After a federal judge threw out an original Federal Trade Commission (F.T.C.) case against Facebook in June, brought by forty states, that accused the platform of being a monopoly, the F.T.C. came out swinging on Thursday.
Led by the new F.T.C. chair Lina Khan, the refiled federal suit now contains about double the size of the original data included in the first Facebook lawsuit. The suit claims the global platform is a monopoly and that the company broke federal anti-trust laws to squash the competition.
Overall, the scope of the accusations remains the same as the original lawsuit, alleging Facebook purchased Instagram and WhatsApp and thus formed what they characterize as a “moat” to protect their monopoly.
However, in this revived suit, the F.T.C. offers about twice the number of factual arguments that reinforce allegations of Facebook being a monopoly.
The Acting Director of the Bureau of Competition for the F.T.C. released a statement saying Facebook was not able to segue into the digital transition to mobile and used their power to illegally stomp their competition.
“Facebook lacked the business acumen and technical talent to survive the transition to mobile,” said Vedova. “After failing to compete with new innovators, Facebook illegally bought or buried them when their popularity became an existential threat.”
In the news release on Thursday, the F.T.C. stated Facebook "resorted to an illegal buy-or-bury scheme to maintain its dominance.”
Facebook disagrees. Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice president of integrity, said the company had traveled “a long journey” to end up “by far the most transparent platform on the internet.”
In August, Facebook publicly released a quarterly report, touting their most popular posts which include adorable animals and recipes. But in reality, the social media behemoth has been urged by the White House to stem the tide of misleading, false information about COVID-19 and the safety of the vaccines.
In a statement that was later edited to be less harsh, President Joe Biden alleged the company, via spreading false news about the Pandemic and vaccines, was “killing people.”
Facebook Founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg responded to the claims, saying they had already deleted 18 million posts of misinformation since the Pandemic began, and that that they are still working on removing posts deemed as misinformation.
The enhanced, new F.T.C. refiling of the suit against Facebook signifies an ambitious new approach by the feds toward social media. This new wave of administration officials along with many Congress members argues that the feds must control the escalation of all-powerful companies such as Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google.
Congress is now considering new anti-trust laws focused upon global, powerful technology companies.
In a statement speaking to the revival of the F.T.C. lawsuit, Facebook said, “There was no valid claim that Facebook was a monopolist — and that has not changed. Our acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp were reviewed and cleared many years ago, and our platform policies were lawful.”
Facebook must officially respond to the new suit by Oct. 4 or move for a dismissal. The platform’s attorneys last month already filed a legal petition to remove Khan from the suit, since they claim her prior involvement in another House investigation shows “bias” against the company. However, the F.T.C. dismissed this petition last week, promising Facebook they would be tried before a federal judge and would benefit from “constitutional due-process protections.”
On Friday, Google and the U.S. Justice Department were in court over allegations that the tech giant unlawfully maintained a monopoly in search advertising. The proceedings, held before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, D.C., mark a critical moment in one of the most significant antitrust trials in recent... Read More »
George Orwell’s 1984 warned that “Big Brother is Watching You.” It’s 2023 now, and every Facebook user knows that the internet giant is the modern-day equivalent of Big Brother. Facebook knows the location, sex, ethnicity, religion, political leanings, lifestyle choices and number of children every subscriber has. Each click adds... Read More »
In a staggering lawsuit brought against Facebook, the US Federal Trade Commission along with 46 states accused the tech company of being a monopoly with a "buy or bury" edict to disrupt competition. The only states and US territories not to participate in the lawsuit are Washington, D.C., Guam, Alabama,... Read More »
An antitrust report has just been released by top Democratic congressional lawmakers. The report was compiled by several Democratic members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust. The main mission of the report was to investigate whether or not the four biggest tech companies, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Apple broke... Read More »
