Markets
Facebook Shares Value Fell By $47B After Server Outage
Facebook shares saw a 5% drop in value after the company experienced its worst outage in over a decade. Yesterday, the company suffered a PR nightmare when a former employee decided to reveal secrets in a 60 Minutes interview.
RELATED: Facebook Whistleblower Reveals Identity In Interview
Facebook Shares Shed $47 Billion In Value
The rough patch involving Facebook continued Monday when a service outage hit the social media titan’s servers that lasted more than six hours. Even before the technical problem, Facebook shares were freefalling by around 4.89%.
As a result of the decline, Facebook shares lost about $47.3 billion in market capitalization. However, the loss doesn’t stop there.
Based on Facebook’s $85.97 billion revenue in 2020, the company lost around $163,565 in revenue for every minute of the outage, This meant a total loss of revenue of $60 million for its six hours of downtime.
Consequently, Facebook had to pull out of the $1 trillion club its shares with Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. The loss in stock value put the company at $919.79 billion, $80 billion short of the minimum requirement.
For CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who owns 14% of Facebook, the drop in value meant he lost around $6 billion. This loss relegated him from fifth to sixth place in the world’s richest list.
Server Outage Around Noon
On Monday, Facebook’s app, along with Instagram and WhatsApp, suddenly went down. Users found it impossible to access their accounts during this time.
As more and more people tried to log in simultaneously, this produced a ripple effect that made things even more difficult. “We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products,” Facebook tweeted. “We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience.”
The outage marks the company’s worst downtime since 2008. That year, a bug caused social media’s services to go dark for nearly 24 hours. This left 80 million users (at the time) unable to load their timelines.
A planned server configuration change in 2019 took Facebook offline for around 14 hours, affecting 2.3 billion users. Currently, Facebook claims they have 2.89 billion users, making it the world’s most popular social media platform.
Facebook Whistleblower Interview in 60 Minutes
Making matters worse is the whistleblower interview with “60 Minutes” Sunday. Former Facebook data scientist Frances Haugen went on air to admit she was the whistleblower who leaked company documents to the Wall Street Journal last month.
This served as the source for the newspaper’s series of reports on Facebook. This includes allegations that Facebook’s algorithm promoted hate speech and misinformation.
Haugen, a former product manager on Facebook’s civic misinformation unit, made copies of internal documents before leaving the company. She gave copies to the media and accused the company of prioritizing its “own profits over public safety — putting people’s lives at risk.”
Senate Hearing On Social Media’s Harmful Effects To Children and Teens
As an offshoot to the leaked Facebook documents, the US Senate’s Commerce subcommittee held a hearing last Thursday.
They invited Antigone Davis, Facebook global head of safety, about Instagram’s impact on teenagers’ mental health. They also questioned Facebook’s plans to create more products targeting children.
The leaked documents showed that Facebook is well aware of the harmful effects of Instagram on young users. In particular, Facebook’s own studies showed that 13% of British users and 6% of American users pointed to Instagram as their reason to commit suicide.
Watch the NBC News video reporting that social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp hit by the massive global outage:
Loading ...What do you think of Facebook as a company and as a social product? Should the government step in and hold the company accountable for its many social ills?
Let us know what you think about social media in general. Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
14 Comments
I prefer truth, not the person’s opinion
I’ve never had a Facebook account nor will I ever have one. Facebook is a cancer that is a big part of what’s killing this country and I would prefer to see the whole damned social network burn to the ground instead of trying to regulate it!!
Facebook is now the home of neo nazis, supremacists, antivaxxers, conspirators, conspiracy beleivers and trumpers, all of them being the true true traitors, the real cancer to the US, so it dedinitwly needs regulation control and shut-off kill switches
Facebook is now the home of neo nazis, supremacists, antivaxxers, conspirators, conspiracy beleivers and trumpers, all of them being the true true traitors, the real cancer to the US, so it definitely needs regulation control and shut-off kill switches
Seriously? That’s who you are concerned with? neo nazis, supremacists, antivaxxers, conspirators, conspiracy beleivers and trumpers, the true true traitors?
Do you get your news from CNB, MSDNC, NPR?
Please begin to read outside of your liberal box of offerings and consider that you are being played, censored, and presented news tailored to your clicks and comments by Algorithms designed to groom you, your thinking, your political and social views.
It is not about party affiliation or Trump – it’s about the soul of the country and power and control
Not surprised coming from a Leftist !!!! How do you know what the truth is ???? Particularly since Fauci flip-flops almost every day…. BTW Conservatives have at least 3 other sites to use where there is no censorship…
I quit facebook 6 years ago. My wife called it quits yesterday. Anything good can be turned to evil,
It just takes human intervention and greed.
The process speeds up exponentially when politicans intervene.
Then it is almost impossible to reverse the
process.
And I sit back and laugh while watching the world burn. Good riddance
Social platforms are no more than information hubs to the proposed target.
If only America would wake up, and EVERYONE stops using that crap, Zuckerbullshit would disappear and stop harming your children!
I love face book we need more of that and less of things like the capitalist and we will be fine
Facebook— narcissism in it’s true form!
We need more brownshirts censoring our free speech so people like Brandon will be led like a zombie once the poison is on him. It’s sad people without any social skills who feel the need to share a picture of everything they eat, or to tey and collect “friends.” Unfortunately we have HR 1430 to thank for the lack of accountability in journalism that takes place today. Now the left is getting fed up with the lack of transparency, well, blatant lying. But, somehow now that it affrcts them, it’s different? Take a bath in it, gargle it, and swallow every bit of it happily. You applauded it and encouraged it over the last few decades, but you really egged it on over the last 5 years. And now, ypu have egg on your face. Silly lying journalists, you thought you get perks for doing the regimes dirty work. Tyrants have no use for you either, you’re merely a puppet, pawn, for their using. It’s humorous to watch, so thank you for the entertainment.
Sam your a idiot there is not integrity in journalism since Fox News was founded it all about lying to get people riled up about things that are ignorant the only thing humorous about any of this is your opinion sit down and shut up chump