The Meta monopoly trial has raised a question that Meta hopes the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can't effectively answer: How important is it to use social media to connect with friends and family today? Connecting with friends was, of course, Facebook's primary use case as it became the rare social network to hit 1 billion users—not by being acquired by a Big Tech company but based on the strength of its clean interface and the network effects that kept users locked in simply because all the important people in their...

Instagram on Thursday announced that it’s rolling out Blend, a new feature that lets you create a custom, personalized reels feed for you and your friends. Blends are invite-only and can be created with a singular friend or with a group chat. The custom feeds are refreshed with new content each day. The launch doesn’t come as a surprise, as TechCrunch reported in March 2024 that the social network was developing the feature. Once you join or accept a Blend invite, you will be able to browse through reels picked...

After taking their financial windfall and renting out a McMansion they could never afford otherwise, reportedly buying a new car, and going on an online shopping spree, they’re now selling merchandise with the teen killer’s image and setting up a website where you can no doubt continue to financially support the Anthony family as they live out their ghetto rags-to-riches lifestyle: Here’s a little “hypothetical” foreshadowing for you: In the not too distant future, “Melo’s” family will be at each other’s throats, bashing in each other’s heads with metal pipes...

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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) grilled Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday over dozens of emails and messages he exchanged with other executives in the lead-up to the social media giant’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. Zuckerberg took to the stand for a second day at trial, where the FTC is attempting to show Meta bought Instagram and WhatsApp to eliminate competitors that could have threatened its alleged monopoly in the social networking space. Daniel Matheson, the FTC’s lead attorney, presented the Meta CEO with email after email, pressing him...

Mark Zuckerberg considered spinning off Instagram into a separate company in 2018 as he increasingly became concerned that the photo and video app’s success was hurting the Facebook social network.

Zuckerberg, who is testifying for the second straight day in the US Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust trial, wondered whether Meta Platforms Inc., then known as Facebook Inc., “should consider the extreme step of spinning Instagram out as a separate company.”

Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg conceded Tuesday that he bought Instagram because it was “better” than Facebook’s own camera app – a potentially major admission on the second day of the FTC’s landmark trial to break up the social media giant. Zuckerberg returned to the stand in US District Court in Washington, DC, where FTC attorneys focused on smoking-gun emails from Zuckerberg to his Facebook underlings around the time of the 2012 acquisition of Instagram. When pressed on whether he was concerned that Instagram’s growth posed a threat, Zuckerberg admitted he felt...