FACEBOOK FALLOUT

Businesses distancing themselves from social media giant

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Mozilla, Tesla and other companies are distancing themselves from Facebook after revelations of a major leak of user data to political consultants associated with the 2016 Trump campaign.

While the actions will not likely be permanent and won’t have much of an effect on Facebook’s bottom line, they’re the latest fallout the social media giant has to contend with from the ever-spiraling scandal – along with a tumbling stock price and a #deletefacebook movement.

“We’re taking a break from Facebook,” Mozilla said in a blog post Wednesday. The company, which created the Firefox web browser, said it is “pressing pause” on its Facebook advertising and won’t be posting on its Facebook page. But it did not delete its page and said it will consider returning if Facebook takes stronger actions to protect users’ data and improves privacy settings.

German bank Commerzbank also said it was putting Facebook advertising “on hold” as it evaluates data security. And Sonos, which makes speakers and other electronics, said it is pulling advertising from Facebook, Instagram, Google and Twitter for a week.

Elon Musk, meanwhile, made waves, saying in a Twitter exchange that he would take down the Facebook sites for his companies Tesla and SpaceX. As of Thursday afternoon, the sites appeared to be inactive. Tesla and SpaceX did not respond to a request to comment.

While the actions are likely temporary, they’re one more piece of the growing headache for Facebook since news of the leak broke a week ago.