Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, says users are sharing less with friends on Facebook and Instagram, The Information reports. 

These comments came as part of Meta’s defense in an FTC antitrust case over Meta’s past acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp. The FTC argues Meta bought Instagram and WhatsApp to kill off potential rivals and maintain a monopoly in the personal social networking space. 

Meta, in response, is leaning hard on the idea that Facebook and Instagram aren’t primarily social networks anymore. Instead, they claim, both platforms are competing with entertainment-first apps like TikTok and YouTube. 

Zuckerberg argued that the amount of users are spending on these platforms has “gone down meaningfully.” He pointed to a core shift in how people use Facebook and Instagram: the “friend” part of friend sharing is fading fast. “The friend part has gone down quite a bit,” Zuckerberg said during the trial. He described Facebook today as “more of a broad discovery and entertainment space,” not the friend-sharing network it was built to be.

Users are spending less time with content shared on Facebook and Instagram

Meta backed up its argument with internal data shared during the trial. One slide from the company’s opening presentation showed a clear downward trend. According to the data, only 17% of the time people spend on Facebook is now with content from friends, down from 22% in 2023. On Instagram, only 7% of content viewed comes from friends, compared to 11% in 2023.  Meta described this change plainly in its internal slide deck: “Broadcast ‘Friends’ Sharing Decline Has Continued.”

Another internal document from 2022 highlighted that “friending and friend sharing are losing steam.” When FTC lawyers brought this up, Zuckerberg confirmed, “The amount that people are sharing with friends on Facebook, especially, has been declining. Even the amount of new friends that people add … I think has been declining. But I don’t know the exact numbers.”

Messaging is replacing the feed

According to Meta, it’s not just the content from friends that’s disappearing. The very behavior of sharing publicly is shifting. Zuckerberg argued that while public posts are down, messaging is booming.

“Messaging has been growing dramatically,” he said. And this growth isn’t just among teens or niche users. It’s now the default way people share. Whether it’s memes, news links, or family photos, more of it is going to private chats not public feeds.

Instagram Head, Adam Mosseri backed this up in an internal quote shown during Meta’s court defense: “I think [Instagram]’s more of a messaging app than a broadcast-sharing app at this point.”

Meta says it’s just like YouTube and TikTok

Meta is arguing that it doesn’t dominate social networking in the traditional sense anymore. The platform says that its real competitors aren’t MeWe or Snapchat. It claims that Instagram and Facebook are more like entertainment platforms, competing for attention with TikTok, YouTube, and others.

‍