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The study, undertaken by the Pew Research Center (no relation to PewDiePie), is the latest in a year of bad news stories for Facebook. In... New Research Claims 26% Of Americans Have Deleted Facebook

The study, undertaken by the Pew Research Center (no relation to PewDiePie), is the latest in a year of bad news stories for Facebook.

In worrying news for Mark Zuckerberg, the social media giant, a new study has revealed that some 26% of Americans have deleted the Facebook app from their phones.

A United Nations Committee found that the Facebook platform had played a major part in the recent Myanmar Genocide. As well as this, it has also come under fire from the media for the alleged role it played in electing Donald Trump to the US Presidency in 2016.

The company is also still reeling from the critical mauling it received over the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the mishandling of private data.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg also appeared at Washington hearing last week to answer questions about the way the company handles political content.

Bad news for Facebook

The Pew study reveals that 42% of Americans didn’t use Facebook for weeks at a time in the last year.

18-29-year olds have also switched off from Facebook in recent times as well. A huge 44% of them claim to have deleted Facebook from their phones and mobile devices in the past year. 64% of this age bracket have also changed their privacy settings in the last 12 months as well. However, the use of Facebook has declined for all age groups.

But is it political?

Interestingly, the Pew research indicates that the sudden aversion to Facebook has no political leaning either one way or the other. The decision for Americans to remove Facebook from their phone appear to have applied equally to both Democrats and Republicans.

The Pew Research Center conducted its research in May and June of this year. The study was conducted with 4,500 subjects.