Global shutdown, live-streaming of New Zealand shooting: Facebook had the worst week

Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has had a very bad week, even in the context of a very bad year.

The week of bad news actually started March 8 with a proposal from US senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren to break up the company. Then there was the longest-ever outage of Facebook’s social network and services, which almost overshadowed news of a criminal investigation into its data-agreements with other companies. Facebook’s technical glitch was resolved just in time for it to post the departure of two key executives, including the one closely linked with the company’s most iconic product. But the ultimate blow came on Friday with the massacre of 50 people in New Zealand, live streamed on Facebook.