Facebook said Friday it would add $9 billion to its stock buyback program, which could scoop up shares pummeled over the past few months by privacy scandals and a slump on Wall Street.

In a regulatory filing, the leading social network said it added to a $15 billion share repurchase program began in 2017.

Facebook shares have slid more than 30 percent in the past few months amid heightened scrutiny of the company and a bruising stock market.

The repurchase program "does not have an expiration date," the filing said, adding that shares may be repurchased on the open market or through privately negotiated transactions.

Facebook has become the world's biggest social network with more than two billion users, but has drawn scrutiny in the US and elsewhere over privacy practices and manipulation of its platform.

The Facebook application has fallen out of favor among young audiences in the US, according to surveys, but its Instagram image-sharing application has taken up some of that slack.

Facebook also operates the WhatsApp and Messenger applications, each with more than a billion users, and sells Oculus virtual reality gear. This year it launched a video chat device called Portal.

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More than half of global population now online: UN
Geneva (AFP) Dec 7, 2018
Some 3.9 billion people are now using the Internet, meaning that for the first time more than half of the global population is online, the United Nations said Friday. The UN agency for information and communication technologies, ITU, said that by the end of 2018 a full 51.2 percent of people around the world will be using the Internet. "By the end of 2018, we will surpass the 50/50 milestone for Internet use," ITU chief Houlin Zhou said in a statement. "This represents an important step towa ... read more