Facebook accused of abusing market dominance

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and nearly every U.S. state sued Facebook on Wednesday, saying that it broke antitrust law and should potentially be broken up.

Gavino Garay has more.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and nearly every U.S. state sued Facebook on Wednesday, saying that it violated antitrust law and should potentially be broken up.

That could mean the forced sale two major platforms it owns -- Instagram and WhatsApp.

Led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, the coalition of 46 states, Washington, D.C.

And Guam accuse the behemoth social media company of using its dominance in the industry to "crush" the competition.

"For nearly a decade, Facebook has used its dominance and monopoly power to crush smaller rivals, snuff out competition, all at the expense of everyday users." The complaints on Wednesday accuse Facebook of buying up rivals, focusing specifically on its previous acquisitions of Instagram for $1 billion and messaging app WhatsApp for $19 billion.

Federal and state regulators said the acquisitions should be unwound.

"Facebook would try to squeeze every bit of oxygen out of the room for smaller companies that refused to be bought... They also sent a clear message to the industry -- don't step on Facebook's turf, or as one industry executive put it 'You will face the wrath of Mark.'" Facebook's Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told employees in July that Facebook would "go to the mat" to fight a legal challenge to break up the company, calling it an "existential" threat, according to audio of internal company meetings published by The Verge.

The U.S. Justice Department sued Alphabet's Google in October, accusing the $1 trillion company of using its market power to fend off rivals.

The lawsuits are the biggest antitrust cases in a generation.

Facebook shares fell nearly 2% after the news.