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A global social networking service owned and operated by Meta Platforms.

Last updated November 4, 2026

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First read: Oct 29, 2026
Latest read: Nov 4, 2026

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Overview

Facebook is a global social networking service and one of the best-known digital platforms operated by Meta Platforms. It began in February 2004 as TheFacebook, a directory and networking site for Harvard students, and gradually expanded to universities across the United States and Canada before opening registration more broadly in 2006. The name refers to printed or electronic student directories, commonly called face books, that pair photographs with personal information. The service allows people to create profiles, connect with other users as friends or followers, publish text, photographs, video and links, exchange messages through Messenger, participate in interest-based groups, follow public Pages, organize events and buy or sell goods through Marketplace. Users can apply different visibility settings to posts and profiles, although privacy controls and the company’s handling of personal information have remained subjects of sustained public scrutiny. News Feed became the central mechanism for ranking and displaying activity from friends, Pages, groups and advertisers, while later features such as Timeline, Stories, live video, Reels and recommendation systems broadened the product beyond a simple personal directory. Facebook’s business model is principally based on advertising. Brands, publishers, public figures and small businesses can create Pages and purchase targeted advertising designed to reach users according to characteristics, interests, activity and inferred preferences. The platform’s enormous audience, social graph and measurement systems made it a major channel for digital marketing. In December 2023, the service reported approximately 3.07 billion monthly active users worldwide, according to the referenced Wikipedia material. Its growth was supported by product development, mobile distribution and acquisitions by the parent company. Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp and Oculus VR in 2014, although those brands remain distinct services. In October 2021, Facebook’s corporate parent changed its name from Facebook, Inc. to Meta Platforms, signaling a broader strategic emphasis on virtual and augmented reality and the metaverse. The Facebook service itself continued under its established name and remained a major part of Meta’s family of applications. Facebook has also become an important social and political infrastructure. It has been used for community organizing, news distribution, commercial communication, emergency information and political campaigning. At the same time, critics, regulators and researchers have linked the platform to privacy violations, misinformation, political manipulation, hate speech, harassment, harmful content, possible effects on well-being and the amplification of ethnic violence. The Cambridge Analytica controversy in 2018 intensified global examination of its data practices and governance. Facebook’s scale gives product-ranking and moderation decisions consequences well beyond ordinary consumer software, making trust, safety, privacy and regulation central parts of its brand identity.

History

Facebook emerged from the university social-networking culture of the early 2000s. While studying at Harvard, Mark Zuckerberg created Facemash in 2003, a short-lived site that compared students’ photographs. In January 2004 he began building a more structured online directory, and on February 4 launched TheFacebook with Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The initial service drew on the idea of a face book: a student directory containing names, photographs and other identifying information. Membership first spread within Harvard and then to other universities in the United States and Canada. Sean Parker became president in 2004, and the company moved to Palo Alto. Peter Thiel provided an early investment. In 2005, the business removed “The” from its name and secured the Facebook.com domain. The following year, registration expanded beyond educational institutions to people aged at least 13 with a valid email address, subject to certain local age exceptions. The platform’s growth was driven by a combination of network effects, a recognizable identity system, a stream of continuously updated activity and increasingly sophisticated advertising. News Feed, introduced in the early expansion period, became the principal interface for discovering friends’ activity, Pages, groups and media. Timeline later organized a user’s posts and life events chronologically. Facebook also introduced Pages for organizations and public figures, photo tagging, usernames, groups, events, video, live broadcasting and temporary Stories. Messenger developed into a distinct but closely connected messaging product, while Marketplace added peer-to-peer commerce. Facebook’s mobile expansion transformed the service from a desktop website into an always-connected communications platform. Its advertising systems used extensive behavioral and social signals to help marketers target and measure campaigns. The company also pursued acquisitions that widened its ecosystem, notably Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp and Oculus VR in 2014. In 2012, Facebook completed a major public offering, becoming one of the most prominent listed internet companies of its generation. Scale brought increasingly complex governance challenges. The service was used for political mobilization and civic communication, including during movements associated with the Arab Spring, but it was also criticized for misinformation, coordinated manipulation, hate speech, privacy failures and the circulation of harmful material. Questions about Facebook’s role in Myanmar and the Rohingya crisis illustrated the potential consequences of platform design and moderation decisions in fragile political environments. The Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018 became a defining privacy crisis, prompting hearings, regulatory attention and changes to data-access policies. In 2021, Facebook’s corporate parent adopted the name Meta Platforms to reflect a strategy focused on a broader family of services and long-term investment in virtual and augmented reality. The Facebook brand was not discontinued. It remains a worldwide social networking service offering profiles, feeds, communities, messaging connections, media publishing, advertising and commerce tools. Its continuing significance rests on both its vast user base and its role as infrastructure for social, commercial and political communication.

