Facebook sales grow as users tick up; Zuckerberg defends political ads

Zuckerberg opened his earnings conference call on Wednesday by defending the companys policy to run ads from politicians containing false or misleading claims, saying that Facebook did not want to stifle political speech, even as rival Twitter Inc said earlier in the day that it was banning political ads around the globe.

Zuckerberg last week was barraged with aggressive questions by lawmakers over Facebooks steps to combat misinformation ahead of next years presidential election when he appeared at a Congressional hearing.

Facebook executives, whom analysts say typically offer conservative guidance, continued to warn that the companys revenue could be hurt by external challenges including new features on Facebook and internet browsers enabling people to block the type of online tracking that has been essential to Facebooks algorithms for targeting ads.

Yes, Facebook has a lot of challenges it must deal with, but increasing its revenue and user count isnt one of them, Debra Aho, eMarketer principal analyst, said in an email.

Federal Trade Commission probe, which started after its Cambridge Analytica data misuse scandal and threatened to cost the company several more billions.

But whether it can maintain the momentum has been unclear with newer ventures including privacy-focused messaging services, its expansion into online dating or its burgeoning features for group discussions and eBay-like shopping center.

Last week, Facebook also started to test Facebook News, a new section of its mobile app dedicated to high-quality news, which will see some publishers paid for access to their content.

Facebook on Wednesday also said one of its board directors, Susan Desmond-Hellmann, chief executive of The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, would be stepping down and that a replacement would be named in the coming months.

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