It should come as no surprise that Facebook, alongside many big tech companies, opposes anti-monopoly regulatory efforts, expanding antitrust rules, and strengthening privacy and user rights. But Facebook has taken its advocacy against congressional efforts to regulate the industry to new heights: it has now partnered with the weapons industry to scare Americans about China and Russia.

In 2020, Facebook, which changed its name to Meta in October, 2021, launched American Edge, a political advocacy group claiming to represent “a coalition dedicated to the proposition that American innovators are an essential part of U.S. economic health, national security and individual freedoms.”

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The Edge coalition’s efforts to profit from the war in Ukraine and tensions with China isn’t going over well with anti-monopoly advocates.

“On its face, big tech firms are trying to leverage fear and the authority national security arguments tend to have in the national discourse to violate antitrust law and engage in a host of irresponsible and dangerous behavior,” said Sarah Miller, executive director and founder of the American Economic Liberties Project, a group promoting the anti-monopoly movement and strengthening anti-trust regulation.

“I don’t think we should listen to a set of corporations who have engaged in likely criminal activity,” added Miller, referencing allegations that Facebook and Google engaged in bid rigging against advertisers and Facebook committed criminal fraud against investors.