Washington, DC
CNN
—
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the witness stand Monday as his social media company faces accusations by the Federal Trade Commission of creating a monopoly.
Zuckerberg’s testimony came immediately after Meta — the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — and the FTC presented their openingarguments in the US District Court of the District of Columbia.
The US government accused Meta of illegally building a “social networking monopoly” by acquiring would-be competitor platforms WhatsApp and Instagram. FTC lawyer Daniel Matheson argued repeatedly during opening statements that “consumers do not have reasonable alternatives.”
Lawyers for Meta argued that its platforms have plenty of competition in the social media space and that regulators approved the purchases years ago when they were made.
For Zuckerberg, the stakes are high. If the FTC wins the case, Meta could be forced to spin off WhatsApp and Instagram, which would upend the company’s core advertising business and reshape the broader social media ecosystem.
Meta headquarters on February 2, 2023, in Menlo Park, California. A trial that could determine the company’s future begins on Monday.
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Matheson began questioning Zuckerberg about the transformation of Facebook from a platform designed to facilitate connections between friends and family to one focused more on showing users interesting third-party content, including the launch of features like the news feed and groups.
“It’s the case that over time, the ‘interest’ part of that has gotten built out more than the ‘friend’ part,” Zuckerberg said. “(Users are) connected to a lot more groups and other kinds of things. The ‘friend’ part has gone down quite a bit but it’s still something we care about.”
Zuckerberg also said that messaging is “symbiotic” to Facebook’s larger offerings, given it allows users to share content they find with friends, after Matheson asked if he considered messaging to be a “complement” to the platform’s core services.
That background discussion could be key to how the FTC defines the “market” from which Meta dominates with its platforms.
Zuckerberg delivered his testimony in a monotone voice, reading back on old posts and emails he’d sent about the company’s evolution at the prompting of the FTC’s Matheson.
–This is a developing story. It will be updated.
