An X Corp. executive tasked with combating misleading information across the platform pushed back against cross-examination today from Meta Platforms, which is fighting a US Federal Trade Commission break-up bid in Washington DC federal court.
An X Corp. executive tasked with combating misleading information across the platform pushed back against cross-examination today from Meta Platforms, which is fighting a US Federal Trade Commission break-up bid in Washington DC federal court.US District Judge James Boasberg could be seen briefly raising his brow in surprise as Meta attorney Michael Scheinkman’s cross-examination of X Vice President of Product Keith Coleman got off to a bumpy start this morning.
“I don’t know who wrote that,” Coleman responded after being presented with an entry on X’s Help Center webpage that described the platform as “A service for friends, family and coworkers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages.”
Twitter rebranded as X in July of 2023, an effort that involved the company’s engineers simply replacing “Twitter” with “X” on many of the app’s webpages, Coleman testified.
“I can’t believe that’s on the website,” Coleman said, calling the statement a “pretty wacky” description more reminiscent of a “LinkedIn plus Facebook mash-up” than an accurate reflection of what X is all about.
The similarities and differences between Meta’s family of apps and other digital platforms like X represent a key battlefield in the case as the FTC and Meta vie to put forward differing market definitions that could make or break the agency’s monopolization suit (see here).
During Scheinkman’s cross-examination of Coleman today, the former Googler and social media start-up entrepreneur acknowledged overlaps between X and Meta’s app features, user bases and vectors of competition when presented with internal Twitter user surveys, securities filings and competitive analyses.
But he also consistently pushed back on key ideas that Meta has promoted throughout its defense against allegations it has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act through illegal maintenance of a monopoly over the market for personal social networking services.
Coleman also discussed his role spearheading developing the “Community Notes” feature on X, which crowdsources input from the platform’s users to vet the accuracy of content and provide additional context on posts.
The X executive acknowledged his prior public praise for Meta’s adoption of a similar feature, testifying that moves in a similar direction from TikTok and YouTube suggest the recent development of something akin to an “industry standard.”
During a discussion about X’s focus on developing an “interest-based network,” FTC attorney Albert Teng asked Coleman whether two apps can have similar features but different core use cases.
“Definitely,” he responded.
— Friends and family —
Coleman’s incredulity about the purpose of X, as described on the website, struck at a key claim from Meta, which is that Facebook, Instagram and Snap are not the only digital platforms providing the ability for users to cultivate real-life connections with friends and family.
“I don’t think this is how most people would describe this service,” Coleman said when pushing back on Schenkman’s reference to a description on X’s website of the platform as a place focused on connecting friends, family and coworkers.
When presented with an internal branding survey conducted by Twitter in 2015 in which users largely described their view of the app as a “social network best for connecting with family and friends,” Coleman suggested the results could reflect a “misunderstanding.”
“This generally is not what the product is primarily used for,” Coleman testified, adding that the survey predated a strong push at the company to “clarify the benefit of the product.”
X’s “core use case,” according to Coleman, was for users to “see what’s happening in the world and talk about it.”
He cited news, sports and entertainment as the top three interests users follow, and testified that users predominantly use pseudonyms to communicate with others whom they do not know in real life.
Coleman acknowledged under cross examination that Meta’s Threads product is “basically like Twitter” and intends to “be more of a direct substitute.”
The “heart” of Facebook, on the other hand, is “seeing what your friends and family are doing,” he said, adding that “everything else has grown out from that.”
“While people certainly follow friends and family on Twitter, we have primarily focused on developing an interest-based network,” according to an internal company document discussing the mission, organization and strategy of X’s corporate development team that was not shown to the public.
Coleman was also presented with a 2018 email from then-Chief Executive Jack Dorsey responding to a list of questions posed by company employees.
One questioner asked Dorsey how the company should highlight its differentiation from Facebook following a new user-interface proposal that included a conversations feature resembling Facebook.
Among the “biggest differentiators” between Twitter and Facebook, Dorsey responded, were a reliance on an “event/topic/interest graph” instead of a “pre-existing social graph,” and the public, open, fluid and fast-moving conversations occurring on the platform.
The concept of a social graph, which broadly describes a model mapping the personal relationships among people, has featured prominently during the trial alongside other types of graphs structured around interests, content or other elements.
Another employee questioner asked Dorsey whether Twitter should strive to serve personal social networking needs while facilitating public conversations.
“Yes but we have to pick one to optimize for,” Dorsey responded. “There’s already a service out there that does personal network well, so let’s focus on our strength of interest network.”
Part of Dorsey’s decision to classify Twitter under the “News” category in Apple’s App Store after returning to lead the company in 2015, according to Coleman, was that the company was trying to focus on what the app was good at, “which is basically news.”
— Time and attention —
Another throughline of dispute in the case is how competition for any given online user’s time and attention should factor into determining whether Meta has monopoly power.
By focusing on a broader universe of potential competitive pressures on the corporate parent of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, Meta seeks to expand the relevant antitrust market in the case to a point where the FTC’s claims of monopoly power falter.
Coleman testified today, however, that “it’s really hard to make your product better if you’re thinking about competing for attention.”
Instead of worrying about television, screaming children or the “infinite list of things” that could snatch a person’s attention away from X’s platform, Coleman advocated for identifying the reason people come to the platform and improving its ability to perform the “job” that helps them accomplish something in their lives.
Coleman was also asked about a screen-shotted advertisement on Twitter telling users, “Your time is worth more than this ad” and encouraging them to consider going “ ad-free right now” by enrolling in a premium subscription.
During cross, Coleman was asked about an internal Twitter report from 2021 that found “customers shifting their attention to entertainment-focused competitor products like Tiktok and Youtube” during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Teng followed up on redirect by asking Coleman about the 2020 global pandemic’s impact on users’ behavior.
Consumer behavior shifted significantly over that period “because of what life was like,” he responded, adding that some of those changes “could have sustained or changed thereafter.”
One of the key takeaways from a separate “competitive earnings analysis” from 2022 found “Competitors such as TikTok negatively impacting growth,” particularly with a younger audience.
Coleman testified that “people can spend their time on anything,” adding that he didn’t know “where this analysis came from.”
Today’s proceedings also included testimony from Mateo Ortega, who ended his 13-year run at the fitness app Strava in 2024 as a vice president for connected partnerships.
Strava’s core use cases revolve around providing record-keeping, motivation and community for athletes, Ortega said.
The platform isn’t a social network and only once studied the amount of time spent on the app as part of a marketing effort, he testified.
Asked why “time spent” was not a metric Strava usually tracked, Ortega responded that the company has been more interested in what users did rather than the time they spent doing it.
Meta Attorney Hannah DePalo wrapped up her cross examination of Ortega in about a minute, receiving affirmative responses to questions about whether Strava competes with Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter for workout-related content.
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