Zuckerberg Defends Meta's Acquisitions in High-Stakes US Antitrust Trial

He Disputes Govt Agency's Claims of Illegal Monopoly in Buying Instagram, WhatsApp

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WASHINGTON - Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg argued in federal court that his company's social networks are not just about friends, taking the stand as the first witness for the US Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) antitrust trial.

The FTC is seeking to break up Meta Platforms, arguing that its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, in 2012 and 2014 respectively, gave it an illegal monopoly on sharing with friends and family.

Mr. Zuckerberg disputed the FTC's allegations, arguing that Meta competes with a wider range of social media companies that the company has said include YouTube, TikTok, and Snap.

In initial questioning by the FTC's lead trial lawyer, Mr. Daniel Matheson, Mr. Zuckerberg described the company's early history and acknowledged that he rejected advice to sell the company early on because it would not be possible to compete with MySpace.

Mr. Zuckerberg went on to describe the creation of the Facebook news feed in 2006 to facilitate "real connections to actual friends". That use is key to the FTC's argument that the company is primarily focused on sharing information with friends and family.

Mr. Zuckerberg said the business coming from connecting friends has declined, while other parts of the company have grown more.

Allowing people to connect with friends and family "remains one of our priorities", Mr. Zuckerberg said. However, "we've always been a service that lets you discover and learn about what's going on in the world".

Around the mobile app boom between 2010 and 2012, Mr. Zuckerberg struggled to get his teams to build quality products for photo-sharing.

Mr. Matheson displayed emails from Mr. Zuckerberg expressing concern that Facebook was far behind Instagram, including a June 2011 message stating the need to "get their act together quickly".