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Gifts from The Morning Star
Just how does Facebook make its profit?
Despite its tiny staff, the company has enormous wealth. This has as much to do with data-scraping its users as it has to do with another concept Marx detailed: religion

ONE of the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic has been a huge increase in social-media use. Facebook alone has seen an increase in total messaging of over 50 per cent in countries most affected by the virus, and use of WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, has grown by 40 per cent.

Facebook isn’t a big employer. It has just under 45,000 employees in total — up from just seven individuals when it was launched 15 years ago. But its profits are vast — about $22 billion (£17bn) last year.

And that’s despite its $5bn (£3.8bn) fine for allowing Cambridge Analytica, consultants to President Trump’s electoral campaign, to harvest the data of its users.

That’s about £½ million profit per employee (PPE).

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