Claiming that Facebook has undertaken monopolistic and anti-competitive actions designed to suppress any nascent business rival, the Federal Trade Commission has sued Facebook in federal court to break up the social media giant.
The FTC lawsuit claims that Facebook’s acquisition of social media platform Instagram and messaging app WhatsApp were efforts by Facebook to consolidate power in the social media industry in violation of the anti-trust Sherman Act.
The lawsuit seeks the remedy of forcing Facebook to divest itself of Instagram and WhatsApp as well as being “permanently enjoined from imposing anticompetitive conditions on access to APIs and data.”
Attorneys General from 46 states, the District of Columbia and Guam have filed a separate antitrust lawsuit over Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp, according to USA Today.
“For nearly a decade, Facebook has used its dominance and monopoly power to crush smaller rivals and snuff out competition, all at the expense of everyday users,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a statement.
From a court filing by the Federal Trade Commission.
[Updated at 3:41 p.m. ET to include information about the lawsuit filed by the states’ attorneys general.]