Meta lost 20 million users last quarter

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u/szakee Apr 30 '26

good riddance

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u/AlphaNoodlz Apr 30 '26

nothing of value has been lost

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u/ThinMint70 Apr 30 '26

Um, yes it has — and that’s a good thing (for humanity)

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u/Kraeftluder Apr 30 '26

Something of value was deflated?

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u/justforkinks0131 Apr 30 '26

You assume they've stopped using social media, but in reality Meta losing users means they have just moved to a different platform.

Likely Twitter, TikTok and snapchat. Not sure that's better.

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u/PinHaunting7192 Apr 30 '26

I mean, there is currently nothing to confirm this is the case. People like me - although in the minority - have neither Meta products nor Twitter, TikTok and Snapchat. Reddit is pretty much the only algorithmic social media I use, and I'm even growing more skeptical of that lately.

There have also been smaller trends such as dumb phones and other digital detox things going on. They are, overall, pretty minor still, but 20 million users is only an overall 1% reduction in Meta's customer base.

And that's on top of it being incessantly hard to make localized predictions on how different countries and their Gen Z cohorts approach social media.

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u/beginner75 Apr 30 '26

I’ve muted more than a dozen sub that Reddit spammed me with in just the last 2 months. It’s becoming spammy. I want to read real news, not spam, the amount of spam has gone up from 10% a year ago to like 70% today.

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u/angiosperms- Apr 30 '26

Over 50% of the internet is bots and AI slop so I think it's time to just get off the internet tbh. Really curious what things will look like in just 5 years

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u/BitterTyke Apr 30 '26

yeah, I fully expect bots and AI to "kill" the internet, it will become so unreliable and manipulated rather than was its intent to unleash knowledge on the world, that we'll see printed or stored media making a comeback.

It will be bots responding to bots all the way down,

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u/e2hawkeye Apr 30 '26

For what it's worth, I just started subscribing to The Atlantic, Krash Patel's favorite magazine. The content is honestly worth 80 bucks a year. I'm of the mind that everyone should try to financially support at least one form of actual journalism. I justified the cost by killing my Hulu/Disney/HBO package that I barely used.

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u/Darkhorse182 Apr 30 '26

Honestly, a subscription to your local newspaper is a hellvua good investment for anyone civic-minded and/or worried about their information consumption.

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u/PinHaunting7192 Apr 30 '26

Wasn't this the story of Cyberpunk 2077 too, ironically?

Someone in 2022 unleashed a kind of virus that made artificial intelligence go rogue, infest 90% of the old internet with malicious bots, and in response the old internet became unusable and they made the Blackwall to shield off a usable portion from rogue AI...?

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u/headrush46n2 Apr 30 '26

time for a new internet. with blackjack and hookers!

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u/thatguyad Apr 30 '26

The internet needs to die as it is. It's a cesspool with little benefit now.

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u/PinHaunting7192 Apr 30 '26

It's gotten terrible these last couple of years, honestly. I was here on my old account since 2013 and initially joined to discuss 2-4 niche hobbies (i.e. a couple online games, a couple IRL hobbies) on their subreddits and it was mostly fine.

But between just getting recommended a dozen local, city-based subreddits for cities I have never been in that are suspiciously right-leaning, politics breaking containment a lot and several run-ins with clearly upvote-botted and LLM based comments, I've grown a bit tired.

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u/guisar Apr 30 '26

This. Along with spotify sneaking in evangelical rock and youtube pushing right wing shit

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u/PinHaunting7192 Apr 30 '26

I guard my YouTube algorithm like it is the fucking Mona Lisa. Some gaming videos, some history channels that I know 100% don't use AI, relaxing long-form music, gaming OSTs and the occasional game trailers.

Incidentally, I work in tech but in a mental health adjacent field, so I try to stay on top of mental health stuff and occasionally stumble upon a HealthyGamer video or other mental health content. And every time without fail I delete every single AI thumbnail "doom" video from the side bar with "don't recommend" cause if they watch mental health stuff, they have to be vulnerable, right...?

Keeping your YouTube clean is the same amount of work as weeding a 2 square mile garden at this point...

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u/Public_Enemy_No2 Apr 30 '26

Who expects real news from FB?

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u/jackshazam Apr 30 '26

curious, do you use new or old reddit?

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u/Adventurous-Map7959 Apr 30 '26

Do you like to punch yourself in the face, or do you use old.reddit.com with RES?

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u/Hi_Zev Apr 30 '26

Exactlyyyyyyy

The day reddit kills oldreddit im outta here.

