Privacy-focused social site MeWe is gaining millions of new users

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MeWe is a social network that has been around for almost five years. Their biggest selling point was, and still is, no ads, no facial recognition, no targeting, no newsfeed manipulation, and most importantly, no collection of user data. 

For three consecutive years, they’ve doubled their user base. However, that steady growth recently increased when they added an incredible 2.5 million new users in just one week. Thanks to that spike, MeWe now has more than 15 million users, and almost half of them are from the United States. 

Currently, their app is ranking as #1 in the social app category in the App Store and third overall. 

These days, more people are concerned about their privacy and how social networks such as Twitter and Facebook are handling data. If the trend continues in 2021, then MeWe will likely add tens of millions of news users in the future. 

The removal of Parler from app stores and the web also has played a significant role in the growth of services like MeWe.

Simultaneously, both Facebook and Twitter haven’t officially responded to this migration that is happening under their nose. Facebook has over 2.7 billion active users, whereas Twitter has over 330 million active monthly users. So it is no wonder that they don’t feel threatened by a network of just 15 million users.

Coping with exponential growth and scaling their infrastructure are the most significant challenges MeWe will face in the coming period

So far, their infrastructure has held well despite the massive spikes of new members. 

Dubbed the “anti-Facebook,” MeWe also claims that there is no newsfeed manipulation whatsoever. They believe that their users cherish the freedom of the feed, and it is a big reason people love using their platform. 

As the privacy movement grows and people raise concerns over how their data is used and distributed, it is not just MeWe that is banking on that. Privacy-focused messaging apps such as Telegram and Signal are gaining big momentum as well. They also added millions of new users recently and are adding more by the day. 

Big tech players such as Facebook, Apple, and Google will have to take note of it and start making changes. Changes will happen, but it is just not clear to what extent and whether alternative social networks will replace traditional ones such as Facebook and Twitter or not.

What do you think? Plan on trying out MeWe? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• It looks like Facebook plans on keeping Donald Trump’s ban in place
• Jack Dorsey believes banning Trump on Twitter was right, but worries it could be a slippery slope
• Parler is (kinda) back thanks to a Russian tech company
• Parler’s CEO says the “conservative” social app may never come back

Deep Ballu