In September 2006, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, described what made his social network in particular.
“Facebook revolves around real contacts for actual friends,” wrote in a The Post Company.
After two decades, this description is in a center A teacher experience to combat monopoly Against the Empire of Social Networks of Mr. Zuckerberg, which is now called Meta, and whether it has been illegally strangled by competition. In essence, the trial raised the issue of whether social networks are simply revolving around relationships with friends and family, or whether it is more than that.
The Federal Trade Committee, which is trying the issue, tried to define social networks narrowly as a service linking friends and family. Under this definition, META will not only really compete with Snap, Snapchat maker, which is close to size and users. But Meta has argued that all social media companies are competitors, especially Tiktok and YouTube, which means that the competition was more abundant.
“The friendly part has decreased a little,” Mr. Zuckerberg He said in a certificate in the trial last monthReducing his words from 2006.
Conflicting definitions of social media in the case – the Federal Trade Committee against definition platforms – clarifies the amount of social networks that have evolved more than a decade and how the slippery became weak. Meta has expanded beyond Facebook roots as an advertisement for university students, and dozens of modern companies have developed similar products, simulating popular features such as “I like” button and news feeding.
In the first four weeks of the trial, a procession of social media executives including Reddit, Pinterest and LinkedIn did not help to clarify social media definition. Acknowledged that they are all competing for the same users, but in many cases very different products were offered.
Determining the place where the scene on social media will be the first and most important decision for Judge James E. Paspurg From the American boycott court for the Colombia Province, which presides over the trial.
“He does not walk in the garden,” Judge Boasberg wrote.
Check the case if the purchases of Meta from Instagram in 2012 For one billion dollars and WhatsApp in 2014 for $ 19 billion, an illegal competition. Judge Boasberg’s decision will have extensive impacts on the technology market, as the industry faces a batch of two parties over years to reduce the strength of Silicon Valley and the arrest of speech, entertainment, trade and computing.
If it contradicts the government, which it said is seeking to dismantle the superiority, the decision can deter the evil appetite for the largest technology companies to buy smaller competitors. This would shake the emerging economy, as many founders rely on larger players to acquire their companies for huge sums of money, allowing investors to leave.
“It is an important situation because the world we enter now has become more complicated, and so if the Federal Trade Committee wins, it will be more likely to apply more aggressive to combat monopoly,” said Daniel Rubfield, a former deputy assistant in the case that worked in the government’s fight against Microsoft for more than two properties.
Legal experts said that in most anti -monopoly cases, it is easier to determine the competitive market. Prices are used as a basis for assessing the company’s strength and impact on competition. This can include merge or anti -competition behavior that pays prices for airline tickets or home appliances, for example.
But Internet companies like Meta provide free services to consumers, and turn their case into a new legal debate.
In his opening statements, Daniel Matthesson, the government’s main lawyer in the case, accused a “monopoly on personal social networking services in the United States”, with competitors: Snap and the Tiny App Mewe.
Mr. Mattison argued that Meta is one of the people who knew each other was the key to the company’s growth and that it attracted advertisers who were interested in promoting users of goods to their close contacts.
She launched dead again, saying that she is now primarily competing for the attention of users who moved through short videos on YouTube and Tiktok. Mark Hansen, Mark Hansen, Mark Hansen, said that the company entered “crises” when Tiktok became available in the United States in 2018.
On Thursday, a Meta lawyer, Adam Museiri, the Instagram president, asked if the application was similar to Facebook or Tiktok.
He said, “I put Instagram between the two, but closer to Tiktok.” He added that Instagram started as an application to deliver friends, but users are now resorting to it much more to entertain.
The image closes, the procession of other social media executives has not done much to determine the industry market.
“YouTube and Instagram are the most important competitors of Tiktok,” according to the interior Tiktok document from 2021 presented by Meta lawyers.
When asked about competition, Adam Briser, the head of Tiktok Operations, reduces the idea by saying that the applications work differently: “I do not think of us as a social application.”
Aaron Felin, the company’s first manager, said that YouTube is mainly used for entertainment, and people rarely use the platform to share content or follow other users who know him.
When it comes to the social networking site X, “I think more people these days are thinking about it as a place to find out what is new and what is happening in the world in exchange for thinking about it as a place to share photos and so on with friends and family.”
Legal experts said it is customary to quarrel in market definitions.
In 1997, FTC succeeded in a lawsuit against the process of combining food and office warehouses, a warning against focusing on the offices market. Companies have argued that they competed against other retailers such as Wall Mart.
Next year, the government accused Microsoft of the pressure competition by connecting the Internet browser to the famous Windows operating system. The government persuaded the judge to define the market tightly in the case as personal computers that operate on Intel, with the exception of Apple computers and hand -mobile devices.
John Newman, a law professor at Miami University and a former, said: “In the case of definition, FTC is a traditional approach to identifying the markets in a narrow way, but the challenge here is that the market is different because it is digital and it makes sense that the competition is lying to the eyes and attention.” FTC official who worked in the agency case against Meta.
Judge Pasperg gave a little reference to his thinking. However, he noticed that various social media applications seem to have many features the same, and ask whether the method that is used is “just a difference in degree.”
He pointed out that the text messages have replaced voice calls, which he described as “elderly contacts.” Younger users are more easy to switch platforms and technologies.
“Do not these criteria change all the time?” Judge Boasberg, who does not use social media, asked one of the expert witnesses.
