As per its Q4 earnings report published yesterday, Facebook recorded a slight drop in daily active users number, when compared to its previous quarter. While the specific reasons for this aren’t revealed, it’s guessable from the recent criticism it’s receiving from both the community and the regulators.
Dropping Daily Active Users
Growing as the No 1 social media platform means not just earning more money through vast advertising, but also taking criticism from all sides, and all the time. Facebook is a good example of this, which has been facing regulatory and community issues for a long time. Over the decade, Facebook was subjected to privacy and security issues, aside from accusations for not properly handling the misinformation spreading on its platform. And in the last couple of years, this has grown so much due to COVID-19. And with all such allegations added with the users growing awareness on privacy, Facebook is seen neglected by its own community. We’ve seen many advocating for leaving the platform for good, and switching onto something that’s more private and simple, like Signal (alternative to Messenger). And this is now shown in official numbers, by Facebook itself. In its Q4 earnings report released yesterday, Facebook revealed a slight drop in the daily active users’ counts. The drop is negligible (down to 1.929 billion from 1.93 billion in Q3 2021), but still, it’s a drop. CNBC has confirmed it to be the first such quarterly drop in daily users count for Facebook, besides falling short of the 1.95 billion mark estimated by the analysts.
