Social Media Doesn't Exist

Social media is dead. Long live social media?

The FTC is currently suing Meta for being a monopolist over the social media market. At first glance, that may seem absurd. There are many giant social media services that aren’t owned by Meta: TikTok, X, Tumblr, YouTube, Twitch, Reddit, Pinterest, Snapchat, etc. The crux of the case comes to down how you define the ‘market’ for social media. The FTC is advancing a theory that Meta is a monopolist over what they call the Personal Social Network Services (PSNS) market - roughly, the part of social media where you connect with your friends and family from your real life.

Antitrust cases like this often come down to who gets to define the market. Meta wants to define the social media market as broadly as possible, because in a broader market it would be absurd to call them a monopolist. The FTC wants to define a very narrow market, where it’s easy to argue Meta is the only giant player. I’m not an expert on antitrust and can’t speculate how the case (which is yet to reach a verdict) will turn out, but I did find something interesting in one of Meta’s briefs from the trial process: