The social networking company’s stock price declined -20% during the quarter, amidst a correction in the broad market. In September 2017, Zuckerberg announced that he would offload 35 million to 75 million Facebook shares over the following 18 months as part of his pledge to give away almost all of his fortune during his lifetime.He has sold around 30.4 million shares worth $5.6 billion since then. Facebook was mired in controversies in 2018, regarding issues like inadequate handling/protection of user data against a major incident of hacking and the Cambridge-Analytica scandal.

Allegations against Google’s face recognition technology was shot down by a U.S. judge on Saturday. In March 2016, some consumers filed a lawsuit in Illinois claiming that Google’s photo sharing and storage service violated users’ privacy by collecting/storing biometric data from people's photos via facial recognition software without their permission – a charge dismissed by a U.S. judge due to a lack of "concrete injuries." Plaintiffs had asked more than $5 million collectively for all the state residents affected, according to court documents.

Instagram users found a surprising update when they went to check out some holiday photos Thursday morning: They now need to scroll or tap through their feed horizontally. Shortly after the release, Instagram's Head of Product Adam Mosseri tweeted that it was meant to be "a very small test but we went broader than we anticipated."Many Instagram users reported that their feeds went back to the original vertical scrolling.

Under fire for stirring up distrust and violence, the social network has vowed to police its users.READ MORE...

One industry analyst has sounded the alarm on Facebook, calling the company the "biggest concern" among the so-called FAANG stocks.READ MORE...

Facebook Inc shares sank on Wednesday as concerns about its ability to safeguard user data sparked a government lawsuit, criticism in the U.S. Congress and a New York Times report on how it had shared data with other companies.Read more...

Social media giant Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) has gotten beaten up pretty good over the last five months.Since then the stock has dropped sharply and hit a low in November at $126.85. The stock has bounced from that low and is 13.5% above it at this point in time.

Facebook was sued by the District of Columbia over a privacy breach that exposed millions of users’ information to Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm that worked for President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. On Wednesday, the suit was filed by the district’s attorney general, Karl Racine, alleging Facebook of inadequate oversight of the company’s third-party applications and therefore of failure to comply with the Consumer Protection and Procedures Act.The maximum penalty under the Act is $5,000 per violation. Racine’s suit mentions that some Facebook users downloaded a “personality quiz” app, which also collected data from the app users’ Facebook friends without their knowledge/consent.

Alphabet’s Google will invest more than $1 billion towards setting up a new campus in New York City. On Monday, a blog post from the search engine giant said that it had reached lease agreements at 315 and 345 Hudson St. and signed a letter of intent at 550 Washington St. for the new 1.7 million-square-foot campus, to be named Google Hudson Square.Through the new offices, the company could potentially employ twice the number of people it currently does in New York City, over the next ten years. Earlier this year, Google opened new offices & data centers outside of its California headquarters, in locations such as Detroit, Boulder, Tennessee and Alabama.

Facebook could be fined more than a billion dollars, following a European regulator’s probe into the recent breaches of the social networking site’s user privacy. The Irish Data Protection Commission, which oversees Facebook's compliance with European law, confirmed to CNN on Friday it launched a "statutory inquiry" into Facebook.By that estimate, Facebook could potentially have to cough up to $1.6 billion if found ‘guilty’ by the European regulators. On Friday, Facebook revealed that a bug on its social networking platform let third-party app developers access up to 6.8 million Facebook users' photos over a 12-day period.

And with it, some exclusive features too. Google Shopping can be accessed through a new shopping tab within Google Search and using Google Lens, the latter being an image recognition app which allows users to photograph products to get more information about them.Google Shopping will list products from Amazon, Flipkart and other retailers instead of selling any itself (as reported by CNN, citing a company spokesperson). Google’s Merchant Center, where retailers can upload product details, will be available in Hindi (in addition to English) in India –the first nation to have an alternative language option on the particular webpage. "More than 40 million Indians are coming online every year, and search is an integral part of their online journey," Surojit Chatterjee, Google's vice president for product management, said in a statement.

Investors could also view buybacks as indicative of the company’s adequate cash availability, which could be another potential tailwind for its stock. The timing of Facebook’s beefing up its stock buybacks does not seem surprising, given its recent challenges.Ever since the company mentioned in July that it expects slowing of growth and thinning of profit margins over the coming years, Facebook stock price has declined almost -40%.

Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo launched its autonomous taxi service in the Phoenix area on Wednesday. Named Waymo One, the taxi service with self-driving technology will be operating in a roughly 100-mile zone in the Phoenix suburbs of Chandler, Tempe, Mesa and Gilbert.There are plans to eventually transition the service into a fully driverless one. Riders can book a cab on the Waymo app, and will be able to see price estimates before they decide to confirm the trip.

Instagram users will now have more flexibility to share Stories with a select few. The Facebook-owned  photo & video-sharing website announced on Friday that a new feature called Close Friends will allow users to share photos/content with smaller groups.The ‘Close Friends’ option might give people an extra layer of privacy and a more flexible way to select who they want to share certain pictures with - something that could potentially attract even more users and/or engagement.

Google’s parent company, Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOGL), has been trending lower over the last four months and the downtrend has brought the stock down to the $1,000 level.The stock then rallied all the way up to an all-time high of $1,291.44 in July. It is also interesting that the 104-week moving average is part of the story at this time.

Alphabet's Google is hoping that users in India can learn about local hotspots and facilities better and quicker – via the online platform's latest app, 'Neighbourly'. Launched exclusively in India, the app is a social network that allows people to get answers to their questions about various topics like street food/restaurants, car repair shops, plumbers, tuition classes etc.The replies will be sourced from other users.  Google began testing the app in Indian city Mumbai in May, followed by six other cities.

Marc Zuckerberg does not plan to leave his position as Facebook chairman, and wants Sheryl Sandberg to remain the company’s COO – amidst recent controversies surrounding the social networking platform. In an interview with CNN Business, Zuckerberg said, "Sheryl is a really important part of this company and is leading a lot of the efforts to address a lot of the biggest issues that we have," while adding, "She's been an important partner for me for 10 years.It also claimed that the tech company employed PR firm called Definers Public Affairs for dirt-digging on its competitors.  During the CNN interview, Zuckerberg emphasized that Facebook has been reshuffling its management team this year, in addition to doing some restructuring in production and engineering departments.

Users will be notified of the deletion and encouraged to revoke their access from the popularity boosting apps, so that their account activity is more genuine. Earlier this year, Instagram increased its anti-harassment scrutiny, by introducing a new technology for detecting bullying comments on photos/captions in order to filter out detrimental activity on the website.Instagram’s moves comes amidst  increasing awareness and action among social networking platforms to restrict  fake news, online harassment and hate speech.

Facebook will soon allow you to delete messages that you've already sent via its Messenger app. READ MORE...

Chinese social media company Weibo (Nasdaq: WB) is set to announce earnings on Wednesday, November 7 and the stock has been defying the odds in a certain manner.The stock has been trending lower since February within a clearly defined trend channel, but the company has some incredible fundamentals. The daily chart shows the trend channel and how the stock has moved methodically lower over the last nine months.