Federal regulators sharpened their case against Facebook on Thursday, filing a revised complaint accusing the social media giant of abusing its market position to stamp out competition.
And the Federal Trade Commission also announced that its head, Lina Khan, would not be recusing herself from the case despite her longstanding complaints against Internet giants.
President Biden has made clear that he wants to bring Big Tech to heel and the case against Facebook could upend the social media landscape.
A previous complaint was rejected by a Washington, D.C., court for lack of evidence.
The amended complaint cites user data to accuse Facebook of breaking antitrust laws with its acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp.
'Facebook lacked the business acumen and technical talent to survive the transition to mobile,' said Holly Vedova, director of the Federal Trade Commission's bureau of competition.
'After failing to compete with new innovators, Facebook illegally bought or buried them when their popularity became an existential threat.'
Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook is in regulators' sights as the Biden administration looks to rein in the power of Big Tech. Lina Khan, who heads the Federal Trade Commission, has a long history of criticizing Facebook and other big social media platforms
The FTC filed its amended complaint against Facebook in Washington's federal court. It alleges the company was struggling to adjust to the rise of mobile apps and ran a 'buy or bury' scheme to stifle competition that allowed it to remain a dominant force
The complaint says the numbers show Facebook has had a dominant share of the market since 2011 and alleges it used illegal practises.
'Central to Facebook’s efforts to “derisk” the transition to mobile was its strategy to buy or bury innovators threatening to out-compete Facebook in the new mobile environment,' it said.
Facebook has until October 4th to respond to the complaint.
In a statement posted on Twitter, the company accused the FTC of trying to rewrite antitrust laws.
'It is unfortunate that despite the court's dismissal of the complaint and conclusion that it lacked the basis for a claim, the FTC has chosen to continue this meritless lawsuit,' it said.
'There was no valid claim that Facebook was a monopolist — and that has not changed. Our acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp were reviewed and cleared many years ago, and our platform policies were lawful.'
The Biden administration is under pressure from the left to rein in the power of big business in general and Big Tech in particular.
Biden reportedly plans to nominate Google foe Jonathan Kanter as head of the Justice Department's antitrust division.
And he appointed Khan to head the FTC despite objections from online giants that her history of campaigning against them made her unsuitable for the role.
Facebook demanded that she be removed from its antitrust case against it, citing her history of accusing the social media giant of behaving unlawfully.
'Chair Khan has consistently made public statements not only accusing Facebook of conduct that merits disapproval but specifically expressing her belief that the conduct meets the elements of an antitrust offense,' it said in a formal filing last month.
Facebook responded angrily, saying the case was 'meritless' and accusing the FTC of trying to rewrite antitrust laws
Facebook claims to have more than three million users, making it 'the world's dominant online social network,' according to the FTC complaint
But on Thursday, the FTC said Khan would not step away from the case
'As the case will be prosecuted before a federal judge, the appropriate constitutional due process protections will be provided to the company,' it said in a statement.
Khan has a history of taking on internet giants, including working for a congressional antitrust panel that reported last year that lawmakers should take steps against vast online platforms.
In one of the interviews cited in Facebook's petition, she told the New York Times that Facebook was making 'killer acquisitions,' which could fall foul of rules designed to protect competition.
'So a killer acquisition is when these firms acquire a company for the purpose of shutting it down, for the purpose of killing it because they recognize that a product could be a threat to them,' she said.
'So that’s something that the report identifies that Facebook did in several cases.'
