Facebook, Twitter and Snap take hits: Social media crackdown imminent?

Facebook is facing increased criticism for allowing its user data to be improperly gleaned and thereby used for political purposes during the 2016 presidential election. FBN’s Stuart Varney weighs in.

Regulatory pressure on Facebook (FB) is intensifying, and its social media peers are affected as well, at least when it comes to the price of their stocks.

Facebook is facing controversy surrounding how a third party accessed and stored the information of 50 million users. According to Bloomberg, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) could investigate the incident while Fox News confirmed that Facebook executives will meet with House Judiciary Committee staff as early as Wednesday. In a letter on Tuesday, the U.K. parliament requested that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appear for testimony.

Tech stocks also took a hit on concern that the European Union would impose a revenue tax on the big digital companies.

Monday’s retreat in the share value of Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Netflix and Amazon resulted in the loss of a cumulative $117 billion in total market capitalization. As of Tuesday afternoon, the companies lost another $7 million in market cap. On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was rebounding while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 were swinging between gains and losses. The big losers were Facebook, Snap and Twitter. Amazon was the major gainer, up more than 1.6%.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
SNAP	SNAP INC.	11.63	+0.73	+6.74%
TWTR	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.
FB	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.	n.a.