Facebook Basic Introduction

Facebook is an American for-profit corporation and an online social media and social networking service based in Menlo Park, California. The Facebook website was launched on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg, along with fellow Harvard Collegestudents and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.

he founders had initially limited the website's membership to Harvard students; however, 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 as well. 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 the minimum age requirement, depending on applicable local laws.[7] The Facebook name comes from the face book directories often given to United States university students. Facebook may be accessed by a large range of desktops, laptops, tablet computers, and smartphones over the Internet and mobile networks. After registering to use the site, users can create a user profile indicating their name, occupation, schools attended and so on. Users can add other users as "friends", exchange messages, post status updates and digital photos, share digital videos and links, use various software applications ("apps"), and receive notifications when others update their profiles or make posts. 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". In groups, editors can pin posts to top. Additionally, users can complain about or block unpleasant people. Because of the large volume of data that users submit to the service, Facebook has come under scrutiny for its privacy policies. Facebook makes most of its revenue from advertisements which appear onscreen, marketing access for its customers to its users and offering highly selective advertising opportunities. Facebook, Inc. held its initial public offering (IPO) in February 2012, and began selling stock to the public three months later, reaching an original peak market capitalization of $104 billion. On July 13, 2015, Facebook became the fastest company in theStandard & Poor's 500 Index to reach a market cap of $250 billion.[10] Facebook has more than 2 billion monthly active users as of June 2017.[11][12] As of April 2016, Facebook was the most popular social networking site in the world, based on the number of active user accounts.[13] Facebook classifies users from the ages of 13 to 18 as minors and therefore sets their profiles to share content with friends only.  

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".[15] Facemash attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours online.[16] 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, violatingcopyrights, and violating individual privacy. Ultimately, the charges were dropped.[15] 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. A "face book" is a student directory featuring photos and basic information.[16] In 2003, there were no universal online facebooks at Harvard, with only paper sheets distributed[18] and private online directories.[15][19] 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."[19] 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."[20] On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched "TheFacebook", originally located at thefacebook.com.[21] 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.[22] The three complained to The Harvard Crimson and the newspaper began an investigation. They later filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, subsequently settling in 2008[23] for 1.2 million shares (worth $300 million at Facebook's IPO).[24] 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.[6] Eduardo Saverin (business aspects), Dustin Moskovitz (programmer), Andrew McCollum (graphic artist), and Chris Hughes joined Zuckerberg to help promote the website. In March 2004, Facebook expanded to the universities of Columbia, Stanford, and Yale.[25] It later opened to all Ivy League colleges, Boston University, New York University, MIT, and gradually most universities in the United States and Canada.[26][27] In mid-2004, entrepreneur Sean Parker—an informal advisor to Zuckerberg—became the company's president.[28] In June 2004, Facebook moved its operations base to Palo Alto, California.[25] It received its first investment later that month from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.[29] In 2005, the company dropped "the" from its name after purchasing the domain name facebook.com for US$200,000.[30] The domain facebook.com belonged to AboutFace Corporation before the purchase. This website last appeared on April 8, 2005;[31] from April 10, 2005 to August 4, 2005, this domain gave a 403 error.[32] Mark Zuckerberg, co-creator of Facebook, in his Harvard dorm room, 2005 In May 2005, Accel Partners invested $12.7 million in Facebook, and Jim Breyer[33] 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.[34] (At the time, high-school networks required an invitation to join.)[35] Facebook also expanded membership eligibility to employees of several companies, including Apple Inc.and Microsoft.

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.[37][38][39] 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.[40] Pages began rolling out for businesses in May 2009.[41] 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.[42][43] In October 2008, Facebook announced that it would set up its international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.[44] Almost a year later, in September 2009, Facebook said that it had turned cash-flow positive for the first time.[45] A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook the most used social networking service by worldwide monthly active users.[46] 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?"[47] Traffic to Facebook increased steadily after 2009. The company announced 500 million users in July 2010,[48] 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."[49] 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.[50][51]   Facebook headquarters entrance sign at 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park, California In early 2011, Facebook announced plans to move its headquarters to the former Sun Microsystems campus in Menlo Park, California.[52][53] In March 2011, it was reported that Facebook was removing approximately 20,000 profiles every day for violations such as spam, graphic content, and underage use, as part of its efforts to boost cyber security.[54] Release of 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.[55][56] According to a Nielsen study, Facebook had in 2011 become the second-most accessed website in the U.S. behind Google. 2012–2013: IPO, lawsuits and one-billionth user Main article: Initial public offering of Facebook Facebook eventually filed for an initial public offering on February 1, 2012.[59] 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.[60][61][62] Facebook began selling stock to the public and trading on the NASDAQ on May 18, 2012.[63] Based on its 2012 income of $5 billion, Facebook joined theFortune 500 list for the first time in May 2013, ranked in position 462.

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.[65] The IPO raised $16 billion, making it the third-largest in U.S. history.[66][67] 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).[68]The first day of trading was marred by technical glitches that prevented orders from going through;[69][70] only the technical problems and artificial support from underwriters prevented the stock price from falling below the IPO price on the day.[71] 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. On May 22, 2012, the Yahoo! Finance website reported that Facebook's lead underwriters, Morgan Stanley (MS), JP Morgan (JPM), andGoldman Sachs (GS), cut their earnings forecasts for the company in the middle of the IPO process.[73] 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.[74] 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.[75] Facebook's IPO was consequently investigated, and was compared to a "pump and dump" scheme.[69][73][75][76] A class-action lawsuit was filed in May 2012 because of the trading glitches, which led to botched orders.[77][78] Lawsuits were filed, alleging that an underwriter for Morgan Stanley selectively revealed adjusted earnings estimates to preferred clients. 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.[80] 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.[81] By the end of May 2012, Facebook's stock lost over a quarter of its starting value, which led The Wall Street Journalto label the IPO a "fiasco".[82] Zuckerberg announced to the media at the start of October 2012 that Facebook had passed the monthly active users mark of one billion.[83] The company's data also revealed 600 million mobile users, 219 billion photo uploads, and 140 billion friend connections.

