- Facebook Inc faced growing pressure on Monday after European and U.S. lawmakers called for investigations into reports that a consultancy that worked on President Donald Trump’s campaign gained access to data on 50 million Facebook users.
Facebook’s shares were down 7 percent, wiping around $30 billion off its market value and dragging the S&P 500 technology sector down almost 2 percent. Facebook shares were on track for their biggest one-day percentage decline since Oct. 2014.
“We think this episode is another indication of systemic problems at Facebook,” said Brian Wieser, analyst at New York-based brokerage Pivotal Research Group, which already has a “sell” rating on a stock that rose 60 percent last year.
Wieser argued that regulatory risks for the company would intensify and enhanced use of data in advertising would be at greater risk than before.
The scrutiny presents a new threat to Facebook’s reputation, which is already under attack over Russians’ use of Facebook tools to sway American voters with “fake news” posts before and after the 2016 U.S. elections.
On Monday, Republican Senator John Kennedy joined his Democratic colleague Amy Klobuchar in calling on Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to testify before Congress about data use.
In a joint letter, Kennedy and Klobuchar asked Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley to hold a hearing with Zuckerberg and the chief executives of Alphabet Inc’s Google and Twitter Inc, reflecting mounting bipartisan concern in Washington about how the companies share personal user data.
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