The US government and dozens of states have sued Facebook for abuse of power, accusing the tech giant of using its dominance in the social mediato crush smaller competitors and collect data for profit.
Two separate lawsuits have been filed against Facebook for abuse of power – one by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and one by 46 US states – with the first even asking a court to force Facebook to sell its messaging services Instagram and WhatsApp.
The antitrust lawsuits were announced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and New York Attorney General Letitia James. The FTC alleges that Facebook engaged in a systematic strategy to eliminate threats to its monopoly, including the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp in 2012 and 2014 for $1 billion and $19 billion, respectively (which the Commission had approved). The lawsuit also notes that Facebook attempted (unsuccessfully) to acquire competing platforms Twitter and Snapchat.
Furthermore, James added that Facebook used its monopoly power to crush its smaller rivals and fend off competition – all at the expense of social media users.
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) and the FTC launched investigations in 2019 into the antitrust conditions of technology giants Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.
That same year, the FTC fined Facebook $5 billion for violating user privacy, while imposing new oversight and restrictions on the company. The fine was the largest the Commission had ever imposed on a technology company.
For its part, Facebook described the government actions as "revisionist history" that punishes successful businesses.
It is also recalled that in October the US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Alphabet, Google's parent company, accusing it of abusing its dominant position in the online search market.
These antitrust cases are the largest in U.S. history since 1998, when the Justice Department sued Microsoft.
It is worth noting that Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world, currently having over 2.5 billion users, while it is also a company worth approximately $800 billion, whose founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is the 5th richest person in the world.
