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FB continues to face probes by the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, the House’s Committee on Financial Services and now a gaggle of attorneys general from 47 states and U.S. territories, according to published reports. It disclosed the antitrust investigations underway by the FTC and the DOJ in its second-quarter earnings release.
Analysts point to the growing popularity of Stories, the short-form and short-lived versions of user-generated photos and videos first introduced in 2017. From a revenue standpoint, FB believes this could be a winner with more than 1 billion daily active users and more than 3 million Stories ads across FB’s family of apps, the company said last summer. Analysts will be eyeing the fresh reading on those numbers.
This move could be an important one for FB, which has faced a boatload of allegations over the years that it has censored certain viewpoints and allowed so-called fake news to slip in. That’s all fine and well, say analysts, and could go a long way toward cleaning up its brand image but what will it cost FB and how will it affect margins? Is there any revenue to be gained? As we noted last quarter, FB is looking to turn the conversation away from putting out privacy and antitrust fires and back to innovation. Zuckerberg said as much again last week when he was defending the Libra cryptocurrency proposal before a sometimes intense grilling with the House’s financial committee.