Today’s Binary Response article is in response to this article published by Tech Crunch earlier this week about the Facebook Antitrust Trial in the United States.
As a Millennial like Mark Zuckerberg, I have to say I mostly agree with the points he made in those uncovered emails that TechCrunch reported on. There’s something kind of refreshing about reading parts of internal messages that echo what a lot of us long-time Facebook users have likely been thinking for years. The part about making people re-follow their friends really hit home. That would be a disaster. It’s already hard enough to keep people engaged on Facebook, especially those of us who’ve been on the platform for over a decade. If the company suddenly forces everyone to re-follow people they were already connected with, a ton of users would just thrown in the towel and deleted their accounts altogether. That kind of friction is exactly what drives people away, especially when there are so many other platforms that make staying connected feel seamless.
The same goes for pages. I liked many pages over the years—bands, sports teams, local businesses, nonprofit causes—and if I suddenly had to start all over and re-follow them, I honestly wouldn’t even bother. Converting those likes into follows makes way more sense. It’s not just about data—it’s about honoring the history people have with the platform. A like isn’t just a digital thumbs-up. It’s a record of what you’ve cared about, who you’ve supported, and what content you’ve wanted to see. For Facebook to wipe all that out and ask people to manually rebuild those preferences would’ve been a huge mistake.
The bigger conversation at hand right now is the Department of Justice accusing Facebook of being a monopoly. The Antitrust lawsuit is what caused the emails which were uncovered and discussed in Tech Crunch’s article. I understand the concern about big tech companies having too much power, but it feels disingenuous when the same government that approved the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp back in the day is now trying to walk it back. Those buyouts were heavily scrutinized at the time, and the FTC gave them the green light anyways. It’s kind of like letting someone buy a house and then trying to take the deed away ten years later because the neighborhood changed. You can’t rewrite history just because public sentiment shifted or newer platforms started gaining traction. Facebook didn’t become a dominant force overnight, and it didn’t keep users by accident. It made strategic moves that were legal and approved.
What stood out most was how aware Zuckerberg actually is of Facebook’s challenges in staying relevant, especially with younger generations. He doesn’t sound out of touch—he sounds like someone who knows the stakes. As someone who’s grown up alongside Facebook, I appreciated that level of honesty. Whether or not you like Meta/Facebook or how it’s evolved, it’s clear the company isn’t just coasting. It’s grappling with real cultural shifts and trying to make decisions without totally alienating the people who built the platform in the first place.
When you use them the question becomes: Should you root for them or regulators?