Many states in the United States ask the court to resume the antitrust lawsuit against Facebook.

According to news in the morning of September 20, Beijing time, many states in the United States, led by New York, filed an antitrust lawsuit with the Court of Appeal on Monday against Meta's Facebook because the company is hurting competition and the waiting time for states to file complaints is not long.

New York State Attorney General Barbara Underwood, who leads the group of 46 states, Guam and the District of Columbia, said it was wrong to treat states as a class action and impose restrictions on when they could sue. The states not involved in the case are Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and South Dakota.

She also said Facebook's approach had hurt both the economy and the online market.

The states asked a panel of three judges in the District of Columbia Court of Appeal to resume a lawsuit filed in 2020, the same time the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued the company.

Both FTC and the states have asked the court to order Facebook to sell Instagram, which it bought for $1 billion in 2012, and WhatsApp, which it bought for $19 billion in 2014. At present, the struggle between FTC and Facebook is ongoing.

Aaron Panner, who defends Facebook, said both acquisitions were hyped by the media, as did the company's policy on third-party applications. Facebook is accused of punishing applications on its platform, such as those connected to other social networks.

Panner said that because the state's lawsuit is more of a class action than law enforcement, and the described behavior "took place many years ago and did not attract antitrust attention at the time," overdue should be applied.

Judge Raymond Randolph asked which companies Facebook's competitors included, noting that news reports said the company had been trying to retain young users.

Panner pointed to TikTok, Twitter and other popular social media, adding: "sometimes facts that are good for antitrust defense are not good for companies."