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Facebook, Inc.
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Facebook is an American online
social media and
social networking service company based in
Menlo Park, California. Its website was launched on February 4, 2004, by
Mark Zuckerberg, along with fellow
Harvard College students and roommates
Eduardo Saverin,
Andrew McCollum,
Dustin Moskovitz, and
Chris Hughes.
The founders initially limited the website's membership to Harvard students. Later they expanded it to
higher education institutions in the Boston area, the
Ivy League schools, and
Stanford University. Facebook gradually added support for students at various other
universities, and eventually to high school students. Since 2006, anyone
who claims to be at least 13 years old has been allowed to become a
registered user of Facebook, though variations exist in this
requirement, depending on local laws. The name comes from the
face book directories often given to American university students. Facebook held its
initial public offering
(IPO) in February 2012, valuing the company at $104 billion, the
largest valuation to date for a newly listed public company. It began
selling
stock to the public three months later. Facebook makes most of its revenue from
advertisements that appear onscreen.
Facebook can be accessed from a large range of devices with
Internet connectivity, such as
desktop computers,
laptops and
tablet computers, and
smartphones.
After registering, users can create a customized profile indicating
their name, occupation, schools attended and so on. Users can add other
users as
"friends", exchange messages, post status updates, share photos, videos and links, use various
software applications
("apps"), and receive notifications of other users' activity.
Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups organized by
workplace, school, hobbies or other topics, and categorize their friends
into lists such as "People From Work" or "Close Friends". Additionally,
users can report or block unpleasant people.
Facebook has more than
2.2 billion monthly active users as of January 2018.
Its popularity has led to prominent media coverage for the company,
including significant scrutiny over privacy and the psychological
effects it has on users. In recent years, the company has faced intense
pressure over the amount of
fake news,
hate speech and
depictions of violence prevalent on its services, all of which it is attempting to counteract.
History
2003–2006: Thefacebook, Thiel investment, and name change
Zuckerberg wrote a program called "Facemash" in 2003 while attending
Harvard University as a
sophomore (second year student). According to
The Harvard Crimson, the site was comparable to
Hot or Not
and used "photos compiled from the online facebooks of nine Houses,
placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the
"hotter" person".
[6] Facemash attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours online.
[7]
The Facemash site was quickly forwarded to several campus group
list-servers, but was shut down a few days later by the Harvard
administration. Zuckerberg faced expulsion and was charged by the
administration with breach of security, violating
copyrights, and violating individual privacy. Ultimately, the charges were dropped.
[6] Zuckerberg expanded on this initial project that semester by creating a social study tool ahead of an
art history
final exam. He uploaded all art images to a website, each of which was
featured with a corresponding comments section, then shared the site
with his classmates, and people started sharing notes.
[8]
Original layout and name of Thefacebook, 2004
A "
face book" is a student directory featuring photos and basic information.
[7] In 2003, there were no universal online facebooks at Harvard, with only paper sheets distributed
[9] and private online directories.
[6][10] Zuckerberg told the
Crimson
that "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."
[10]
In January 2004, Zuckerberg began writing code for a new website, known
as "TheFacebook", with the inspiration coming from an editorial in the
Crimson
about Facemash, stating that "It is clear that the technology needed to
create a centralized Website is readily available ... the benefits are
many."
[11] On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched "TheFacebook", originally located at thefacebook.com.
[12]
Six days after the site launched, Harvard seniors
Cameron Winklevoss,
Tyler Winklevoss, and
Divya Narendra 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.
[13] The three complained to
The Harvard Crimson and the newspaper began an investigation. They later filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, subsequently settling in 2008
[14] for 1.2 million
shares (worth $300 million at Facebook's
IPO).
[15]
Membership was initially restricted to students of
Harvard College; within the first month, more than half the undergraduates at Harvard were registered on the service.
[16] Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz,
Andrew McCollum, and
Chris Hughes joined Zuckerberg to help manage the growth of the website.
[17] In March 2004, Facebook expanded to the universities of
Columbia,
Stanford, and
Yale.
[18] It later opened to all
Ivy League colleges,
Boston University,
New York University,
MIT,
Washington and gradually most universities in the United States and Canada.
[19][20]
In mid-2004, entrepreneur
Sean Parker—an informal advisor to Zuckerberg—became the company's president.
[21] In June 2004, Facebook moved its operations base to
Palo Alto, California.
[22] It received its first investment later that month from
PayPal co-founder
Peter Thiel.
[23] In 2005, the company dropped "the" from its name after purchasing the
domain name facebook.com for
US$200,000.
[24] The domain facebook.com belonged to AboutFace Corporation before the purchase. This website last appeared on April 8, 2005;
[25] from April 10, 2005, to August 4, 2005, this domain gave a 403 error.
[26]
In May 2005,
Accel Partners invested $12.7 million in Facebook, and
Jim Breyer[27]
added $1 million of his own money. A high-school version of the site
was launched in September 2005, which Zuckerberg called the next logical
step.
[28] (At the time, high-school networks required an invitation to join.)
[29] Facebook also expanded membership eligibility to employees of several companies, including
Apple Inc. and Microsoft.
[30]
2006–2012: Public access, Microsoft alliance and rapid growth
On September 26, 2006, Facebook was opened to everyone at least 13 years old with a valid
email address.
[31][32][33]
In late 2007, Facebook had 100,000 business pages (pages which allowed
companies to promote themselves and attract customers). These started as
group pages, but a new concept called company pages was planned.
[34] Pages began rolling out for businesses in May 2009.
[35]
On October 24, 2007, Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6%
share of Facebook for $240 million, giving Facebook a total implied
value of around $15 billion. Microsoft's purchase included rights to
place international advertisements on the social networking site.
[36][37]
In October 2008, Facebook announced that it would set up its international headquarters in
Dublin, Ireland.
[38] Almost a year later, in September 2009, Facebook said that it had turned cash flow positive for the first time.
[39] A January 2009
Compete.com study ranked Facebook the most used social networking service by worldwide
monthly active users.
[40] Entertainment Weekly
included the site on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list saying, "How
on earth did we stalk our exes, remember our co-workers' birthdays, bug
our friends, and play a rousing game of
Scrabulous before Facebook?"
[41]
Traffic to Facebook increased steadily after 2009. The company announced 500 million users in July 2010,
[42]
and according to its data, half of the site's membership used Facebook
daily, for an average of 34 minutes, while 150 million users accessed
the site by mobile. A company representative called the milestone a
"quiet revolution."
[43] In November 2010, based on
SecondMarket Inc. (an exchange for privately held companies' shares), Facebook's value was $41 billion. The company had slightly surpassed
eBay to become the third largest American web company after
Google and
Amazon.com.
[44][45]
In early 2011, Facebook announced plans to move its headquarters to the former
Sun Microsystems campus in Menlo Park, California.
[46][47]
In March 2011, it was reported that Facebook was removing about 20,000
profiles every day for violations such as spam, graphic content, and
underage use, as part of its efforts to boost
cyber security.
[48] Statistics by
DoubleClick showed that Facebook reached one trillion
page views in the month of June 2011, making it the most visited website tracked by DoubleClick.
[49][50] According to a
Nielsen study, Facebook had in 2011 become the second-most accessed website in the U.S. behind
Google.
[51][52]
2012–2013: IPO, lawsuits and one-billionth user
Facebook eventually filed for an
initial public offering on February 1, 2012.
[53] Facebook
held an initial public offering
on May 17, 2012, negotiating a share price of US$38. The company was
valued at $104 billion, the largest valuation to date for a newly listed
public company.
[54][55][56] Facebook began selling stock to the public and trading on the
NASDAQ on May 18, 2012.
[57] Based on its 2012 income of $5 billion, Facebook joined the
Fortune 500 list for the first time in May 2013, ranked in position 462.
[58]
Facebook filed their S1 document with the
Securities and Exchange Commission on February 1, 2012. The company applied for a $5 billion IPO, one of the biggest offerings in the history of technology.
[59] The IPO raised $16 billion, making it the third-largest in U.S. history.
[60][61]
The shares began trading on May 18; the stock struggled to stay above
the IPO price for most of the day, but set a record for the trading
volume of an IPO (460 million shares).
[62] The first day of trading was marred by technical glitches that prevented orders from going through;
[63][64]
only the technical problems and artificial support from underwriters
prevented the stock price from falling below the IPO price on the day.
[65]
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 devices, and mobile web users.
[66]
Billboard on the
Thomson Reuters building welcomes Facebook to NASDAQ, 2012
On May 22, 2012, the
Yahoo! Finance website reported that Facebook's lead underwriters,
Morgan Stanley (MS),
JP Morgan (JPM), and
Goldman Sachs (GS), cut their earnings forecasts for the company in the middle of the IPO process.
[67] The stock had begun its freefall by this time, closing at 34.03 on May 21 and 31.00 on May 22. A
"circuit breaker" trading curb was used in an attempt to slow down the stock price's decline.
[68] Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman
Mary Schapiro, and
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) Chairman Rick Ketchum, called for a review of the circumstances surrounding the IPO.
[69]
Facebook's IPO was consequently investigated, and was compared to a "
pump and dump" scheme.
[63][67][69][70] A class-action lawsuit was filed in May 2012 because of the trading glitches, which led to botched orders.
