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📸 Inside Meta’s Antitrust Trial: What Zuckerberg Really Said About Instagram As Meta faces an antitrust showdown in the U.S., internal emails reveal how deeply Facebook feared — and plotted against — rising platforms like Instagram in the early 2010s. 🧠 What Facebook saw in Instagram: • Zuckerberg flagged Instagram’s growth as an existential threat as early as 2011 — citing rapid user expansion and mobile dominance. • Execs worried it could be bought by Google or Apple, or evolve into a full social platform itself. • Facebook’s photos team started scrambling to replicate Instagram’s simplicity with its own app offerings. 💰 Why they wanted to buy it: • By 2012, Zuckerberg floated a $500M price tag and argued Instagram had “a better thesis” on what users wanted. • His plan? Keep the app alive publicly but shift its growth and features back into Facebook’s ecosystem. • In Zuckerberg’s words: “What we’re really buying is time.” 💥 The FTC’s case: • The FTC argues these messages show a “buy or bury” strategy meant to suppress competition. • They say Meta knowingly acquired threats to preserve its monopoly, including Instagram and WhatsApp. • The trial could force a breakup of Meta’s empire, separating Instagram and WhatsApp into independent companies. This is a rare inside look at how Facebook played offense in tech's most ruthless decade — and the receipts may now help regulators rewrite the rules.
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