Over at RealClearMarkets, Market Institute Senior Fellow Norm Singleton exposes how the Federal Trade Commission continues to define “relevant markets” in ways that defy reality—and logic.
In one of the most telling examples of regulatory overreach, the FTC under both Lina Khan and her successor Andrew Ferguson has relied on artificially narrow market definitions to justify antitrust actions against companies like Meta and block pro-consumer mergers like Kroger and Albertsons.
Singleton details how the FTC’s case against Meta hinges on excluding obvious competitors like TikTok and YouTube by claiming they’re not in the same “relevant market” as Facebook or Instagram. Why? Because they supposedly don’t meet all three FTC-defined characteristics of a “personal social networking service.”
That’s not how real competition works. It’s how bureaucrats game the system.
As Singleton writes:
“Most social media users and employees would say that Meta’s relevant market is that of social media sites, broadly defined… When Meta’s relevant market is defined as social media in general, it is clear that Meta does not enjoy anything close to a monopoly.”
The FTC’s selective blindness to the real digital marketplace doesn’t just distort competition law—it chills innovation, discourages investment, and punishes companies for serving consumers too well.
Read Norm Singleton’s full article here at RealClearMarkets.
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