Judge rejects Facebook's request to dismiss FTC antitrust complaint
Source: CNN Business
(CNN Business) — US antitrust officials can continue their case to break up Meta, Facebook's parent company, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday, dealing a blow to the social media giant, which had argued the complaint should be dismissed.
The decision allows federal prosecutors to try to prove their allegations that Meta has illegally abused a monopoly in the marketplace for social media — and that its subsidiaries Instagram and WhatsApp should be spun off.
District Judge James Boasberg previously threw out the Federal Trade Commission's complaint last June. At the time, Boasberg said agency prosecutors had not done enough to show that Facebook held a monopoly in social networking. But he left the door open for the FTC to resubmit its complaint with changes.
In August, the FTC refiled its complaint with the backing of its new chair, the vocal tech industry critic Lina Khan. Facebook again called for Boasberg to quash the suit, but in Tuesday's opinion, the judge said the FTC's "significant additions and revisions" from its earlier filing met the threshold for the case to continue.
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By Brian Fung, CNN Business
Updated 2319 GMT (0719 HKT) January 11, 2022
Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/11/tech/facebook-ftc-suit/index.html
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