Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg seemingly foresaw Instagram breakup in 2018 amid regulatory scrutiny, as per the emails presented by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) during the ongoing antitrust trial in a Washington federal court. A message penned by the Meta CEO in 2018 anticipated a potential breakup of Instagram from his social media empire within the next five to ten years, revealing internal concerns that Instagram’s rising success was “cannibalising” the growth of its flagship platform, Facebook.
According to the message written in May 2018 – 7 years prior to the trial – Zuckerberg acknowledged in a message to senior leaders that the increasing regulatory pressure on the tech sector made a future separation a plausible scenario in the next five to 10 years.
These insights have now surfaced as the FTC intensifies its legal battle to ‘break’ Meta Platforms, alleging that its acquisitions of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 established an illegal social media monopoly.
Meta denies FTCs claims, says 'ready to win at trial'
Meta, however, vehemently denies these claims, asserting that it operates in a highly competitive landscape that includes formidable rivals such as ByteDance's TikTok, Google's YouTube, and Apple's iMessage.
Meta spokesperson Dani Lever dismissed the FTC's case, stating, “We haven’t been shy about explaining why it doesn’t make sense for the FTC to bring a case to trial that requires it to prove something every 17-year-old in America knows is absurd — that Instagram doesn’t compete with TikTok. We are prepared to win at trial.”
The FTC's investigation into Meta, formerly Facebook Inc., commenced in 2019, culminating in the antitrust lawsuit in 2020. Notably, by 2018, Meta was already under an FTC privacy probe stemming from the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
Zuckerberg's 2018 message further revealed his internal deliberations
“I’m beginning to wonder whether spinning Instagram out is the only structure that will accomplish a number of important goals,” Zuckerberg wrote in the 2018 message. That also included efforts to “immediately stop artificially growing Instagram in a way that undermines the Facebook network.”
According to the message written in May 2018 – 7 years prior to the trial – Zuckerberg acknowledged in a message to senior leaders that the increasing regulatory pressure on the tech sector made a future separation a plausible scenario in the next five to 10 years.
These insights have now surfaced as the FTC intensifies its legal battle to ‘break’ Meta Platforms, alleging that its acquisitions of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 established an illegal social media monopoly.
Meta denies FTCs claims, says 'ready to win at trial'
Meta, however, vehemently denies these claims, asserting that it operates in a highly competitive landscape that includes formidable rivals such as ByteDance's TikTok, Google's YouTube, and Apple's iMessage.
Meta spokesperson Dani Lever dismissed the FTC's case, stating, “We haven’t been shy about explaining why it doesn’t make sense for the FTC to bring a case to trial that requires it to prove something every 17-year-old in America knows is absurd — that Instagram doesn’t compete with TikTok. We are prepared to win at trial.”
The FTC's investigation into Meta, formerly Facebook Inc., commenced in 2019, culminating in the antitrust lawsuit in 2020. Notably, by 2018, Meta was already under an FTC privacy probe stemming from the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
Zuckerberg's 2018 message further revealed his internal deliberations
“I’m beginning to wonder whether spinning Instagram out is the only structure that will accomplish a number of important goals,” Zuckerberg wrote in the 2018 message. That also included efforts to “immediately stop artificially growing Instagram in a way that undermines the Facebook network.”
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