Social media giant Facebook on Thursday said usage and engagement with its various tools like messaging and live video have grown significantly globally, including in India, as users leverage these features to stay connected with others amid the pandemic.
Speaking at the India Mobile Congress 2020, Facebook India Director and Head of Partnerships, Manish Chopra said digital engagement has shot through the roof as people around the world practice social distancing.
"We saw more people use our apps than ever before. Messaging grew almost 50 percent, live video grew almost 60 percent (globally), especially on Instagram, which saw video views really scaling up. Video posts became almost one-third of all the content posts that were created on Instagram in India," he said.
India is among the biggest markets for Facebook, which also operates photo-sharing platform Instagram and messaging app WhatsApp. Around 2.5 billion people globally use Facebook's family of apps daily, while there are over 10 million active advertisers across its services.
Chopra said more than 800 million daily active users globally are engaging on live video streams across Facebook and Instagram.
"They are doing workout classes, concerts, faith services, multiple things right that are really about getting connected with their audiences.
"Culture, we believe, has really gone virtual...we've seen multiple things come together, be it live concerts being done by key content creators and artists from their living rooms through the entire lockdown period, or be it videos that are being created on Facebook," he added.
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In another development, the US government and 48 states have filed parallel antitrust lawsuits against Facebook, accusing the social media giant of anti-competitive conduct by abusing its market power to create a monopoly and crushing smaller competitors, a move which may force it to sell WhatsApp and Instagram.
Soon after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 48 state attorney generals on Wednesday sued the California-headquartered company, Facebook's shares dropped significantly.
(Disclaimer: Additional background information has been added to this PTI copy for context)
Edited by Megha Reddy
Link : https://yourstory.com/2020/12/usage-various-tools-messaging-live-video-pandemic-facebook
Author :- Press Trust of India ( )
December 11, 2020 at 10:07AM
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