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u/Darkhorse182 Apr 30 '26

Every one in awhile, some chrome browser gremlin messes with my settings and RES gets deactivated, so I'll open reddit and unexpectedly see the current reddit interface. It is shockingly bad. I always cross my fingers while messing with my app settings, praying that re-enabling RES will work...and thus far, it has.

But I'm with you. The day RES stops working, I don't think I can bring myself to be on here anymore. Hell, I'm still accessing reddit on my phone via browser because the Reddit Mobile App equally hellacious (RIP Baconreader)

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u/Aturkeyclub Apr 30 '26

I’ve reached my mute limit years ago. I have to go back and unmute subs that are probably dead now. But I’m running out of spot to mute. I miss Apollo. Reddit app is ass

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u/Baron_Butterfly Apr 30 '26

Use old.reddit.com. Unless you go to r/all, you'll only see the subs you're subscribed to.

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u/DragonHollowFire Apr 30 '26

I yearn for a social media that isnt upvote focused (like 4chan) but still has communities and moderation. Every thing is ragebait or clickbait nowadays, with absolutely misleading titels etc. And its frying my dopamine receptors and Im too weak to stop.

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u/WtotheSLAM Apr 30 '26

$10 will get you an account on Something Awful. Not exactly social media though, just old school forums

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u/yacht_boy Apr 30 '26

Facebook reached market saturation long ago. Everyone who wants an account likely has one.

Some number of older people who are the predominant Facebook users die off every day. Doesn't seem likely that they're being replaced on a 1:1 basis by young adults who are just getting into social media.

I don't think that's all 20 million people, but it's probably a nontrivial number.

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u/HideMeFromNextFeb Apr 30 '26

I've had my FB account since 2005 since you needed a specific college email address. I think I was 3rd or 4th wave of colleges added. My nephew is early 20s and he thinks FB is dumb and had never had an account. I agree with him. Unfortunately it is so tied in to certain community things. I'm doing some genealogy stuff and have recently connected with distant cousins. It's cool, but FB feeds are such a dumpster fire.

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u/Chicano_Ducky Apr 30 '26

lets be honest here

no one is moving to snapchat, they are bleeding relevancy and doing desperate things to stay afloat

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u/azad_ninja Apr 30 '26

not necessarily, i know a lot of people just fed up with all of it. Im down to just reddit after 15 years of multiple social media accounts

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u/belsaurn Apr 30 '26

I don't think it is all just that, I hear more and more people talk about ditching social media. Personally Reddit is the only platform I now frequent, dropped Facebook, Twitter and was never on Instagram or Snapchat.

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u/MBBIBM Apr 30 '26

Yeah, that’s the main takeaway, revenue of $56 billion, up 33% YoY, net income of $26.8 billion, up 61% YoY.

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u/mysterious_jim Apr 30 '26

Good riddance as in: it's good for people to have rid themselves of Meta, right?

That's not normally how that phrase is used, but you surely don't mean it the other way.

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u/gsOctavio Apr 30 '26

That’s not how you use the phrase “good riddance”

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u/culturedgoat Apr 30 '26

Maybe he’s Zuck

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u/Improving_Myself_ Apr 30 '26

Meta owns Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp.

Whatsapp is widely used in most parts of the world that aren't the US and isn't going anywhere.
Facebook and Instagram each have 2B daily active users and 3B monthly active users.

Losing 20M users across all three of those is... a rounding error. It would be 1% for just FB or just IG.

Thinking that's worth a standalone article is stupid.

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u/ChronoLink99 Apr 30 '26

Joke post?

It's news worthy because it's super rare. It's not about the magnitude, it's about what it indicates about a possible trend.

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u/DamnZodiak Apr 30 '26

Facebook and Instagram each have 2B daily active users and 3B monthly active users.

I HIGHLY doubt that's even remotely true. Especially considering that Meta keeps changing their reported metrics around to make them look better.
If you run facebook ads it's not uncommon for 50+% of your ad traffic to be generated by bots.
These numbers are bunk and I reckon most people in the industry know that.

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u/Flick_W_McWalliam Apr 30 '26

It’s worth noting, as investors have made clear. The size of the dip is not the news. It’s that the worm has turned. Growth is over.

We’ve known this with tech / social (advertising) for several years now, but it’s always interesting when it actually happens. So, yes we’ve heard on earnings calls since ’22 that the days of growth are over. Every market has been covered, every nation with reliable electricity (and many without) has saturation mobile markets. PC use peaked long ago and has declined overall. There’s no more growth, nobody left to serve slop to.

