On Wednesday December 9, the Federal Trade Commission and forty-eight states and territories sued Facebook for its illegal social networking monopoly after an extensive investigation. The antitrust action seeks to break up the company by forcing it to divest two of its major business lines, Instagram and WhatsApp.

This latest event comes hot on the heels of October’s historic investigation by the House Judiciary Committee — which detailed how dominant platform companies monopolize markets, abuse their power, and explicitly and purposely violate laws and regulations — and another lawsuit by the Department of Justice against Google for illegal anticompetitive actions protecting its search and advertising monopolies.

While the ultimate outcome of these actions is unknown, they are undoubtedly long overdue. The monopolization of the platform economy — what Facebook confidentially called a “land grab” when acquiring Instagram — has only deepened throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, over the course of the last several months, the five Big Tech companies — Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft — have driven stock market growth, further enriching their already absurdly wealthy owners and driving economic inequality.