Meta and Google both face antitrust breakup fights as social media shifts to interest-based feeds
Two of the world's largest technology companies are simultaneously battling antitrust cases that could force structural breakups. Meta is defending itself against claims that it operates an illegal social media monopoly, while Google faces demands to split apart its online advertising and search businesses.
Legal observers caution that cases of this magnitude take years to resolve, and years more to implement any remedies once appeals play out. Even so, the proceedings represent the most serious government challenge yet to the market dominance of the major platforms.
Meta's history of acquiring anything that remotely resembled a competitor sits at the heart of the case against it, though some high-profile targets, including Snapchat and TikTok, were never for sale.
Debate around the company has intensified with the publication of Careless People, a memoir by a former senior Meta executive turned whistleblower, and her recent testimony about practices inside the company.
In product news, Instagram's new video editing app Edits, positioned as a competitor to CapCut, is now available. Early users describe it as simple and intuitive, though dedicated CapCut users say it is missing templates and other features and is not yet ready for demanding work.
Instagram is expected to expand the app's capabilities quickly, and the company plans to test new features inside Edits before potentially bringing them to Instagram itself. That approach has fueled speculation that Edits could eventually become a standalone home for Reels, following rumors that Instagram might spin Reels off into a separate app.
A broader shift in how social media works is also drawing attention: the move away from the friend-and-follower graph toward what analysts call the interest graph. Meta's AI-powered discovery engine now selects the content users see, which means follower counts carry less weight than at any point in the industry's history.
More than half of users no longer follow accounts at all, according to industry commentators, and for creators who do gain followers, over 90 percent of those follows now originate from content surfaced in the feed rather than from profile visits. Marketers are being advised to build strategies around interest-based discovery instead of accumulating followers.
