Matt Stoller — director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project and author of the book “Goliath” — joins Yahoo Finance Live to discuss the antitrust suits Facebook was hit with by a group of 48 U.S. attorneys general and a separate one by the FTC, and why a restructuring of big tech wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing for stockholders.

Video Transcript

MYLES UDLAND: Let’s turn now to other big news in the tech space. Coming out last night, Facebook facing a lawsuit from the FTC and more than 40 states attorneys general over its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. Those coming in 2012 and I believe 2015, respectively.

And joining us now to talk a bit more about the implications here for Facebook is Matt Stoller. He’s the Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project. He’s also the author of the recent book, Matt– not that recent now, year-old “Goliath,” a great book that came out last winter and talked a lot about the implications of antitrust law. And so I’d love to begin with your view on what these latest developments as it relates to Facebook’s acquisition mean just in the context of all the legal challenges and legal problems that Facebook is facing on a number of fronts. And certainly this would seem to create an additional antitrust problem for the business. Matt, you’ll have to unmute yourself.

MATT STOLLER: Sorry about that. In this case, the government’s really going after the crown jewels of Facebook saying that their acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp were illegal and essentially asking for them to be spun off to be independent competitors to the Facebook blue, the main site.

BRIAN SOZZI: Matt, you wrote in a newsletter, I believe a couple hours ago, that Facebook, quote, “engaged in systemic criminal behavior here.” What does that– what do you mean when you say that? Is that Mark Zuckerberg should be fined, should be tossed away in the slammer? How do you define that?

MATT STOLLER: Well, the Sherman Act is a criminal statute as well as a civil statute, and this is a civil case. But monopolization is a crime, and what Zuckerberg was trying to do and Facebook executives were trying to do is they were trying to buy up their competitors and then exclude other competitors that they couldn’t buy up from the market. Then they degraded the user experience and surveilled people in ways they didn’t like so that they can sell more ads. It’s essentially a version of theft and a power grab, and that’s why monopolization is a crime.