Headline Roundup • July 13th, 2019
Facebook Fined $5 Billion for Privacy Violations
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Featured Coverage of this Story

Fox News (Opinion)
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the Federal Trade Commission has approved a settlement under which Facebook will pay a record $5 billion fine for violating an FTC order regarding its privacy practices.
The settlement, which still needs Justice Department approval, shows that Facebook is finally getting a well-deserved punishment for abusing the privacy of those who use the service.
The Journal reported that the FTC hit Facebook with the $5 billion fine for violating a 2011 agreement that required the social media giant to notify users...
Facebook’s stock went up after news of a record-breaking $5 billion FTC fine for various privacy violations broke today.
That, as The New York Times’ Mike Isaac points out, is the real story here: the United States government spent months coming up with a punishment for Facebook’s long list of privacy-related bad behavior, and the best it could do was so weak that Facebook’s stock price went up.

The Hill
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has reportedly approved a roughly $5 billion settlement with Facebook following its investigation into the company's handling of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the largest the FTC has ever imposed for privacy violations.
The Wall Street Journal, citing a person familiar with the matter, reported Friday that the FTC voted along party lines this week to approve the settlement, closing the investigation into the Cambridge Analytica incident.
The vote was 3-2, with Republicans in the majority approving the deal, according to the Journal.
AllSides Picks
Headline Roundup
Meta Agrees to New Facebook, Instagram Limits for Teens in $18 Billion Settlement
August 26th, 2026
Blog
Meta Settles with 29 States
AllSides Staff
August 27th, 2026
Blog
The Insight: Back to School, Behind on Reading: Why America’s Literacy Crisis Persists
AllSides Staff
August 21st, 2026
Red Blue Translator