2013–present: 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.[85] Facebook emphasized that the feature would be "privacy-aware," returning only results from content already shared with the user.[86] 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. 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.[88] 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. 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".[90] 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."[91] 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.[92] 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."[93] Facebook was blocked by the Chinese government in 2009.[94] 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."[95][96] 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. 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.[98] 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."[99] Facebook announced Q4 2013 earnings of $523 million (20 cents per share), an increase of $64 million from the previous year,[100] as well as 945 million mobile users. The company celebrated its 10th anniversary during the week of February 3, 2014.[101] In each of the first three months of 2014, over one billion users logged into their Facebook account on a mobile device.[102] 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. By September 2014, Facebook's market capitalization had risen to over $200 billion.[105][106][107] 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.[108] 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. 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.[110] The algorithm, however, has been accused of maintaining a "filter bubble", where both material the user disagrees with[111] and posts with a low level of likes, will also not be seen.[112] In November 2015, Zuckerberg prolonged period of paternity leave from 4 weeks to 4 months. On April 12, 2016, Zuckerberg revealed a decade-long plan for Facebook in a keynote address. His speech outlined his vision, which was centered around three main pillars: artificial intelligence, increased connectivity around the world and virtual and augmented reality.[114] In June 2016 Facebook announced Deep Text, a natural language processing AI which will learn user intent and context in 20 languages.[115] 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.[116]Facebook released the blueprints of Surround 360 camera on GitHub under open-source license.[117] In September 2016, it won an Emmy for its Visual animated short "Henry".[118] 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.[119] Facebook annually has an Oculus Connect conference.[120] 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.[121] On January 17, 2017, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg planning to open Station F, a startup incubator campus in Paris, France.[122] On a six-monthly cycle, Facebook will work with ten to 15 data-driven startups in the location to help them develop their businesses.[123] On April 18, 2017, Facebook announced the beta launch of Facebook Spaces at Facebook's annual F8 developer conference in San Francisco.[124] 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.[125] The beta app is currently available in the Oculus Store.[126] 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.

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).[131] As of June 30, 2017, Facebook has 20,658 employees. Revenues (in millions US$) YearRevenueGrowth 2004$0.4[133]— 2005$9[133]2150% 2006$48[133]433% 2007$153[133]219% 2008$280[134]83% 2009$775[135]177% 2010$2,000[136]158% 2011$3,711[137]86% 2012$5,089[138]37% 2013$7,872[138]55% 2014$12,466[139]58% 2015$17,928[140]44% Most of Facebook's revenue comes from advertising.[141][142] 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,[143] 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),[144] Facebook's users click on advertisements an average of 0.04% of the time (400 clicks for every one million pages).[145] 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 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.[147] 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.[148] 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. A portion of Facebook revenue comes from the "firehose" access, bulk access to the social media data sold to the third parties.[151][152] 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.[153] 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."[154] On pages for brands and products, however, some companies have reported CTR as high as 6.49% for Wall posts.[155] 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.[156] 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 eMarketerreleased 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).[101] 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. 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 Main article: List of mergers and acquisitions by Facebook 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 at their website, but company didn't disclosed financial terms of the deal. 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, inHyderabad[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 inCalifornia, 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 environmen; 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 new 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.[      

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."[185][186] 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++.[187] The deployment of HipHop reportedly reduced average CPU consumption on Facebook servers by 50%.[188] 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 approximately 15 minutes to build and 15 minutes to release to the servers. The build and release process is zero downtime and new changes to Facebook are rolled out daily. 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).[189] 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.[189] 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 MapReduceservers 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.[189] On March 20, 2014, Facebook announced a new open source programming language called Hack. Prior to public release, a large portion of Facebook was already running and "battle tested" using the new language.[190] Facebook uses the Momentum platform from Message Systems to deliver the enormous volume of emails it sends to its users every day.[191] 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.[192] After initially giving users a choice to switch, Facebook began migrating all users to the new version starting in September 2008.[193] On December 11, 2008, it was announced that Facebook was testing a simpler signup process.[194] Fundraising Feature In March 2017, Facebook announced a feature that would allow users to raise money. Users could personally fundraise using the categories education, medical and pet health, public crisis, natural disasters, emergencies and funerals. In May 2017, Facebook added the categories community and sports and announced anyone in the U.S. eighteen and over could use the feature.[195] Later in 2017, Facebook announced users could start a fundraiser from within Safety Check, the Facebook feature that activates during major disasters. User profile/personal timeline   Facebook login/signup screen Each registered user on Facebook gets their own personal profile that shows their posts and content.