By Asish Samson

The social media giant Facebook is losing users rapidly to other platforms according to eMarketer, the digital measurement firm. In the year 2017 alone, Facebook lost 2.8 million users in the US aged under 25. That is almost three times the decline predicted. The forecast for 2018 is also very grim.

Many younger generations are moving more and more away from Facebook to other platforms. According to eMarketer, Instagram and Snapchat are expected to gain from this decline in Facebook. Snapchat users are expected to increase by about 9 percent this year, that is about 1.5 million news users from the US alone are expected to open accounts. Julia Smith, A social scientist has claimed that many teens call Facebook “the old people network”. Overall, Facebook is expected to lose about 15% percent of its users under the age 25 in the US in 2018.

One of the reasons for the decline in Facebooks users is its selective targeting of Conservatives and Right leaning users by deactivating or suspending their accounts without giving any warnings or a clear reason for doing so. Facebook is also very preferential to the ads displayed on it and the trending subjects. Facebook along with Twitter have previously been called out for this selective targeting.

Gab, one of the leading competitors for Facebook is also gaining from this decline. Gab, was launched in August 2016 by its CEO Andrew Torba who called it an alternative to “entirely left leaning social media monopoly”. In December 2016 the app was rejected by Apples iOS store citing vague reasons while Twitter dropped its API access without any reason. But, Gab’s users only increased day by day and it now has more than 300,000 users including many celebrities and political commentators. Paul Golding, Jayda Fransen, Tommy Robinson, Alisha Sherron, Will Mannion and Harry Goldsmith are also on Gab.