Facebook will release quarterly figures on Monday, and for the troubled social media company, this means that attention is briefly diverted from the many scandals.
A whistleblower has released a series of internal documents that have made Facebook in the news lately for not doing anything about disturbing internal investigations and not doing enough against fake news and conspiracy theories. As a result, more and more company employees are also feeling uncomfortable, according to the revelations.
In addition, the company is increasingly in the crosshairs of governments and regulators. For example, some American politicians are voting to split Facebook, which in addition to the social network of the same name, also owns Instagram and WhatsApp.
There may also be bad news for Facebook on the front of the number. Competitor Snap reported in its own quarterly update to have been affected by a change in Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS. Since April, apps that follow people have had to ask for permission from their users explicitly. Many people choose not to give that permission, and then the app knows much less about that user. That information cannot be passed on to advertisers, which means they are willing to pay less for advertising campaigns.
Whether the change also has consequences for Facebook remains to be seen, but the company already lobbied against Apple’s plans before the change. Moreover, even after the change was implemented, Facebook repeated that it expected headwinds from that step several times.
Facebook may also announce a new name for the company next week. That’s still called the same as the social network it started with, but CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg want to put less emphasis on that product. That attention should instead be directed towards the so-called metaverse that the company wants to build. That metaverse is a world in virtual reality where social media, games and web stores come together so that users no longer have to leave that world.