Mark Zuckerberg face questions on pressuring competitors, like Snapchat

Mr. Zuckerberg in March of 2012, you suggested by email to your management team, that moving faster and copying other apps could quote, prevent our competitors from getting foot holes. Sheryl Sandberg responded that quote, It is better to do more and move faster, especially if that means you don't have competitors build products that takes some of our users. Facebook's Product Manager Management Director added that quote, I would love to be far more aggressive and nimble in copying competitors. Has Facebook ever taken steps to prevent cop competitors from getting footholds by copying competitors? Congresswoman, I view it as our job to understand what people are finding valuable In all of the services that they use. And certainly if someone else- Do you copy your competitors? Congresswoman, we've certainly adapted features that But others have leaden as have others copied and adapted features that we prevented.- I'm not concerned about others. I'm just asking you Mr. Zuckerberg. Since March of 2012. After that email conversation, how many competitors did Facebook end up copying? Congresswoman, I can't give you a number of companies is it less than five Congresswoman, I don't know. Less than 50? Any estimates, your team was making a plan. How did it play out? Congresswoman, I'm not sure I agree with the premise here. Our job is to make sure that we build the best services for people to connect with all the people they care about. A lot of that is done by innovating and by building new thing entirely. Thank you Mr. Zuckerberg. Let me go on. Has Facebook ever threatened to clone the products of another company while also attempting to acquire that company. Congresswoman, not that I recall. And I'd like to just remind you that you are under oath. And there are quotes from Facebook's own documents. Prior to acquiring Instagram, Facebook began developing a similar product called Facebook Camera, correct? Congressman, that's correct. I've said multiple times that we were competing in the space of building mobile cameras with Instagram. That's what they did at the time. Their competitive set was companies like What we were building with Facebook camera and disco cam and please say Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you Mr. Zuckerberg. Did you ever use this very similar Facebook camera product to threaten Instagrams founder Kevin systrom? Congressman, I'm not sure what you would mean by threatened. I think it was public that we were building A camera app at the time. That was a well documented thing. Let me tell you that Mr. In a chat you told Mr. Science term that Facebook was, quote, developing our own photo strategy. So how we engage now will also determine how much we're partners versus competitors. Down the line Instagrams founder seemed to think that was a threat he confided in an investor at the time that he feared that you would go into quote, destroy mode if he didn't sell Instagram to you. So let's just recap Facebook cloned a popular product. Approach the company you identified as a competitive threat and told them that if they didn't let you buy them up, there would be consequences. Were there any other companies that you use the same tactic with while attempting to buy them? Congresswoman, I wanna respectfully disagree with the characterization, I think it was clear that this was a space that we were going to. Compete in one way or another. I don't view those conversations as a threat in any way, I was shocked to figure out,- I'm just using the documents and the testimony that the committee has collected from others. Did you warn Evan Spiegel, the founder of Snapchat that Facebook was in the process of cloning the features of his company, while also attempting to buy Snapchat? Congresswoman I don't remember those specific conversations but that was also an area where was very clear that we were going to be building something. If people want to be able to communicate privately, they want to be able to communicate with all their friends at once. And we're going to make sure that we build the best products and all of the spaces that That we can around helping people stay connected with the people they care about. I appreciate that Mr. Zuckerberg. I think the question again here is when the dominant platform threatens his potential rivals, that should not be a normal business practice. Facebook is a case study, in my opinion in monopoly power because your company harvests And monetizes our data. And then your company uses that data to spy on competitors and to copy, acquire and kill rivals. You've used Facebook's power to threaten smaller competitors and to ensure that you always get your way these tactics reinforce Facebook's dominance, which you then use in increasingly destructive ways. So. Facebook's very model makes it impossible for new companies to flourish separately. And that harms our democracy, it harms mom and pop businesses and it harms consumers. Mr. Chairman, I yield back