By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 12th, 2024
Facebook shares reached their all-time high of $304.67 during the pandemic. However, yesterday the FB stock price went down.
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB) stock fell 3.30% on Thursday, September 17, to close the day trading at $254.80. The fall of the Facebook shares price is largely being attributed to accusations pointed at the social media giant spying on Instagram users.
According to a post by media outlet Bloomberg, the company is again being sued for allegedly spying on Instagram users, this time through the unauthorized use of their mobile phone cameras.
With the United States Presidential election approaching, when the company faces a lot of trouble with user data usage, FB shares are currently under siege.
According to metrics provided by Marketwatch, Facebook shares have added approximately 24.15% year to date through Thursday. In addition, Facebook shares have managed to climb 6.71% in the past three months.
On the weekly chart, Facebook shares have been on the rising channel for the better part of the year.
Notably, Facebook shares reached their all-time high, $304.67 during the pandemic. Despite being in the red for the past two weeks, Facebook shares are looking at a possible breakout to their new ATH.
Worth noting is the fact that Facebook shares just broke above its multi-year resistance level, and are presumably in a new bull rally.
With 50 analysts ratings, Facebook shares on average received an OVER rating, according to Marketwatch.
Despite the challenges the company is currently experiencing, with a market capitalization of approximately $750.72 billion as of the time of publication, it is well-positioned to win in the long term.
Instagram Case and Other Crucial Factors Affecting Facebook Shares
Facebook shares future prospects are heavily underpinned on how the company’s management deal with the user data mismanagement issues in the near future.
Facebook was accused of collecting personally identifiable information of “up to 87 million people” by the political consulting and strategic communication firm Cambridge Analytica. This tainted its image in the global regulators especially in its home ground and in Europe.
Recently, the company went to court to appeal against a preliminary order by Ireland’s privacy regulator to suspend its data transfers from Europe to the United States.
Less than a month, the company is now being sued for apparently spying on Instagram users through the camera.
According to Bloomberg, the lawsuit springs from media reports in July that the photo-sharing app appeared to be accessing iPhone cameras even when they weren’t actively being used.
By “obtaining extremely private and intimate personal data on their users, including in the privacy of their own homes,” Instagram and Facebook are able to collect “valuable insights and market research,” according to the complaint.
However, the company vehemently denied the accusations and blamed the issue in a possible undetected malicious bug, which its developers are working to correct.
