The reason Mark Zuckerberg came up with this crazy idea is extremely unexpected.

According to BI, in 2022, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg once came up with a “crazy idea”: Wipe out the friend list of all Facebook users.

This information was revealed this Monday, when the US government brought Zuckerberg as a witness in a landmark antitrust trial – which could lead to the social media empire being torn apart.

In an internal email to Facebook’s senior leadership in 2022, in response to concerns that Facebook was losing its cultural appeal, Zuckerberg proposed a bold idea.

“Option 1: Enhance the friend feature,” Zuckerberg wrote in an email released by the government when he testified. “One idea that might be a little crazy is to delete the entire user’s friendship graph and let them start over.”

The term “graph” here refers to a user’s network of friends on Facebook.

Tom Alison, the head of Facebook at the time, responded with hesitation: “I’m not sure if Option 1 (increasing friends) in your proposal is feasible, based on my understanding of how important the friend feature is to Instagram,” Alison wrote.

Zuckerberg then responded that he didn’t understand Alison’s concerns, and offered another idea: “Do you know how much work it will take to convert user profiles to a follow model?” Zuckerberg asked in a response email.

When the idea was reiterated during questioning by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) lawyer, Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook never carried out that extreme plan.

“As far as I remember, we never did that,” said Zuckerberg, who wore a suit and tie during a trial in federal court in Washington.

During Monday’s hour-long hearing, Zuckerberg asserted that Facebook has changed a lot since he founded the platform more than 20 years ago, and that its main goal is no longer the connection of friends as it once was.

The FTC argues that Meta has a monopoly in the market for apps that share content with friends and family.

“The friends feature has decreased significantly,” Zuckerberg admitted. Facebook’s feed “has now become a vast space for discovery and entertainment.”

Zuckerberg was the first witness to be called after the trial began on Monday. He is expected to be questioned for up to 7 hours.

The FTC alleges that Meta (formerly Facebook) violated U.S. competition laws by acquiring Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014.

According to the agency, the $1 billion purchase of Instagram and $19 billion of WhatsApp is aimed at eliminating competitors and dominating the social media sector. The US government alleges that this is part of Meta’s “buy or bury” strategy to maintain its dominant position in the market.

The FTC cited in court filings that Meta maintains its monopoly position “primarily through the pursuit of the strategy that Zuckerberg presented in an internal email in 2008,” in which he wrote: “It’s better to buy than to compete.”

“Meta has over the years made huge economic gains, far beyond what can be seen in a truly competitive environment,” FTC attorney Daniel Matheson said in the opening of the trial.

Meanwhile, lawyer Mark Hansen, representing Meta, countered that the FTC’s lawsuit is just a “loose collection of theories, which are both contrary to reality and contrary to the law”. He criticized the lawsuit as “misguided”, and insisted that the acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp did not violate the law. According to him, Meta is not a monopoly, as the company is facing stiff competition with rivals such as TikTok and YouTube.

This trial is considered one of the most influential antitrust lawsuits in recent years. If the FTC wins the lawsuit, Meta could be forced to sell WhatsApp and Instagram.

The trial is expected to last up to 8 weeks. Judge James Boasberg will be the only one to make the final verdict, as the case has no jury.