Facebook shares plunged as much as 6%: Marc Zuckerberg lost $ 7 billion in two hours

Both this social network and Instagram and WhatsApp suffer a massive cut. The Nasdaq New York index fell 2.1%

Facebook and its Instagram and WhatsApp platforms suffered a massive outage on Monday that potentially affected tens of millions of users. The Downdetector site showed outages in densely populated areas such as Washington and Paris as of 3:45 PM Greenwich.

On Wall Street, Facebook shares plummeted as much as 6% and ended 4.9% down to $ 326.23 and led the 2.1% losses on the Nasdaq technology average . The strong downtrend also hit other representative giants of the sector, such as Apple (-2.5%), Microsoft (-2.1%), Twitter (-5.8%) and Alphabet (-2%).

Mark Zuckerberg’s personal wealth has been reduced by nearly $ 7 billion in a few hours, dropping him one place on the list of the richest people in the world after a whistleblower spoke out and power outages. They will take Facebook’s flagship products out of service.

For this reason, Mark Zuckerberg’s personal wealth fell to $ 120.9 billion, and he fell behind Bill Gates in fifth place on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index . It should be remembered that Zuckerberg has lost about $ 19 billion in wealth since September 13, when his wealth reached about $ 140 billion, according to the index.

“Excuse me, something is wrong. We are working on it and will fix it as soon as we can,” says a message received by users seeking to access Facebook.

“We know that many people have problems accessing our applications and products,” communicated the Facebook spokesperson through the official Twitter account.

Excuse me, something’s wrong. We are working on it and we will solve it as soon as we can, ” Facebook said.

The outage comes a day after a woman who leaked Facebook documents claiming her products fuel hatred and harm children’s mental health appeared on television to reveal her identity to US authorities.

Frances Haugen, a 37-year-old data expert, worked for companies like Google and Pinterest and said that Facebook is “substantially worse” than what she had seen before.

A storm on the social network “emblem”

The largest social network in the world was engulfed in a storm because of Haugen . In addition, congressmen and The Wall Street Journal detailed how Facebook knew that its products, including Instagram, were harming girls, especially with regard to body image .

“I think that finally now politicians, perhaps the White House, and other leaders can see someone like Frances Hagen and say … ‘Now it is up to us, Facebook will not correct itself,'” he told AFP Nora Benavidez , expert in digital law.

“We know that a lot of people have problems accessing our applications and products,” the Facebook spokesperson said on Twitter.

Nick Clegg , Facebook’s vice president for politics and global affairs, vehemently rejected that the company’s platforms are “toxic” to teens.

Clegg spoke days after a tense congressional hearing in which lawmakers questioned Facebook executives about their impact on the mental health of younger users.

Haugen herself must appear before the US Congress on Thursday to give testimony on the subject.

A data expert said that social networks like Facebook and Instagram are particularly damaging to girls when it comes to body image

Senators last week embarrassed Antigone Davis, Facebook’s chief security officer, over a report from the company itself on potential app damage.

Davis told lawmakers that a survey showed that Instagram is generally very beneficial for 12-year-olds with anxiety, sadness or eating disorders.

“Body dissatisfaction”

However, Senator Richard Blumenthal read in court excerpts of company documents that he said he received from someone on Facebook that contradicted it.

“Strong evidence suggests that experiences on Instagram and Facebook worsen body dissatisfaction, ” he said, noting that this statement did not come from a disgruntled Facebook employee but from a study by the company itself.

Facebook was under relentless pressure to avoid being a platform for disinformation, hatred and harmful content for children. Lawmakers have struggled to pass new rules that update online protections created decades ago when social media didn’t yet exist.