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By Yasmeen Abutaleb and Dustin Volz WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg prepares to meet conservative leaders on Wednesday to discuss allegations about political bias at the social media website, one thing he may not have to worry about is federal regulation. Although the U.S. Senate committee is investigating whether there is liberal bias in how Facebook employees select news stories for its “trending topics,” there is little chance the government will try to regulate their practices, said Republican Senator John Thune, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. “I don't have any reason to believe that would be necessary,” Thune told reporters on Tuesday.

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A Facebook Inc shareholder filed a proposed class action lawsuit on Friday in a bid to stop the company's plan to issue new Class C stock, calling the move a “patent attempt” to entrench chief executive Mark Zuckerberg as controlling shareholder.

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Facebook Inc's quarterly revenue rose more than 50 percent, handily beating Wall Street expectations as its wildly popular mobile app and a push into live video lured new advertisers and encouraged existing ones to boost spending. Facebook also announced it will create a new class of non-voting shares in a move aimed at letting Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg give away his wealth without relinquishing control of the social media juggernaut he founded. The company plans to create a new class of non-voting shares, which would be given as a dividend to existing shareholders.

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By Matthew Miller and Paul Carsten BEIJING (Reuters) – Facebook's co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg met China's propaganda tsar Liu Yunshan in Beijing on Saturday as part of a charm offensive in one of the few markets where the social network cannot be accessed. The rare meeting, reported by China's state news agency Xinhua, suggests warming relations between Facebook and the Chinese government, even as Beijing steps up censorship of and control over the Internet.

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FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Facebook's “Like” button violates German and European privacy laws in a case brought by a consumer group against an online shopping site which relied on the user recommendation feature, a Dusseldorf regional court said on Wednesday. The ruling followed a complaint by the Nordrhein-Westfalen Consumer Association against a shopping site owned by German department store chain Peek & Cloppenburg KG Duesseldorf, for using the Facebook feature without appropriate user consent. (Reporting By Eric Auchard and Harro ten Wolde in Frankfurt; Editing by Edward Taylor)

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By Dustin Volz WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Facebook Inc prohibited global users from coordinating person-to-person private sales of firearms on its online social network and its Instagram photo-sharing service on Friday, countering concerns that it was increasingly being used to circumvent background checks on gun purchases. U.S. President Barack Obama has urged social media companies to clamp down on gun sales organized on their platforms. It updates Facebook's regulated goods policy, introduced in March 2014, that banned people from selling marijuana, pharmaceuticals and illegal drugs.

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Facebook Inc smashed investors' expectations with a 52-percent jump in quarterly revenue as it sold more ads targeted at a fast-growing number of mobile users, sending its shares sharply higher after hours. The world's biggest online social network bucked the trend of underwhelming tech results from Apple Inc and eBay Inc, in the face of economic uncertainty around the world and a strong U.S. dollar depressing the value of overseas sales. “It's phenomenal at these (currency headwind) levels that they're accelerating to that level of growth,” said Rob Sanderson, an analyst at MKM Partners.

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By Julia Fioretti BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Facebook said on Monday it would appeal a court ruling ordering it to stop tracking the online activities of non-Facebook users in Belgium who visit Facebook pages, or face a 250,000 euro ($269,000) daily fine. Belgium's data protection regulator took the U.S. company to court in June, accusing it of trampling on EU privacy law by tracking people without a Facebook account without their consent. At stake is the so-called 'datr' cookie, which Facebook places on people's browsers when they visit a Facebook.com site or click a Facebook 'Like' button on other websites, allowing it to track the online activities of that browser.

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By Yasmeen Abutaleb and Lehar Maan SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc posted surprisingly strong profit and revenue growth as the world's largest social network grew even larger, with a spike in mobile users and advertising that lifted its stock to an all-time high. The company on Wednesday reported audience numbers that suggest it is poised to take on mainstream media as an advertising force, helping investors to overlook Facebook's huge spending on hiring and building data centers. Facebook now has 8 billion video views per day from 500 million people, compared with 4 billion views in April.

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By Yasmeen Abutaleb SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook users took to the social media site on Wednesday to react to the company's decision to test what Facebook Inc Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg called a “dislike button” – and not everyone liked the idea. In a town hall-style question and answer session Tuesday, Zuckerberg took questions from users about topics ranging from virtual reality to his wife's pregnancy. While some said they would use Facebook more if the button were introduced, others said it would lead to cyberbullying and more negativity on the site.