All is not well for Facebook, according to a study from Market Intelligence Central that has been picked up by CNBC.  Andy Meek of BGR.com teases out the meaning:

Facebook's traffic hasn't just fallen by about half since 2016, according to the study.  Among the consequences of such a precipitous drop is the opening it's given to YouTube, which the study's data shows is about to overtake Facebook to become the second biggest site, traffic-wise, in the U.S.  Which would give Google ownership of the top two spots, pushing Facebook down to number three.

CNBC describes the drop at Facebook as "severe" and goes on to round out its list this way: "The five websites receiving the most traffic in the U.S. in the last several years have been Google, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo and Amazon, in that order.  However, Facebook has seen a severe decline in monthly page visits, from 8.5 billion to 4.7 billion in the last two years, according to the study.  Although Facebook's app traffic has grown, it is not enough to make up for that loss, the study said."

To offset the decline, Facebook has acquired a portfolio of websites, as CNBC noted:

Facebook's has other properties to depend on, such as WhatsApp and Instagram.  "Yes, Facebook.com the website is down, but they think of themselves more as a portfolio of products," said Stephen Kraus, chief of insights at SimilarWeb and author of the study.

Nonetheless, Andy Meek postulates:

It's also one more suggestion that maybe, finally we're hitting "peak social."  (We can only hope, for the good of mankind.)

Snapchat's parent, of course, reported earnings this week and acknowledged a drop in daily active users for the second quarter compared to the year-ago period.  Facebook and Twitter also posted declines during their most recent earnings presentations.

Snap, for its part, blamed shedding users on a much-maligned redesign of the ephemeral messaging app.  Facebook and Twitter also blamed the European Union's new privacy law as part of the reason their numbers are down.

There's no mention of ideological bias as a factor in the drop of traffic, but I know from my own reaction that the spectacle of suppression of conservatives and, being honest, Zuckerberg himself via his testimony to Congress have made me reluctant to spend much time on Facebook.

God willing, "peak social" may become "a thing," and as people tire of reading about their friends' boasts or pictures of what they had for lunch, the importance of social media may fade, and Facebook will follow MySpace into obscurity.

Graphic credit: Max Pixel.