What we’ve learned from FTC v. Meta antitrust trial

Faced with the greatest existential threat in meta history. After a few years after the Federal Trade Commission Instagram and WhatsApp’s purchase, a social network trying to finally continue the court, which forms the future. Ftc v meta Last month, CEO Mark Zuckerberg caught the stand and is expected to last a few weeks.

FTC hopes to prove the country’s judge James Boasberg to acquire one-time opponents of the meter and damage US consumers. Meta, this time, Instagram and WhatsApp were able to grow up to only billion users’ service because invested in the last ten years or more.

Although it is not less likely to fully populate the case, the trial has successfully opened new tones in connection with the internal affairs and potential rivals. Instagram Cofounder Kevin Systrom and the Testimony Certificate from the former Execs, such as Coo Sheryl Sandberg, laid light on the company’s past.

Instagram’s former CEO speaks

The purchase of Facebook’s 2012 Instagram is the central part of the FTC’s counter. The government claimed that Mark Zuckerberg was the name to neutralize the Instagram as an opponent and tried to force the meter to separate it. Thus, the coffeeper of the instagram and former CEO Kevin Systromu stand was more than a little eyebrow, and did not fully come to the defense of Meta.

Zuckerberg said that Methana helps the growth of Instagram, SYSTROM The Zuckerberg Instagram was “threatened” to grow Facebook and as a result of the company’s resources. “As Facebook’s founder, one felt a lot of feelings that one is better, instagram or Facebook,” Systrom said.

Sheryl Sandberg, the Instagram thought to be overwhelmed by Zuckerberg

Facebook’s decision to pay $ 1 billion for Instagram – an application that does not have income and a handful of employees – then it seemed an incredible amount of modesty. Among them were the best lieutenant for the past Zuckerberg. The court found an exchange between the two in 2012, he asked Zuckerberg to pay $ 1 billion. O This is “Yes, of course, many things.”

But on the stand, Sandberg said he was doing wrong. “I don’t think anyone will say that we pay a lot for Instagram,” he said, in witness Bloomberg.

Zuckerberg knew he could meet with a breakdown

In the notable in one Zuckerberg assumed that the company can face antitrest movement that will force the company to leave the instagram. “I started thinking that the yarn of Instagram was the only structure that will fulfill a number of important goals,” Zuckerberg Muslued in the e-mail in 2018. “We will not force calls, instagram to eliminate the growth of large technological companies, and perhaps we will be forced to prove to WhatsApp in the next 5-10 years.”

Zuckerberg considered nuking friend lists to enhance engagement

Zukderberg, who faced the rising competition from Tiktok in 2022, means Facebook’s “cultural urgency is reduced quickly.” To solve this, the lists of users once a year offered to delete people once a year to “restart.” Accordingly, he called this plan as “twice low to friendship” Businesslike .

Zuckerberg said that the plan is probably a bit risky, even to influence users, it should not be able to test the idea in a “small country” first. However, Tom Alison, which controls the Facebook application for Meta, quickly hit it at a time, EveZuckerberg’s plan was not “acceptable”.

When asked about this directly on the stand, Zuckerberg simply said, “We have not done it.” He explains the fact that he still considered such a sharp movement. Zuckerberg, in 2022, Tiktok’s popularity in the United States was a moment of the idea in 2022 And meta was increasingly worried in the domination of Tiktok. In the same email, Zuckerberg also asked a analysis that Facebook could go to “Continue”.

How much was threatened by Tiktok

Zuckerberg spoke about how Meta was before ““To recognize the danger caused by Tiktok. However, the FTC Court revealed new details on the increase in the application. The meter in the certificate in 2018, he said. By 2020 note by New York Times. This effort saw that the company hired more than 1,000 new employees, which increases the company’s video efforts.

Zuckerberg also touched on Tiktok, the application was a “high emergency” threat to meta quickly. “We have observed that our sequence has slowed slows down,” Zuckerberg said Touches the rise of tiktok. Zukerberg may sound surprisingly, but his statements were strategically strategic to protect the meter. Company This is a greater danger for something bigger than Tiktok, Instagram or WhatsApp The government claiming that Tiktok is not direct opponent.

As the European Union accepts Over the past few years, new laws have forced their technological giants to change their products sometimes meaningfully. Such a change for meta is the addition of non-administrative versions of Facebook and Instagram in the EU. The company began to offer in 2023 and has recently reduced the price of this .

However, with a price decrease, it seems that there is an ad-free subscription to Facebook and Instagram. John Hegeman, an employee of the METAN’s head income on the stand, said the plan was “very little interest According to the presentation, “about. 007 percent” protests users Astane.