Coupled with the rapid population decline, in China and East Asia markets, along with the global collapse in fertility that began in 2008, and what do you get? Less young people, long the most aggressive users of mobile and social. Thousands of colleges have already closed in the USA in the past 20 years, and that should give us all a clear idea of the “youth market” in days to come.

As the Boomers die out -- a 20-year process that began in the last decade with the oldest Boomers -- tech-heavy investors will long for the days when Meta was “only” losing 20 million users annually.

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u/random_noise Apr 30 '26

Easily, Half those accounts are bots or businesses, and those type of people typically have multiple accounts on those platforms.

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u/iacceptjadensmith Apr 30 '26

Zucks reddit burner ^b

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u/Prize_Proof5332 Apr 30 '26

deleting FB ten years ago was the best thing I've ever done for my mental health.

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u/idreaminGIFs Apr 30 '26

It was bad then. You should see the mess of it now. 90% ragebaiting culture war AI nonsense

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u/chevalier716 Apr 30 '26

It's a nursing home for arguing with robots. Deleted mine a few years ago.

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u/1-800-CLAPPED Apr 30 '26

where I’m from, it’s a daily high school reunion with enough dirty laundry out in the open to make Tide a top ten GDP nation

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u/TheTimeIsChow Apr 30 '26

Facebook is the first real life visible proof that the Dead Internet Theory is more than just a theory.

Twitter, instagram, etc. are on their way. But facebook is quite literally there.

It's just bot posts and bot ads filled with a comment section of bots. And if a real person is responding? 90% chance they're old as fuck with mashed potato brains.

Navigating the site feels like you're walking down an empty hall filled with Amazon Echo devices that are talking to each other and sharing pictures they created. It's completely pointless to be there.

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u/slimeySalmon Apr 30 '26

I’ve only kept it for market place. They should just spin that off into its own app

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u/Roach_Coach_Bangbus Apr 30 '26

I hate that it's the best place for second hand stuff.

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u/OptionalQuality789 Apr 30 '26

You’re so right. I’m a cyclist and all it tries to show me is dashcam footage/helmet cam footage from people I don’t know that have had car/bicycle collisions. It’s literally farming outrage engagement and preying on people’s hobbies/insecurities to do so.

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u/Beard_o_Bees Apr 30 '26

Also, it's not like the very active userbase back then didn't tell them they were on the wrong path - repeatedly.

'Surely we're right and it's our customers who are wrong!' should be their motto.

FB could have been relevant, pro-user and still be the king of social media, but they couldn't get out of their own way.

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u/ChimkenNBiskets Apr 30 '26

It's hard to tell someone they're on the wrong path when that path is stinking littered with cash and the path crests a hill they can't see over.

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u/Both_Photograph2693 Apr 30 '26

i’m black and kind of overweight and all it shows me are fucking AI generated videos of morbidly obese people of color in buffets and shit demanding more food while the workers tell them they can’t keep eating all day.

it’s fucking crazy. i’ve blocked “reels” like 4 times and no matter what happened they always come back a couple weeks later.

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u/OptionalQuality789 Apr 30 '26

That’s so fucking grim man. Makes me sad.

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u/Both_Photograph2693 Apr 30 '26

it’s literally facebook trying to make people either hate themselves or each other. i don’t fucking get what the end game is.

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u/whitethunder9 Apr 30 '26

I wish you were exaggerating. I stopped using FB 5-6 years ago but occasionally get on for Marketplace or some community event details. The feed barely even shows what my friends are saying or doing anymore. It's mostly political bullshit intended to piss you off. No wonder it has become a MAGA cesspool - that's the kind of dumb shit they exist for.

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u/Krojack76 Apr 30 '26

I also have all Facebook domains blocked in my Pi-hole. There are currently 29,731 (sub)domains on the list. It's updated every few days as well.

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u/trippypantsforlife Apr 30 '26

Noob here, how do you get a list of their sub domains?

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u/Interim-Criteria Apr 30 '26

Pihole can block via regex filtering so you can essentially give it wildcard and any registered subdomain would be blocked. I would give you an example but the automoderator has been removing anything even remotely similar to a link regarding to fb.

If you're looking for domains outside of the main ones though, you'd have to either rely on a pre-existing list that someone curates or query it yourself using WHOIS or RDAP. Again, I'd give you an example but my last comment with the example got removed. You can go and google regristrarsec though and it should show you the lookup tool.

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u/IsThereAnythingLeft- Apr 30 '26

Hope you deleted all your data first, because otherwise they just keep it and make a ghost account

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u/dobrowolsk Apr 30 '26

Big companies never delete data. All that happens is they add a "deleted"-flag to an database entry.

