Facebook is an online
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
and
social networking service
A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...
owned by American company
Meta Platforms
Meta Platforms, Inc., (file no. 3835815) trade name, doing business as Meta and formerly named Facebook, Inc., and TheFacebook, Inc., is an American multinational technology conglomerate based in Menlo Park, California. The company owns Facebo ...
. Founded in 2004 by
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born ) is an American business magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is known for co-founding the social media website Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.), o ...
with fellow
Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...
students and roommates
Eduardo Saverin,
Andrew McCollum,
Dustin Moskovitz, and
Chris Hughes, its name comes from the
face book
A face book or facebook is a common or web directory found at some American universities consisting of individuals' photographs and names. In particular, it denotes publications of this type distributed by university administrations at the start o ...
directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities and, since 2006, anyone over 13 years old. As of July 2022, Facebook claimed 2.93 billion monthly active users, and ranked third worldwide among the most visited websites as of July 2022. It was the most downloaded
mobile app
A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...
of the 2010s.
Facebook can be accessed from devices with
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
connectivity, such as
personal computer
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
s,
tablets and
smartphone
A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
s. After registering, users can create a profile revealing information about themselves. They can post text, photos and multimedia which are shared with any other users who have agreed to be their
"friend" or, with different
privacy settings, publicly. Users can also
communicate directly with each other with
Facebook Messenger, join common-interest groups, and receive notifications on the activities of their Facebook friends and the pages they follow.
The subject of
numerous controversies, Facebook has often been criticized over issues such as
user privacy (as with the
Cambridge Analytica data scandal
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge became ...
), political manipulation (as with the
2016 U.S. elections
The 2016 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. Republican nominee Donald Trump defeated Democratic former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the presidential election, while Republicans retained control of Congres ...
) and mass surveillance. Posts originating from the Facebook page of ''
Breitbart News'', a media organization previously affiliated with Cambridge Analytica, are currently among the most widely shared political content on Facebook. Facebook has also been subject to criticism over psychological effects such as
addiction
Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to engage in certain behaviors, one of which is the usage of a drug, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use o ...
and low
self-esteem
Self-esteem is confidence in one's own worth or abilities. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs about oneself (for example, "I am loved", "I am worthy") as well as emotional states, such as triumph, despair, pride, and shame. Smith and Mackie (2007) d ...
, and various controversies over content such as
fake news,
conspiracy theories,
copyright infringement
Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...
, and
hate speech
Hate speech is defined by the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation". Hate speech is "usually thoug ...
. Commentators have accused Facebook of willingly facilitating the spread of such content,
as well as exaggerating its number of users to appeal to advertisers.
History
2003–2006: Thefacebook, Thiel investment, and name change
Zuckerberg built a website called "Facemash" in 2003 while attending
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. The site was comparable to
Hot or Not and used "photos compiled from the online
face book
A face book or facebook is a common or web directory found at some American universities consisting of individuals' photographs and names. In particular, it denotes publications of this type distributed by university administrations at the start o ...
s of nine Houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the "hotter" person".
Facemash attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours.
The site was sent to several campus group
listserv
The term Listserv (styled by the registered trademark licensee, L-Soft International, Inc., as LISTSERV) has been used to refer to electronic mailing list software applications in general, but is more properly applied to a few early instances of ...
s, but was shut down a few days later by Harvard administration. Zuckerberg faced expulsion and was charged with breaching security, violating
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
s and violating individual privacy. Ultimately, the charges were dropped.
Zuckerberg expanded on this project that semester by creating a social study tool. He uploaded art images, each accompanied by a comments section, to a website he shared with his classmates.
A "
face book
A face book or facebook is a common or web directory found at some American universities consisting of individuals' photographs and names. In particular, it denotes publications of this type distributed by university administrations at the start o ...
" is a student directory featuring photos and personal information.
In 2003, Harvard had only a paper version along with private online directories.
Zuckerberg told ''
The Harvard Crimson
''The Harvard Crimson'' is the student newspaper of Harvard University and was founded in 1873. Run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates, it served for many years as the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Beginning in the f ...
'', "Everyone's been talking a lot about a universal face book within Harvard. ... I think it's kind of silly that it would take the University a couple of years to get around to it. I can do it better than they can, and I can do it in a week."
In January 2004, Zuckerberg coded a new website, known as "TheFacebook", inspired by a ''Crimson'' editorial about Facemash, stating, "It is clear that the technology needed to create a centralized Website is readily available ... the benefits are many." Zuckerberg met with Harvard student
Eduardo Saverin, and each of them agreed to invest $1,000 ($ in dollars) in the site. On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched "TheFacebook", originally located at thefacebook.com.
![MarkZuckerberg-crop](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/MarkZuckerberg-crop.jpg)
Six days after the site launched, Harvard seniors
Cameron Winklevoss,
Tyler Winklevoss
Tyler Howard Winklevoss (born August 21, 1981) is an American investor, founder of Winklevoss Capital Management and Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, and Olympic rower. Winklevoss co-founded HarvardConnection (later renamed ConnectU) along with hi ...
, and
Divya Narendra
Divya Narendra (; born March 18, 1982) is an American businessman. He is the CEO and co-founder of SumZero along with Harvard classmate Aalap Mahadevia. He also co-founded HarvardConnection (later renamed ConnectU) with Harvard University classma ...
accused Zuckerberg of intentionally misleading them into believing that he would help them build a social network called
HarvardConnection.com. They claimed that he was instead using their ideas to build a competing product. The three complained to the ''Crimson'' and the newspaper began an investigation. They later sued Zuckerberg, settling in 2008
for 1.2 million
shares
In financial markets, a share is a unit of equity ownership in the capital stock of a corporation, and can refer to units of mutual funds, limited partnerships, and real estate investment trusts. Share capital refers to all of the shares of an ...
(worth $300 million ($ in dollars) at Facebook's
IPO
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
).
Membership was initially restricted to students of
Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...
. Within a month, more than half the undergraduates had registered.
Dustin Moskovitz,
Andrew McCollum, and
Chris Hughes joined Zuckerberg to help manage the growth of the website. In March 2004, Facebook expanded to
Columbia,
Stanford
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...
and
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
. It then became available to all
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools ...
colleges,
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...
,
NYU
New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-United States Secretary of the Treasu ...
,
MIT, and successively most universities in the United States and
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
.
In mid-2004,
Napster
Napster was a peer-to-peer file sharing application. It originally launched on June 1, 1999, with an emphasis on digital audio file distribution. Audio songs shared on the service were typically encoded in the MP3 format. It was founded by Shawn ...
co-founder and entrepreneur
Sean Parker—an informal advisor to Zuckerberg—became company president.
In June 2004, the company moved to
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...
.
It received its first investment later that month from
PayPal co-founder
Peter Thiel.
In 2005, the company dropped "the" from its name after purchasing the
domain name Facebook.com for
US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
200,000 ($ in dollars). The domain had belonged to AboutFace Corporation.
In May 2005,
Accel Partners invested $12.7 million ($ in dollars) in Facebook, and
Jim Breyer
James W. Breyer (born July 26, 1961) is an American venture capitalist, founder and chief executive officer of Breyer Capital, an investment and venture philanthropy firm, and a former managing partner at Accel Partners, a venture capital firm. B ...
added $1 million ($ in dollars) of his own money. A high-school version of the site launched in September 2005. Eligibility expanded to include employees of several companies, including
Apple Inc.
Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...
and
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
.
2006–2012: Public access, Microsoft alliance, and rapid growth
In May 2006, Facebook hired its first intern,
Julie Zhuo
Julie Zhuo is a Chinese-American businesswoman and computer scientist. She was the vice president of product design at Facebook and now Co-Founder at Inspirit. Zhuo is the author of ''The Making of a Manager'' (2019).
Early life and education
Z ...
.
After a month, Zhuo was hired as a full-time engineer.
On September 26, 2006, Facebook opened to everyone at least 13 years old with a valid
email address.
By late 2007, Facebook had 100,000 pages on which companies promoted themselves. Organization pages began rolling out in May 2009. On October 24, 2007,
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
announced that it had purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook for $240 million ($ in dollars), giving Facebook a total implied value of around $15 billion ($ in dollars). Microsoft's purchase included rights to place international advertisements.
In May 2007, at the first f8 developers conference, Facebook announced the launch of the
Facebook Developer Platform, providing a
framework
A framework is a generic term commonly referring to an essential supporting structure which other things are built on top of.
Framework may refer to:
Computing
* Application framework, used to implement the structure of an application for an op ...
for
software developer
Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, Computer programming, programming, software documentation, documenting, software testing, testing, and Software bugs, bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applic ...
s to create
applications that interact with core
Facebook features
Facebook is a social-network service website launched on February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg. The following is a list of software and technology features that can be found on the Facebook website and mobile app and are available to users of t ...
. By the
second annual f8 developers conference on July 23, 2008, the number of applications on the platform had grown to 33,000, and the number of registered developers had exceeded 400,000.
The website won awards such as placement into the "Top 100 Classic Websites" by ''
PC Magazine
''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the present d ...
'' in 2007, and winning the "People's Voice Award" from the
Webby Awards in 2008.
On July 20, 2008, Facebook introduced "Facebook Beta", a significant redesign of its user interface on selected networks. The Mini-Feed and Wall were consolidated, profiles were separated into tabbed sections, and an effort was made to create a cleaner look. Facebook began migrating users to the new version in September 2008.
In October 2008, Facebook announced that its international headquarters would locate in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
, Ireland. In September 2009, Facebook said that it had achieved positive
cash flow
A cash flow is a real or virtual movement of money:
*a cash flow in its narrow sense is a payment (in a currency), especially from one central bank account to another; the term 'cash flow' is mostly used to describe payments that are expected ...
for the first time. A January 2009
Compete.com
Compete.com was a web traffic analysis service. The company was founded in 2000 and ceased operations in December 2016.
Services
Compete.com provided two categories of information:
*Site Analytics
: a free service, where the user can enter any ...
study ranked Facebook the most used social networking service by worldwide monthly
active users
Active users is a measurement metric that is commonly used to measure the level of engagement for a particular product or object, by quantifying the number of active interactions from visitors within a relevant range of time (daily, weekly and m ...
.
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
blocked Facebook in 2009 following the
Ürümqi riots.
In 2010, Facebook won the
Crunchie "Best Overall Startup Or Product" award for the third year in a row.
The company announced 500 million users in July 2010.
Half of the site's membership used Facebook daily, for an average of 34 minutes, while 150 million users accessed the site from mobile devices. A company representative called the milestone a "quiet revolution."
In October 2010 groups were introduced. In November 2010, based on
SecondMarket
Nasdaq Private Market (NPM) provides a secondary market trading venue for issuers, brokers, shareholders, and prospective investors of private company stock. Since inception, NPM has facilitated more than $40 billion in transactional volume and ha ...
Inc. (an exchange for privately held companies' shares), Facebook's value was $41 billion ($ in dollars). The company had slightly surpassed
eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...
to become the third largest American web company after
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
and
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...
.
On November 15, 2010, Facebook announced it had acquired the domain name fb.com from the
American Farm Bureau Federation
The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), also known as Farm Bureau Insurance and Farm Bureau Inc. but more commonly just the Farm Bureau (FB), is a United States-based insurance company and lobbying group that represents the American agri ...
for an undisclosed amount. On January 11, 2011, the Farm Bureau disclosed $8.5 million ($ in dollars) in "domain sales income", making the acquisition of FB.com one of the ten highest domain sales in history.
In February 2011, Facebook announced plans to move its headquarters to the former
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...
campus in Menlo Park, California.
