Facebook’s growth has started to slow, particularly in the regions of US, Canada, and Europe. This was revealed in the company’s third quarter earnings report.

Despite a number of problems including 2FA privacy violations, a data breach of 29 million users, as well as the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook has still managed some degree of growth. The social media platform experienced near stagnation in the US and Canada with a rate of 185 million daily users. In Europe, the number of daily users fell from 279 million to 278 million in part due to its GDPR regulation.

Where Facebook has experienced user growth lies in its international business. The daily users for the platform grew 9 percent per year to reach a total of 1.47 billion people. Similarly, monthly active users rose 10 percent to 2.27 billion people.

Despite promising results on the international end, the highest revenue per user still lies in US and Europe. Facebook’s advertising revenue grew 33% to $13.73 billion, but there is uncertainty over whether this can be maintained should the user growth in these regions remain as they are.

In an earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed the future of privacy and security on its platform.

“Public sharing will always be very important but people want to share privately too,” Zuckerberg said. “People feel more comfortable being themselves when they know their content is only seen by a small group and when they know it won’t be around forever.”

However, the company intends to focus on fighting fake news during the upcoming US midterm elections for now. Zuckerberg stated that Facebook security systems would reach a satisfactory level by the end of 2019.

(Source: The Verge)