-->

Kansas, Missouri join Facebook antitrust lawsuit

An effort to combat Facebook’s predatory tactics against competitors has resulted in a multistate lawsuit against the social media conglomerate. The federal government along with 46 states including Kansas and Missouri have formed an antitrust lawsuit seeking to split up the corporation.

The federal government and 46 state attorneys general are suing Facebook, accusing the social media giant of using illegal tactics to maintain its dominance.

The states’ lawsuit, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, alleges that Facebook squashed potential rivals by buying up smaller competitors and closing off its platform to developers of apps it perceived as a threat. In the process, it weakened privacy protections for its users, she said.

“For nearly a decade, Facebook used its dominance and monopoly power to crush smaller rivals, at the expense of users,” James said in a press conference on Wednesday. “No company should have this much unchecked power over our personal information and our social interactions.”

The suit is filed on behalf of 46 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and Guam. Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and South Dakota did not join.

The Federal Trade Commission filed a parallel lawsuit Wednesday. Both suits are asking the courts to force Facebook to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp, as well as to seek government approval for future mergers.

Both lawsuits cite Facebook’s 2012 purchase of Instagram for $1 billion and a $19 billion deal for WhatsApp in 2014 as examples of its efforts to eliminate competitors. Those acquisitions of fast-growing but unprofitable startups let Facebook solidify its social media dominance while depriving users of privacy-focused alternatives, prosecutors allege.