Meta to sell animated images platform Giphy to Shutterstock. The sale is part of an anti-trust battle where the tech giant was ordered to sell the platform, amidst competition concerns, by Britain’s competition regulator, Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
The order was a part of CMA’s fears over the Facebook owner denying or limiting access and use of Giphy to competitors such as Snapchat, Twitter etc.
Shutterstock is set to buy the image platform for $53m in cash, which would incur Meta almost a $347m loss. The platform reportedly purchased the animated image platform for $400m in 2020. Reuters reported that it was the first time a regulator had forced a U.S. tech giant to sell an already acquired company.
Giphy is a large repository of animated images, also known as GIFs, and sees about 1.7 billion daily users through social media and communication platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Microsoft Teams.
Meta also recently rolled out the ability to comment on Instagram posts with animated GIFs, allowing users to post GIF reactions on the comment section.
Meta’s platforms, Instagram, Facebook and Whatsapp will still retain access to Giphy as a part of the deal.
Not the first time Meta has been in trouble with European authorities, the tech giant was fined a record $1.3bn this month by Europeans Privacy Regulators over the transfer of EU user data to the US.
Trouble continues for Meta as the company also completed what it claims to be its final round of layoffs this month.