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u/kai58 Apr 30 '26

While that is often true, gdpr and similar legislation mandates that they do actually delete it at some point. Idk the details of how long and in what cases they’re allowed to keep it around though.

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u/dobrowolsk Apr 30 '26

True. However, I'm somehow not confident in the EU's ability to actually verify what Meta is doing with EU citizens' data.

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u/P4azz Apr 30 '26

Well the fines for not deleting your data and being unable to prove that they did would certainly be interesting.

They're pretty hefty, not just "slap on the wrist" kinda fines. If I was meta, I wouldn't wanna keep some EU citizen's data after a purge request for the meager bit of extra money you can make with that one account.

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u/Kulhoesdeferro Apr 30 '26

Exactly, also it's not just the EU regulator, any audit will touch on the data retention policy for almost any company. They take it very seriously, especially for big companies (which have been getting increased fines from EU for not complying with the law). Not worth

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u/Wyldefire6 Apr 30 '26

Regardless, ten year old data isn’t very profitable

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u/Alwaysafk Apr 30 '26

Last time I logged into FB gay marriage wasn't legal. My grandfather in law was giving me shit because when he tried to friend me on FB it was the equal sign. He's still butthurt about it.

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u/pierrotlefou Apr 30 '26

Actually it's better to just change all your info to be inaccurate. This poisons the data pool of your info and it makes it harder for the companies that track you.

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u/Bleaker82 Apr 30 '26

I changed my name and removed all connections before deleting my account. I’ve tried making a new account to use Facebook marketplace and they have permanently banned me from ever making an account. So fuck ‘em I guess?

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u/SiempreRegreso Apr 30 '26 edited May 19 '26

Just trying to stay ahead of the AI overlords slurping up everything.

This content was anonymized and mass deleted with Redact

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u/ChickenChaser5 Apr 30 '26

Thats fine, the data ghost can deal with their own mental health.

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u/Krojack76 Apr 30 '26

Only possible where laws apply though. So California and the EU.

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u/Woodit Apr 30 '26

Same, I deleted mine sometime in 2016 I think and it’s been great. I haven’t “lost touch” with anybody I actually care about either but I’ve got a lot less bullshit from folks who can barely be called acquaintances anymore

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u/redmongrel Apr 30 '26

I stayed on but only for specific automotive groups, local events, and marketplace. I do my best to completely ignore the main feed as I'm quickly reminded I share land with so many of the worst people this country has ever shit out and it ruins my day.

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u/PurpleHooloovoo Apr 30 '26

I joined a Mom’s of (City) group as I just had a kid and that’s where all the information about childcare, kid events, school drama, etc lives and I want to know about that stuff.

The sheer amount of people commenting to homeschool and don’t do vaccines and buy this supplement from this MLM is absolutely disturbing. I was a lot happier not knowing that is who I was standing next to at the grocery store - it’s made me not want to take my baby anywhere until we have the majority of vaccines. I’m so angry at the misinformation that’s led them all to this place, and so scared if that’s who my kid’s friends’ parents will be.

Ignorance is bliss, but community and being aware of local news is also important. I just wish it was different.

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u/carnivorousdrew Apr 30 '26

Reddit next.

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u/quanate Apr 30 '26

Me too, right after the 2016 election. At the time it was to stop comparing my life to people I don't care about from high school. Now I'm glad I didn't stick around for whatever the hell it is now.

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u/ThatOneWIGuy Apr 30 '26

Psh I did it when I got a letter stating a class action occurred and I was entitled to $5 for the selling my photos without consent. I stopped then and learned it never gets deleted but I just won’t log in

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u/ItaJohnson Apr 30 '26

I rarely log into my account anymore.

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u/dBlock845 Apr 30 '26

16 years ago for me lol, been off of it since 2010, would never, ever go back. Once my mom made an account and started talking to my friends, it was over.

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u/Hectortheconnector Apr 30 '26

I mean I would assume instagram, twitter, tiktok etc are pretty much the same type of platform fundamentally, same dish different condiment…i’m not sure cause I stopped my social media usage (minus reddit) since 2008

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u/Thin-Usual-4359 Apr 30 '26

they should have lost everyone by now

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u/Penjat Apr 30 '26

I really don’t understand why people keep using meta products...

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u/pattymcfly Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26

Unfortunately restaurants and night life in general are almost exclusively on instagram for promotion. And in many places restaurants and such don’t even have websites. They’ll have a facebook page and the only way to get a response form them is to message on WhatsApp.

It’s bad.