[71][72]
Lawsuits were filed, alleging that an underwriter for Morgan Stanley
selectively revealed adjusted earnings estimates to preferred clients.
[73]
The other underwriters (MS, JPM, GS), Facebook's CEO and board, and
NASDAQ also faced litigation after numerous lawsuits were filed, while
SEC and FINRA both launched investigations.
[74] It was believed that adjustments to earnings estimates were
communicated to the underwriters by a Facebook financial officer, who
used the information to cash out on their positions while leaving the
general public with overpriced shares.
[75] By the end of May 2012, Facebook's stock lost over a quarter of its starting value, which led
The Wall Street Journal to label the IPO a "fiasco".
[76]
Zuckerberg announced to the media at the start of October 2012 that
Facebook had passed the monthly active users mark of one billion.
[77] The company's data also revealed 600 million mobile users, 219 billion photo uploads, and 140 billion friend connections.
[78]
2013–2014: Site developments, A4AI and 10th anniversary
On January 15, 2013, Facebook announced
Facebook Graph Search, which provides users with a "precise answer", rather than a link to an answer by leveraging the data present on its site.
[79] Facebook emphasized that the feature would be "privacy-aware",
returning results only from content already shared with the user.
[80] On April 3, 2013, Facebook unveiled
Facebook Home, a user-interface layer for Android devices offering greater integration with the site.
HTC announced the
HTC First, a
smartphone with Home pre-loaded.
[81]
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.
[82]
On April 19, 2013, Facebook officially 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.
[83]
Following a campaign by 100 advocacy groups, Facebook agreed to
update its policy on hate speech. The campaign highlighted content
promoting domestic and sexual violence against women, and used over
57,000 tweets and more than 4,900 emails that caused withdrawal of
advertising from the site by 15 companies, including Nissan UK, House of
Burlesque and Nationwide UK. The social media website initially
responded by stating that "while it may be vulgar and offensive,
distasteful content on its own does not violate our policies".
[84]
It decided to take action on May 29, 2013, after it "become clear that
our systems to identify and remove hate speech have failed to work as
effectively as we would like, particularly around issues of gender-based
hate".
[85]
On June 12, 2013, Facebook announced on its newsroom that it was introducing clickable
hashtags to help users follow trending discussions, or search what others are talking about on a topic.
[86] A July 2013
Wall Street Journal
article identified the Facebook IPO as the cause of a change in the
U.S.' national economic statistics, as the local government area of the
company's headquarters,
San Mateo County,
California, became the top wage-earning county in the country after the
fourth quarter of 2012. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that
the average weekly wage in the county was
US$3,240,
107% higher than the previous year. It noted the wages were "the
equivalent of $168,000 a year, and more than 50% higher than the
next-highest county,
New York County (better known as
Manhattan), at $2,107 a week, or roughly $110,000 a year."
[87]
Facebook was blocked by the Chinese government in 2009.
[88] In September 2013, the
South China Morning Post announced that the block would lifted in the
Shanghai Free Trade Zone "to welcome foreign companies to invest and to let foreigners live and work happily in the free-trade zone".
[89][90] However, a few days later, the
People's Daily, the official newspaper of the
Communist Party of China, dismissed the earlier report, reiterating the block on Facebook.
[91]
Facebook was announced as a member of
The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) in October 2013, when the A4AI was launched. The A4AI is a coalition of public and private organizations that includes
Google,
Intel and Microsoft. Led by
Sir Tim Berners-Lee,
the A4AI seeks to make Internet access more affordable so that access
is broadened in the developing world, where only 31% of people are
online. Google will help to decrease Internet access prices so that they
fall below the UN Broadband Commission's worldwide target of 5% of
monthly income.
[92] A
Reuters report, published on December 11, 2013, stated that
Standard & Poor's announced the placement of Facebook on its
S&P 500 index "after the close of trading on December 20".
[93] Facebook announced Q4 2013 earnings of $523 million (20 cents per share), an increase of $64 million from the previous year,
[94] as well as 945 million mobile users.
In 2014, Facebook bought
Oculus VR for $2.3 billion in stock and cash,
[95] which released its first consumer virtual reality headset in 2016.
The company celebrated its 10th anniversary during the week of February 3, 2014.
[96] In each of the first three months of 2014, over one billion users logged into their Facebook account on a mobile device.
[97]
As part of the company's second quarter results, Facebook announced in
late July 2014 that mobile accounted for 62% of its advertising revenue,
which is an increase of 21% from the previous year.
[98] By September 2014, Facebook's market capitalization had risen to over $200 billion.
[99][100][101]
Alongside other American technology figures like
Jeff Bezos and
Tim Cook,
Zuckerberg hosted visiting Chinese politician Lu Wei, known as the
"Internet czar" for his influence in the enforcement of China's online
policy, at Facebook's headquarters on December 8, 2014. The meeting
occurred after Zuckerberg participated in a Q&A session at Tsinghua
University in Beijing, China, on October 23, 2014, where he attempted to
converse in Mandarin—although Facebook is banned in China, Zuckerberg
is highly regarded among the people and was at the university to help
fuel the nation's burgeoning entrepreneur sector.
[102] A book of Chinese president
Xi Jinping
found on Zuckerberg's office desk attracted a great deal of attention
in the media, after the Facebook founder explained to Lu, "I want them
[Facebook staff] to understand socialism with Chinese characteristics."
[103]
2015–present: Combating fake news and other ventures
As of January 21, 2015, Facebook's algorithm is programmed to filter
out false or misleading content, such as fake news stories and hoaxes,
and will be supported by users who select the option to flag a story as
"purposefully fake or deceitful news". According to Reuters, such
content is "being spread like a wildfire" on the social media platform.
Facebook maintained that "satirical" content, "intended to be humorous,
or content that is clearly labeled as satire", will be taken into
account and should not be intercepted.
[104] The algorithm, however, has been accused of maintaining a "
filter bubble", where both material the user disagrees with
[105] and posts with a low level of likes, will also not be seen.
[106] In November 2015, Zuckerberg prolonged period of paternity leave from 4 weeks to 4 months.
[107]
On April 12, 2016, Zuckerberg revealed a decade-long plan for
Facebook in a keynote address. His speech outlined his vision, which
rested on three main pillars: artificial intelligence, increased
connectivity around the world and virtual and augmented reality.
[108]
In June 2016 Facebook announced Deep Text, a natural language
processing AI which will learn user intent and context in 20 languages.
[109]
In July 2016, a
US$1 billion lawsuit was filed against the company alleging that it permitted the
Hamas group to use it to perform assaults that ended the lives of four people.
[110] Facebook released the blueprints of Surround 360 camera on
GitHub under
open-source license.
[111] In September 2016, it won an
Emmy for its Visual animated short "Henry".
[112]
In October 2016, Facebook announced a fee-based communications tool called
Workplace
that aims to "connect everyone" while at work. Users can create
profiles, see updates from co-workers on their news feed, stream live
video and participate in secure group chats.
[113] Facebook annually has an Oculus Connect conference.
[114]
Following the 2016 presidential election, Facebook announced that it
would further combat the spread of fake news by using fact checkers from
sites like
FactCheck.org and
Associated Press (AP), making reporting hoaxes easier through crowdsourcing, and disrupting financial incentives for spammers.
[115]
On January 17, 2017, Facebook COO
Sheryl Sandberg planning to open Station F, a startup incubator campus in Paris, France.
[116]
On a six-monthly cycle, Facebook will work with ten to 15 data-driven
startups in the location to help them develop their businesses.
[117]
On April 18, 2017, Facebook announced the beta launch of Facebook
Spaces at Facebook's annual F8 developer conference in San Francisco.
[118]
Facebook Spaces, a virtual reality app version of Facebook for the
Facebook-owned 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 also access
their own photos and videos, and any media shared on their Facebook
newsfeed.
[119] The beta app is currently available in the Oculus Store.
[120]
In September 2017, Facebook announced it would be spending up to US$1 billion on original shows for its Facebook Watch platform.
[121] On October 16, 2017, Facebook acquired the anonymous compliment social media app
tbh for an undisclosed amount, announcing intentions to leave the app independent, similar to Instagram and WhatsApp.
[122][123][124][125] In May 2018, at its annual
F8 developers conference in
San Jose, California, Facebook announced it would make its own dating service. Shares in the dating business
Match Group fell by 22% following the announcement.
[126]
Corporate affairs
Management
Facebook's key management personnel consists of
Mark Zuckerberg (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer),
Sheryl Sandberg (Chief Operating Officer),
David Wehner (Chief Financial Officer),
Mike Schroepfer (Chief Technology Officer), and
Chris Cox (Chief Product Officer).
[127] As of June 30, 2017, Facebook has 20,658 employees.
[128]
Revenue
Most of Facebook's revenue comes from advertising.
[139][140] Facebook generally has a lower
clickthrough rate
(CTR) for advertisements than most major websites. According to
BusinessWeek.com, banner advertisements on Facebook have generally
received one-fifth the number of clicks compared to those on the Web as a
whole,
[141] although specific comparisons can reveal a much larger disparity. For example, while
Google
users click on the first advertisement for search results an average of
8% of the time (80,000 clicks for every one million searches),
[142] Facebook's users click on advertisements an average of 0.04% of the time (400 clicks for every one million pages).
