Los Angeles Times: Regulatory pressure on Facebook is likely to continue under Biden

December 10, 2020 Media

Coming on the tail end of President Trump’s administration, the lawsuits against Facebook announced Wednesday by the Federal Trade Commission and 46 states and districts might seem like the last angry quack of a lame duck who’s harbored a long-running grievance against social media executives.

But the breadth of the bipartisan coalition bringing forward the suits, which allege anti-competitive practices by Facebook and seek to undo its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, suggests this fight will continue well past Trump’s last day in office.

Tech leaders — including Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg — have been called before Congress repeatedly so Republican lawmakers could accuse them of silencing conservative voices online, with this summer’s crackdown on a New York Post story critical of then-candidate Biden prompting loud outrage. Trump himself has been an avid critic of the major social media platforms, often using the very platforms he was criticizing to call for an end to Section 230.

But where Trump’s attempt to modify Section 230 via executive order hinged on a questionable interpretation of the law, antitrust experts see the case against Facebook as solid.

“Facebook will be broken up, but it’ll take a few years for the case to wind its way through the court,” said Matt Stoller, author of “Goliath: The Hundred Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy.” “The evidence in here is damning.”