In March 2011, it was reported that Facebook was removing about 20,000 profiles daily for violations such as
spam
Spam may refer to:
* Spam (food), a canned pork meat product
* Spamming, unsolicited or undesired electronic messages
** Email spam, unsolicited, undesired, or illegal email messages
** Messaging spam, spam targeting users of instant messaging ( ...
, graphic content and underage use, as part of its efforts to boost
cyber security. Statistics showed that Facebook reached one trillion
page views in the month of June 2011, making it the most visited website tracked by
DoubleClick
DoubleClick Inc. was an advertisement company that developed and provided Internet ad serving services from 1995 until its acquisition by Google in March 2008. DoubleClick offered technology products and services that were sold primarily to adv ...
. According to a
Nielsen study, Facebook had in 2011 become the second-most accessed website in the U.S. behind
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
.
2012–2013: IPO, lawsuits, and one billion active users
In March 2012, Facebook announced App Center, a store selling applications that operate via the website. The store was to be available on
iPhones,
Android
Android may refer to:
Science and technology
* Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human
* Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system
** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
devices, and for mobile web users.
![Facebook on Nasdaq](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Facebook_on_Nasdaq.jpeg)
Facebook's
initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
came on May 17, 2012, at a share price of US$38 ($ in dollars). The company was valued at $104 billion ($ in dollars), the largest valuation to that date.
The IPO raised $16 billion ($ in dollars), the third-largest in U.S. history, after
Visa Inc. in 2008 and
AT&T Wireless in 2000.
Based on its 2012 income of $5 billion ($ in dollars), Facebook joined the
Fortune 500
The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along ...
list for the first time in May 2013, ranked 462. The shares set a first-day record for trading volume of an IPO (460 million shares). The IPO was controversial given the immediate price declines that followed,
[Facebook shares fall valuation doubts](_blank)
Yahoo! Finance[Tepid honeymoon of Facebook and NASDAQ does not deliver the big bang](_blank)
forbes.com and was the subject of lawsuits, while SEC and FINRA both launched investigations.
Zuckerberg announced at the start of October 2012 that Facebook had one billion monthly active users,
including 600 million mobile users, 219 billion photo uploads and 140 billion friend connections.
2013–2014: Site developments, A4AI, and 10th anniversary
On January 15, 2013, Facebook announced
Facebook Graph Search
Facebook Graph Search was a semantic search engine that was introduced by Facebook in March 2013. It was designed to give answers to user natural language queries rather than a list of links. The name refers to the social graph nature of Facebo ...
, which provides users with a "precise answer", rather than a link to an answer by leveraging data present on its site. Facebook emphasized that the feature would be "privacy-aware", returning results only from content already shared with the user. On April 3, 2013, Facebook unveiled
Facebook Home
Facebook Home was a user interface layer for Android smartphones. Developed by the company then known as Facebook (now Meta Platforms), the software was designed to be a drop-in replacement for the device's existing home screen ("launcher"). I ...
, a user-interface layer for Android devices offering greater integration with the site.
HTC announced
HTC First
The HTC First is an Android smartphone released by HTC on April 12, 2013. It was unveiled on April 4, 2013, as part of a press event held by Facebook. Serving as a successor to a pair of Facebook-oriented devices HTC released in 2011, it was th ...
, a phone with Home pre-loaded.
On April 15, 2013, Facebook announced an alliance across 19 states with the National Association of Attorneys General, to provide teenagers and parents with information on tools to manage social networking profiles. On April 19 Facebook modified its logo to remove the faint blue line at the bottom of the "F" icon. The letter F moved closer to the edge of the box.
Following a campaign by 100 advocacy groups, Facebook agreed to update its policy on hate speech. The campaign highlighted content promoting
domestic violence
Domestic violence (also known as domestic abuse or family violence) is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. ''Domestic violence'' is often used as a synonym for ''intimate partner ...
and
sexual violence
Sexual violence is any sexual act or attempt to obtain a sexual act by violence or coercion, act to traffic a person, or act directed against a person's sexuality, regardless of the relationship to the victim.World Health Organization., World re ...
against women and led 15 advertisers to withdraw, including Nissan UK, House of Burlesque, and Nationwide UK. The company initially stated, "while it may be vulgar and offensive, distasteful content on its own does not violate our policies". It took action on May 29.
On June 12, Facebook announced that it was introducing clickable
hashtag
A hashtag is a metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash (also known as pound or octothorpe) sign, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services such as Twitter or Instagram as a form of user-generated ...
s to help users follow trending discussions, or search what others are talking about on a topic.
San Mateo County
San Mateo County ( ), officially the County of San Mateo, is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 764,442. Redwood City is the county seat, and the third most populated city following Daly ...
, California, became the top wage-earning county in the country after the fourth quarter of 2012 because of Facebook. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the average salary was 107% higher than the previous year, at $168,000 a year ($ in dollars), more than 50% higher than the next-highest county, New York County (better known as
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
), at roughly $110,000 a year ($ in dollars).
Facebook joined
Alliance for Affordable Internet
The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) is an initiative to make the Internet more affordable to people around the world. The World Wide Web Foundation serves as the Secretariat, and major members of coalition include Google, the Omidyar Netwo ...
(A4AI) in October, as it launched. The A4AI is a coalition of public and private organizations that includes
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
,
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
and Microsoft. Led by
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the A4AI seeks to make Internet access more affordable to ease access in the developing world.
The company celebrated its 10th anniversary during the week of February 3, 2014.
In January 2014, over one billion users connected via a mobile device. As of June, mobile accounted for 62% of advertising revenue, an increase of 21% from the previous year. By September Facebook's market capitalization had exceeded $200 billion ($ in dollars).
Zuckerberg participated in a Q&A session at
Tsinghua University
Tsinghua University (; abbreviation, abbr. THU) is a National university, national Public university, public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Minis ...
in
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, on October 23, where he attempted to converse in Mandarin. Zuckerberg hosted visiting Chinese politician
Lu Wei, known as the "Internet czar" for his influence in China's online policy, on December 8.
2015–2020: Algorithm revision; fake news
, Facebook's algorithm was revised in an attempt to filter out false or misleading content, such as
fake news stories and hoaxes. It relied on users who flag a story accordingly. Facebook maintained that satirical content should not be intercepted. The algorithm was accused of maintaining a "
filter bubble", where material the user disagrees with and posts with few likes would be deprioritized. In November, Facebook extended paternity leave from 4 weeks to 4 months.
On April 12, 2016, Zuckerberg outlined his 10-year vision, which rested on three main pillars:
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
, increased global connectivity, and
virtual and
augmented reality
Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be de ...
. In July, a suit was filed against the company alleging that it permitted
Hamas
Hamas (, ; , ; an acronym of , "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Bri ...
to use it to perform assaults that cost the lives of four people. Facebook released its blueprints of Surround 360 camera on
GitHub
GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuous ...
under an
open-source license
An open-source license is a type of license for computer software and other products that allows the source code, blueprint or design to be used, modified and/or shared under defined terms and conditions. This allows end users and commercial compa ...
. In September, it won an
Emmy
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
for its animated short "Henry". In October, Facebook announced a fee-based communications tool called
Workplace
A workplace is a location where someone Work (human activity), works, for their employer or themselves, a place of employment. Such a place can range from a Small office/home office, home office to a large office building or factory. For Indust ...
that aims to "connect everyone" at work. Users can create profiles, see updates from co-workers on their news feed, stream live videos and participate in secure group chats.
Following the
2016 U.S. presidential election
The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial United States presidential election, presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The Republican Party (United States), Republican ticket of businessman Donald ...
, Facebook announced that it would combat fake news by using fact checkers from sites like
FactCheck.org
FactCheck.org is a nonprofit website that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in Politics of the United States, U.S. politics by providing original research on misinformation and hoaxes. It is a project of the Annenberg Public Po ...
and
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...
(AP), making reporting hoaxes easier through crowdsourcing, and disrupting financial incentives for abusers.
![Oculus-Rift-CV1-Headset-Front](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Oculus-Rift-CV1-Headset-Front.jpg)
On January 17, 2017, Facebook COO
Sheryl Sandberg planned to open Station F, a startup incubator campus in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. On a six-month cycle, Facebook committed to work with ten to 15 data-driven startups there. On April 18, Facebook announced the beta launch of at its annual F8 developer conference. Facebook Spaces is a virtual reality version of Facebook for Oculus VR goggles. In a virtual and shared space, users can access a curated selection of 360-degree photos and videos using their avatar, with the support of the controller. Users can access their own photos and videos, along with media shared on their newsfeed. In September, Facebook announced it would spend up to US$1 billion on original shows for its Facebook Watch platform. On October 16, it acquired the anonymous compliment app
tbh, announcing its intention to leave the app independent.
In October 2017, Facebook expanded its work with
Definers Public Affairs Definers Public Affairs was an American right leaning opposition research firm based in Arlington, Virginia. It performed media monitoring services, conducted research using the Freedom of Information Act and also created strategic communication to ...
, a PR firm that had originally been hired to monitor press coverage of the company to address concerns primarily regarding
Russian meddling, then
mishandling of user data by
Cambridge Analytica, hate speech on Facebook, and calls for regulation.
Company spokesman Tim Miller stated that a goal for tech firms should be to "have positive content pushed out about your company and negative content that's being pushed out about your competitor". Definers claimed that
George Soros was the force behind what appeared to be a broad anti-Facebook movement, and created other negative media, along with
America Rising, that was picked up by larger media organisations like ''
Breitbart News''.
Facebook cut ties with the agency in late 2018, following public outcry over their association.
In May 2018 at
F8, the company announced it would offer its own dating service. Shares in competitor
Match Group
Match Group, Inc. is an American internet and technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It owns and operates the largest global portfolio of popular online dating services including Tinder, Match.com, Meetic, OkCupid, Hinge, PlentyOfFi ...
fell by 22%.
Facebook Dating
Facebook Dating is a digital dating product developed by Facebook. There is currently no web version; it is only available from the Facebook mobile app on Android and iOS.
Features
Users can filter results based on location, number of childre ...
includes privacy features and friends are unable to view their friends' dating profile. In July, Facebook was charged £500,000 by UK watchdogs for failing to respond to data erasure requests. On July 18, Facebook established a subsidiary named Lianshu Science & Technology in
Hangzhou City, China, with $30 million ($ in dollars) of capital. All its shares are held by Facebook Hong. Approval of the registration of the subsidiary was then withdrawn, due to a disagreement between officials in Zhejiang province and the
Cyberspace Administration of China. On July 26, Facebook became the first company to lose over $100 billion ($ in dollars) worth of market capitalization in one day, dropping from nearly $630 billion to $510 billion after disappointing sales reports. On July 31, Facebook said that the company had deleted 17 accounts related to the
2018 U.S. midterm elections. On September 19, Facebook announced that, for news distribution outside the United States, it would work with U.S. funded
democracy promotion organizations,
International Republican Institute
The International Republican Institute (IRI) is an American nonprofit organization. Most of its board is drawn from the Republican Party. It is committed to advancing freedom and democracy worldwide by helping political parties to become more iss ...
and the
National Democratic Institute
The National Democratic Institute (NDI), or National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, is a non-profit American NGO that works with partners in developing countries to increase the effectiveness of democratic institutions. The NDI's ...
, which are loosely affiliated with the
Republican and
Democratic parties.
Through the Digital Forensic Research Lab Facebook partners with the
Atlantic Council
The Atlantic Council is an American think tank in the field of international affairs, favoring Atlanticism, founded in 1961. It manages sixteen regional centers and functional programs related to international security and global economic prosp ...
, a
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
-affiliated think tank.
