15 Months of Hell Inside Facebook

In some ways, the world’s largest social network is stronger than ever, with record revenue of $55.8 billion in 2018. But Facebook has also never been more threatened. Here are some dangers that could knock it down.
US Antitrust Regulation: In March, Democratic presidential candidate Sen Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) proposed severing Instagram and WhatsApp from Facebook, joining the growing chorus of people who want to chop the company down to size. Even US attorney general William Barr has hinted at probing tech’s “huge behemoths.” But for now, antitrust talk remains talk—much of it posted to Facebook.
Federal Privacy Crackdowns: Facebook and the Federal Trade Commission are negotiating a settlement over whether the company’s conduct, including with Cambridge Analytica, violated a 2011 consent decree regarding user privacy. Federal prosecutors have also begun a criminal investigation into Facebook’s data-sharing deals with other technology companies.
European Regulators: While America debates whether to take aim at Facebook, Europe swings axes. In 2018, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation forced Facebook to allow users to access and delete more of their data. Then this February, Germany ordered the company to stop harvesting web-browsing data without users’ consent, effectively outlawing much of the company’s ad business.
User Exodus: Although a fifth of the globe uses Facebook every day, the number of adult users in the US has largely stagnated. The decline is even more precipitous among teenagers. (Granted, many of them are switching to Instagram.) But network effects are powerful things: People swarmed to Facebook because everyone else was there; they might also swarm for the exits.