A group of states asked a federal appeals court to reconsider an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook.
The judge of the District of Columbia said that the states had waited too long after some of the deals under scrutiny were made to file their suit.
The attorneys general of New York, the District of Columbia, and Guam argued in their appeal that states have more latitude than private citizens when it comes to filing lawsuits. They argued that it was in the public's interest for the attorneys general to pursue antitrust complaints against Meta, the parent company of Facebook.
The states claim that Facebook acquired competitors in a predatory way in order to crush competition. They say that Facebook harmed rivals by blocking them from accessing their data and tools. The states claim that that hurt consumers, who were deprived of more competition.
Ms. James said that the social media giant has used its market dominance to force small companies out of business and reduce competition for millions of users. We are filing this appeal with the support of almost every state in the nation because we will always fight efforts to stifle competition, reduce innovation and cut privacy protections even when we face a goliath like Facebook.
Chris Sgro, a spokesman for Meta, said that there are no grounds to overturn the district court's decision to dismiss the states' complaint.
Meta has been under legal pressure recently. The revised antitrust lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission was allowed to proceed by Mr. Boasberg after the states appealed. The F.T.C. argued that the company used a buy-or-bury strategy to create a monopoly in social networking.
For different reasons, Mr. Boasberg was initially skeptical of both lawsuits. He said that the regulators had not given enough evidence to support their basic assertions, such as that Facebook had a monopoly. He said this week that the regulators had cleared that bar.