Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel encouraged antitrust regulators to strike a balance in their approach to probing big tech that will enable companies to continue to invest in innovation.
"These large tech companies have become so important to our national security, to innovation, because they’re investing a huge amount of money in the future ... we need big technology companies to be able to continue to invest these sorts of innovations," Spiegel said at an industry event in Washington, D.C. "At the same time, we have to find a way for small companies [and] entrepreneurs to be able to build their businesses and compete fairly with those large businesses."
He added that he does not "envy the challenge the regulators are facing, because we're going to have to find a way to make it work for everyone."
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Spiegel also confirmed a Sept. 24 report in The Wall Street Journal that said Snap has been documenting internally what it believes to be anticompetitive behavior from competitor Facebook Inc.
He said the company had heard so many stories in the past few years about Snapchat content being suppressed on Facebook and Instagram LLC, which is owned by Facebook, that it decided it was best to collect it all in one place.
When asked whether he wanted the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which is actively engaged in an antitrust probe of Facebook, to look into the behavior documented by the company, Spiegel did not answer the question directly. He did say, however, that the vast majority of the information is already in the public domain, and he believes that is why the agency is looking into anticompetitive behavior at Facebook.
Spiegel also declined to address whether he supports a breakup of Facebook, saying it is a matter "for the regulators to figure out."
Speaking more broadly about backlash against the tech industry in recent years, Spiegel said he views it as a reflection of tech products and platforms becoming more integral to people's lives.
"I think given that evolution, we're now seeing that we have to make some choices as a society about what sort of products we want," he said. "What ... maybe we need to regulate and what products we don't want."

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel at The Atlantic Festival