Facebook

Logo used since September 2023
Screenshot Mark Zuckerberg's profile (viewed when logged out)
Type of site	Social networking service
Available in	112 languages[1]
List of languages Multilingual Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Assamese, Azerbaijani, Basque, Belarusian, Bengali, Bosnian, Breton, Bulgarian, Burmese, Catalan, Cebuano, Corsican, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Dutch (België), English (UK), English (US), English (upside down), Esperanto, Estonian, Faroese, Filipino, Finnish, French (Canada), French (France), Frisian, Fula, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Guarani, Gujarati, Haitian Creole, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Japanese (Kansai), Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Kinyarwanda, Korean, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Kyrgyz, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malagasy, Malay, Malayalam, Maltese, Marathi, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian (bokmal), Norwegian (nynorsk), Odia, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Sardinian, Serbian, Shona, Silesian, Simplified Chinese (China), Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorani Kurdish, Spanish, Spanish (Spain), Swahili, Swedish, Syriac, Tajik, Tamazight, Tamil, Tatar, Telugu, Tetun, Thai, Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong), Traditional Chinese (Taiwan), Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Welsh and Zaza
Founded	February 4, 2004; 20 years ago (2004-02-04) in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Area served	Worldwide, except blocking countries
Owner	Meta Platforms
Founder(s)	Mark Zuckerberg Dustin Moskovitz Chris Hughes Andrew McCollum Eduardo Saverin
CEO	Mark Zuckerberg
URL	facebook.com
Registration	Required (to do any activity)
Users	2.94 billion monthly active users (as of 31 March 2022[update])[2]
Launched	February 4, 2004; 20 years ago (2004-02-04)
Current status	Active
Written in	C++, Hack (as HHVM) and PHP
[3][4][5]

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Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, its name derives from the face book directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities. Since 2006, Facebook allows everyone to register from 13 years old, except in the case of a handful of nations, where the age limit is 14 years.^[6] As of December 2022^[update], Facebook claimed almost 3 billion monthly active users.^[7] As of October 2023, Facebook ranked as the 3rd most visited website in the world, with 22.56% of its traffic coming from the United States.^[8][9] It was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s.^[10]

Facebook can be accessed from devices with Internet connectivity, such as personal computers, tablets and smartphones. After registering, users can create a profile revealing information about themselves. They can post text, photos and multimedia which are shared with any other users who have agreed to be their friend or, with different privacy settings, publicly. Users can also communicate directly with each other with Messenger, join common-interest groups, and receive notifications on the activities of their Facebook friends and the pages they follow.

The subject of numerous controversies, Facebook has often been criticized over issues such as user privacy (as with the Cambridge Analytica data scandal), political manipulation (as with the 2016 U.S. elections) and mass surveillance.^[11] Facebook has also been subject to criticism over psychological effects such as addiction and low self-esteem, and various controversies over content such as fake news, conspiracy theories, copyright infringement, and hate speech.^[12] Commentators have accused Facebook of willingly facilitating the spread of such content, as well as exaggerating its number of users to appeal to advertisers.^[13]

History

2003–2006: Thefacebook, Thiel investment, and name change

Zuckerberg built a website called "Facemash" in 2003 while attending Harvard University. The site was comparable to Hot or Not and used "photos compiled from the online face books of nine Houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the 'hotter' person".^[15] Facemash attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours.^[16] The site was sent to several campus group listservs, but was shut down a few days later by Harvard administration. Zuckerberg faced expulsion and was charged with breaching security, violating copyrights and violating individual privacy. Ultimately, the charges were dropped.^[15] Zuckerberg expanded on this project that semester by creating a social study tool. He uploaded art images, each accompanied by a comments section, to a website he shared with his classmates.^[17]

A "face book" is a student directory featuring photos and personal information.^[16] In 2003, Harvard had only a paper version^[18] along with private online directories.^[15][19] Zuckerberg told The Harvard Crimson, "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."^[19] In January 2004, Zuckerberg coded a new website, known as "TheFacebook", inspired by a Crimson editorial about Facemash, stating, "It is clear that the technology needed to create a centralized Website is readily available ... the benefits are many." Zuckerberg met with Harvard student Eduardo Saverin, and each of them agreed to invest $1,000 ($1,613 in 2023 dollars^[20]) in the site.^[21] On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched "TheFacebook", originally located at thefacebook.com.^[22]

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.^[23] The three complained to the Crimson and the newspaper began an investigation. They later sued Zuckerberg, settling in 2008^[24] for 1.2 million shares (worth $300 million at Facebook's IPO, or $398 million in 2023 dollars^[20]).^[25]

Membership was initially restricted to students of Harvard College. Within a month, more than half the undergraduates had registered.^[26] Dustin Moskovitz, Andrew McCollum, and Chris Hughes joined Zuckerberg to help manage the growth of the website.^[27] In March 2004, Facebook expanded to Columbia, Stanford and Yale.^[28] It then became available to all Ivy League colleges, Boston University, NYU, MIT, and successively most universities in the United States and Canada.^[29][30]

In mid-2004, Napster co-founder and entrepreneur Sean Parker—an informal advisor to Zuckerberg—became company president.^[31] In June 2004, the company moved to Palo Alto, California.^[32] Sean Parker called Reid Hoffman to fund Facebook. However, Reid Hoffman was too busy launching LinkedIn so he set Facebook up with PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who gave Facebook its first investment later that month.^[33][34] In 2005, the company dropped "the" from its name after purchasing the domain name Facebook.com for US$200,000 ($312,012 in 2023 dollars^[20]).^[35] The domain had belonged to AboutFace Corporation.