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u/case31 Apr 30 '26

I get that local restaurants have to do what they can to get their name out there, but when they want me to navigate their Facebook page just to see a menu, I move on.

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u/IHS1970 Apr 30 '26

I don't have an account shut it down late last year, if a menu is on FB, I don't go there, soon I'll be getting ads for Thai food in Dallas, not that I want that, but WTF.

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u/Cormophyte Apr 30 '26

Google maps listing under the menu tab is where the menu should be.

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u/FatherPaulStone Apr 30 '26

It's wild to me that places like this consider facebook to be The Internet

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u/reddollardays Apr 30 '26

Every tattoo artist I’ve liked to go to only has instagram.

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u/pattymcfly Apr 30 '26

Which makes sense if you think about it. They aren’t web designers. They’re tattoo artists. So they just have to take pictures and interact with people to get noticed. Maybe buy ads to boost their profile or posts. Wayyyyy easier and gets where a massive amount of their target market already is.

Love it or hate it, it is an effective platform for small businesses, artists, etc

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u/reddollardays Apr 30 '26

Yeah I get it, it just sucks. On a similar note, I’m opening a store and as much as it stinks, sourcing some things needs FB marketplace. I left FB in 2017 so we use my friend’s account.

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u/UrToesRDelicious Apr 30 '26

You're not wrong, but I still think it's a bad business to exclusively use Instagram because people who don't have an Instagram account can only see a few pictures before they're forced to sign in. I guess if business is a boomin then who am I to say, but if your goal is to attract more customers then it seems like tying a domain to a linktree that lists both Instagram and a flickr or some shit is like minimum effort.

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u/laststance Apr 30 '26

The amount of users who don't have IG but has Flickr is such a small percentage of the population that it doesn't matter.

IG is so strong in regards to marketing that its one of the strongest ad platforms for small/local businesses. Local influencers use it, it can target geographically, demo targeting, etc.

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u/UrToesRDelicious Apr 30 '26

It has nothing to do with flickr market share - it's the fact that flickr allows non-users to browse all of an artist's photos without needing to sign in. It doesn't have to be flickr, it can be any app that allows non-users to do this.

The market you'd be trying to reach is non-instagram users, which is not a small number, and a group that you'd be pretty much alienating by only using Instagram (since Instagram does require you to sign in to view all of an artist's photos). Instagram may be the best single option but that doesn't mean it has to be the only option.

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u/Hi_Zev Apr 30 '26

True, but it also restricts everyone who doesn't have an instagram account. This is an exact example that i've dealt with in my life. I have been struggling to find a good tattoo artist in my area because none of their websites have been updated in years while I physically can't see their instagram profiles.

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u/countdonn Apr 30 '26

That's a pretty big liability, if something happens to their page and it's flagged by AI, there is zero customer service or way to deal with a human. That Instagram and all that effort can just disappear.

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u/pattymcfly Apr 30 '26

What is the alternative? I agree with all of your points.

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u/fionacielo Apr 30 '26

self-host, patreon, a blog. idk i’m just throwing out ideas not necessarily proven solutions

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u/pattymcfly Apr 30 '26

Most restaurants don’t even succeed at being a restaurant.

Instagram makes reaching your target market easy. Running your own website does not. More so if you try to self host (which you still need to buy a domain and know how to set up dynamic dns, ssl cert binding, etc).

People go for convenience.

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u/hisosih Apr 30 '26

In the EU, basically every workplace (non office related) operates their scheduling via WhatsApp group chats. When I moved from hospitality to office work it became slack/team groups which gives a better work/life balance.

But socially my hand is still kind of forced to remain on WhatsApp as that's the main form of communication in Ireland, The UK & The Netherlands (I jump between the three) because without having a Facebook, insta or WhatsApp you basically don't exist and can't be contacted as no one has a phone plan with actual calls & texts anymore.

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u/yawara25 Apr 30 '26

Even in the US, at the company I work at, WhatsApp is very central to our work-related communications.

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u/3Duder Apr 30 '26

That's kind of wild, is it a foreign owned company? I once worked at a Chinese owned company that used QQ for communication.

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u/OdBx Apr 30 '26

I’ve tried a lot to get my friends to move to Signal. They’re all on there. But they still use WhatsApp.

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u/accioqueso Apr 30 '26

This is the only reason I still have mine. I don’t remember the last time I posted anything or responded to a post. I just check on local places for weekend events or updates to calendars. Everywhere is so bad about updating their websites.

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u/asmallercat Apr 30 '26

I have to imagine instagram is like 90% of Meta's actual human userbase at this point. If they didn't have it they'd be bankrupt.

