essential historical context for understanding how the government approaches tech monopoly cases, the legal standards applied, and why outcomes vary—directly relevant to understanding the Meta case's legal framework
-
Network effect
13 min read
The article's central argument about Facebook's 'social graph' being an unassailable advantage hinges on network effects—understanding this economic concept explains why users can't easily switch platforms and why Meta's monopoly argument is more complex than simple market share
-
Federal Trade Commission
15 min read
The FTC is the plaintiff in this case, and understanding its history, powers, and enforcement mechanisms helps readers grasp why antitrust enforcement has evolved and what tools regulators actually have against tech giants
“Meta’s goal is to get users to spend as much time on its apps as possible, and it tunes its algorithms to show users the content they most want to see.” - Judge James ‘Jeb’ Boasberg
The most telling moment of a long-running Facebook antitrust case occurred in May, when it came out in the courtroom that the company’s algorithm had recommended millions of children’s Instagram accounts to a set of users it internally called “groomers.” One would think that a public expose of Mark Zuckerberg potentially facilitating pedophilia on a mass scale would have become a scandal, discussed by QAnon and a public obsessed with the Epstein files. But it didn’t. A few outlets reported it. And the judge in the case, James “Jeb” Boasberg, an Obama appointee in the D.C. district court, far from finding something of interest, was annoyed and bored by the revelation. Boasberg told the government to move along and stop wasting his time with such trivialities.
After years of anger at the social media company, no one, it seemed, cared anymore, even about pretty appalling stuff.
So it wasn’t a surprise that a few days ago, Boasberg ruled for Meta and against the Federal Trade Commission in the case. This ruling didn’t make much of a ripple in the press, or even the antitrust-focused world. I focus on the problem of market power, Meta once hired opposition researchers to go after my group personally, and even I had a hard time caring that much.
Why the apathy? To answer that question, you have to look to another event that happened that same day Boasberg handed down his ruling. President Donald Trump called for Congress to ban all AI regulation by states, which would clear the way for large tech firms such as Meta to organize huge swaths of American life unencumbered by public rules. He is going to try to insert this provision in an upcoming defense bill, and potentially in executive orders. And that provision did actually generate public notice and anger.
These two legal events are linked, and suggest that it’s not so much that the public doesn’t want something done about Meta, just that they rightfully came to understand years ago that this particular lawsuit wasn’t going to amount to anything. To understand where
...This excerpt is provided for preview purposes. Full article content is available on the original publication.