Alex Heath

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Alex HeathApr 15, 2025

Zuckerberg’s ‘crazy idea’ to reset everyone Facebook’s friends to zero.

During yesterday’s testimony, we were shown internal emails from 2022 in which Zuckerberg discussed how the company could make friending on Facebook “a part of mainstream popular culture again.” His “one potentially crazy idea” was to consider “wiping everyone’s graphs and having them start again.” He suggested doing this potentially once a year.

More recently, Zuckerberg has publicly said that his goal is to bring back “OG Facebook,“ and Meta recently introduced a tab in the app where you can only see posts from friends.

OpenAI is building a social network

Kylie Robison and Alex HeathApr 15, 2025

Alex HeathApr 15, 2025

We’re here for day two of the FTC v. Meta trial.

The courthouse feels a bit sleepy as we head into day two of what I’m expecting to include more testimony from Mark Zuckerberg. Yesterday, he was asked about Facebook’s earliest days and talked a little bit about the Instagram acquisition. I’m expecting more of today’s testimony to focus on Instagram and why he bought WhatsApp.

We’ll provide updates throughout the day and share any interesting internal documents shown in court.

Mark Zuckerberg takes the stand

The antitrust trial started with hours of Mark’s testimony, while Meta and the FTC squabbled over defining the market.

Alex Heath and Lauren FeinerApr 15, 2025

Alex HeathApr 14, 2025

A slow start to the trial.

When the FTC called Mark Zuckerberg to testify as its first witness, people here at the courthouse were hoping for some fireworks.

Instead, the FTC spent most of the day taking Zuckerberg down memory lane, starting with the launch of Facebook in 2004 through its rocky shift to mobile devices around the 2012 IPO. I didn’t see much that was heavily redacted or presented as new evidence in the courtroom. Only towards the end of the day did the FTC begin asking Zuckerberg about the Instagram acquisition. WhatsApp wasn’t covered at all.

Alex HeathApr 14, 2025

Facebook and Instagram traffic surged when TikTok went down.

During Meta’s opening defense arguments against the FTC, it showed the court data from when TikTok was briefly offline before President Trump intervened to bring it back. While TikTok was down, Facebook usage spiked 20 percent and Instagram usage surged 17 percent.

This data is meant to poke holes in the FTC’s definition of the market for this antitrust case, since it excludes TikTok (and a bunch of other platforms) in favor of only Snapchat and, for some reason, MeWe. If Meta can convince Judge Boasberg that the FTC’s market definition isn’t right, the agency’s case falls apart.