Meta Didn’t See TikTok as ‘Social’ Enough to Compete With: Zuckerberg

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees in an all-hands meeting on Thursday that the company couldn’t react to TikTok’s meteoric rise in time because they didn’t see the Chinese video-sharing platform as “social” enough (via Business Insider).

“When I look back on TikTok, I think part of the reason why we were slow to it is because we didn’t think TikTok was social,” Zuckerberg said in a leaked recording of the company-wide meeting. “We looked at it and we thought, ‘Oh, this is like, a little more like YouTube.'”

The Zuck addressed recent policy changes at Meta in the meeting and said employees should “buckle up” for an “intense” year ahead. During the company’s quarterly earnings call earlier this week, Zuckerberg told investors that bringing back “OG Facebook” will be a major focus this year.

Zuckerberg acknowledged Meta was slow to get in the ring with TikTok after an employee asked if Meta’s current AI push could lead the company to miss out on the next social media trend, much like it did with the Chinese platform.

According to Zuckerberg, Meta’s “narrow” view of social interaction, friends posting content on their feeds and interacting in the comments, initially obscured TikTok’s appeal. He explained that TikTok encourages social interaction, with users sharing stuff they see in their feed with friends in private messages — even on Meta platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger.

Zuckerberg also commented on TikTok’s unclear future in the U.S., calling it an “important” competitor. “So, who’s gonna own Tiktok at the end of the year? What’s gonna happen? I mean, that’s a pretty big deal, something that’s a card that we get to turn over,” he said.

An executive order from U.S. President Donald Trump following his inauguration gave TikTok a 75-day breather before its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, has to either divest its U.S. operations or face a ban.

Zuckerberg noted in the meeting that Meta would have to balance its social media business and AI ambitions moving forward, talking about plans for AI agents that people can interact with and other AI-powered features for Facebook, Instagram, and beyond. “If we can’t build Facebook and [the] next platform at the same time, then, like, eventually game over,” he said.