5 ms·

I love me a good Facebook bashing article as much as the next guy, but these numbers have no context to implicate the CA scandal as causative. Is this related t

by beager 8y ago

I love me a good Facebook bashing article as much as the next guy, but these numbers have no context to implicate the CA scandal as causative. Is this related to seasonality? Is it outside the bounds of normal fluctuation month-over-month? Is it US-only or international traffic as well?

bertil 8y ago
The most likely candidate is the change in the News Feed algorithm that was announced months ago, that favoured “friends and family” (and later, local news). It took years to get that change approved, and that can only be because the team looking at it took a lot of time to prove that the positive impact of having that type of content was greater. Facebook announced exactly that type of consequence of the News Feed change in their financial statement, and that estimate was indubitably based on large-scale A/B testing. Source for my intuition: I worked on something very close three years ago (at Facebook). Privacy scandals barely ever register at any company I worked; seemingly minor tweaks to the News Feed could have that compound impact.
- wolco 8y ago
  It makes sense but the change happened too late. It was after friends and family stopped posting, liking and sharing for various reasons. Society has changed.
slg 8y ago
Through very complex math I was able to deduce that April is over 3% shorter than March and February is almost 10% shorter than either January or March. It probably isn't a good idea to base anything off of total visits during time frames that aren't uniform.
- everdev 8y ago
  A 3-10% drop is huge and much more significant than those deleting Facebook as I'd assume that most of those people used it infrequently if at all and decided the data exposure wasn't worth their minimal use. But when people start using the service less that's significant especially at these higher traffic sites.
  - saimiam 8y ago
    Pssst, length of month...
    - everdev 8y ago
      I assume OC adjusted for that
- brettz 8y ago
  You can also zoom out and see that Facebook's web traffic has been steadily declining and the April drop has nothing to do with the CA scandal. https://i.imgur.com/e9Mgjby.png https://i.imgur.com/e9Mgjby.png
  - SamLevin88 8y ago
    CA scandal was the straw for me
    - dmix 8y ago
      Good, now all we need is a few hundred thousand more personal anecdotes and we can start to grasp the rationale behind the 1.3 billion people who didn't visit FB compared to the month prior /s
  - millstone 8y ago
    Almost too obvious to say, but: Web traffic has been declining because it's been shifting to mobile apps.
    - sandov 8y ago
      It's weird to think that a couple of years ago I too was using the facebook app. Since then, I've deleted the app, then deleted my account, switched from stock android to LineageOS. Now I can't fathom how I accepted to carry that crap around with me, and sometimes forget that just because I don't use it, social media hasn't vanished from the world. I feel as if I was living in a post-social media era, because in my subconscious, social media is dead.
    - herbst 8y ago
      Are there any numbers for that or is it just a assumption? Do we know API access doesn't count as web access in the numbers above? Facebook is begging people to download the app for a few years now, I am not to sure if we can still expect people adapting to this degree.
- GistNoesis 8y ago
  Last April also had 5 full week-end, hence only 20 working days.
endorphone 8y ago
This is completely anecdotal, but the whole data privacy issue had me do a full audit of all of my own activity, overhauling a lot of my activities. I had mostly used Facebook as a news feed, and in the wake I purged Facebook from my devices (much better battery life, as an aside, but maybe a placebo), and visit maybe once a day, sometimes two, just to quickly catch up on friends. Previously I'd visit dozens of times a day to catch up on surfaced news, etc. It was my leisure and bedtime go to and now it's a fringe. I subscribed to the NY Times and Washington Post. I re-bookmarked sites like Anandtech and Ars for periodic visits. I changed how I use services like Google at the same time. It's a whole other issue, but just the long contemplation about this had me switch from my GS8 to what was my development iPhone 8 as my daily driver. I know I'm just one person, but quite a few people have made similar proclamations, and among peers I know several just finally abandoned the site (the whole fake news things already starting the flow). These sorts of periodic issues just blend away when a site is on a dramatic growth curve and it just gets drowned out, but Facebook had essentially peaked, so they're really in a position to only lose users.
- tracker1 8y ago
  I use FaceSlim myself, which seems to do much better, mostly a web view with a useragent that gets the older less-gimped mobile facebook website, and can send/view messages still. I'm keeping messenger for now, only because my GF is in another state, and it's the most consistent way to video chat (which is a shame).
  - 52-6F-62 8y ago
    I've been increasingly successful in nudging my girlfriend to use Signal. She has a lot of old, close friends on the west coast and FB messenger has been the core of her communications with them. Getting her to add it and see that a few people on her contact list were already on there, including her boss, and that you can audio/video chat was a big push. Still working on that, though. Might be worth a shot: https://signal.org/blog/signal-video-calls-beta/ https://signal.org/blog/signal-video-calls-beta/
  - SamLevin88 8y ago

