Enlarge image
Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg: Weather against criticism
Photo: MANDEL NGAN / AFP
Facebook wants to focus more on young users.
All of the Group's apps are aimed at becoming the best services for young adults between the ages of 18 and 29, "instead of optimizing for a larger number of older people," said founder and boss Mark Zuckerberg.
At the same time, Facebook is investing billions in building a virtual world in which Zuckerberg sees the next communication platform.
This alignment is in part a response to the rising popularity of the TikTok video service, which Zuckerberg described as "one of the most efficient competitors we have ever faced." TikTok's core business in particular, short video clips in portrait format, should be more prominent on Facebook and the Instagram photo service. Most recently, 60 percent of video advertising revenue came from portrait clips that were less than 15 seconds long.
In the short term, Zuckerberg expects this step to result in lower growth in other age groups, but in the long term, rejuvenation is the right step.
It will "take years, not months, to fully implement the change."
The latest internal Facebook documents that have become public include analyzes that show that Facebook is used less by young people in the USA.
Zuckerberg rejects criticism
The announcement comes at a time when Facebook is heavily criticized.
The whistleblower and former Facebook employee Frances Haugen has shared internal documents of the group with the Wall Street Journal.
According to Haugen, these show that, thanks to surveys and data analysis, the company knew that its services would cause damage in real life - but ignored this in order to make money.
However, Zuckerberg dismissed the current wave of critical media reports as a "coordinated attempt" to present Facebook in the wrong light.
jlk / dpa