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People remain one of our priorities to join people and family, “Zuckerberg said. However, “We have always been a service that allows you to know and learn about what is going on in the world.”
FTC Meta is trying to break the platform ink, arguing that in 2012 and 2014, the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp respectively gave it an illegal monopoly on sharing it with friends and family. Zuckerberg disputed FTC allegations, arguing that the Meta competes with a wide range of social media companies that the company said that it includes YouTube, Tiktok and SNAP.
In interrogation by Daniel Mattheson, the lead trial lawyer of FTC in the afternoon, Zuckerberg described the construction of Facebook News Feed in 2006, facilitating “real connections for real friends”.
Around the mobile app boom between 2010 and 2012, Zuckerberg struggled to get its teams to manufacture quality products for photo-sharing. Mathason expressed concern, showing email from Zuckerberg, that it was far behind Instagram, including a message of June 2011, stating that they “need to work together quickly.”
In September that year, he said that “if Instagram has continued to kick on mobile or if Google buys them, in the next few years they can easily add pieces of their service that were still doing and if they have a increasing number of people, it is a real issue for us.”
In February 2012, Zuckerberg wrote a message that considered the purchase of Instagram, even if it is priced ~ $ 500m. ,
Zuckerberg, 40, is expected to stay at the stand for the rest of the day and Tuesday for most of the time. He went with his assistant wearing a Navy suit and powder blue tie. When he started his testimony, the court room was filled, but the audience continued interrogation.
The test began on Monday, with the initial statement of the two sides, Chief Justice James Boseberg presided. The agency lawyers closed their arguments by demanding to ensure a competitive market by implementing a long American tradition, accusing Mata of violating the meta.
“For more than 100 years, the US public policy has insisted that they want to be successful,” Matheson said in her initial statement. “We are here because Meta broke the deal.”
If the FTC prevails, a spinoff apps of Instagram and WhatsApp will undo the years of integration between apps, will disrupt two of the most popular digital consumer products in the world and will eradicate hundreds of billions of dollars to the market price of the meta. It will also raise serious questions as to how the government evaluates and approval the deals.
The test is expected to last for two months and is also testified to the former Meta executive Sheryl Sandberg. The company on Monday argued that it faces fierce competition from several other services, especially about entertainment more about social media friends and family, and has provided its users performable benefits.
A final decision would be on how social media is defined, and whether Meta dominates that market. FTC will focus on how people communicate with friends and family – it is called “personal social networking services” market, which claims that it is mainly composed of messages and media shared between close contacts.
‘Killer Acquisition’
FTC argues that Meta’s Instagram and WhatsApp procurement is “killer acquisition” that prevents companies from competition. To support your case that meta is a monopoly, FTC will argue that its quality quality has declined, most clearly with ADS and weak privacy security.
In 2010, “Meta suffered a maritime change in competitive conditions,” Matheson said, referring to the growing mobile market. “He decided that the competition was very difficult and would be easier to buy his rivals than competing with them.”
Meta, according to Matheson, bought WhatsApp to close a proposal from Alfabate Inc.’s Google, which was also considering buying the company. And Meta also considered the purchase of Snap Inc. for $ 6 billion in 2013, although the owner of Snapchat turned down the proposal. The number was not found earlier, as the reports of that time saw the discussions half.
An SNAP representative refused to comment.
In his initial argument, Matheson stated that FTC would highlight the “smoking gun” email of Meta, especially an execution from 2012, including Zuckerberg, where he described the Instagram deal as “way of neutralizing a contestant”.
Meta, after the “fundamental experience manipulated in experience” introduced by the service to Instagram, said, “This allows its own more profitable Facebook product to avoid cannibal. While this is a “rational commercial decision”, Matheson said that it prevents the “policy of no -confidence law”.
Meta has aggressively pushed back against FTC claims, arguing that it competes with various types of platforms, in which Bidens Limited Tickek, Snap’s Snapchat, Google’s YouTube, Google’s ITube, IMES of Apple Ink and Elon Musk’s X have been said to be in war. ” All the Meta contestants, Matheson, mentioned Tiktok only once in their initial statement.
The agency says that only Snapchat competes with the meta, and that many other previous contestants, including MySpace, are now defective.
Hansen said that the use of consumers of apps over time, with the reels of Instagram, YouTube shorts and tickek, has changed dramatically, over time -the use of consumers of apps over time has changed. While FTC focuses on the use of people of services to communicate with friends and family, Hansen stated that in 2025 using services for those functions in 2025, with less than 20% map customers using services for those works in 2025.
To talk to his, Hansen pointed to the January 2025 Tikok “Ban”, given that both Facebook and Instagram used Spikes in use, while Tiktok was below. During that time Facebook saw 20% “more uses”, while Instagram usage increased by 17%, Hansen said. “The entire case of FTC assures the court that Meta does not compete with Tikok,” Hansen said.
Hansen also argued that Meta “hundreds of billions, perhaps in undisputed consumer welfare benefits over a trillion dollars,” stems from two deals, which improved the infrastructure.
The meta note makes the FTC a chance to challenge deals – for Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 – and allowed them to move forward.
There are several prominent officers present in the court room on Monday in Meta, including the policy head Joel Council, General Council Jennifer Newstad and Chief Marketing Officer Alex Shults.
The FTC conducted an inquiry in Meta during the first Trump administration in 2019 and sued the company in December 2020. Under the Biden administration, former FTC president Leena Khan upgraded the case, which is now in the hands of Chairman Andrew Ferguson, which was nominated by President Donald Trump to lead the agency in January.
(Update with internal Zuckerberg email in the fifth paragraph.)
Such more stories are available Bloomberg.com