Facebook (FB), a subsidiary of Meta Platforms in the United States, has achieved rapid growth in India, but the number of users has peaked in recent years.
As a background to this, it has been pointed out that many women avoid male-centered Facebook due to concerns about safety and privacy. It was revealed in the results of a survey report released internally on February 2.
In the two years to the end of last year, the survey report was compiled based on interviews with tens of thousands of people and internal user data, and Reuters recently confirmed the report which said. "If women are left behind, Meta cannot succeed in India."
Other reasons for the slow growth in the number of users are a large number of nude images, the complexity of app design, and the obstacles to local languages and literacy rates.
However, Meta's Chief Financial Officer (CFO) did not mention this in the October-December financial results announcement last October, which was held on February 2, the same day the investigation was announced internally. rice field. Wener explained that the number of users in regions such as the Asia-Pacific was weighed down by comparison with the same period last year, when usage increased due to the re-expansion of the new coronavirus infection, in addition to the competition. For India, rising mobile data prices are a "unique" headwind.
Facebook's daily global user base declined for the first time in the quarter. The number of users in India was over 447 million as of November last year, which is the highest in the world according to the above-mentioned internal survey, but the growth is slowing down recently.
When contacting a Meta spokeswoman, the company responded that it regularly invests in internal investigations to evaluate and improve its products. However, it is misleading to position the survey, which was completed seven months ago, as an accurate picture of the Indian business.
An internal study points out that Facebook's main problem in India is related to "gender imbalances," and has been working to remedy it for years with little success.
According to a survey, 75% of monthly active users in India were men last year, more than 62% of the world's total in early 2020. In India, there is a big difference between men and women in terms of Internet usage in general, but "it is even more noticeable for Facebook users," he said.
79% of women using Facebook "expressed concern about content and photo misuse," the study said. Also, an estimated 20-30% of all Indian users have seen nude images on Facebook in the last 7 days. According to a survey conducted in August 2021, for example, the US and Brazil accounted for around 10%, and Indonesia also fell below 20%.
The survey also cited that "family does not forgive" is a major reason why women do not use Facebook.
A spokeswoman for Meta pointed out that gender imbalances on the Internet are not unique to the company, but an industry-wide problem. Since 2016, Meta has quadrupled its global team of security and security efforts to more than 40,000, with more than 97% of adult nudity and sexual activity content in January-April this year. He explained that he had deleted it before being notified.
The internal research material includes a slide photo to illustrate the difficulties faced by female users. This is a picture of an Indian woman wearing a sari and walking down the road.
According to the woman's testimony posted next to it, 367 strangers applied for friends in response to this post, and the photos are "very beautiful", "where do you live", and "beautiful". Was flooded with comments.
For this reason, women used a "locked profile" feature that restricted their posts to "friends," and no longer received these comments.
Facebook introduced this feature in India in 2020. According to an internal survey, 34% of Indian female users have adopted it as of June last year, but more "bold product changes" are needed to deal with the low female utilization rate. ..
According to an internal survey, the number of Facebook users in India has peaked since last year.
Based on the data from May to October last year, the annual increase in the number of users in India was 6.6 million, 71 million for the dialogue app "WhatsApp", which is also under the umbrella of Meta, and 128 million for the video posting app "Instagram". It is far behind.
As of November last year, the absolute number of users in India was 447 million for Facebook and 563 million for WhatsApp. Instagram has 309 million people.
Facebook has so far expanded rapidly in India, doubling from less than 100 million users in 2014 to 2017.
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