[143] Successful
advertising campaigns on the site can have clickthrough rates as low as 0.05% to 0.04%, and CTR for ads tend to fall within two weeks.
[144]
The cause of Facebook's low CTR has been attributed to younger users enabling
ad blocking
software and their adeptness at ignoring advertising messages, as well
as the site's primary purpose being social communication rather than
content viewing.
[145]
According to digital consultancy iStrategy Labs in mid-January 2014,
three million fewer users aged between 13 and 17 years were present on
Facebook's Social Advertising platform compared to 2011.
[146] However,
Time writer and reporter Christopher Matthews stated in the wake of the iStrategy Labs results:
A big part of Facebook's pitch is that it has so much information
about its users that it can more effectively target ads to those who
will be responsive to the content. If Facebook can prove that theory to
be true, then it may not worry so much about losing its cool cachet.[147][148]
A portion of Facebook revenue comes from the "firehose" access, bulk access to the social media data sold to the third parties.
[149][150]
In December 2014, a report from Frank N. Magid and Associates found
that the percentage of teens aged 13 to 17 who used Facebook fell to 88%
in 2014, down from 94% in 2013 and 95% in 2012.
[151]
Zuckerberg, alongside other Facebook executives, have questioned the
data in such reports; although, a former Facebook senior employee has
commented: "Mark [Zuckerberg] is very willing to recognize the strengths
in other products and the flaws in Facebook."
[152]
On pages for brands and products, however, some companies have reported CTR as high as 6.49% for Wall posts.
[153]
A study found that, for video advertisements on Facebook, over 40% of
users who viewed the videos viewed the entire video, while the industry
average was 25% for in-banner video ads.
[154]
Chart of Facebook's stock
The company released its own set of revenue data at the end of
January 2014 and claimed: Revenues of US$2.59 billion were generated for
the three months ending December 31, 2013; earnings per share were 31
cents; revenues of US$7.87 billion were made for the entirety of 2013;
and Facebook's annual profit for 2013 was US$1.5 billion. During the
same time, independent market research firm
eMarketer
released data in which Facebook accounted for 5.7 per cent of all
global digital ad revenues in 2013 (Google's share was 32.4 per cent).
[96]
Revenue for the June 2014 quarter rose to $2.68 billion, an increase of
67 per cent over the second quarter of 2013. Mobile advertising revenue
accounted for around 62 per cent of advertising revenue, an increase of
approximately 41 per cent over the comparable quarter of the previous
year. In December 2017, the company announced that it would no longer
route all of its revenues through its Ireland headquarters, but rather
record revenue locally in each of the countries where it is generated.
[155][156]
Number of advertisers
In February 2015, Facebook announced that it had reached two million
active advertisers with most of the gain coming from small businesses.
An active advertiser is an advertiser that has advertised on the
Facebook platform in the last 28 days.
[157] In March 2016, Facebook announced that it reached three million active advertisers with more than 70% from outside the US.
[158]
Mergers and acquisitions
On November 15, 2010, Facebook announced it had acquired the domain name fb.com from the
American Farm Bureau Federation
for an undisclosed amount. On January 11, 2011, the Farm Bureau
disclosed $8.5 million in "domain sales income", making the acquisition
of FB.com one of the ten highest domain sales in history.
[159]
In February 2014, Facebook announced that it would be buying mobile messaging company
WhatsApp for US$19 billion in cash and stock.
[160][161]
In November 2016 Facebook acquired CrowdTangle, a social analytics
company that tracks how content spreads online. CrowdTangle confirmed
the acquisition in a message on their website, but the company has not
disclosed the financial terms of the deal.
[162]
Offices
In early 2011, Facebook announced plans to move to its new headquarters, the former Sun Microsystems campus in
Menlo Park.
[163]
All users outside of the US and Canada have a contract with Facebook's
Irish subsidiary "Facebook Ireland Limited". This allows Facebook to
avoid US taxes for all users in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and
South America. Facebook is making use of the
Double Irish arrangement which allows it to pay just about 2–3% corporation tax on all international revenue.
[164] In 2010, Facebook opened its fourth office, in
Hyderabad[165][166][167] and the first in
Asia.
[168]
Facebook, which in 2010 had more than 750 million active users globally including over 23 million in India, announced that its
Hyderabad
center would house online advertising and developer support teams and
provide round-the-clock, multilingual support to the social networking
site's users and advertisers globally.
[169] With this, Facebook joins other giants like
Google,
Microsoft,
Oracle,
Dell,
IBM and Computer Associates that have already set up shop.
[170] In Hyderabad, it is registered as 'Facebook India Online Services Pvt Ltd'.
[171][172][173]
Though Facebook did not specify its India investment or hiring
figures, it said recruitment had already begun for a director of
operations and other key positions at Hyderabad,
[174] which would supplement its operations in
California,
Dublin in
Ireland as well as at
Austin,
Texas. A custom-built
data center with substantially reduced ("38% less")
power consumption compared to existing Facebook data centers opened in April 2011 in
Prineville, Oregon.
[175] In April 2012, Facebook opened a second data center in
Forest City, North Carolina, US.
[176] In June 2013, Facebook opened a third data center in
Luleå, Sweden. In November 2014, Facebook opened a fourth data center in
Altoona, Iowa, US.
[177] In September 2016, Facebook announced a coming datacenter in
Los Lunas, New Mexico in 2018 powered by renewable energy.
[178][179]
On October 1, 2012, CEO Zuckerberg visited Moscow to stimulate social
media innovation in Russia and to boost Facebook's position in the
Russian market.
[180] Russia's communications minister tweeted that Prime Minister
Dmitry Medvedev
urged the social media giant's founder to abandon plans to lure away
Russian programmers and instead consider opening a research center in
Moscow. Facebook has roughly 9 million users in Russia, while
domestic analogue VK has around 34 million.
[181]
The establishment of a woodworking facility on the Menlo Park campus
was announced at the end of August 2013. The facility, opened in June
2013, provides equipment, safety courses and a woodworking learning
course. Employees are required to purchase materials at the in-house
store. A Facebook spokesperson explained that the intention of setting
up the facility is to encourage employees to think in an innovative
manner because of the different environment; it also serves as an
attractive perk for prospective employees.
[182]
On November 21, 2016 Facebook announced that it will open its new
London headquarters next year and create another 500 jobs in the UK. New
headquarters will be in Fitzrovia in central London at a site that is
currently undergoing redevelopment. Facebook's London-based executive,
Nicola Mendelsohn said "The UK remains one of the best places to be a tech company".
[183] In August 2017, Facebook announced the opening of a new office in
Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2018. Facebook will occupy the top three floors of 100 Binney St in
Kendall Square and share the building with the pharmaceutical employees from
Bristol-Myers Squibb.
The offices will be home to Facebook's "Connectivity Lab", a group
focused on bringing Internet access and technology to 4 billion people
who do not have access to the Internet.
[184]
-
Inside the Facebook headquarters in 2014
Tax affairs
Like Apple, Google and Microsoft (and other US technology
multinationals), Facebook has an office in Ireland (Facebook Ireland),
with circa 2,000 employees,
[185]
through which it manages 1.9bn global Facebook accounts (86% of all
Facebook accounts), representing all of its non-US accounts (i.e. not
just European).
[186][187] Facebook Ireland is the 9th largest Irish company (by 2017 revenues, see
here).
Facebook Ireland uses a basic
double Irish tax structure
[188] to pay effective tax rates of <1 business="" class="reference" id="cite_ref-189" irish="" on="" sup="" the="">
[189]1>
[190] which is a similar outcome for Apple and Google in Ireland.
[191][192]
Under pressure from the EU,
[193] the Irish Government closed the
double Irish to new schemes in 2015, however, existing users, like Facebook, have until 2020 to find alternatives.
[194] On foot of their
EU Commission €13bn tax fine (for period 2004-2014, the largest tax fine in history
[195]), Apple has restructured their
double Irish structure (Apple Sales International), into an Irish
capital allowances for intangibles tax scheme (see
leprechaun economics). However Microsoft has opted for a variation of the
double Irish called the
single malt, which relies on specific wording in the Ireland-Malta tax treaty.
[196]
To create a
double Irish tax structure, a large quantum of
intellectual property (or "IP") must be owned in a low-tax location, which the
double Irish will then charge out to all non-US locations as a
royalty payment
(to relocate profits to the low-tax location). The US IRS is
challenging Facebook Inc. on the valuation it used when it transferred
IP from the US to Facebook Ireland in 2010 (which Facebook Ireland then
revalued higher before charging out), as it was building it's
double Irish.
[197][198] The case is ongoing and the IRS have noted that the potential quantum of fine is $3–5bn.
[199]
The US
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017
changes Facebook's global tax calculations. Facebook Ireland will now
be subject to the US GILTI tax of 10.5% on global intangible profits
(i.e. Irish profits). On the basis that Facebook Ireland is paying some
tax, the effective minimum US tax for Facebook Ireland will be circa
11%. In contrast, Facebook Inc. would incur a special IP tax rate of
13.125% (the FDII rate) if it's Irish business was relocated back to the
US. Higher tax relief in the US (21% vs. Irish at the GILTI rate) and
accelerated capital expensing, would make this effective US rate circa
12%.
