Near the border with ukraine. Satellite images show the extent of the hardware that has been sent to baylor bruce, including aircraft troops and air defense systems. Russia move troops to baylor roof for what it calls military drills and still denies that it has plans to invade ukraine. A 5 year old boy trapped in a well in morocco. Since tuesday has been found dead by rescue workers, moroccos king announced ryan did not survive the 5 day ordeal. Teams dug out part of a hillside to reach the boy. So the girls, president mighty sol, has been elected the African Unions, new chairman that the to day summit leaders said that they want to expand the 55 member blocks influence international influence mom at at o reports from addis ababa, where leaders have also decided to boost their response to coven 19, they have agreed to advance the roll out of volition, in african countries. More than 580000000 doses of the exam has been delivered to africa so far. And they have been logistical problems which are the we can be expecting the newly created africa mid seems agency, which is a component of the African Union to deal with a conflict between 2 criminal gangs of a territory. And central mexico has led to the deaths of 16 people. The states Prosecutor Says the police found 10 bodies wrapped in blankets on the streets of one city. Other bodies were found hanging inside a nearby warehouse detectives in argentina trying to track down who laced a bunch of cocaine with poison. Its killed at least 24 drug users and purple and 80 and Hospital Authority say that hundreds of people were sold the contaminated drug in recent days. And those are the headlines wont use here on out 0 after todays inside story coming up next. Ah, for the 1st Time Facebook finds itself struggling for france, this number of uses has fallen booking in plaster than sending the platform surprised, plunging. So is it a blip or sign of a long term decline . This is inside story. Ah. Along welcome to the program. Im hasha magdalena, doha. Facebook. A social media giant, defined by its obsession with growth, has announced a loss in daily users for the 1st time. Loggins fell by about half a 1000000 in the final 3 months of last year. It still has more than 1900000000 years as globally. But investors were clearly alarmed. The decrees, piles pressure on a company criticized for its Business Practices and struggling to compete against the wise of video based app, tick tock, stocks in matter platforms, as facebooks own is now known plans more than 26 percent on thursday. That translates into a drop, a market value of 230000000000. 00 are the same time the company is boring. Billions into Virtual Reality technology or what it calls a matter of us transition. Ah, for more this, im joined by our guess for both are a new york jim anderson, a ceo of social flow, a company specializing in social media content distribution, and in myers is the founder of oceans, x y, z strategic visor affirm focused on culture and content welcome to the program, jim, hard to explain that a company has been that has been aggressively and successfully based on growth in terms of both users and market value, suddenly faces its biggest, one day wipe out in the stock market. Yeah, i remember it shows the importance of expectations. Your facebook did have a giant. Why bad . I mean the biggest one day last in history, but i cant help but look, i went back and i looked at their stock price. Theyre still trading 50 percent above where they were 2 years ago. So its kind of crazy that you could lose so much off of your value and still be so much higher than you were even 2 years ago. The other thing is people are really worried about the loss or the lack of growth in their daily active users. They still have 25 percent of the people on the planet using facebook on every single day. So i think its true and expectations issue and reality catching up with them that theyre not going to grow forever in the numbers, look awkward to someone like myself unless theres a different interpretation to this. Because when you look at the stock market, the, its stock market, it struck plummeted by 26 percent, which was translated in a market value plunging to Something Like 230000000000. 00. Were just lost Something Like half a 1000000 users. I guess the ratio of Something Like what 1900000000 user still has. Yeah. Yeah, i mean, what i, as jim send me, it shows momentum. If youre moving a 1000 miles an hour and you are going to get derailed. So for facebook, the problem was it wasnt just a drop and users, it was the 1st, i think it was the 1st drop in the you in the entire companys history. I mean, its been flat in north american canada for several years. A surprise there. Same thing in europe, up a little down, a little relatively flat, but in the rest of the world thats been their growth. So, and thats traditionally what happens with Companies Like this. They grow 1st in the us, been in canada then in europe, and they get a lot of growth out there. But after they saturate those markets, they move to the rest of the world. Facebook has been in the rest of the world for a while, and so their growth, theyre starting to slow down and its worrying people, especially because the average revenue per user is much lower there. So if, if the u. S. Canada, europe are staying flat, thats where theyre getting lot of their money. Thats for the wealthiest people are. And then its concerning for their future cash flow. When even the rest of the world is starting to drop off, gentlemen, that is what it becomes really exciting is just going to be a small dand or something