Facebook’s black year: The social network’s battle for credibility

TOPSHOT - Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies during a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee joint hearing about Facebook on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, April 10, 2018. Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg apologized to US lawmakers Tuesday for the leak of personal data on tens of millions of users as he faced a day of reckoning before a Congress mulling regulation of the global social media giant.In his first-ever US congressional appearance, the Facebook founder and chief executive sought to quell the storm over privacy and security lapses at the social network that have angered lawmakers and Facebook's two billion users. / AFP PHOTO / JIM WATSON

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg was continually apologising in 2018 – for the Cambridge Analytica scandal, for an attack by hackers and for a clumsy campaign against critics. Meanwhile, the social networks business also suffered. 

In the past it had often seemed like the social networks problems, such as its failure to protect users' data or shield them from hate speech and disinformation campaigns, would leave behind no lasting damage.