A new document from a lawsuit against Meta, released on Monday, shows that top people at Meta, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri, felt that TikTok was doing better than Meta in areas where Meta should have been good.

The document from February 2022 has talks between some Meta leaders about Facebook and Instagram's plans and their place in the market. In one message, Zuckerberg said Facebook is a "competitor" that has "lost popularity and speed." He also said that TikTok creates a "feeling of shared connection," where friends see the same popular videos and pictures.

Mosseri agreed that Facebook is now a competitor. He said it's not the main place people find things anymore. He thought YouTube might be the most popular place now, but that TikTok would probably become more popular than YouTube later, according to Meta's information.

Mosseri wrote, "The best way for Facebook to be different is to be the main place where people find new things. But it's interesting that TikTok is only video and is doing much better than us. I think they are making the social media market bigger and taking users from TV, long videos, and Netflix."

Mosseri was correct. One study showed that in 2021, people in the U.S. spent more time watching TikTok than YouTube on average. Another study in 2023 found that children aged 4 to 18 spent 60% more time on TikTok than YouTube. Last year, TikTok started allowing users to upload videos up to 60 minutes long, in an effort to compete with YouTube.

And this week, Netflix launched its own feature similar to TikTok in its mobile app, showing a new list of recommended videos that are personalized for each user.

However, in court, the U.S. government is trying to show that Meta broke competition rules by buying companies like Instagram and WhatsApp. They say Meta did this to create a social media monopoly.

For example, Zuckerberg said that even though Facebook was still the biggest app because many people used it every day or week, people were not spending the most time on it anymore.

He also said that TikTok helps people feel connected through shared interests. For example, if you and your friends like similar things, you will probably see the same content on TikTok, he explained.

"This makes it social because you don't need to send content to a friend; you can just assume they have seen it," the CEO explained. "If we could get to this point with topics and other content on Facebook, that would be great."

Other executives also added their opinions.

Will Cathcart, who is in charge of WhatsApp, said that when TikTok users comment on videos about a certain subject, the app will show them and others who commented more videos on that same subject over time.

Stan Chudnovsky, who was a Vice President and General Manager at Meta, said that Meta was now competing in a market with many different companies, and these companies were slowing down Meta's growth.

He said that just adding a new way to share things, like they did with Stories, isn't enough anymore. He added that people use many other social apps, such as TikTok and Twitter, which are popular in the U.S.

John Hegeman, who was in charge of ads, agreed that TikTok was clearly better at short videos, showing things well, and tools for making content. But he thought Meta could catch up if creators also posted their content on Reels.

However, he wasn't sure how far behind Meta was with the technology for machine learning and creating things. The document shows that Meta believes Facebook is not as strong as its rivals in the social media market.

This document, shown in court, is not the only one that shows Meta is worried about other companies like TikTok. Mark Zuckerberg also said last month that TikTok's success was a risk to Meta and made it grow more slowly.