Mark Zuckerberg and others at Meta thought TikTok was better than Meta.

A paper from February 2022 has messages from people in charge at Meta about Facebook and Instagram's plans. Mark Zuckerberg wrote that Facebook is now like a "challenger" because it is not as popular or exciting as before. He also said that TikTok helps friends see the same funny pictures and videos and feel like they share things.

Mosseri said Facebook is now a competitor. He said it is not the main place people find new things anymore. He thought YouTube might be the main place now. But he thought TikTok would become bigger than YouTube later because Meta had information.

Mosseri wrote, "The best way for Facebook to be different is to be the place where people find new things. But it's interesting that [TikTok] uses only video and is much more popular than us. I think they are making the social phone market bigger and also taking users from TV, longer videos, and Netflix."

One study showed that people in the U.S. watched TikTok more than YouTube in 2021. Another study found that children watched TikTok much more than YouTube in 2023. Last year, TikTok started letting people upload longer videos to be like YouTube.

This week, Netflix put something new in its phone app that is like TikTok. It shows you short videos that go down, and these videos are chosen for you based on what you like to watch.

In the trial, the U.S. government is trying to show that Meta broke the rules by buying Instagram and WhatsApp. They say Meta wanted to be the only big social media company. This paper could hurt their case because inside Meta, people were talking about how TikTok was doing much better than Facebook.

For example, Zuckerberg said that Facebook was still the biggest app because many people used it every day or week, but people did not spend the most time on it anymore.

He also said that TikTok makes people feel like they are part of the same group. If you and your friends like the same things, you will probably see the same videos on TikTok, he said.

The CEO said, "It's social because you can think your friends have seen something, so you don't need to send it to them. It would be good if we could do this with topics and other things on Facebook."

Other executives also shared their opinions.

Will Cathcart from WhatsApp said that if you comment on a video you like on TikTok, the app will show you and other people who commented the same videos later.

Stan Chudnovsky, who worked at Meta, said that Meta was now trying to do well in an area where many different companies were working. He also said that these companies were making it harder for Meta to grow.

He also said that just adding new things, like they did with Stories, is not enough now because people use many other apps, such as TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube.

John Hegeman, who worked with ads, said TikTok was very good at short videos and tools for making them. But he thought Meta could become as good if people who make videos also put them on Reels.

But he wasn't sure how far behind Meta was with the technology for making things. And the document shows that Meta thinks Facebook is not the strongest company in social media.

This paper is not the only one shown in court to prove Meta was worried about other companies. Zuckerberg also said last month that TikTok was dangerous for Meta and made it grow more slowly.