In the wake of Meta’s trial for monopolistic and anti-free speech practices, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson stressed that well-enforced antitrust laws can help prevent election-interfering censorship.
Ferguson told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on Monday’s “Mornings with Maria” that Meta's immense power and size is part of what has allowed it to censor so effectively. He argued that Meta has engaged in anti-competitive behavior, citing its purchases of WhatsApp and Instagram, which have allowed it to dominate a portion of the online social media sphere, impacting economies and even elections. Ferguson specifically called out Meta for its platforms’ censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal that altered the 2020 election results.
.@AFergusonFTC explains the case against.@Meta pic.twitter.com/DZYnYVJeBf
— Catherine Salgado (@CatSalgado32) April 16, 2025
As the FTC chair told Bartiromo, “We think that the evidence that we’re going to put on at trial is going to show that it’s a monopoly. And look, we all saw full on in 2020 how much power these social media platforms have over every aspect of our daily life, of our politics, our elections, our social lives, our economic lives, and that’s what this case is about, is about addressing that sort of power and making sure that 2020 can never happen again.” The FTC will likely aim to make Meta divest multiple subsidiaries.
Indeed, an MRC survey found in 2020 that 9.4 percent of Joe Biden’s voters said that, had they been aware of the story, they would have abandoned him, shifting the election in Donald Trump’s favor.
A Meta spokesperson whined about the new FTC chair’s reform efforts in a statement on Sunday. “More than 10 years after the FTC reviewed and cleared our acquisitions, the Commission’s action in this case sends the message that no deal is ever truly final,” Meta complained. Ferguson, however, corrected this incorrect claim, explaining the FTC “doesn’t clear transactions, it tries to make a prediction about whether a transaction is going to be anti-competitive.” In this case, the prediction was apparently wrong.
Ferguson emphasized the precise scope of his goals to enforce antitrust reform. “I think it’s really important to protect all Americans in every aspect of their daily lives by making sure that we don’t have monopolies and we don’t have fraud,” he told Bartiromo. “But, you know, mergers and acquisitions are an important part of how the economy grows, it’s an important part of how we have innovation and vibrancy in our economy.” He went on to explain that the FTC only aims to assess whether mergers create dangerous monopolies.
These comments echo the sentiment of statements Ferguson made in a speech at the Stigler Center last week. In his speech, Ferguson argued that antitrust reform for companies like Meta can protect free speech as monopolies hurt the exercise of freedom of expression, and “vigorous enforcement of antitrust laws can promote this important and constitutional value.”
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