In November, Facebook launched smart displays branded
Portal
Portal often refers to:
* Portal (architecture), an opening in a wall of a building, gate or fortification, or the extremities (ends) of a tunnel
Portal may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Gaming
* ''Portal'' (series), two video games ...
and Portal Plus (Portal+). They support
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...
's
Alexa (intelligent personal assistant service). The devices include video chat function with Facebook Messenger.
In August 2018, a lawsuit was filed in Oakland, California claiming that Facebook created fake accounts in order to inflate its user data and appeal to advertisers in the process.
![Aerial view of Facebook campus in Menlo Park, September 2019](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6b/Aerial_view_of_Facebook_campus_in_Menlo_Park%2C_September_2019.JPG)
In January 2019, the 10-year challenge was started asking users to post a
photograph
A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now create ...
of themselves from 10
year
A year or annus is the orbital period of a planetary body, for example, the Earth, moving in its orbit around the Sun. Due to the Earth's axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by change in weather, the hou ...
s ago (2009) and a more recent photo.
Criticized for its role in
vaccine hesitancy
Vaccine hesitancy is a delay in acceptance, or refusal, of vaccines despite the availability of vaccine services and supporting evidence. The term covers refusals to vaccinate, delaying vaccines, accepting vaccines but remaining uncertain abou ...
, Facebook announced in March 2019 that it would provide users with "authoritative information" on the topic of vaccines.
A study in the journal Vaccine of advertisements posted in the three months prior to that found that 54% of the anti-vaccine advertisements on Facebook were placed by just two organisations funded by well-known anti-vaccination activists. The
Children's Health Defense / World Mercury Project chaired by
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. (born January 17, 1954) is an American environmental lawyer and author known for promoting anti-vaccine propaganda and conspiracy theories. Kennedy is a son of U.S. senator Robert F. Kennedy and a nephew of President ...
and
Stop Mandatory Vaccination
The Stop Mandatory Vaccination website and associated Facebook group are some of the major hubs of the United States, American anti-vaccination movement. It was established by anti-vaccination activist Larry Cook in 2015.
Reach
The total membershi ...
, run by campaigner Larry Cook, posted 54% of the advertisements. The ads often linked to commercial products, such as natural remedies and books.
On March 14, the ''Huffington Post'' reported that Facebook's PR agency had paid someone to tweak Facebook COO
Sheryl Sandberg's Wikipedia page, as well as adding a page for the global head of PR, Caryn Marooney.
In March 2019, the perpetrator of the
Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand used Facebook to stream live footage of the attack as it unfolded. Facebook took 29 minutes to detect the livestreamed video, which was eight minutes longer than it took police to arrest the gunman. About 1.3m copies of the video were blocked from Facebook but 300,000 copies were published and shared. Facebook has promised changes to its platform; spokesman Simon Dilner told Radio New Zealand that it could have done a better job. Several companies, including the ANZ and ASB banks, have stopped advertising on Facebook after the company was widely condemned by the public. Following the attack, Facebook began blocking
white nationalist,
white supremacist
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other Race (human classification), races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any Power (social and polit ...
, and
white separatist content, saying that they could not be meaningfully separated. Previously, Facebook had only blocked overtly supremacist content. The older policy had been condemned by civil rights groups, who described these movements as functionally indistinct.
Further bans were made in mid-April 2019, banning several
British far-right organizations and associated individuals from Facebook, and also banning praise or support for them.
NTJ's member Moulavi Zahran Hashim, a radical
Islamist imam
Imam (; ar, إمام '; plural: ') is an Islamic leadership position. For Sunni Muslims, Imam is most commonly used as the title of a worship leader of a mosque. In this context, imams may lead Islamic worship services, lead prayers, ser ...
believed to be the mastermind behind the
2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings
On 21 April 2019, Easter Sunday, three churches in Sri Lanka and three luxury hotels in the commercial capital, Colombo, were targeted in a series of coordinated ISIS-related terrorist suicide bombings. Later that day, there were smaller expl ...
, preached on a pro-
ISIL Facebook account, known as "Al-Ghuraba" media.
![President Trump Meets with Mark Zuckerberg (48765678712)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/President_Trump_Meets_with_Mark_Zuckerberg_%2848765678712%29.jpg)
On May 2, 2019, at F8, the company announced its new vision with the tagline "the future is private". A redesign of the website and mobile app was introduced, dubbed as "FB5". The event also featured plans for improving groups, a dating platform, end-to-end encryption on its platforms, and allowing users on Messenger to communicate directly with
WhatsApp
WhatsApp (also called WhatsApp Messenger) is an internationally available freeware, cross-platform, centralized instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by American company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook). It allows us ...
and Instagram users.
On July 31, 2019, Facebook announced a partnership with
University of California, San Francisco
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It cond ...
to build a non-invasive, wearable device that lets people type by simply imagining themselves talking.
On August 13, 2019, it was revealed that Facebook had enlisted hundreds of contractors to create and obtain transcripts of the audio messages of users.
This was especially common of Facebook Messenger, where the contractors frequently listened to and transcribed voice messages of users.
After this was first reported on by
Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg Televi ...
, Facebook released a statement confirming the report to be true,
but also stated that the monitoring program was now suspended.
On September 5, 2019, Facebook launched
Facebook Dating
Facebook Dating is a digital dating product developed by Facebook. There is currently no web version; it is only available from the Facebook mobile app on Android and iOS.
Features
Users can filter results based on location, number of childre ...
in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. This new application allows users to integrate their
Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
posts in their dating profile.
Facebook News, which features selected stories from news organizations, was launched on October 25. Facebook's decision to include
far-right
Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...
website ''
Breitbart News'' as a "trusted source" was negatively received.
On November 17, 2019, the banking data for 29,000 Facebook employees was stolen from a payroll worker's car. The data was stored on unencrypted hard drives and included bank account numbers, employee names, the last four digits of their social security numbers, salaries, bonuses, and equity details. The company didn't realize the hard drives were missing until November 20. Facebook confirmed that the drives contained employee information on November 29. Employees weren't notified of the break-in until December 13, 2019.
On March 10, 2020, Facebook appointed two new directors Tracey Travis and Nancy Killefer to their board of members.
In June 2020, several major companies including
Adidas
Adidas AG (; stylized as adidas since 1949) is a German multinational corporation, founded and headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, that designs and manufactures shoes, clothing and accessories. It is the largest sportswear manufactur ...
,
Aviva
Aviva plc is a British multinational insurance company headquartered in London, England. It has about 18 million customers across its core markets of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Canada. In the United Kingdom, Aviva is the largest general ...
,
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...
,
Ford,
HP,
InterContinental Hotels Group
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), marketed as IHG Hotels & Resorts, is a British multinational hospitality company headquartered in Denham, Buckinghamshire, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the F ...
,
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...
,
Starbucks
Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational chain of coffeehouses and roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It is the world's largest coffeehouse chain.
As of November 2021, the company had 33,833 stores in 80 c ...
,
Target
Target may refer to:
Physical items
* Shooting target, used in marksmanship training and various shooting sports
** Bullseye (target), the goal one for which one aims in many of these sports
** Aiming point, in field artillery, fi ...
, and
Unilever
Unilever plc is a British multinational consumer goods company with headquarters in London, England. Unilever products include food, condiments, bottled water, baby food, soft drink, ice cream, instant coffee, cleaning agents, energy drink, t ...
, announced they would pause adverts on Facebook for July in support of the
Stop Hate For Profit
The 2020 Facebook ad boycotts were a group of boycotts that took place during the month of July 2020. Much of the boycotts were organized under the Stop Hate for Profit campaign, launched by the advocacy groups the Anti-Defamation League, the NAA ...
campaign which claimed the company was not doing enough to remove hateful content. The BBC noted that this was unlikely to affect the company as most of Facebook's advertising revenue comes from small- to medium-sized businesses.
On August 14, 2020, Facebook started integrating the direct messaging service of
Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
with its own Messenger for both
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
and
Android
Android may refer to:
Science and technology
* Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human
* Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system
** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
devices. After the update, an update screen is said to pop up on Instagram's mobile app with the following message, "There's a New Way to Message on Instagram" with a list of additional features. As part of the update, the regular DM icon on the top right corner of Instagram will be replaced by the
Facebook Messenger logo.
On September 15, 2020, Facebook launched a climate science information centre to promote authoritative voices on
climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
and provide access of "factual and up-to-date" information on climate science. It featured facts, figures and data from organizations, including the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) a ...
(IPCC),
Met Office
The Meteorological Office, abbreviated as the Met Office, is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and is led by CEO Penelope E ...
,
UN Environment Programme (UNEP),
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...
(NOAA) and
World Meteorological Organization
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics.
The WMO originated from the Internati ...
(WMO), with relevant news posts.
After the
2020 U.S. presidential election
The 2020 United States presidential election was the 59th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and the junior U.S. senator from California Kamala H ...
, Facebook temporarily increased the weight of ecosystem quality in its news feed algorithm.
2020–present: FTC lawsuit, corporate re-branding, shut down of facial recognition technology, ease of policy
Facebook was sued by the
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction ov ...
as well as a coalition of several states for illegal monopolization and antitrust. The FTC and states sought the courts to force Facebook to sell its subsidiaries WhatsApp and
Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
. The suits were dismissed by a federal judge on June 28, 2021, who stated that there was not enough evidence brought in the suit to determine Facebook to be a monopoly at this point, though allowed the FTC to amend its case to include additional evidence. In its amended filings in August 2021, the FTC asserted that Facebook had been a monopoly in the area of personal social networks since 2011, distinguishing Facebook's activities from social media services like
TikTok
TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes.
TikTok is an international version ...
that broadcast content without necessarily limiting that message to intended recipients.
In response to the proposed bill in the Australian Parliament for a
News Media Bargaining Code
The News Media Bargaining Code (or News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) is a law designed to have large technology platforms that operate in Australia pay local news publishers for the news content made available or lin ...
, on February 17, 2021, Facebook blocked Australian users from sharing or viewing news content on its platform, as well as pages of some government, community, union, charity, political, and emergency services. The Australian government strongly criticised the move, saying it demonstrated the "immense market power of these digital social giants".
On February 22, Facebook said it reached an agreement with the Australian government that would see news returning to Australian users in the coming days. As part of this agreement, Facebook and Google can avoid the
News Media Bargaining Code
The News Media Bargaining Code (or News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) is a law designed to have large technology platforms that operate in Australia pay local news publishers for the news content made available or lin ...
adopted on February 25 if they "reach a commercial bargain with a news business outside the Code".
Facebook has been accused of removing and
shadow banning content that spoke either in favor of
protesting Indian farmers or against
Narendra Modi
Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...
's government.
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
-based employees of Facebook are at risk of arrest.
On February 27, 2021, Facebook announced Facebook BARS app for
rappers.
On June 29, 2021, Facebook announced
Bulletin
Bulletin or The Bulletin may refer to:
Periodicals (newspapers, magazines, journals)
* Bulletin (online newspaper), a Swedish online newspaper
* ''The Bulletin'' (Australian periodical), an Australian magazine (1880–2008)
** Bulletin Debate, ...
, a platform for independent writers. Unlike competitors such as
Substack, Facebook would not take a cut of subscription fees of writers using that platform upon its launch, like
Malcolm Gladwell and
Mitch Albom. According to ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' technology writer Will Oremus, the move was criticized by those who viewed it as an tactic intended by Facebook to force those competitors out of business.
In October 2021, owner Facebook, Inc. changed its company name to
Meta Platforms, Inc., or simply "Meta", as it shifts its focus to building the "
metaverse
In science fiction, the "metaverse" is a hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, universal, and immersive virtual world that is facilitated by the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets. In colloquial usage, ...
". This change does not affect the name of the Facebook social networking service itself, instead being similar to the creation of
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syll ...
as
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
's parent company in 2015.
