Instagram (IG) Chief Adam Mosseri has laid out his defense regarding the possible breaking the firm off from Facebook, IG's parent company. He noted that the photo-sharing app's security could be sacrificed if the U.S. government pushes through with its plans.
During the Code Conference on Monday, Mosseri said breaking up IG's links with Facebook would make it harder to keep Instagram a safe place for social media users, Vox reported. Mosseri believes there are other less impactful on Instagram and its users.
Mosseri explained that Facebook's integrity team is bigger than that of IG and if a break up takes place, Instagram would lose the high level of security that Facebook's moderation team offers.
Ever since the Justice Department revealed that it could potentially look into big tech practices for potential manipulation and anti-trust violations, some politicians laid out the idea of breaking up Facebook and releasing Instagram from Mark Zuckerberg's company.
The Federal Trade Commission has reportedly been tasked with implementing an investigation on the social media platform's practices. Some analysts noted that Instagram could be dragged into the probe as well.
On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump dropped comments about big tech companies such as Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Apple discriminating against his decisions. He further accused tech companies to be working secretly with Democrats.
In an interview with CNBC's Squawk Box, Trump noted that U.S. tech giants exemplified collusion with the Democratic party "because they were so against during my election run."
While Trump seemed to back big tech companies that were being fined by the European Commission, he quickly clarified that investigations into potential anti-trust violations by American tech firms were necessary.
Despite his criticism of potential competition violations by U.S. big tech firms, he seemed to praise them in the long run, stating that technology in the country would soon be on the lead "very shortly," specifically in 5G.
Meanwhile, some industry analysts urged Facebook investors to stop worrying about the potential probe that could break up the company. Shares have been declining ever since news of the investigations dropped, hinting about anxiousness among investors.
However, analysts believe that it will be hard for the FTC to prove that the social media giant violated any competition laws and it monopolized the tech industry at some point because Facebook still has a lot of competition both locally and globally.
Industry experts further noted that generation preferences vary, with most social media users still ranking Snapchat as their top social media site. The journey towards breaking up Facebook may be long and arduous, some analysts said.