with far reaching consequences on the future of social media giants. Jim now, chief executive, mach snuck a burg, is attributing the decline, basically, to audiences living for wible companies such as tick tock should, should facebook, were really concerned about tick tock there should, i mean tick tock is a great application and you know, Mark Zuckerberg probably to much derision has been testifying in front of congress is a, were not a monopoly. We have plenty of competition. So in some ways, if youre looking for a silver lining, i dont think any c e o wants to see his or her company have a one day wipe out. This is the biggest in history. But if youre looking for a silver lining, hes proving himself right. They do have competition. There are other applications out there seeking consumers attention. So i think the next time he gets hauled in front of congress to testify or the e u or anywhere else and says, hey, we have plenty of competition. He, all he needs to do is point to february, 2nd, 2022. As perfect example of that in usually you would expect ceos to shift to Crisis Management those and they would provide you with different interpretations. But dont you think that its about time for facebook to face the reality of that he has failed to win the hearts and minds of people if fail to reinvent itself. And theres still this legacy of a facebook that was not really straightforward when it comes to good governance, transparency, and spreading of this information. If you look at all of their internal documentations, everything thats come to life gets the last 5 years, all of the weeks, all the with the blowing. Its clear that theyve known this for a while. And i think what were really talking about is whether marg, soccer bergen, facebook are focused on the past or the future. And this goes to jims point about anti trust as well. Yes, there finally saying, okay, see what government. You know, were not the only guys in this field, theres plenty of other people stop your last suits, you know, theyre the Anti Trust Lawsuit against facebook. The 2nd life little while ago, they presented new evidence that was accepted. Then theyre going to be able to move forward that, but the real issue i think is facebook is looking forward and social antitrust regulators should users. So should everybody out there looking at b. R a are there, you know, facebook matter reality labs is the place where everyone should be focusing their attention. And interestingly enough, the fcc filing an inquiry against their acquisition within for 400000000. 00, which they made in october. But they have been quietly buying up every major v r a are studio. And thats going to be the real test is whether they can get away with being the platform or the future. You know, they want to be the iphone, they want to own the app store. They also want to own all been available for. I mean, imagine that apple just started buying the most successful apps on their platform to increase the revenue. Its real, its a real risk and i urge everyone to kind of look to the future, which is where marks arkenberg head is that and its really glad that people are still focused on whatsapp and instagram and how that relates to take doc. If you move beyond that a long time ago, i think jim, this is why, because also interesting when you look at what zak a book has been saying, basically is the fact that just by one single button, a decision by apple to change the privacy in its operating system cost facebook, Something Like 10000000000. 00. Yeah, its interesting. I mean in many ways that shows the power of apple. If you want to talk about it, had to trust your apple can make very significant changes. And given the dominance of it, its holden over the phone and enhance that. It can have incredibly significant implications to Companies Like facebook and of course, anti anti trust is a concern for apple to look at everything thats going on with the app store conversations. So, you know, increasingly these giant tech behemoths are competing with each other in new and different ways. And i agree with the statement about looking forward the metaphors, you know, people, its very easy to be derisive about the matter versus cartoon like avatars having socially awkward interactions. I mean, nobodys getting excited about that, but if you look beyond that and see where facebook wants to go, i completely agree looking forward. The better vers could be a very, very Important Development in facebook. Could be dominant, could be overly dominant d. And before we go into the mess of us, because we will be focusing on that later in the show. In the meantime, it seems to me that facebook needs to become less and less dependent on apple in the near future if he wants to thrive. Otherwise, people will be going to competitors such as google. Yeah, i mean, facebook is one of the only big 5 Tech Companies that doesnt have a total monopoly on the way that it makes money. And i think for facebook and, you know, we say facebook, we mean meta also instagram, you know, theyre, theyre advertising issues or that they rely on personal tracking across sort of all of the Different Things the user does on their phone, on the internet, et cetera. And this is compared to Something Like tick tock, where tick tock has an incredibly sophisticated algorithm that looks at what people are doing inside pick, talk as a barometer to serve them. The correct advertising context. This isnt what facebook does. Its not what instagram does. They rely on the data thats coming through the personal tracking. And once apple shot that off, as jim said its, its