In November 2021, Facebook stated it would stop targeting ads based on data related to health, race, ethnicity, political beliefs, religion and sexual orientation. The change will occur in January and will affect all apps owned by Meta Platforms.
In February 2022, Facebook's daily active users dropped for the first time in its 18-year history. According to Facebook's parent Meta, DAUs dropped to 1.929 billion in the three months ending in December, down from 1.930 billion the previous quarter. Furthermore, the company warned that revenue growth would slow due to competition from TikTok and YouTube, as well as advertisers cutting back on spending.
Analysts predict a "death spiral" for facebook stock as users leave while ad impressions increase, as the company chases revenue.
On March 10, 2022, Facebook announced that it will temporarily ease rules to allow violent speech against 'Russian invaders'. Russia then banned all Meta services, including
Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
.
October 4, 2021, global service outage
On October 4, 2021, Facebook had its worst outage since 2008. The outage was global in scope, and took down all Facebook properties, including
Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
and WhatsApp, from approximately 15:39 UTC to 22:05 UTC, and affected roughly three billion users. Security experts identified the problem as a
BGP
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a standardized exterior gateway protocol designed to exchange routing and reachability information among autonomous system (Internet), autonomous systems (AS) on the Internet. BGP is classified as a path-vector ...
withdrawal of all of the
IP routes to their
Domain Name (DNS) servers which were all self-hosted at the time.
The outage also affected all internal communications systems used by Facebook employees, which disrupted restoration efforts.
Shutdown of facial recognition
On November 2, 2021, Facebook announced it would shut down its facial recognition technology and delete the data on over a billion users. Meta later announced plans to implement the technology as well as other biometric systems in its future products, such as the
metaverse
In science fiction, the "metaverse" is a hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, universal, and immersive virtual world that is facilitated by the use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets. In colloquial usage, ...
.
The shutdown of the technology will reportedly also stop Facebook's automated alt text system, used to transcribe media on the platform for visually impaired users.
Website
Technical aspects
The website's primary color is blue as Zuckerberg is
red–green colorblind, a realization that occurred after a test undertaken around 2007. Facebook is built in
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group ...
, compiled with
HipHop for PHP
HipHop for PHP (HPHPc) is a discontinued PHP transpiler created by Facebook. By using HPHPc as a source-to-source compiler, PHP code is translated into C++, compiled into a binary and run as an executable, as opposed to the PHP's usual execution ...
, a "source code transformer" built by Facebook engineers that turns PHP into
C++. The deployment of HipHop reportedly reduced average CPU consumption on Facebook servers by 50%.
2012 architecture
Facebook is developed as one monolithic application. According to an interview in 2012 with Facebook build engineer Chuck Rossi, Facebook compiles into a 1.5 GB binary blob which is then distributed to the servers using a custom
BitTorrent-based release system. Rossi stated that it takes about 15 minutes to build and 15 minutes to release to the servers. The build and release process has zero downtime. Changes to Facebook are rolled out daily.
Facebook used a combination platform based on
HBase
HBase is an open-source non-relational distributed database modeled after Google's Bigtable and written in Java. It is developed as part of Apache Software Foundation's Apache Hadoop project and runs on top of HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File Sys ...
to store data across distributed machines. Using a tailing architecture, events are stored in log files, and the logs are tailed. The system rolls these events up and writes them to storage. The user interface then pulls the data out and displays it to users. Facebook handles requests as
AJAX behavior. These requests are written to a log file using
Scribe
A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing.
The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promi ...
(developed by Facebook).
Data is read from these log files using Ptail, an internally built tool to aggregate data from multiple Scribe stores. It tails the log files and pulls data out. Ptail data are separated into three streams and sent to clusters in different
data center
A data center (American English) or data centre (British English)See spelling differences. is a building, a dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunic ...
s (Plugin impression, News feed impressions, Actions (plugin + news feed)). Puma is used to manage periods of high data flow (Input/Output or IO). Data is processed in batches to lessen the number of times needed to read and write under high demand periods. (A hot article generates many impressions and news feed impressions that cause huge data skews.) Batches are taken every 1.5 seconds, limited by memory used when creating a
hash table.
Data is then output in PHP format. The backend is written in
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
. Thrift is used as the messaging format so PHP programs can query Java services. Caching solutions display pages more quickly. The data is then sent to
MapReduce servers where it is queried via Hive. This serves as a backup as the data can be recovered from Hive.
Content delivery network (CDN)
Facebook uses its own
content delivery network or "edge network" under the domain fbcdn.net for serving static data. Until the mid 2010s, Facebook also relied on
Akamai for CDN services.
Hack programming language
On March 20, 2014, Facebook announced a new open-source programming language called
Hack
Hack may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Games
* ''Hack'' (Unix video game), a 1984 roguelike video game
* ''.hack'' (video game series), a series of video games by the multimedia franchise ''.hack''
Music
* ''Hack'' (album), a 199 ...
. Before public release, a large portion of Facebook was already running and "battle tested" using the new language.
User profile/personal timeline
![Screen of Facebook (2)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Screen_of_Facebook_%282%29.PNG)
Each registered user on Facebook has a personal profile that shows their posts and content. The format of individual user pages was revamped in September 2011 and became known as "Timeline", a chronological feed of a user's stories, including status updates, photos, interactions with apps and events.
The layout let users add a "cover photo".
Users were given more privacy settings.
In 2007, Facebook launched Facebook Pages for brands and celebrities to interact with their fanbases. 100,000 Pages launched in November. In June 2009, Facebook introduced a "Usernames" feature, allowing users to choose a unique nickname used in the
URL
A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed as a web address, is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifie ...
for their personal profile, for easier sharing.
In February 2014, Facebook expanded the gender setting, adding a custom input field that allows users to choose from a wide range of gender identities. Users can also set which set of gender-specific pronoun should be used in reference to them throughout the site. In May 2014, Facebook introduced a feature to allow users to ask for information not disclosed by other users on their profiles. If a user does not provide key information, such as location, hometown, or relationship status, other users can use a new "ask" button to send a message asking about that item to the user in a single click.
News Feed
News Feed
On the World Wide Web, a web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors ''syndicate'' a web feed, thereby allowing users to ''subscribe'' a channel to it by adding the feed ...
appears on every user's homepage and highlights information including profile changes, upcoming events and friends' birthdays. This enabled spammers and other users to manipulate these features by creating illegitimate events or posting fake birthdays to attract attention to their profile or cause. Initially, the News Feed caused dissatisfaction among Facebook users; some complained it was too cluttered and full of undesired information, others were concerned that it made it too easy for others to track individual activities (such as relationship status changes, events, and conversations with other users). Zuckerberg apologized for the site's failure to include appropriate privacy features. Users then gained control over what types of information are shared automatically with friends. Users are now able to prevent user-set categories of friends from seeing updates about certain types of activities, including profile changes, Wall posts and newly added friends.
On February 23, 2010, Facebook was granted a patent on certain aspects of its News Feed. The patent covers News Feeds in which links are provided so that one user can participate in the activity of another user. The sorting and display of stories in a user's News Feed is governed by the
EdgeRank
EdgeRank is the name commonly given to the algorithm that Facebook uses to determine what articles should be displayed in a user's News Feed. As of 2011, Facebook has stopped using the EdgeRank system and uses a machine learning algorithm that, as ...
algorithm.
The
Photos
A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now created ...
application allows users to upload albums and photos. Each album can contain 200 photos. Privacy settings apply to individual albums. Users can "
tag", or label, friends in a photo. The friend receives a notification about the tag with a link to the photo. This photo tagging feature was developed by Aaron Sittig, now a Design Strategy Lead at Facebook, and former Facebook engineer Scott Marlette back in 2006 and was only granted a
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
in 2011.
On June 7, 2012, Facebook launched its App Center to help users find games and other applications.
On May 13, 2015, Facebook in association with major news portals launched "Instant Articles" to provide news on the Facebook news feed without leaving the site.
In January 2017, Facebook launched Facebook Stories for iOS and Android in Ireland. The feature, following the format of
Snapchat
Snapchat is an American multimedia instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are usually only available for a short time before the ...
and Instagram stories, allows users to upload photos and videos that appear above friends' and followers' News Feeds and disappear after 24 hours.
On October 11, 2017, Facebook introduced the
3D Posts feature to allow for uploading interactive 3D assets. On January 11, 2018, Facebook announced that it would change News Feed to prioritize friends/family content and de-emphasize content from media companies.
In February 2020, Facebook announced it would spend $1 billion ($ in dollars) to license news material from publishers for the next three years; a pledge coming as the company falls under scrutiny from governments across the globe over not paying for news content appearing on the platform. The pledge would be in addition to the $600 million ($ in dollars) paid since 2018 through deals with news companies such as ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' and ''
Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...
''.
In March and April 2021, in response to Apple announcing changes to its iOS device's
Identifier for Advertisers
Apple's Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) is a unique random device identifier Apple generates and assigns to every device. It is intended to be used by advertisers to deliver personalized ads and attribute ad interactions for ad retargeting. Use ...
policy, which included requiring app developers to directly request to users the ability to track on an opt-in basis, Facebook purchased full-page newspaper advertisements attempting to convince users to allow tracking, highlighting the effects targeted ads have on small businesses. Facebook's efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, as Apple released iOS 14.5 in late April 2021, containing the feature for users in what has been deemed "App Tracking Transparency". Moreover, statistics from
Verizon Communications
Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas i ...
subsidiary Flurry Analytics show 96% of all iOS users in the United States are not permitting tracking at all, and only 12% of worldwide iOS users are allowing tracking, which some news outlets deem "Facebook's nightmare", among similar terms. Despite the news, Facebook has stated that the new policy and software update would be "manageable".
Like button
![Facebook advertising](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/Facebook_advertising.jpg)
The "like" button, stylized as a "thumbs up" icon, was first enabled on February 9, 2009, and enables users to easily interact with status updates, comments, photos and videos, links shared by friends, and advertisements. Once clicked by a user, the designated content is more likely to appear in friends'
News Feed
On the World Wide Web, a web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors ''syndicate'' a web feed, thereby allowing users to ''subscribe'' a channel to it by adding the feed ...
s. The button displays the number of other users who have liked the content. The like button was extended to comments in June 2010. In February 2016, Facebook expanded Like into "Reactions", choosing among five pre-defined emotions, including "Love", "Haha", "Wow", "Sad", or "Angry".
In late April 2020, during the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, a new "Care" reaction was added.
Instant messaging
Facebook Messenger is an
instant messaging
Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...
service and software application. It began as Facebook Chat in 2008, was revamped in 2010 and eventually became a standalone mobile app in August 2011, while remaining part of the user page on browsers.
Complementing regular conversations, Messenger lets users make one-to-one and group
voice
The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in ...
and
video calls. Its Android app has integrated support for
SMS
Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...
and "Chat Heads", which are round profile photo icons appearing on-screen regardless of what app is open, while both apps support multiple accounts, conversations with optional
end-to-end encryption and "Instant Games". Some features, including sending money
and requesting transportation, are limited to the United States.
In 2017, Facebook added "Messenger Day", a feature that lets users share photos and videos in a story-format with all their friends with the content disappearing after 24 hours; Reactions, which lets users tap and hold a message to add a reaction through an
emoji
An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conversat ...
;
and Mentions, which lets users in group conversations type @ to give a particular user a notification.