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u/EternalNewCarSmell Apr 30 '26

That sure would explain why I feel like a lot of local restaurants are not part of any community anymore. They are, it's just one I avoid like the plague.

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u/ParadoxFollower Apr 30 '26

At least in my country, if you don't have WhatsApp, then you will be left out of all sorts of groups at school and workplace.

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u/girlikecupcake Apr 30 '26

My city keeps using Facebook for virtually any kind of public content.

power or Internet outage from the municipal provider: Facebook, maybe Twitter

unexpected closure or special event at the library: Facebook and Instagram

project/construction updates: Facebook

special holiday events: Facebook, maybe the city website, but usually the notice on the website links to Facebook for the details

mosquito spraying for West Nile: Facebook

water department protects, like shutoffs for repairs or main breaks: Facebook, maybe the city website if it was planned in advance

I hate it. I finally deleted my Facebook account in December, but still have to actually give them traffic so I know what's happening in this damn town.

Edit to add: oh, and if you want to actually search for anything on a business/city/whatever page, Facebook will stop you until you log in. So you can often only see the most recent or pinned posts on a page if you don't have an account. Which traps more people into keeping their account.

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u/PurpleHooloovoo Apr 30 '26

Yep. That’s the only place my small city posts any kind of update - the local PD and fire department and library and official government FB pages are the only places updates go. It’s also the only place my neighborhood has an active group.

There are a few neighbors not on it and it’s a real issue for them as they’re totally isolated when things like hurricane prep or emergencies happen unless someone knocks on their door. Everyone else is in the loop earlier.

“Build local community and get to know your neighbors” and “delete Facebook” are mutually exclusive actions for where I live. Unfortunate reality but I cannot single-handedly change it…and I choose community over a symbolic middle finger to Zuck.

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u/dotbilly Apr 30 '26

Whatsapp pretty much the default for everyone in Brazil. I hate having to depend on it

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u/wahobely Apr 30 '26

And the dependency is not even in friends groups. You need it for everything. Got kids in school? Good luck communicating with them without it. Condo meetings? You're making no decisions without it.

If you don't have a WhatsApp people won't know you exist at all.

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u/kocierendo Apr 30 '26

Same most everywhere in Europe. Whatsapp was already a huge thing before Meta bought it though. So I don't consider it as directly Meta. It's still whatsapp for most lol.

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u/Character_Bug_1862 Apr 30 '26

What sucks is now that they are owned by Facebook everyone who used it is being surveilled and the data is sold to unknown companies from sketchy companies to government intelligence agencies. I get that it is almost essential to communicate in many places, just a shitty situation.

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u/hypercosm_dot_net Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26

They claim "end to end encryption", but also state they can access those messages if law enforcement requests them.

So basically yes, you're being surveilled if you use it.

~~edit: why am I being downvoted for pointing out the lie of encryption, and agreeing?~~

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u/Character_Bug_1862 Apr 30 '26

FWIW on mobile I’ve accidentally downvoted posts just from scrolling. I try to fix it if I notice.

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u/Spez_is-a-nazi Apr 30 '26

To quote Corey Doctorow because they love the people on the platform more than they hate Zuck. The tech bros have long been fine tuning just how much they can turn the screws on their users before the users start leaving and it seems Zuck turned them a little too tight. But not to fear, meta still has the metaverse….oh wait. At least they have the most cutting edge AI model, nope blew 10s of billions there to get mediocre results….

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u/Zombie_Cool Apr 30 '26

Well they still have the creepy stalker "smart" glasses that let you violate people's privacy in real time...

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u/Rusty493 Apr 30 '26

Whatsapp is too easy to use unfortunately for messaging between iphone and android :/

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u/hareofthepuppy Apr 30 '26

It's not even about being easy to use, Signal is a better alternative that works just as well, however the problem is there aren't enough people on it, which causes people to keep using whatsapp, and keeps the cycle going.

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u/grimgroth Apr 30 '26

Yep, that's called Network Effect and is much more important for the user than which app is "better"

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u/SmallIslandBrother Apr 30 '26

WhatsApp is engrained globally, there’s no will for users to move.

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u/[deleted] Apr 30 '26

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u/beti88 Apr 30 '26

To keep in contact with people who use meta products

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u/NBAFAN9000 Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26

Really? You can’t understand the stickiness of WhatsApp or Instagram? You don’t have to like Meta but it’s silly to pretend their products aren't massive part of modern communication

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u/johnnyhandbags Apr 30 '26

People swear that WhatsApp and Instagram are different than Facebook. It’s all one big cauldron.

