Instagram's 'really scary' rise and 'Google threat': When Mark Zuckerberg warned Facebook staff in an internal email

Mark Zuckerberg sent an email to colleagues at Facebook in 2011 warning them about the meteoric rise of Instagram in the app’s early days. The email, which emerged as a key piece of evidence in the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) antitrust trial against Meta, revealed Zuckerberg's apprehension about Instagram’s rising threat to Facebook’s dominance in the mobile photo-sharing market .

The FTC argues that Meta’s acquisition of Instagram, along with WhatsApp, was not a strategic business move but a calculated attempt to eliminate potential competition.

“We really need to get our act together quickly on this since Instagram’s growing so fast,” Zuckerberg wrote in an internal email that was shown to the court, as per The Verge. Meta acquired Instagram in 2012.

To bolster this claim, the FTC presented another internal communication where Zuckerberg expressed alarm at Instagram’s swift ascent.

“In the time it has taken us to get our act together on this, Instagram has become a large and viable competitor to us on mobile photos, which will increasingly be the future of photos,” Zuckerberg wrote to Facebook executives, highlighting the company's struggles to develop its own competing app, Facebook Camera.

Zuckerberg was frustrated and issued a Google warning
The email further revealed Zuckerberg's frustration with the slow progress of Facebook Camera, describing team members as “checked out”.

However, during his testimony, Zuckerberg attempted to downplay the threat Instagram posed at the time, stating, “Yeah, of course,” when asked if the apps were competing, but added, “Was that the main thing that was going on? Not to my recollection.”

In a separate email, Zuckerberg also warned of the potential consequences if Instagram continued its trajectory or was acquired by a rival like Google.

“If Instagram continues to kick ass on mobile or if Google buys them, then over the next few years they could easily add pieces of their service that copy what we’re doing now,” he reportedly said in the email.