[197] The format of individual user pages was revamped in September 2011 and became known as "Timeline", a chronological feed of a user's stories,[198][199] including status updates, photos, interactions with apps, and events.[200] The new layout also let users add a "cover photo", a large header image at the top of the Timeline.[200] Along with the new layout, users were also given more privacy settings to control the content on the Timeline.[200] In 2007, Facebook launched Facebook Pages for brands and celebrities to interact with their fanbase,[201][202] with more 100,000 Pages launched in November.[203] 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.[204][205] 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.[206][207][208] 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.[209][210] News Feed Main article: 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.[211] 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.[212] 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).[213] 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.[214] On February 23, 2010, Facebook was granted a patent[215] 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.[216] The patent may encourage Facebook to pursue action against websites that violate its patent, which may potentially include websites such as Twitter.[217] One of the most popular applications on Facebook is the Photos application, where users can upload albums and photos.[218] 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.[219][220][221][222] 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.[223] 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.[224] Since the launch of the App Center, Facebook has seen 150M monthly users with 2.4 times the installation of apps.[225] The sorting and display of stories in a user's News Feed is governed by the EdgeRank algorithm.[226] 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.[227][228] According to the technology news web site 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.[229] 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. Like button Main article: Facebook like button The "like" button, stylized as a "thumbs up" icon, was first enabled on February 9, 2009,[231] and enables users to easily interact with status updates, comments, photos, links shared by friends, and advertisements. Once clicked by a user, the designated content appears in the News Feeds of that user's friends,[232][233] and the button also displays the number of other users who have liked the content, including a full or partial list of those users.[234] The like button was extended to comments in June 2010.[235] After extensive testing[236] and years of questions from the public about whether it had an intention to incorporate a "Dislike" button,[237] 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".[236][238] Reactions were also extended to comments in May 2017.[239][240] Instant messaging Main article: Facebook Messenger Facebook Messenger is an instant messaging service and software application. Originally developed as Facebook Chat in 2008,[241] the company revamped its messaging service in 2010,[242] and subsequently released standalone iOS and Android apps in August 2011.[243] Over the years, Facebook has released new apps on a variety of different operating systems,[244][245][246] launched a dedicated website interface,[247] and separated the messaging functionality from the main Facebook app, requiring users to download the standalone apps.[248] Facebook Messenger lets Facebook users send messages to each other. Complementing regular conversations, Messenger lets users make voice calls[249] and video calls[250]both in one-to-one interactions[251] and in group conversations.[252] Its Android app has integrated support for SMS[253] and "Chat Heads", which are round profile photo icons appearing on-screen regardless of what app is open,[254] while both apps support multiple accounts,[255] conversations with optional end-to-end encryption,[256] and playing "Instant Games", which are select games built into Messenger.[257] Some features, including sending money[258] and requesting transportation,[259] are limited to the United States.[258] 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;[260] Reactions, which lets users tap and hold a message to add a reaction through an emoji;[261] and Mentions, which lets users in group conversations type @ to give a particular user a notification.[261] 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.[262] 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,[263] 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.[264][265] 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.[266] 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.[267] In conjunction, Facebook also introduced a system in February 2012 to verify the identity of certain accounts.[268] 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.[269] Comparison with Myspace The media often compares Facebook to Myspace, but one significant difference between the two Web sites is the level of customization.[270] Another difference is Facebook's requirement that users give their true identity, a demand that MySpace does not make.[271] MySpace allows users to decorate their profiles using HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), while Facebook allows only plain text.[272] 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;[273] 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);[274] Photos, that allows users to upload albums and photos;[275] and Status, which allows users to inform their friends of their whereabouts and actions.[276]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.[273] 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.[277] 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.[277] Privacy   PRISM: a clandestine surveillanceprogram under which the NSA collects user data from companies like Facebook and Yahoo!.[278] Facebook enables users to choose their own privacy settings and choose who can see specific parts of their profile.[279] The website is free to its users and generates revenue from advertising, such as banner ads.[280] 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.[281] 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,[282] but privacy concerns remain.[283] Since 2010, the 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.[284] On November 29, 2011, Facebook settled Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceived consumers by failing to keep privacy promises.[285] In August 2013 High-Tech Bridge published a study showing that links included in Facebook messaging service messages were being accessed by Facebook.[286] In January 2014 two users filed a lawsuit against Facebook alleging that their privacy had been violated by this practice.[287] Facebook Bug Bounty Program   A Facebook "White Hat" debit card, given to researchers who reportsecurity bugs. 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."[288][289] 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.'"[290] India, which has the second largest number of bug hunters in the world,[291] tops the Facebook Bug Bounty Program with the largest number of valid bugs. "Researchers in Russia earned the highest amount per 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.

