The FTC first brought its case back in

The Federal Trade Commission has doubled down on its belief that Meta maintained a monopoly of social networking by anticompetitive conduct, appealing last year's district court victory for Zuck and co.

The FTC first brought its case back in December 2020, alleging "the company is illegally maintaining its personal social networking monopoly through a years-long course of anticompetitive conduct."

That "conduct" included snapping up potential rivals such as Instagram and WhatsApp, as well as imposing "anticompetitive conditions on software developers." At the time, the FTC demanded divestitures of assets, including those acquisitions, and removing the "anticompetitive conditions" on devs.

However last November, district judge James Boasberg ruled that "Meta holds no monopoly in the relevant market," citing a constantly changing social media ecosystem and noted that Meta’s market share "seems to be shrinking."

He also noted that the FTC had approved the Insta and WhatsApp buys.

In a ...