The United States of America’s Federal Trade Commission (Ftc) has sued Facebook for abusing its monopoly by using a “buy or bury ” strategy to grab rivals and keep smaller competitors at bay. Having bought Whatsapp and Instagram, Facebook has been accused of anti-competitive conduct and using its market dominance to harvest consumer data and reap a fortune in advertising revenues.

The lawsuit — which includes 46 states, Guam and the District of Columbia, was announced by the Federal Trade Commission and New York Attorney-General Letitia James. “It’s really critically important that we block this predatory acquisition of companies and that we restore confidence to the market,” Ms James said. Also according to James, Facebook had a practice of opening its site to third-party app developers, then abruptly cutting off developers that it saw as a threat.

In response, Facebook general counsel Jennifer Newstead released a statement, describing the U.S. government’s actions “revisionist history” that punishes successful businesses. On the other hand, it was the Ftc that approved the acquisition of Instagram in 2012 and Whatsapp in 2014, as the same commission is now pushing for Facebook to sell Instagram and Whatsapp.