02-02-2019

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EDITORIAL SATUrDAy, FEbrUAry 2, 2019 4 Acting Editor & Publisher : Jobaer Alam Telephone: +8802-9104683-84, Fax: 9127103 e-mail: editor@thebangladeshtoday.com Saturday, February 2, 2019 Political stability indispensable for economy T ime and again analysts and expertsstressed the point that political stability is tooessential for the needed at least 8 per cent economic growth that could take Bangladesh in time to the goal of achieving middle income country status sustainably. The concern about instability has once again become relevant when the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) seems to be girding up its loins to launch afresh another mindless upheaval in the streets in support of its various rabid demands. It appears that this political juggernaut has learnt nothing from its previous sordid experience and cares little or nothing about the economic consequences of its renewed intention to plunge the country into another upheaval. Even now the economy has not well recovered from the battering it received during 2014 and the following year. Thus, politically induced violence-- reviving-would surely greatly hazard Bangladesh in acquiring the necessary annual economic growth rate to climb to a middle income country status by the targeted date. Of course, those who are critical of views and suggestions that seem to reflect the government's stand, they would understandably or pathologically tend to consider the above views as partisan ones aimed to promote government's objectives. But can we say the same about the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) ? The CPD is a highly respected leading think-tank of the country. It is particularly esteemed for its objective and unemotional analysis of the national economy, for calling a spadea spade without hesitation. Thus, when the CPD also makes observations in an analysis of the Bangladesh economy that rhyme with the above views of concern, can we then dismiss off the same so easily or as politically motivated? The answer hardly needs an explanation ; it is self explanatory. Not only the CPD, other well known local and international think tanks, plus our main chamber bodies, and even the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and other international organizations who engage in analyses of the Bangladesh economy, they have repeatedly pointed out the imperative of establishing long lasting political stability in the context of Bangladesh for this country to economically grow and develop at a faster pace to successfully overcome its remaining problems of poverty and underdevelopment. Underinvestment in its economy has been Bangladesh's big economic problem in varying degrees for decades. But notwithstanding the same, our economy has been showing remarkable resilience and capacity for moving forward in recent years. The growth momentum appeared so strong that all indications were the economy was headed to achieve its highest growth rate of some 7 plus per cent in the outgoing fiscal year. That this did not happen and growth slumped somewhat in the end, was seen linked directly to the worst manmade and politically induced troubles all through from 2013-2015 particularly from the appearance of conditions that virtually brought all kinds of economic activities to a halt or near to a halt in that period. The economy has not adequately recovered from the very bad battering it received at that time. Its lingering problem of less than the desired amount of investment has now reached a worrying level . As it was highlighted in the CPD analysis, the predicament is mainly due to investors' lack of confidence . It is not that the traditional bottlenecks posed by government's inconsistent policies, non availability of enabling infrastructures, paucity of financial resources for borrowing, obstructive bureaucracy, insufficient energy supplies, etc., these are also creating disincentives for investments. But these problems have been sorted out considerably in different degrees in the last two years. What then is acting so powerfully to discourage investment decisions ? Anybody with a sensible bird's eyes views of the investment scenario would likely not fail to note that the investment train remains largely derailed from potential investors feeling not confident about getting in the longer run not even breakeven returns from their investments not to speak about decent profits out of continuing political instability. This apprehension which is scaring away investors is being caused by repeated threats by the BNP leaders that they would soon start another movement to unseat the present government from power. Therefore, it is the duty of all patriotic quarters in the country specially including the business quarters, to tell the BNP that nobody gave them any license to further destroy the economy by their so called movements started in the name of the people in which people are actually least interested. Saudi Arabia joins the bogle Age with MSCI Tadawul Index The Chinese government is responding to the rapid growth of Christianity in that country with violence and oppression, in an attempt to consolidate power. But that is exactly the wrong response. We at Bowyer Research urge President Xi Jinping to study recent history - and Chinese history - more carefully, to see that his government's campaign of imprisonment and violence is not likely to produce the stability he wants. In our investigation of the dynamics of regime change, we've found evidence that governments with high levels of Christian persecution are considerably more likely to have regime changes forced upon them than their non-persecuting