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The
FTC, in its filing, said Facebook bought photo-sharing app
Instagram because Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg believed it
was "a large and viable competitor" and purchased the messaging
app WhatsApp to neutralize a nascent threat. The FTC has asked
the court to order Facebook to sell those assets.
The states, which had filed a separate antitrust lawsuit against
Facebook, said in its filing: "Deploying a buy-or-bury scheme of
predatory acquisitions and exclusionary conduct, Facebook
successfully squashes, suppresses, and deters competition,
entrenching its monopoly power to this day."
Facebook had asked the court to dismiss the two lawsuits,
alleging that they were brought "in the fraught environment of
relentless criticism of Facebook for matters entirely unrelated
to antitrust concerns."
It also said that the states, in their case, failed to show that
they were harmed by Facebook and that they waited too long.
The FTC and states accused Facebook of breaking antitrust law to
keep smaller competitors at bay and snapping up rivals, like
Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 for $19
billion.
All told, the federal government and states filed five lawsuits
against Facebook and Alphabet Inc's Google last year following
bipartisan outrage over use and misuse of social media clout
both in the economy and the political sphere.
(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Peter Cooney)
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