become incredibly difficult. I mean, we dont have to talk about the matter verse, but this is the answer. I think, you know, zocker were saying but stem the bleeding and were going to try to make adjustments to how we do things in our traditional advertising business. The defense against that is to make our own platform. Were going to own the hardware. Were going to the app store, thats how were going to protect ourselves over the next decade to decades 3 decades. Thats their answer. I dont think were going to see them building backwards. And the last thing that i would say on that is this is something that separates facebook and soccer bird from a lot of the other big Tech Companies out there were the founders have step down a long time ago. Zuckerberg is still in control. Hes a very classic start up founder. He sees something he wants to build, has conviction to do it, and gets it done. He doesnt need the Business Case up front. He doesnt need to prove to everyone on board. Everyone an executive team that, that the ocoee list are, i guess now met a quest is, is the right way to go. He just has conviction around it and can build it. And thats actually something of an advantage for him relative to these other companies. Okay, jen, so now youre facing a problem and you have this, this issue with, with your market value and daily uses, which has been client declining venue. Are investing Something Like 10000000000. 00 in the meta verse. Was it the timing was the right time to say its about time to move or shift intimate of us. I think we can only answer that. You dont have to 3 years from now. I think clearly mark sucker berg thought it was the right time. You know, theres never a good time to deliver bad news to the market, at least if you want your stock to continue to climb. So theres a little bit of a, do i want to take my medicine now . And to your point, i mean, mark is dr. Berg is 100 percent in charge at facebook. He does have a board of directors. He does have shareholders that he have to answer to, but he controls the company and he can make whatever betsy wants to. And i suspect they had plenty of internal debates about how aggressively do we go after this. And when do we take our lumps in the marketplace . Probably have biggest concern is the employee base, right . Because they, they compensate like all Tech Companies, they compensate their employees with stock option. And when the stock is going down, especially by as much of the did, youre going to have some real Employee Retention challenges. So that is a very real problem. Im sure hes not happy about it, but i doubt hes even remotely deterred by these. These kind of headwinds are our market moves. I think if he is able to realize the vision that he has for the metaphors, the market will handsomely reward him. It may be 234 years from now and i think hes fine with that. He and how can you gaming Virtual Reality augmented reality big come somehow an alternative for companies such as met her to to sheila gas and future losses. Whats a good question . I think it depends on the widespread application and use. I mean, i have an oculus, ive used it before. I put it on, i get kind of dizzy after 20 minutes. I take it off and thats sort of my experience. And now its kind of gathering dust from, from being honest, but this is the 1st iteration. And i think what facebook sees is an opportunity to move beyond the advertising as their primary revenue source. Once youre doing the things that youve seen meta display and a lot of the demos around their met, you know, their whole vision for the metaphors. Youre seeing, things like shopping. Youre seeing things like subscriptions, the content youre seeing, things like in App Purchases for the games and things that are being sold on the, on the list app store. So i think hes seeing his protection is a diversified revenue stream. Its sort of owning the platform and then diversifying revenue stream. It remains to be seen how much, you know, adoption is going to take up over the next decade. Im sure it will. Im sure it will get there, but it also remains to be seen whether augmented reality or Virtual Reality is. The thing that takes over and i think thats an important zocker berg is making a bet on Virtual Reality. Microsoft, for instance, is making bet on augmented reality. So theres a difference there thats going to become clear over the next few years as to whos writing these rough gen betting on. Meth of us reality makes perfect sense on paper. So we do understand that its about time for the company to broaden its reach beyond the social media, into new arena, but for someone, but for me and every human being if met versus going to become a reality, i really need to look forward for someone i trust to be able to move forward. The problem with facebook on the matter is the issue of trust thought you think so . Yeah, i think youve nailed it. I mean, they dont have a lot of trust and i think theyve got a lot of work to do, to rebuild trust and prove that they can be responsible stewards of the matter verse or whatever that ends up being. I will say they, i give them credit their oversight board, which weve talked before about is i think, a pretty powerful construct because all of these big Tech Companies, when theyre the arbiters of truth, that the phrase that gets used a lot. I think that was Mark Zuckerberg, favorite line in front of congress. At one point, we dont want our Tech Companies to become any more powerful than they already are. There are 2 giant economic engines, and so facebook setup is independent oversight board. That i think a lot of