On the Stand For Third Day, Zuckerberg Calls TikTok ‘Highest Competition Threat’ to Meta

Mark Zuckerberg said from the witness stand Wednesday that TikTok represents “probably the highest competitive threat for Instagram and Facebook over the last few years,” according to the New York Times.

Zuckerberg was testifying for the third straight day in the Federal Trade Commission’s landmark antitrust case, this time facing friendlier questioning from Meta’s lawyers than from FTC attorney Daniel Matheson during the first two days of the trial.

Zuckerberg said the addition of the shortform video feature Reels to Facebook and Instagram was in large measure a response to the rapid growth of TikTok.

“TikTok is still bigger than either Facebook or Instagram, and I don’t like it when our competitors do better than us,” the Meta CEO said.

Zuckerberg’s emphasis on competition from the video platform TikTok was intended to counter the FTC’s theory of the case which focuses largely on what it calls Meta’s core function of connecting friends and family. Under the FTC’s framing, Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp were part of a “buy-or-bury” strategy intended to monopolize the social networking market, leaving Snapchat as its only meaningful competitor. Meta argues that it faces competition from a wide range of sources, including TikTok and Apple’s iMessage.

Read more: Zuckerberg Weighed Spinning Off Instagram Amid Antitrust Concerns, Trial Reveals

In the weeks leading up the trial Meta offered to settle the lawsuit for the relatively modest sum of $450 million, reflecting what it believes is the weakness of the FTC’s case, according to a report Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal. FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson, however, regarded the offer as not serious and countered with a demand of $30 billion.

On the eve of the trial, Meta indicated it was open to increasing its offer to closer to $1 billion, but sources told the Journal Ferguson was unwilling to settle for less than $18 billion and a consent decree.

The FTC is now seeking to force Meta to divest Instagram and WhatsApp.

 “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,” Meta spokeswoman Dani Lever said.

Still, Meta has gone to extraordinary lengths to try to get the case dismissed before trial. Zuckerberg himself has met repeatedly with President Trump, both at the White House and Mar-a-Lago, and Meta officials have engaged in what White House aides describe as a “relentless” lobbying campaign to get the case dropped.

Meta chief global affairs officer Joel Kaplan, its head of U.S. public policy Kevin Martin, and Zuckerberg’s outside political advisor Brian Baker, have met with both White House and FTC staffers in recent months to press their case, according to the Journal.

Source: The New York Times