Instagram Facebook Facebook has filed a revised antitrust complaint against Facebook, alleging that the company broke the law by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp. The new complaint is a more elaborate version of a lawsuit dismissed by a court in June due to insufficient evidence.
The Federal Trade Commission said in a statement that Facebook has maintained a dominant market share of social media services in the United States since 2011. Facebook has until October 4 to provide a legal response to the complaint. On Twitter, the company said it was reviewing the FTC’s application and would have something to show soon.
Recall that the FTC first filed an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook in December last year. In it, the agency argued that Facebook’s acquisition of competing social networks gave it monopoly power in the U.S. social media market. In June of this year, the court dismissed the complaint, finding that the Federal Trade Commission did not provide sufficient evidence of Facebook’s illegal actions. However, the court allowed the FTC to file the amended lawsuit until August 19.
The new complaint provides a clearer definition of the social media market, in which Facebook, according to the FTC, has a monopoly. It also clearly separates the social network from services such as TikTok, which stream content but do not provide users with an explicit social space. Twitter and Reddit are not considered competitors to Facebook, which, while allowing the sharing of information in communities of particular interests, does not focus on bringing friends and family together. The complaint cites a number of internal messages that demonstrate that Facebook understands this difference.
In July, Facebook called on Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan to drop the charges. Khan said today that she is not going to back down.