Facebook's stock actually jumped after FTC fine reports

(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

published 13 July 2019

Nobody really expected Facebook's $5 billion fine for mishandling users' data imposed by the Federal Trade Commission to hinder the social media giant all that much. Sure, it was a record-breaking fine for the FTC, but $5 billion is "peanuts" to a company the size of Facebook. For example, Facebook drew in $15 billion in revenue last quarter.

What, on its face, is more surprising is that even with the slap on the wrist, Facebook's stock actually went up.

But even that's not surprising when you dig a little deeper. As The Week's Jeff Spross pointed out in April, Facebook's stock jumped by 10 percent when the company first announced it was getting ready to pay a fine somewhere between $3 billion and $5 billion. That was right around when the company's profit report came out, which surpassed expectations. Ultimately, investors were less concerned with the fine — and what many consider to be Facebook's questionable ethics — than they were enchanted by its gleaming profits.

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

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