Facebook Is Under Pressure From Lawmakers, Consumers And Investors

Social media giant Facebook is currently under pressure from lawmakers in the United States, consumers and even its own investors.

Facebook Facing Pressure From US Lawmakers

Leading social media platform Facebook is currently under pressure following the events of the past 72 hours. Republican and Democratic lawmakers in the United States are questioning the company and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg following a trove of leaked internal documents.

According to the leaked internal documents, the social media company from its own research knows that its apps can cause severe harm. The company’s apps, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram all experienced a blackout that lasted for six hours on Monday. This is the longest Facebook’s social media apps have been out in the past 13 years.

The events of the past few days have seen Facebook’s stock price take a beating. Investors have been liquidating their shares in the company, with its stock price down by 12% in the past three weeks. FB has underperformed the broader market, with the NASDAQ dropping by just 4.5% during that period.

The outrage from lawmakers and consumers is similar to what the company faced in March 2018 following the Cambridge Analytica reports. At the time, the reports showed that Cambridge Analytica unlawfully accessed the data of 87 million Facebook members. The data was used to create targeted ads for Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential elections.

This latest crisis was caused by a report by The Wall Street Journal, which stated that the Facebook knows how addictive its products are and leverages that knowledge to make more money from its users. Furthermore, the report claims Facebook knows that it’s Instagram app can be detrimental to the health of teenagers.

Facebook’s Stock Price Is Up By Less Than 1%

Despite the negative news, FB is up by less than 1% since the US market opened a few hours ago. FB is trading at $333 per share, up from the $329 it opened the market with a few hours ago. YTD, FB is up by 22%.