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Criticism of Facebook relates to how Facebook's market dominance have led to international media coverage and significant reporting of its shortcomings. Notable issues include Internet privacy, such as its use of a widespread "like" button on third-party websites tracking users,[1][2] possible indefinite records of user information,[3] automatic facial recognition software,[4][5] and its role in the workplace, including employer-employee account disclosure. The use of Facebook can have psychological effects, including feelings of jealousy[7][8] and stress,[9][10] a lack of attention,[11] and social media addiction, in some cases comparable to drug addiction. Facebook's company tactics have also received prominent coverage, including electricity usage,[14] tax avoidance,[15] real-name user requirement policies,[16]censorship,[17][18] and its involvement in the United States PRISM surveillance program. 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,[20] hate speech,[21][22] incitement of rape[23] and terrorism,[24][25] fake news,[26][27][28]Facebook murder, crimes and violent incidents live-streamed through its Facebook Live functionality. Facebook has been banned by several governments, including Syria,[32] China,[33] and Iran.[34] The company has also been subject to multiple litigation cases over the years,[35][36][37][38] 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.[39][40][41] The original lawsuit was eventually settled in 2009, with Facebook paying approximately $20 million in cash and 1.25 million shares.[42][43] A new lawsuit in 2011 was dismissed. Wrongful account suspensions and coercion of private identification out of its users[edit] In 2015, it was reported that a growing number of Facebook users are being wrongfully and inexplicably being suspended from their accounts by Facebook to give up copies of their private identification information, such as copies of their driver's license, state-issued ID cards, passports, military cards, etc, with users being permanently locked out of their accounts if this information isn't given up. This has created great displeasure for users who practice discretion with such information. Facebook does not require the release of such information when individuals sign up for the site. Although facebook is defending it as account security, because such information can seriously harm individuals, this method has been widely described by users as a presumptuous, dictatorial move and an offensive invasion of privacy by Facebook. Other popular websites have only asked for verification of identities through an e-mail confirmation link, or in some cases, a cellular phone text message confirmation. In 2010, the Electronic Frontier Foundation identified two personal information aggregation techniques called "connections" and "instant personalization". They demonstrated that anyone could get access to information saved to a Facebook profile, even if the information was not intended to be made public.[48] A "connection" is created when a user clicks a "Like" button for a product or service, either on Facebook itself or an external site. Facebook treats such relationships as public information, and the user's identity may be displayed on the Facebook page of the product or service. Instant Personalization was a pilot program which shared Facebook account information with affiliated sites, such as sharing a user's list of "liked" bands with a music website, so that when the user visits the site, their preferred music plays automatically. The EFF noted that "For users that have not opted out, Instant Personalization is instant data leakage. As soon as you visit the sites in the pilot program (Yelp, Pandora, and Microsoft Docs) the sites can access your name, your picture, your gender, your current location, your list of friends, all the Pages you have Liked—everything Facebook classifies as public information. Even if you opt out of Instant Personalization, there's still data leakage if your friends use Instant Personalization websites—their activities can give away information about you, unless you block those applications individually."[48] On December 27, 2012, CBS News reported that Randi Zuckerberg, sister of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, criticized a friend for being "way uncool" in sharing a private Facebook photo of her on Twitter, only to be told that the image had appeared on a friend-of-a-friend's Facebook news feed. Commenting on this misunderstanding of Facebook's privacy settings, Eva Galperin of the EFF said "Even Randi Zuckerberg can get it wrong. That's an illustration of how confusing they can be. In August 2007, the code used to generate Facebook's home and search page as visitors browse the site was accidentally made public.[50][51] A configuration problem on a Facebook server caused the PHP code to be displayed instead of the web page the code should have created, raising concerns about how secure private data on the site was. A visitor to the site copied, published and later removed the code from his web forum, claiming he had been served and threatened with legal notice by Facebook.[52] Facebook's response was quoted by the site that broke the story: A small fraction of the code that displays Facebook web pages was exposed to a small number of users due to a single misconfigured web server that was fixed immediately. It was not a security breach and did not compromise user data in any way. Because the code that was released powers only Facebook user interface, it offers no useful insight into the inner workings of Facebook. The reprinting of this code violates several laws and we ask that people not distribute it further In November, Facebook launched Beacon, a system (discontinued in September 2009)[54] where third-party websites could include a script by Facebook on their sites, and use it to send information about the actions of Facebook users on their site to Facebook, prompting serious privacy concerns. Information such as purchases made and games played were published in the user's news feed. An informative notice about this action appeared on the third party site and gave the user the opportunity to cancel it, and the user could also cancel it on Facebook. Originally if no action was taken, the information was automatically published. On November 29 this was changed to require confirmation from the user before publishing each story gathered by Beacon. On December 1, Facebook's credibility in regard to the Beacon program was further tested when it was reported that the New York Times "essentially accuses" Mark Zuckerberg of lying to the paper and leaving Coca-Cola, which is reversing course on the program, a similar impression.[55] A security engineer at CA, Inc. also claimed in a November 29, 2007 blog post that Facebook collected data from affiliate sites even when the consumer opted out and even when not logged into the Facebook site.[56] On November 30, 2007, the CA security blog posted a Facebook clarification statement addressing the use of data collected in the Beacon program: When a Facebook user takes a Beacon-enabled action on a participating site, information is sent to Facebook in order for Facebook to operate Beacon technologically. If a Facebook user clicks 'No, thanks' on the partner site notification, Facebook does not use the data and deletes it from its servers. Separately, before Facebook can determine whether the user is logged in, some data may be transferred from the participating site to Facebook. In those cases, Facebook does not associate the information with any individual user account, and deletes the data as well. On September 5, 2006, Facebook introduced two new features called "News Feed" and "Mini-Feed". The first of the new features, News Feed, appears on every Facebook member's home page, displaying recent Facebook activities of the member's friends. The second feature, Mini-Feed, keeps a log of similar events on each member's profile page.[58] Members can manually delete items from their Mini-Feeds if they wish to do so, and through privacy settings can control what is actually published in their respective Mini-Feeds. Some Facebook members still feel that the ability to opt out of the entire News Feed and Mini-Feed system is necessary, as evidenced by a statement from the Students Against Facebook News Feed group, which peaked at over 740,000 members in 2006.[59] Reacting to users' concerns, Facebook developed new privacy features to give users some control over information about them that was broadcast by the News Feed.[60] According to subsequent news articles, members have widely regarded the additional privacy options as an acceptable compromise. In May 2010, Facebook added privacy controls and streamlined its privacy settings, giving users more ways to manage status updates and other information that is broadcast to the public News Feed.[62] Among the new privacy settings is the ability to control who sees each new status update a user posts: Everyone, Friends of Friends, or Friends Only. Users can now hide each status update from specific people as well.[63] However, a user who presses "like" or comments on the photo or status update of a friend cannot prevent that action from appearing in the news feeds of all the user's friends, even non-mutual ones. The "View As" option, used to show a user how privacy controls filter out what a specific given friend can see, only displays the user's timeline and gives no indication that items missing from the timeline may still be showing up in the friend's own news feed. Government and local authorities rely on Facebook and other social networks to investigate crimes and obtain evidence to help establish a crime, provide location information, establish motives, prove and disprove alibis, and reveal communications.[64] Federal, state, and local investigations have not been restricted to profiles that are publicly available or willingly provided to the government; Facebook has willingly provided information in response to government subpoenas or requests, except with regard to private, unopened inbox messages less than 181 days old, which require a warrant and a finding of probable cause under federal law.[65] An article by Junichi Semitsu published in the Pace Law Review'[66] reports that "even when the government lacks reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and the user opts for the strictest privacy controls, Facebook users still cannot expect federal law to stop their 'private' content and communications from being used against them. "[65] Facebook's privacy policy states that "We may also share information when we have a good faith belief it is necessary to prevent fraud or other illegal activity, to prevent imminent bodily harm, or to protect ourselves and you from people violating our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, courts or other government entities."[65] Since Congress has failed to meaningfully amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to protect most communications on social-networking sites such as Facebook, and since the Supreme Court has largely refused to recognize a Fourth Amendment privacy right to information shared with a third party, there is no federal statutory or constitutional right that prevents the government from issuing requests that amount to fishing expeditions and there is no Facebook privacy policy that forbids the company from handing over private user information that suggests any illegal activity.[65] The 2013 mass surveillance disclosures identified Facebook as a participant in the U.S. National Security Administration's PRISM program. Facebook now reports the number of requests it receives for user information from governments around the world.      

