Root-cause a 10% decline in Facebook friend requests

You are a product manager at Meta. The number of friend requests on Facebook is down 10%. Walk through how you would evaluate why it fell. ```hint Find where the volume went A friend request has a sender, a receiver and an entry point where it started. Work out which part of that flow lost volume before you commit to an explanation. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Is the 10% about requests sent, requests accepted, or both, and compared with which period? - Did the decline happen suddenly or build up over several weeks? - Is it concentrated in a country, a platform or a user group such as new versus long-time users, or is it broad? - Have related metrics such as daily active users, sessions, signups or messaging moved at the same time? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - Ruling out measurement problems first, including logging changes and integrity systems that block or remove requests from fake accounts. - Decomposing requests by entry point (friend suggestions, search, profile visits, groups and events, contact import) and by sender cohort, plus the acceptance side. - Using the timing and spread of the drop to separate product causes (releases, ranking changes, a feature that substitutes for friending) from ecosystem and external ones (market saturation, competitors, seasonality, platform privacy changes). - Confirming the leading hypothesis with specific data or an experiment comparison. - Deciding whether the decline is actually harmful and what to do next. ### Follow-up Questions - The decline lines up with a launch that lets people message someone without being friends first. How would you confirm the link, and would you roll the feature back? - Requests sent are flat, but acceptances fell 10%. How does your investigation change? - When could a 10% drop in friend requests be a healthy result?