[200][201][202]
The closeness of the net effective tax costs of having Facebook
Ireland, in Ireland, or relocated back to the US, was shown when Reuters
revealed that Facebook Ireland is going to move 1.5bn non-EU accounts
back to the US to limit exposure to the EU Commission's May 2018
GDPR.
[187]
To irrevocably limit financial exposure to the EU's GDPR, these 1.5bn
non-EU accounts (and their commercial processing) must be moved to the
US. Facebook said that this move "did not carry tax implications", a
statement which was mistakenly interpreted as implying that processing
would stay in Ireland.
[203]
Website
Profile shown on Thefacebook in 2005
Previous Facebook logo in use from August 23, 2005 until July 1, 2015
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; he
explained in 2010: "blue is the richest color for me—I can see all of
blue."
[204][205] Facebook is built in
PHP which is compiled with
HipHop for PHP, a "source code transformer" built by Facebook engineers that turns PHP into
C++.
[206] The deployment of HipHop reportedly reduced average CPU consumption on Facebook servers by 50%.
[207]
Facebook is developed as one monolithic application. According to an
interview in 2012 with Chuck Rossi, a build engineer at Facebook,
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 and new changes to Facebook are rolled out daily.
[207]
Facebook uses a combination platform based on
HBase
to store data across distributed machines. Using a tailing
architecture, new events are stored in log files, and the logs are
tailed. The system rolls these events up and writes them into 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 (developed by Facebook).
[208]
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 (thus the name). Ptail data are separated out
into three streams so they can eventually be sent to their own clusters
in different
data centers
(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 will
generate a lot of impressions and news feed impressions which will cause
huge data skews). Batches are taken every 1.5 seconds, limited by
memory used when creating a
hash table.
[208]
After this, data is output in PHP format (compiled with
HipHop for PHP). The backend is written in
Java
and Thrift is used as the messaging format so PHP programs can query
Java services. Caching solutions are used to make the web pages display
more quickly. The more and longer data is cached the less realtime it
is. The data is then sent to
MapReduce
servers so it can be queried via Hive. This also serves as a backup
plan as the data can be recovered from Hive. Raw logs are removed after a
period of time.
[208]
On March 20, 2014, Facebook announced a new open-source programming language called
Hack. Before public release, a large portion of Facebook was already running and "battle tested" using the new language.
[209]
Facebook uses the Momentum platform from Message Systems to deliver
the enormous volume of emails it sends to its users every day.
[210]
History
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.
[211]
After initially giving users a choice to switch, Facebook began
migrating all users to the new version starting in September 2008.
[212] On December 11, 2008, it was announced that Facebook was testing a simpler signup process.
[213]
User profile/personal timeline
Facebook login/signup screen
Each registered user on Facebook gets their own personal profile that shows their posts and content.
[214]
The format of individual user pages was revamped in September 2011 and
became known as "Timeline", a chronological feed of a user's stories,
[215][216] including status updates, photos, interactions with apps, and events.
[217] The new layout also let users add a "cover photo", a large header image at the top of the Timeline.
[217] Along with the new layout, users were also given more privacy settings to control the content on the Timeline.
[217] In 2007, Facebook launched Facebook Pages for brands and celebrities to interact with their fanbase,
[218][219] with more 100,000 Pages launched in November.
[220] In June 2009, Facebook introduced a "Usernames" feature, allowing users to choose a unique nickname used in the
URL for their personal profile, for easier sharing.
[221][222]
In February 2014, Facebook expanded the options for a user's 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.
[223][224][225]
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.
[226][227]
News Feed
On September 6, 2006,
News Feed
was announced, which appears on every user's homepage and highlights
information including profile changes, upcoming events, and birthdays of
the user's friends.
[228]
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.
[229]
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).
[230]
In response, Zuckerberg issued an apology for the site's failure to
include appropriate customizable privacy features. Since then, users
have been able to control 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.
[231]
On February 23, 2010, Facebook was granted a patent
[232]
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 same
activity of another user.
[233]
The patent may encourage Facebook to pursue action against websites
that violate its patent, which may potentially include websites such as
Twitter.
[234] One of the most popular applications on Facebook is the
Photos application, where users can upload albums and photos.
[235] Facebook allows users to upload an unlimited number of photos, compared with other
image hosting services such as
Photobucket and
Flickr,
which apply limits to the number of photos that a user is allowed to
upload. During the first years, Facebook users were limited to 60 photos
per album. As of May 2009, this limit has been increased to 200 photos
per album.
[236][237][238][239]
Privacy settings can be set for individual albums, limiting the
groups of users that can see an album. For example, the privacy of an
album can be set so that only the user's friends can see the album,
while the privacy of another album can be set so that all Facebook users
can see it. Another feature of the Photos application is the ability to
"
tag",
or label, users in a photo. For instance, if a photo contains a user's
friend, then the user can tag the friend in the photo. This sends a
notification to the friend that she has been tagged, and provides a link
to see the photo.
[240]
On June 7, 2012, Facebook launched its App Center to its users. It will
help the users in finding games and other applications with ease.
[241] Since the launch of the App Center, Facebook has seen 150M monthly users with 2.4 times the installation of apps.
[242] The sorting and display of stories in a user's News Feed is governed by the
EdgeRank algorithm.
[243]
On May 13, 2015, Facebook in association with major news portals
launched a program "Instant Articles" to provide rich news experience.
Instant articles provides users, access to articles on Facebook news
feed without leaving the site.
[244][245] According to the technology news website
Gizmodo
on May 9, 2016, Facebook curators routinely suppress or promote news
that is deemed to meet a political agenda. For example, articles about
Black Lives Matter
would be listed even if they did not meet the trending criteria of News
Feed. Likewise, positive news about conservative political figures were
regularly excised from Facebook pages.
[246]
In January 2017, Facebook launched Facebook Stories for iOS and Android
in Ireland. The feature, following the format of Snapchat and Instagram
stories, allows users to upload photos and videos that appear above
friends' and followers' News Feeds and disappear after 24 hours.
[247]
On October 11, 2017, Facebook introduced the
3D Posts feature to allow for uploading interactive 3D assets in the News Feed.
[248]
On January 11, 2018, Facebook announced that it would be changing its
News Feed algorithm to prioritize what friends and family share and
de-emphasize content from media companies. The change was intended to
maximize the “meaningful interactions” that people have with content on
Facebook.
[249]
Like button
The "like" button, stylized as a "thumbs up" icon, was first enabled on February 9, 2009,
[250]
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 appears in the
News Feeds of that user's friends,
[251][252]
and the button also displays the number of other users who have liked
the content, including a full or partial list of those users.
[253] The like button was extended to comments in June 2010.
[254] After extensive testing
[255] and years of questions from the public about whether it had an intention to incorporate a "Dislike" button,
[256]
Facebook officially rolled out "Reactions" to users worldwide on
February 24, 2016, letting users long-press on the like button for an
option to use one of five pre-defined emotions, including "Love",
"Haha", "Wow", "Sad", or "Angry".
[255][257] Reactions were also extended to comments in May 2017.
[258][259]
Instant messaging
Facebook Messenger is an
instant messaging service and software application. Originally developed as Facebook Chat in 2008,
[260] the company revamped its messaging service in 2010,
[261] and subsequently released standalone
iOS and
Android apps in August 2011.
[262] Over the years, Facebook has released new apps on a variety of different operating systems,
[263][264][265] launched a dedicated
website interface,
[266] and separated the messaging functionality from the main Facebook app, requiring users to download the standalone apps.
[267]
Facebook Messenger lets Facebook users send messages to each other.
Complementing regular conversations, Messenger lets users make
voice calls[268] and
video calls[269] both in one-to-one interactions
[270] and in group conversations.
[271] Its Android app has integrated support for
SMS[272] and "Chat Heads", which are round profile photo icons appearing on-screen regardless of what app is open,
[273] while both apps support multiple accounts,
[274] conversations with optional
end-to-end encryption,
[275] and playing "Instant Games", which are select games built into Messenger.
[276] Some features, including sending money
[277] and requesting transportation,
[278] are limited to the United States.
[277]
In 2017, Facebook has 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;
[279] Reactions, which lets users tap and hold a message to add a reaction through an
emoji;
[280] and Mentions, which lets users in group conversations type @ to give a particular user a notification.
[280]
In March 2015, Facebook announced that it would start letting
businesses and users interact through Messenger with features such as
tracking purchases and receiving notifications, and interacting with
customer service representatives. It also announced that third-party
developers could integrate their apps into Messenger, letting users
enter an app while inside Messenger and optionally share details from
the app into a chat.
[281] In April 2016, it introduced an
API for developers to build
chatbots into Messenger, for uses such as news publishers building bots to give users news through the service,
[282] and in April 2017, it enabled the
M virtual assistant
for users in the U.S., which scans chats for keywords and suggests
relevant actions, such as its payments system for users mentioning
money.
[283][284]
Additionally, Facebook expanded the use of bots, incorporating group
chatbots into Messenger as "Chat Extensions", adding a "Discovery" tab
for finding bots, and enabling special, branded
QR codes that, when scanned, take the user to a specific bot.
[285]
Following
On September 14, 2011, Facebook added the ability for users to
provide a "Subscribe" button on their page, which allows users to
subscribe to public postings by the user without needing to add him or
her as a friend.
