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What if those two billion accounts are bullshit? Has anyone actually done a sample of Facebook users (or humans) to check those stats? I do not believe them, b
by randomsearch 9y ago
What if those two billion accounts are bullshit?
Has anyone actually done a sample of Facebook users (or humans) to check those stats? I do not believe them, based on my personal experience and the very large number of businesses and bots on facebook.
Given the massive incentive for Facebook to lie, we’d be naive to take their numbers for granted.
If they provided really fine-grained data, we could easily verify their claims. We pick cities, they give numbers, we survey to confirm, then extrapolate.
Anyone got any data?
- clay_the_ripper 9y agoEven if the MAUs are half of what they claim (they claim over 2 billion monthly active) they still have a moat the size of a freakin ocean. I think it’s safe to say they have users “in the billions”.
- namrog84 9y agoI believe half is even optimistic. I'd venture a gamble that at most 25% are unique and original people. Even my non technical friends often have 2-4 accounts. For work, for friends, for forgotten passwords, etc... And then of course bots and bots and bots. Of course it depends on how they define a user and an account. If I logon only 1 of my accounts in a given month or 10. Do they count as 1 or 10 in either case?
- halflings 9y agoAnecdote rebuttal to an anecdote: None of my personal friends have more than one account on facebook. Facebook estimates than 10% of the accounts are duplicates [0], so that wouldn't match with most people (~50%?) having 2 to 4 accounts. [0] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/11/02/facebook-admits-270m-users-fake-duplicate-accounts/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/11/02/facebook-ad...
- itronitron 9y agoAnecdote^3 ... none of my personal friends have more than zero facebook accounts :)
- titanomachy 9y agoWhere do you live?
- itronitron 9y agoin a cave apparently, seriously though I don't have many personal friends
- logicallee 9y ago>none of my personal friends have more than zero facebook accounts There's no way this is true
- elgenie 9y agoIt could be trivially true for someone with zero personal friends :D
- dazc 9y agoIt can be true, I think we get used to the idea that most people are connected but if you have friends over the age of, say, 60 it's fairly common for them not have internet access. In the UK, at least?
- lawl 9y agoWhy not? In my friend circle only one guy has a facebook account, he created it to talk to a girl he met and i don't think he uses it anymore or even deleted it. Not sure why that's so unbelievable.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- scarface74 9y agoAnother perspective, how many users are actually dead? http://www.theloop.ca/dead-facebook-users-will-soon-outnumber-the-living/ http://www.theloop.ca/dead-facebook-users-will-soon-outnumbe... EDIT: Well they do measure active daily users but I still think the article above is interesting.
- nicktirrell 9y agofascinating stats here, thanks for the article.
- tim333 9y agoI've got a friend who buys targeted ads through facebook and they work well. At least some of the stuff isn't bullshit.
- dazc 9y ago'What if those two billion accounts are bullshit?' Nobody thinks they are all bullshit but, if half of them are, it's still a lot of people.