Technological developments and innovations have been at the core of Facebook’s growth strategy. The introduction of features like the News Feed, Timeline, and the “Like” button significantly enhanced user engagement and experience. These features were not just functional improvements; they also changed how users interacted with the platform and with each other, contributing to Facebook’s growth in user engagement and time spent on the site.

Using a tailing architecture, events are stored in log files, and the logs are tailed. The site’s primary color is blue as Zuckerberg is red–green colorblind, a realization that occurred after a test taken around 2007. Facebook was initially built using PHP, a popular scripting language designed for web development.

Force v. Facebook, Inc., 934 F.3d 53 (2nd Cir. 2019) was a case that alleged Facebook was profiting off recommendations for Hamas. In 2019, the US Second Circuit Appeals Court held that Section 230 bars civil terrorism claims against social media companies and internet service providers, the first federal appellate court to do so. In May 2020, Facebook agreed to a preliminary settlement of $52 million ($63.2 million in 2024 dollars) to compensate U.S.-based Facebook content moderators for their psychological trauma suffered on the job. In September 2020, the Government of Thailand utilized the Computer Crime Act for the first time to take action against Facebook and Twitter for ignoring requests to take down content and not complying with court orders. In July 2018, it stated that it would “downrank” articles that its fact-checkers determined to be false, and remove misinformation that incited violence.

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The company removed more than 1,800 accounts and pages that were being operated from Russia, Thailand, Ukraine and Honduras. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it was announced that the internet regulatory committee would block access to Facebook. On October 30, 2019, Facebook deleted several accounts of the employees working at the Israeli NSO Group, stating that the accounts were “deleted for not following our terms”.

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In October 2022, Media Matters for America published a report that Facebook and Instagram were still profiting off advertisements using the slur “groomer” for LGBT people. The article reported that Meta had previously confirmed that the use of this word for the LGBT community violates its hate speech policies. The story was subsequently picked up by other news outlets such as the New York Daily News, PinkNews, and LGBTQ Nation. The Washington Post’s Geoffrey Fowler, in collaboration with Jadali, opened Fowler’s private Facebook photo in a browser with a compromised browser extension. To validate this proof-of-concept, they searched for Fowler’s name using NA, which yielded his photo as a search result. In addition, Jadali discovered Fowler’s Washington Post colleague, Nick Mourtoupalas, was directly impacted by DataSpii.

In December 2016, Zuckerberg was ranked tenth on the Forbes list of the World’s Most Powerful People. In the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans in 2023, he was ranked eighth with a personal wealth of $106 billion (equivalent to $109,392,092,617 in 2024). As of October 2025update, Zuckerberg’s net worth was estimated at $251 billion by Forbes, making him the third richest person in the world. In addition to his estate in Hawaii, Zuckerberg has a $320 million (equivalent to $371,322,608 in 2024) real estate portfolio that includes ten homes in Palo Alto, San Francisco, and Lake Tahoe, totaling over 1,400 acres. In a January 2024 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on child safety and social media platforms, Zuckerberg, along with other tech CEOs, were questioned about their companies’ practices. During the hearing, he stood up, turned toward the audience, and apologized to the families of children who were victims of online abuse and harm.

The new social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, connected hundreds of millions of people. By 2008, politicians and interest groups were experimenting with systematic use of social media to spread their message. By the 2016 election, political advertising to specific groups had become normalized. ProPublica noted that their system enabled advertisers to direct their pitches to almost 2,300 people who expressed interest in the topics of “Jew hater”, “How to burn Jews”, or, “History of ‘why Jews ruin the world”. Positive effects include signs of “virtual empathy” with online friends and helping introverted persons learn social skills. A 2020 experimental study in the American Economic Review found that deactivating Facebook led to increased subjective well-being.

The company’s strategies for international expansion have been multifaceted, including localization of the platform to suit different languages and cultures, strategic acquisitions to enter new markets, and platform diversification to cater to varying user preferences. The platform’s development was a rapid, iterative process, with feedback from early users shaping its evolution. Features such as status updates, photo uploads, and personal information fields were developed based on user suggestions and the team’s observations of how people interacted with the site. The focus was on creating a real-time, dynamic experience that mirrored and enhanced the social environment of Harvard.

The reason cited was the storage of password as plain text instead of encryption which could be read by its employees. You may have heard about a quiz app built by a university researcher that leaked Facebook data of millions of people in 2014. Facebook has experienced a steady stream of controversies over how it handles user privacy, repeatedly adjusting its privacy settings and policies.

