Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg defensive during earnings call today

Facebook investors shrugged off the massive ongoing document dump on Monday and instead focused on the company’s third-quarter earnings, which topped analysts’ estimates.

The company said it’s adding $50 billion to its stock buyback program, helping lift the shares about 2% in extended trading.

Here are the results.

Earnings: $3.22 vs. $3.19 per share expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.
Revenue: $29.01 billion vs. $29.57 billion expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.
Daily active users (DAUs): 1.93 billion vs. 1.93 billion expected by analysts, according to StreetAccount.
Monthly active users (MAUs): 2.91 billion vs. 2.93 billion expected by analysts, according to StreetAccount.
Average revenue per user (ARPU): $10.00 vs. $10.15 expected by analysts, according to StreetAccount.
Facebook will make significant changes in the next year to focus more on its full-screen video Reels feature, which competes directly with TikTok, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts on the earnings call. It’s part of an effort to make Facebook and Instagram more appealing to users between the ages of 18 and 29.

“Over the last decade as the audience that uses our apps has expanded so much and we focus on serving everyone, our services have gotten dialed to be the best for the most people who use them rather than specifically for young adults,” Zuckerberg said.

He warned that “this shift will take years, not months, to fully execute” and that ultimately it will be as significant to Facebook as the adoption of the News Feed and Stories features.

“Reels has the potential to be something of that scale,” he said.

Zuckerberg kicked off the earnings call with a vehement defense of his company, following an onslaught of reports that stemmed from documents leaked by Frances Haugen, a whistleblower and former employee.

The internal company documents released by Haugen showed that the number of teenage users of the Facebook app in the U.S. has declined by 13% since 2019, with a projected drop of 45% over the next two years. The number of users between the ages of 20 and 30 was expected to decline by 4% during that time frame, the documents showed.

Haugen initially shared documents with The Wall Street Journal, which published a series of news stories based on them. She appeared before a Senate panel earlier this month to testify about her experiences at the company. Since then, Haugen has released documents to several more news outlets, leading to additional news stories.

The reports show that Facebook is aware of many of the harms its apps and services cause, particularly to teenage girls, but either doesn’t rectify the issues or struggles to address them. More documents are expected to be shared daily over the coming weeks.

Zuckerberg rebutted the claims and referred to the latest news cycle as “a coordinated effort to selectively use leaked documents to paint a false picture of our company.”

He touted Facebook’s investments in research and said the rest of the industry should follow its lead.

“The reality is social media is not the main driver of these issues and probably can’t fix them by itself either,” Zuckerberg said. “We should want every other company in our industry to make the investments and achieve the results that we have.”

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[Drone]

Just let people speak freely. This childish behavior over who can say what is way overdone. No one wants corporate America constantly judging our opinions!

[adamproceviat]

I agree that Facebook’s platform needs work. But it’s kind of interesting how the media is making such a big deal out of this. Oil companies have known for decades that their companies are harming the environment, but instead, not much is done. Maybe they are worried that people are now more engaged with content creators on social media vs. Their platforms. So they will continue to report on this to make fb look like the only bad player

[tief]

Turn it off, the world was a better place b4 FB

[xxk]

Zuckerberg knows in which drawer i keep my clean white undies thanks to CONSTANT SPYING

[jorgendahl]

His view is that the paint being used is doing too good a job of depicting just what a pos he is.

[susanrichards]

FACEBOOK BRINGS A WHOLE NEW MEANING TO THE TERM "BULLY PULPIT"!

[cdf]

Government blaming their failures on FB. Ridiculous. If you don't like FB then don't use it.

[alwaysyouramanda]

How can any of us take this seriously when we SEEE that the word “93d0” is even considered hatespeech.

[midlander]

I can't help but think much of this criticism is motivated by traders with short positions in Facebook stock.

[fastscalp]

keep it coming please. this way we can buy the stock below $300

[darksidegalaxy]

Why don’t you ask the CIA and FBI for the answer or did they call die in vein

[brandinfisher]

“Hate speech” a term created to silence the unwanted opinions, don’t get hate speech confused with violence, crime, and terrorism.

[mmahan]

One of the richest people in the world and he sounds like he is already in the meta verse. Get a better mic bub

[anthonyjohnson]

Wow 😮 OmG 😱 is it not safe for. Children since that last hack?

Seems the profits off ads led to death ☠️

[Justdance]

Mark and Jack were caught in a compromised position and now his wife filed for a divorce taking half lol

[alwaysyouramanda]

Shocking that YouTube isn’t being called out, especially after the 2016 bikini haul-to 93d0 hack was revealed to basically all of us.

[Grantosea]

I dumped facebook a couple of years ago. I got tired of the BS.

[willkellum]

i strongly dislike facebook but it's not FB's fault that the world is an ugly place. 5% is acted upon on FB but in the real world that is a much higher percentage. It's like most just want to vent and that's enough. I don't approve of hate speech but I'd choose FB's issues over the real world any day of the week and that's coming from someone doesn't care for social networks as a whole.

[umbrellakitty]

So what? His company, he can do what he wants. How about closing your account and getting an effing life?

[bizzking]

If facebook disappeared off the face of the planet tommorrow the world would be a better place