The Politweet survey showed that PKR now has the largest Facebook audience with 1.8 million interested users, with PAS following just behind at 1.6 million.

DAP has however, dropped to just 1.1 million Facebook users from its previous peak of 4.6 million in January this year.

This is a recent decline, considering that DAP had before May gained the most attention on Facebook next to Umno.

“Since April 2013, DAP was the strongest Opposition party on Facebook in terms of user interest.

“DAP is now the weakest Opposition party on Facebook compared with PKR and PAS, and will likely face challenges getting their message across on Facebook,” Politweet said in the survey.

DAP’s peak period saw over three million males and 1.8 million females expressing interest in the party during different periods, according to the survey’s gender observations.

According to the survey, the interest in the party among Facebook users in every state also suffered a fall, including in its stronghold of Penang, where the DAP has ruled with Opposition ally PKR since 2008.

The party lost 69 per cent of interest in Penang, while PKR, PAS and Umno saw an uptick in interest.

Loss of interest by age saw reductions of between 45 per cent and 74 per cent in all categories, and worst in the 13-20 and 31-50 groups; overall, the reduction was 62.21 per cent.

According to Politweet, the reason for this overall decline could be extrapolated from events prior to each major change in interest levels.

Interest in DAP peaked when the party cut ties with PAS over their disagreement on hudud in March 2015, and dropped after it declared the death of Pakatan Rakyat in June the same year.

Politweet cited its previous Twitter study that showed a lack of interest in DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng’s corruption charges, which it concluded to be an indication of the party’s lack of popularity.

“This lack of interest was also visible between March and April this year when allegations against Lim Guan Eng first surfaced,” Politweet said.