Businesses and users can interact through Messenger with features such as tracking purchases and receiving notifications, and interacting with customer service representatives. Third-party developers can integrate apps into Messenger, letting users enter an app while inside Messenger and optionally share details from the app into a chat. Developers can build
chatbots into Messenger, for uses such as news publishers building bots to distribute news. The
M virtual assistant (U.S.) scans chats for keywords and suggests relevant actions, such as its payments system for users mentioning money. Group chatbots appear in Messenger as "Chat Extensions". A "Discovery" tab allows finding bots, and enabling special, branded
QR code
A QR code (an initialism for quick response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) invented in 1994 by the Japanese company Denso Wave. A barcode is a machine-readable optical label that can contain information about th ...
s that, when scanned, take the user to a specific bot.
Privacy policy
Facebook's data policy outlines its policies for collecting, storing, and sharing user's data.
Facebook enables users to control access to individual posts and their profile through
privacy settings.
The user's name and profile picture (if applicable) are public.
Facebook's revenue depends on targeted advertising, which involves analyzing user data to decide which ads to show each user. Facebook buys data from third parties, gathered from both online and offline sources, to supplement its own data on users. Facebook maintains that it does not share data used for targeted advertising with the advertisers themselves. The company states:
"We provide advertisers with reports about the kinds of people seeing their ads and how their ads are performing, but we don't share information that personally identifies you (information such as your name or email address that by itself can be used to contact you or identifies who you are) unless you give us permission. For example, we provide general demographic and interest information to advertisers (for example, that an ad was seen by a woman between the ages of 25 and 34 who lives in Madrid and likes software engineering) to help them better understand their audience. We also confirm which Facebook ads led you to make a purchase or take an action with an advertiser."
, Facebook claims it uses the following policy for sharing user data with third parties:
Apps, websites, and third-party integrations on or using our Products.
When you choose to use third-party apps, websites, or other services that use, or are integrated with, our Products, they can receive information about what you post or share. For example, when you play a game with your Facebook friends or use a Facebook Comment or Share button on a website, the game developer or website can receive information about your activities in the game or receive a comment or link that you share from the website on Facebook. Also, when you download or use such third-party services, they can access your public profile on Facebook, and any information that you share with them. Apps and websites you use may receive your list of Facebook friends if you choose to share it with them. But apps and websites you use will not be able to receive any other information about your Facebook friends from you, or information about any of your Instagram followers (although your friends and followers may, of course, choose to share this information themselves). Information collected by these third-party services is subject to their own terms and policies, not this one.
Devices and operating systems providing native versions of Facebook and Instagram (i.e. where we have not developed our own first-party apps) will have access to all information you choose to share with them, including information your friends share with you, so they can provide our core functionality to you.
Note: We are in the process of restricting developers' data access even further to help prevent abuse. For example, we will remove developers' access to your Facebook and Instagram data if you haven't used their app in 3 months, and we are changing Login, so that in the next version, we will reduce the data that an app can request without app review to include only name, Instagram username and bio, profile photo and email address. Requesting any other data will require our approval.
Facebook will also share data with law enforcement.
Facebook's policies have changed repeatedly since the service's debut, amid a series of controversies covering everything from how well it secures user data, to what extent it allows users to control access, to the kinds of access given to third parties, including businesses, political campaigns and governments. These facilities vary according to country, as some nations require the company to make data available (and limit access to services), while the European Union's
GDPR regulation mandates additional privacy protections.
Bug Bounty Program
![Facebook t-shirt with whitehat debit card for Hackers](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Facebook_t-shirt_with_whitehat_debit_card_for_Hackers.jpg)
On July 29, 2011, Facebook announced its Bug Bounty Program that paid security researchers a minimum of $500 ($ in dollars) for reporting security holes. The company promised not to pursue "white hat" hackers who identified such problems. This led researchers in many countries to participate, particularly in India and Russia.
Reception
Userbase
Facebook's rapid growth began as soon as it became available and continued through 2018, before beginning to decline.
Facebook passed 100 million registered users in 2008, and 500 million in July 2010.
According to the company's data at the July 2010 announcement, half of the site's membership used Facebook daily, for an average of 34 minutes, while 150 million users accessed the site by mobile.
In October 2012, Facebook's monthly active users passed one billion,
with 600 million mobile users, 219 billion photo uploads, and 140 billion friend connections.
The 2 billion user mark was crossed in June 2017.
In November 2015, after skepticism about the accuracy of its "monthly active users" measurement, Facebook changed its definition to a logged-in member who visits the Facebook site through the web browser or mobile app, or uses the
Facebook Messenger app, in the 30-day period prior to the measurement. This excluded the use of third-party services with Facebook integration, which was previously counted.
From 2017 to 2019, the percentage of the U.S. population over the age of 12 who use Facebook has declined, from 67% to 61% (a decline of some 15 million U.S. users), with a higher drop-off among younger Americans (a decrease in the percentage of U.S. 12- to 34-year-olds who are users from 58% in 2015 to 29% in 2019).
[Abrar Al-Heeti]
Facebook lost 15 million US users in the past two years, report says
CNET (March 6, 2019).[Nick Statt]
Facebook's US user base declined by 15 million since 2017, according to survey
''The Verge'' (March 6, 2019). The decline coincided with an increase in the popularity of Instagram, which is also owned by Meta.
The number of daily active users experienced a quarterly decline for the first time in the last quarter of 2021, down to 1.929 billion from 1.930 billion, but increased again the next quarter despite being banned in Russia.
Historically, commentators have offered predictions of Facebook's decline or end, based on causes such as a declining user base; the legal difficulties of being a
closed platform
A closed platform, walled garden, or closed ecosystem is a software system wherein the carrier or service provider has control over applications, content, and/or media, and restricts convenient access to non-approved applicants or content. This ...
, inability to generate revenue, inability to offer user privacy, inability to adapt to mobile platforms, or Facebook ending itself to present a next generation replacement;
or Facebook's role in
Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
The Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with the goals of harming the campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the candidacy of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. Acc ...
.
File:Population pyramid of Facebook users by age.png, Population pyramid of Facebook users by age
Demographics
The highest number of Facebook users as of October 2018 are from India and the United States, followed by Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico. Region-wise, the highest number of users are from Asia-Pacific (947 million) followed by Europe (381 million) and US-Canada (242 million). The rest of the world has 750 million users.
Over the 2008–2018 period, the percentage of users under 34 declined to less than half of the total.
Censorship
![Facebook censorship](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Facebook_censorship.svg)
In many countries the social networking sites and mobile apps have been blocked temporarily or permanently, including
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
,
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
,
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
,
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
,
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
, and
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
. In May 2018, the government of
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
announced that it would ban Facebook for a month while it considered the impact of the website on the country, though no ban has since occurred. In 2019, Facebook announced it would start enforcing its ban on users, including
influencers, promoting any
vape
An electronic cigarette is an electronic device that simulates tobacco smoking. It consists of an Atomizer nozzle, atomizer, a power source such as a battery, and a container such as a cartridge or tank. Instead of tobacco smoke, smoke, ...
,
tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
products, or
weapon
A weapon, arm or armament is any implement or device that can be used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime, law enforcement, s ...
s on its platforms.
Criticisms and controversies
Facebook's importance and scale has led to criticisms in many domains. Issues include Internet privacy, excessive retention of user information, its Facial recognition system, facial recognition software, DeepFace its addictive quality and its role in the workplace, including employer access to employee accounts.
Facebook has been criticized for electricity usage, tax avoidance, real-name user requirement policies, censorship and its involvement in the United States PRISM (surveillance program), PRISM surveillance program.
According to ''The Express Tribune'', Facebook "avoided billions of dollars in tax using offshore companies".
Facebook is alleged to have harmful psychological effects on its users, including feelings of jealousy and stress, a lack of attention and social media addiction. According to Kaufmann et al., mothers' motivations for using social media are often related to their social and mental health. European antitrust regulator Margrethe Vestager stated that Facebook's terms of service relating to private data were "unbalanced".
Facebook has been criticized for allowing users to publish illegal or offensive material. Specifics include
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
and intellectual property infringement,
hate speech
Hate speech is defined by the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation". Hate speech is "usually thoug ...
, incitement of rape and terrorism,
fake news, and crimes, murders, and livestreaming violent incidents.
Sri Lanka blocked both Facebook and WhatsApp in May 2019 after 2019 anti-Muslim riots in Sri Lanka, anti-Muslim riots, the worst in the country since the 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings, Easter Sunday bombing in the same year as a temporary measure to maintain peace in Sri Lanka.
Facebook removed 3 billion fake accounts only during the last quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019;
in comparison, the social network reports 2.39 billion monthly active users.
In late July 2019, the company announced it was under antitrust investigation by the
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction ov ...
.
Privacy
Facebook has faced a steady stream of controversies over how it handles user privacy, repeatedly adjusting its privacy settings and policies.
In 2010, the US National Security Agency began taking publicly posted profile information from Facebook, among other social media services.
On November 29, 2011, Facebook settled
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction ov ...
charges that it deceived consumers by failing to keep privacy promises. In August 2013 High-Tech Bridge published a study showing that links included in Facebook messaging service messages were being accessed by Facebook. In January 2014 two users filed a lawsuit against Facebook alleging that their privacy had been violated by this practice.
On June 7, 2018, Facebook announced that a bug had resulted in about 14 million Facebook users having their default sharing setting for all new posts set to "public".
On April 4, 2019, half a billion records of Facebook users were found exposed on
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...
cloud servers, containing information about users' friends, likes, groups, and checked-in locations, as well as names, passwords and email addresses.
The phone numbers of at least 200 million Facebook users were found to be exposed on an open online database in September 2019. They included 133 million US users, 18 million from the UK, and 50 million from users in
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
. After removing duplicates, the 419 million records have been reduced to 219 million. The database went offline after TechCrunch contacted the web host. It is thought the records were amassed using a tool that Facebook disabled in April 2018 after the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, Cambridge Analytica controversy. A Facebook spokeswoman said in a statement: "The dataset is old and appears to have information obtained before we made changes last year...There is no evidence that Facebook accounts were compromised."
Facebook's privacy problems resulted in companies like Viber, Viber Media and Mozilla discontinuing advertising on Facebook's platforms.
Racial bias
Facebook was accused of committing "systemic" racial bias by EEOC based on the complaints of three rejected candidates and a current employee of the company. The three rejected employees along with the Operational Manager at Facebook as of March 2021 accused the firm of discriminating against Black people. The EEOC has initiated an investigation into the case.
Shadow profiles
A "shadow profile" refers to the data Facebook collects about individuals without their explicit permission. For example, the Facebook like button#Tracking, "like" button that appears Facebook like button#Tracking, on third-party websites allows the company to collect information about an individual's internet browsing habits, even if the individual is not a Facebook user.
Data can also be collected by other users. For example, a Facebook user can link their email account to their Facebook to find friends on the site, allowing the company to collect the email addresses of users and non-users alike. Over time, countless data points about an individual are collected; any single data point perhaps cannot identify an individual, but together allows the company to form a unique "profile."
This practice has been criticized by those who believe people should be able to opt-out of involuntary data collection. Additionally, while Facebook users have the ability to download and inspect the data they provide to the site, data from the user's "shadow profile" is not included, and non-users of Facebook do not have access to this tool regardless. The company has also been unclear whether or not it is possible for a person to revoke Facebook's access to their "shadow profile."
Cambridge Analytica
Facebook customer Global Science Research sold information on over 87 million Facebook users to Cambridge Analytica, a political data analysis firm led by Alexander Nix. While approximately 270,000 people used the app, Facebook's Application programming interface, API permitted data collection from their friends without their knowledge. At first Facebook downplayed the significance of the breach, and suggested that Cambridge Analytica no longer had access. Facebook then issued a statement expressing alarm and suspended Cambridge Analytica. Review of documents and interviews with former Facebook employees suggested that Cambridge Analytica still possessed the data. This was a violation of Facebook's consent decree with the
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction ov ...