by beager 8y ago

bertil 8y ago

The most likely candidate is the change in the News Feed algorithm that was announced months ago, that favoured “friends and family” (and later, local news). It took years to get that change approved, and that can only be because the team looking at it took a lot of time to prove that the positive impact of having that type of content was greater. Facebook announced exactly that type of consequence of the News Feed change in their financial statement, and that estimate was indubitably based on large-scale A/B testing. Source for my intuition: I worked on something very close three years ago (at Facebook). Privacy scandals barely ever register at any company I worked; seemingly minor tweaks to the News Feed could have that compound impact.

wolco 8y ago
It makes sense but the change happened too late. It was after friends and family stopped posting, liking and sharing for various reasons. Society has changed.

slg 8y ago

Through very complex math I was able to deduce that April is over 3% shorter than March and February is almost 10% shorter than either January or March. It probably isn't a good idea to base anything off of total visits during time frames that aren't uniform.

everdev 8y ago
A 3-10% drop is huge and much more significant than those deleting Facebook as I'd assume that most of those people used it infrequently if at all and decided the data exposure wasn't worth their minimal use. But when people start using the service less that's significant especially at these higher traffic sites.
- saimiam 8y ago
  Pssst, length of month...
  - everdev 8y ago
    I assume OC adjusted for that
brettz 8y ago
You can also zoom out and see that Facebook's web traffic has been steadily declining and the April drop has nothing to do with the CA scandal. https://i.imgur.com/e9Mgjby.png https://i.imgur.com/e9Mgjby.png
- SamLevin88 8y ago
  CA scandal was the straw for me
  - dmix 8y ago
    Good, now all we need is a few hundred thousand more personal anecdotes and we can start to grasp the rationale behind the 1.3 billion people who didn't visit FB compared to the month prior /s
- millstone 8y ago
  Almost too obvious to say, but: Web traffic has been declining because it's been shifting to mobile apps.
  - sandov 8y ago
    It's weird to think that a couple of years ago I too was using the facebook app. Since then, I've deleted the app, then deleted my account, switched from stock android to LineageOS. Now I can't fathom how I accepted to carry that crap around with me, and sometimes forget that just because I don't use it, social media hasn't vanished from the world. I feel as if I was living in a post-social media era, because in my subconscious, social media is dead.
  - herbst 8y ago
    Are there any numbers for that or is it just a assumption? Do we know API access doesn't count as web access in the numbers above? Facebook is begging people to download the app for a few years now, I am not to sure if we can still expect people adapting to this degree.
GistNoesis 8y ago
Last April also had 5 full week-end, hence only 20 working days.

endorphone 8y ago

This is completely anecdotal, but the whole data privacy issue had me do a full audit of all of my own activity, overhauling a lot of my activities. I had mostly used Facebook as a news feed, and in the wake I purged Facebook from my devices (much better battery life, as an aside, but maybe a placebo), and visit maybe once a day, sometimes two, just to quickly catch up on friends. Previously I'd visit dozens of times a day to catch up on surfaced news, etc. It was my leisure and bedtime go to and now it's a fringe. I subscribed to the NY Times and Washington Post. I re-bookmarked sites like Anandtech and Ars for periodic visits. I changed how I use services like Google at the same time. It's a whole other issue, but just the long contemplation about this had me switch from my GS8 to what was my development iPhone 8 as my daily driver. I know I'm just one person, but quite a few people have made similar proclamations, and among peers I know several just finally abandoned the site (the whole fake news things already starting the flow). These sorts of periodic issues just blend away when a site is on a dramatic growth curve and it just gets drowned out, but Facebook had essentially peaked, so they're really in a position to only lose users.

tracker1 8y ago
I use FaceSlim myself, which seems to do much better, mostly a web view with a useragent that gets the older less-gimped mobile facebook website, and can send/view messages still. I'm keeping messenger for now, only because my GF is in another state, and it's the most consistent way to video chat (which is a shame).
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  I've been increasingly successful in nudging my girlfriend to use Signal. She has a lot of old, close friends on the west coast and FB messenger has been the core of her communications with them. Getting her to add it and see that a few people on her contact list were already on there, including her boss, and that you can audio/video chat was a big push. Still working on that, though. Might be worth a shot: https://signal.org/blog/signal-video-calls-beta/ https://signal.org/blog/signal-video-calls-beta/
- SamLevin88 8y ago