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Facebook Facing Grim Future According To Internal Memo, Hardware Projects Cancelled

Meta and their social media platform Facebook are under siege in Australia, consumers are fed up with their “fake” news and advertisers have woken up to the fact that their platform has some serious problems, the business is also facing more Government restrictions due to privacy and data capture issues.

The problems in Australia, as well as overseas has led to the Company warning of “serious times” ahead with executives now digging in for a leaner second half of 2022 where it’s tipped large scale layoffs could be implemented across the business.

According to an internal memo circulated to employees by chief product officer Chris Cox the business is facing “Fierce headwinds”.

“I have to underscore that we are in serious times here and the headwinds are fierce,” Cox wrote in the memo obtained by The Verge.

“We need to execute flawlessly in an environment of slower growth, where teams should not expect vast influxes of new engineers and budgets.”

The biggest revenue challenge comes from privacy changes affecting Meta’s ad business and macroeconomic pressures, Cox says in the memo, which was first reported by Reuters.

Cox says monetizing Reels, the company’s short-form video TikTok copy, “as quickly as possible” is a key priority.

A recent research study in Australia undertaken by Deloitte’s, reveals that even the younger market now believe that fake news delivered by social media platforms such as Facebook “Is a big problem” and as such consumers are turning back to TV News and traditional and above all trusted media sources.

Nearly 80% (79%) of survey respondents see ‘fake news’ as a problem in today’s media landscape.

Older generations were significantly more likely to hold this perception, with 85% of 65-75s agreeing, compared to 71% of 18-24s. Half (55%) of our respondents also indicated they find it difficult to differentiate between real and fake news.

As part of their rationalisation Facebook who have been desperate to break into the hardware business is now pulling back after losing billions. Even their attempts to cuddle up with Ray Ban with the release of sunglasses with Facebook built in is a flop.

Meta also appears to be pulling back on its consumer camera products, both those on shelves and in development, as its Reality Labs division continues to lose billions of dollars.

Bloomberg reports that Meta has stopped developing its camera-equipped smartwatch — codenamed “Milan” — that was supposed to be launched to the consumer market in spring of 2023.

The watch was apparently hamstrung by technical problems which made it first on the chopping block for Meta as it is attempting to cut costs that have spiralled into the billions of dollars.

Another problem for Meta is privacy with Deloitte’s research revealing that Australians concerned. This has led to several Government investigations.

Deloitte said that during the recent COVID pandemic has led to heightened awareness around the use of consumer personal data.

In a leaked Meta memo management claim that Facebooks privacy policy we successfully revamped during the past quarter because of Government scrutiny

Cox concluded his memo claiming “I have to underscore that we are in serious times here and the headwinds are fierce. We need to execute flawlessly in an environment of slower growth, where teams should not expect vast influxes of new engineers and budgets. We must prioritize more ruthlessly, be thoughtful about measuring and understanding what drives impact, invest in developer efficiency and velocity inside the company, and operate leaner, meaner, better exciting teams”.



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