Meta in court: Zuckerberg testifies for 13 hours
Ads in WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger generate tens of billions of dollars for Meta, Zuckerberg says in FTC lawsuit
(Image: Koshiro K/Shutterstock.com)
Mark Zuckerberg testified for a total of 13 hours over three days in the trial about Meta's monopoly position. Zuckerberg confirmed that he is the sole boss of Meta – and explained that Instagram and WhatsApp have become more successful than he would have thought at the time of the takeover. Former COO Sheryl Sandberg also said she was wrong when she thought the price for Instagram was too high.
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accuses Meta of having a monopoly position in the social media sector, particularly with regard to social interaction between friends and family. Although they themselves approved the takeovers of WhatsApp and Instagram by Meta, the authority is now demanding that the process be reversed. According to the FTC, Meta only wanted to take over both services in order to eliminate the competition, not to develop them further. Accordingly, Zuckerberg argues above all that both apps have been improved – and have been successful with both.
WhatsApp and Instagram have many millions more users
Zuckerberg also confirms that he was worried that messengers could replace social networks before the WhatsApp takeover. However, the founders had no interest in this. Only Meta brought elements of social networks into Messenger –, such as Stories. Another reason for the takeover was the dependence on Google and Apple and their app stores. According to The Verge, however, Zuckerberg admitted that he did not know exactly how this had helped him.
Videos by heise
WhatsApp now has around three billion users. Through the business applications in WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram, Meta generates ten billion US dollars in revenue from ads every year. According to documents available at the trial, Instagram had just ten million users when it was acquired in 2012. The founders' target is said to have been 100 million; Instagram currently has two billion users.
Meta considers the FTC's lawsuit to be "weak" and has already written in a blog post at the start that the FTC is ignoring reality. This mainly refers to the fact that the trade authority only lists Snapchat and MeWe as competitors to Meta's services – neither Tiktok, YouTube nor X or smaller services such as Bluesky are mentioned. Meta also complains that the current US government is trying to save the Chinese service Tiktok while at the same time trying to break the domestic social media provider.
The trial is not expected to end until the summer. In court, Meta has already made further offers, such as to take over Snapchat and to the FTC to prevent a trial.
(emw)