On May 31, 2008 the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), per Director Phillipa Lawson, filed a 35-page complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner against Facebook based on 22 breaches of the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). University of Ottawa law students Lisa Feinberg, Harley Finkelstein, and Jordan Eric Plener, initiated the "minefield of privacy invasion" suit. Facebook's Chris Kelly contradicted the claims, saying that: "We've reviewed the complaint and found it has serious factual errors—most notably its neglect of the fact that almost all Facebook data is willingly shared by users."[68] Assistant Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham released a report of her findings on July 16, 2009.[69] In it, she found that several of CIPPIC's complaints were well-founded. Facebook agreed to comply with some, but not all, of her recommendations.[69] The Assistant Commissioner found that Facebook did not do enough to ensure users granted meaningful consent for the disclosure of personal information to third parties and did not place adequate safeguards to ensure unauthorized access by third party developers to personal information. There have been some concerns expressed regarding the use of Facebook as a means of surveillance and data mining. Two Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) students were able to use an automated script to download the publicly posted information of over 70,000 Facebook profiles from four schools (MIT, NYU, the University of Oklahoma, and Harvard University) as part of a research project on Facebook privacy published on December 14, 2005.[70] Since then, Facebook has bolstered security protection for users, responding: "We've built numerous defenses to combat phishing and malware, including complex automated systems that work behind the scenes to detect and flag Facebook accounts that are likely to be compromised (based on anomalous activity like lots of messages sent in a short period of time, or messages with links that are known to be bad)."[71] A second clause that brought criticism from some users allowed Facebook the right to sell users' data to private companies, stating "We may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship." This concern was addressed by spokesman Chris Hughes, who said "Simply put, we have never provided our users' information to third party companies, nor do we intend to."[72] Facebook eventually removed this clause from its privacy policy.[73] In the United Kingdom, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has encouraged employers to allow their staff to access Facebook and other social-networking sites from work, provided they proceed with caution.[74] In September 2007, Facebook drew criticism after it began allowing search engines to index profile pages, though Facebook's privacy settings allow users to turn this off.[75] Concerns were also raised on the BBC's Watchdog program in October 2007 when Facebook was shown to be an easy way in which to collect an individual's personal information in order to facilitate identity theft.[76] However, there is barely any personal information presented to non-friends - if users leave the privacy controls on their default settings, the only personal information visible to a non-friend is the user's name, gender, profile picture, networks, and user name.[77] A New York Times article in February 2008 pointed out that Facebook does not actually provide a mechanism for users to close their accounts, and raised the concern that private user data would remain indefinitely on Facebook's servers.[78] As of 2013, Facebook gives users the options to deactivate or delete their accounts. Deactivating an account allows it to be restored later, while deleting it will remove the account "permanently", although some data submitted by that account ("like posting to a group or sending someone a message") will remain. Facebook had allowed users to deactivate their accounts but not actually remove account content from its servers. A Facebook representative explained to a student from theUniversity of British Columbia that users had to clear their own accounts by manually deleting all of the content including wall posts, friends, and groups. A New York Times article noted the issue, and raised a concern that emails and other private user data remain indefinitely on Facebook's servers.[78] Facebook subsequently began allowing users to permanently delete their accounts in 2010. Facebook's Privacy Policy now states: "When you delete an account, it is permanently deleted from Facebook. A notable ancillary effect of social-networking websites, is the ability for participants to mourn publicly for a deceased individual. On Facebook, friends often leave messages of sadness, grief, or hope on the individual's page, transforming it into a sort of public book of condolences. This particular phenomenon has been documented at a number of schools.[80][81][82] Facebook originally held a policy that profiles of people known to be deceased would be removed after 30 days due to privacy concerns.[83] Due to user response, Facebook changed its policy to place deceased members' profiles in a "memorialization state".[84] Facebook's Privacy Policy regarding memorialization says, "If we are notified that a user is deceased, we may memorialize the user's account. In such cases we restrict profile access to confirmed friends, and allow friends and family to write on the user's Wall in remembrance. We may close an account if we receive a formal request from the user's next of kin or other proper legal request to do so."[73] Some of these memorial groups have also caused legal issues. Notably, on January 1, 2008, one such memorial group posted the identity of murdered Toronto teenager Stefanie Rengel, whose family had not yet given the Toronto Police Service their consent to release her name to the media, and the identities of her accused killers, in defiance ofCanada's Youth Criminal Justice Act which prohibits publishing the names of the under-age accused.[85] While police and Facebook staff attempted to comply with the privacy regulations by deleting such posts, they noted difficulty in effectively policing the individual users who repeatedly republished the deleted information. In July 2007, Adrienne Felt, an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia, discovered a cross-site scripting (XSS) hole in the Facebook Platform that could inject JavaScript into profiles. She used the hole to import custom CSS and demonstrate how the platform could be used to violate privacy rules or create a worm. Quit Facebook Day was an online event which took place on May 31, 2010 (coinciding with Memorial Day), in which Facebook users stated that they would quit the social network, due to privacy concerns.