counterparts. This should worry President Xi, as his administration has embarked on a brutal campaign of Christian repression. According to a report published last year by The Associated Press, Xi has waged "the most severe systematic suppression of Christianity in the country since religious freedom was written into the Chinese constitution in 1982 … destroying crosses, burning Bibles, shutting churches and ordering followers to sign papers renouncing their faith." Xi may very well be risking the stability of the Chinese state by attacking the Christian minority. Particularly noteworthy has been the imprisonment of Pastor Wang Yi of Early Rain Covenant Church, along with his wife and dozens of members of his church. Pastor Yi wrote a brilliant exposition on the right to religious freedom and the limits of the Top index provider MSCI has teamed up with the Saudi Stock Exchange, above, to launch the tradeable MSCI Tadawul 30 Index. (Getty Images) Had Jack Bogle lived just a few days longer he would no doubt have been intrigued by this week's news from Saudi Arabia. Bogle was regarded as one of the greatest financial innovators to have ever lived. He was the brains behind the concept of index investing, by which an investor can put money directly into a stock market via an index of the market itself, rather than via the individual stocks of which the market is composed. Like all the best ideas, its simplicity was striking. Why pay for all that expensive advice, analysis, broking and management fees, and the rest of the paraphernalia of the global investment business? Why not instead buy a financial instrument that represents all the constituents of a stock market, weighted according to size and liquidity. Better still, why not let a computer do it for you? The absence of human effort put into the buy/sell decision led to the term "passive investment." Bogle's idea - though he was only at the beginning of the modern computer age when he had it - has revolutionized the investment business. Now passive investment in indices is by far the biggest part of the global investment universe.Unless you consciously chose to pay for the services of an oldfashioned investment adviser, your funds will almost certainly be handled digitally and will be linked to the value of an index. These days, especially in the decade since the global financial crisis, you will not hold shares in Apple, or General Electric, or Bank of America directly, but you will hold shares in the indices of the markets on which these stocks are traded. And a good thing too, because all the smart investment brains in the world do not do better, over an extended period, than the indices. Warren Buffet, renowned investment Sage of Omaha, recommends passive index investment over active, and has also suggested the US erects a statue to Bogle, who died last month aged 82. Last week, Saudi Arabia caught up with the Bogle revolution when the MSCI Tadawul Index went live for the first time. The new index was the logical and most fruitful outcome of the decision last year to grant Saudi Arabia FrANk kANE emerging market status by the index compiler MSCI. Before, any investor wanting to back the Kingdom's economic transformation would have to either buy a regional index, in which Saudi Arabia was mixed with other economies in the Middle East and North Africa, or go through the process of becoming a qualified investor and acquiring a regulated status in the Kingdom, to buy individual stocks such as SABIC or Unless you consciously chose to pay for the services of an old-fashioned investment adviser, your funds will almost certainly be handled digitally and will be linked to the value of an index. These days, especially in the decade since the global financial crisis, you will not hold shares in Apple, or General Electric, or bank of America directly, but you will hold shares in the indices of the markets on which these stocks are traded. state, reproducing the arguments of John Calvin and applying them to China in anticipation of his arrest, with instructions to have the declaration released if he were held for more than 48 hours. Two months later, he and much of his flock were jailed, and this statement went out to the world. As a fellow Christian and as a human being, I am concerned about these victims of oppression. But I am also concerned about China, because my read of history and of the data is that it is dangerous to be a persecutor. We here at Bowyer Research are engaged in a research project that compares the number of regime changes since 2000 with the OpenDoorsUSA watch list, which tracks the 50 countries in which Christians are most persecuted. Our findings so far indicate a clear statistical relationship between persecuting the church and regime change. Unfortunately, there are some JErry bOWyEr NCB, two of the biggest corporates listed on the Tadawul. The new index was the logical and most fruitful outcome of the decision last year to grant Saudi Arabia emerging market status by the index compiler MSCI. Many big global investors did not want to go through that process, and in many cases they were forbidden by their constitutions from putting money into a market that had not received the seal of approval of an MSCI, or the significant data-availability issues that we are still working on. We only have recent persecution data. Since the persecution list (unfortunately) tends to be stable over time, we think the analysis is worth taking seriously, but the conclusion will be somewhat tentative until we are able to get longer-term persecution data. There are 193 United Nations member states (though we include Palestine in our data). Of those members, roughly 23% have experienced