Question

Company: Facebook

•What are the key challenges for this company now (in 2020)?

•Why do you think they are the key challenges?

•Please make sure you consider the pandemic and the challenges it poses.

LIST AT LEAST 5 KEY CHALLENGES

Answer 1

1.  New Revenue Sources- The core newsfeed for Facebook is no longer the crown jewel of its portfolio, at least as regards its next phase of growth. Instagram and Posts, and even WhatsApp, are looking much more interesting to many grow-seeking investors these days. Facebook's advertisement products grow accordingly. Stories have developed into a common platform for sharing content between friends, on both Facebook and Instagram, and advertisers are beginning to better understand how to monetize these new types of Facebook communications. Next year, interest in Stories is likely to remain strong, and on that front, Facebook will need to meet investor expectations.

2. Problem Content- Facebook has been taking care to remind users since Cambridge Analytica how its systems for purging fishy accounts, applications and other forms of inappropriate content are improving. In a blog post recently it said it removed 3.2 billion fake accounts in Q2 and Q3. It also set out its attempts to regulate content on Instagram vs core Facebook for the first time, claiming it deleted millions of pieces of content depicting child violence and self-harm.

To depend on humans for moderation of content comes with its own set of problems. Months ago, a stiff backlash triggered an inquiry by The Verge into unfair working conditions for Facebook contractors who manage content. It's still an unreliable program, a whack-a-mole game that will possibly remain a Facebook liability long into the future.

3. Regulatory Headaches- The Libra project at Facebook was intended to represent the next major breakthrough in financial services. Instead, it became a flash point to the company's long-simmering ire for privacy-related violations, political ads, content management problems, and even its spotty civil rights record. In two separate hearings, one with Facebook executive David Marcus and the other with CEO Mark Zuckberberg, senators dispensed their concerns with the effect on society of the social media business.

4. Coronavirus is stretching Facebook to its limits- Facebook will continue to address an immediate and potentially harmful source of disinformation around the virus while also trying to find out how much work its web moderators can do at home remotely, and facing an unprecedented increase in use that the company is struggling just to keep its services going.

5. Content moderation- Limitations on how to advertise election advertising. When the public discussion around political ads starts moving away from the surveillance activities of Facebook to its targeting capabilities, it might present a more direct threat to the bottom line of Facebook than previous reforms.