Facebook Has Slowest Quarter Ever After Public Backlash

KYLE PERISIC | Contributor 

Facebook just saw its slowest quarter ever, missing a number of expectations, after months of public backlash over censorship, fake news and privacy concerns.

Facebook’s shares fell nine percent and missed its quarterly revenue, active monthly users and daily active user expectations in the second quarter of 2018.

Facebook user growth went up 1.54 percent in the second quarter, dropping by more than half of the 3.14 percent increase the company saw in the first quarter of 2018.

Facebook’s revenue, still impressive, fell $70 million short of its expected $13.3 billion; the company saw 2.23 billion monthly active users, while expecting 2.25 billion; and it expected 1.49 billion daily active users, but saw 1.47 billion.

Not all the numbers show slow growth. Facebook earned $13.23 billion and had an estimated earnings per share (EPS) of $1.74, compared to the expected $1.71.

Facebook earned $13.04 billion in the second quarter, up 42 percent from its $9.164 billion in the second quarter 2017, Axios reported.

The social media giant has come under fire from all sides of the political spectrum in the past few months, with many reports coming out that the company censors conservatives and has questionable data collection policies. (RELATED: Facebook Reveals Which Companies It Had A Special Data Access Relationship With)

After Facebook changed its algorithms to fight fake news and prioritize users’ activity over news activity, conservative news outlets were hit the hardest, while the engagement numbers of most predominantly liberal publishers remain unaffected.

One news site in particular, Independent Journal Review, has already been forced to lay off a massive amount of its staff, The Daily Caller News Foundation reported in February.

Follow Kyle on Twitter @KylePerisic

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