Facebook Voted Least-Trusted Tech Company

2018 may be remembered as the year Facebook finally began to lose its grip on the public’s social media use. Another indication that the company is bleeding credibility arrived earlier this month, when consumer research company Toluna announced the results of a survey that overwhelmingly named Facebook the least-trusted tech company.

Toluna recently surveyed 1,000 people and asked which tech company the recipients trusted the least with their information. 40 percent said Facebook, while Twitter and Amazon came tied in second at a distant eight percent.

None of this is surprising given Facebook’s rough year, but all of this bad press may be beginning to take its toll on the company. The hashtag “#FacebookFreeJanuary” has begun to spread on the site, and many users have become vocal about quitting the platform permanently.

“There has to be some consequence that Facebook actually takes notice of,” Facebook user Jeff Johnson of New Jersey told USA Today. “Advertisers and the markets care about daily active users and monthly active users, so if Facebook’s usage base takes a dip, perhaps there will be real changes.”

Of course, Facebook has over 2.2 billion active members, and it’s larger than it has ever been. It would take a massive exodus of users to draw Facebook’s full attention, but who knows — this year has left the company in a pretty precarious place with its users.