Facebook still in court for abuse of power

However, Facebook should go to court in the case that the US Competition Authority (FTC) has again brought against the social media platform for the alleged abuse of power. A judge has rejected a request by Facebook, part of Meta, to drop the case because the FTC’s allegations are now “more robust and detailed.”

According to the judge, the FTC collected enough facts to “make a Facebook monopoly reasonable.” In addition, according to the judge, the watchdog also made it sufficiently clear that Facebook not only occupies a monopolistic position, but also “deliberately maintained it through non-competitive behavior.”

According to the FTC, Facebook has monopolized personal social networks in the US since 2011. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also wants to break up Facebook and reverse its acquisitions of the social media platform Instagram in 2012 and the messaging service WhatsApp in 2014. In doing so, Facebook has infringed Competition rules, according to the regulator, because purchases have eliminated companies as competitors.

The FTC case was initially dismissed by a judge due to insufficient evidence of the cartel’s practices. Then the regulator was given a month to present more evidence. Facebook has also found FTC chair Lina Khan, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, to be highly biased, after she previously posted about Facebook as a researcher and served on a House investigative committee investigating the tech company.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s company has long resisted the accusations and believes there is no monopolistic behaviour.