Facebook's earnings just crushed Wall Street's expectations

Facebook has added another data controversy to its very long list of privacy snafus. But there's no sign of disaster on its fourth quarter earnings report.

The company blasted past its predicted revenue of $16.39 billion in the last quarter, taking in $16.91 billion, it revealed in a 2018 earnings report on Wednesday. Facebook's active user base in the U.S. and Canada has barely grown in the past year and a half, but steady growth around the world strengthened its earnings to $2.38 per share over a $2.19 forecast, CNBC reports.

The report comes just hours after TechCrunch reported that Facebook has been paying $20 a month to users as young as 13 who gave Facebook "nearly limitless access" to their devices and data through a virtual private network. The app violated Apple's standards, and the company deleted the experimental iOS app and revoked Facebook's developer license. And that's far from the only data controversy Facebook suffered in the past year, let alone the past quarter.

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So, with Americans pledging to #DeleteFacebook and user numbers showing that Facebook's North American base isn't growing, how is the company still swelling? Easy: Facebook's monthly active user base grew by 49 million in the last quarter and nearly 200 million in the past year around the world.

Read Facebook's whole earnings report and ponder how a scandal-ridden social media company makes so much money here.