Last night, the Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook reportedly knew about the error it made measuring video views a year before it disclosed the issue. Now advertisers are claiming that what the company did (or didn’t do) adds up to fraud. This is just one of many negative headlines about the company–and analysts are taking notice.
Pivotal’s Brian Wieser this morning, for instance, published a note that synthesized all the latest updates about the company. “Try as we might to not write about every negative story in the press on Facebook, when several items come together in a short period of time, it seems neglectful not to write about them,” says the report.
Overall, Wieser says that Facebook ran too fast and broke too many things. “[T]he underlying problem that we see is that the company has been so focused on growth at any cost that it has failed to sufficiently invest in processes that might anticipate problems, acknowledge problems fast enough or fix problems fast enough,” he writes. He adds that it’s not impossible for Facebook to fix these issues, but the fact that more problems continue to arise “reinforces our view that the company is not as in control of its business as it needs to be.”
The class-action news hit after the markets closed, but it didn’t seem to impact Facebook’s stock price in after-hours trading. It’s right now at about $159 per share. Wieser, however, maintains his sell rating on the stock, giving it a target price of $131.
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