Meta’s family of apps — primarily Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — have been staples of my daily digital diet for years. Mine and billions of others. As of mid-2024, Meta reports that 3.27-billion people used at least one of its core offerings every day, and that user statistic is slightly higher (7%) year on year.
It’s unthinkable power and reach: not just to have a touchpoint with that many people around the world, but to live in the pocket of so many users — real people — who reach for your platforms almost compulsively.
In addition to its individual users, Meta has tapped the business-use market too. It boasts that 200-million businesses — from solo side hustlers to multinationals — use Meta’s tools to “connect” with their customers.
I think this is important context to acknowledge upfront. Meta has enjoyed historic commercial and cultural success, changing modes of communication and business models.
All protocol observed though, the matter of Facebook’s continued utility and relevance in my life is now a big unanswered question I find myself worrying at frequently. This is no slight on Instagram, of which I still need a frequent glossy fix. Nor Threads, which underwhelms but keeps me hangin’ on in the hope that it will soon have the vibrancy and immediacy of Old Twitter (before its dog-leg sho’t right into e-fascism).
The speculative setting of the Facebook sun has been long foretold, and my current criticisms of the platform aren’t wholly fresh either — the ageing user base is a concern, the spamification of the news feed well established. I’ve been cataloguing the general grumblings and clear failures for years. Still, I hadn’t personally reached that tipping point until, maybe, now.
Personal user experience aside, Meta has to solve two big and ongoing problems: scams and misinformation. Last week in Australia, as part of a federal court case, Australia’s consumer regulator claimed that 58% of the cryptocurrency-related ads it had analysed on Facebook were either outright scams or in violation of Meta’s own policies.
This is part of an ongoing feud and court case, brought by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), which alleges false, misleading or deceptive conduct by Meta. An Australian government website, Scamwatch, claims investment scams are the biggest player in money-pilfering schemes affecting people Down Under, far outweighing romance scams, phishing and fake billing.
Meta has denied the ACCC’s claims. A spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the ACCC data “relies on old information from 2018 and is from a limited data set and that other contact methods are still the top way people are scammed”. The data was unlikely to be “an accurate representation of our platform today”, the spokesperson said, and Meta continues to improve methods in the fight against scams.
Whose data is a better indicator is hard to assess from the outside, but on balance I think it is evident that Meta has a scam problem. Digital bank Revolut published an analysis of its 2023 numbers and found a whopping 60% of all reported scam cases from UK users and 61% of reported scam cases within the European economic area were initiated on Meta platforms.
Deepfakes and other fakery enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) are expected to turbocharge scamming efforts as new tools allow for increasingly effective impersonation of both public and private people. So here’s your semi-regular reminder from me that Uncanny Valley Elon — or any other tycoon you care to name — is not champing at the bit to share his wealth or “simple investment strategies” directly with you.
Years on from the Cambridge Analytica misinformation and manipulation debacle, the misinformation quandary continues to confound. For example, research from the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, Columbia University, found that “nearly one out of every four political image posts on Facebook” contained misinformation on the eve of the 2020 election.
Images are particularly sneaky beasts in the battle for veracity. Not only do image posts make up at least 40% of Facebook posts, but they garner more engagement than plain text posts and are more likely to be shared, amplifying the misinformation they contain.
What that stat — misinformation in the lead-up to the US election — looks like in a post-gen-AI boom year remains to be seen, but if I had to guess I’d wager “not good”.
On this front, researchers and activists are up in arms this week over Meta’s decision to shut down CrowdTangle, a digital tool that enables the tracking and countering of misinformation. Meta purchased the start-up in 2016. In its place it has launched Content Library, which it argues is more user-friendly.
University of Sydney researchers, writing about the closure on The Conversation, said: “As long-time users of CrowdTangle to track and analyse online misinformation campaigns, we are sceptical of this claim.”
Dozens of public advocacy groups signed a letter to Meta asking it to keep the tool available until the end of the year, writing: “This decision jeopardises essential pre- and post-election oversight mechanisms and undermines Meta’s transparency efforts during this critical period, and at a time when social trust and digital democracy are alarmingly fragile.”
All of which is for me more darkening of the skies in the search for personal connection on Facebook, which now feels like an Odyssey across whine-dark seas. First you must sidestep the commodified nostalgia and apartheid apologists; steer clear of the promoted posts from politicians; resist the community whirlpool of complaints that erupt into flame war; and sacrifice one cry-laugh reaction to the lone memelord still holding court. Only then, weary traveller, will you earn a glimpse of the relevant life update post or curated selfie you seek.
• Thompson Davy, a freelance journalist, is an impactAFRICA fellow and WanaData member.
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