The Federal Trade Commission and 45 other states sued Facebook for alleged anti-competitive behavior in December and Facebook has asked a US judge to dismiss these antitrust charges. The lawsuit supports the breaking up of the company and Facebook described the charges as “nonsensical” on Wednesday. The FTC has until April 7 to respond.
Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp after purchasing Instagram for $1bn in 2012 and WhatsApp for $19bn in 2014. The FTC claims these purchases were made to “eliminate threats to its monopoly.” If the social network is required to break-up, this would be a landmark decision against Big Tech. Other big tech companies are facing antitrust lawsuits, Google has also been hit with a lawsuit over a monopoly over search results and online advertising.
Read more: Facebook asks judge to throw out FTC anti-trust lawsuit