๐ธ Inside Metaโs 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 โ and plotted against โ rising platforms like Instagram in the early 2010s. ๐ง What Facebook saw in Instagram: โข Zuckerberg flagged Instagramโs growth as an existential threat as early as 2011 โ citing rapid user expansion and mobile dominance. โข Execs worried it could be bought by Google or Apple, or evolve into a full social platform itself. โข Facebookโs photos team started scrambling to replicate Instagramโs simplicity with its own app offerings. ๐ฐ Why they wanted to buy it: โข By 2012, Zuckerberg floated a $500M price tag and argued Instagram had โa better thesisโ on what users wanted. โข His plan? Keep the app alive publicly but shift its growth and features back into Facebookโs ecosystem. โข In Zuckerbergโs words: โWhat weโre really buying is time.โ ๐ฅ The FTCโs case: โข The FTC argues these messages show a โbuy or buryโ strategy meant to suppress competition. โข They say Meta knowingly acquired threats to preserve its monopoly, including Instagram and WhatsApp. โข The trial could force a breakup of Metaโs 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 โ and the receipts may now help regulators rewrite the rules.
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