Facebook is not only struggling in the US, but also in India. The social media platform has witnessed a decrease in users following India’s stringent crackdown on internet freedom and other restrictive initiatives. The company is allegedly considering exploring “alternative options” if it fails to make a comeback within the next 3-6 months, according to sources.
The issue of a low female user base is an important issue that Facebook has to deal with now since it leads to major concerns about the company’s future and its sustainability. The company’s female user base ratio has drastically decreased in the past few years, especially after Facebook launched new products like WhatsApp. Although the company is yet to launch the product officially, it has already recorded an impressive user base of over 1 billion users.
Facebook has been pushing its services on the Indian market with mixed results. The company is facing challenges in connecting with Delhi, India’s capital and the world’s third-largest metro area. In March, Facebook added over 100 million new users in India. However, while the number of active monthly users in India has increased by 13% year-over-year to 240 million people, only 1% of them are women.
The number of mobile-only users in India has also been rising since last year. Last month, over 50% of the social network’s total users in India accessed it through their phones or tablets. In addition to slow growth, Facebook is facing problems engaging with women. The social media giant added 10 million new female users in India last quarter, bringing its total user base among women to around 100 million people. This number is significantly lower than in other countries, where it gets up to 80% of its users from women.
Facebook also added over 100 million new users in India over the past year. However, while the number of active monthly users in India has increased by 13% year-over-year to 240 million people, only 1% of them are women. More than half of the mobile-only Facebook users in India are accessing the platform through their smartphones and tablets, the company revealed Tuesday. The social media giant hasn’t broken out the exact number but said it is growing quickly among mobile devices as well.
Indian Women shunning Facebook due to safety, and privacy concerns
One of the reasons for low numbers of women on the social media platform is safety concerns, as there have been numerous instances of gruesome violence against women on social media platforms. Hate speech and fake news are also to blame.
Facebook is letting children as young as 5 years old sign up for accounts. This does not sit well with India’s regulators as the country has a general attitude towards banning children from the internet for safety reasons. However, Facebook’s spokesperson said that the social media giant does not allow children under 13 years old to use Facebook or Instagram and there is an “including non-Facebook websites” option on user security settings page which parents can use to block their kids from accessing third-party websites.
The Indian government is trying so hard to regulate and control social media, including WhatsApp, which has about 1 billion users. We are going to have more and more censorship on the internet. The Indian government has come out with a new set of rules for the country’s Internet Service Providers (ISP), which will regulate social media as well as messaging services like WhatsApp, according to a report by The Times of India.
Facebook has a significant audience in India, with over 120 million users. The company has not revealed how many of those are women, though. “In 2014, the company began testing various initiatives intended to make the social network more accessible to a wider range of advertisers in India—the country with the second-largest mobile Internet population on the planet—including promoting mobile-friendly websites and mobile app interfaces, publishing ads on local new media platforms, launching clickable banners in search results, and hiring local sales agents.
Facebook has a significant audience in India, with about 26 million user accounts. The company has not revealed how many of those are women. Facebook has been facing a major issue with its platform being used to spread fake news. Various studies and surveys conducted by various groups have found that the platform is being used to promote hate speech, rumours and lies. Facebook has so far announced several measures to deal with this issue, including hiring fact-checkers to flag fake news on the social network.
Facebook’s growth woes in India: Not enough women and too much nudity
Facebook’s growth in India has been much slower than the company expected. Facebook said it added 130 million new users in India last year, but at the same time its business has declined in key areas, including ad dollars and user engagement. Facebook is still struggling to connect with Indian women, as only 1% of them are active on Facebook. The social media platform is also dealing with nudity, as people regularly post pictures containing nudity on social media, but Facebook’s community standards prohibit such content.
In India, where the rupee has been strengthening against the dollar, Facebook has been facing issues with slowing growth. However, the company is yet to sign contracts in India. Revenue in Indian rupees and local currency, however, are reported separately to provide transparency. Facebook is losing its appeal as a social media platform to users in India as it struggles with a weak user base and security issues. The country’s young people don’t seem to be attracted by the platform anymore; there are even reports that they are looking away from it.
New user registrations in India have remained stagnant in the last quarter, while the amount of video views has increased. Facebook’s Instagram has also been witnessing significant surges in downloads of its standalone app on Google Play, while WhatsApp is still the most widely-used video calling service, despite Instagram’s growth.
Facebook’s user growth in India has been quite slow, but it keeps growing steadily. The social media platform has always been wary of losing its user base to other social media platforms and bemoans the fact that most Indian Internet users prefer to use WhatsApp or other apps for chats. The company has been trying hard in a bid to acquire user base in India, but it seems the transfer from WhatsApp is not happening yet. However, the company is doing everything to woo more Indians to its platform.
Gender imbalance leading to a plateau in Facebook’s growth in India
Facebook’s growth in the Indian market has plateaued, and authorities in India are blaming the low number of female users on the platform. Facebook’s gender imbalance is not only a problem in India, as studies from several countries show that women make up for less than 10% of users on social media platform.
In remarks made to The Economic Times, an Indian newspaper, a Facebook spokesperson said that there is no bias against women on the platform and that its AI algorithms remove content like pornography or hate speech before anyone sees it. Facebook employs gender-neutral language and offers female-specific profiles to make it easier for them to interact with the platform.
Another issue that the social media giant is facing in India is fake news. Facebook introduced a new video feature called ‘Watch’ this month to take on Netflix and YouTube, but that did not have much of an impact on the market as it was released at the same time as its Q1 earnings announcement. The social media giant is also facing challenges with its service in India as people are having a hard time logging into their accounts due to server errors.
