Meta's Anti-Trust Victory: When Big Tech Becomes Untouchable
- UCL Law for All Society
- 10 hours ago
- 3 min read
By Rabani Malhotra
Meta’s recent courtroom victory marks a major landmark in the ongoing struggle between US regulators and Big Tech. Judge James Boasberg ruled in favour of Meta against the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which had accused Meta of running a “buy or bury” strategy, essentially accusing them of absorbing emerging rivals before they could become threats. The case in particular was centred on Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
At the heart of the dispute is antitrust law (commonly referred to as competition law) - the set of rules designed to keep markets competitive and prevent companies from becoming so dominant that they become able to steer economic and social life with little accountability. The FTC argued that Meta had accumulated monopoly power through anti-competitive mergers, but the Court disagreed. Judge Boasberg cited the rise of TikTok as proof that the social networking market remains competitive. Furthermore, at the time of acquisition, both Whatsapp and Instagram were relatively small startups with little revenue.
In theory, the presence of a fast-growing rival like TikTok challenges the idea that Meta is a monopoly. In practice, however, this view overlooks how power actually works in digital markets. Meta is currently worth approximately $1.5 trillion. It is able to freely increase advertising loads, weaken privacy protections and shape user experience in ways smaller platforms simply cannot. These actions are clear signs of monopoly power: huge profits, limited user choice and higher costs paid in attention and data. Yet the ruling effectively insulates Meta further, even after years of scandals, whistleblowers and regulatory warnings.
The bigger question is: what does this mean for ordinary users? If platforms become too large and complex to regulate, they start to function less like businesses and more like akin to independent sovereigns. Their decisions influence communication, information flows and daily habits, while oversight grows weaker.
The comparison with Amazon’s ongoing regulatory battles highlights this tension even more clearly. The FTC has also brought a major case against Amazon, accusing it of holding and exploiting monopoly power in online retail. Regulators allege that Amazon conditioned sellers’ access to Prime eligibility - the key to visibility and fast delivery - on using Amazon’s own costly logistics services. They also argue the company biased search results to favour its own products and charged sellers steep fees that ultimately raise consumer prices.
Courts were not as favourable towards Amazon as to Meta though, and the company has faced penalties for consumer deception. It was required to pay a $1 billion civil penalty and $1.5 billion in refunds to customers after it was found it had violated the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA). The FTC argued that Amazon designed confusing and misleading interfaces that pushed users into Prime subscriptions without clear consent.
While Amazon faces significant financial penalties and restrictions on its practices, Meta has managed to evade structural remedies entirely. The different outcomes raise a broader issue: are some tech giants now too entrenched, too culturally embedded to be regulated effectively?
For everyday people, these cases shape the terms on which we participate in the digital world; what we pay, what we see, and how much control we lose without noticing. Whether through Meta’s unchecked power over social platforms or Amazon’s influence over online shopping, the real stakes are not legal technicalities but the shifting balance between public oversight and corporate dominance.
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Edited by Artyom Timofeev
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