Facebook is falling amid share structure and Russian election influence controversies (FB)

mark zuckerberg sad Win McNamee / Getty Staff

Mark Zuckerberg isn't having a great Monday.

Shares of Facebook are down 3.47% on Monday as Facebook trudges through several controversies.

The latest came on Friday as Facebook dropped its plans to issue a new class of non-voting shares. A special committee of the company's board previously approved the plan to issue the shares, but a class action lawsuit was filed to block the share issuance.

Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, was set to appear in court on Tuesday as a witness in the case, and the last minute change by Facebook means the CEO won't have to answer a lawyer's questions on the witness stand.

The company previously said the new shares would allow Zuckerberg to sell a majority of his shares for philanthropy while still maintaining control of the company. It would have also let Zuckerberg retain control of the company should he be elected to a public office.

Zuckerberg said on his Facebook page that he still plans to sell shares to fund his philanthropy and predicted that he would be able to retain control of the company for the next twenty years despite retracting the new share-structure plan.

"I want to be clear: this doesn't change Priscilla and my plans to give away 99% of our Facebook shares during our lives," Zuckerberg said, referring to his wife Priscilla Chan.

Facebook is also dealing with investigatory pressure from US lawmakers. The company announced it would cooperate with regulators as they investigate Facebook's role in the 2016 election. Facebook said Russian affiliates purchased $100,000 worth of ads on its platform, and it will provide those ads to regulators.

In his first day back from parental leave, Zuckerberg announced a nine-point plan for limiting foreign interference on its platform in future elections. Turning over the Russian ads to Congress was one of the points.

"We are in a new world," Zuckerberg said in a live broadcast from his Facebook page. "It is a new challenge for internet communities to deal with nation-states attempting to subvert elections. But if that's what we must do, we are committed to rising to the occasion."

Facebook is up 40.9% this year.