What happened and why The US Government, namely the Federal Trade Commission, sued Facebook (-0.29%) for unlawful intent to gain market monopoly and anti-competitive conduct through the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp. 💔 Breaking up the Facebook Family... The Social Media giant could be forced to split the family and sell its two precious platforms. The FTC joined hands with 48 US states and territory governments serving Facebook with two major anti-trust law suits asking to pull a plug on all its potential future mergers and separate its "family of apps". In the past, Facebook's CEO revealed to his team that dividing the business would be an *and quote* " existential " *yes, his words* calamity. Why so dramatic, Zuck'? Well... It could be mainly based on the fact that the two social media platforms' adoption growth-rate exceeds that of Facebook and Messenger. Plus, losing ownership of the two would mean: Zuck's mega-app = a shattered dream. Next steps?... Zuckerberg was working on the integration of both Instagram and WhatsApp with its core Messenger app, making it more difficult to break them apart: Last week's $1bn acquisition of Kustomer was a key step in bringing them all together in a desire to ascend from social media comms to social commerce juggernaut. Halt or haste?... At this point in time, Facebook can either pause or fast-track through the integration. The proof?... The FTC's counting on Facebook internal messages and emails between Mark Zuckerberg and his team. Some of them date back to the pre-Instagram acquisition era, talking about it being a potential replacement that needs to be closely tracked. When it came to pondering over a merger, Zuckerberg framed it as a way of "buying time" and cancelling out competition. The Takeaway "Revisionist history"... Facebook's creator and CEO fired back with accusations of "revisionist history", stating that the lawsuits raise questions about the validity of the US merger review processes and the insecurities and doubts raised when having to rely on the legal process. Valid point?... In the light of new evidence, the FTC can change its mind. The question is, what's next for Facebook? Halt or haste its mega-app?
