Facebook Earns $10.33 Billion In Revenue Despite Russian Scandal

It seems the recent scandal involving Russian trolls potentially ruining American democracy has not hurt Facebook financially. The social media giant just posted its Q3 earnings report and it surpassed predictions to rack up $10.33 billion instead of $9.84 billion. This is despite being questioned by Congress, all the PR debacles that Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg himself was in the middle of, and the atrocious ads posted by Russian agents on the site.

Facebook’s earnings increased by 47 percent compared to last year, Business Insider reports, and its number of users grew to 2.07 billion compared to last quarter’s 2.01. The company did warn that revenue growth is going to be slow down the line since its ad spaces are becoming cramped. It seems expenses are also going to go up for next year.

As for its stock performance, it seems the Russia controversy has not made any kind of impact on Facebook’s value. In fact, it may have just increased it since shares are riding at an all-time high. Suffice it to say, investors are not bothered by the fact that Facebook was instrumental in demolishing America’s election process during the 2016 presidential elections.

Just to put how far these Russian Facebook trolls went to divide the U.S., Fast Company compiled a list of the most outrageous and atrocious ads that the social network allowed to run on its platform. Most of them were demonstrably fake news by any measure, smearing then-candidate Hillary Clinton of the most malicious lies and sowing hatred among different minority groups.

Some of the lies that were spread during that cycle still carries over today, with many saying that Black Lives Matter members were killing police officers. There were even ads that encouraged people to take to the streets to protest Donald Trump, which only increased the division among Americans. All of this occurred on Facebook’s watch and Zuckerberg is still laughing his way to the bank.