The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed an appeal against a ruling made by the US District Court for the District of Columbia in November 2025, which favoured Meta Platforms in an antitrust case.
The appeal will be reviewed by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
The FTC contends that Meta has unlawfully maintained a monopoly in personal social networking services through anticompetitive practices, primarily involving its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
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In the November decision, a federal judge determined that Meta, parent company to Facebook, does not possess a monopoly in the social media landscape, thus thwarting the FTC’s attempt to reverse its purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp.
The FTC had aimed to compel Meta to divest Instagram and WhatsApp to restore competition, arguing that the Facebook parent’s substantial acquisitions were intended to neutralise emerging competitors.
FTC Bureau of Competition Director Daniel Guarnera said: “The US economy thrives when competition can flourish and US businesses compete fairly against one another. Yet Meta has maintained its dominant position and record profits for well over a decade not through legitimate competition, but by buying its most significant competitive threats.
“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 US businesses.”
Meta’s acquisition strategy began with Instagram in 2012 and continued with WhatsApp in 2014. At the time, these acquisitions faced no regulatory opposition. However, in 2020, the FTC launched legal action claiming that Facebook, now operating as Meta, engaged in systematic strategies that suppressed competition by acquiring potential rivals and imposing restrictive conditions on software developers.
The social technology company has been under regulatory scrutiny in other jurisdictions as well. In April 2025, it was fined €200m ($234m) by the European Commission (EC) for allegedly breaching the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
The DMA requires gatekeepers to get users’ consent to combine personal data across services and offer an equivalent, less personalised alternative. The Commission found Meta’s “Consent or Pay” model for Facebook and Instagram non-compliant because it left European Union (EU) users only a choice between consenting to data combination for personalised ads or paying for an ad-free subscription.
Meanwhile, in China, Meta’s proposed acquisition of Manus has reportedly come under the scanner of regulatory authorities.
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