Facebook And Instagram Participated In Reducing Video Quality In Europe

Facebook and Instagram logos (unsplash)

JAKARTA - After YouTube and Netflix, which had to reduce the quality of their videos while streaming. Facebook and Instagram have also done the same thing for its users in Europe.

Quoting from Endgadget, this decision was taken to anticipate a surge in internet users during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, many people and students have to stay and work from home to avoid transmission of the corona virus or COVID-19.

"To help reduce the potential for network congestion, we will temporarily reduce the video bitrate of Facebook and Instagram in Europe," said a Facebook spokesperson.

We're helping government health organizations use Messenger to share timely information and speed up their replies to common questions during the coronavirus outbreak. https://t.co/EpRu46opN2

- Facebook Newsroom (@fbnewsroom) March 23, 2020

"We are committed to working with our partners to address any bandwidth constraints during this period of high demand, while ensuring people can stay connected using Facebook apps and services during the COVID-19 pandemic," he continued.

This step makes sense, because the number of social media users in Europe is quite large. Based on a Reuters report, until the final quarter of 2019, the number of daily Facebook and Instagram users reached 288 million people.

Previously, Netflix, YouTube, Amazon and Disney also reduced the quality of their video streaming in a number of countries in the European Union. This is done to avoid clogging on the server and increasing electricity bills.

Launching from GSM Arena, the surge in active online users has experienced the highest increase since the implementation of self-isolation or self-quarantine in the midst of the Corona virus outbreak in the European region.

In real terms Netflix and YouTube will reduce their data consumption by 25 percent, over the next 30 days. However, users can still watch video shows with pretty good image quality.

Where usually, one hour of video streaming in the standard version (480p) consumes approximately 1GB of data, while HD can reach 3GB per hour. YouTube itself has switched video traffic to a standard version by default.

The European Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, welcomed the decision to reduce the burden on internet data consumption. This step is considered to be able to maintain a smooth internet connection during the recent coronavirus outbreak.