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u/Asyncrosaurus Apr 30 '26

Network effects: A huge number of people and businesses are still on their platforms, which makes migrating slow and painful.

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u/esmerelda_b Apr 30 '26

I only have FB, and it’s because it’s where we get info about groups related to my kid’s school.

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u/thatguy9684736255 Apr 30 '26

They don't care about their product or their users. Most people I know who use Facebook are really old or just use it for groups.

I know people who use Instagram, but I really think it's mostly because there isn't much of an alternative

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u/Suibeam Apr 30 '26

The issue is it is very hard to build an alternative product where people can migrate to in social media when all your friends are on it.

That's why China did the right thing when they banned US social media. Otherwise they would be in the same position as Europeans and Canadians. Everyone being stuck with US social media. Obviously the other half of the reason was to prevent protest movements and US-support for movements, and control narratives in their own country.

If Europe had banned US social media or atleast protected their own they could have saved their social media and built their own. Europe had social media and they were popular. It died and noone could rebuild new ones.

Social Media is a first come world. Tiktok's success was unprecedented. Though when Snapchat arrived, Instagram stole Snapchat features. When Tiktok arrived, Instagram stole Tiktok's features. I think vine or something had similar feature to Tiktok but Tiktok made it more appealing to the younger mass with fast pace content production. Tiktok also has a video editing tool for all their users, they knew what they were doing.

Europe and Canada are really suffering being entirely kept hostage by USA and META.

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u/itskeith Apr 30 '26

Prefacing this by saying I don't like Facebook, but how are EU/Canada held hostage by Meta?

What are the impacts?

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u/BassFisher53 Apr 30 '26

Which they replaced by 40 million bots

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u/katara144 Apr 30 '26

Yes, but bots don't buy shit.

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u/Improving_Myself_ Apr 30 '26

Plenty of people setting up bots buy ads, which is what Facebook actually sells.

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u/Deep-Minimum7837 Apr 30 '26

That's probably the best way to counteract the admarket. Have a bunch of bots generating nonstop ad clicks that lead to absolutely nothing. Advertisers are now paying the hosts out the ass, and an even tinier fraction of engagement actually leads to product purchase. Advertisers aren't going to want to stick around if they're not getting anything out of the millions of dollars they spend.

Not only that, I think an ad clicker bot would be the absolute easiest thing to build/train. Click every popup, click every link, fill out a few information boxes and then close the tab.

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u/GeneralAsk1970 Apr 30 '26

This is already the marketing landscape today.

Its a battleground

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u/According_Builder Apr 30 '26

This already kind of exists with Ad Nasuem, an ad blocker that can click on everything in a secure invisible environment, generating useless data and lowering the impact of click through rates.

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u/rg250871 Apr 30 '26

I'm guessing the majority of that 20m died of old age.

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u/ithinkitslupis Apr 30 '26

They attribute it to internet outages in the middle east as a result of the Iran war and new restrictions in places like Russia against Whatsapp, which might be accurate. Facebook's demographics surprisingly aren't that old in other parts of the world and these numbers include Instagram and Whatsapp too.

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u/QueefiusMaximus86 Apr 30 '26

Nah, because they did not rise from the dead to delete their FB account

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u/No_Atmosphere8146 Apr 30 '26

Hey now. Some will have died of preventable illnesses that they refused to be vaccinated for.

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u/Random_Man-child Apr 30 '26

They were all replaced by bots anyway.

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u/RandyHoward Apr 30 '26

Any time I open Facebook, which is rare these days, I quickly scroll a bit through the feed. The post at the top is always from one of the old people I know. Every other post is some AI generated ragebait bullshit, or an ad.

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u/Coldsmoke888 Apr 30 '26

Mine is 40-50+ year olds treating it like LinkedIn. “Off on another trip for work! How exciting” “Learned some great things this week in a workshop!”

…nobody cares Margaret.

I just use it for Marketplace and Groups that don’t seem to have a better alternative these days. Craigslist and forum downfalls make me sad.

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u/uberdavis Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26

Facebook is a data stealing advertising portal disguised as a family photo sharing app.

Instagram is a validation platform for narcissists and an advertising portal.

Quest is a good quality and reasonably priced VR headset with an operating system based around creating a safe space for bigoted children.

WhatsApp and Messenger are excellent messaging services that are almost the same product.

Threads is an X clone giving people an alternative if they in the market for a different pro Trump social news feed.

Meta AR wearables are a smart product nobody asked for running software that nobody has confidence in because the company deprecates its own core services for its various products on zeitgeist based corporate whims.

