Two bad news ensured that the share price of Facebook rushed down

The beginning of the week should have been a prelude to forgetting for Mark Zuckerberg. Two bad news ensured that the share price of Facebook rushed down - and thus Zuckerberg's assets shrank significantly, as it consists primarily of his Facebook share package. Expressed in numbers: on the stock exchange, the shares went down almost five percent, which means that Zuckerberg's assets fell by around six billion dollars in a short time, according to calculations by the financial services provider Bloomberg. Zuckerberg slipped back one place in the rich list and is now in fifth place behind Microsoft founder Bill Gates. However, he still weighs 121 billion dollars and will probably take this aspect calmly. The problematic, however, are the reasons that led to the share price dropping. Facebook and the WhatsApp and Instagram belonging to the network were not available for around six hours. The unusually long total failure affected billions of users worldwide. But that's not all: A former employee identified herself as a whistleblower who had passed on the company's documents to the "Wall Street Journal". The former product manager of Facebook's misinformation team accuses her former employer of systematically putting profit above the fight against hate speech and misinformation. Facebook is lying to the public here. No one in the company acts "maliciously", but there are false incentives, says Frances Haugen. Today's version of Facebook is tearing our societies apart, the 37-year-old criticizes. She has worked for other companies in the industry such as Google and Pinterest in the past, but Facebook is "significantly worse" than anything she has seen before. Haug is being questioned in the US Senate today. That could be uncomfortable for Facebook, after all, the pressure on the company is increasing in the USA. The "Wall Street Journal" had reported that Facebook had come to the conclusion in its own investigations that the Instagram platform in particular could damage the mental health of young people. The newspaper quoted the sentence: "We make body image problems worse for one in three teenagers." The algorithm that determines what content is displayed to users is designed to evoke a reaction - and "it is easier to inspire people to be angry than to inspire other emotions," said Haugen. "Facebook realizes that if they change the algorithm to be more secure, people will spend less time on the page, less click on ads," which is making the company less money.