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How Much Revenue Does Facebook Earn From Black Users?

How Much Revenue Does Facebook Earn From Black Users?

If it’s true that Facebook earns close to $20 per user in the U.S., and Facebook’s potential audience of black users is 30 million, then the world’s largest social network could be getting $600 million from black users.

Facebook earned almost $20 in average revenue per user in the fourth quarter of 2016. Revenue per user in the U.S. and Canada grew from $13.70 in Q4 2015 to $19.81 in Q4 2016, according to Facebook’s earnings release.

Look at this through the lens of Facebook’s diversity problem, and it takes on a different hue.

Just 2 percent of Facebook’s U.S. workforce is black, according to Facebook’s recent Diversity Report — a number unchanged from 2015.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 12.3 percent of the U.S. population of 324 million is black. That’s 39.85 million people.

Facebook says 30 million black users are its potential audience. When marketing on Facebook, advertisers have the option to select their target group. Currently Facebook reveals that there is an estimated 30 million people in the African American demographic.

Facebook employees are still mainly white or Asian males. The findings in Facebook’s annual diversity report, released in July 2016, reflect little progress made by Silicon Valley heavyweights to hire more blacks and women.

Women represented 33 percent of Facebook’s global workforce as of June 30, compared with 32 percent a year earlier, the report said.

Women held 27 percent of senior leadership roles, up from 23 percent a year earlier.

Facebook said 3 percent of its senior leadership in the U.S. was black, up from 2 percent a year earlier.

Among its U.S. technology workers, Facebook made no progress among two groups. In both 2015 and 2016, blacks made up 1 percent of tech employees.

Facebook’s overall U.S. workforce includes 2 percent of blacks and 4 percent of Latinos, unchanged from 2015, the report said.

Asians represented 38 percent of Facebook’s U.S. workforce and 21 percent of its senior leadership.

Diversity is an issue for the entire tech community and industry, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg told students in March at the A&T State University at North Carolina.

In order to change the entire tech industry, Zuckerberg “doesn’t even have to do anything outside of making Facebook inclusive,” said Ellen Pao, a prominent advocate for diversity and inclusion since she lost a gender discrimination lawsuit against the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, Wired reported.

“They admire him, they will copy him, they will change because of him,” Pao said.