In his introductory remarks at the Big Tech CEOs’ hearing before the House subcommittee on antitrust on July 29 (available to watch here), Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg conveniently gave a skewed picture of Facebook’s dominant position. “In many areas, we’re behind our competitors. The most popular messaging service in the US is iMessage. The fastest growing app is TikTok. The most popular app for video is YouTube. The fastest growing ads platform is that of Amazon. The largest ads platform is Google. And for every dollar spent on advertising in the US, less than 25 cents is spent with us.” — Mark Zuckerberg However, this doesn’t take into account Facebook’s incumbent position as the leading social media platform, nor gives Facebook’s market share for advertising. Here are the biggest takeaways from Zuckerberg's hearing: 1. Facebook was a monopoly as early as 2012: Representative Joe Neguse (D-CO), the vice-chair of the subcommittee, cited a 2012 presentation given by Facebook CFO Sheryl Sandberg that read “Facebook is now 95% of all social media in the US” in a slide titled “The industry consolidates as it matures”. This, as Neguse pointed out, suggests that Facebook was a monopoly as early as 2012. The competitors that it had in 2004 when it launched — MySpace, Friendster, Orkut, Yahoo 360, etc. — had all disappeared by 2012. Facebook’s MO2. Facebook buys competition, as it did with Instagram, in violation of antitrust laws: Neguse quoted an email sent by Zuckerberg in which Zuckerberg boasted…
