The feds had a plan to take on Facebook. A judge just scrambled it.

A federal judge’s rejection of a major lawsuit against Facebook gave Silicon Valley’s critics one reason for hope: They say it perfectly illustrates the urgency for Congress to rewrite the nation’s antitrust laws.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said Monday that the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust complaint failed to show that the world’s largest social network — with 2.7 billion members and a market value exceeding the GDPs of all but 16 countries — is a monopoly.

The ruling left the FTC and a coalition of nearly every state’s attorneys general with a month to revise their cases to pass muster with Boasberg, an appointee of former President Barack Obama. But it also fueled quick calls for action by tech industry critics from both parties in Congress, who called it further evidence that existing antitrust laws don’t deter the online industry’s behemoths from unfairly quashing competitors.

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