Facebook has reset the growth meter for itself and other social media companies, which are facing changing user tastes and increased regulatory scrutiny in a world following the Cambridge Analytica scandal and Russian meddling in U.S. presidential elections.
In its 2018 second-quarter earnings call on July 25, Facebook warned of decelerating revenue growth “over the next several years,” and of uninspiring trends in its user patronage in the U.S. (flat at 185 million daily active users) and in Europe (down 3 million to 279 million daily users), where strict data privacy rules took effect in May. Facebook lost nearly $120 billion in market capitalization the day it announced its results, bringing down other tech stocks such as Amazon, Twitter and Netflix (although they have since recovered somewhat).
