According to a new court paper, Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta leaders thought that TikTok was doing better than Meta in some ways.

A document from February 2022 shows discussions between some Meta leaders about the plans and market position of Facebook and Instagram. In one message, Zuckerberg said Facebook was a competitor that had "lost public interest and energy." He also said that TikTok creates a "sense of connection" because friends share the same jokes and trends.

Mosseri agreed that Facebook is now a competitor and not the main way people find things. He thought YouTube might be the most popular place for finding things now, but he expected TikTok to become more popular than YouTube later, based on Meta's data.

Mosseri wrote that Facebook's best plan is to be the main place where people find new things. But he said it's strange that TikTok, which only has videos, is doing much better than Facebook. He thought TikTok is making the social mobile market bigger and also taking users from TV, long videos, and Netflix.

Mosseri was correct. Research showed that in 2021, people in the U.S. spent more time watching TikTok than YouTube on average. Another study found that in 2023, young people aged four to eighteen spent 60% more time on TikTok than YouTube. To compete with YouTube, TikTok started allowing users to upload videos up to 60 minutes long last year.

And just this week, Netflix started a new feature in its phone app that is similar to TikTok. It shows recommended videos in a vertical style, specially chosen for each user.

However, in the trial, the U.S. government is trying to show that Meta broke competition rules by buying companies like Instagram and WhatsApp to control social networking. A document like this could hurt their case, especially because Meta leaders were talking to each other about how much better TikTok was doing compared to Facebook.

For example, Zuckerberg said that even though Facebook still had the most daily or weekly users, people were not spending the most time on it anymore.

He also noted that TikTok can give people a feeling of shared experience. This means if you and your friends like the same things, you will probably see the same content in your TikTok feed, he explained.

This makes it social because you don't need to send things to friends; you can just assume they have seen it. The CEO said that if they could reach this level with topics and information on FB that is not connected, it would be good.

Other executives also contributed their perspectives.

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

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 this was affecting their growth.

He said that just adding something new, like Stories, is not enough now because people use many other apps, like TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube, which are popular in the U.S.

John Hegeman, who was in charge of ads and is now the main person for making money, agreed that TikTok was clearly better at things like short videos, showing them to people, and giving tools to make them. But, he thought Meta could become as good if people who make videos also put them on Reels.

However, he wasn't as sure how far behind Meta was with technology like machine learning and tools for making things. The document shows that Meta thinks Facebook is not the strongest company in the social media market.

Other documents in the trial also showed Meta was afraid of competition. Zuckerberg also said last month that TikTok's success was a risk to Meta and had slowed its growth.