In 2022, Mark Zuckerberg has what he calls a “crazy idea.” Facebook (Meta (Meta)) was once the monarch of the social media era and lost its cultural significance. Zuckerberg’s solution? Delete everyone’s Facebook friends and force users to participate in the app to rebuild the network.
Although it never came true, the strategy was on the first day of the ongoing antitrust trial yesterday (April 14), against Facebook, Instagram (Meta) and WhatsApp’s parent company Meta. The FTC case found that in 2012, Meta acquired Instagram for $1 billion and in 2014 it acquired an illegal monopoly on the social media market for $19 billion.
“Option 1. Consent with friends,” Zuckerberg wrote in an email to the Mon executive in 2022. He added: “A potentially crazy idea is to consider wiping everyone’s charts and let them start again.” Zuckerberg’s strategy to wiping “graphics” or users’ social contact networks could have been conducted every year.
The idea is not attracted by top meta-heads like Facebook chief Tom Alison, who noted that Zuckerberg’s strategy could undermine Instagram’s reliance on users’ Facebook friends’ networks. “I’m not sure if option #1 in your proposal is feasible given the importance of my friend’s use case for IG,” the executive replied. Zuckerberg then went on to brainstorm about whether it’s possible to completely reform Facebook’s friend-based model in full favor of the follower-based model.
Zuckerberg’s vision hasn’t surfaced, but it highlights the extent to which Mehta is willing to adapt to stay competitive – the FTC is now trying to prove it in court, including an old email from Zuckerberg, including a message from 2012, which included a billionaire acknowledged: “Instagram is increasingly buying us $1 court more than we do.”
The crux of the FTC argument is that through the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp, Meta adopts a “burial or buy” strategy to maintain its strengths in the social media industry. The agency initially sued Dun in a federal case in Washington, D.C. in 2020, and was later fired the following year and revised.
The trial is expected to last for two months and will be decided by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg. If the FTC prevails, it may be forced to divest Instagram and WhatsApp, which will have significant consequences for the tech giant.
Instagram has become an increasingly profitable segment for Meta in recent years, with photo and video sharing apps accounting for 27% of revenue in 2021. This year, Instagram expects Instagram to represent more than half of U.S. advertising revenue for the full year, according to market research firm Emarketer.
Meta claims that the FTC’s argument is based on a vision of no longer accurate social media landscape. The company noted in a recent blog post that the institution “surfaced in a fictional market” that unfairly listed the dollar as a monopoly and ignored strong competitors. “The evidence will show that every 17-year-old in the world knows: Instagram competes with Tiktok (and YouTube and X and many other apps)” Meta added.
