Meta just dodged a bullet. A federal judge ruled the company isn't an illegal monopoly, killing the FTC's plan to force it to sell off Instagram and WhatsApp. The agency argued Meta bought these platforms to crush competition, but Judge Boasberg wasn't buying it—he pointed out Meta faces intense pressure from TikTok, YouTube, and AI-driven alternatives. Pretty wild considering Facebook's actual relevance is tanking even though Meta's apps hit 3.3B daily users combined. Zuckerberg himself testified about the competitive heat. Meanwhile, the judge noted Meta's social-media market share is "modest" and shrinking. TikTok alone—which showed up just 7 years ago—is now Meta's biggest headache. This comes as Big Tech faces the heat everywhere: Google got hit with two monopoly rulings, Apple and Amazon are still in court battles. For Meta though, this was massive—losing Instagram's ad revenue or WhatsApp's global reach would've been catastrophic. Stock down 1.73% on the news anyway.