8 million flee in Instagram exodus

Facebook owned Instagram has registered an 8 million users drop after its December ToS fiasco, shows AppStats.

The photo editing and sharing tool created uproar amongst its users, when it published a new ToS, back on December 17. According to New York Post, AppStats has registered a 50% drop in Instagram user activity between December 17, 2012, and January 10, 2013.

AppStats is a service that measures applications usage according to user interaction. This 8.42 million users activity drop seems to be caused by the unfortunate December ToS-change reaction. AppStats CEO, Sebastian Sujka, states:

“The main loss will be most likely due to the terms of service changes, given how much attention and controversy the terms of service change has brought, and seeing how clearly the Instagram app dropped after the terms of service change”

Its measurements are somewhat similar to AppData’s, the application that showed a 25% drop in Instagram’s 16 million daily users, during the 19-26 December period. Facebook called AppData’s 4 million users drop as “inaccurate”, insisting that Instagram continues to see strong growth of both registered and new users.

As a result, Mark Zuckerberg’s social site announced the developers that it will seize the usage of the detailed daily statistics in favor of less detailed rankings. Whilst this move will help smooth the metrics data, it will also mask some important daily changes.

Instagram was bought by Facebook in a $1 billion deal, back in April 2012. The app’s legal desk announced on December 17 the new ToS changes, causing mass anger amongst its users, who felt that the terms are not clear and that they would lose the rights to their photos.

Instagram swiftly responded that it was just a misunderstanding and it reverted to its old terms of use. However, this change was not enough for some, as two different usage statistics applications have revealed a massive user dropout. The privacy change came as a measure to bring both Instagram and Facebook to the same ToS regulations.

It is worth noting that the Terms of Service will definitely change at some point for good, as such action is necessary in order to keep up with the times. However, it remains to be seen how Facebook will alter them in order to make it clear that they are made in the interest of the users.

Some people are closing their accounts, while many others are using Instagram less than before, so Facebook has got the message. We will monitor this situation closely and we will let you know what happens in the near future.