On Wednesday, the US Federal Trade Commission and 48 US attorneys general filed major lawsuits against Facebook describing the social media giant as a monopoly whose anti-competitive practices are hurting Americans.

According to the Recode website, the lawsuits come after more than a year of investigations, and are the biggest anti-trust challenge facing Facebook.

The lawsuits mainly demand the dismantling of Facebook by forcing it to backtrack on the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, which together have billions of users.

The lawsuits allege that such a measure may be necessary because Facebook has crushed rivals and achieved dominance by purchasing potential competitors, and that this limits US consumers' choices and reduces their ability to protect privacy.

"They have stifled innovation and weakened the privacy protection of millions of Americans," New York Attorney Letitia James, who led the lawsuit filed by 46 states and Washington, DC, told reporters. "No company should have this unsupervised power over our personal information and social interactions."

A post on the company’s blog described the lawsuits as “revisionist history,” and Facebook confirmed that its acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram had been approved by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) years ago, and said that allowing this fact to be “bypassed” would set a worrying precedent for companies. To the effect, "There will never be any sale in the future."

The lawsuit calls for the dismantling of Facebook by forcing it to sell Instagram and WhatsApp (Anadolu Agency)

Lawsuits come at a pivotal time for the company, as the public, regulators and lawmakers examine these companies and their impacts on society and the economy.

In October, the House antitrust committee concluded a 16-month investigation with the release of a wide-ranging report that found Facebook and fellow tech giants such as Amazon, Apple and Google had monopolistic practices and needed better regulation.

The question remains unresolved: Do antitrust laws written decades ago live up to the mission of corporate regulation in the internet age?

Although the results are similar, the new lawsuits differ from the lawmakers ’report that makes recommendations, but there is little it can do to implement them.

However, these lawsuits could force Facebook to take certain actions, such as paying fines or selling WhatsApp and Instagram based on current laws.

It is too early to determine the impact of these lawsuits.

Why does the government say Facebook is bad?

Although the cases from the FTC and prosecutors are not entirely identical, the parties have come together to bring up one case about Facebook being anti-competitive.

While the lawsuits focus on the WhatsApp and Instagram acquisitions, they agree that Facebook's anti-competitive behavior is part of a wider pattern.

They found that Facebook is a strong social media monopoly collecting a massive amount of data on American users that the company uses to sell ads.

Much of the evidence in the cases points to comments from senior company executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, as evidence that Facebook is intentionally anti-competitive.

And the FTC cites an email Zuckerberg sent to a colleague on the day Facebook announced that he would buy Instagram, in which he said, “I remember your internal post about whether Instagram was a threat to us and not Google +. You were basically right. One thing that is good about startups is that you can often have them. "

"What the lawsuit means is that Facebook's monopoly power and personal networks were not just the result of innovation or being the best product or service available, but rather that Facebook violated antitrust laws in order to ensure it did not face any meaningful competition," said Sally Hubbard of the Open Markets Institute. .

Opponents base their comments on the company's senior managers, including President Zuckerberg (French)

Any potential dismantling is a long way off

So what's the solution to undo some of the damage these lawsuits say Facebook is doing to users and the market?

The lawsuits hope that the social media giant will dismantle itself.

But getting to this will be difficult, and if it does, it will take time.

Hubbard believes that the litigation over forcing Facebook to sell Instagram and WhatsApp could take years.

Other experts told Recode that the process will likely not begin until next year, or as late as 2022.

Another complication is that Facebook continues to link its applications, which may make separating them more difficult. In 2019, Facebook announced that it will begin integrating the technical infrastructure of the direct messaging systems that are used in its three products (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp). The company also has more ambitious hopes for WhatsApp. The company indicated that it may link its Facebook and Instagram advertising services to the messaging platform.

In a Facebook post on its blog, the company argued that it faces competition for serving ads from other platforms such as Google and TikTok.

This isn't the only defense in Facebook's arsenal to face lawsuits, it says, “Given what we did with the companies that we acquired. Have we just shelved them? Have we frozen them? We took relatively small projects in a fragile and uncertain phase, and we turned them into something special.” ".

Experts told ReCode that forced selling is certainly a possibility, but it is too early to say how this will happen.

While accusations that Facebook is engaging in anti-competitive behavior are not new, new lawsuits give the company's critics more supporters, and suggest that the push for tighter regulation of big tech companies will not disappear when President-elect Joe Biden takes office in 2021.