Shares of Facebook are down in morning trading after the announcement of the departure of two Facebook executives, Chris Cox and Chris Daniels, as well as the livestreaming of a terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand on Facebook. 

CHRIS COX DEPARTING: In a note from Facebook (FB) founder Mark Zuckerberg after the market close on Thursday, he announced that Chief Product Officer Chris Cox has decided to leave the company. Zuckerburg noted "Chris and I have worked closely together to build our products for more than a decade... He has played so many central roles at Facebook — starting as an engineer on our original News Feed, building our first HR teams and helping to define our mission and values, leading our product and design teams, running the Facebook app, and most recently overseeing the strategy for our family of apps."

Zuckerberg also announced that VP of WhatsApp Chris Daniels has decided to leave the company. Zuckerberg said, "Chris has also done great work in many roles, including running our business development team, leading Internet.org, which has helped more than 100M people get access to the internet, and most recently at WhatsApp, where he has helped define the business model for our messaging services going forward."

Zuckerberg concluded, "Since we have now decided on the basic direction of our family of apps for the next few years, I do not plan on immediately appointing anyone to fill Chris’s role in the near term. Instead, the leaders of Facebook (Fidji Simo), Instagram (Adam Mosseri), Messenger (Stan Chudnovsky), and WhatsApp (Will Cathcart) will report directly to me, and our Chief Marketing Officer (Antonio Lucio) will report directly to Sheryl.

This is an important change as we begin the next chapter of our work building the privacy-focused social foundation for the future. I’m deeply grateful for everything Chris Cox and Chris Daniels have done here, and I’m looking forward to working with Will and Fidji in their new roles as well as everyone who will be critical to achieving this vision. We have so much important work ahead and I’m excited to continue working to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together."

ANALYST REACTION: JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth said he expects the departure of Chris Cox to weigh on Facebook shares in the near term, though he noted there is no change to his overall positive thesis on the name. Cox's departure is surprising given his expanded role overseeing strategy for the Facebook family of apps from nearly a year ago, Anmuth said. In some ways, the timing "represents a clean break" given Facebook's recently announced shift to build out a privacy-focused social platform, but the company will now launch some major product initiatives without its "most valuable product person of the past several years," noted the analyst. Anmuth kept an Overweight rating and $210 price target on Facebook.

JMP Securities analyst Ronald Josey believes the departure of Chris Cox further aligns the company with its "evolving emphasis on a more privacy-focused social platform," and he reiterated a Market Outperform rating and $195 price target on Facebook. Josey said in a note titled "Realigning The Organization To A More Privacy-focused Social Platform" that he recognizes the risks around Facebook’s evolving product strategy and corresponding organizational changes, though he believes engagement continues to be strong and monetization improves as investments around Video, Stories, and Messaging, among others, begin to deliver return on investment.

SHOOTING LIVESTREAMED ON FACEBOOK: Dozens of people were killed Friday in shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, and one of the shooters livestreamed the attack on Facebook. Mia Garlick, Facebook's director of policy for Australia and New Zealand, said in a statement, "New Zealand Police alerted us to a video on Facebook shortly after the livestream commenced and we quickly removed both the shooter's Facebook and Instagram accounts and the video." Facebook declined further comment.

PRICE ACTION: Shares of Facebook are down just over 4% to $163.22 in morning trading.