TECH NEWS – The antitrust lawsuit brought by the FTC (US Federal Trade Commission) has revealed many interesting things about Mark Zuckerberg’s company.

Social media networks are demanding more users to increase revenue or gain more advertising partners when they show metrics on how long engagement on these platforms. However, there was one path Zuck was considering that was so absurd that the company’s board should be grateful it didn’t work out in the end. Internal correspondence revealed that back in 2022, Zuckerberg had a potentially crazy idea where he considered deleting friends lists on Facebook to get more people to use the platform.

During the Meta lawsuit, the FTC produced internal emails in which Zuck contemplated doing just that. He believed that Facebook’s cultural relevance was rapidly declining. To prevent the decision from causing millions of people to leave the platform, Zuck wanted to test the change in a smaller country. The Meta chief said that even if Instagram and WhatsApp succeeded and Facebook failed, it would still be tantamount to a failure for the company as a whole, stressing that the move had to be done right. Tom Allison, Facebook’s chief executive, said he was not confident about the idea’s chances of success, especially when the social network’s attractive feature is its friends list counter.

When an FTC lawyer asked Zuckerberg about the idea at Monday’s hearing, he said the company never implemented it. Instead, Meta is now focused on modernizing Facebook’s user experience, and that includes introducing aesthetic and interface changes. In addition, Meta gave an opening keynote with slides, and one of them showcased various services like Instagram and Facebook Messenger, as well as how they compare to Apple’s iMessage platform in terms of popularity.

According to the information shared on the slides, iMessage’s popularity far exceeds that of Instagram or Facebook Messenger: Apple Messages: 88.39%, Instagram: 48.19%, Facebook Messenger: 37.55%, WhatsApp: 36.76%, Snapchat: 23.04%. The image below also shows that an internal Apple document is open, and according to AppleInsider, it is authentic. The only information that hasn’t been tampered with is a quote from Apple’s director of product marketing, which reads, “A core use case” of iMessage is “allowing users to communicate with the people in their lives that they know.”

Meta also included YouTube and TikTok in the argument, claiming that competing services are thriving. While the company’s arguments are valid to an extent, it should also be noted that Instagram is not just a communication tool, but a media sharing platform with communities, groups and more. From now on, a company can no longer base its argument on a single point, but must take into account the full nature of the service.

We’ll see how the judges rule and where the arguments go from here. The case has been ongoing since 2020, so it could be months or even years before a final decision is announced.

Source: WCCFTech,  The Verge, Documentcloud, AppleInsider