a regime change in the past 19 years. But 38% of the countries in the OpenDoorsUSA watchlist have experienced a regime change. Being on the watch list gives regimes worse odds of survival than Russian roulette. You might object that underdeveloped countries in sub- Saharan Africa are exaggerating the correlation, in that their frequent regime changes and trouble with Islamist terrorism don't have a clear causal link. But even if we remove the sub-Saharan other compilers such as FTSE Russel (which Tadawul will join later this year). Now, there is nothing to stop them getting a slice of the Saudi action via the new index. It will consist of about 30 of the biggest stocks in the Kingdom, though the composition can vary to allow as many as 35 to be included. In a while, the "MT30" - as the index will be known - could be as commonplace a phrase in the financial world as the S&P 500 or the FTSE 100, the leading indices in New York and London. The index compilers have put a cap at 15 percent for any individual stock's proportion of the index, which is designed to prevent an index or indeed an exchange, being too reliant on the performance of just one equity. For the time being, that is fine, but they may have to think again when Saudi Aramco finally makes its longawaited stock market debut. It will be so big that it will certainly break the 15 percent ceiling. But the compilers and policymakers have some time to think about that. In the meantime, the new index gives foreign investors the opportunity to add Saudi Arabia to their investment portfolios in an affordable, efficient and traceable way, while the Kingdom gets access to the multitrillion-dollar passive investment market.Bogle - whose invention proved to be a "win-win" for markets and investors - would certainly have approved. Source: Arab news by persecuting Christians, Xi is risking his own regime Apersonal message from Tolerance Minister to Pope Francis When his holiness Pope Francis arrives in Abu Dhabi next week, it will be the first ever Papal visit to the Arabian Gulf. While this represents a milestone event in its own right, it is also a powerful testament to the longstanding values of acceptance, coexistence, inclusivity, tolerance and humanity that are embedded in the very core of the United Arab Emirates. Since the UAE's foundation, the rights and liberties of all creeds, sects and beliefs have been safeguarded. Our constitution protects freedom of spiritual expression and explicitly prohibits any form of discrimination based on religion or race. Pope Francis will find a country where over one million Christians practise their religion without hindrance alongside a majority Muslim population. Throughout the UAE, over forty churches welcome believers for prayers next door to Mosques, as well as Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist Temples. The UAE's acceptance of all religions is an expression of our leadership's commitment to an open society, one that welcomes people representing over 200 nationalities and ethnicities to work, live and thrive within our borders. This generous attitude toward others is a core tenet of our Our findings so far indicate a clear statistical relationship between persecuting the church and regime change. Unfortunately, there are some significant data-availability issues that we are still working on. We only have recent persecution data. Since the persecution list (unfortunately) tends to be stable over time, we think the analysis is worth taking seriously, but the conclusion will be somewhat tentative until we are able to get longer-term persecution data. Dr. SUlTAN AHMED Al JAbEr values, a key characteristic of our culture and a fundamental pillar of the vision of our founding father, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan. He realized that both his country and the wider region would benefit by building bridges and making cultural connections with the international community. This philosophy underpinned a foreign policy that seeks to create partnerships promoting prosperity around the world, based on mutual respect. And it is mirrored by a domestic policy that treats differing cultures equally. In this spirit, when the remains of a seventh century Christian monastery were discovered on Sir Bani Yas Island in 1992, Sheikh Zayed insisted that it be preserved both as a relic of shared spiritual history and a present day, potent symbol of cross-cultural harmony. The UAE first established diplomatic relations with the Vatican in 2007, and, since then, relations with the Catholic Church have only strengthened. A high level visit to the Vatican followed in 2016 by HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces. Then, last year, HH Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, hand delivered the invitation for Pope Francis to make his historic visit to the UAE. During his visit, which will include a public mass, the Pope will meet with Sheikh Ahmad Al Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, and the chairman of the Council of Muslim Elders. Bringing together the spiritual leaders of the Sunni and Catholic faiths, this meeting African countries, we still see a very strong correlation. More than half of all the states outside sub-Saharan Africa that have had a regime change since 2000 are on the OpenDoorsUSA watchlist. The Arab Spring is also very illustrative of this relationship. All five of the Arab Spring countries that experienced a regime change in 2011 are on the OpenDoorsUSA watchlist. By repressing its Christian churches, China finds itself in unstable company. If President Xi paid attention to the examples of recent history, he might rethink how he deals with China's