Americans Abandon Facebook In Record Numbers As Company Plagued By Scandals
The Pew Research Center reports grim outlook for platform
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Americans are abandoning Facebook in record numbers in the wake of the recent scandals plaguing the company including private user data issues, according to a study.
The Pew Research Center reports that 42 percent of US Facebook users said they had "taken a break" from the platform in the past 12 months, while 26 percent said they deleted the Facebook app from their phone.
The break from Facebook was far more pronounced it the 18-29 age group, with 44 percent claiming to have deleted the Facebook mobile app.
Despite the survey not indicating how many users had actually quit Facebook, the finding suggest that the outlook for the company doesn't look great due to the number of scandals the company has been plagued with.
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"Significant shares of Facebook users have taken steps in the past year to reframe their relationship with the social media platform," researcher Andrew Perrin said in a blog post.
PressTV reports: According to Pew's survey, three-fourths of US Facebook users have taken some steps to change how they interact with Facebook, including more than half who have changed their privacy settings.
Perrin said the concerns about Facebook appeared to transcend political affiliation.
"The poll found that nearly identical shares of Democrats and Republicans (including political independents who lean toward either party) use Facebook," he said.
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"Republicans are no more likely than Democrats to have taken a break from Facebook or deleted the app from their phone in the past year."
The report was based on a survey between May 29 and June 11 including 3,413 Facebook users aged 18 and older, with an estimated margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.
The survey comes ahead of a congressional hearing on foreign influence campaigns on social media, at which Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg was to testify.
US President Donald Trump has accused social media companies of interfering with the 2018 congressional elections in November.
And it comes with US President Donald Trump stepping up his attacks on Internet platforms with his unverified contention that they are suppressing conservatives and Republicans.
Facebook has already lost ground in the United States among teens and young adult users, losing ground notably to Snapchat, but with some switching to Facebook-owned Instagram.
But Facebook remains the world's largest social network with well over two billion users worldwide.