people were quite skeptical about it and just as quietly goes about doing its work. And so i think they are going to have to be construct like that. Whats the Supreme Court if you want to use that analogy for the metaphors or for facebook or for twitter or for any of these big tech platforms . And so i would say theyve actually made some encouraging staff, but theyve got a long way to go. And certainly i would say the trucks back, theyre not very high right now in the facebook made history 18 years ago when that appealed to younger people, it doesnt seem to be doing the same impact on them as we speak. So is the fact in then, in the future between all those social media giants going to be primarily focused on winning the hearts and minds of the young affections of society. This is, you know, in social, this is an incredibly important and known trend. So in the social category, you have early adoption by people in their teens, early twenties, those platforms move up in age until their older peers are using them and then their parents are using them. By the time their parents are using them. Theyre already completely off the platform. The younger generation, you know, applies in this sort of social hierarchy of how apps and new experiences move up that chain. But i think for the metaphors its, its, its, i know, and i mean, yes, its been widely marked by everyone. Every single one of their releases on twitter and everywhere else was kind of torn down. I think pre zocker berg, the issue is he said a lot of things about this is my vision. This is personally have i think human being should connect. This is why were building met this way. And people look at the way that he interacts with people and how awkward he is. And they laugh at him cuz they say this is kind of ridiculous to have you being the person who dictates how the future of humanity should connect. I think truly whats going to happen is youre gonna need to see applica ations, not the hardware, not the software, but applications that appeal to younger audiences come into play. And none of that has happened yet. That remains to be seen. You know, its kind of hardcore gamers and exercise fans right now on the were still in berry berry, early gentlemen. Taina presence in the market. A company such as facebook in the past was aggressively trying to copy paste strategies of different competitors buying them. But that wont be possible any time. So in the near future, i dont think that any regulates a, in the world would be just saying, you know what, you can go for any take over in the mean time. Is this the reason why he is going into the uncharted territory, which is a matter of us because we know nothing about the laws to be implemented above the matter of us reality. And hes trying to find in each and each there. Yeah, i think that may be a piece of it, but i think its true a more his vision. I mean youre, youre, youre without a doubt, correct. As you get to be a certain size and scale, when you become a trillion dollar, are near trillion dollar company, youre going to get a lot more attention to you cant be as aggressive, at least overtly. You cant go by your competitors like he did with the, with instagram a number of years ago, but i wouldnt, i wouldnt under sell, his continued aggressiveness. I mean, hes an aggressive person. Facebooks an Aggressive Company or meta to use the point where use the right term of but i think it, that aggression has to be manifested in different ways and going after a big vision and being willing to endure criticism even mockery and say no, i believe in this isnt vision, laugh at me all you want, but they have 234 years from now. Ill be the one laughing. I have to believe that Mark Zuckerberg is at least feeling that if not having those conversations internally and say were just going to inter, whatever criticism a mockery we get into we, we actually make that vision real in for someone like zach a book and the multiple hits to his reputation of the repetition of a petition that his Company Terms of withholding information about vax about vaccination in terms of the spreading misinformation in terms of interfering in the last us elections. What is next for him to move forward . The analyst goes on, i mean, i was remarking the other day that weve been on coverage, you know, facebook as it was for many, many years. And every single time were saying this horrible thing happened. But guess what, the stocks going up, you know, this is, this is sort of inevitable that something would go wrong. That there would be some scandal, but it was also inevitable that the stock would go up. It took a drop in via you before a company that is arguably more played by scandal than anybody else in its category to have a little bit of a bip and by a little bit massive depth. And its market value. I think, you know, to get back to the, the anti trust this is going to be the focus. I mean, trust and safety has been kind of the issue for them. And trust and safety is going to continue be an issue for them. They actually just 2 days ago, announce a protective bubble application that you can put around you in, in the meta verse. So peoples avatars cant come so close to you and harass you right in your face as youre Walking Around there. Sort of be our chat rooms that to me its kind of, it was taken as a joke at the funny headline. But its a serious matter when you think about how are they going to handle the trust safety. Privacy matters in the metaphors. Its one thing to see people using graphic images or graphic language on the screen. Its another thing to see it in front of you like its