As Mark Zuckerberg testifies in front of congress this week about his company’s privacy issues, tech pundits and consumers alike have wondered aloud if it’s time for people to quit Facebook. But employee morale reportedly remains high in the Palo Alto HQ, not to mention the company’s ability to recruit a fresh crop of engineers and developers. So are consumers actually leaving the social network en masse, as many have threatened to do?
Has the Cambridge Analytica Crisis Had an Impact on Facebook’s User Numbers?
Verto Analytics looked at daily user numbers for Facebook’s flagship site and app (among U.S. adult, ages 18 and above) over the course of the month of March 2018 – and particularly the weeks surrounding March 17, when the story originally broke in the press.
According to Verto Watch data, Facebook’s daily user numbers have not been impacted by the company’s recent data and privacy woes: there is no discernible change in Facebook’s daily user numbers following March 17. On average, Facebook received 135.6 million users per day between March 1-25, and the number of daily users reported by Verto Watch shows little deviation from this average both during the week of March 12 (the week preceding the Cambridge Analytica story) or the week of March 19 (the week immediately after the initial story broke). So while a handful of celebrities have made a loud and well-publicized departure from Facebook, it appears the vast majority of consumers are sticking around – for now.
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