In May 2005, Accel Partners invested $12.7 million ($19.8 million in 2023 dollars^[20]) in Facebook, and Jim Breyer^[36] added $1 million ($1.56 million in 2023 dollars^[20]) of his own money. A high-school version of the site launched in September 2005.^[37] Eligibility expanded to include employees of several companies, including Apple Inc. and Microsoft.^[38]

2006–2012: Public access, Microsoft alliance, and rapid growth

In May 2006, Facebook hired its first intern, Julie Zhuo.^[39] After a month, Zhuo was hired as a full-time engineer.^[39] On September 26, 2006, Facebook opened to everyone at least 13 years old with a valid email address.^[40][41][42] By late 2007, Facebook had 100,000 pages on which companies promoted themselves.^[43] Organization pages began rolling out in May 2009.^[44] On October 24, 2007, Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook for $240 million ($353 million in 2023 dollars^[20]), giving Facebook a total implied value of around $15 billion ($22 billion in 2023 dollars^[20]). Microsoft's purchase included rights to place international advertisements.^[45][46]

In May 2007, at the first f8 developers conference, Facebook announced the launch of the Facebook Developer Platform, providing a framework for software developers to create applications that interact with core Facebook features. By the second annual f8 developers conference on July 23, 2008, the number of applications on the platform had grown to 33,000, and the number of registered developers had exceeded 400,000.^[47]

The website won awards such as placement into the "Top 100 Classic Websites" by PC Magazine in 2007,^[48] and winning the "People's Voice Award" from the Webby Awards in 2008.^[49] In early 2008, Facebook became EBITDA profitable, but was not cash flow positive yet.^[50]

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.^[51] Facebook began migrating users to the new version in September 2008.^[52] In July 2008, Facebook sued StudiVZ, a German social network that was alleged to be visually and functionally similar to Facebook.^[53][54]

In October 2008, Facebook announced that its international headquarters would locate in Dublin, Ireland.^[55] A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook the most used social networking service by worldwide monthly active users.^{[56][better source needed]} China blocked Facebook in 2009 following the Ürümqi riots.^[57]

In 2009, Yuri Milner's DST (which later split into DST Global and Mail.ru Group), alongside Uzbek Russian metals magnate Alisher Usmanov, invested $200 million in Facebook when it was valued at $10 billion.^[58][59][60] A separate stake was also acquired by Usmanov's USM Holdings on another occasion.^[61][58] According to the New York Times in 2013, "Mr. Usmanov and other Russian investors at one point owned nearly 10 percent of Facebook, though precise details of their ownership stakes are difficult to assess."^[61] It was later revealed in 2017 by the Paradise Papers that lending by Russian state-backed VTB Bank and Gazprom's investment vehicle partially financed these 2009 investments, although Milner was reportedly unaware at the time.^[62][63]

In May 2009, Zuckerberg said of the $200 million Russian investment, "This investment is purely buffer for us. It is not something we needed to get to cash flow positive."^[64] In September 2009, Facebook became cash flow positive ahead of schedule^[65][66] after closing a roughly $200 million gap in operating profitability.^[66]

In 2010, Facebook won the Crunchie "Best Overall Startup Or Product" award^[67] for the third year in a row.^[68]

The company announced 500 million users in July 2010.^[69] Half of the site's membership used Facebook daily, for an average of 34 minutes, while 150 million users accessed the site from mobile devices. A company representative called the milestone a "quiet revolution".^[70] In October 2010 groups were introduced.^[71] In November 2010, based on SecondMarket Inc. (an exchange for privately held companies' shares), Facebook's value was $41 billion ($57.3 billion in 2023 dollars^[20]). The company had slightly surpassed eBay to become the third largest American web company after Google and Amazon.com.^[72][73]

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 ($11.5 million in 2023 dollars^[20]) in "domain sales income", making the acquisition of FB.com one of the ten highest domain sales in history.^[74]

In February 2011, Facebook announced plans to move its headquarters to the former Sun Microsystems campus in Menlo Park, California.^[75][76] In March 2011, it was reported that Facebook was removing about 20,000 profiles daily for violations such as spam, graphic content and underage use, as part of its efforts to boost cyber security.^[77] Statistics showed that Facebook reached one trillion page views in the month of June 2011, making it the most visited website tracked by DoubleClick.^[78][79] According to a Nielsen study, Facebook had in 2011 become the second-most accessed website in the U.S. behind Google.^[80][81]