The CEOs of Facebook, Apple, Google and Amazon have defended their respective positions in the global market ahead of the historic testimony before the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee on Wednesday.
The US panel grilled Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai together over the dominance in their fields of e-retail, smartphone software, social media and Search, respectively.
The Facebook honcho testified via video link to lawmakers in Washington, DC.
However, a viral video from the testimony shows Mark munching on some grapes. Have a look.
One user wrote, "I aspire to have the amount of money that makes me this carefree."
Another commented, "Why are his eyes overly bloodshot???? Abating the possibility of drugs, He looks creepy as hell."
Here are some more reactions.
Zuckerberg defended Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp in his prepared remarks.
"Facebook has made Instagram and WhatsApp successful as part of our family of apps," Zuckerberg wrote.
"Instagram and WhatsApp have been able to grow and operate their services using Facebook's bespoke, lower-cost infrastructure and tackle spam and harmful content with Facebook's integrity teams and technology".
Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014.
"We have developed new products for Instagram and WhatsApp, and we have learned from those companies to bring new ideas to Facebook. The end result is better services that provide more value to people and advertisers, which is a core goal of Facebook's acquisition strategy," defended Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg faced fire over the company's acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp, a pervasive strategy of copying competitors' features, selling user data to third parties and the forest fire analogy of how fake news and conspiracy theories go wild on the mighty platform.
In his responses, Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook has "certainly adapted features that others have led in" but countered that the company's moves were not anti-competitive.
"I have always been clear that we viewed Instagram as both a competitor and as a complement to our services," Zuckerberg said.
