WHEREAS, The social media company Facebook purchased Instagram and WhatsApp in short order just over a decade ago, obtaining Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014. In 2021, Facebook rebranded as Meta; and
WHEREAS, Since its rebrand, the Meta corporation has maintained three of the top four social media platforms in terms of user quantity, with more than 7 billion monthly users across platforms - with Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp competing against YouTube and TikTok for top-five placement on the most-used social media platforms. No other social media platform, excepting China’s WeChat, exceeds 1 billion monthly users; and
WHEREAS, The United States Federal Trade Commission began antitrust litigation against Meta during the end of the Biden Administration. Breaking up the social media monopoly is critical to facilitating online innovation. Meta’s purchase was part of a buy-or-bury strategy that saw it trying to strangle ascendant social media platforms, increasingly popular on the still-new smartphone market, or purchase the ones it could not kill; and
WHEREAS, The consolidation of social media platforms has contributed to the ossification of online discussion forums. The reduced need to innovate, respond to emergent crises, and update online platforms to reflect evolving cultural dynamics have failed to address new problems in social media; and
WHEREAS, The shifting online landscape includes an accelerating political polarization that has impacted election results from the local to the federal level. Bad actors have intervened in American elections and cultural moments, spreading misinformation with impunity through outdated and calcified online platforms and weakening our Democracy and governing institutions; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, THAT THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, Hereby calls on the Federal government to maintain its antitrust litigation that would break up Meta’s social media monopoly.
End