In 2004, as broadband was changing dial-up web and cellphones with color screens have been gaining recognition, on February 4, a social community, named “TheFacebook”, was launched by 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg and his faculty roommates at Harvard College.
Fb was named after the bodily pupil listing distributed at universities firstly of the educational yr, generally often called a “face e-book”.
Inside a number of years, the platform exploded in recognition, changing into the world’s largest social media community, with greater than three billion month-to-month lively customers at this time.
Main milestones
The thought behind Fb was an offshoot of one among Zuckerberg’s earlier tasks referred to as Facemash, a “hot-or-not” web site used to charge feminine Harvard college students’ faces side-by-side.
To acquire the images used on the location, Zuckerberg hacked into the college’s safety system and copied pupil ID pictures with out their permission. This prompted the college to close down the platform inside days of its launch and led to disciplinary motion in opposition to Zuckerberg.
But, only a few months later, Zuckerberg and his roommates launched a brand new networking website that enabled Harvard college students to attach with their friends utilizing their “.edu” electronic mail deal with.
The social community was a giant hit and shortly unfold to different faculty campuses throughout the US.
Inside its first yr, the platform grew to at least one million customers, and in August 2005, it was renamed “fb.com”.
By the tip of 2006, anybody above the age of 13 with web entry may be a part of. The variety of customers jumped from 12 million in 2006 to 50 million in 2007, which doubled to 100 million by the tip of 2008.
In 2012, the yr Fb reached one billion customers, it went public, valued at $104bn. Fb made its preliminary public providing (IPO) at $38 a share and raised $16bn. The platform’s market share has since grown practically 12 instances, to about $474 on the closing on Friday.
On October 29, 2021, Zuckerberg introduced the rebranding of Fb, Inc to Meta Platforms, Inc. The corporate owns and operates Fb, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, amongst different services and products.
With three billion lively month-to-month customers, Fb stays the world’s hottest social media platform, accounting for greater than half of the world’s web customers and greater than one-third of the world’s inhabitants.
To place 3.03 billion customers in perspective, that’s greater than the inhabitants of India (1.4 billion), China (1.4 billion), and Bangladesh (173 million) mixed.
In 2023, Fb’s largest audiences included: India (385.6 million), adopted by the US (188.6 million), Indonesia (136.3 million), Brazil (111.7 million) and Mexico (94.8 million).
Who makes use of Fb probably the most?
In accordance with Datareportal, a web-based reference library, amongst Fb’s world customers, people aged 65 and above (5.6 p.c) outnumber these aged 13-17 (4.8 p.c).
Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst with Insider Intelligence who has adopted Fb since its early days, notes that the location’s youthful customers have been dwindling.
“Younger folks typically form the way forward for communication. I imply, that’s mainly how Fb took off – younger folks gravitated towards it. And we see that taking place with just about each social platform that has come on the scene since Fb,” Williamson told The Associated Press information company.
Fb’s largest viewers group, with slightly below a 3rd (29.9 p.c) of all customers, is 25-34 years.
Points with knowledge privateness and person security
Fb has encountered quite a few knowledge privateness and person questions of safety over the course of its 20-year existence.
Probably the most notable points occurred in 2018 when it was revealed that a British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica used 87 million Fb customers’ private data with out permission in early 2014 to construct profiles of particular person voters within the US to focus on them with personalised political commercials.
Zuckerberg attended his first congressional hearings at Capitol Hill, Washington, DC the place he was questioned about his knowledge privateness practices. The Meta boss agreed to pay fines and stated he would improve privateness laws on the platform.
On January 31, 2024, Zuckerburg, together with CEOs of TikTok, X and different social media platforms, have been asked to testify earlier than the US Senate Judiciary Committee.
In a uncommon present of unity, Republican and Democratic senators grilled the CEOs about how social media firms haven’t completed sufficient to curb the harm their platforms do to the well being and wellbeing of kids and youngsters.
Zuckerberg apologised to the mother and father of the victims. “I’m sorry for the whole lot you could have all been by. Nobody ought to undergo the issues that your households have suffered,” he stated, including that Meta continues to take a position and work on “industry-wide efforts” to guard youngsters.
Youngster well being advocates say that social media firms have failed repeatedly to guard minors.
What lies forward for Meta?
Regardless of authorities scrutiny, and a dwindling youthful viewers, Meta on Thursday reported a income of $40.1bn and a revenue of $14bn for the fourth quarter of final yr – far surpassing analysts’ forecasts.
Meta, like many different tech giants, has been investing closely in boosting its computing energy to help its formidable synthetic intelligence (AI) plans.
In accordance with Reuters, Meta is gearing as much as unleash its personal AI chips, referred to internally as “Artemis”, later this yr for use in energy-hungry generative AI merchandise it plans to combine into Fb, Instagram and WhatsApp.
