FACEBOOK continues to grow, and as of January, it reported over 2.13 billion users.
That’s almost one third of the world’s population. That’s also an increase of 14 percent in the number of users in just one year.
However, Facebook has come under lots of criticism, primarily on fake news, and also because it purportedly does not own the content it is making money from.
It was alleged, for instance, that Facebook allowed Russian agents to push misinformation and sow discord among Americans, thus influencing the 2016 US Presidential elections. There have been other allegations of harassment and election integrity.
To combat fake news, Facebook has been making some modifications, primarily in its newsfeed, essentially its soul and main feature. There are now algorithms in place that mean people may see more posts from family and friends, and less from brands and media outlets or viral news and videos. It also modified it so that people may see more local news instead of national news, which can be more polarizing.
We must give it to Mark Zuckerberg. By making sure that news needs to be verified, and putting less emphasis on viral information, it could also mean that people will find the platform less exciting, and will cause them to spend less time in the platform.
In the last few weeks, they reported that people now spend roughly 50 million fewer hours on Facebook every day. Less fun to use means fewer hours, but the Facebook CEO said that in the long term, he believes it is good for Facebook to encourage more meaningful and more real connections between people, rather than just passive consumption of its contents.
Just like Facebook, there is good news and bad news for another tech leader Samsung. Over a year ago, reports of the Note 7 catching fire resulted in billions of lost revenues due to recalls. Then its president was found guilty of bribery, and its vice chairman also stepped down.
But it does not seemed to have affected its good fortunes. In 2017, it may have ended the year with record sales of up to $223 billion (that’s more than four times the total exports earnings of the Philippines), and profits of over $50 billion dollars. Samsung’s chip business has also surpassed Intel’s, and while it competes with Apple, it is the supplier of the OLED screens, processors, and other chips that Apple uses.
I guess when you are positioned properly, no amount of bad things will pull you down.