Instagram Keeps Highlighting the TikTok Threat

A central tenet of the government's antitrust case against Meta Platforms is that its 2012 Instagram acquisition crushed competition and left consumers with too few social networking options—just Snapchat, Facebook and a few others. Meta has argued that it actually competes with many more, notably TikTok. 

To buttress its argument, Instagram head Adam Mosseri on Thursday trotted out statistics to illustrate the seismic shock TikTok made when the app formerly known as Musical.ly hit smartphone users with its short, vertical videos and addictive algorithm.