On February 4th, 2004, a sophomore at Harvard, Mark Zuckerberg, launched a new social media platform called Facebook with the help of his three roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. It was initially built as a way to connect Harvard students with one another. Mark event named it after the directories handed out to the students that helped them get to know one another. However, over the years, it has become a worldwide platform.
Over thousands of students registered for Facebook within the first 24 hours of it being live, and by the end of the year, they had about one million users, with a man by the name of Peter Thiel investing $500,000 into the platform. About 71% of 18-24-year-olds stated that the internet is their primary news source, which caused this platform to spread rapidly. The idea behind Facebook was for the people who joined to be very transparent about who they were. This was because the company, Facebook, argued that transparency is necessary when forming personal and professional ideas when gathering or sharing information and building society as a whole.
Before Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook the previous year, Mark and his three roommates had become famous around campus for another social media platform similar to Facebook. This was called FaceMash. FaceMach was a website whose goal was to connect students around Harvard's campus together, just like Facebook; however, the actual platform had a very different appeal.
This was a website where Harvard students could judge the attractiveness and vote on which of two randomly selected Harvard women were more attractive. There were different people every week, and the women were randomly selected. This website, although very popular among most, Mark Zuckerberg violated university policies, and the platform was shut down two days after it was launched by the Harvard board.
Despite the shutdown of FaceMash, Mark gathered 450 followers, and there were over 22,000 votes in those two days of the website being up. This gave Mark a baseline when he launched his following product, Facebook. Initially, Harvard students who signed up for Facebook used it as a platform to post information about their personal and professional lives. Things such as their class schedules, different clubs they joined, and what party they were going to on Saturday night.
As Facebook grew in popularity, students from other nearby prestigious schools, such as Yale and Stanford, began signing up for Facebook. As of June 2004, more than 250,000 students from a variety of 34 schools have already signed up to join Facebook; the credit card company MasterCard even started paying for exposure on the site.
Facebook began having a worldwide impact, spreading around the globe in 2009 and becoming the most used social networking platform ever. It allowed people across the nation to express their beliefs and opinions openly and with people they didn't know. It is even statically stated that about 56% of internet users aged 65 and older have a Facebook, and 39% of those using it have never actually met their followers.
Facebook became a place to not only launch your business but also somewhere to check on your loved ones. Mark states, "Most importantly, it has made the world smaller, connecting people with friends and family in ways that weren't possible before." It has even created millions of jobs, including media, marketing, sales, and technology.
Facebook has become a minefield for brands...
Instead of the customer complaining to the customer service representatives, the angry customers have begun posting their complaints online for thousands of their "friends" to see.
This platform even started being a prominent source in election campaigns by importing consultants. The first actual social media election that Facebook took part in was in 2008 with Barack Obama's victory. Much of social media, such as Facebook, was used to keep people updated on what was happening, share their own opinions, and even ask questions.
A few positive outcomes of Facebook and its success was that Mark signed a pledge in 2010 stating that he would donate a least half of his wealth to charity; so far, he has also donated about $25 million towards fighting Ebola. He also announced that he would contribute 99% of the Facebook shares to Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to help improves lives. Overall, Facebook became the gateway to the rest of the internet.
Although Facebook has plenty of highs, there have also been lots of adverse effects found because of this platform. Facebook is very controversial. Not only does it allow misinformation and fake accounts to be created, but it also has been known for selling its users' data. This means they are failing to protect their users, which also means they are failing to do their job to the best of their abilities. Although Facebook was initially made for good, now some people use it to commit human rights cruelty by mobs engaged in violence worldwide. It has also given bullies, racists, and liars an easy platform to bully their target.
Facebook is a very controversial topic; it has created a lot of good, but with good comes bad and with bad comes unhappy customers. Overall, Facebook was the mini launch into creating our world into what it is today. Although many of you might hate Facebook, without it, we wouldn't be able to learn and evolve to where we are today with other social media platforms.
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