This is Brian Lair's Daily Politics podcast from WNYC Studios.

It's Tuesday, April 15th.

I'm Amina Cerna, a producer for the Brian Lair Show, filling in for Brian today.

Meta, the company, formerly known as Facebook, could be split into two or more.

Yesterday, at a court in D.C., the U.S. Federal Trade Commission kicked off its antitrust trial

targeting META's years-old purchases of the social media app, Instagram, and the messaging app WhatsApp.

The FTC is accusing META of creating a monopoly and stifling competition by making those purchases.

The government wants META to spin off those services into separate companies, a move that would

amount to the largest corporate breakup since the AT&T telephone monopoly was forced to split in the 80s.

Meta denied the allegations in court yesterday.

In their opening statement, they said they face plenty of competition from companies like TikTok and others.

All of this comes as Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerbergberg has spent months trying to curry favor with President Donald Trump.

So, will Trump's populist FTC break up big meta?

Or will Trump sweep in at the last minute and strike a deal with Zuckerberg?

Oh, and what does this mean for all of the 3.5 billion people around the world

who use Meta's products, often multiple times per day? Joining us now is Cristiano Lima Strong,

associate editor at Tech Policy Press. It's a non-profit news site that says it covers the, quote,

intersection of technology and democracy.

Welcome to WMIC, Cristiano.

Thanks so much for having me.

Cristiano, yesterday was day one of what's expected to be an eight-week trial.

Both sides gave opening statements and META CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified.

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