Facebook users continue to grow despite privacy scandals

Facebook users have continued to grow despite a series of scandals over data privacy and criticism of its attempt to curb toxic content.

The social media giant said that the number of people connecting to its site at least once a month jumped 9% last year to 2.32 billion people.

Fears over the firm's scandals also revealed that advertisers were unfounded with annual revenues up 30% over the previous year.

The rise came despite campaigns that urged people to flee the tech giant.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg said the firm had "fundamentally changed the way we manage society to focus on the most important social issues".

The strong financial performance stems from lingering concerns about how the social media company manages personal data and user privacy after the Cambridge Analytica data sharing scandal and fears that the network will be used as a political tool.

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The company's shares have lost almost a third of their value since July, when it warned of a slowdown in revenue growth and remained close to its two-year low.

But they jumped more than 9% after office hours after exceeding badysts' forecasts.

Facebook's total profit for 2018 was $ 22.1 billion (£ 16.9 billion), up 39% from 2017.

Growth in the number of users was particularly strong in India, Indonesia and the Philippines, but stable in the United States and Canada.

The mind bewildered. In 2018, Facebook witnessed the Cambridge Analytica scandal, political manipulation, false information, data breaches and accusations of deeply unethical behavior.

Despite this, profits have increased by almost 40%. Facebook does not only survive, it is booming.

In the face of severe turbulence, Mark Zuckerberg's company has proved resilient.

But even if users seem to close their eyes, it's not the same for regulators: Facebook knows that heavy fines will probably be inflicted.

The question is to what extent these fines will be harmful and what other measures could be put in place to cut the wings of a company that, in the opinion of many lawmakers, is too powerful.

George Salmon, an badyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said that Facebook's revenue growth over the last three months of the year was the lowest in its history since listing on the Nasdaq stock market in 2012 but these figures were always "rebaduring".

"Only time will tell if Mark Zuckerberg's ambitious plans to revolutionize Facebook will bear fruit, but these results will go a long way toward regaining Wall Street confidence – badysts were worried after a tumultuous 2018 year including the trials and tribulations of the Cambridge Analytica a scandal and a reset of the strategy, "he added.