Why Is Facebook Losing Americans?

Facebook lost five million active users in the US last month, according to a tracking service, despite robust growth overseas. Are Facebook’s first adopters finally sick of the social network?

Tracking and publishing company Inside Facebook reported that the social network’s active US users fell to 149.4 million at the end of May, compared with 155.2 million at end of April, the biggest loss in at least a year. There were also user declines in the United Kingdom, Norway and Russia, where Facebook has been around for a while, but growth in newer markets like Brazil and Mexico.

Some of this is just school kids dropping off the grid as summer starts, some of it is the inevitable backlash from users who try Facebook and decide they hate it. America is a pretty saturated market for Facebook after all. But if the social network wants to reach its goal of one billion global users, and to keep growing quickly enough to make its late stage investors rich, it’s going to need to drive up engagement. If only there were some invasive, creepy technology it could deploy globally to force people to check their accounts more. Oh, right, facial recognition!

Photo via Getty

Republished from Defamer


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