Facebook antitrust investigation could wrap up before 2020 election
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Facebook's antitrust battle will likely wrap up prior to the 2020 election, according to statements by the Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joe Simons.
Simons said he sees the upcoming election as a significant deadline for his agency's probe into potential anti-competitive behavior by the social network, The Financial Times reported.
“Any significant case that I’m trying to emphasize,” Simons said, “I would want to be out before the election.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Facebook has been making moves to further integrate the services of Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp, which the FTC chief said would make a traditional antitrust breakup a bigger challenge.
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“If they’re maintaining separate business structures and infrastructure, it’s much easier to have a divestiture in that circumstance than in where they’re completely enmeshed and all the eggs are scrambled,” Simons told FT.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“On the other hand, you might have a situation where you have additional evidence that the company was engaged in a program to basically snuff out its competitors through a process of acquisition,” he explained.
Facebook confirmed during a July earnings call that it was being investigated for possible antitrust violations.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Menlo Park, Calif. company has faced a growing backlash over its dominance of social media, its content policing and the proliferation of hate speech and disinformation.