Researchers from Princeton University caused waves on the internet this week when they published a paper claiming that Facebook would lose 80 per cent of its users between 2015 and 2017.
By combining “engagement trends” from Google search data with statistical models predicting the spread of infectious diseases, the paper claimed that Facebook had effectively “peaked” and was set for a swift decline.
Such a claim was bound to make headlines (click here to read our own – healthily sceptical – coverage of the story) but for Facebook employees it seems it was the bad science that really stung.