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Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

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Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#141

Post by ufmace »

jondubois wrote: post #114
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #32

It is both amazing and deeply concerning that one corporation has influence over 1/4 of the world's population. It is even more concerning when you consider the outsized voting power of 1 person at that company.

When Microsoft was monopolizing the world, the government stepped in. Now the EU is going after Google. What is the government doing about Facebook? Imagine if the government hadn't stepped in to limit Microsoft's monopoly; today there would be no Facebook; everyone in the tech industry would be a Microsoft employee and everyone in the world would be using Microsoft's "Human Social Monitoring System"... and we would…

> Imagine if the government hadn't stepped in to limit Microsoft's monopoly

That seems like a stretch. Microsoft has drastically decreased in influence because they didn't get in on the big new trends soon enough - web search, social networking, and mobile. I don't see how anything the Government did enabled that. At most, the implied threat of further Government action might have prevented them from more drastic efforts to block those things.

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#142

Post by bussierem »

nblavoie wrote: post #126
RRRA wrote: post #117

Most depressing news I've read today...

I tried to quit Facebook (for the 3rd time this year) the last week but it keeps remind me of the people that will miss me by email. I guess this is one of their mental tricks to make users feel that they did the wrong choice by leaving Facebook. Any ideas, tricks on how to solve this problem ?

I promised myself I wouldn't be one of those people talking about how they quit, but here we are. I haven't used it in well over a decade (I quit back when it was much easier to do).

The snarky answer to your question is quite frankly, ignore them. Your friends will still be your friends without Facebook. I have personally NEVER been inconvenienced by not having an account, and the sheer abundance of communication mediums on the web today makes it so easy to stay in touch. Between just Email, Hangouts, and Texting, I am still in touch with everyone that matters to me, and they know how to reach me. It can't possibly be an inconvenience to text me since they're already almost certainly on their phones too.

You already hit step one of this - you KNOW Facebook is manipulating you. Step two is just to stop letting them.

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#143

Post by khc »

jackmodern wrote: post #26
startupdiscuss wrote: post #17

Monthly, active according to this source: https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/27/15880494/facebook-2-billi... And if you look at these stats from March 2017: https://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/ It could be either one. Daily active were 1.28 B and monthly active were 1.9 B so either way it is likely they have both crossed, or are about to cross the 2B mark.

they crossed 3 months ago when I still worked there but didn't want to share it broadly because they thought it was a temporary spike due to some political unrest in SE Asia. Safe to assume they are over the hump by now.

Just curious, what political unrest in SE Asia? Are you talking about the Jakarta election?

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#144

Post by drusepth »

jjeaff wrote: post #70
glhaynes wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if 10% of their users are pet snakes (a really generous estimate imo), they've got a mere 1.8 billion monthly active users.

More likely hundreds of millions are bots.

That seems like a conservative estimate, IMO, considering how lucrative/easy it is to get into Messenger/Groups spam.

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#145

Post by matt4077 »

startupdiscuss wrote: post #104
bllguo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would it be likely that daily active users ballooned 56% to surpass 2B? Seems like it must be monthly active in the discussion. Did FB do something recently that leads to your remark

This is from March 2017. I just thought that if the Monthly users were going to go over, they would have done so a while ago. Another reply, from @jackmodern, indicates that they may have done that, so now I am less confident that it is the daily actives.

I checked the date, slightly confused. Just to make sure: could you send me the lottery numbers for the last two years?

Anyway, that Facebook about-us page also has an article from summer 2015 about hitting 1 Billion daily active users for the first time. Their growth really isn't that impressive any more (+280Million in two years), mostly because they've run out of people.

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#146

Post by omnifischer »

joeblau wrote: post #131
avianbc wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use FanBoy's filters w/uBlock origin. Check them here: https://www.fanboy.co.nz

The reason I go with Safari Content blockers and /etc/hosts is because both of those solutions stop network requests before they even attempt to make a network request. uBlock is a good backup solution, but I want my computer to think Facebook doesn't even exist as a url, regardless of context. For example uBlock won't stop iMessage from trying to load Facebook's inline media content when someone messages me a Facebo…

for OSX blocking at DNS level: Posted a year ago in hn https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11793855

for linux use: https://github.com/tbds/FreeContributor/tree/master/data

https://www.perpetual-beta.org/weblog/blocking-facebook-on-o...

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#147

Post by dodongomang »

ufmace wrote: post #141
jondubois wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Microsoft was monopolizing the world, the government stepped in. Now the EU is going after Google. What is the government doing about Facebook? Imagine if the government hadn't stepped in to limit Microsoft's monopoly; today there would be no Facebook; everyone in the tech industry would be a Microsoft employee and everyone in the world would be using Microsoft's "Human Social Monitoring System"... and we would…

> Imagine if the government hadn't stepped in to limit Microsoft's monopoly That seems like a stretch. Microsoft has drastically decreased in influence because they didn't get in on the big new trends soon enough - web search, social networking, and mobile. I don't see how anything the Government did enabled that. At most, the implied threat of further Government action might have prevented them from more drastic eff…

That the USA limited Microsoft is not a stretch at all, it happened!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_C....

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#148

Post by axaxs »

So, not to discredit this number, but here are some things to consider -

1 - Bots. Lots of bots.

2 - Multiple accounts. I've seen people with as many as 4 accounts, used for different purposes(friend groups).

3 - 'Facebook is the internet'. Facebook is free(ie not charged as data usage), and therefore, 'the internet', in many poor nations. I'm not actually sure if this is Facebook's doing, a carrier agreement, etc, but it exists. This accounts for what I assume are the bulk of the 'real' users.

Re: Facebook Hits 2 Billion Users

#149

Post by matt4077 »

jondubois wrote: post #114
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #32

It is both amazing and deeply concerning that one corporation has influence over 1/4 of the world's population. It is even more concerning when you consider the outsized voting power of 1 person at that company.

When Microsoft was monopolizing the world, the government stepped in. Now the EU is going after Google. What is the government doing about Facebook? Imagine if the government hadn't stepped in to limit Microsoft's monopoly; today there would be no Facebook; everyone in the tech industry would be a Microsoft employee and everyone in the world would be using Microsoft's "Human Social Monitoring System"... and we would…

There are some attempts in the EU. In Germany, they've been waging a PR battle with the government over fake news, nazi propaganda, and other extremism.

It's difficult because it's not something that neatly falls into established categories, and it quite obviously touches on free speech issues. You can be absolutely sure that, if Facebook were to use its power to promote a political agenda, they'd quickly find themselves on the wrong end of a law. But as long as it's incidental damage, and hard to show with statistical significance, it comes down to the fundamental law of laws: that what doesn't do harm is allowed.

What I suspect will emerge rather soon is a DMCA-style notice/takedown/counter-notice protocol for libel and fake news.

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