. This violation potentially carried a penalty of $40,000 ($ in dollars) per occurrence, totalling trillions of dollars.
According to ''The Guardian'', both Facebook and Cambridge Analytica threatened to sue the newspaper if it published the story. After publication, Facebook claimed that it had been "lied to". On March 23, 2018, The High Court of Justice, English High Court granted an application by the Information Commissioner's Office for a warrant to search Cambridge Analytica's London offices, ending a standoff between Facebook and the Information Commissioner over responsibility.
On March 25, Facebook published a statement by Zuckerberg in major UK and US newspapers apologizing over a "breach of trust".
On March 26, the
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction ov ...
opened an investigation into the matter. The controversy led Facebook to end its partnerships with data brokers who aid advertisers in targeting users.
On April 24, 2019, Facebook said it could face a fine between $3 billion ($ in dollars) to $5 billion ($ in dollars) as the result of an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. The agency has been investigating Facebook for possible privacy violations, but has not announced any findings yet.
Facebook also implemented additional privacy controls and settings
in part to comply with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which took effect in May. Facebook also ended its active opposition to the California Consumer Privacy Act.
Some, such as Meghan McCain have drawn an equivalence between the use of data by Cambridge Analytica and the Barack Obama 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama's 2012 campaign, which, according to ''Investor's Business Daily'', "encouraged supporters to download an Obama 2012 Facebook app that, when activated, let the campaign collect Facebook data both on users and their friends."
[Why Are We Only Now Talking About Facebook And Elections?]
. ''Forbes''. March 19, 2018.[Former Facebook staffer, Obama campaign boss reveal concerns about Facebook data]
. News.com.au. March 21, 2018. Carol Davidsen, the Obama for America (OFA) former director of integration and media analytics, wrote that "Facebook was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn't stop us once they realised that was what we were doing."
PolitiFact has rated McCain's statements "Half-True", on the basis that "in Obama's case, direct users knew they were handing over their data to a political campaign" whereas with Cambridge Analytica, users thought they were only taking a personality quiz for academic purposes, and while the Obama campaign only used the data "to have their supporters contact their most persuadable friends", Cambridge Analytica "targeted users, friends and lookalikes directly with digital ads."
Breaches
On September 28, 2018, Facebook experienced a major breach in its security, exposing the data of 50 million users. The data breach started in July 2017 and was discovered on September 16. Facebook notified users affected by the exploit and logged them out of their accounts.
In March 2019, Facebook confirmed a password compromise of millions of Facebook lite application users also affected millions of Instagram users. The reason cited was the storage of password as plain text instead of encryption which could be read by its employees.
On December 19, 2019, security researcher Bob Diachenko discovered a database containing more than 267 million Facebook user IDs, phone numbers, and names that were left exposed on the web for anyone to access without a password or any other authentication.
In February 2020, Facebook encountered a major security breach in which its official Twitter account was hacked by a Saudi Arabia-based group called "OurMine". The group has a history of actively exposing high-profile social media profiles' vulnerabilities.
In April 2021, ''The Guardian'' reported approximately half a billion users' data had been stolen including birthdates and phone numbers. Facebook alleged it was "old data" from a problem fixed in August 2019 despite the data's having been released a year and a half later only in 2021; it declined to speak with journalists, had apparently not notified regulators, called the problem "unfixable", and said it would not be advising users.
Phone data and activity
![Onavo logo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Onavo_logo.png)
After acquiring Onavo in 2013, Facebook used its Onavo Protect virtual private network (VPN) app to collect information on users' web traffic and app usage. This allowed Facebook to monitor its competitors' performance, and motivated Facebook to acquire WhatsApp in 2014. Media outlets classified Onavo Protect as spyware.
In August 2018, Facebook removed the app in response to pressure from Apple, who asserted that it violated their guidelines. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission sued Facebook on December 16, 2020, for "false, misleading or deceptive conduct" in response to the company's use of personal data obtained from Onavo for business purposes in contrast to Onavo's privacy-oriented marketing.
In 2016, Facebook Research launched Project Atlas, offering some users between the ages of 13 and 35 up to $20 per month ($ in dollars) in exchange for their personal data, including their app usage, web browsing history, Web search engine, web search history, Mobile phone tracking, location history, personal messages, photos, videos, emails and
Amazon
Amazon most often refers to:
* Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology
* Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin
* Amazon River, in South America
* Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...
order history.
In January 2019, ''TechCrunch'' reported on the project. This led Apple to temporarily revoke Facebook's Enterprise Developer Program Public key certificate, certificates for one day, preventing Facebook Research from operating on iOS devices and disabling Facebook's internal iOS apps.
''Ars Technica'' reported in April 2018 that the Facebook Android app had been harvesting user data, including phone calls and text messages, since 2015. In May 2018, several Android users filed a class action lawsuit against Facebook for invading their privacy.
In January 2020, Facebook launched the Off-Facebook Activity page, which allows users to see information collected by Facebook about their non-Facebook activities. ''The Washington Post'' columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler found that this included what other apps he used on his phone, even while the Facebook app was closed, what other web sites he visited on his phone, and what in-store purchases he made from affiliated businesses, even while his phone was completely off.
In November 2021, a report was published by Fairplay, Global Action Plan and Reset Australia detailing accusations that Facebook was continuing to manage their ad targeting system with data collected from teen users. The accusations follow announcements by Facebook in July 2021 that they would cease ad targeting children.
Public apologies
The company first apologized for its privacy abuses in 2009.
Facebook apologies have appeared in newspapers, television, blog posts and on Facebook.
On March 25, 2018, leading US and UK newspapers published full-page ads with a personal apology from Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg issued a verbal apology on CNN. In May 2010, he apologized for discrepancies in privacy settings.
Previously, Facebook had its privacy settings spread out over 20 pages, and has now put all of its privacy settings on one page, which makes it more difficult for third-party apps to access the user's personal information.
In addition to publicly apologizing, Facebook has said that it will be reviewing and auditing thousands of apps that display "suspicious activities" in an effort to ensure that this breach of privacy does not happen again.
In a 2010 report regarding privacy, a research project stated that not a lot of information is available regarding the consequences of what people disclose online so often what is available are just reports made available through popular media.
In 2017, a former Facebook executive went on the record to discuss how social media platforms have contributed to the unraveling of the "fabric of society".
Content disputes and moderation
Facebook relies on its users to generate the content that bonds its users to the service. The company has come under criticism both for allowing objectionable content, including conspiracy theories and fringe discourse,
and for prohibiting other content that it deems inappropriate.
Misinformation and fake kews
Facebook has been criticized as a vector for
fake news, and has been accused of bearing responsibility for the conspiracy theory that the United States created ISIS, false anti-Rohingya people, Rohingya posts being used by Myanmar's military to fuel genocide and Rohingya genocide, ethnic cleansing, enabling climate change denial and Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting conspiracy theorists, and anti-refugee attacks in Germany.
The government of the Philippines has also used Facebook as a tool to attack its critics.
In 2017, Facebook partnered with fact checkers from the Poynter Institute's International Fact-Checking Network to identify and mark false content, though most ads from political candidates are exempt from this program. As of 2018, Facebook had over 40 fact-checking partners across the world, including ''The Weekly Standard''.
Critics of the program have accused Facebook of not doing enough to remove false information from its website.
Facebook has repeatedly amended its content policies. In July 2018, it stated that it would "downrank" articles that its Fact-checking, fact-checkers determined to be false, and remove misinformation that incited violence. Facebook stated that content that receives "false" ratings from its fact-checkers can be demonetized and suffer dramatically reduced distribution. Specific posts and videos that violate community standards can be removed on Facebook.
In May 2019, Facebook banned a number of "dangerous" commentators from its platform, including Alex Jones, Louis Farrakhan, Milo Yiannopoulos, Paul Joseph Watson, Paul Nehlen, David Duke, and Laura Loomer, for allegedly engaging in "violence and hate".
In May 2020, Facebook agreed to a preliminary settlement of $52 million ($ in dollars) to compensate U.S.-based Facebook content moderators for their psychological trauma suffered on the job. Other legal actions around the world, including in Ireland, await settlement.
In September 2020, the Government of Thailand utilized the Computer Crime Act for the first time to take action against Facebook and Twitter for ignoring requests to take down content and not complying with court orders.
Threats and incitement
Professor Ilya Somin reported that he had been the subject of death threats on Facebook in April 2018 from Cesar Sayoc, who threatened to kill Somin and his family and "feed the bodies to Florida alligators". Somin's Facebook friends reported the comments to Facebook, which did nothing except dispatch automated messages. Sayoc was later arrested for the October 2018 United States mail bombing attempts directed at Democratic politicians.
Hate speech
In October 2020, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan urged
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (; born ) is an American business magnate, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is known for co-founding the social media website Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.), o ...
, through a letter posted on government's Twitter account, to ban Islamophobic content on Facebook, warning that it encouraged extremism and violence.
In October 2020, the company announced that it would ban Holocaust denial.
In October 2022, Media Matters for America published a report that Facebook and Instagram were still profiting off advertisements using the slur "LGBT grooming conspiracy theory, groomer" for LGBT people.
The article reported that Meta had previously confirmed that the use of this word for the LGBT community violates its hate speech policies.
The story was subsequently picked up by other news outlets such as the ''New York Daily News'', ''PinkNews'', and ''LGBTQ Nation''.
Violent Erotica
There are ads on Facebook and Instagram containing sexually explicit content, descriptions of graphic violence and content promoting acts of self harm. Many of the ads are for webnovel apps backed by tech giants ByteDance, Bytedance and Tencent.
''InfoWars''
Facebook was criticized for allowing ''InfoWars'' to publish falsehoods and conspiracy theories.
Facebook defended its actions in regards to ''InfoWars'', saying "we just don't think banning Pages for sharing conspiracy theories or false news is the right way to go."
Facebook provided only six cases in which it fact-checked content on the ''InfoWars'' page over the period September 2017 to July 2018.
In 2018 ''InfoWars'' falsely claimed that the survivors of the Parkland shooting were "actors". Facebook pledged to remove ''InfoWars'' content making the claim, although ''InfoWars'' videos pushing the false claims were left up, even though Facebook had been contacted about the videos.
Facebook stated that the videos never explicitly called them actors.
Facebook also allowed ''InfoWars'' videos that shared the Pizzagate conspiracy theory to survive, despite specific assertions that it would purge Pizzagate content.
In late July 2018 Facebook suspended the personal profile of ''InfoWars'' head Alex Jones for 30 days. In early August 2018, Facebook banned the four most active ''InfoWars''-related pages for
hate speech
Hate speech is defined by the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation". Hate speech is "usually thoug ...
.
Political manipulation
![Mark Zuckerberg 1984 Berlin Graffiti](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Mark_Zuckerberg_1984_Berlin_Graffiti.jpg)
As a dominant social-web service with massive outreach, Facebook have been used by identified or unidentified political operatives to affect public opinion. Some of these activities have been done in violation of the platform policies, creating "coordinated inauthentic behavior", support or attacks. These activities can be scripted or Troll farm, paid. Various such abusive campaign have been revealed in recent years, best known being the
Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
The Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with the goals of harming the campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the candidacy of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. Acc ...
. In 2021, former Facebook analyst within the ''Spam'' and ''Fake Engagement'' teams, Sophie Zhang (whistleblower), Sophie Zhang, reported more than 25 political subversion operations and criticized the general slow reaction time, oversightless, laissez-faire attitude by Facebook.
Influence Operations and Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior
In 2018, Facebook stated that during 2018 they had identified "coordinated inauthentic behavior" in "many Pages, Groups and accounts created to stir up political debate, including in the United States, US, the Middle East, Russia and the United Kingdom, UK."
