Facebook says it's eventually going to stop disclosing the number of users of its flagship social network and focus on its 'family' of apps instead

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Facebook plans to eventually stop disclosing the number of users of its flagship social network, shifting to a broader definition of its audience that includes users of its "family" of products, such as Instagram and Whatsapp.

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The change, announced by Facebook Chief Financial Officer Dave Wehner on the company's quarterly earnings call on Wednesday, will mark a major shift in Facebook's strategy and comes as the social network has experienced a growing backlash over its privacy practices.

The size of Facebook's audience across all its apps - more than 2 billion every day at the end of 2019 - "better reflect the size of our community and the fact that many people are using more than one of our services," Wehner said on the call.

"Over time we expect family metrics will play the primary role in how we talk about our company, and we will eventually phase out Facebook-only community metrics."