FTC vs Meta Antitrust Lawsuit -- Politics or Justice: On April 14, 2025 (local time), the antitrust lawsuit between the US Federal Trade Commission and Meta formally entered trial at a federal court in Washington DC. After approximately 5 years of legal battle, full trial has begun. This is not simply a trial questioning past M&A. Rather it could be a critical watershed that becomes the first standard for how to regulate platform era power. Case origin: the controversy traces back to Facebook (now Meta) acquisitions of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 -- at the time approved without FTC restraint, but in 2020 the FTC reversed its position and filed suit. The FTC accuses Meta acquisition strategy of Buy or Bury -- meaning when a potential competitor emerged, buy it to eliminate the threat rather than compete with it; the Instagram acquisition internal emails (which have become central trial evidence) include Facebook executives explicitly discussing acquiring Instagram to prevent it from becoming a serious competitor; the WhatsApp acquisition at 19 billion USD was described internally as acquiring before it grew large enough to threaten Facebook. The broader antitrust significance: this case will define whether acquisitions made years ago with FTC approval can be retroactively challenged; whether the social media market should be treated as a monopoly market requiring structural remedies; and whether platform companies can be required to divest previously acquired companies.