Facebook’s $5B FTC fine is an embarrassing joke

I don’t see how people are concluding it’s a slap on the wrist that won’t change their behavior. FB is basically just guilty of lax security practices. The fine doesn’t need to be a large percentage of their total revenue to affect change. It just has to be more than the cost of investing in better security practices. Its not like Cambridge Analytica and the other data leaks made any profits for them.

>Here’s another way to say it: the biggest FTC fine in United States history increased Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth.

What a garbage conclusion. The article even draws attention to the market being aware of an upcoming fine, and makes no argument for Zuckerberg's net worth being higher than if this fine was never on the table.

The fact that the stock went up doesn’t necessarily mean the $5B is too small. That is a naive understanding of stock valuations. It could go up just because the uncertainty is now removed.

Key points:

- This is the largest FTC fine in history

- It's 1 month's revenue for Facebook

- After news broke, Facebook's stock went up

There are probably a lot of people at Facebook who work on things that are worth less than $5 billion. As a motivating factor in some manager or lawyer's PowerPoint presentation arguing for a new company initiative, it seems like this will be a pretty good argument?

The stock has taken a beating over the past 6 months. Its a classic buy the rumor sell the fact, but in reverse.