real life. So i dont think those issues are going away at all. Its just going to be translated into the new media facebook is working on and if they pursue the same tactics of Aggressive Growth without really considering the health of their community, were going to see the exact same consequences. Jenny said earlier, we should give a zach of the time to see what would be his next move to typically knowing that the inter pinole ill, the by any in mind sets of, of the man himself has been shown into practice each time the company was facing a problem, but now when you see that most of the advertisers are shifting their advertising budgets into companies such as a google could, could, could google itself become somehow somewhere the next existential flat for matter. They could be, i mean, to the degree youre competing for advertising dollars and google is sucking them up. Of course you could, they are a concern, but google is really in the information business. If you think about it, facebooks more in the entertainment business, the company though that i would keep an eye on to your point is amazon. They announce 30 some odd 1000000000. 00 in just advertising revenue and where the facebooks and the entertainment business. Googles in the information Business Amazon is in the everything. Since theyre a retailer, theyre a streamer. Theyre generating tens of billions of dollars in advertising. So certainly advertising dollars will flow to wherever advertisers think theyre going to get the better return. And part of the insidious nature of apples change as it relates. So facebook at least is the fact that it made it a lot harder for them to prove to advertisers the book works. So yeah, i think a diversification from advertising revenue is another big issue that facebook is, is trying to confront a and so all of these companies are competing for elias in the matter verse. A well paddle or an extension to our physical world. Were embassies will be opened, where we buy our own medication. Well, well be dealing with everything exactly the same way we used to do in our physical world order. Isnt there something about the same time is should be sending alarms to us as a human beings because it looks like we are moving into uncharted territory here. Well, we moved into uncharted territory with the advent of the smartphone, we moved into uncharted territory. With the advent of social networking, i cant say the results have been astoundingly positive for humanity. I think a lot of people would argue that its cause more harm than good. When we look towards the met averse, theres a lot of dystopian fiction out there about what happens when b r. We takes over our lives when the lines between what we experience in real life, what we experience in the quote unquote men of verse becomes closer together. I mean, for me, im a bit of a pessimist in this regard. I think theres going to be a lot of problems. I also think at least where the technology is today, it is not tolerable to spend too much time in there. I mean, especially for people who are putting on the full headset. Its, its, its not that its not easy, it makes you sick. Its hard on the human body because i dont think were supposed to live like that. Theres also space issue. If you have a tiny apartment, you know where, where the big consumer is for all these things, theyre in urban centers. And if youre living in an apartment that is constrained, its 700 feet square feet, 600 square feet, 400 square feet. You dont have the space that is required to get the maximum use out of the heads. Just fascinating, the way were moving from the world into the book and the newspaper, electronic media. And now were talking about the mit of us jim anderson in my us. I really appreciate your insights. Thank you for watching. You can see the program again at a time by visiting our website as you know, dot com for further discussion. Go to all a facebook page, thus facebook dot com forward slash ha, inside florida. You can also join the conversation on twitter. I 100 is out a j inside sort of from the house. A lot of the entire team here in my for now. Ah oh, she bub system the streets of chicago on different paths with the same ambition. Oh, fighting their way to a better life for themselves and their families. 6 6 returning through in the volatile world of chicago, south side is no easy task. Witness. Ring site on al jazeera. Examining the impact of todays headlines. There are threats to peace and security that dont appear on the tv screens. Setting the agenda for tomorrows discussions. Thousands of palestinians been displaced and having met homes destroyed on that land. Unaccustomed international filmmakers, m wont class journalists bring programs to inform and inspire you. Climate has to become part of the way we tell stories on al jazeera until alger c. O, wild alarmist, we listen, design is, are making serious efforts in over 18 t. Im to stop the 10 of those. We beat with global use maintenance. I talked about the stories that imagine how jesse ah, al jazeera in with blue moon, 1200 hours gmc here on al jazeera, come all santa maria with your headlines. We are looking at new satellite images here showing the extent of russias military deployment in belarus near the border with ukraine. This is after the arrival, as well as the senior us penetrate personnel in poland and a 3000 more american soldiers being sent to the region. In response to this, Russian Military build up. Oh, from child stratford on how the ukranian president is faring during these times. President zalinski has been of course, very appreciative to his nato paul