Facebook Internal Memo on Rivals Undercuts Antitrust Defense (1)

Facebook’s parent company insists that its social-networking and messaging services have dozens of outside rivals, but an internal memo reveals that Meta Platforms Inc.’s top executives were more worried about the threat posed by its own products.

The memo, written in October 2018 for Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and other executives, maps out the company’s growth strategies. It outlines ways to prevent Instagram and WhatsApp, acquired by Facebook in 2012 and 2014 respectively, from cannibalizing Facebook’s trajectory.

The memo figured prominently in a congressional inquiry into competitive practices across the technology industry that focused on some of the ...