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Facebook is losing users for the first time ever and shares in Meta have fallen off a cliff.

Facebook reported that its streak of user growth had come to an end, its parent company's stock plunged more than 26% in a staggering loss that obliterated more than $230 billion in market value and triggered Wall Street's worst drop in close to a year.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook was struggling to compete with short-video app TikTok.

But perhaps most unsettling to some was the revelation that Facebook, for years a hot-rod gstock, had experienced its first-ever decline in daily active users.

For the fourth quarter, Facebook had 1.929 billion daily active users compared to 1.93 billion in the previous quarter, suggesting that the company whose user growth has stalled in North America and Europe for some time has run out of users to add in the rest of the world.

Not all the news was negative. Other user metrics showed modest growth. The company’s apps, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, continued to add users, albeit modestly. And the number of users logging in each month to Facebook continued to grow.

Meta is investing more into short-form videos to better compete with TikTok, including Reels, which the company launched on Instagram in 2020.

According to a story by The Epoch Times on February 13th, 2022, it talks about if you use TikTok, you may be feeding information to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence services. That’s a warning from cyber security expert Casey Fleming, CEO of strategic advisory firm BlackOps Partners. In a recent interview, Fleming explained the dangers posed by foreign-controlled cell-phone applications like TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based internet giant ByteDance.

“We must assume,” he said, “that every one of these applications coming from China, Russia, and other declared adversaries of the United States, we have to assume that these applications are weaponised against us.” TikTok, the hugely popular short-format video app that allows users to create, share and view 15-second videos often featuring singing, dancing, or comedy, was launched in China as “Douyin” in September 2016, and within a year it had 100 million Chinese users.

The app was relaunched as TikTok internationally in September 2017. Attracting dozens of A-list celebrity users, and partnerships with the NBA, NFL, and Comedy Central, TikTok quickly became one of the most popular apps in the world. By 2020, TikTok reported nearly one billion active users worldwide—less than four years after its launch.

But TikTok may have a dark side. TikTok is a Chinese company, and all the private information that the app is collecting may be fed directly to the Chinese regime, experts have warned, citing a range of Chinese laws that compel companies to cooperate with regime authorities when asked. It is true that for a Chinese company to be successful it must allow infiltration of the CCP as a sign of complete loyalty and national security.

For business owners, CEOs, and marketing managers this podcast is for those who want to grow their business with social audio.

You are going to understand now so that you can reap the benefits later.

Mick Smith, Consultant M: (619) 227.3118

E: mick.smith@wsiworld.com

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