The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday filed suit to block Facebook owner Meta from buying the maker of a virtual reality fitness app, the latest signal of aggressive antitrust action from Chair Lina Khan just months after Congress restored the agency’s Democratic majority.

The suit to block the acquisition of Within will hamper Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s much-touted, multibillion-dollar effort to build out the so-called metaverse, a technology for virtual social interaction. Within makes the Supernatural fitness app, in which users use Meta’s Quest VR headset to box, stretch or do other workouts in virtual environments.

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The American Economic Liberties Project, a nonprofit advocate of aggressive antitrust enforcement that is close with Khan, praised the lawsuit. “This is the agency’s first challenge to a big tech merger, and it represents its new commitment to protecting fair competition in nascent digital markets,” the group said.

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