A federal judge rejected the Federal Trade Commission’s effort to force Meta to divest its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, ending a five-year legal battle by dealing a blow to government efforts to rein in the power of the Silicon Valley giant.

The ruling on Tuesday by U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg in D.C. agreed with Meta that its purchases of the photo-sharing app Instagram and messaging app WhatsApp, which it bought in 2012 and 2014, respectively, did not violate antitrust laws. Boasberg found that the social media company isn’t a monopoly and faces a broad internet ecosystem of competitors rather than the far narrower one the government defined. The FTC had argued that Meta held a monopoly in the “personal social networking” market that included Facebook, Instagram and

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