Facebook stock sinks after report of federal probe into data breach

Source: The Hill | March 20, 2018 | Sylvan Lane

Facebook’s stock price fell deeper Tuesday after reports of expanding U.S. and U.K. probes into its role in the unauthorized use of personal information by a Trump-connected data firm.

The social media company has been under fire since the New York Times and The Observer of London reported that Cambridge Analytica, a firm hired by President Trump’s 2016 campaign, used personal data from roughly 50 million Facebook users for unauthorized political purposes. The firm reportedly received the data from a researcher.

Shares of Facebook  were down 5.7 percent by Tuesday afternoon, falling as low as $162, a nearly $10 drop. U.S. stocks on whole gained throughout the day.

Bloomberg News reported shortly before Tuesday’s opening bell that the Federal Trade Commission is investigating Facebook for potentially violating a 2011 agreement with the agency regarding uses of customer data.

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Facebook stock also sunk 6.7 percent on Monday, the first day of trading after reports of Cambridge Analytica’s use of user data. Facebook is under pressure to explain how the researcher who provided the data was able to exploit privacy settings to obtain data from tens of millions of users without their permission.

After the report, Facebook announced that it had suspended Cambridge Analytica from its platform and was conducting an internal review.

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