Facebook share price down 3% after week of negative news
The social media app's stock is down after several negative events.
Facebook share price is down after a week of bad news for the corporation. The tech company’s stock fell 3% after major negative events.
Why is Facebook share price down?
Four major events all took place to bring down Facebook’s share price. Two key executives left the organisation. Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, wrote in a blog post that Chris Cox, and Chris Daniels, were leaving the company after years at the WhatsApp site.
Two major executives leave
‘While it is sad to lose such great people, this also creates opportunities for more great leaders who are energized about the path ahead to take on new and bigger roles,' wrote Zuckerberg.
Though he didn’t report why they left, The New York Times reports that Cox and Daniels left after disagreeing with Zuckerberg about Facebook’s new direction.
Day-long outage hurts Facebook
In addition to the loss of talent, Facebook recently had a day-long outage in which visitors were unable to access the site. The social media app released a statement addressing the issue.
‘We have resolved the issues, and our systems have been recovering over the last few hours. We are very sorry for the inconvenience and we appreciate everyone’s patience,’ said Facebook in a statement.
New Zealand massacre puts Facebook in spotlight
When the service was restored, the app livestreamed a terrorist attack against a mosque that killed 49 people. The attacker livestreamed the massacre on the site and though the company took down the video, critics say it acted too slowly.
Mia Garlick, Facebook’s director of policy for Australia and New Zealand, defended Facebook’s actions.
‘New Zealand Police alerted us to a video on Facebook shortly after the livestream commenced and we quickly removed both the shooter's Facebook and Instagram accounts and the video,’ said Garlick in a statement.
Facebook under investigation in US
On top of all those issues, there are also reports of Facebook being under investigation by the US Department of Justice related to the Cambridge Analytica data-mining scandal of 2018.
‘It has already been reported that there are ongoing federal investigations, including by the Department of Justice. We are cooperating with investigators and take those probes seriously. We’ve provided public testimony, answered questions, and pledged that we will continue to do so,’ said Facebook.
How can Facebook fix its problems?
Facebook has survived bad publicity before, and should weather this latest storm. Facebook has pledged to protect users’ privacy better, have more efficient service, and to take down offensive videos faster in the future. It remains to be seen if these changes will reassure investors about the social media company’s stock.
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