Mark Zuckerberg and other people at Meta thought TikTok was doing better than Meta.

The paper from February 2022 has talks between some bosses at Meta. They talked about what Facebook and Instagram should do and how popular they are. In one message, Zuckerberg said Facebook is like a new company that is not the most popular anymore. He also said that TikTok makes friends feel connected because they see the same popular funny pictures and videos.

Mosseri said Facebook is not the main way people find things anymore. He thinks YouTube might be, but he believes TikTok will be bigger than YouTube later because Meta has information.

Mosseri said Facebook should be the main place where people find new things. But it's strange that TikTok, which only has videos, is doing much better than Facebook. He thinks TikTok is making the mobile market bigger and also taking people away from TV and Netflix.

Mosseri was right. In 2021, a study found that people in the U.S. watched TikTok more than YouTube. Also, a study in 2023 showed that young people used TikTok much more than YouTube. Last year, TikTok started letting users upload videos up to 60 minutes long, just like YouTube.

This week, Netflix introduced a new feature in its mobile app that is similar to TikTok. It offers a vertical video feed of recommended videos, which are personalized for each user.

In the court case, the U.S. government is trying to show that Meta broke the rules. They say Meta bought companies like Instagram and WhatsApp so they could be the only big social media company. This paper could hurt their case because Meta's own leaders said TikTok was doing much better than Facebook.

For example, Zuckerberg said that Facebook had the most users every day or week, but people didn't spend as much time on it as on other apps.

He also said that TikTok helps people feel connected. If you and your friends like the same things, you will probably see the same things on TikTok, he explained.

This makes it social because you don't need to send things to friends. You can think they have already seen them, the CEO said. If we could do this with topics and other things on Facebook, it would be good.

Other executives also shared their opinions.

Will Cathcart from WhatsApp said that if you comment on TikTok videos you like, the app will show you and other people who comment similar videos.

Stan Chudnovsky, who worked at Meta, said that Meta was now trying to grow in an area where many small companies were taking some of their business.

He said that just adding a new format is not enough now. People can use many other social apps like TikTok, Twitter, iMessage, Snap, YouTube, Reddit, and Discord.

John Hegeman, who worked with ads, said TikTok was very good at making short videos and tools. He thought Meta could be as good if people also put their videos on Reels.

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

This paper is one of many that came out during the court case. They show that Meta was afraid of other companies.