The Dominance of Meta's Social Media Platforms and Implications for Communication Platforms

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Social media has turned into a basic pillar of human daily life, because of its great role in making the world more interdependent.

These platforms have contributed to connecting billions of people around the world with each other, and with their role growing rapidly in recent years, they have transformed from mere platforms for communication between individuals, to tools used by celebrities, companies, media, governments and politicians, to strategically communicate with the masses and influence public opinion trends.

Despite the multiplicity of social media platforms and applications, absolute control in this field belongs to Mita, whose platform users are close to half of the world’s population. During the disclosure of its business results for the second quarter of 2023, the company announced that there are 3.88 billion people in the world using One month from its family of applications, which include WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Messenger.

And while the figure of 3.88 billion users revealed by Mita represents nearly 50 percent of the world’s population of 8 billion, this figure also constitutes about 75 percent of Internet users in the world, and about 81 percent of social media users in the world. the world.

According to the research company Statista, the number of Internet users worldwide in April 2023 reached 5.18 billion, while the number of social media users reached 4.8 billion.

The applications owned by the Mita company occupy three ranks, in the list of the 5 most social networks that have the number of active monthly users in the world today, where Facebook comes first, with more than 3 billion active users, and then YouTube, with more than 2.5 billion users. The WhatsApp application ranked third with more than two billion active users, then Instagram with 2 billion users, and the WeChat application ranked fifth with 1.3 billion active users.

Apart from the financial profits that Mita achieves from its family of applications, the amazing number of users owned by the company proves that the empire it built is far from dead, as the company’s applications are still the number one choice for the inhabitants of the globe, as the strongest supposed competitors to Mita applications, Which is TikTok, it has only one billion monthly active users, which means it is still very far from being able to outperform it.

As Meta continues to expand and develop its methods of influence in the world of social media following the launch of the Threads application, great questions arise about the balance of power in the world of communication platforms and the implications of one company’s control over the interests of 80 percent of users of communication applications in the world.

And the developer of programs and applications, Ahmed Al-Harakeh, said in an interview with “Sky News Arabia Economy” that what Meta achieved would not have been allowed to reach it if it were not an American company, as the American identity of the company helped it expand its network of applications in various geographical regions of the world easily and without any harassment. to remember.

While any Chinese application for social networking finds great public success, its progress is hindered by regulatory obstacles that limit the possibility of its expansion at the mass level, just as it happens with the TikTok application, which faces obstacles in America, Canada and Europe that impede its progress.

According to the movement, what Mita has achieved is not surprising, as it has two of the most powerful applications in the world of communication, the first is Facebook and the second is WhatsApp, as it is very rare that there is an Internet user in the world who does not use one of these two platforms, indicating that what shows the extent of control it enjoys It has meta applications, especially the WhatsApp application, which is what happens when the application stops working due to a malfunction, as this tops the urgent news headlines in the world, which confirms that the application has turned into a basic system for communication and communication, at the level of the whole world.

The movement adds that the factors that helped Meta succeed and grow are the added value it provides to users with each new feature, noting that Meta, led by Mark Zuckerberg, excelled in satisfying users, advertisers and political authorities without being affected by one another.

For his part, communications engineer Muhammad Shami said in an interview with “Sky News Arabia Economy” that the various social media platforms are like a gold mine whose stock is constantly renewed with the addition of new users. The companies that own these platforms allow users to interact with their services without any cost. Being the product to be exploited in many ways.

He pointed out that these platforms, in return for their free services, want to know everything about the user, as part of their strategy to collect data and information about users non-stop.

Shami reveals that, apart from the profits Meta achieves from the ads that are displayed on its platforms, the data it collects on 3.88 billion users around the world generates fantastic profits for it as it exploits this information in the e-commerce market, revealing that Meta and other companies understand and monitor all The behavior of the user on the Internet, where this information is sold and used for huge sums.

According to Shami, it is estimated that the value of the global social networking platforms market will reach about $940 billion by 2026, as these numbers are expected to grow, with the increasing use of social networks, pointing out that politically, Mita guarantees The supremacy and hegemony of the United States of America over one of the most important tools in the technological war between it and China, as any non-American platform will not be allowed to reach this number of users, and the huge amounts of data and information related to them.

Shami believes that it cannot be said that Mita has become an empire that cannot be broken, as the company attracts users with its services, and any delay in keeping pace with user trends in the world will cost it this title.

Sky news