The judge suggested that other factors arose from social changes, describing the fourth factor as a trend as Meta App users began to feel “increasingly bored with their friends’ posts”.
“Longtime users’ friend lists” start out fresh, Boasberg wrote, but over time, they “often become stale collections of people they once knew: a casual friend from college, a long-ago friend from summer camp, some guy they once met at a party.” “So friends’ posts have become less interesting.”
Then came TikTok, the fifth factor, Boasberg said, which forced Meta to “evolve” to Facebook and Instagram by adding Reels.
And finally, “those five changes led to and reinforced social norms that evolved to discourage public posting,” Boasberg wrote. “People are less interested in criticizing public posts that can be seen by hundreds of other people.”
As a result of these technological advancements and social trends, Boasberg said, “Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube have evolved with almost identical core features.” That reality undermined the FTC’s claims that users preferred Facebook and Instagram before Meta diverted their attention from friends and family’s content.
“The Court does not find it credible that users would prefer the Facebook and Instagram apps that existed ten years ago over the versions that exist today,” Boasberg wrote.
Judge ruled, Meta apps are not bad
Boasberg repeatedly emphasized that the FTC failed to prove that Meta “now” has a monopoly that is either actively or imminently causing harm.
The FTC tried to win by claiming that “Meta has degraded the quality of its apps by increasing ad load, declining user sentiment suggests that the apps have deteriorated and Meta has harmed its apps by investing less in friend sharing,” Boasberg said.