[88] It was estimated that 2% of Facebook users coming from the United States would delete their accounts.[89] However, only 33,000 (roughly 0.0066% of its roughly 500 million members at the time) users quit the site.[90] The number one reason for users to quit Facebook was privacy concerns (48%), being followed by a general dissatisfaction with Facebook (14%), negative aspects regarding Facebook friends (13%) and the feeling of getting addicted to Facebook (6%). Facebook quitters were found to be more concerned about privacy, more addicted to the Internet and more conscientious. Facebook enabled an automatic facial recognition feature in June 2011, called "Tag Suggestions", a product of a research project named "DeepFace".[92] The feature compares newly uploaded photographs to those of the uploader's Facebook friends, in order to suggest photo tags. National Journal Daily claims "Facebook is facing new scrutiny over its decision to automatically turn on a new facial recognition feature aimed at helping users identify their friends in photos".[93] Facebook has defended the feature, saying users can disable it.[94] Facebook introduced the feature in an opt-out basis.[95] European Union data-protection regulators said they would investigate the feature to see if it violated privacy rules.[94][96] Naomi Lachance stated in web blog for NPR:All Tech Considered that Facebook's facial recognition is 98% of the time compared to the FBI's 85% out of 50 people. It's also noted, however, that the accuracies of Facebook searches being from a larger, more diverse photo selection compared to the FBI's closed database.[97] Mark Zuckerberg showed no worries when speaking about Facebook's AIs saying, "Unsupervised learning is a long term focus of our AI research team at Facebook, and it remains an important challenge for the whole AI research community" and "It will saves lives by diagnosing diseases and driving us around more safely. It will enable breakthroughs by helping us find new planets and understand Earth's climate. It will help in areas we haven't even thought of today". In August 2011, the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) started an investigation after receiving 22 complaints by europe-v-facebook.org, which was founded by a group of Austrian students.[99] The DPC stated in first reactions that the Irish DPC is legally responsible for privacy on Facebook for all users within the European Union[100] and that he will "investigate the complaints using his full legal powers if necessary".[101] The complaints were filed in Ireland because all users who are not residents of the United States or Canada have a contract with "Facebook Ireland Ltd", located in Dublin, Ireland. Under European law Facebook Ireland is the "data controller" for facebook.com, and therefore, facebook.com is governed by European data protection laws.[100] Facebook Ireland Ltd. was established by Facebook Inc. to avoid US taxes (see Double Irish arrangement).

The group 'europe-v-facebook.org' made access requests at Facebook Ireland and received up to 1,222 pages of data per person in 57 data categories that Facebook was holding about them,[103] including data that was previously removed by the users.[104] Despite the amount of information given, the group claimed that Facebook did not give them all of its data. Some of the information not included was "likes", data about the new face recognition function, data about third party websites that use "social plugins" visited by users and information about uploaded videos. Currently the group claims that Facebook holds at least 84 data categories about every user.[105] The first 16 complaints target different problems, from undeleted old "pokes" all the way to the question if sharing and new functions on Facebook should be opt-in or opt-out.[106]The second wave of 6 more complaints was targeting more issues including one against the "Like" button.[107] The most severe could be a complaint that claims that the privacy policy, and the consent to the privacy policy is void under European laws. In an interview with the Irish Independent a spokesperson said that the DPC will "go and audit Facebook, go into the premises and go through in great detail every aspect of security". He continued by saying: "It's a very significant, detailed and intense undertaking that will stretch over four or five days." In December 2011 the DPC has published a first report on Facebook. This report was not legally binding but suggested changes that Facebook should undertake until July 2012. The DPC is planning to do a review about Facebook's progress in July 2012. In spring 2012, Facebook had to undertake many changes, e.g. having an extended download tool that should allow users to exercise the European right to access to all stored information or an update of the worldwide privacy policy. These changes were seen as not sufficient to comply with European law by europe-v-facebook.org. The download tool does not allow, for example, access to all data. The group has launched our-policy.org[108] to suggest improvements to the new policy, which they saw as a backdrop for privacy on Facebook. Since the group managed to get more than 7.000 comments on Facebook's pages, Facebook had to do a worldwide vote on the proposed changes. Such a vote would have only been binding if 30% of all users would have taken part. Facebook did not promote the vote, resulting in only 0.038% participation with about 87% voting against Facebook's new policy. The new privacy policy took effect on the same day. An article published by USA Today in November 2011 claimed that Facebook creates logs of pages visited both by its members and by non-members. Relying on tracking cookiesto keep track of pages visited, the United States Congress and the World Wide Web Consortium are attempting to set new guidelines to deal with Internet privacy concerns, potentially giving users the ability to limit or stop technology companies from tracking their activities.[110] In early November 2015, Facebook was ordered by the Belgian Privacy Commissioner to cease tracking non-users, citing European laws, or else risk fines of up to £250,000 per day.[111] As a result, instead of removing tracking cookies, Facebook prevents non-users from seeing any material on Facebook, including publicly-posted content. Arguing that the cookies provided better security, Facebook said in a statement: "We're disappointed we were unable to reach an agreement and now people will be required to log in or register for an account to see publicly available content on Facebook. Social networks, like Facebook, can have a detrimental effect on marriages, with users becoming worried about their spouse's contacts and relations with other people online, leading to marital breakdown and divorce.