‘Anti-Facebook’ app MeWe sees surge in downloads amid Big Tech scrutiny



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MeWe, a social media app focused on data privacy, has seen a surge in downloads in recent weeks as big tech companies crack down on user content.

The app which calls itself “anti-Facebook” added 2.5 million new users last week, bringing its total user base to 16 million – 50% of whom live outside the United States, told Fox Business MeWe spokesperson David Westreich.

“People around the world are dropping out of Facebook and Twitter in droves because they are fed up with the relentless breaches of privacy, surveillance capitalism, political bias, targeting and manipulation of news feeds by these companies. Said Westreich. “MeWe solves these problems.”

He added that the platform “is the new mainstream social network with all the features people love and no ads, no targeting, no feed manipulation and no BS.”

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MeWe, which said it surpassed 8 million users in June, ranked 7th overall and 4th among social media apps by U.S. iPhone downloads on January 10, according to the mobile data provider and App Annie analysis.

The week before that date, MeWe was not among the top 1,400 overall apps and ranked 66th among social apps, App Annie found.

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On Thursday, the app ranked 14th among social media apps on the App Store and 13th among all free apps on Google Play after several days of skyrocketing downloads.

The app told ZDNet that its usage increased frequently as people searched for an alternative social media app to Facebook, Twitter, and the like that did not infringe on its users’ privacy.

The website’s ‘About’ tab indicates that MeWe users control their own interaction and privacy settings, and that the platform does not sell or share user data with advertisers.

“The big tech companies, you know who they are, had started trading [users] like commodities, “says the MeWe website.” They kind of confused people who sign up to use their services as a welcome invitation to target, track, spy on and sell our information to advertisers and the government. . Overall it was pretty scary. “

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MeWe aims to provide an alternative to these websites by providing “decency, privacy and respect for social media users”.

Other privacy-focused social media and communications apps have also seen an increase in downloads in the past two weeks following the Jan.6 riot on Capitol Hill.

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Big tech companies like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube have made a number of policy changes and updates since the riot in an effort to quell violent or conspiratorial rhetoric on their platforms.

The policy changes have encouraged social apps that don’t censor content or focus on data privacy like Parler, DuckDuckGo, Signal, and Telegram to see spikes in user numbers.

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The encrypted messaging app Signal, for example, ranked # 1 among global and social media apps by iPhone downloads in the United States on Jan.9 and Jan.10. The week before, it ranked # 927 among global apps and # 45 among social apps. , according to App Annie.

DuckDuckGo, a search engine and alternative to Google that doesn’t take advantage of user data, reached # 1 in US iPhone downloads and # 1 in utility apps on January 10, up from 308 and 14, respectively, the one week before.

“These types of changes in messaging and social networking applications are not unusual,” Amir Ghodrati, director of market analysis at App Annie, said in a statement.Due to the nature of social apps and how the core functionality involves communicating with others, their growth can often change quite quickly, depending on current events. We have seen an increasing demand over the past few years for encrypted messaging and privacy-focused applications. “

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