Facebook, Inc Common Stock (NASDAQ: FB) conducted a study to determine how its share and like button affects its users. The company found that younger users feel anxious if their posts get few likes. However, Facebook noted that eliminating the feature does not lower this anxiety. Younger users post less when the like button is hidden. People also interact less when with posts that have hidden likes.
The concern for young people’s mental health comes after the company reported declining teen and young adult users on its Facebook and Instagram sites. Facebook has experienced a 13% decrease in teen users from 2019.
Facebook is now trying to recover users in areas that have experienced the highest decline, such as Japan, Australia, and the U.S. The company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has announced that his team focuses on serving young adults. The changes on the Facebook site will take years. However, the changes on Instagram will be immediate.
Facebook struggled to stop misinformation in China
Facebook is receiving backlash due to the release of internal documents highlighting its struggle to curb misinformation, violence, and hate speech in India. The records show how Facebook failed to send sufficient resources to stop misinformation.
Facebook claims that it spent money and effort to deal with the problem. First, it partnered with ten fact-checking organizations in India to tag suspicious posts flagged by Facebook users. Then, it was up to the company to suppress the distribution of these posts. However, fact-checkers claim that the company did not do enough to stop misinformation from politicians who presented the most significant issue.
Frances Haugen leaks internal documents from Facebook
Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee who claims that the company’s algorithm leads to harmful content going viral, leaked the internal documents. She adds that the company was aware of the problem and had taken no action despite concerns raised by other employees. Haugen presented her concerns to U.S legislators in a bid to introduce tighter restrictions on social media companies. She also spoke before British lawmakers and will give her case in Germany, the European Union, and France.
Despite the negative news, Facebook is planning to change its name to Meta. The report has caused a lot of speculation, with some claiming the move has links to Facebook’s Horizon virtual reality platform, which is under development.
