Facebook began this week by announcing more than $9 billion in quarterly profits, an increase of about 17 percent. The social media giant also announced that it now has close to three billion users. But all is not well on the Facebook front as Mark Zuckerberg's platform has been facing a deluge of scathing reports.
In recent weeks, hardly a day has gone by when Facebook has not been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, whether it has been whistleblowers coming forward accusing the company of prioritising growth over users' safety, accusations that Facebook bends to the will of state censors in some countries while allowing hate speech to flourish in others, ignoring fake accounts that undermine elections, allowing anti-vaccine messages to mushroom, or allowing its algorithm to fuel toxic polarisation online.
And then there is the fact that moving forward, Facebook is going to struggle to maintain growth in user numbers since teenagers are increasingly turning their backs on the platform.
Despite all this negative publicity, how is Facebook still managing to turn profits? Is its future profitability sustainable? Can Facebook be reined in and whose responsibility is it to regulate this and other social media giants?
Produced by Andrew Hilliar, Juliette Laurain and Imen Mellaz.
