(San Francisco) Revelation after revelation, Facebook’s little secrets are exposed, which in no way prevents the social media giant from continuing to rake in profits and satisfy investors.
Facebook generated $ 9.2 billion in net profits in the third quarter, 17% more than a year ago, rare good news for the California group, plunged into one of its worst scandals.
For more than a month, American newspapers have been reporting articles based on the “Facebook papers”, thousands of internal documents submitted to the SEC, the stock market authority, by Frances Haugen, a whistleblower and former engineer of the group Californian.
As a common thread of the controversies: Facebook was aware of the dangers – toxic content on Instagram for adolescents, disinformation that harms democracy, etc. – but chose, in part, to ignore them, for the sake of preserving its profits.
“We are seeing a coordinated effort to selectively use internal documents to paint a false image of our business,” boss Mark Zuckerberg said on an analyst conference call Monday.
This weekend, American dailies shone the spotlight on Facebook’s role in the polarization of societies. According to researchers employed by the firm, American and Indian users, with a priori moderate political views, are overexposed to extremist or conspiratorial content.
At issue: algorithms seeking to maximize the attention of consumers, an essential engine of the group’s growth.
Bad press
On Monday, new articles accused the social network of giving in to pressure from censors in Vietnam or of not being able to regulate hate speech in the world, for lack of the necessary language skills.
“The reality is that social networks are not primarily responsible for these problems and cannot fix them on their own,” Zuckerberg said.
He again recalled his company’s massive investments in security, with 40,000 dedicated people and a budget set to reach $ 5 billion this year.
The world number two in advertising “is facing its worst deluge of negative press, and it will continue,” noted Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst at eMarketer. But for now, his earnings “look as good as expected.”
From July to September, Facebook achieved a turnover of 29 billion dollars (+ 35% over one year).
Both networks (with Instagram) and messaging (WhatsApp and Messenger) are now visited by 2.8 billion people every day (11% more than a year ago) and by 3.58 billion users in less once a month (+ 12%).
The only downside for investors is the latest update to the iPhone operating system, which gives users more control over their confidential data and makes it harder for social networks to measure efficiency.
Control the future
Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, posted disappointing results last week because of the change, which caused its share to dip and Facebook’s share also down.
“We believe that we will be able to move forward despite these headwinds,” said Mark Zuckerberg, “thanks to the investments we are making today” in new measurement techniques and new formats.
In the short term, CFO David Wehner still admitted that the group was in a period of “significant uncertainty”, which weighs on its prospects. He expects a turnover of between 31.5 and 34 billion dollars for the current quarter.
Mark Zuckerberg also warned that Facebook’s investments in the “metaverse” will reduce its operating profit by around 10 billion in 2021.
He sees the metaverse as the future of the internet and his business: a sort of parallel universe, which the general public will access via technologies (augmented reality glasses, virtual reality headsets, etc.).
“We hope that by the end of the decade we can help a billion people use the metaverse and generate hundreds of billions of dollars for online businesses,” he said.
A new adventure that does not reassure the many detractors of the platform, from authorities to NGOs: some see it as an attempt to distract public opinion from the very real issues, others fear that Facebook will gain even more control over our lives. .