• The company’s strategies for international expansion have been multifaceted, including localization of the platform to suit different languages and cultures, strategic acquisitions to enter new markets, and platform diversification to cater to varying user preferences.
• On October 1, 2020, the US Senate Commerce Committee unanimously voted to issue subpoenas to the CEOs of three top tech firms, including Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey.
• “TheFacebook,” as it was initially known, emerged as more than just a directory; it was a social platform aimed at enhancing student connectivity.

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In August 2013, Facebook founded Internet.org in collaboration with six other technology companies to plan and help build affordable Internet access for underdeveloped and developing countries. The service, called Free Basics, includes various low-bandwidth applications such as AccuWeather, BabyCenter, BBC News, ESPN, and Bing. There was severe opposition to Internet.org in India, where the service started in partnership with Reliance Communications in 2015 was banned a year later by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). In 2018, Zuckerberg claimed that “Internet.org efforts have helped almost 100 million people get access to the internet who may not have had it otherwise.”

Content disputes and moderation

In May 2018, several Android users filed a class action lawsuit against Facebook for invading their privacy. In January 2020, Facebook launched the Off-Facebook Activity page, which allows users to see information collected by Facebook about their non-Facebook activities. On September 28, 2018, Facebook experienced a major breach in its security, exposing the data of 50 million users. Facebook notified users affected by the exploit and logged them out of their accounts. In March 2019, Facebook confirmed a password compromise of millions of Facebook lite application users also affected millions of Instagram users.

Personal Life

Facebook simplified its privacy settings and introduced the Privacy Checkup feature, guiding users on data usage and sharing. Data privacy and security have been major concerns for Facebook, especially after the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal. This incident involved unauthorized data collection from millions of users, used for political advertising, leading to a global public and regulatory backlash.

• Posts posted in a group can be seen only by those in a group, unless set to public.
• In 2021, Facebook rebranded as Meta, reflecting its shift toward building the “metaverse” and focusing on virtual reality and augmented reality technologies.
• The three rejected employees along with the Operational Manager at Facebook as of March 2021 accused the firm of discriminating against Black people.
• In May 2020, Facebook agreed to a preliminary settlement of $52 million ($63.2 million in 2024 dollars) to compensate U.S.-based Facebook content moderators for their psychological trauma suffered on the job.
• Mark Zuckerberg (born May 14, 1984, White Plains, New York, U.S.) is an American computer programmer who was cofounder of the social networking site Facebook.
• On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched “Thefacebook”, originally located at thefacebook.com, in partnership with his roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.

In a blog post in December 2017, the company highlighted research that has shown “passively consuming” the News Feed, as in reading but not interacting, left users with negative feelings, whereas interacting with messages pointed to improvements in well-being. In January 2019, Facebook said it has removed 783 Iran-linked accounts, pages and groups for engaging in what it called “coordinated inauthentic behaviour”. In March 2019, Facebook sued four Chinese firms for selling “fake accounts, likes and followers” to amplify Chinese state media outlets.

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Before public release, a large portion of Facebook was already running and “battle tested” using the new language. Facebook uses its own content delivery network or “edge network” under the domain fbcdn.net for serving static data. Data is read from these log files using Ptail, an internally built tool to aggregate data from multiple Scribe stores.

The seed for this idea was planted during his time in high school, where he developed programs like “ZuckNet,” a messaging tool for his father’s dental practice. Zuckerberg’s knack for creating social utilities was evident even before his time at Harvard. Facebook announced in 2021 that it will make an effort to stop disinformation about climate change. The company will use George Mason University, Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the University of Cambridge as sources of information. Users in other countries will be directed to the site of the United Nations Environment Programme for information.

Facebook focused on generating revenue through targeted advertising based on user data, a model that drove its rapid financial growth. In 2012, it purchased Instagram, followed by WhatsApp and Oculus VR in 2014, extending its influence beyond social networking into messaging and virtual reality. After attending Phillips Exeter Academy, Zuckerberg enrolled at Harvard University in 2002. On February 4, 2004, he launched thefacebook.com (renamed Facebook in 2005), a directory in which fellow Harvard students entered their own information and photos into a template that he had devised. Zuckerberg’s roommates Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes helped him to add features and make the site available who is the father of facebook to other campuses across the country.