The U.S. Congress Is Worried About Facebook's Giphy Acquisition

On May 15, it became known that Mark Zuckerberg bought the most popular animated image service called Giphy. Facebook promises that the service's brand will stay the same, and nothing will change for users after the transaction.

Access to the API for Giphy developers and partners will also remain the same. The service plans to integrate more tightly into social networks and instant messengers owned by Facebook. However, a bipartisan group of senators began to worry about a possible violation of antitrust laws in this situation.

Members of Congress are worried about potentially anticompetitive behavior by Mark Zuckerberg. Republican Sen. Josh Hawley and Democrats Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar were skeptical of the deal.

They believe that Facebook continues to search even more ways of collecting users' data. Also, they think that Google acquired DoubleClick because of its widespread popularity on the Internet and its ability to collect data. That's why Facebook wants to have Giphy so it can collect even more data about people.

Congress members are confident that Facebook should not acquire any companies while it is under antitrust investigation into its past transactions.

This new purchase from Facebook is another example of a giant company using the global pandemic to further consolidate power.