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Last year, Meta moved to buy Giphy, the platform that provides gifts to a large chunk of the internet. However, as ordered by the UK, Meta is now selling Giphy to a different company. It’s selling Giphy to Shutterstock, according to Engadget.
Antitrust and anti-competition practices are a big topic nowadays especially with Microsoft still trying to buy Activision-Blizzard. Companies are always kept under a watchful eye to make sure that they don’t become too big and make it impossible for other companies to succeed in the same space.
In the case of Meta, the company purchased the GIF platform a few years ago for a whopping $400 million. Not too long after, the UK tried to get Meta to sell the GIF platform in order to keep Meta from having such a grip over the GIF landscape.
It moved to make Meta sell it, but that decision was halted for a bit. In July of last year, the UK reconsidered this decision and brought Meta back to the court.
Meta is selling Giphy to Shutterstock at a massive loss
At the end of the day, Meta was beaten, and it was forced to sell off Giphy to another company. That other company is the stock photo giant Shutterstock. The issue is that Meta is only going to pocket $53 million from this deal. That’s only just over 13% of what Meta bought Giphy for. As you can imagine, Meta is not happy about that.
However, while Meta is selling Giphy to Shutterstock, its services will still be able to use the platform. If you’re a person who typically uses GIFs on Facebook, Instagram, or Whatsapp, Giphy’s gifts will still work properly across those platforms.
The deal itself is set to close sometime in June, so that’s not too far away. Well, this is a loss for Meta, this will benefit Shutterstock.
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