Big Technology
The Political Quirk That Made Facebook Vulnerable to a Robust Antitrust Case
Without political pressure, the FTC waited to rally state attorneys general in a broad, bipartisan case against Facebook’s anticompetitive behavior
Today, the Federal Trade Commission sued Facebook for a slew of antitrust violations, targeting the way the company eliminated its top competitors via the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. More than 40 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit mirroring the FTC’s, displaying broad, bipartisan coordination rare in an age of polarized, dysfunctional government.
By acting together, the state attorneys general will make Facebook’s life difficult, bringing a more robust lawsuit than the Department of Justice’s case against Google. There, only 11 state AGs joined, all of them Republican, giving Google an opportunity to play them off their counterparts. Facebook will have no such luck.
Luck is indeed the word. Facebook’s tougher circumstances aren’t due to more egregious behavior, but rather a political quirk. Here’s how it happened.
In June 2019, the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission split responsibility for overseeing the tech…
