Meta Lawyers Try to Undercut Instagram Co-Founder’s Damaging Testimony

Lawyers for Meta sought to discredit Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom during cross-examination Tuesday, after Systrom’s direct testimony painted a picture of a conflicted Mark Zuckerberg under-investing in the photo-sharing app over fears it would cannibalize Facebook traffic.

Attorney Kevin Huff showed Systrom a 2012 email he sent to Zuckerberg in which he credited cross-posting photos to Facebook for Instagram’s success. Systrom had previously said the effect largely ran the other way. “We helped Facebook make their app more engaging by posting photos over to them,” he said, according to the Verge live blog of the trial. Huff then showed a 2012 email Systrom sent Zuckerberg crediting the Facebook cross-posting for Instagram’s success and asked Systrom whether he had been lying in the email. Systrom answer simply, “sir.”

Huff also sought to challenge Systrom’s claim that Meta did little to help Instagram grow following the acquisition and may even have slowed it down. While some things Meta provided benefited Instagram, there were other “parts that were more challenging,” Systrom said. “It was a mixed bag.” He acknowledged that working with Meta’s growth team was helpful “if you could work with them.” But he reiterated his claim during direct that the team members assigned to Instagram were pulled and reassigned without warning.

Systrom also largely deflected Huff’s efforts to suggest the Instagram founder was merely speculating in claiming Instagram could have grown sizable without the help of Meta.

Read more: Instagram Co-Founder Claims Zuckerberg Starved It of Resources After Acquisition

“You deal in a world of probabilities,” Systrom said. “You can never be sure.”

Systrom was followed on the stand Wednesday morning by Dirk Stoop, former product manager for the Facebook Camera app, which ultimately was folded following the Instagram acquisition. FTC attorneys sought to suggest that Meta viewed Facebook Camera as a competitor to Instagram and was actively working to fix problems with the app right up until the Instagram acquisition. They presented notes written by Stoop to his team summarizing Zuckerberg’s feedback as, “Instagram is growing quickly,” so getting Facebook Camera “out the door fast is a huge priority.”

Under cross examination, however, Stoop claimed Facebook Camera has not shut down as a result of the acquisition, and that he and his team continued working on the app after the deal was final, and even saw it grow from 10-15 people to 40-50 over time. Instagram and Facebook Camera had different distribution models and different target audiences, he said, as Camera had no public follow feature at the time and was designed largely for sharing photos with friends, whereas Instagram allowed users to follow people that were not part of their network.

Source: The Verge