[114] According to a 2009 survey in the UK, around 20 percent of divorce petitions included some kind of reference to Facebook. By statistics, 63% of Facebook profiles are automatically set "visible to the public" meaning anyone can access the profiles that users have updated. Facebook also has its own built in messaging system that people can send message to any other user, unless they have disabled the feature to "from friends only". Stalking is not only limited to SNS stalking, but can lead to further 'in person' stalking, because nearly 25% of real life stalking victims reported it started with online instant messaging (e.g. Facebook chat. The notion that people are very much aware that they are being surveiled on websites, like Facebook, and use the surveillance as an opportunity to portray themselves in a way that connotes a certain lifestyle—of which, that individual may, or may not, distort how they are perceived in reality. In 2010, The Wall Street Journal found that many of Facebook's top-rated apps were transmitting identifying information to "dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies". The apps used an HTTP referer that exposed the user's identity and sometimes their friends' identities. Facebook said that "While knowledge of user ID does not permit access to anyone’s private information on Facebook, we plan to introduce new technical systems that will dramatically limit the sharing of User ID’s". A blog post by a member of Facebook's team further stated that "press reports have exaggerated the implications of sharing a user ID", though still acknowledging that some of the apps were passing the ID in a manner that violated Facebook's policies. In an effort to surveil the personal lives of current, or prospective employees, some employers have asked employees to disclose their Facebook log-in information. This has resulted in the passing of a bill in New Jersey making it illegal for employers to ask potential or current employees for access to their Facebook accounts.[124] Although, the U.S government has yet to pass a national law protecting prospective employees and their social networking sites, from employers, the fourth amendment of the US constitution can protect prospective employees in specific situations. A 2011 study in the online journal First Monday, examines how parents consistently enable children as young as 10 years old to sign up for accounts, directly violating Facebook's policy banning young visitors. This policy is in compliance with a United States law, the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which requires minors aged 13 or younger to gain explicit parental consent to access commercial websites. In other jurisdictions where a similar law sets a lower minimum age, Facebook enforces the lower age. Of the 1,007 households surveyed for the study, 76% of parents reported that their child joined Facebook at an age younger than 13, the minimum age in the site's terms of service. The study also reported that Facebook removes roughly 20,000 users each day for violating its minimum age policy. The study's authors also note, "Indeed, Facebook takes various measures both to restrict access to children and delete their accounts if they join." The findings of the study raise questions primarily about the shortcomings of United States federal law, but also implicitly continue to raise questions about whether or not Facebook does enough to publicize its terms of service with respect to minors. Only 53% of parents said they were aware that Facebook has a minimum signup age; 35% of these parents believe that the minimum age is merely a recommendation, or thought the signup age was 16 or 18, and not 13. Students who post illegal or otherwise inappropriate material have faced disciplinary action from their universities, colleges, and schools including expulsion.[further explanation needed][128] Others posting libelous content relating to faculty have also faced disciplinary action.[129] The Journal of Education for Business states that "a recent study of 200 Facebook profiles found that 42% had comments regarding alcohol, 53% had photos involving alcohol use, 20% had comments regarding sexual activities, 25% had seminude or sexually provocative photos, and 50% included the use of profanity."[130] It is inferred that negative or incriminating Facebook posts can effect alumnis' and potential employers' perception of them. This perception can greatly impact the students' relationships, ability to gain employment, and maintain school enrollment. The desire for social acceptance leads individuals to want to share the most intimate details of their personal lives along with illicit drug use and binge drinking. Too often, these portrayals of their daily lives are exaggerated and/or embellished to attract others like minded to them. On January 23, 2006, The Chronicle of Higher Education continued an ongoing national debate on social networks with an opinion piece written by Michael Bugeja, director of theJournalism School at Iowa State University, entitled "Facing the Facebook".[131] Bugeja, author of the Oxford University Press text Interpersonal Divide (2005), quoted representatives of the American Association of University Professors and colleagues in higher education to document the distraction of students using Facebook and other social networks during class and at other venues in the wireless campus. Bugeja followed up on January 26, 2007 in The Chronicle with an article titled "Distractions in the Wireless Classroom",[132] quoting several educators across the country who were banning laptops in the classroom. Similarly, organizations such as the National Association for Campus Activities,[133] the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication,[134] and others have hosted seminars and presentations to discuss ramifications of students' use of Facebook and other social-networking sites. The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative has also released a brief pamphlet entitled "7 Things You Should Know About Facebook" aimed at higher education professionals that "describes what [Facebook] is, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning".[135] Some research[136][137][138] on Facebook in higher education suggests that there may be some small educational benefits associated with student Facebook use, including improving engagement which is related to student retention.[138] 2012 research has found that time spent on Facebook is related to involvement in campus activities.[137] This same study found that certain Facebook activities like commenting and creating or RSVPing to events were positively related to student engagement while playing games and checking up on friends was negatively related. Furthermore, using technologies such as Facebook to connect with others can help college students be less depressed and cope with feelings of loneliness and homesickness.

