In 2004, as broadband was changing dial-up web and cell phones 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 University.
Facebook was named after the bodily pupil listing distributed at universities firstly of the educational yr, generally generally known as a “face book”.
Within a couple of years, the platform exploded in recognition, turning into the world’s largest social media community, with greater than three billion month-to-month lively customers immediately.
Major milestones
The thought behind Facebook was an offshoot of one in all Zuckerberg’s earlier initiatives known as Facemash, a “hot-or-not” web site used to fee 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.
Yet, 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” e mail deal with.
The social community was an enormous hit and shortly unfold to different faculty campuses throughout the United States.
Within its first yr, the platform grew to at least one million customers, and in August 2005, it was renamed “facebook.com”.
By the top of 2006, anybody above the age of 13 with web entry might 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 top of 2008.
In 2012, the yr Facebook reached one billion customers, it went public, valued at $104bn. Facebook 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 Facebook, Inc to Meta Platforms, Inc. The firm owns and operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, amongst different services.
With three billion lively month-to-month customers, Facebook 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 put 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, Facebook’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 Facebook essentially the most?
According to Datareportal, a web based reference library, amongst Facebook’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 Facebook since its early days, notes that the location’s youthful customers have been dwindling.
“Young people often shape the future of communication. I mean, that’s basically how Facebook took off – young people gravitated toward it. And we see that happening with pretty much every social platform that has come on the scene since Facebook,” Williamson advised The Associated Press information company.
Facebook’s largest viewers group, with just under a 3rd (29.9 p.c) of all customers, is 25-34 years.
Issues with information privateness and consumer security
Facebook has encountered quite a few information privateness and consumer issues of safety over the course of its 20-year existence.
One of essentially the most notable points occurred in 2018 when it was revealed {that a} British consulting agency Cambridge Analytica used 87 million Facebook 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 ads.
Zuckerberg attended his first congressional hearings at Capitol Hill, Washington, DC the place he was questioned about his information 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 TikTook, X and different social media platforms, have been requested 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 corporations haven’t finished sufficient to curb the injury their platforms do to the well being and wellbeing of kids and youngsters.
Zuckerberg apologised to the dad and mom of the victims. “I’m sorry for everything you have all been through. No one should go through the things that your families have suffered,” he stated, including that Meta continues to take a position and work on “industry-wide efforts” to guard youngsters.
Child well being advocates say that social media corporations have failed repeatedly to guard minors.
What lies forward for Meta?
Despite 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 assist its bold synthetic intelligence (AI) plans.
According to 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 Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/4/facebook-turns-20-how-the-social-media-giant-grew-to-3-billion-users?traffic_source=rss
