Facebook is facing two lawsuits. One is from the U.S. Federal government. The other is from 46 U.S. states. Both suits accuse the social media company of trying to keep competition out of the digital marketplace. More than 3 billion people of the 7.7 billion who are alive today use an app owned by Facebook. The company is more than a social networking site. It also controls WhatsApp and Instagram. And the U.S. government says that Facebook bought these apps to prevent them from eventually competing with the company.
The suits say this breaks America's anti-trust laws which are designed to keep the nation's businesses from having too much power. And both legal challenges seek to decrease Facebook's power by forcing it to spin-off Instagram and WhatsApp into separate companies. Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. It says the U.S. government approves those purchases then and that it now wants a do over. The social media company also says people don't chose Facebook's services because they have to but because its apps deliver the most value. So, it plans to fight these suits. Facebook isn't the only technology company accused of breaking anti- trust laws.

The American government and 11 states filed suit against Google in October saying it's worked to prevent competition in online searches and advertising. Google had a similar response to Facebook's. It says people use its platform because they choose too not because they're forced to.
These lawsuits could take years to resolve. European officials have also been concerned about U.S. tech companies. Next week they're expected to put new rules in place that are designed to limit the power of Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon.
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