Every year CIRA commissions an annual survey exploring how Canadians use the internet and publishes the insights in a new edition of Canada’s Internet Factbook. This year, CIRA is publishing a series of blog posts based on the findings of the 2024 Canada’s Internet Factbook survey. The blog that follows below is the third of four in the series.
Facebook remains the most used social media app in Canada
Canadians remain very much in thrall to the world’s most popular social network. According to research conducted for the latest Canada’s Internet Factbook, about six-in-ten Canadians (61 per cent) count themselves among Facebook’s three billion plus users, making it the country’s top social media platform for the seventh straight year, beating out its closest competitors by a significant margin. Just under half of Canadians (49 percent) say they use YouTube, while the other three most popular social platforms are all owned by Facebook parent company, Meta: Facebook Messenger (49 per cent), Instagram (37 per cent) and WhatsApp (35 per cent).
Despite its position atop the Canadian social media heap, it’s not all good news for Facebook. Its popularity among Canadians has been declining steadily since 2018 when more than three quarters of us (77 per cent) reported being enthusiastic Facebookers, the highest share since our internet Factbook research began. At 61 per cent, its slice of the social media pie in Canada today is its lowest yet.
Relationship status? It’s complicated.
What’s behind this 16 per cent decline? Increased competition from the likes of TikTok and Instagram is one contributing factor, as is the loss of public trust in the platform following various high-profile privacy breaches, including the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which Facebook mishandled the private data of 50 million of its users. Beyond these issues, Factbook survey results reveal that many Canadians have a love-hate relationship—or as us Gen Zers would say, situationship—with the social media behemoth. They’re still using the platform to connect with friends and family, share photos and videos, research brands and products and entertain themselves with the latest viral content. At the same time, they’re becoming increasingly uneasy with certain undesirable aspects of the Facebook experience.
For example, 28 per cent of Canadians describe Facebook as “unsafe for children” compared to 13 per cent for Instagram and 12 per cent for YouTube. Facebook is described by 28 per cent of us as “toxic” and by a quarter of us as “addictive,” beating out its nearest rival, Instagram, in both categories. Instagram is considered “addictive” by just 16 per cent of us and “toxic” by 11 per cent.
As if these concerns weren’t enough, Facebook is also selected by 34 per cent of Canadians as the social media platform most likely to use their personal data to target them with hyper-personal ads. The second most likely platform to be selected in this category, TikTok, was identified by just seven per cent. As part of a broad assessment of social media sites, Canadians selected Facebook as the second most likely to promote mis- or disinformation (17 per cent), just a shade behind X (18 per cent), and the second most likely to promote polarizing content (13 per cent), again behind X at 18 per cent.
Adding insult to injury, Canadians don’t even consider Facebook to be particularly “helpful,” finishing a distant second in this category (14 per cent) to YouTube (27 per cent), while just one in ten Canadians (11 per cent) describe Facebook as “positive” compared to 16 per cent for YouTube, the leading platform in this category.
A beacon of hope?
On the plus side, there are some areas where Facebook fared a little better in the survey. Case in point: eight per cent of us selected Facebook as the second most likely to act responsibly, just behind LinkedIn (nine per cent). We also selected Facebook as the second most likely (six per cent) to have accurate information, again behind LinkedIn at 10 per cent.
Canadians take a more positive view of the measures Facebook has put in place to reduce the negative impacts of potentially harmful content on its users. For example, 13 per cent of us selected it as the social platform most likely to flag untrue or harmful content, ahead of YouTube (five per cent) and X (five per cent), and as the site most likely to remove illegal and harmful content (13 per cent), compared to seven per cent for YouTube and four per cent for LinkedIn.
It’s impossible to predict whether Facebook can successfully address the many challenges it’s facing and re-ignite the passion of its massive user base in Canada and around the world. With the release of Meta AI, Canadians can expect to see some innovative new capabilities come their way before long, but in the meantime, they’ll have to do their best to continue navigating their complex relationship with the platform.
Georgia is a Policy & Advocacy Analyst at CIRA where she supports CIRA’s policy development and public affairs. She helps fulfill the Secretariat duties for the Canadian Internet Governance Forum and serves as a Board Director at The Canadian Internet Society.