fastestgrowing religion. But if that's not enough to convince him, perhaps a cursory examination of Chinese history will. Xi is in the process of making the same mistakes that led to one of the most disastrous events in China's history, which was a direct result of the Chinese state persecuting a Christian minority.The Taiping Rebellion, lasting from 1850 to 1864, killed at least 20 million people, with some estimates putting the death toll above 70 million - higher than that of World War II. If Xi follows in the footsteps of the Xianfeng Emperor in 1850, his regime is at risk of more political instability, violence, and even regime change. It's as if Xi and the leadership learned the wrong lesson from the Taiping Civil War - viewing Christianity in itself as the cause, rather than the cause being the unjust persecution of Christianity. Source : Asia times Pope in UAE: Celebrating diversity and tolerance in UAE The UAE first established diplomatic relations with the Vatican in 2007, and, since then, relations with the Catholic Church have only strengthened. A high level visit to the Vatican followed in 2016 by HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces. Then, last year, HH Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, hand delivered the invitation for Pope Francis to make his historic visit to the UAE. will demonstrate a shared commitment to the principles of mutual respect, and peaceful coexistence. Coming in the "year of tolerance", the Papal visit helps define what we mean by this term. The visit reinforces the UAE's ethos of active inclusiveness and reminds us that tolerance is not a passive state, but requires constant, consistent action. It is the same principle that drives our focus on a fairer society, where gender balance within our leading institutions is being realized by being prioritized. It is in this context that we should view next week's landmark events. By hosting Pope Francis, we are sending a message to all those living among us, regardless of creed or culture, that they should not merely feel accepted, but are welcomed as active participants and celebrated for the positive contribution they make to the UAE. The UAE is made stronger by the diversity of the communities that have chosen to make our country their home. In embracing this diversity, the UAE will continue to prosper, extend a positive influence throughout the wider region and encourage peaceful coexistence globally. Source : Gulf news
SCIENCE & TECH SATURdAy, FEBRUARy 2, 2019 5 What’s next for cryptocurrencies? Richard Partington Two years after its inception, 10,000 bitcoin was just about enough to buy a couple of takeaway pizzas. Today those bitcoin would be worth nearly $38m (£30m). That is a huge increase, but just a fraction of their $180m value only 13 months ago, because since its creation a decade ago this week, the digital currency has been at the centre of one of the biggest economic bubbles in history. Bitcoin has had a wild ride since its birth on 3 January 2009. Created as a digital currency to sidestep the traditional finance industry using encrypted code, it took until May 2010 for the first reported purchase using bitcoin to take place: those two large Papa John's pizzas worth $30 for 10,000 bitcoins. But in recent years bitcoin has become less useful as a medium of exchange and more famous for its boombust tendencies - drawing parallels to the Dutch tulip mania of 1637 and Dante's Inferno for its ability to lose investors millions of pounds. It surged by more than Is bitcoin the 'mother of all bubbles' or a niche investment? 1,000%, sometimes gaining $2,500 in a single day, to stand at almost $20,000 just before Christmas 2017. But the digital currency then crumpled over the course of last year, and yesterday stood at just $3,780, having wiped out many investments on the way down. Nouriel Roubini, one of the few economists to predict the 2008 financial crash and a former White House economic adviser is one of Bitcoin's most vocal critics. He has called it the "mother of all bubbles" and tweeted last month that it,and other crypto copycats like Ethereum and Litecoin, should be ranked in a "2018 Shitcoin Hall/Pile of Manure Shame". But despite the cautionary warnings from mainstream Photo: Bloomberg economists, as well as the finance industry labelling bitcoin a vehicle for scammers, crooks and terrorists, there are still legions of cryptocurrency fans, with an online cottage industry of news websites, blogs and podcasts. The digital currency launched as more than just an opportunity for investors to make millions (before losing them almost equal amounts). The technology underlying it has excited businesses, while the growth of cryptocurrencies promised another future for its fans outside the traditional financial system. At its launch a decade ago, the very first block of bitcoin was etched with a subversive statement: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks."The message from its creator - an unknown person or group of people going by the name Satoshi Nakamoto - was clear: bitcoin would exist outside of a system that had failed badly and could no longer be trusted. The idea came straight from the Austrian school of economics with a pinch of left-wing anarchism thrown in for good measure - offering individual liberty and a way to avoid the grasp of government, while sidestepping corporate power and the banking system. The birth of the digital currency represented a return to the days of private money in the earlier stages of western economic development, with a parallel to wildcat banks in the mid 19th century as the US expanded westward, when railway companies and construction firms issued thousands