CEO Mark Zuckerberg reflected on the company’s last 12 months. “We’re a very different company today than we were in 2016, or even a year ago,” he wrote. “We’ve fundamentally altered our DNA to focus more on preventing harm in all our services, and we’ve systematically shifted a large portion of our company to work on preventing harm,” repeating the company’s claim that it’s dedicated 30,000 staff and billions of dollars a year to improve safety and security on its network. (The Logic)
Talking point: Facebook has had a terrible year. In March, the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke. By the end of that month, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission had launched an investigation, and numerous lawmakers were asking for Zuckerberg to testify before Congress, which he eventually did in April. Since then, the company has continued to face privacy and security concerns and increased scrutiny on its operations, at the same time dealing with controversies involving its subsidiaries, such as WhatsApp’s pornography problem and the departure of Instagram’s co-founders. The company has also faced a tumultuous year on the stock market, down more than 25 per cent from the beginning of the year. It had the largest single-day decline in its history, dropping 20 per cent this summer after announcing lower-than-expected earnings. Despite the turmoil, Citron Research increased its stock target for the company from $120 to $160 on Wednesday.