Facebook Falls 19%+ As Scandals Pile Up and Users Get Sick of Censorship and Nannying

Not quite a failure, as this merely wipes out several months of growth, but it's nice anyway.

Facebook Inc Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg's fortune is set to take a $16 billion hit on Thursday, as the social media giant braces for the biggest one-day wipeout in U.S. stock market history, a day after its executives forecast years of lower profit margins.

At least 16 brokerages cut their price targets on Facebook after executives said the cost of improving privacy safeguards, as well as slowing usage in the biggest advertising markets, would hit the company's profit margins for more than two years.

Facebook shares were down 20.4 percent at $173.20 in premarket trading, a decline that would wipe about $128 billion off the company’s value -- or nearly four times the entire market capitalization of Twitter Inc.

Reuters adds a fun fact-- if you treated the $16+ billion Zuckerberg is set to personally lose as someone's own personal wealth, that person would be the 80th richest person in the world. In other words, Zuckerberg just lost the net worth of the 80th richest person in the world.

The Daily Mail, which is here, put it another way: Facebook's one day loss is about equal to the total net capitalization of McDonald's, or Nike.

Atomicplaygirl notes that, per the Daily Mail, part of the reason for this huge loss is that FaceBook will begin protecting user's privacy. Well, that's nice. It's only been a decade.

Specifically, rather than forcing users to opt out of having their preferences, location, age, etc., packaged up to be sold to advertisers, FaceBook will ask users to opt in to this system.

Industry experts had predicted, ahead of the announcement, that the number of active users visiting the social network would either drop or flat line.

According to analysts, stalling numbers are likely the result of forcing Facebook users to consciously opt-in to having their information used for personal advertising - one of the key stipulations of the stringent GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation] rules.

GDPR, which came into affect May 25, stipulates that companies must explicitly request consent from their users in order to personal data for advertising purposes. Companies that do not comply with GDPR can be fined up to four per cent of their global revenue.

Apparently the GDPR is a rule enacted by the EU. Does it apply to Americans, then? Not sure. It ought to. But I don't know.

This is scary:

To comply with the new regulations, Facebook rolled-out a security check-up to users worldwide which asked them to review what kind of personal information they consent to sharing for advertising targeting. Users were also asked to consent to facial recognition technology on the site.

Analysts believe users may have been scared off by the explicit details about how their data is being used by the social network.

Yeah, it's one thing to say "We got consent!!!" But real consent depends on you accurately and fully warning users what they're agreeing to. Apparently when you do fully apprise people of how you intend to use their information, they're not so willing to give that consent.

Some shareholders are looking to kick Zuckerberg out of power.

The company, who has about $11 million in Facebook stock, wants to break up Zuckerberg's role as both chairman and CEO, Business Insider reports.

The proposal argues that shareholders are unable to check Zuckerberg's power given he holds roughly 60 percent of Facebook's voting shares as both chair and CEO.

Meanwhile, reporters know the real reason for FaceBook's decline -- it permits users to watch FoxNews clips on the platform.

Reporters, fresh off of screaming about the White House's abridging CNN's free speech rights, yelled at FaceBook representatives about permitting InfoWars -- and FoxNews!!! -- to appear on FaceBook.

Excuse me-- why should any conservative defend the leftwing media's alleged free speech rights when they're actively trying to strip those same free speech rights from a conservative outlet?

posted by Ace of Spades at 07:30 PM

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