Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg weighed the possibility of divesting Instagram as a standalone business more than five years ago, driven by rising concerns over antitrust scrutiny.
A memo introduced at the Federal Trade Commission’s current trial in Washington reveals that in 2018 he asked whether the company should take the “extreme step of spinning Instagram out as a separate company.”
At that time, Meta then still known as Facebook was evaluating a major reorganisation that would more tightly integrate its suite of apps. Although Mr Zuckerberg acknowledged that consolidation promised “strong business growth,” he cautioned that forcing Instagram back into independence risked undermining Facebook’s own network and offered “scant promise” of preserving the full family of apps in the long term.
Ultimately, Meta chose integration. Later in the memo he warned that mounting calls to break up large technology firms could force a spin‑off of Instagram or even WhatsApp within five to ten years under a new administration. “This is one more factor that we should consider since even if we wanted to keep those apps together, we may not be able to,” he wrote.
The FTC sued Meta in 2020, accusing it of monopolising personal social platforms and of using a “buy or bury” strategy to neutralise rivals. During his trial testimony, Mr Zuckerberg reiterated that the decision to acquire Instagram in 2012 was born from a build‑versus‑buy analysis. He told the court that Facebook’s in‑house camera efforts had stalled, and that Instagram simply “was better at that,” prompting the purchase.
In defending against the FTC’s market‑definition, Meta argues that it faces vigorous competition from a range of platforms including ByteDance’s TikTok and Apple’s messaging services. Mr Zuckerberg also conceded that many of the company’s own development efforts have failed. “Building a new app is hard,” he said. “We tried dozens of times, and the majority don’t go anywhere.”
The emerging disclosures underscore how seriously Meta’s leadership anticipated regulatory challenges even before the current litigation. By revisiting internal debates over structural change, the trial is shedding new light on the strategy behind some of Silicon Valley’s largest deals and on how global technology firms navigate an evolving antitrust landscape while attempting to defend their core businesses against both market forces and legal pressures.
Source: News Ghana / Digpu NewsTex
