LONDON — Meta said on Tuesday that it would sell Giphy,
the online repository for video clips of pets, facial expressions, and other
animated GIFs, a major defeat for the social media giant in a long-running
dispute with British antitrust regulators.
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It is the first
time Meta, the company formerly known as
Facebook, has been forced by
regulators to sell a part of its business.
GIFs are often
funny and shared as silly reactions in conversations online — like The Rock
lifting his eyebrow — but the case is an example of the serious stance that
antitrust regulators are taking toward the biggest tech companies around the
world.
Meta purchased
Giphy in 2020 for $315 million, giving it ownership of one of the largest hubs
for the looping short-form videos that are a common means of internet
communication. But British regulators said the deal reduced competition in
social media and in the display advertising market, an area Meta dominates and
where
Giphy was beginning to expand before the deal.
Britain’s Competition
and Markets Authority first ordered Meta to sell Giphy last year, but the
judgment was appealed to a tribunal, which recently sided with the government.
On Tuesday, Meta said that it would accept the British ruling as “the final
word on the matter” and would sell Giphy. Meta said the sale will apply
globally, not just in Britain.
Regulators around
the world are scrutinizing the common Silicon Valley tactic of buying up
smaller companies that could potentially grow into major competitors. In the
United States, Meta is battling claims brought by the Federal Trade Commission
and several states that it acquired smaller rivals to thwart competition.
In July, the FTC sued to block Meta’s purchase of Within,
the maker of a popular virtual reality fitness app called Supernatural.
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