[286] In conjunction, Facebook also introduced a system in February 2012 to verify the identity of certain accounts.
[287]
In December 2012, Facebook announced that because of user confusion
surrounding its function, the Subscribe button would be re-labeled as a
"Follow" button—making it more similar to other social networks with
similar functions.
[288]
Comparison with Myspace
The media often compares Facebook to
Myspace, but one significant difference between the two Web sites is the level of customization.
[289] Another difference is Facebook's requirement that users give their true identity, a demand that MySpace does not make.
[290] MySpace allows users to decorate their profiles using
HTML and
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), while Facebook allows only
plain text.
[291] Facebook has a number of features with which users may interact. They include the
Wall, a space on every user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see;
[292] Pokes, which allows users to send a virtual "poke" to each other (a notification then tells a user that he or she has been poked);
[293] Photos, that allows users to upload albums and photos;
[294] and
Status, which allows users to inform their friends of their whereabouts and actions.
[295]
Facebook also allows users to tag various people in photographs.
Depending on privacy settings, anyone who can see a user's profile can
also view that user's Wall. In July 2007, Facebook began allowing users
to post attachments to the Wall, whereas the Wall was previously limited
to textual content only.
[292] Facebook also differs from Myspace in the form of advertising used.
Facebook uses advertising in the form of banner ads, referral marketing,
and games. Myspace, on the other hand, uses
Google and
AdSense.
[296]
There is also a difference in the userbase of each site. MySpace,
initially, was much more popular with high school students, while
Facebook was more popular among college students. A study by the
American firm Nielsen Claritas showed that Facebook users are more
inclined to use other professional networking sites, such as
LinkedIn, than Myspace users.
[296]
Privacy
Facebook enables users to choose their own privacy settings and choose who can see specific parts of their profile.
[298] The website is free to its users and generates revenue from advertising, such as
banner ads.
[299]
Facebook requires a user's name and profile picture (if applicable) to
be accessible by everyone. Users can control who sees other information
they have shared, as well as who can find them in searches, through
their privacy settings.
[300] On November 6, 2007, Facebook launched
Facebook Beacon,
which was a part of Facebook's advertisement system until it was
discontinued in 2009. Its purpose was to allow targeted advertisements
and allowing users to share their activities with their friends.
In 2010, Facebook's security team began expanding its efforts to reduce the risks to users' privacy,
[301] but
privacy concerns remain.
[302] Since 2010, the US
National Security Agency
has been taking publicly posted profile information from Facebook,
among other social media services, user profiles to discover who they
interact with.
[303]
On November 29, 2011, Facebook settled
Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceived consumers by failing to keep privacy promises.
[304] In August 2013
High-Tech Bridge published a study showing that links included in Facebook messaging service messages were being accessed by Facebook.
[305] In January 2014 two users filed a lawsuit against Facebook alleging that their privacy had been violated by this practice.
[306]
In April 2018, in the wake of the
Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal, and refuting a report to the contrary by
Reuters,
Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would implement additional
privacy "controls and settings" worldwide. These settings were
originally intended for deployment in Europe in order to comply with the
European Union's
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which take effect in May.
[307]
In the lead-up to its implementation, Facebook also changed its terms
of service and privacy policy to specify that that users within the
European Union are served by Facebook Ireland, Ltd., while users outside
of the EU are served by Facebook Inc., which is subject to U.S.
jurisdiction. Previously, all users outside of Canada and the United
States were served by Facebook Ireland, Ltd., which would make an
additional 1.5 billion users subject to EU law in their use of Facebook
than legally needed.
[308]
In the aftermath of the breach, Facebook withdrew its opposition to the
California Consumer Privacy Act.
Facebook, Google, Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon had previously donated
$200,000 each to a $1 million fund dedicated to opposing of the
ballot measure. The Committee to Protect California jobs, which opposed the ballot question and is sponsored by the
California Chamber of Commerce told
Ars Technica
that "Facebook has NOT dropped its opposition to the measure".
According to the Committee Facebook "simply formally dropped their
participation in the 'no' campaign."
[309]
Facebook Bug Bounty Program
On July 29, 2011, Facebook announced its Bug Bounty Program in which
security researchers will be paid a minimum of $500 for reporting
security holes on Facebook's website. Facebook's Whitehat page for
security researchers says: "If you give us a reasonable time to respond
to your report before making any information public and make a good
faith effort to avoid privacy violations, destruction of data, and
interruption or degradation of our service during your research, we will
not bring any lawsuit against you or ask law enforcement to investigate
you."
[310][311]
Facebook started paying researchers who find and report security bugs
by issuing them custom branded "White Hat" debit cards that can be
reloaded with funds each time the researchers discover new flaws.
"Researchers who find bugs and security improvements are rare, and we
value them and have to find ways to reward them," Ryan McGeehan, former
manager of Facebook's security response team, told CNET in an interview.
"Having this exclusive black card is another way to recognize them.
They can show up at a conference and show this card and say 'I did
special work for Facebook.'"
[312]
India, which has the second largest number of bug hunters in the world,
[313]
tops the Facebook Bug Bounty Program with the largest number of valid
bugs. "Researchers in Russia earned the highest amount per the report in
2013, receiving an average of $3,961 for 38 bugs. India contributed the
largest number of valid bugs at 136, with an average reward of $1,353.
The U.S. reported 92 issues and averaged $2,272 in rewards. Brazil and
the UK were third and fourth by volume, with 53 bugs and 40 bugs,
respectively, and average rewards of $3,792 and $2,950", Facebook quoted
in a post.
[314]
Reception
Most popular social networking sites by country in 2015
Facebook
Facenama
no data
|
User growth
CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in August 2008 that Facebook had passed 100 million registered users.
[315] This increased to 150 million "active" users in January 2009. Stan Schroeder of
Mashable
questioned how the measurement of "active" was made, though
acknowledging that "it probably means that users who've just created an
account which sits idle for a long period of time aren't included".
[316] The number of users continued to grow, reaching 250 million in July 2009,
[317] 300 million in September 2009,
[318] 400 million in February 2010,
[319] and 500 million in July 2010.
[42]
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. A company
representative called the milestone a "quiet revolution."
[43]
Mark Zuckerberg announced to the media at the start of October 2012
that Facebook had passed the monthly active users mark of one billion.
[77][320] The company's data also revealed 600 million mobile users, 219 billion photo uploads, and 140 billion friend connections.
[78] This continued to grow, reaching 1.19 billion monthly active users in October 2013,
[321] 1.44 billion users in April 2015, of which 1.25 billion were mobile users,
[322] 1.71 billion users in July 2016,
[323] 1.94 billion users in March 2017,
[324] and ultimately 2 billion users in June 2017.
[325][326]
Early in 2015, it was reported that teenagers preferred competing web sites such as
Instagram and
Snapchat. The estimated number of teens leaving Facebook was a million per year.
[327]
In November 2015, after skepticism about the accuracy of its "monthly
active users" measurement, Facebook changed its definition of an
"active user", now defining it as a logged-in member who visits the
Facebook site through the web browser or mobile app, or uses the
Facebook Messenger
app, in the last 30 days of the date of measurement. This excludes the
use of third-party services with Facebook integration, which was
previously counted.
[328]
-
Facebook popularity. Active users of Facebook increased from just a million in 2004 to over 750 million in 2011.
[329]
-
Statistics
According to analytics firm
comScore, Facebook is the leading social networking site based on monthly unique visitors, having overtaken main competitor
MySpace in April 2008.
[331][332] comScore reported that Facebook attracted over 130 million unique visitors in May 2010, an increase of 8.6 million people.
[333] According to third-party
web analytics providers,
Alexa and
SimilarWeb, Facebook is ranked second and first globally respectively, it is the
highest-read social network on the Web, with over 20 billion visitors
per month, as of 2015.
[334][335][336] SimilarWeb,
Quantcast, and
Compete.com all rank the website 2nd in the U.S. in traffic.
[335][337][338] The website is the most popular for uploading photos, cumulatively with 50 billion uploaded.
[339] In 2010,
Sophos's
"Security Threat Report 2010" polled over 500 firms, 60% of which
responded that they believed Facebook was the social network that "posed
the biggest threat to security", well ahead of MySpace, Twitter, and
LinkedIn.
[301]
Facebook is the most popular social networking site in several
English-speaking countries, including Canada,
[340] the United Kingdom,
[341] and the United States.
[342][343][344]
However, Facebook still receives limited adoption in countries such as
Japan, where domestically created social networks are still largely
preferred.
[345]
In regional Internet markets, penetration on Facebook is highest in
North America (69 percent), followed by Middle East-Africa (67 percent),
Latin America (58 percent), Europe (57 percent), and Asia-Pacific (17
percent).
[346] Some of the top competitors were listed in 2007 by
Mashable.
[347]
Awards and recognition
The website has won awards such as placement into the "Top 100 Classic Websites" by
PC Magazine in 2007,
[348] and winning the "People's Voice Award" from the
Webby Awards in 2008.
[349]
In a 2006 study conducted by Student Monitor, a company specializing in
research concerning the college student market, Facebook was named the
"second most popular thing among undergraduates," tied with beer and
only ranked lower than the
iPod.
