Yes, 2018 was a pretty tough year for Facebook. But what if Instagram that the social network acquired in 2012 was Zuckerberg’s secret weapon to prevent Facebook’s fall?
In March 2018, news broke that the data of 50 million Facebook users were used by data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica. Their goal? Analyze the psychological profiles of US voters and then target them with personalized political advertisements. After these revelations, Zuckerberg testified and apologized in front of the US Senate and the European Commission. Then, in July, Facebook’s stock experienced a historic drop, ”losing $120 billion in value immediately after the company announced revenue and user numbers that failed to meet Wall Street’s projections, and the stock has continued to decline since”, reports Wired. Last but not least, privacy problems escalated when hackers got access to 30 million user accounts from all over the world a few weeks ago. Personal information (such as emails, phone numbers, names) was extracted for what seems to be a massive preparational operation for spammers. For sure, Facebook has known better days. But there is a silver lining: Instagram’s growth has never been better. And that may well save Facebook.