WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Trade Commission and a large group of U.S. states on Wednesday asked a federal court to reject Facebook Inc.’s request to dismiss major social media giant antitrust lawsuits in December. .
The FTC said during the filing that Facebook bought the photo-sharing app Instagram because CEO Mark Zuckerberg believed it was “a big and viable competitor” and bought the messaging app WhatsApp to pose a looming threat neutralize. The FTC has asked the court to order Facebook to sell the assets.
The states, which have filed a separate antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, said in the statement: “The implementation of a buy-or-bury scheme of robbery and exclusionary behavior, and Facebook is successfully struggling to suppress competition, and to repel his monopolistic power.
Facebook has asked the court to dismiss the two lawsuits, claiming that they are “being brought into the barred environment of relentless criticism on Facebook for matters completely unrelated to antitrust issues.”
It also said that the states, in their case, could not show that they were harmed by Facebook and that they waited too long.
The FTC and states have accused Facebook of violating antitrust laws to keep smaller competitors at stake and pick up competitors, such as Instagram for $ 1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 for $ 19 billion.
By all accounts, the federal government and states filed five lawsuits last year against Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s Google after dual indignation over the use and abuse of social media, both in the economy and in the political sphere.
Reporting by Diane Bartz; Edited by Peter Cooney