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A comment on Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealth, Facebook has peaked. Parent comment

Re:Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealt... by randomsearch on Saturday February 17, 2018 @05:36PM (#16403162)
What if those two billion accounts are bullshit?

Has anyone actually done a sample of Facebook users (or humans) to check those stats? I do not believe them, based on my personal experience and the very large number of businesses and bots on facebook.

Given the massive incentive for Facebook to lie, we’d be naive to take their numbers for granted.

If they provided really fine-grained data, we could easily verify their claims. We pick cities, they give numbers, we survey to confirm, then extrapolate.

Anyone got any data?

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Re:Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealt... by scarface74 on Saturday February 17, 2018 @07:08PM (#16403599)
Another perspective, how many users are actually dead?

http://www.theloop.ca/dead-facebook-users-will-soon-outnumbe...

EDIT:

Well they do measure active daily users but I still think the article above is interesting.

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Re:Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealt... by nicktirrell on Sunday February 18, 2018 @04:44AM (#16405240)
fascinating stats here, thanks for the article.
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Re:Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealt... by clay_the_ripper on Saturday February 17, 2018 @06:01PM (#16403289)
Even if the MAUs are half of what they claim (they claim over 2 billion monthly active) they still have a moat the size of a freakin ocean. I think it’s safe to say they have users “in the billions”.
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Re:Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealt... by namrog84 on Saturday February 17, 2018 @06:20PM (#16403381)
I believe half is even optimistic. I'd venture a gamble that at most 25% are unique and original people.

Even my non technical friends often have 2-4 accounts. For work, for friends, for forgotten passwords, etc...

And then of course bots and bots and bots.

Of course it depends on how they define a user and an account. If I logon only 1 of my accounts in a given month or 10. Do they count as 1 or 10 in either case?

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Re:Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealt... by halflings on Saturday February 17, 2018 @10:00PM (#16404205)
Anecdote rebuttal to an anecdote: None of my personal friends have more than one account on facebook.

Facebook estimates than 10% of the accounts are duplicates [0], so that wouldn't match with most people (~50%?) having 2 to 4 accounts.

[0] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/11/02/facebook-ad...

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Re:Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealt... by itronitron on Saturday February 17, 2018 @11:51PM (#16404513)
Anecdote^3 ... none of my personal friends have more than zero facebook accounts :)
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Re:Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealt... by titanomachy on Sunday February 18, 2018 @01:43AM (#16404819)
Where do you live?
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Re:Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealt... by itronitron on Sunday February 18, 2018 @08:08PM (#16410036)
in a cave apparently, seriously though I don't have many personal friends
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Re:Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealt... by logicallee on Sunday February 18, 2018 @03:37AM (#16405067)
>none of my personal friends have more than zero facebook accounts

There's no way this is true

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Re:Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealt... by elgenie on Sunday February 18, 2018 @04:03AM (#16405126)
It could be trivially true for someone with zero personal friends :D
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Re:Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealt... by dazc on Sunday February 18, 2018 @04:30AM (#16405190)
It can be true, I think we get used to the idea that most people are connected but if you have friends over the age of, say, 60 it's fairly common for them not have internet access. In the UK, at least?
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Re:Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealt... by lawl on Sunday February 18, 2018 @07:36AM (#16405758)
Why not? In my friend circle only one guy has a facebook account, he created it to talk to a girl he met and i don't think he uses it anymore or even deleted it.

Not sure why that's so unbelievable.

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Re:Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealt... by tim333 on Saturday February 17, 2018 @10:54PM (#16404356)
I've got a friend who buys targeted ads through facebook and they work well. At least some of the stuff isn't bullshit.
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Re:Reasons to think that, in terms of influence if not wealt... by dazc on Sunday February 18, 2018 @04:26AM (#16405179)
'What if those two billion accounts are bullshit?'

Nobody thinks they are all bullshit but, if half of them are, it's still a lot of people.

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