On June 28th, a federal judge named James E. Boasberg issued what appeared to be a stunning rebuke of the government’s efforts to break up Facebook over alleged antitrust violations. In two opinions of more than fifty pages each, Boasberg seemed to accuse the Federal Trade Commission and a coalition of forty-eight state attorneys general—the two parties that have filed antitrust cases against Facebook—of basic errors and miscalculations that are almost embarrassing, suggesting in the former case that the F.T.C. failed to define the market that Facebook operates in, and in the latter that the states waited too long to act. The Facebook cases were a central part of what has become a bipartisan push to restrain major technology companies, which also include Google, Amazon, and Apple. These companies have, over the last decade, grown into sprawling entities that mediate or control large portions of the media, advertising, retail, social-networking, and communication markets.

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Matt Stoller, the director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project, and the author of “Goliath,” a history of monopoly power in the U.S., told me that the developments aren’t likely to slow the momentum to reinvigorate antitrust enforcement. “I think that some parts of this are helpful, actually,” he said of the judge’s rulings. “The judge ruled that the F.T.C. claims were right. If I were Facebook, I wouldn’t be particularly happy with this ruling.” He also noted that these kinds of cases almost always take many years to play out. The F.T.C. began investigating Microsoft over antitrust abuses in 1992, and then closed the investigation in 1993, after which the Justice Department launched an investigation. That eventually led to a monopolization case that wasn’t resolved until 2001, when the D.O.J. and the company reached a settlement that barred Microsoft from restricting computer manufacturers from working with other software developers, and required the company to open up aspects of its source code. “I think it really puts pressure on Congress to act,” Stoller said. “There’s a real political appetite to strengthen these laws.”