ANTI-SOCIAL DAY Facebook shares whacked on slowing growth

Mark Zuckerberg could certainly use an asbestos suit.

Facebook shares were torched in after-hours trading on Wednesday, tumbling more than 20 percent after the social network revealed fewer daily and monthly users than expected in the second quarter — and forecast 2018 growth much lower than Wall Street estimates.

The sell-off wiped out nearly $150 billion from Facebook’s market cap and, faster than you can say, “Move fast and break things,” erased roughly $20 billion from the tech mogul’s wealth.

Also, the stock decline wiped out all of Facebook’s growth this year.

The Palo Alto, Calif., company reported revenue of $13.23 billion, up 42 percent year over year — but just short of analysts’ expectations of $13.3 billion.

“We expect our revenue growth rates to decline by high single digit percentages from prior quarters sequentially in both Q3 and Q4,” Chief Financial Officer David Wehner said.

Facebook’s 2.23 billion monthly active users and 1.47 billion daily active users were both up 11 percent from last year but also just shy of analyst predictions of 2.25 billion and 1.48 billion, respectively.

The lower-than-expected users and revenue shows that Chief Executive Zuckerberg’s cash-producing machine may not be immune to controversy.

The company has been buffeted by news of weak privacy standards and misinformation on its platform — including not taking down wild conspiracy theories like those posted by Holocaust deniers.

About 2.5 billion people use at least one of the company’s apps each month, Zuckerberg said.

Instagram has grown to 1 billion monthly users from 600 million in late 2016, while Facebook’s two mes- saging apps, Messenger and WhatsApp, have each reported more than 1 billion monthly users.

The social network beat the predicted $1.72 earnings per share, reporting $1.74.

CFO Wehner attributed the slowing growth to currency fluctuations, as well as the company’s focus on “growing new experiences such as stories” and “giving people who use the services more choice around privacy.”

It was Facebook’s f irst earnings report since the European Union’s GDPR data privacy laws went into effect, which require companies to request user permission before selling data.

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, said the law’s impact will be something the company will be keeping an eye on.