(RTTNews) – Social media giant Facebook Inc (FB) on Monday asked to drop charges put forward by the Federal Trade Commission that could end up forcing the company to sell its two most expensive sister platforms, Whatsapp and Instagram. In one filing, the company argued that the FTC had failed to show how Facebook monopolized social media, and therefore, the lawsuit should be withdrawn so that the FTC could not amend and re-file its lawsuit. However, the judge asked the FTC to reclassify the case. In June, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington dismissed complaints against Facebook filed by the FTC and state attorneys general led by Letitia James of New York. The complaint was aimed at breaking Facebook’s monopoly on social media, which could have resulted in the divestiture of Instagram and WhatsApp. In August, the FTC re-filed the case saying, “Today the Federal Trade Commission filed an amended complaint against Facebook in the agency’s ongoing federal antitrust case. The complaint alleges that after repeated unsuccessful attempts to develop innovative mobile features for its network, Facebook instead resorted to an illegal buying or burial program to maintain its dominance. It illegally acquired innovative competitors with popular mobile features that have succeeded where Facebook’s own offerings have fallen flat or collapsed. options for consumers. Facebook tried to blame FTC President Lina Khan for prejudice against big business and to challenge Khan, but the FTC refused. Facebook also argued that it was the FTC that approved the acquisition of Instagram in 2012 and Whatsapp in 2014, making the whole antitrust lawsuit counterintuitive. “The FTC is challenging acquisitions that the agency authorized after its own contemporary review … The case is whole without legal or factual support. This is as true today as it was before,” the company said. Company spokesperson added, “The fictitious FTC market ignores competitive reality: Facebook competes vigorously with TikTok, iMessage, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn, YouTube and countless others to help people share, connect, communicate or just be entertained. The FTC cannot credibly claim that Facebook has monopoly power because such power does not exist. Frances Haugen. Amid all the chaos that surrounds the business , all platforms owned by FB suffered an outage on Monday.

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