Campaigns operated by the United Kingdom, British intelligence agency unit, called Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group, have broadly fallen into two categories; cyber attacks and propaganda efforts. The propaganda efforts utilize "mass messaging" and the "pushing [of] stories" via social media sites like Facebook. Israel's Jewish Internet Defense Force,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
's 50 Cent Party and Turkey's AK Trolls also focus their attention on social media platforms like Facebook.
In July 2018, Samantha Bradshaw, co-author of the report from the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) at Oxford University, said that "The number of countries where formally organised social media manipulation occurs has greatly increased, from 28 to 48 countries globally. The majority of growth comes from political parties who spread disinformation and junk news around election periods."
In October 2018, ''The Daily Telegraph'' reported that Facebook "banned hundreds of pages and accounts that it says were fraudulently flooding its site with partisan political content – although they came from the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
instead of being associated with Russia."
In December 2018, ''The Washington Post'' reported that "Facebook has suspended the account of Jonathon Morgan, the chief executive of a top social media research firm" New Knowledge, "after reports that he and others engaged in an operation to spread disinformation" on Facebook and Twitter during the 2017 United States Senate special election in Alabama.
In January 2019, Facebook said it has removed 783
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
-linked accounts, pages and groups for engaging in what it called "coordinated inauthentic behaviour".
In May 2019, Tel Aviv-based private intelligence agency Archimedes Group was banned from Facebook for "coordinated inauthentic behavior" after Facebook found fake users in countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. Facebook investigations revealed that Archimedes had spent some $1.1 million ($ in dollars) on fake ads, paid for in Brazilian reais, Israeli shekels and US dollars. Facebook gave examples of Archimedes Group political interference in Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, Angola, Niger and Tunisia. The Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab said in a report that "The tactics employed by Archimedes Group, a private company, closely resemble the types of information warfare tactics often used by governments, and the Kremlin in particular."
On May 23, 2019, Facebook released its Community Standards Enforcement Report highlighting that it has identified several fake accounts through artificial intelligence and human monitoring. In a period of six months, October 2018-March 2019, the social media website removed a total of 3.39 billion fake accounts. The number of fake accounts was reported to be more than 2.4 billion real people on the platform.
In July 2019, Facebook advanced its measures to counter deceptive political propaganda and other abuse of its services. The company removed more than 1,800 accounts and pages that were being operated from Russia, Thailand, Ukraine and Honduras. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it was announced that the internet regulatory committee would block access to Facebook.
On October 30, 2019, Facebook deleted several accounts of the employees working at the Israeli NSO Group, stating that the accounts were "deleted for not following our terms". The deletions came after WhatsApp sued the Israeli surveillance firm for targeting 1,400 devices with spyware.
In 2020, Facebook helped found American Edge, an anti-regulation lobbying firm to fight anti-trust probes.
The Government of Thailand, Thailand government is forcing Facebook to take down a Facebook group called Royalist Marketplace with 1 million members following potentially illegal posts shared. The authorities have also threatened Facebook with legal action. In response, Facebook is planning to take legal action against the Thai government for suppression of freedom of expression and violation of human rights.
In February 2021, Facebook removed the main page of the Myanmar military, after two protesters were shot and killed during the 2021 Myanmar protests, anti-coup protests. Facebook said that the page breached its guidelines that prohibit the incitement of violence. On February 25, Facebook announced to ban all accounts of the Myanmar military, along with the "Tatmadaw-linked commercial entities". Citing the "exceptionally severe human rights abuses and the clear risk of future military-initiated violence in Myanmar", the tech giant also implemented the move on its subsidiary,
Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
.
In March 2021, ''The Wall Street Journal'' editorial board criticized Facebook's decision to fact-check its op-ed titled "We'll Have Herd immunity by April" written by surgeon Marty Makary, calling it "counter-opinion masquerading as fact checking."
Facebook guidelines allow users to call for the death of public figures, they also allow praise of mass killers and 'violent non-state actors' in some situations.
In 2021, former Facebook analyst within the ''Spam'' and ''Fake Engagement'' teams, Sophie Zhang (whistleblower), Sophie Zhang, reported on more than 25 political subversion operations she uncovered while in Facebook, and the general laissez-faire by the private enterprise.
In 2021, Facebook was cited as playing a role in the fomenting of the 2021 United States Capitol attack.
Russian interference
In 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian organizations for "engaging in operations to interfere with U.S. political and electoral processes, including the 2016 presidential election."
Mueller contacted Facebook subsequently to the company's disclosure that it had sold more than $100,000 ($ in dollars) worth of ads to a company (Internet Research Agency, owned by Russian billionaire and businessman Yevgeniy Prigozhin) with links to the Russian intelligence community before the 2016 United States presidential election. In September 2017, Facebook's chief security officer Alex Stamos wrote the company "found approximately $100,000 in ad spending from June 2015 to May 2017 – associated with roughly 3,000 ads – that was connected to about 470 inauthentic accounts and Pages in violation of our policies. Our analysis suggests these accounts and Pages were affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia." Clinton and Trump campaigns spent $81 million ($ in dollars) on Facebook ads.
The company pledged full cooperation in Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, Mueller's investigation, and provided all information about the Russian advertisements. Members of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, House and United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Senate Intelligence Committees have claimed that Facebook had withheld information that could illuminate the Russian propaganda campaign. Russian operatives have used Facebook polarize the American public discourses, organizing both Black Lives Matter rallies and anti-immigrant rallies on U.S. soil, as well as anti-Clinton rallies and rallies both for and against Donald Trump. Facebook ads have also been used to exploit divisions over black political activism and Muslims by simultaneously sending contrary messages to different users based on their political and demographic characteristics in order to sow discord. Zuckerberg has stated that he regrets having dismissed concerns over Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Russian-American billionaire Yuri Milner, who befriended Zuckerberg
[Kremlin-owned Firms Linked to Major Investments in Twitter and Facebook]
. ''International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – ICIJ''. November 5, 2017. between 2009 and 2011 had Kremlin backing for his investments in Facebook and Twitter.
In January 2019, Facebook removed 289 pages and 75 coordinated accounts linked to the Russian state-owned news agency Sputnik (news agency), Sputnik which had misrepresented themselves as independent news or general interest pages.
Facebook later identified and removed an additional 1,907 accounts linked to Russia found to be engaging in "coordinated inauthentic behaviour". In 2018, a UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee report had criticised Facebook for its reluctance to investigate abuse of its platform by the Russian government, and for downplaying the extent of the problem, referring to the company as 'digital gangsters'.
"Democracy is at risk from the malicious and relentless targeting of citizens with disinformation and personalised 'dark adverts' from unidentifiable sources, delivered through the major social media platforms we use every day," Damian Collins, DCMS Committee Chair
In February 2019, Glenn Greenwald wrote that a cybersecurity company New Knowledge, which is behind one of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Senate reports on Russian social media election interference, "was caught just six weeks ago engaging in a massive scam to create fictitious Russian troll accounts on Facebook and Twitter in order to claim that the Kremlin was working to defeat Democratic Senate nominee Doug Jones (politician), Doug Jones in Alabama. ''The New York Times'', when exposing the scam, quoted a New Knowledge report that boasted of its fabrications..."
Anti-Rohingya propaganda
In 2018, Facebook took down 536 Facebook pages, 17 Facebook groups, 175 Facebook accounts, and 16 Instagram accounts linked to the Myanmar military. Collectively these were followed by over 10 million people. ''The New York Times'' reported that:
Anti-Muslim propaganda and Hindu nationalism in India
A 2019 book titled ''The Real Face of Facebook in India'', co-authored by the journalists Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Cyril Sam, alleged that Facebook helped enable and benefited from the rise of
Narendra Modi
Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...
's Hindu nationalism, Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
.
Ankhi Das, Facebook's policy director for India and South and Central Asia, apologized publicly in August 2020 for sharing a Facebook post that called Muslims in India a "degenerate community". She said she shared the post "to reflect my deep belief in celebrating feminism and civic participation". She is reported to have prevented action by Facebook against anti-Muslim content
and supported the BJP in internal Facebook messages.
In 2020, Facebook executives overrode their employees' recommendations that the BJP politician T. Raja Singh should be banned from the site for Hate speech laws in India, hate speech and rhetoric that could lead to violence. Singh had said on Facebook that Rohingya people, Rohingya Muslim immigrants should be shot and had threatened to destroy mosques. Current and former Facebook employees told ''The Wall Street Journal'' that the decision was part of a pattern of favoritism by Facebook toward the BJP as it seeks more business in India.
Facebook also took no action after BJP politicians made posts accusing Muslims of intentionally spreading COVID-19 pandemic in India, COVID-19, an employee said.
On August 31, 2020, the Delhi Legislative Assembly, Delhi Assembly began investigating whether Facebook bore blame for the 2020 Delhi riots, 2020 religious riots in the city, claiming it had found Facebook "prima facie guilty of a role in the violence". On September 12, 2020, a Delhi Assembly committee said in a statement that it had asked Facebook India head Ajit Mohan to appear before it on September 15, leading to Facebook objecting and moving the Supreme Court of India against the decision. On September 15, Facebook skipped the Delhi Assembly panel hearing. On September 20, the Delhi Assembly panel issued a new notice asking Facebook to appear before it on September 23. On September 22, Facebook India vice-president and managing director Ajit Mohan moved the Supreme Court against the summons of the Delhi Assembly Committee. On September 23, the Supreme Court granted him relief and ordered a stay to the summons, with the Central government later backing the decision. A former Facebook employee told a Delhi Assembly panel on November 13 that the violence could have been 'easily averted' if the social media giant had acted in a 'proactive and prompt manner'. On December 3, the Delhi Assembly moved the Supreme Court for intervention in the case. On February 4, 2021, the Delhi Assembly panel issued a fresh notice to Facebook India to testify on the riots, avoiding specific notice to Mohan, by asking a senior, responsible officer from the company to appear before the panel. The Union government submitted in the Supreme Court that Facebook could not be made accountable before any state assembly and the committee formed was unconstitutional. On February 24, Mohan challenged summons issued by the Delhi assembly for failing to appear before it as a witness in connection with the 2020 riots in the Supreme Court, saying that the 'right to silence' is a virtue in present 'noisy times' and the legislature had no authority to examine him in a law and order case. The Supreme Court reserved its judgment for the case. On July 8, the Supreme Court refused to quash the summons and asked Facebook asked to appear before the Delhi assembly panel.
Company governance
Early Facebook investor and former Zuckerberg mentor Roger McNamee described Facebook as having "the most centralized decision-making structure I have ever encountered in a large company." Nathan Schneider, a professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder argued for transforming Facebook into a platform cooperative owned and governed by the users.
Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes states that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has too much power, that the company is now a monopoly, and that, as a result, it should be split into multiple smaller companies. Hughes called for the breakup of Facebook in an op-ed on ''The New York Times''. Hughes says he's concerned that Zuckerberg has surrounded himself with a team that doesn't challenge him and that as a result, it's the U.S. government's job to hold him accountable and curb his "unchecked power." Hughes also said that "Mark's power is unprecedented and un-American." Several U.S. politicians agree with Hughes. EU Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager has stated that splitting Facebook should only be done as "a remedy of the very last resort", and that splitting Facebook would not solve Facebook's underlying problems.
Litigation
The company has been subject to repeated litigation. Its most prominent case addressed allegations that Zuckerberg broke an oral contract with
Cameron Winklevoss,
Tyler Winklevoss
Tyler Howard Winklevoss (born August 21, 1981) is an American investor, founder of Winklevoss Capital Management and Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, and Olympic rower. Winklevoss co-founded HarvardConnection (later renamed ConnectU) along with hi ...
