Facebook is ranking in the billions despite controversies

New Delhi: You will be startled to see Facebook’s recent quarterly results. How can a firm that has only been in the news for all wrong reasons persist to add more users? Or report a substantial jump in the revenue. The answer is quite simple: Facebook and its users, including many of us, is a match made in ignorant heaven.

What else could clarify that the monthly active users on Facebook increased by 9 per cent to a whopping 2.32 billion in the quarter ending on December 31. If any firm had a scandalous year the way Facebook did in 2018. It would actually be staring at some horrifying numbers. But then not every firm is Facebook who famously had the mantra, “break things, and move fast.”

Is your data safe on Facebook? The answer to that question is the same as this question: does the sun rise in the east? Can Facebook be hacked? Of course. Just ask those 50 million users whose data got exposed in 2018. Had any company been so careless with their users’ data? Not the ones that are raking in billions of dollars in profits. So surprisingly how does Facebook manage to do this after exposing your data, target teenagers and use their data for “research purposes”, hand out apologies as if they are candies being doled out on Halloween? Also, its CEO Mark Zuckerberg quite remarkably implied that there’s nothing wrong with the firm but it’s the users who don’t understand it? Just, because of its users.

There are billions of users on Facebook and a majority of them are gleefully sharing pictures, personal data, location, their personal thoughts, #10yearschallenge and much more. It’s this data and those users which attract advertisers to Facebook like catnip. Many users either they don’t care or they don’t understand how their data is actually being used and that is something Facebook knows quite well. One can’t actually blame them as there are many who might not share much on Facebook but as long they are ‘around’, it works in the favour of Facebook.

Facebook will continue to make certain habitual announcements about data being safe and how important privacy is for the social media network and all. Possibly it may just introduce measures and tools to make it better but that remains to be seen.

Should we still hope that Facebook will change and be careful about how it treats regards users’ data and privacy? Anyhow the firm has really had a fantastic quarter and a great year despite being embroiled in all sorts of controversies.

According to reports Facebook along with its two other billion-dollar properties WhatsApp and Instagram will actually unite into one platform by the year 2020. If that happens, then the “push” will actually turn into one big giant shove.