As of February 2012, only four published peer-reviewed studies have examined the relationship between Facebook use and grades.[136][140][141][142] There is considerable variance in the findings. Pasek et al. (2009)[142] found there was no relationship between Facebook use and grades. Kolek and Saunders (2008)[141] found that there were no differences in overall grade point average (GPA) between users and non-users of Facebook. Kirschner and Karpinski (2010)[140] found that Facebook users reported a lower mean GPA than non-users. Junco's (2012)[136] study clarifies the discrepancies in these findings. While Junco (2012)[136] found a negative relationship between time spent on Facebook and student GPA in his large sample of college students, the real-world impact of the relationship was negligible. Furthermore, Junco (2012)[136] found that sharing links and checking up on friends were positively related to GPA while posting status updates was negatively related. In addition to noting the differences in how Facebook use was measured among the four studies, Junco (2012)[136] concludes that the ways in which students use Facebook are more important in predicting academic outcomes. Facebook has been criticized for making people envious and unhappy due to the constant exposure to positive yet unrepresentative highlights of their peers. Such highlights include, but are not limited to, wall posts, videos, and photos that depict or reference such positive or otherwise outstanding activities, experiences, and facts. This effect is caused mainly by the fact that most users of Facebook usually only display the positive aspects of their lives while excluding the negative, though it is also strongly connected to inequalityand the disparities between social groups as Facebook is open to users from all classes of society. Sites such as AddictionInfo.org[143] state that this kind of envy has profound effects on other aspects of life and can lead to severe depression, self-loathing, rage and hatred, resentment, feelings of inferiority and insecurity, pessimism, suicidal tendencies and desires, social isolation, and other issues that can prove very serious. This condition has often been called "Facebook Envy" or "Facebook Depression" by the media. A joint study conducted by two German universities demonstrated Facebook envy and found that as many as one out of three people actually feel worse and less satisfied with their lives after visiting the site. Vacation photos were found to be the most common source of feelings of resentment and jealousy. After that, social interaction was the second biggest cause of envy, as Facebook users compare the number of birthday greetings, likes, and comments to those of their friends. Visitors who contributed the least tended to feel the worst. "According to our findings, passive following triggers invidious emotions, with users mainly envying happiness of others, the way others spend their vacations; and socialize," the study states. Research performed by psychologists from Edinburgh Napier University indicated that Facebook adds stress to users' lives. Causes of stress included fear of missing important social information, fear of offending contacts, discomfort or guilt from rejecting user requests or deleting unwanted contacts or being unfriended or blocked by Facebook friends or other users, the displeasure of having friend requests rejected or ignored, the pressure to be entertaining, criticism or intimidation from other Facebook users, and having to use appropriate etiquette for different types of friends.[152] Many people who started using Facebook for positive purposes or with positive expectations have found that the website has negatively impacted their lives.[153] Next to that, the increasing number of messages and social relationships embedded in SNS also increases the amount of social information demanding a reaction from SNS users. Consequently SNS users perceive they are giving too much social support to other SNS friends. This dark side of SNS usage is called ‘social overload’. It is caused by the extent of usage, number of friends, subjective social support norms, and type of relationship (online-only vs offline friends) while age has only an indirect effect. The psychological and behavioral consequences of social overload include perceptions of SNS exhaustion, low user satisfaction, and high intentions to reduce or stop using SNS. The "World Unplugged" study, which was conducted in 2011, claims that for some users quitting social networking sites is comparable to quitting smoking or giving up alcohol.[155]Another study conducted in 2012 by researchers from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in the United States found that drugs like alcohol and tobacco could not keep up with social networking sites regarding their level of addictiveness.[156] A 2013 study in the journal CyberPsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking found that some users decided to quit social networking sites because they felt they were addicted. In 2014, the site went down for about 30 minutes, prompting several users to call 9-1-1. It has been admitted by many students that they have experienced bullying on the site, which leads to psychological harm. Students of high schools face a possibility of bullying and other adverse behaviors over Facebook every day. Many studies have attempted to discover whether Facebook has a positive or negative effect on children’s and teenagers’ social lives, and many of them have come to the conclusion that there are distinct social problems that arise with Facebook usage. British neuroscientist Susan Greenfield stuck up for the issues that children encounter on social media sites. She said that they can rewire the brain, which caused some hysteria over whether or not social networking sites are safe. She did not back up her claims with research, but did cause quite a few studies to be done on the subject. When that self is then broken down by others by badmouthing, criticism, harassment, criminalization or vilification, intimidation, demonization, demoralization, belittlement, or attacking someone over the site it can cause much of the envy, anger, or depression. Sherry Turkle, in her book Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, argues that social media bring people closer and further apart at the same time. One of the main points she makes is that there is a high risk in treating persons online with dispatch like objects. Although people are networked on Facebook, their expectations of each other tend to be lessened. According to Turkle, this could cause a feeling of loneliness in spite of being together. A 2014 study titled "Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks" manipulated the balance of positive and negative messages seen by 689,000 Facebook users. The paper details the experiment running from January 11 to 18, 2012, in an attempt to identify emotional contagion effects by altering the amount of emotional content in the targeted users' news feed.[163][164] The researchers concluded that they had found "some of the first experimental evidence to support the controversial claims that emotions can spread throughout a network, [though] the effect sizes from the manipulations are small". The study was criticized for both its ethics and methods/claims. As controversy about the study grew, Adam Kramer, a lead author of both studies and member of the Facebook data team, defended the work in a Facebook update.[166] A few days later, Sheryl Sandburg, Facebook's COO, made a statement while travelling abroad. While at an Indian Chambers of Commerce event in New Delhi she stated that: "This was part of ongoing research companies do to test different products, and that was what it was. It was poorly communicated and for that communication we apologize. We never meant to upset you. Shortly thereafter, on July 3, 2014, USA Today reported that the privacy watchdog group Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) had filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade claiming that Facebook had broken the law when it conducted the study on the emotions of its users without their knowledge or consent. In its complaint the EPIC alleged that Facebook had deceived it users by secretly conducting a psychological experiment on their emotions: "At the time of the experiment, Facebook did not state in the Data Use Policy that user data would be used for research purposes. Facebook also failed to inform users that their personal information would be shared with researchers.