Tech Brief: Meta Ordered to Sell GIPHY After 1.5 Years

Facebook's parent, Meta, has been ordered by the U.K. competition regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), to sell GIPHY, the online GIF platform it acquired in May 2020 after finding that "the deal could harm social media users and U.K. advertisers." The watchdog concluded that "Facebook would be able to increase its already significant market power in relation to other social media platforms by denying or limiting other platforms' access to Giphy GIFs, driving more traffic to Facebook-owned sites – Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram," and "changing the terms of access by, for example, requiring TikTok, Twitter and Snapchat to provide more user data in order to access Giphy GIFs." The development marks the first time the CMA has attempted to unwind a completed acquisition by a tech giant.