, Columnist
More Caution Can Help Facebook. But It Can Hurt It, Too.
Circumspection is good, but it comes at the cost of business opportunities.
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There's a line of thinking that Facebook Inc.'s business won't be significantly damaged by the company's series of scandals. But Facebook is already shifting how it operates in ways that will pinch its finances or limit its strategic maneuvers.
First, it's worth noting how little has changed for Facebook investors after two weeks of fury over the company's role in enabling Cambridge Analytica to improperly harvest information from 50 million Facebook accounts. Yes, there are fears that regulators will crack down in ways that will hit the company's bottom line. Facebook has shed nearly $100 billion of stock market value in less than two weeks. Shares early Wednesday have inched up a fraction.