Facebook’s idea of “connecting people” seems to have taken a huge hit after the Cambridge Analytica fiasco. Things are getting worse for the social media platform as according to new data from Pew Research Center, a number of users in the US aged 18 and above are deleting the Facebook app from their smartphones.
The report also suggests that 4 in 10 of those who have been surveyed have taken a break from the social network for “several weeks or more” in the last year.
Many of them responded saying that they had deleted the mobile app entirely from their smartphones.
Only a few months ago, the #DeleteFacebook campaign was doing the rounds across various social media platforms, including Facebook! The Cambridge Analytica scandal had prompted this movement as users on the platform did not have any more faith in the platform’s ability to keep their data safe.
Following the criticism, Facebook has made changes to its privacy policy that now allows users to download the data the site had collected about them. Yet, it feels that Facebook is fighting a lost battle with its one time faithful user base.
The survey also highlights some numbers about how many people have actually downloaded their personal data from the platform. About 9 percent of the users have downloaded their personal data from Facebook. Despite being a relatively small portion of the user base, these users are highly privacy conscious.
Also, about 47 percent of the users who have downloaded their personal data from Facebook have deleted the app, while 79 percent have chosen to change their privacy settings.
According to Pew research, many people are looking to re-frame their relationship with the social media platform.
Users in the US over 18 and older, which constitute about 54 percent said they have adjusted their privacy settings in the past 12 months. Around 42 percent say that they have taken a break “for several weeks” from checking the platform. There is also a quarter of that percentage who say they have deleted the Facebook app from their cellphone.
Also, some 74 percent of Facebook users say they have taken at least one of these three actions in the past year.
The Pew research was conducted before Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms drew flak for supposed censorship issues. Now, the above number might drastically change in the next round of research.
— with inputs from Pew Research Center.
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