The White House said on Wednesday it was driven by the decision of the US judge not to stop the federal trade committee’s antitrust lawsuit against Facebook.
“Of course we were driven by the district court decision”, the Secretary of the White House Jen PSAKi pressed told reporters.
“We are clear and he (President Joe Biden) has been clear, we need more competition in the technology industry.” Facebook, now the Meta platform has asked Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., the federal court to dismiss the lawsuit where the government asked the court to sue Facebook to sell Instagram and WhatsApp.
The judge said FTC had a reasonable case that must be allowed to continue.
This represents one of the biggest challenges that the government has brought towards large technology in decades.
Meta said that convinced that the company would win in court, adding that the judge’s decision on Tuesday narrowed the “FTC case scope”.
The judge said the FTC could not suppress the allegations that Facebook refused to enable interoperability permits with competing applications as a way to maintain its dominance, by saying the policy was abandoned in 2018 and the new Facebook policy enforcement was even older.