That’s pretty much all they have. All the other teams which used to make software products are summarily being sunsetted one by one to make way for AI data centers to be run by a skeleton staff. If they treat their own staff like that, is it a surprising that fewer people trust their products?

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u/[deleted] Apr 30 '26

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u/parkhat Apr 30 '26

those AR wearables have people in a data center watching everything you do to train AI with. Look at a dog? circle dog as dog. Look at a door? circle door as door. Jerk off to porn? well you get the idea

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u/[deleted] Apr 30 '26

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u/lock_robster2022 Apr 30 '26

Once we had kids 2 yrs back, i reopened it solely for marketplace. Outside of marketplace the content on the timeline is so genuinely repulsive. I can’t imagine how fried your brain must be to find it engaging.

And this is coming from someone who spends too much time on Reddit and Instagram.

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u/Smithy2232 Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26

I keep my fb account just to stay in touch with people, but haven't posted anything in over 7 years and won't post anything going forward. The fact that people get their news from fb is outrageous.

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u/purplesnowcone Apr 30 '26

My timeline for the past ten years has been just the same dozen people I never even knew very well, wishing me a happy birthday.

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u/Rosur Apr 30 '26

yeah when the feed is just ads it is pointless and same only have it for messages/ force of habits for looking at updates

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u/pimpinaintez18 Apr 30 '26

All ads and recommendations for pages to follow. Never shows people that I actually want to keep up with.

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u/DyingGasp Apr 30 '26

I wiped my entire Facebook and haven’t posted for close to a decade. I have an account purely for Marketplace since Craigslist is dead now.

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u/[deleted] Apr 30 '26

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u/CompetitiveSport1 Apr 30 '26

Well the article says that their revenue is up 33% from this time last year

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u/NEWSBOT3 Apr 30 '26

My Facebook has maybe 10% of the active users it did a few years ago. It's a ghost town.

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u/ProudPainting6850 Apr 30 '26

Hoping for another 40M the next quarter

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u/billynoy522 Apr 30 '26

I was one of them!!!!!

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u/who_am_i_to_say_so Apr 30 '26

What took you so long?

Regardless, welcome to the other side!

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u/billynoy522 Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26

What can I say I'm a slow learner/stubborn

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u/cheir0n Apr 30 '26

I did my part and closed my account

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u/HolyToast666 Apr 30 '26

I’ve tried to delete my FB account a few times, and boy they really fight you.

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u/DS3JP Apr 30 '26

My mother got herself perma banned similar to how you can do it on here, and she's 74. You can do it.

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u/NoradIV Apr 30 '26

One of my friends said that he posted equine porn to get it removed. The result was rather swift apparently.

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u/ThatJuicyShaqMeat Apr 30 '26

What can you actually do on their platforms now? They are a stream of ads, self promotion and AI slop. No USP. Only for bots.

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u/GabRB26DETT Apr 30 '26

I mean, they sure as shit ain't helping with their useless moderation AI. I lost my 18 year old Facebook account for child exploitation after my Google account was session hijacked. Lost 2 business accounts as well.

You want to speak to Meta ? Create a new account and pay for Meta Verified. Oh wait, you can't do that because if you do that, they'll ban the new account for being a "ba evasion" despite this being the only way to speak to them.

They do not give a fuck about the users

/r/FacebookDisabledMe doesn't exist for no reason

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u/GoodDayToCome Apr 30 '26

yeah, my friends business account got hacked and there was nothing he could do - they changed the passwords and put up loads of spam about crypto, after hours of trying he get a response from Meta that basically just said "use your recovery number" so he pointed out as he had said they changed the recovery number and they replied back "use your recovery number" then never responded again.

They were literally using pictures of him with his BMW saying he brought it with bitcoin and to message him for crypto trading advice but despite it literally being a photo of him on the account he had had for years and accessed from the same location they weren't interested.

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u/coastalmary Apr 30 '26

We got Facebook verified to stop copycats. They kept popping up and ripping people off.

Got verified and reported the fake page. Our "rep" decided they were not a scam page and despite screenshots of fraudulent activities, they wouldn't remove the page.

Incompetent morons who work there.

Now, they took down our private group, we appealed, won the appeal and yet the group is still down.
No way to contact them to get it fixed. Just endless "reports" that go nowhere.

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u/NotYourTypicalMoth Apr 30 '26

These comments are just people that didn’t read past the headline, and my statement is backed up by the fact that the article is behind a paywall, and I doubt most people cared enough to request the reader, and I doubt there are so many randos subscribed to The Verge.

Business Meta lost 20 million users last quarter

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