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This is a great analysis and basically where I was going in my head with this, but you are missing one critical fact, how much of the world has internet access.

This is a great analysis and basically where I was going in my head with this, but you are missing one critical fact, how much of the world has internet access. I think if we just assume that number is 75% which seems to be way too high just looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage. Then we can see a better picture of how their numbers are something that any accounting firm should have a hard time certifying. I would certainly believe 50% of the total population for MAU or numbers hovering near it for the US/C and probably most of Europe for monthly active users. That matches my anecdotal observations, however they claim 75% of the total pop for US/C and 48.9% of the total pop for Europe MAU. To think that somehow they claim the rest of the world has over 50% of its population using facebook once a month, when even Europe doesn't seem to meet this threshold just seems..... I have just noticed that they try to lump duplicate and false accounts together and give a number of 11%, but then later they state that false accounts are actually 5% bringing the total fake accounts to at least 16%, which I still think is low, but it is getting to a point to where it may not be as clear cut fraud. I would bet their total account numbers would also be helpful in showing how many are duplicates or fake, but not sure they disclose that anywhere, probably due to their shadow accounts as well.

the_watcher 7y ago
Facebook generally groups their regions into North America, Latin America, APAC (Asia Pacific) and EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa), so the 50% "Europe" number you are referring to isn't really as comparable as "EU+Russia v. US", which seems to be an assumption you are making. I did consider people with internet access, I just didn't call it out. I think it's beyond reasonable that Facebook has >50% penetration of the total eligible Facebook population with internet access, and I'd believe upwards of 80%. Internet.org essentially exists because Facebook knows that they've been approaching this ceiling for years. Also, referring to duplicates+false as 11% and then false as 5% doesn't imply 11+5=16. It just means that "not unique individuals" is a superset of "not actually real people at all".
- bliteben 7y ago
  It clearly says in the 1Q 10Q: Europe includes all users in Russia and Turkey and Rest of World includes all users in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. I do agree they probably do mean that mean a superset, the wording is kinda odd maybe to downplay the number of false accounts, which are the real issue not the duplicate ones. I still think these numbers are false, I think it is probably a service to the people working at instagram and whatsapp, that they aren't reporting these numbers, which basically require them to always go up.

the_watcher 7y ago

Facebook generally groups their regions into North America, Latin America, APAC (Asia Pacific) and EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa), so the 50% "Europe" number you are referring to isn't really as comparable as "EU+Russia v. US", which seems to be an assumption you are making. I did consider people with internet access, I just didn't call it out. I think it's beyond reasonable that Facebook has >50% penetration of the total eligible Facebook population with internet access, and I'd believe upwards of 80%. Internet.org essentially exists because Facebook knows that they've been approaching this ceiling for years. Also, referring to duplicates+false as 11% and then false as 5% doesn't imply 11+5=16. It just means that "not unique individuals" is a superset of "not actually real people at all".

bliteben 7y ago
It clearly says in the 1Q 10Q: Europe includes all users in Russia and Turkey and Rest of World includes all users in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. I do agree they probably do mean that mean a superset, the wording is kinda odd maybe to downplay the number of false accounts, which are the real issue not the duplicate ones. I still think these numbers are false, I think it is probably a service to the people working at instagram and whatsapp, that they aren't reporting these numbers, which basically require them to always go up.