The great Facebook buyback

Facebook surely has better things to do with its cash pile than spending billions of dollars on repurchasing its own stock, writes Shira Ovide

Can you think of any ways in which Facebook might spend $9 billion of its cash?

If I were making a brief list, I would prioritise hiring more moderators to do the terrible and laborious work of actively sniffing out hoaxes, election-related tampering and calls to violence on Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and other Facebook-owned hangouts.

It might not hurt, too, to increase investment on cybersecurity to do more to prevent foreign governments from ...