Tuesday, November 30th, 2021
Authority wants to protect users
Facebook has to sell startup Giphy
Last year, Facebook took over the GIF platform Giphy. Now the group, which has since been renamed Meta, has to cede the startup again. With the order, the British competition authority wants to protect millions of social media users.
The British competition authority CMA has asked Meta Platforms Inc (formerly Facebook) to sell the company for animated images on social media, Giphy. She justified this by stating that doing so would harm social media users and UK advertisers.
The competition and market regulator stated that the acquisition of Giphy by the social media platform would restrict competition and that the acquisition has already eliminated Giphy as a potential challenger in the display advertising market. The decision is in line with its August preliminary findings.
After consulting with interested companies and organizations and examining alternative solutions, the Commission concluded that the only way to address its competition concerns would be for the company to sell Giphy as a whole to another buyer.
“By asking Facebook to sell Giphy, we’re protecting millions of social media users and fueling competition and innovation in digital advertising,” said Stuart McIntosh, chairman of the independent research group conducting the research.
Giphy enables users to search, create, and share animated images known as GIFs, which stands for Graphics Interchange Format. When Facebook bought Giphy last year, the company announced it would integrate it with Instagram and other apps.