The recent Facebook data scandal has caused investors to think about the future of privacy and social media regulation, leading to a broader tech selloff earlier in the week.  

The company has responded to mounting backlash by promising more privacy control. However, in a recent BNN poll, the majority of respondents said they didn’t think the company was doing enough to regain users’ trust.   

But experts aren’t fully convinced the recent controversy will hurt the company’s long-term success.  Here’s what some of them have told BNN as the company’s future gets called into question.

“Repelled as most people are by Facebook’s corporate misdemeanours, the lack of more compelling social network alternatives may keep most users in line for the time being, although with significantly modified settings to reduce the amount of information Facebook and its advertisers are able to harvest from them…The most powerful weapon in Facebook’s corporate communication arsenal is their COO Sheryl Sandberg, who will be brought into PR battle as Facebook wages war to get its reputation back.”

-Bob Pickard, principal, Signal Leadership Communication

 

“I think when you look at Facebook, despite the fact that there are a lot of issues, and despite the fact  that they rolled out some of these changes [Wednesday] morning … I still think from a secular standpoint and a stock-specific standpoint, that company is a very attractive investment today.”

-Michael Scanlon, managing director and portfolio manager, Manulife Asset Management

 

“At the end of the day, Facebook is such a large player in this business – [about] 2 billion users – that’s not going to change. Maybe you have some slowing of growth there. But really what is changing is their revenue model. And by virtue of making that data less available to third-party companies, at the end of the day, their revenue model is going to readjust. And their multiple is going to readjust. But by no means do we think that Facebook is really going to go away.”

-Dean Orrico, president and chief investment officer, Middlefield Capital

 

“[Facebook] has had some disruption in their business model. Do I think that that’s going to change significantly the way Facebook works with advertisers over time and creates profits? No. But in the mean term, you are having disruptions with concerns about the regulatory environment [for] Facebook. So investors should be cautious.”

-Brian Levitt, senior investment strategist, OppenheimerFunds

 

“The expectation is that this is not necessarily something that’s going to go away for the time being, even if Mark Zuckerberg wants to put his head in the sand. Yes, they’re starting to make a couple of provisions for the time being, but I think this is really going to be something [where] everyone is going focus on the sector as a whole, and really start to focus on some of the things that actually could hit [Facebook’s] profitability.”  

-Joshua Mahony, market analyst, IG

 

“This is probably not going to be the only incident that is going to give Facebook a black eye … there’s a susceptibility to the business model at Facebook, and eventually, there is going to be a push of regulation of some sort, which will impact the business.”

-Jonathan Swartz, senior reporter, Barron’s