According to a recent filing in the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's antitrust lawsuit against Meta, executives including CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri perceived TikTok as outperforming Meta in its own domain.

The document, originating from February 2022, contains exchanges between several Meta executives who deliberated on the strategic direction and market standing of Facebook and Instagram. In one message, Zuckerberg characterised Facebook as a "challenger" that had "forfeited its influence and traction," while also noting that TikTok fosters a "sense of collective awareness" by enabling friends to encounter identical memes.

Mosseri also agreed that Facebook is now more of a competitor, saying it's not the main way people find things anymore. He thought YouTube might be the main way now, but he expected TikTok to become more popular than YouTube eventually, based on the information Meta had.

Mosseri suggested that Facebook's most logical strategy for distinction would be to serve as the primary platform for content discovery, but he found it noteworthy that TikTok, being entirely video-based, was significantly outperforming them. He speculated that TikTok was expanding the social mobile market and simultaneously taking market share from television, long-form video, and services like Netflix.

Findings support Mosseri's assertion that TikTok surpassed YouTube in the US regarding average viewing duration in 2021, according to one study; a separate analysis by parental control software provider Qustodio revealed that children aged four to 18 dedicated 60% more time to TikTok than YouTube in 2023, prompting TikTok to introduce 60-minute upload capabilities last year in a bid to compete with YouTube.

Earlier this week, Netflix unveiled a vertical video feed within its mobile application, reminiscent of TikTok, showcasing personalized recommendations tailored to individual user preferences.

However, during the trial, the U.S. government is seeking to demonstrate that Meta infringed upon competition legislation by acquiring companies such as Instagram and WhatsApp with the aim of establishing a social networking monopoly. A document of this nature could undermine their case, considering that, internally, Meta executives were discussing the extent to which Facebook was being surpassed by TikTok.

For instance, Zuckerberg pointed out that even if Facebook continued to be the most popular application in terms of daily or weekly active users, it had ceased to be the leading app measured by time spent.

He further posited that TikTok cultivates a sense of shared context, explaining that individuals with overlapping interests are likely to encounter similar content within their respective feeds.

This makes it naturally social because instead of needing to send something to a friend, you can just think they've already seen it," the CEO said. "If we could get to this level with topics and different content on Facebook, that would be really good."

Several other executives also interjected their perspectives.

Will Cathcart, Head of WhatsApp, observed that TikTok users commenting within a specific niche could cause the algorithm to progressively present them and other commenters with the same videos.

Stan Chudnovsky, who was a Vice President and General Manager at Meta at the time, said that Meta had started to compete in an area that had become very fragmented, with many companies affecting their growth.

Simply adding a new format, like we did with Stories, is no longer enough. There are too many other places for people to spend their time, he added, mentioning popular social apps in the U.S. such as TikTok, Twitter, iMessage, Snap, YouTube, Reddit, and Discord.

John Hegeman, who was the VP of ads at the time and is now the chief revenue officer, agreed that TikTok was clearly better in areas like short videos, how they rank content, and tools for making videos. However, he thought Meta could become as good by getting creators to also share their videos on Reels.

Nevertheless, he expressed reservations regarding the extent of Meta's lag in machine learning, technical capabilities, and creative tools. The document implies that Meta perceives Facebook as disadvantaged within the social media landscape.

This document is not the only one that has appeared during the trial to show that Meta is worried about competition. Zuckerberg himself said last month that TikTok's success was a risk to Meta's business and had made it grow more slowly.