20 Million People Leave Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has lost tens of millions of users. In its financial report for the first quarter of 2026 (January to March), Meta recorded a loss of 20 million daily active users (DAU) across its family of applications, including Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. The company owned by Mark Zuckerberg did not specify the extent of the decline for each of its social media platforms. In addition to DAU, Meta also noted a decrease in daily active people (DAP). Meta defines DAP as registered users who log in to one of its applications via mobile or web devices on a given day. Meta’s Chief Financial Officer, Susan Li, stated that the drop in user numbers was due to internet disruptions in Iran. Since the attack carried out by the United States (US) and Israel on 28 February 2026, Iran has almost completely blocked internet access in the country. In addition to government policies, a small portion of the internet outages was also caused by infrastructure damage from the US-Israel attack, which affected fibre optic cables. Previously, Iran had also completely shut down internet access on 8 January 2026, a few weeks after escalating anti-government protests related to currency values. That total shutdown lasted nearly three weeks, until the government eased internet access restrictions on 28 January 2026, before restricting it again at the end of February. In addition to the internet shutdown in Iran, Li also attributed the decline to restrictions on WhatsApp access in Russia. This report caused Meta’s shares to fall 9% in trading that closed on Friday (1 May 2026) US time. Nevertheless, Meta’s revenue was reported to have increased 33% year-on-year to $56.3 billion (approximately Rp977 trillion), with net profit of $22.8 billion (approximately Rp395 trillion), as summarised by KompasTekno from The Economic Times.