of banknotes between them. Scores of bitcoin copycats have emerged, hoping to ride the wave of euphoria evident in 2017, launched through initial coin offerings (ICOs) that in several cases turned out to be fraudulent scams. How to recover an email address of a stolen device? Jack Schofield First, recover your phone number, which is much more important than the phone. When a phone is either lost or stolen, you should immediately contact your mobile network provider to tell them what's happened. They should then suspend the current sim and send you a replacement sim with the same phone number. This service should be free but sometimes incurs a nominal charge. It won't get your phone back, but it will make it harder for the thief to log on to your accounts and change your passwords. Some network providers can also block your handset's IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number. This makes it harder for the thief to use your phone with a different sim. Of course, you will need to be able to show that you own your phone number, and different companies may have different systems for different types of account. My advice is to be prepared. I wasn't, and it wasn't fun. When I lost my phone in November - I left it on a plane in Kuala Lumpur - I phoned O2 but couldn't pass the recovery tests, which included providing some numbers I'd dialled in the past three months. Being 6,500 miles from home, I couldn't look up the phone number of my window cleaner, whose surname I couldn't remember. Back in the UK three weeks later, an O2 store refused to accept any other evidence that I owned this pay-as-you-go number, which was originally supplied by BT Cellnet before O2 was launched in 2002. It was on my business cards, in ancient emails, in online media databases and so on. I could also prove I owned the bank account that paid for its minutes. O2 wouldn't budge. Only after Someone's mobile was taken and his password changed. How can he get back into his inbox? Photo: Epoxydude digging out my window cleaner's phone number did I eventually get a replacement sim. Not carrying around a written list of the numbers I'd dialled was clearly a bad mistake on my part, but full marks to O2 for using the Data Protection Act to put my personal data at risk. If you have not yet lost your phone, or had it stolen, I strongly suggest that you find out what will happen if you do. You could easily lose a number you've used for 20-odd years. While trying to recover my number, I took steps to limit the damage someone could do if they were able to use my lost phone. You should likewise log on to any other accounts that hold your phone number, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and so on, including any mobile banking or payment systems. Set up and confirm an alternative email address as a way of recovering your accounts, delete the compromised phone number, and change your passwords before the thief can do the same thing. You can also try to disable or erase your phone remotely, via the web. If it's an iPhone, log on with your Apple ID and use Lost Mode, which is part of Find My Phone. If it's an Android phone, log on to your Google account and go to Find My Device. This does depend on certain conditions, one of which is that the lost or stolen phone must have a mobile or wifi network connection. I did try to erase my lost phone, because it was backed up to Google Drive. I failed because, as far as I could tell, it was never switched on. It may still be flying between London and KL. As we grow wiser to marketing, advertisers are finding new ways and places to plug products. Photo: James Melaugh Why the ad-free era is over Chris Stokel-Walker We've weaned ourselves off banner advertisements, with a fifth of us using ad blockers in our internet browsers, according to research firm eMarketer. So-called "native advertising" online, where advertising is presented in a similar way to editorial, has failed to take off. A US study last year from Stanford University found native advertising is no better at getting us to buy than standard online ads. "Consumers are very good at filtering out messages," explains Lisa Du-Lieu, a senior lecturer in marketing at Huddersfield University. "If you don't get their attention within the first couple of seconds, it just bounces off them." For that reason, brands are shifting their attention to platforms and formats that they know we are engaged with. "Advertising goes where the eyeballs go," says James Whatley, an independent advertising expert, formerly of global advertising agency Ogilvy. However, a large part of the user appeal of some of these platforms, such as WhatsApp or Alexa, is that they are currently ad-free. So ads encroaching on hitherto virgin territory could raise some hackles. Nevertheless, you can expect ads in places you might not have expected before. Batten down the hatches and prepare yourself for the advertising onslaught. Ogilvy's 2019 trends report revealed how smart speakers will soon be the latest platform for their dark arts. While such smart speakers have all kinds of bells and whistles, many of us use them as little more than glorified digital radios. "Localised advertising can be sent to that," explains Whatley. "It isn't an exciting thing, but for an advertiser it becomes attractive because you can do personalised, locally relevant advertising through what is a forgotten channel." By cross-checking your IP address, search history made through the device and its location, advertisers could soon send you hyper-localised advertisements interspersed in your ordinary digital radio content. Has your local Tesco ordered too many boxes of biscuits? Enjoy flash sales that will save