Facebook

This article is about the social media service. For its owner, formerly known as Facebook, Inc., see Meta Platforms.
Not to be confused with Face book or The World Factbook.

Facebook
Facebook logo Facebook wordmark
Logo used since September 2023
Screenshot
Mark Zuckerberg's profile (viewed when logged out)
Type of site
Social networking service
Available in112 languages[1]
List of languages
Multilingual
Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Assamese, Azerbaijani, Basque, Belarusian, Bengali, Bosnian, Breton, Bulgarian, Burmese, Catalan, Cebuano, Corsican, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Dutch (België), English (UK), English (US), English (upside down), Esperanto, Estonian, Faroese, Filipino, Finnish, French (Canada), French (France), Frisian, Fula, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Guarani, Gujarati, Haitian Creole, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Japanese (Kansai), Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Kinyarwanda, Korean, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Kyrgyz, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malagasy, Malay, Malayalam, Maltese, Marathi, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian (bokmal), Norwegian (nynorsk), Odia, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Sardinian, Serbian, Shona, Silesian, Simplified Chinese (China), Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Sorani Kurdish, Spanish, Spanish (Spain), Swahili, Swedish, Syriac, Tajik, Tamazight, Tamil, Tatar, Telugu, Tetun, Thai, Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong), Traditional Chinese (Taiwan), Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Welsh and Zaza
FoundedFebruary 4, 2004; 20 years ago (2004-02-04) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US
Area servedWorldwide, except blocking countries
OwnerMeta Platforms
Founder(s)
CEOMark Zuckerberg
URLfacebook.com
RegistrationRequired (to do any activity)
UsersIncrease 2.94 billion monthly active users (as of 31 March 2022)[2]
LaunchedFebruary 4, 2004; 20 years ago (2004-02-04)
Current statusActive
Written inC++, Hack (as HHVM) and PHP
[3][4][5]
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Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by American technology conglomerate Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, its name derives from the face book directories often given to American university students. Membership was initially limited to Harvard students, gradually expanding to other North American universities. Since 2006, Facebook allows everyone to register from 13 years old, except in the case of a handful of nations, where the age limit is 14 years.[6] As of December 2022, Facebook claimed almost 3 billion monthly active users.[7] As of October 2023, Facebook ranked as the third-most-visited website in the world, with 22.56% of its traffic coming from the United States.[8][9] It was the most downloaded mobile app of the 2010s.[10]

Facebook can be accessed from devices with Internet connectivity, such as personal computers, tablets and smartphones. After registering, users can create a profile revealing personal information about themselves. They can post text, photos and multimedia which are shared with any other users who have agreed to be their friend or, with different privacy settings, publicly. Users can also communicate directly with each other with Messenger, join common-interest groups, and receive notifications on the activities of their Facebook friends and the pages they follow.

The subject of numerous controversies, Facebook has often been criticized over issues such as user privacy (as with the Cambridge Analytica data scandal), political manipulation (as with the 2016 U.S. elections) and mass surveillance.[11] Facebook has also been subject to criticism over psychological effects such as addiction and low self-esteem, and various controversies over content such as fake news, conspiracy theories, copyright infringement, and hate speech.[12] Commentators have accused Facebook of willingly facilitating the spread of such content, as well as exaggerating its number of users to appeal to advertisers.[13]

  1. ^ "Facebook Interface Languages". Facebook (Select your language). Archived from the original on January 26, 2021. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
  2. ^ "Facebook Reports First Quarter 2022 Results". Facebook Investor Relations. March 31, 2022. Archived from the original on June 5, 2023. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  3. ^ "Our History". Facebook. Archived from the original on November 15, 2015. Retrieved November 7, 2018.
  4. ^ Clarke, Gavin (February 2, 2010). "Facebook re-write takes PHP to an enterprise past". The Register. Situation Publishing. Archived from the original on May 28, 2020. Retrieved March 23, 2017.
  5. ^ Levin, Sam (July 3, 2018). "Is Facebook a publisher? In public it says no, but in court it says yes". The Guardian. Archived from the original on February 21, 2021. Retrieved June 23, 2019.
  6. ^ "How do I report a child under the age of 14 on Facebook in South Korea, Spain or Quebec, Canada?". Facebook. Archived from the original on October 13, 2023. Retrieved October 9, 2023.
  7. ^ "Meta Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 Results". Meta Investor Relations – Facebook. February 1, 2023. Archived from the original on October 31, 2023. Retrieved March 26, 2023.
  8. ^ "Top Websites Ranking – Most Visited Websites in January 2023". similarweb. Archived from the original on February 10, 2022. Retrieved August 8, 2022.
  9. ^ "facebook.com". similarweb.com. Archived from the original on November 12, 2023. Retrieved November 15, 2023.
  10. ^ Miller, Chance (December 17, 2019). "These were the most-downloaded apps and games of the decade". 9to5Mac. Archived from the original on December 17, 2019. Retrieved December 17, 2019.
  11. ^ Cadwalladr, Carole; Graham-Harrison, v (May 24, 2018). "Facebook accused of conducting mass surveillance through its apps". The Guardian. Archived from the original on January 14, 2021. Retrieved October 9, 2020.
  12. ^ Mahdawi, Arwa (December 21, 2018). "Is 2019 the year you should finally quit Facebook?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on May 28, 2023. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
  13. ^ Claburn, Thomas (August 17, 2018). "Facebook flat-out 'lies' about how many people can see its ads – lawsuit". The Register. Archived from the original on September 7, 2023. Retrieved November 18, 2020.