Mark Zuckerberg Accuses TikTok of Slowing Meta’s Growth in Court

During an antitrust trial filed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Meta✴ CEO Mark Zuckerberg said TikTok’s success was a source of heightened risk to Meta✴’s business. In his testimony, he noted that the short-form video service, which launched in 2018, immediately became a “super-urgent” and “high-priority” competitive threat to his company.

Image source: Pixabay

Zuckerberg also said that TikTok’s arrival has directly impacted Meta✴, as its “growth has slowed dramatically” as TikTok has grown in popularity. He acknowledged that the short-form video service, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has remained the focus of Meta✴’s competitive efforts for several years.

ByteDance acquired Musical.ly in 2017 and merged it with TikTok the following year. Around the same time, Meta✴ (then Facebook✴) stopped reporting Facebook✴ user counts in its quarterly reports, switching to a new “app family” metric that included Instagram✴ and WhatsApp. The change was intended to hide the slowdown in Meta✴’s flagship app.

Zuckerberg made another interesting comment when asked about the “network effects” of social media platforms. He suggested that it has become less important for social networks to leverage connections between friends and family to grow. “Apps are now primarily discovery initiators,” he said. “People can [then] push that content into messaging apps.”

At the same time, Facebook✴ is trying to get back to its roots by leveraging these network effects. The company recently launched new features aimed at making it easier to connect with friends, including a revamped Friends tab. In January, Zuckerberg told investors that “getting back to the original Facebook✴” would be a key goal for 2025.

For Meta✴, the FTC’s lawsuit poses a serious threat to the tech giant’s very existence. If the FTC’s lawyers prevail, the court could require Meta✴ to spin off Instagram✴ or WhatsApp into separate companies and sell them. Selling Instagram✴ would be a financial disaster for Meta✴, since the platform brings in the lion’s share of its revenue from advertising. WhatsApp is not as profitable for Meta✴, but it provides the company with a significant audience.