Many people left Meta after Zuckerberg’s changes, but user numbers have rebounded
A hot potato: Meta and Mark Zuckerberg have been through a lot of changes this month, many of which have upset some people. Removing fact-checkers, allowing users to say pretty much anything, and killing diversity programs led to calls for a boycott of Meta platforms. It doesn’t appear to have much of an effect on its user numbers, though things might have been different had TikTok’s future been more certain.
Earlier this month, Zuckerberg signaled that he wanted Meta to be more like X by removing “politically biased” third-party fact checkers in favor of community notes and focusing on free speech and political discourse. The company is also killing its DEI programs.
Some users of Meta’s platforms deleted their accounts in protest at the new policies. There were also calls for a boycott from R.E.M frontman Michael Stipe, who urged people to log out of Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Messenger, WhatsApp, Giphy, Meta Quest, and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses for a week as part of a campaign called “Lights Out Meta.”
As noted by Business Insider, several analytics firms reported a slight decline in engagement among Meta users following the announcement of the changes. However, news of TikTok’s impending ban sent many of ByteDance’s users over to its rival’s platforms. Facebook’s number of Daily Active Users (DAUs) had been down 2% for most of January, according to Apptopia, but it began showing year-on-year growth ahead of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the TikTok ban.
Engagement on Meta’s platforms has now returned to the same level it was before Zuckerberg’s announcement. Instagram, which has a user demographic closer to TikTok’s, saw an even more impressive rebound in DAUs than Facebook. Instagram also has the advantage of Reels, a short-form video platform that has attracted many former TikTokers.
It’s not just new users that Meta might be thanking TikTok for. If TikTok does disappear from the United States completely – the app is working but still not available to download from US app stores – it’s estimated that Meta could bring in up to $3.37 billion from newly available ad revenue.
A recent survey of 1,346 Americans by CivicScience found that 36% of participants supported Meta’s changes while 32% opposed them and 32% were neutral. GenZ users aged 18-24 were the biggest supporters, with just over half supporting the moves.
It was reported earlier today that many people are selling phones with TikTok installed on eBay in the wildly optimistic hope of making thousands of dollars.
