• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, October 30, 2019

Despite a slew of ongoing controversies, Facebook once again posted better-than-expected quarterly earnings on Wednesday.

Facebook said revenue rose 29% year-over-year during the third quarter, while daily active users (DAUs) increased 9% to an average of 1.62 billion per day.

During the same period, monthly active users (MAUs) rose 8% to 2.45 billion per month.

On a daily basis, Facebook estimates, around 2.2 billion people now use its family of services -- including Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger or its flagship property -- while around 2.8 billion people use one of its services at least once a month.

Few analysts were caught off guard by Facebook’s latest earnings report.

“I’m not surprised by Facebook’s strong performance last quarter,” said eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson. “Advertisers continue to support Facebook, despite the many controversies swirling around the company, and the user base also continues to expand around the world.”

Yet rather than revenue or user growth, Mark Zuckerberg seems focused on resolving Facebook’s many controversies. “We are focused on making progress on major social issues,” Facebook’s cofounder-CEO stated on Wednesday.

Among other issues, critics inside and outside of the company are pushing back against Facebook’s policy of not policing the claims of political candidates, elected officials and their political campaigns.

It was revealed just this week that hundreds of Facebook workers are calling on the company to reconsider this policy.

Joining other critics, meanwhile, Senate Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia just published a letter to Zuckerberg in which he admonishes Facebook for publishing "demonstrably false" political ads.

Among other big moves during the third quarter, Facebook jumped back into the premium news business.

Although still in its test phase, the just-launched Facebook News will serve as a destination for partner publishers, including The Wall Street Journal, BuzzFeed and USA Today.

Across platforms, consumers are more engaged with news content today than just a few years ago, according to research from Verizon Media and Insights Now.

Compared to 2017, 41% of consumers said they get more news coverage now, the research partners found. More interesting, a majority of consumers are getting most of their news from social-media platforms.

Also of note, Facebook significantly grew its workforce over the past year. As of September 30, the company counted 43,030 employees among its ranks, which represented an increase of 28% year-over-year.