Meta had urged the judge to dismiss the entire case, saying it depended on an overly narrow view of social media markets, and did not take into account competition from ByteDance’s TikTok, Google’s YouTube, X, and Microsoft’s LinkedIn.
The case is one of five blockbuster lawsuits where antitrust regulators at the FTC and Department of Justice are going after Big Tech.
Amazon and Apple are both being sued, and Alphabet’s Google is facing two lawsuits, including one where a judge recently found it unlawfully thwarted competition among online search engines.