Meta Platforms, Inc. — the tech giant behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — scored a major legal victory this week as a federal judge dismissed a high-profile antitrust case brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The ruling, delivered by Chief U.S. Judge James E. Boasberg for the District of Columbia on Tuesday, November 18, 2025, marks a pivotal moment in the ongoing debate over how to regulate the rapidly evolving world of social media.
The FTC had accused Meta of maintaining monopoly power in the “personal social networking” market, primarily through its acquisitions of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2024. According to the agency, these purchases were anticompetitive maneuvers designed to stifle competition and entrench Meta’s dominance. But after five years of legal wrangling, Judge Boasberg concluded that the evidence simply didn’t support the FTC’s claims — at least not in today’s market.
“The landscape that existed only five years ago has changed markedly,” Boasberg wrote in his opinion, as cited by The Times. He observed that once-distinct platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube now offer strikingly similar features, most notably the endless scroll of short-form videos powered by sophisticated algorithms. “That wall has since broken down,” the judge remarked, referencing the blurring lines between social networking and social media.
This blurring, he argued, is crucial. The FTC’s case relied on a narrow definition of the market — essentially, Meta’s core social networking apps. But Meta countered that the real competition is far broader, encompassing not only traditional rivals but also fast-rising challengers like TikTok and YouTube. By including these platforms, Meta’s share of user time and engagement drops well below the legal threshold for monopoly power, which typically requires a 70 to 80 percent market share.
Judge Boasberg agreed, writing, “Meta competes in the market for social media, and that market includes—at minimum—TikTok and YouTube as well.” He cited empirical evidence, including natural experiments such as outages and government bans, which showed that when one app goes down, users simply flock to another. This, he said, demonstrated a vibrant, competitive market where no single player can dictate terms.
The data on user behavior also played a central role in the court’s analysis. Americans now spend just 17% of their time on Facebook viewing content from friends, and only 7% on Instagram. The vast majority of their time is instead spent watching short videos — dubbed Reels on Meta’s platforms — most of which are posted by strangers and surfaced by AI-driven recommendation engines. “Both apps have shifted to primarily showing (short video clips called) Reels. Most of the time that Americans spend on Instagram is spent watching Reels, and Reels is also the single most-used part of Facebook,” Boasberg wrote.
Meta’s response to the rise of TikTok was also scrutinized. The company invested billions of dollars to build out its own short-form video features, a move that the court saw as evidence of fierce competition rather than market dominance. “Meta sunk so much money and resources into fighting off competition from TikTok shows that substitution was taking a chunk out of Meta’s bottom line. … Substitution from Meta to TikTok was so high that it forced Meta to fundamentally transform its apps,” the opinion noted.
On the question of market definition, the court rejected the FTC’s attempt to exclude TikTok and YouTube, finding instead that these platforms are integral to the competitive landscape. With these competitors in the mix, Meta’s share of the market fell to a “modest” level — far below what’s required to infer monopoly power under legal precedent. “Meta’s share of that market comes out to around [redacted]% of time spent. As a matter of law, that modest share cannot establish monopoly power,” the court stated.
The court also addressed the FTC’s claims of quality degradation and price discrimination, finding little evidence to support them. Meta’s apps have actually improved in quality, according to the judge, and differences in ad loads do not amount to meaningful disparities in price or user experience. Surveys and expert testimony suggesting that users value friend sharing were dismissed as outdated or contradicted by actual user behavior, which now overwhelmingly favors algorithmic video content.
“Meta’s apps are primarily recommendation systems hooked onto messaging tools. Their characteristics and uses are hardly peculiar,” Boasberg observed, underscoring just how much the nature of social media has shifted in recent years.
Ultimately, the court concluded that the FTC had not met its burden to show that Meta currently holds monopoly power. “Whether or not Meta enjoyed monopoly power in the past … the agency must show that it continues to hold such power now. The Court’s verdict today determines that the FTC has not done so,” Boasberg wrote.
The ruling is a significant setback for the FTC, but it may not be the end of the road. The agency could appeal, likely challenging the inclusion of TikTok and YouTube in the market definition as overly broad. Alternatively, the FTC might seek legislative changes to make it easier to police tech mergers, perhaps by lowering the legal threshold for proving anticompetitive harm or redefining what constitutes a relevant market in the digital age. Some experts suggest that the agency could also shift its enforcement strategy away from past mergers and toward ongoing conduct — such as privacy practices, data usage, or exclusionary tactics — which might be easier to prove under current law.
The decision also raises important questions about how courts should balance liability for past conduct against the realities of today’s fast-moving markets. As legal analysts point out, antitrust law traditionally separates the question of whether a company broke the law (liability) from what should be done about it (remedy). In other words, just because Meta no longer holds monopoly power today doesn’t mean it couldn’t be held accountable for past misconduct — but any remedies would need to reflect current market conditions. This principle was highlighted in landmark cases like United States v. Microsoft Corp., where the court focused on restoring competition without imposing unnecessary structural changes.
Meanwhile, the broader landscape of social media competition continues to evolve. On November 20, 2025, The Times reported that ByteDance, the Chinese tech company behind TikTok, was valued at a staggering $480 billion after a bidding war, with investment firm Capital Today purchasing $300 million worth of shares. This valuation puts ByteDance on par with OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, underscoring just how much the balance of power in social media has shifted in recent years.
As Meta celebrates its courtroom win and the FTC weighs its next move, one thing is clear: the battle over Big Tech’s role in society is far from settled. With new players rising and old boundaries dissolving, the future of competition — and regulation — in the digital world remains wide open.