[350]
In 2010, Facebook won the
Crunchie "Best Overall Startup Or Product" award
[351] for the third year in a row.
[352] However, in a July 2010 survey performed by the
American Customer Satisfaction Index,
Facebook received a score of 64 out of 100, placing it in the bottom 5%
of all private-sector companies in terms of customer satisfaction,
alongside industries such as the
IRS e-file system, airlines, and
cable companies.
The reasons why Facebook scored so poorly include privacy problems,
frequent changes to the website's interface, the results returned by the
News Feed, and spam.
[353]
In December 2008, the
Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory ruled that Facebook is a valid
protocol to serve court notices to defendants. It is believed to be the world's first legal judgement that defines a
summons posted on Facebook as legally binding.
[354]
In March 2009, the New Zealand High Court associate justice David
Gendall allowed for the serving of legal papers on Craig Axe by the
company Axe Market Garden via Facebook.
[355][356]
Employers have also used Facebook as a means to keep tabs on their
employees and have even been known to fire them over posts they have
made.
[357]
By 2005, the use of Facebook had already become so ubiquitous that
the generic verb "facebooking" had come into use to describe the process
of browsing others' profiles or updating one's own.
[358] In 2008,
Collins English Dictionary declared "Facebook" as its new Word of the Year.
[359] In December 2009, the
New Oxford American Dictionary declared its word of the year to be the verb "
unfriend", defined as "To remove someone as a '
friend' on a
social networking site such as Facebook".
[360]
Criticisms and controversies
Facebook's market dominance has led to international media coverage
and significant reporting of its shortcomings. Notable issues include
Internet privacy, such as its widespread use of a
"like" button on third-party websites tracking users,
[361][362] possible indefinite records of user information,
[363] automatic
facial recognition software,
[364][365] and its role in the workplace, including employer-employee account disclosure.
[366] In a 2014
Huffington Post
blog article entitled "Facebook: The World's Biggest Waste of Time?",
Bill Robinson stated that going on Facebook was not a productive use of
time and he raised concerns about its addictive qualities.
[367] Timothy A Pychyl wrote in
Psychology Today about his concerns that Facebook is leading to "technological time wasting" and procrastination.
[368]
The use of Facebook can have psychological effects, including feelings of jealousy
[369][370] and stress,
[371][372] a lack of attention,
[373] and social media addiction, in some cases comparable to drug addiction.
[374][375]
Facebook's company tactics have also received prominent coverage, including electricity usage,
[376] tax avoidance,
[377] real-name user requirement policies,
[378] censorship,
[379][380] and its involvement in the United States
PRISM surveillance program.
[381]
Due to allowing users to publish material by themselves, Facebook has
come under scrutiny for the amount of freedom it gives users, including
copyright and
intellectual property infringement,
[382] hate speech,
[383][384] incitement of rape
[385] and terrorism,
[386][387] fake news,
[388][389][390] and crimes, murders and violent incidents live-streamed through its
Facebook Live functionality.
[391][392][393]
Facebook worked on special
censorship software so it could potentially accommodate censorship demands in
Communist-controlled
China.
[394]
The company has also been subject to multiple litigation cases over the years,
[395][396][397][398] with its most prominent case concerning allegations that CEO Mark Zuckerberg broke an
oral contract with
Cameron Winklevoss,
Tyler Winklevoss, and
Divya Narendra to build the
then-named "HarvardConnection" social network in 2004, instead allegedly opting to
steal the idea and code to launch Facebook months before HarvardConnection began.
[399][400][401]
The original lawsuit was eventually settled in 2009, with Facebook
paying approximately $20 million in cash and 1.25 million shares.
[402][403] A new lawsuit in 2011 was dismissed.
[404]
On November 5, 2017, the
Paradise Papers, a set of confidential
electronic documents relating to
offshore investment, revealed that Russian state organizations with ties to
Vladimir Putin pursued between 2009 and 2011 large investments in Facebook and
Twitter via an intermediary—Russian-American entrepreneur
Yuri Milner, who befriended Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg
[405] and was a business associate of
Jared Kushner,
President Donald Trump's son-in-law.
[406] According to
The Express Tribune, Facebook is among the corporations that "avoided billions of dollars in tax using offshore companies".
[407] A subsidiary of the Kremlin-controlled
Gazprom funded an investment company that partnered with DST Global, an investment firm part of
Mail.ru, to buy shares in Facebook, reaping millions when the social media giant went public in 2012. Four days after the Facebook
IPO, a DST Global subsidiary sold more than 27 million shares of Facebook for roughly $1 billion.
[408]
On March 6, 2018,
BlackBerry sued Facebook and its Instagram and WhatsApp subdivision for ripping off key features of its messaging app.
[409] According to BlackBerry, it invented the core concepts in mobile messaging app which were copied by Facebook and its
subsidiaries.
[410] According to the Facebook Deputy General Counsel,
Paul Grewal, BlackBerry abandoned its effort to innovate and it is now looking to tax the innovation of others.
[411]
On June 7th, 2018, chief privacy officer Erin Egan noted that a
software bug had resulted in about 14 million Facebook users having
their default sharing setting for all new posts set to "public".
Facebook issued a notification to users which were exposed to this
issue. A Facebook spokesperson said the notification is the start of new
proactive and transparent way for the company to handle issues going
forward.
[412]
Shadow profiles
"Shadow profile" has become a catch all term for data that is outside
the scope of a user's official profile or voluntarily shared content.
This includes data that Facebook collects on non-users that may be
collected by the
Facebook analytics Pixel
or location data from a mobile phone. During his 2018 Congressional
testimony, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that while users have control over
data collection for advertising purposes, "On security, there may be
specific things about how you use Facebook, even if you’re not logged
in, that we keep track of to make sure you’re not abusing the systems."
[413]
Zuckerberg also stated that he was not familiar with the term "shadow
profile", though he did confirm that Facebook gathers data on
individuals who have not signed up for Facebook accounts.
[414]
Cambridge Analytica
In March 2018,
whistleblowers revealed that personal information from over 87 million Facebook users was sold to
Cambridge Analytica, a political data analysis firm that had worked for
Donald Trump's presidential campaign. The data was collected using an app created by Global Science Research.
[415] While approximately 270,000 people volunteered to use the app, Facebook's
API also permitted data collection from the friends of app users.
[416]
When the information was first reported Facebook tried to downplay the
significance of the breach, and attempted to suggest that the stolen
data was no longer available to Cambridge Analytica. However, with
increasing scrutiny, Facebook issued a statement expressing alarm and
suspended Cambridge Analytica, while review of documents and interviews
with former Facebook employees suggested that Cambridge Analytica was
still in possession of the data.
[417] This is a violation of the
consent decree entered into law by Facebook with the
Federal Trade Commission,
and violations of the consent decree could carry a penalty of $40,000
per violation, meaning that if news reports that the data of 50 million
people were shared proves true, the company’s possible exposure runs
into the trillions of dollars.
[418]
According to
The Guardian reporter
Carole Cadwalladr
who broke the story, both Facebook and Cambridge Analytica threatened
to sue the newspaper if it published the story and continually tried to
prevent its publication. After the story was published anyway, Facebook
claimed that it had been "lied to". Cadwalladr said that Facebook was
trying to shift the blame onto a third party. Nick Thompson of
Wired and
CBS
News pointed out that Cambridge Analytica obtained all the personal
data without having to "breach" Facebook, and that "It didn't work
because somebody hacked in and broke stuff, it worked because Facebook
has built the craziest most invasive advertising model in the history of
the world and someone took advantage of it."
[419] On March 23, 2018, The
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's data team and the
Information Commissioner over who is responsible for the forensic
searching of the company's servers.
[420]
On March 25, Zuckerberg placed a
newspaper ad in UK and US newspapers apologising over a "breach of trust"; newspapers included
Sunday Telegraph,
Sunday Times,
Mail on Sunday,
Observer,
Sunday Mirror and
Sunday Express.
[421]
You may have heard about a quiz app built by a university researcher
that leaked Facebook data of millions of people in 2014. This was a
breach of trust, and I'm sorry we didn't do more at the time. We're now
taking steps to make sure this doesn't happen again.
We've already stopped apps like this from getting so much
information. Now we're limiting the data apps get when you sign in using
Facebook.
We're also investigating every single app that had access to large
amounts of data before we fixed this. We expect there are others. And
when we find them, we will ban them and tell everyone affected.
Finally, we'll remind you which apps you've give access to your
information - so you can shut off the ones you don't want anymore.
Thank you for believing in this community. I promise to do better for you.
On March 26, the
Federal Trade Commission
opened an investigation into Facebook regarding the use of its data by
Cambridge Analytica, causing stocks to temporarily drop by more than 5
percent.
[422]
Android data scraping
In Android platform, It was reported that Facebook app has been gathering Android users data for years.
[423]
The data included phone calls and text messages history that were
stored to Facebook database. Unlike Android, Apple limited the privilege
of the apps who try to gather personal information from the
iOS devices.
[424]
In May 2018, several Android users in California filed a class action
lawsuit against Facebook for invading their privacy by unauthorized
access in storing personal contact data (especially call and text
message history) without users' consent.