, and
Divya Narendra
Divya Narendra (; born March 18, 1982) is an American businessman. He is the CEO and co-founder of SumZero along with Harvard classmate Aalap Mahadevia. He also co-founded HarvardConnection (later renamed ConnectU) with Harvard University classma ...
to build the ConnectU, then-named "HarvardConnection" social network in 2004.
On March 6, 2018, BlackBerry Limited, BlackBerry sued Facebook and its Instagram and WhatsApp subdivision for ripping off key features of its messaging app.
In October 2018, a Texan woman sued Facebook, claiming she had been recruited into the sex trade at the age of 15 by a man who "friended" her on the social media network. Facebook responded that it works both internally and externally to ban sex traffickers.
In 2019, British solicitors representing a Almondbury Community School bullying incident, bullied Syrian schoolboy, sued Facebook over Almondbury Community School bullying incident#False claims, false claims. They claimed that Facebook protected prominent figures from scrutiny instead of removing content that violates its rules and that the special treatment was financially driven.
The Federal Trade Commission and a coalition of New York state and 47 other state and regional governments filed separate suits against Facebook on December 9, 2020, seeking antitrust action based on its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsUp among other companies, calling these practices as anticompetitive. The suits also assert that in acquiring these products, they weakened their privacy measures for their users. The suits, besides other fines, seek to unwind the acquisitions from Facebook.
On January 6, 2022, France's data privacy regulatory body CNIL fined Facebook a 60 million euros for not allowing its internet users an easy refusal of HTTP cookie, cookies along with
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
.
Minors exposed to sexual content on VR apps
In February 2022, a BBC News researcher posing as a 13-year-old girl witnessed grooming, sexual material, racist insults and a rape threat on the VRChat app. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children head of online child safety policy Andy Burrows added the investigation had found "a toxic combination of risks". The BBC researcher downloaded VRChat from an app store on Facebook's Meta Quest headset, with no age verification checks – the only requirement being a Facebook account. The BBC News researcher created a fake profile to set up her account – and her real identity was not checked. While Oculus has a form where users can report abuse, the Center for Countering Digital Hate claims Meta rarely takes them seriously, reporting 100 policy violations on Oculus, they did not receive a response. Imran Ahmed, the charity’s chief executive, branded it "a cesspit of hate, pornography and child grooming."
Impact
Scope
A commentator in ''The Washington Post'' noted that Facebook constitutes a "massive depository of information that documents both our reactions to events and our evolving customs with a scope and immediacy of which earlier historians could only dream".
Especially for anthropologists, social researchers, and social historians—and subject to proper preservation and curation—the website "will preserve images of our lives that are vastly crisper and more nuanced than any ancestry record in existence".
Economy
Economists have noted that Facebook offers many non-rivalrous services that benefit as many users as are interested without forcing users to compete with each other. By contrast, most goods are available to a limited number of users. E.g., if one user buys a phone, no other user can buy that phone. Three areas add the most economic impact: platform competition, the market place and user behavior data.
Facebook began to reduce its carbon impact after Greenpeace attacked it for its long-term reliance on coal and resulting carbon footprint. In 2021 Facebook announced that their global operations are supported by 100 percent renewable energy and they have reached net zero emissions, a goal set in 2018.
Facebook provides a development platform for many social-network game, social gaming, communication, feedback, review, and other applications related to online activities. This platform spawned many businesses and added thousands of jobs to the global economy. Zynga Inc., a leader in social gaming, is an example of such a business. An Econometrics, econometric analysis found that Facebook's app development platform added more than 182,000 jobs in the U.S. economy in 2011. The total economic value of the added employment was about $12 billion ($ in dollars).
Society
Facebook was one of the first large-scale social networks. In ''The Facebook Effect'', David Kirkpatrick stated that Facebook's structure makes it difficult to replace, because of its "network effects". As of 2016, it is estimated that 44 percent of the US population gets news through Facebook.
Mental and emotional health
Studies have associated social networks with positive and negative impacts on emotional health.
Studies have associated Facebook with feelings of envy, often triggered by vacation and holiday photos. Other triggers include posts by friends about family happiness and images of physical beauty—such feelings leave people dissatisfied with their own lives. A joint study by two German universities discovered that one out of three people were more dissatisfied with their lives after visiting Facebook,
and another study by Utah Valley University found that college students felt worse about themselves following an increase in time on Facebook.
Professor Larry D. Rosen stated that teenagers on Facebook exhibit more narcissistic tendencies, while young adults show signs of antisocial behavior, mania and aggressiveness.
Positive effects include signs of "virtual empathy" with online friends and helping introverted persons learn social skills. A 2020 experimental study in the ''American Economic Review'' found that deactivating Facebook led to increased subjective well-being. In a blog post in December 2017, the company highlighted research that has shown "passively consuming" the
News Feed
On the World Wide Web, a web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors ''syndicate'' a web feed, thereby allowing users to ''subscribe'' a channel to it by adding the feed ...
, as in reading but not interacting, left users with negative feelings, whereas interacting with messages pointed to improvements in well-being.
Politics
In February 2008, a Facebook group called "One Million Voices Against FARC" organized an event in which hundreds of thousands of Colombians marched in protest against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). In August 2010, one of
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
's official government websites and the country's official news agency, Uriminzokkiri, joined Facebook.
![2011 Egyptian protests Facebook & jan25 card](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/2011_Egyptian_protests_Facebook_%26_jan25_card.jpg)
During the Arab Spring many journalists claimed that Facebook played a major role in the 2011 Egyptian revolution. On January 14, the Facebook page of "We are all Khaled Said" was started by Wael Ghoniem to invite the Egyptian people to "peaceful demonstrations" on January 25. According to Mashable, in Tunisia and Egypt, Facebook became the primary tool for connecting protesters and led the Egyptian government to ban Facebook, Twitter and other websites on January 26 then ban all mobile and Internet connections for all of Egypt on January 28. After 18 days, the uprising forced President Hosni Mubarak to resign.
In Bahraini uprising of 2011, a Bahraini uprising that started on February 14, 2011, Facebook was utilized by the Bahraini regime and regime loyalists to identify, capture and prosecute citizens involved in the protests. A 20-year-old woman named Ayat Al-Qurmezi, Ayat Al Qurmezi was identified as a protester using Facebook and imprisoned.
In 2011, Facebook filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to form a political action committee under the name ''FB PAC''. In an email to ''The Hill (newspaper), The Hill'', a spokesman for Facebook said "Facebook Political Action Committee will give our employees a way to make their voice heard in the political process by supporting candidates who share our goals of promoting the value of innovation to our economy while giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected."
During the Syrian civil war, the People's Protection Units, YPG, a libertarian army for Rojava recruited westerners through Facebook in its fight against ISIL. Dozens joined its ranks. The Facebook page's name "The Lions of Rojava" comes from a Kurdish saying which translates as "A lion is a lion, whether it's a female or a male", reflecting the organization's feminist ideology.
In recent years, Facebook's
News Feed
On the World Wide Web, a web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors ''syndicate'' a web feed, thereby allowing users to ''subscribe'' a channel to it by adding the feed ...
algorithms have been identified as a cause of political polarization, for which it has been criticized. It has likewise been accused of amplifying the reach of '
fake news' and extreme viewpoints, as when it may have enabled conditions which led to the 2015 Rohingya refugee crisis.
Facebook first played a role in the American political process in January 2008, shortly before the New Hampshire primary. Facebook teamed up with American Broadcasting Company, ABC and Saint Anselm College to allow users to give live feedback about the "back to back" January 5 Republican and Democratic debates. Facebook users took part in debate groups on specific topics, voter registration and message questions.
Over a million people installed the Facebook application "US Politics on Facebook" in order to take part which measured responses to specific comments made by the debating candidates. A poll by CBS News, UWIRE and ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' claimed to illustrate how the "Facebook effect" had affected youthful voters, increasing voting rates, support of political candidates, and general involvement.
The new social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, connected hundreds of millions of people. By 2008, politicians and interest groups were experimenting with systematic use of social media to spread their message. By the 2016 election, political advertising to specific groups had become normalized. Facebook offered the most sophisticated targeting and analytics platform. ProPublica noted that their system enabled advertisers to direct their pitches to almost 2,300 people who expressed interest in the topics of "Jew hater," "How to burn Jews," or, "History of 'why Jews ruin the world".
Facebook has used several initiatives to encourage its users to register to vote and vote. An experiment in 2012 involved showing Facebook users pictures of their friends who reported that they had voted; users who were shown the pictures were about 2% more likely to report that they had also voted compared to the control group, which was not encouraged to vote. In 2020, Facebook announced the goal of helping four million voters register in the US, saying that it had registered 2.5 million by September.
The
Cambridge Analytica data scandal
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge became ...
offered another example of the perceived attempt to influence elections. ''The Guardian'' claimed that Facebook knew about the security breach for two years, but did nothing to stop it until it became public.
Facebook banned political ads to prevent the manipulation of voters in the US's November's election. Industry experts suggested that there are several other ways for misinformation to reach voters on social media platforms and blocking political ads will not serve as a proven solution to the problem.
India
Ahead of the 2019 general elections in India, Facebook has removed 103 pages, groups and accounts on Facebook and Instagram platforms originating from Pakistan. Facebook said its investigation found a Pakistani military link, along with a mix of real accounts of ISPR employees, and a network of fake accounts created by them that have been operating military fan pages, general interest pages but were posting content about Indian politics while trying to conceal their identity. Owing to the same reasons, Facebook also removed 687 pages and accounts of Congress because of coordinated inauthentic behavior on the platform.
Culture
![SF Pride 2014 - Stierch 7](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/SF_Pride_2014_-_Stierch_7.jpg)
Facebook and Zuckerberg have been the subject of music, books, film and television. The 2010 film ''The Social Network'', directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, stars Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg and went on to win three Academy Awards and four Golden Globes.
In 2008, Collins English Dictionary declared "Facebook" as its new Word of the Year. In December 2009, the New Oxford American Dictionary declared its word of the year to be the verb "Friending and following, unfriend", defined as "To remove someone as a 'List of Facebook features, friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook".
Internet.org
In August 2013, Facebook founded Internet.org in collaboration with six other technology companies to plan and help build affordable Internet access for underdeveloped and developing countries. The service, called Free Basics, includes various low-bandwidth applications such as AccuWeather, BabyCenter, BBC News, ESPN, and Bing (search engine), Bing.
There was severe opposition to Internet.org in India, where the service started in partnership with Reliance Communications in 2015 was banned a year later by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). In 2018, Zuckerberg claimed that "Internet.org efforts have helped almost 100 million people get access to the internet who may not have had it otherwise."
Environment
Facebook announced in 2021 that it will make an effort to stop disinformation about climate change. The company will use George Mason University, Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the University of Cambridge as sources of information. The company will expand its information hub on climate to 16 countries. Users in others countries will be directed to the site of the United Nations Environment Programme for information.
See also
* Ambient awareness
* Corporation tax in the Republic of Ireland
* Cyberstalking
* DARPA LifeLog
* Double Irish tax scheme
* Facebook malware
* Six degrees of separation
* Social graph
* Timeline of social media
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*
{{Authority control
Facebook,
2004 establishments in Massachusetts
American social networking websites
American websites
Android (operating system) software
BlackBerry software
Blog hosting services
Companies' terms of service
Companies based in Menlo Park, California
English-language websites
Image-sharing websites
Internet properties established in 2004
IOS software
Meta Platforms applications
Multilingual websites
Online video game services
Products introduced in 2004
Proprietary cross-platform software
Social information processing
Social media
Social planning websites
Student culture
Symbian software
Universal Windows Platform apps
Video game streaming services
Websites which mirror Wikipedia