The United States issued a warning as Facebook continues to make changes to its privacy settings, which has resulted in a number of users from the U.S. losing their access to the social media platform. The move means that Facebook will no longer contact U.S. users about government requests for user information through its “warrant canary” notification system and it will delete their email addresses from its data-sharing partnerships with third parties.
Why is Facebook India’s Growth levelling out?
One of Facebook’s challenges as a company in India is that it is struggling to connect with the country’s younger population, who have a low use of social media. This year, only 1% of Facebook’s active user base in India is under the age of 18. Others believe that the social network’s privacy settings are not mature enough for women in India and other countries to use it without being exposed to violence.
Facebook is facing a number of issues in India related to data protection, privacy and security. The social media platform is a hub for fake news and political meddling, which has resulted in a number of bans and bans on any advertising that contains hate speech. Facebook also faces increasing criticism for enabling its users to post photographs of themselves nude.
Why Indian women avoid the platform?
The lack of female users on Facebook in India is attributed to safety concerns and the social media platform’s inability to keep up with local cultures. Facebook has tried to connect with women in different languages, but its efforts have not been enough. Only 1% of females in India are active on Facebook, as the country’s general attitude towards internet use among young people is not encouraging when it comes to social media platforms.
Facebook has faced new allegations of abuse in Indian hospitals. The social media platform has been using the newsfeed feature on its website to link patients to health facilities. However, a report by the Times of India showed that some users have found that their privacy settings were accidentally violated during this process. This resulted in them being linked to health facilities and exposed to advertisements unrelated to their health needs.
In India, women’s online safety is a major issue as they are exposed to violence, pornography and threats on the platform. Only 1% of women in India use Facebook. Women have also been protesting at Facebook offices in Delhi and Mumbai over the way it is handling complaints about privacy violations on their profiles.
The company’s most recent acquisition came when it purchased WhatsApp. Facebook acquired the messaging platform for $19 billion in cash and stock, allowing the social media platform to directly compete with companies such as Apple, Google and China’s Tencent to create its own version of a mobile messenger.
Facebook parent Meta prepares for the serious time ahead
The fact that Facebook has been using data from Indians to target advertisements to them is one of the reasons why it could have been caught up in a scandal involving Cambridge Analytica. Mark Zuckerberg will have to face questions and rising concerns about Facebook’s data collection practices as the social media platform continues to face backlash over its use of personal information, affecting its ability to make money, while not making necessary improvements.
Indian authorities are investigating Facebook for its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The social media platform has denied any wrongdoing and said that it is ready to work with local authorities as well as the U.S. government if necessary. Indian authorities have also banned Facebook’s free basics service, which was launched in India but was subsequently banned by the country’s telecoms regulator, TRAI.
Facebook has been hard at work trying to find ways to breach the $1 trillion mark, which will make it the most valuable company in the world. The company has been taking steps to prepare for its public listing in March, including selling shares on the secondary market. Facebook will also be facing pressure to make changes to its privacy policy in India, which has resulted in hundreds of users being banned from the social media platform. Facebook has been facing backlash and investigative reports over the way that it collects personal information and accumulates user data through its WhatsApp acquisition.
Facebook execs may not get the huge bonuses they were expecting
The social media platform recently hired advisers to prepare for its cross-border IPO and to ensure that it meets the requirements that were set by the Securities Exchange Commission. Facebook is expected to offer shares with a price range of $34 and $38, which would be a 44% discount from its recent high. This would make it more valuable than Ford, but less valuable than General Electric, as it prepares for its public offering in March.
Facebook encourages its employees to take time off
Facebook has been offering its employees longer parental leave to encourage them to have children. The social media platform will also offer a $4,000 “baby cash” benefit, which is designed to help parents purchase baby products. Facebook’s financial services will also cover the cost of surrogacy and egg freezing for its female employees.
In July 2016, Facebook disclosed that it had found a security vulnerability in its website through which third parties could access the data of some users of Facebook and Instagram. Facebook said that only about 270,000 people were affected by this security incident. However, many privacy advocates expressed concern that this security vulnerability had undermined user trust in the Facebook platform.
Facebook executives met with Congressional members from both sides of the aisle to discuss legislative concerns about the company due to its data collection practices and previous issues with political influence on its platform during the campaign season.
Conclusion
Facebook is one of the biggest sources of internet traffic in the world. In 2017, Facebook’s social media platform had over two billion daily active users per day. The social media platform has been facing backlash for its data collection practices, which have resulted in scrutiny from government regulators and detractors about how Facebook conducts user policy and where its focus lies in terms of user privacy. Furthermore, it has also gotten into serious trouble with regulators as it continues to be implicated in political influence on its platform.
Facebook was also implicated in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which has resulted in investigations of its use of personal information on its platform and how this information can be used to target advertisements on its website. Mark Zuckerberg has agreed that he will be testifying before congress to answer questions about Facebook’s role in this incident. He will also have to address wider concerns about the company’s privacy policy.
This online giant is one of the most valuable companies in America, worth more than $585 billion, and it did not even exist for 10 years before it was valued at this price. The company has been accused of having too much power over people’s lives as it targets users with advertisements and collects their personal information.
Many say that social media sites like Facebook are, in part, to blame for the rise in the number of cyberattacks and malware attacks. Cybercriminals use social media platforms to reach a wider audience, steal personal information and create chaos for unsuspecting users. This is just one of the risks users take going online with sites like Facebook and Instagram.
Facebook has been getting into trouble with the FTC and has been forced to apologize for a series of privacy violations. Facebook has made extensive changes to its policy and terms of service following the FTC’s investigation. The website also worked to increase transparency by announcing plans to release more user data as well as other information that it collects in a product page on its site.
edited and proofread by nikita sharma