[425][426]
Public apologies
In early March 2018, a U.K.-based newspaper called
The Observer reported that a "political consultancy" known as
Cambridge Analytica had been provided access to the
personal data of about 50 million Americans by Facebook. On March 21, 2018, Facebook founder
Mark Zuckerberg
issued the company’s first public statement since this information was
publicly disclosed. However, another article was published on April 4 by
Wired
that reports a statement made by Facebook regarding the number of
people affected. Mike Schroepfer - Facebook’s chief technology officer -
disclosed that the amount is closer to 87 million via a blog post.
[427] The earlier announcement discussed modification to the way that "third-party applications" could access data from Facebook.
[428]
An app downloaded by 270,000 people has been claimed to have led to the
crisis. When users downloaded this app – called "thisisyourdigitallife"
– information regarding the users' preferred Facebook content as well
as their "home town" could then be accessed by the app. This was than
used to acquire similar information of the user's contacts and continued
to affect approximately 50 million people in total.
[429]
It has also been claimed that pre-existing policies around access to
personal information of Facebook users by "third-party app developers"
are foundational to the "crisis".
[430]
The company has received significant backlash following the disclosure
of the use of private data by other entities. This backlash has also
taken the form of demands for legal accountability, including the
opening of an investigation into the company by the
U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
[431] Others such as
Elon Musk, who has deleted his Facebook pages for
SpaceX and
Tesla, have publicly expressed their decision to terminate their use of the media platform for their purposes.
[432]
According to a study done by Jeffery Child and Shawn Starcher in
2015, Facebook is a social media platform where "both known and unknown
audiences can gain access to posted context, increasing the possibility
for privacy breakdowns".
[433]
The company has a history of making efforts of rapprochement for such
privacy crises. Past apologies of Facebook started in 2009, when
Facebook first launched their site worldwide. In the hopes of making it
easier for users to share or keep their information private, the company
ended up modifying the entire site and publicizing a subsequent apology
for the situation.
[434] For years, Facebook has been giving advertisers the option of having
targeted ads based on data collecting companies like
Acxiom Corp and
Experian PLC.
[431]
In March 2016, Facebook first acknowledged that user data had been
mishandled back in 2014 when a third-party app was linked back to
Cambridge Analytica.
[431] This was the same company that was hired by the
2016 presidential campaign of
Donald Trump.
The media platform has also been accessed by individuals in addition to
corporate entities for varying purposes. The site has been used to
determine the eligibility for students to be employed or charged with a
form of retribution in some cases, based on what they share or post.
[435]
In response to criticism and outrage, different media outlets were
used by the company to issue a public apology. On March 25, 2018, U.K.
newspapers
The Observer,
The Sunday Times,
Mail on Sunday,
Sunday Mirror,
Sunday Express and
Sunday Telegraph contained full-page ads depicting a personal apology from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. In the United States,
The New York Times,
The Washington Post, and
The Wall Street Journal
also contained the same page-length ads. In addition to the use of
newspaper outlets, Mark Zuckerberg issued a verbal apology on
CNN.
[436] and took part in interviews with other news organizations such as
Recode.
[437]
Zuckerberg has also made multiple other apologies over the course of
the years regarding Facebook. In May 2010, Zuckerberg issued a public
apology over discrepancies in the privacy settings in The Washington
Post via an Op-Ed article.
[438] Similarly, the CEO has also made apologies via blog posts as well as through the Facebook platform itself.
[438]
In an effort to earn back public trust, Facebook ended its
partnerships with several data brokers who aid advertisers in targeting
people on the social network.
[431] The company has also adjusted the privacy settings again for its user base as well.
[431]
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
harder for third-party apps to access the user’s personal information.
[431]
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 doesn't
happen again.
[429]
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.
[439]
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".
[440]
Impact
Media impact
In April 2011, Facebook launched a new portal for marketers and
creative agencies to help them develop brand promotions on Facebook.
[441]
The company began its push by inviting a select group of British
advertising leaders to meet Facebook's top executives at an
"influencers' summit" in February 2010. Facebook has now been involved
in campaigns for
True Blood,
American Idol, and
Top Gear.
[442] News and media outlets such as
The Washington Post,
[443] Financial Times[444] and ABC News
[445]
have used aggregated Facebook fan data to create various infographics
and charts to accompany their articles. In 2012, beauty pageant
Miss Sri Lanka Online was run exclusively using Facebook.
[446]
Economic impact
Facebook, Inc. has utilized growing internet markets using a social
media platform to expand its user base while generating billions of
dollars in revenue from Facebook's companies. Through empirical
findings, economists have been able to identify key areas where Facebook
has been able to stimulate economic activity by offering a free
public good in that one user will not reduce the amount available to another, while also generating positive
externalities. Thus, mobile phone manufactures and carriers have been beneficiaries of Facebook's
spillover effect.
Three distinct areas have been found to add the most economic impact:
platform competition, the marketing place, and user behavior data.
[447]
Facebook's platform is efficient because it lowers
barriers to entry and lowers costs for businesses to rapidly
innovate new ideas.
Scalability
is accomplished with less wasted resources and monetized by collecting
user behavior and usage data for targeted advertising. Facebook
advertising allows firms to reasonably scale up operations to reach
Facebook users. Facebook's daily active users have increased 18%
year-over-year
[448]
and burgeoning from 1 million users in 2004, to over 1.9 billion in
2017. Facebook is a leader among tech companies who continues to improve
their carbon impact through more efficient data centers and clean
renewable energy.
[449]
By the end of 2016, Facebook's total revenue earnings were $27.638
billion, gross profit was $23.849 billion and a net income for the year
was $10.188 billion.
[450]
Facebook provides a development platform for many
social gaming,
communication, feedback, review, and other applications related to
online activities. This open platform of Facebook has spawned many new
businesses and added thousands of jobs to the economy.
Zynga Inc., a leading company in social gaming app development, is an example of those businesses. An
econometric
analysis studied the impact of Facebook on the economy in terms of the
number of jobs created and the economic value of those jobs. The
conservative estimate was that the app development platform of Facebook
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.
[451]
Social impact
Facebook has affected the social life and activity of people in
various ways. Facebook allows people using computers or mobile phones to
continuously stay in touch with friends, relatives and other
acquaintances wherever they are in the world, as long as there is access
to the Internet. It has reunited lost family members and friends.
[452][453]
It allows users to trade ideas, stay informed with local or global
developments, and unite people with common interests and/or beliefs
through open, closed and private groups and other pages.
[454][455]
Facebook's social impact has also changed how people communicate.
Rather than having to reply to others through email, Facebook allows
users to broadcast or share content to others, and thereby to engage
others or be engaged with others' posts.
[456]
Facebook has been successful and more socially impactful than many
other social media sites. David Kirkpatrick, technology journalist and
author of
The Facebook Effect, believes that Facebook is
structured in a way that is not easily replaceable. He challenges users
to consider how difficult it would be to move all the relationships and
photos to an alternative. Facebook has let people participate in an
atmosphere with the "over the backyard fence quality" of a small town,
despite the move to larger cities.
[457] As per
Pew Research Center survey, 44 percent of the overall US population gets news through Facebook.
[458]
Emotional health impact
Facebook, and social media in general, has received significant media coverage for negative emotional health impacts.
[459][460][461][462][463] Studies have shown that Facebook causes negative effects on
self-esteem
by triggering feelings of envy, with vacation and holiday photos
proving to be the largest resentment triggers. Other prevalent causes of
envy include posts by friends about family happiness and images of
physical beauty—such envious feelings leave people lonely and
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,
[464][465] and another study by
Utah Valley University found that college students felt worse about their own lives following an increase in the amount of time spent on Facebook.
[465][466][467]
In a presentation by
California State University psychology professor Larry D. Rosen, he notes that teenagers using Facebook exhibit more
narcissistic tendencies, while young adults show signs of antisocial behavior,
mania,
and aggressiveness. However, he also found positive effects from
Facebook use, including signs of "virtual empathy" towards online
friends and helping
introverted persons learn social skills.
[468]
He said that "While nobody can deny that Facebook has altered the
landscape of social interaction, particularly among young people, we are
just now starting to see solid psychological research demonstrating
both the positives and the negatives".
[469]
In a blog post in December 2017, the company pointed to research that has shown "passively consuming" the
News Feed,
as in reading but not interacting, does indeed leave users with
negative feelings afterwards, whereas interacting with messages points
to improvements in well-being.
[470] TechCrunch
noted that CEO Mark Zuckerberg had said in a recent earnings call that
"Time spent is not a goal by itself. We want the time people spend on
Facebook to encourage meaningful social interactions".
[471]
Political impact
A man during the 2011 Egyptian protests carrying a card saying "Facebook,#jan25, The Egyptian Social Network"
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, better known as the FARC (from the group's Spanish name).
[472] In August 2010, one of
North Korea's official government websites and the official news agency of the country,
Uriminzokkiri, joined Facebook.
[473]
During the
Arab Spring many journalists made claims that Facebook played a major role in generating the
2011 Egyptian revolution.
[474][475]
On January 14, the Facebook page of "We are all khaled Said" was
started by Wael Ghoniem Create Event to invite the Egyptian people to
"peaceful demonstrations" on January 25. According to
Mashable,
[unreliable source?]
in Tunisia and Egypt, Facebook became the primary tool for connecting
all protesters and led the Egyptian government of Prime Minister
Nazif to ban Facebook, Twitter and another websites on January 26
[476]
then ban all mobile and Internet connections for all of Egypt at
midnight January 28. After 18 days, the uprising forced President
Mubarak to resign.
