Facebook usage falling after privacy scandals, data suggests

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Facebook usage falling after privacy scandals, data suggests

Actions such as shares and likes down nearly 20%, though user numbers still growing

Alex Hern Technology editor
Thu 20 Jun 2019 16.31 BST Last modified on Thu 20 Jun 2019 19.15 BST

Facebook usage has plummeted over the last year, according to data seen by the Guardian, though the company says usage by other measures continues to grow.

Since April 2018, the first full month after news of the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke in the Observer, actions on Facebook such as likes, shares and posts have dropped by almost 20%, according to the business analytics firm Mixpanel.

Taking that month as a baseline, total actions fell by more that 10% within a month, recovered a bit over the summer and then fell again over the autumn and winter of 2018, except for a brief rally over the period of the US midterm elections.

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The two sets of numbers can be reconciled. Anecdotal reports over the past year have suggested that while few users have deleted their Facebook accounts or stopped logging on since the scandals, many have reduced their usage.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jun/20/facebook-usage-collapsed-since-scandal-data-shows

[Ford_Prefect]

1. You do have to wonder how much of that traffic is Russian generated, no?