Mark Zuckerberg on TikTok's Impact on Meta's Growth

Meta CEO Testifies on TikTok's Competitive Impact

During Wednesday’s proceedings in Meta’s antitrust trial, CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that TikTok’s rise presented a significant challenge to Meta’s business interests. He characterized the short-form video platform as a “top priority” and a “highly urgent” competitive concern upon its emergence in 2018, as reported by Bloomberg and other news sources.

FTC Trial and Potential Outcomes

This information surfaced during a busy initial week of testimony in the trial brought forth by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission against the social media conglomerate. A successful outcome for the FTC’s legal team could potentially lead to a mandate requiring Meta to operate Instagram and WhatsApp as independent entities.

Impact on Meta’s Growth

Zuckerberg acknowledged that TikTok’s introduction directly affected Meta’s performance. He indicated that the company observed a substantial deceleration in growth following the increasing popularity of TikTok. The ByteDance-owned application has remained a central focus of Meta’s competitive strategies for several years.

Strategic Reporting Changes

ByteDance acquired Musical.ly in 2017, subsequently integrating it into TikTok in the following year. Concurrently, Meta, formerly known as Facebook, discontinued the reporting of Facebook’s user statistics in its quarterly reports.

Instead, the company adopted a new “family of apps” metric, encompassing both Instagram and WhatsApp. This shift in reporting was implemented to mask the slowing growth experienced by Meta’s primary platform.

Evolving Importance of Network Effects

Zuckerberg offered a noteworthy observation regarding the role of “network effects” within social media platforms. He suggested that the importance of leveraging connections between friends and family for growth has diminished.

“Apps now function primarily as content discovery tools,” Zuckerberg explained to the court. “Users are able to share this content through messaging applications.”

Return to Core Social Networking

Despite this assessment, Facebook is actively attempting to re-emphasize its original focus on network effects. The company has recently launched new features designed to facilitate connections between users, including a redesigned Friends tab highlighting requests and activity.

Zuckerberg communicated to investors in January that a “return to OG Facebook” constitutes a key objective for the year 2025. This signals a strategic pivot back towards the platform’s foundational principles.