In
Bahrain uprising
which started on February 14, 2011, Facebook was utilized by the
Bahraini regime as well as regime loyalists to identify, capture and
prosecute citizens involved in the protests. A 20-year-old woman named
Ayat Al Qurmezi was identified as a protester using Facebook, taken from her home by masked commandos and put in prison.
[477]
In 2011, Facebook filed paperwork with the
Federal Election Commission to form a
political action committee under the name
FB PAC.
[478] In an email to
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."
[479]
During the Syrian civil war, the
YPG, a libertarian army for
Rojava has recruited westerners through Facebook in its fight against
ISIL.
[480][481]
Dozens have joined its ranks for various reasons from religious to
ideological. 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.
[482]
United States
Facebook's role in the American political process was demonstrated in January 2008, shortly before the
New Hampshire primary, when Facebook teamed up with
ABC and
Saint Anselm College to allow users to give live feedback about the "back to back" January 5 Republican and Democratic debates.
[483][484][485] Facebook users took part in debate groups on specific topics, voter registration, and message questions.
[486]
Over a million people installed the Facebook application "US Politics
on Facebook" in order to take part, and the application measured users'
responses to specific comments made by the debating candidates.
[487]
This debate showed the broader community what many young students had
already experienced: Facebook as a popular and powerful new way to
interact and voice opinions. A poll by
CBS News,
UWIRE and
The Chronicle of Higher Education
claimed to illustrate how the "Facebook effect" has affected youth
voting rates, support by youth of political candidates, and general
involvement by the youth population in the 2008 election.
[488]
The new social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, made use first of
the personal computer and the Internet, and after 2010 of the smart
phones to connect hundreds of millions of people, especially those under
age 35. By 2008, politicians and interest groups were experimenting
with systematic use of social media to spread their message among much
larger audiences than they had previously reached.
[489][490]
Facebook is having an impact on local government as well.
Justin Smith,
a Colorado sheriff uses Facebook to disseminate his ideas on matters
relating to local, state, and national concerns. He also publicizes
crimes, particularly those that his department solves. He has seven
thousand followers on the social medium, considered a large number.
Smith said that he rarely goes out in public "when I don't get feedback
from folks. ... Facebook is an interesting tool because I think it holds
candidates and elected officials more accountable. Voters know where
someone stands."
[491]
According to the
Investor's Business Daily, "In 2012, the
Obama campaign
encouraged supporters to download an Obama 2012 Facebook app that, when
activated, let the campaign collect Facebook data both on users and
their friends."
[492]
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."
[493][494]
As American political strategists turn their attention to the 2016
presidential contest, they identify Facebook as an increasingly
important advertising tool. Recent technical innovations have made
possible more advanced divisions and subdivisions of the electorate.
Most important, Facebook can now deliver video ads to small, highly
targeted subsets. Television, by contrast, shows the same commercials to
all viewers, and so cannot be precisely tailored.
[495]
2016 United States elections
A Russian company bought more than $100,000 worth of Facebook ads during the 2016 presidential election.
[496] Special Council
Robert Mueller, contacted Facebook subsequently to the company's disclosure that it sold ads to a Russian Spy Agency-linked company (
Internet Research Agency), and the Menlo Park-based company has pledged full cooperation in
Mueller's investigation,
and began with providing all information about the advertisement buys
by the Russian government, including the identities of the individuals
and companies who made the purchases.
[497] The Daily Beast reports that Russia Used Facebook Events to Organize Anti-Immigrant Rallies on U.S. Soil.
[498]
Facebook has concluded that a 225,000-member anti-immigrant group that
attempted to organize anti-Clinton rallies in Texas during the 2016
presidential campaign was "likely operated out of Russia",
Business Insider reports.
[499] Russians also staged
anti-Trump rallies in November 2016
[500] and bought a
Black Lives Matter Facebook ad during the 2016 campaign.
[501] Pro-Publica
also reported on how Facebook Enabled Advertisers to Reach ‘Jew
Haters.’ Facebook enabled advertisers to direct their pitches to the
news feeds of 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.’”
[502]
As of mid-September 2017 Facebook still does not know the extent of
Russia's advertisement purchases during the 2016 election — or whether
these unidentified ad buys are still on the site. A Facebook spokesman
told CNN that there was "no sales support". A company representative
would not elaborate when asked by Business Insider if it plans to change
its ad sales policy.
[503]
The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook shared copies of
ads and account information related to the Russian ad purchases on its
platform with Robert Mueller that go beyond what it shared with Congress
last week. Facebook's unusual compliance was in response to Search
Warrants issued by Mueller's Federal Grand Jury.
[504] The
Financial Times
reports that United States Senate Intelligence committee seeks further
information about Russia links with Facebook, and are stepping up the
pressure on Facebook as concerns rise about the role the social media
network played in Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential
election.
[505] CNN reports that Facebook handed Russia-linked ads over to Mueller under search warrant.
[506]
Congressional Committees have said Facebook is withholding key
information that could illuminate the shape and extent of a Russian
propaganda campaign aimed at tilting the U.S. presidential election.
[507] The
Financial Times
reports US lawmakers with access to sensitive intelligence have
expressed fears that Russia’s campaign to influence US politics via
Facebook is continuing today even as American investigators probe
Moscow’s use of social media in the 2016 election.
[508]
"Being Patriotic", a Facebook group uncovered by
The Daily Beast, is the first evidence of suspected Russian provocateurs explicitly mobilizing Trump supporters in real life.
[509] The Washington Post
reports Russian operatives used Facebook ads to exploit divisions over
black political activism and Muslims. The Russians took advantage of
Facebook's ability to simultaneously send contrary messages to different
groups of users based on their political and demographic
characteristics and also sought to sow discord among religious groups.
Other ads highlighted support for Democrat
Hillary Clinton
among Muslim women. The ads suggest that Russian operatives worked off
of evolving lists of racial, religious, political and economic themes.
They used these to create pages, write posts and craft ads that would
appear in users' news feeds—with the apparent goal of appealing to one
audience and alienating another.
[510] Mark Zuckerberg responds to Trump, regrets he dismissed election concerns.
[511] The Daily Beast reports Russians Impersonated Real American Muslims to Stir Chaos on Facebook and Instagram.
[512] The Daily Beast reports that Mark Zuckerberg Blew Off Russian Troll Warnings Before the Attack on America.
[513]
On November 5, 2017,
The New York Times reported that Russian-American Billionaire
Yuri Milner, who befriended Facebook founder
Mark Zuckerberg[405] had between 2009 and 2011 strong
Kremlin backing for his investments in Facebook and Twitter.
[514]
On March 17, 2018,
The New York Times and
The Observer of London reported the
Facebook and Cambridge Analytica data breach in which
Cambridge Analytica
collected personal information from Facebook users as a basis of
crafting political campaigns for whomever purchased their services. As a
result, Facebook banned Cambridge Analytica from advertising on its
platform.
[515][516] The Guardian reported further that Facebook has known about this security breach for two years, but has done nothing to protect its users.
[517]
Bans and censorship
In many countries the social networking sites and mobile apps have been blocked temporarily or permanently, including
China,
Iran, and
North Korea.
Facebook has been banned by
Syria,
[518] China,
[519] and
Iran.
[520] In May 2018, the government of
Papua New Guinea announced that it would ban Facebook for a month while it considered the impact of the website on the country.
[521]
Scientific impact
In January 2018, Facebook launched a new unit of time, the
flick, equivalent to 1/705600000 of a second, exactly.
[522][523]
Potential dating service
On May 1, 2018, Facebook announced its plans to launch a new
dating service. According to Mark Zuckerberg: "There are 200 million people on Facebook that list themselves as
single, so clearly there's something to do here". In the wake of the
Cambridge Analytica data mining scandal, the service is being developed with privacy features, and friends will be unable to view one's dating profile.
[524]
In popular culture
- Author Ben Mezrich published a book in July 2009 about Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook, titled The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal.[525]
- In 2009, My Facebook song from Gigi
was released in Indonesia. The song is in Indonesian, telling about a
guy that met his ex-girlfriend via Facebook. This song soon became
popular in Indonesia, having high airplay on radio stations.[526]
- The Social Network, a drama film directed by David Fincher and adapted from Mezrich's book, was released October 1, 2010.[527]
The film is a fictional re-telling of the creation of Facebook, and the
legal battles associated with it. People portrayed in the movie,
including Zuckerberg, criticized its accuracy.[528]
- In response to the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day controversy and the banning of the website in Pakistan, an Islamic version of the website was created, called MillatFacebook.[529]
- The site was parodied in "You Have 0 Friends", an April 2010 episode of the American animated comedy series South Park.[530]
- In July 2014, after Shakira
became the first celebrity to cross over 100 million likes, Mark
Zuckerberg posted a congratulatory message on the artist's wall.[531] Cristiano Ronaldo is the second to reach 100 million likes, ahead of Rihanna and Eminem, who had 98 million and 89 million likes respectively.[532][533] On March 15, 2015, Cristiano Ronaldo surpassed Shakira to become the most liked person on Facebook.[534]