Mashable: Meta, the company that owns Facebook, said that sales dropped more than expected, that earnings didn't meet expectations, and that the company's outlook was much worse than expected. This points to a second straight year-over-year sales drop. During after-hours trading, the shares fell 3.8%.

Refinitiv says that the social media giant made $2.46 per share instead of the $2.59 per share that was expected. The reported income was $28.82 billion, which was less than the expected $28.94 billion. StreetAccount says that the number of daily active users went up from 1.96 billion to 1.97 billion, which is better than what was expected. StreetAccount says the number of Monthly Active Users was 2.93 billion instead of the 2.94 billion that was expected.

Since the beginning of the year, Meta shares have lost about half of their value, which shows that investors are worried about the health of the company's main online advertising business. Both Apple's iOS privacy upgrade from a year ago, which restricted Meta's ability to follow users, and the worsening economy, which forced several businesses to cut their advertising spending, have affected that unit.

In the second quarter, sales were almost 1% lower than the same time last year. Meta also gave a disappointing forecast for the third quarter, citing "a continuation of the weak advertising demand environment we saw in the second quarter, which we think is caused by broader macroeconomic uncertainty."

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, told analysts on a call that the company will be cutting jobs over the next year as a way to save money as the economy slows down.

"This is a time that calls for more focus, and I think we'll be able to do more with less," Zuckerberg said.

Refinitiv says that sales for the third quarter will be between $26 billion and $28.5 billion, which is less than the average analyst estimate of $30.5 billion. That means that sales are likely to be between 2% and 11% lower than they were a year ago.

Facebook's worrying results continue a trend that rivals Snap and Twitter started last week. Both of these companies had bad numbers for the second quarter, and executives blamed the economy and problems with mobile platforms that have been plaguing the online advertising market as a whole. By this week, the atmosphere had deteriorated to such an extent that shares of Alphabet and Microsoft increased on Wednesday, despite the fact that both businesses failed analyst expectations for their top and bottom lines.