you money as you listen along to the latest chart music. This method of advertising is already encroaching on our screen time, with brands partnering with Snapchat to create custom branded lenses (augmented reality widgets that can transform you into a dog with a giant, unfurling lapping tongue, for instance) for the best part of a year. But 2019 will see it take off, according to experts. It also enables brands to advertise directly to a hard-to-reach and pernickety demographic. "Millennials like things that are quirky," says Du- Lieu. "Snapchat filters are just a way of pushing out the message and creating what's called PBA: positive brand associations." It's also (comparatively) cheap: placing a custom branded lens available for anyone using Snapchat in London's Hyde Park over the course of a day costs just under £850. If you're Wall's wanting to drive Calippo envy on a particularly hot day, such a small, localised outlay might make fiscal sense. Such methods of advertising take advantage of the social element of social networks. By sharing our augmented ad with your friends, you're unwittingly doing the work for the brand. "When users connect with a product on a cognitive and affective level, by thinking and feeling," says Du- Lieu, "they push it out to their networks." In other words: if you want something to go viral, make it fun. Nudging users to pick their product over another, often in a subconscious way, is becoming the predominant way of an advertiser getting its message out there. Jay Owens of Pulsar, an "audience intelligence and social listening platform", describes this as "shaping the decision architectures and choice offered to people". Amazon, as one of the major conduits through which we spend vast amounts of money, is leading the way in this semi-stealthy sponsored advertising. Analysts Piper Jaffray estimate that Amazon's advertising business could surpass its mammoth web-hosting business by 2021 - in part thanks to what the advertising industry would call "sponsored skills" and "branded solutions" but users might describe as "sneaky". It could be as simple as suggesting a branded product when you ask Alexa how to get rid of that stain on your shirt, or slipping a particular brand into your Amazon shopping basket when you ask Alexa to order you new washing-up liquid. Sounds like a dystopian future? It's already here. Amazon has been rapped on the knuckles for stealthily plugging products by putting sponsored listings in among actual curated listings and making the text so tiny that you don't notice. Facebook posts record profit despite year of scandal Julia Carrie Wong Facebook closed the book on its scandal-plagued year Wednesday, with strong fourth quarter financial results that beat analyst expectations for earnings and revenue. The results highlighted how divorced Facebook's business success is from its public reputation, which suffered another blow Wednesday when Apple punished the app maker for violating its rules with a program that paid users as young as 13 to install an app that surveilled them. The company posted a record profit of $6.88bn for the final three months of 2018, compared with $4.27bn the year before, with revenue rising 30% to $16.64bn. Key usage metrics - daily active users and monthly active users - both saw 9% year-over-year growth. Facebook now estimates that it has 2bn daily active users of at least one of its entire "family" of apps - Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. The positive results for revenue and user growth sent shares soaring 8% in after-hours trading. Crucially, usage metrics grew across all geographic regions, including slight growth in Europe and North America. In July, Facebook's stock price plummeted after the second-quarter earnings showed stagnating user growth in North America and a slight decline in Europe. On a conference call with investors, executives Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg sketched a path for the company to move forward from the constant damage control mode of 2018. Both executives attempted to frame the company's extensive problems - such as the misuse of private data, rampant misinformation, and foreign influence operations - as "social issues" endemic to the internet as a whole, and not particular to Facebook. Zuckerberg asserted that Facebook had "fundamentally changed how we run this company" and greatly improved its systems to reduce future problems. As such, he suggested that in 2019, the company would be able to refocus on product development to "deliver more experiences that meaningfully improve people's lives" with new innovations in messaging, payments, groups, video and hardware. Among the product changes is a planned integration of messaging platforms for WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger, which was first reported by the New York Times last week. Zuckerberg confirmed that the company was considering this change, which he said was still a "long term project" and would see more of Facebook's products using end-to-end encryption. "Facebook might have delivered its weakest quarterly revenue growth since listing in 2012, but these numbers are actually some of the most reassuring in its short history," said George Salmon, an equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. "The way that I feel starting 2019 is that we have clear roadmaps looking at what we need to do," Zuckerberg said. "I do feel like we've started to turn Facebook's fourth-quarter results highlighted the distance between its business success and its public reputation. Photo: Charles Platiau a corner and have a clear plan for what we need to do now."
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