On the antitrust probe, Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives also expressed doubts about its potential to affect Facebook’s business. He wrote in a note to investors:

Current antitrust law does not provide for a forced breakup solely due to the size of the business; if it did, Walmart would have been broken up decades ago. Instead, the objective standard is whether a company engages in anticompetitive behavior, thereby driving up prices for consumers. We believe this is a difficult case to make for Facebook and Google (which provide free consumer services), and a stretch for Amazon (which has objectively competitive prices).

Zuckerberg, meanwhile, framed the scrutiny into the company as direction coming from lawmakers.

“Now we have a clearer path forward—not just in terms of product and business, but in terms of guidance from regulators, which sets clear expectations and gives us a foundation to build on,” he said during the earnings call.

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