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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a significant admission during a U.S. antitrust trial on Tuesday, revealing that he decided to acquire Instagram because it offered a superior camera compared to what his company was developing for its flagship app, Facebook, at that time.
This acknowledgment seems to reinforce claims made by U.S. antitrust officials who allege that Meta employed a “buy or bury” tactic to acquire emerging competitors, thereby stifling potential rivals and maintaining an unlawful monopoly.
This was part of Zuckerberg’s testimony on the second day of a high-profile trial in Washington, where the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is attempting to reverse Meta’s acquisitions of valuable assets like Instagram and WhatsApp.
The case, which was initiated during the term of President Donald Trump, is perceived as a gauge of the new administration’s commitment to challenging Big Tech firms.
When questioned by an attorney for the FTC about whether he viewed burgeoning Instagram as a threat to Meta (then known as Facebook), Zuckerberg acknowledged that he found Instagram’s camera capabilities had significant advantages over what Facebook was creating.
“We were evaluating whether to build or buy while working on our own camera app,” Zuckerberg stated. “I believed that Instagram had a superior product in that area, so acquiring them was the better option.”
He further admitted that many attempts by Meta to create its own applications have not been successful.
### ‘Creating a New App is Challenging’
“Creating a new app is tough, and in many cases, when we’ve tried to launch new applications, they haven’t gained much popularity,” Zuckerberg expressed in court.
“We’ve likely attempted to develop dozens of apps throughout the company’s history, and most of them haven’t taken off,” he mentioned.
Zuckerberg’s comments come as Meta continues to defend itself years after the emergence of damaging statements from Facebook’s internal documents. For instance, in a 2008 email, he stated, “it is better to buy than compete.”
The company contends that these past intentions are not relevant since the FTC has inaccurately defined the social media market and overlooked the intense competition it faces from platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Apple’s messaging service.
The FTC has accused Meta of monopolizing platforms used for sharing content with friends and family, indicating that its main competitors in the U.S. are Snap’s Snapchat and MeWe, a smaller social media platform emphasizing privacy that was launched in 2016.
Furthermore, the FTC argues that platforms where users share content with strangers based on common interests, such as X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, YouTube, and Reddit, are not interchangeable with those focused on sharing with friends.
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