Not necessarily everything, but certain things gotta go in Meta Platform's (META) regulatory-induced fire sale.
Meta sold Giphy, the online library of animated memes and gifs, to Shutterstock for $53 million on Tuesday, fulfilling the obligation UK antitrust regulators placed on Meta in 2022.
DON'T MISS: META Is Lagging Behind In One Crucially Important Way
Meta paid $315 million for Giphy in 2020.
Shutterstock clients will now have access to gifs and other content in its digital content library. Shutterstock says it has a user base consisting of 1.7 billion daily users.
"Shutterstock is in the business of helping people and brands tell their stories. Through the GIPHY acquisition, we are extending our audience touch points beyond primarily professional marketing and advertising use cases and expanding into casual conversations," Shutterstock CEO Paul Hennessy said.
Shutterstock is paying cash for the acquisition. The acquisition features an agreement that ensures that Meta platforms Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger applications retain access.
The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) told the social media giant that it had to sell GIF-sharing platform Giphy.
The agency said the acquisition could harm social media users as well as U.K. advertisers.
Meta appealed the decision, but the ruling was upheld by the Competition Appeal Tribunal in July 2022 on five of the six of the challenged grounds.
The tribunal only found in Meta’s favor on a procedural ground relating to the sharing of third-party confidential information.
