UK regulators accused Facebook of monopolizing the world's supply of GIFs

Sometimes it feels like Facebook is caught in a loop. The social media giant is again under fire for acquiring a competitor, except this time it’s not another major social network like Instagram or WhatsApp. Instead, UK regulators have called out Facebook for monopolizing the world’s GIFs.At issue is Facebook’s May 2020 acquisition of Giphy, the world’s leading GIF library. Giphy is the default GIF search engine on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, TikTok, and Apple’s iMessage. It claims to serve over 10 billion GIF results to more than 700 million people every day, dwarfing the monthly totals of its nearest rivals Tenor (12 billion results for 300 million people each month) and Gfycat (500 million views from 180 million people each month).The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) released a statement yesterday (March 25) claiming the deal “raises competition concerns in relation to digital advertising and the supply of GIFs.” The pronouncement is the culmination of a two-month preliminary investigation launched in January.It might not be immediately obvious how Facebook and Giphy compete. Giphy touts itself as the world’s second largest search engine, and founder Alex Chung says “the whole goal from the beginning was to see if…
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