Jess Weatherbed

is a news writer focused on creative industries, computing, and internet culture. Jess started her career at TechRadar, covering news and hardware reviews.

Meta is planning to pump billions more into AI investments this year, despite noting that millions of users have seemingly started to abandon its platforms. In an earning call on Wednesday , Meta reported that figures for “Family daily active people” — the term Meta has coined for all collective users of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger — declined by 20 million this quarter compared to the previous three months.

Meta attributes this fall to “internet disruptions in Iran, as well as a restriction on access to WhatsApp in Russia .” It’s up to you whether you take Meta on its word, given that by bundling the user stats together across all its platforms, we can’t tell which ones are most impacted.…