2021
Corporate rebrand to Meta
[3]Meta Platformsen.wikipedia.org
The parent company becomes Meta Platforms while Facebook remains a consumer product brand.
2014
WhatsApp and Oculus acquisitions
[1]Facebooken.wikipedia.org
The company expands into global messaging and virtual reality through major acquisitions.
2012
Instagram acquisition
[1]Facebooken.wikipedia.org
Facebook acquires Instagram, strengthening its position in mobile visual social media.
2006
General registration opens
[1]Facebooken.wikipedia.org
People outside participating universities can register subject to age and email requirements.
2006
News Feed becomes central to the product
[1]Facebooken.wikipedia.org
Facebook introduces an activity feed that aggregates updates from friends and followed entities.
2005
The name becomes Facebook
[1]Facebooken.wikipedia.org
The company removes “The” from its name and obtains the Facebook.com domain.
2004
TheFacebook launches at Harvard
[1]Facebooken.wikipedia.org
The service begins as a Harvard-only social directory and expands to additional universities during the year.

Products and positioning

A mass-market global social network centered on personal connection, community participation, content sharing and advertiser-supported communication.

Social networking · 2004
Facebook social network
The core service provides personal profiles, friend and follower connections, News Feed recommendations, public and private publishing, photo and video sharing, notifications and interactions such as reactions and comments. Users can control the intended audience for many forms of content, while algorithmic ranking determines much of what appears in the main feed.
Public presence and marketing · 2007
Facebook Pages
Pages give businesses, organizations, public figures and media publishers a public identity separate from an individual profile. They support posts, audience engagement, messaging, events, analytics and paid promotion, making them a core connection between Facebook’s community layer and its advertising business.
Online communities
Facebook Groups
Groups organize discussions and content around shared interests, locations, institutions or activities. Administrators can establish membership and posting rules, and groups may be public, private or otherwise restricted. They support community coordination but have also been used to circulate misinformation and extremist or harmful content.
Social commerce
Facebook Marketplace
Marketplace allows users to list, discover and negotiate the sale or exchange of goods. It extends Facebook beyond communication into local and peer-to-peer commerce, with discovery shaped by location and platform recommendations.
Short-form video · 2017
Facebook Stories and Reels
Stories provide temporary photo and video posts that generally disappear after 24 hours, while Reels focuses on short-form video discovery. These formats helped Facebook respond to changes in audience behavior and competition from Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok.
Messaging · 2011
Facebook Messenger
Messenger is Facebook’s associated messaging service for direct conversations, group chats, media sharing and calls. It became increasingly distinct from the main Facebook application while remaining connected to Facebook identities, contacts and business communication tools.

Controversies

2026
Meta's Oversight Board orders the company to remove deepfake videos from Facebook
Meta's Oversight Board has ordered the company to remove deepfake videos from Facebook. The decision, reported as a controversy note, concerns the platform's handling of manipulated media. The Oversight Board's order directs Meta to take down the deepfake videos from Facebook. No further details about the specific videos, the parties involved, or the outcome of the removal were provided in the source.
Source
2026
Bank Leumi sues Meta over scam ads
Bank Leumi filed a lawsuit against Meta in Tel Aviv District Court, seeking NIS 26.6 million. The bank alleges that fraudulent advertisements impersonating it on Facebook and Instagram are used to steal customers' sensitive information and access their accounts. It further claims that Meta's screening and monitoring systems are insufficient to detect and prevent these scams.
Source
2026
New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567 million
A New Mexico court ordered Meta Platforms to pay $567 million over alleged harms to young users on its Facebook and Instagram platforms. The order followed a March jury verdict finding that Meta knowingly harmed children's mental health and concealed information related to child sexual exploitation on its platforms.
Source
2026
New Mexico judge orders Meta to pay $25 billion
A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found that the company had made misleading statements to consumers. The case concerned allegations that data from Facebook users was obtained without their consent; the jury found that 26 of 29 statements were misleading and that Meta committed more than 43 million violations of state consumer protection laws.
Source
2026
Class action filed against Meta over alleged harm to children
A class action was filed in an Australian court against Meta Platforms' Facebook and Instagram. The plaintiffs allege the platforms exposed children to harmful content and used algorithms that kept them addictive; they are seeking compensation.
Source
2026
Meta settles with teen plaintiff
Meta reached a settlement with a teenage plaintiff who had accused the company of designing Instagram and Facebook to be addictive and of harming young people's well-being. The settlement was reported by the plaintiff's attorneys. The dispute centered on allegations about how the platforms were designed and their effect on younger users. The reported agreement resolved the matter between Meta and the teen plaintiff; the source account does not specify the settlement terms, the identity of the plaintiff, or further details of the outcome.
Source
2026
Meta discloses action against 33.2 million pieces of child sexual exploitation content in H1 2026
Meta announced on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, that it took action against 33.2 million pieces of child sexual exploitation content on Facebook and Instagram in the first half of 2026. According to the announcement, more than 97% of that content was found by its systems before users reported it. In India, Meta acted on 5.3 million pieces during the same period, with more than 98% detected before user reports.
Source
2022
Meta clarifies it has no plan to exit Europe
In February 2022, after a report by Meta prompted widespread coverage, the company stated that it had no plan to withdraw from the European market. Meta said it was seeking a solution for transferring users' personal data between the European Union and the United States. The clarification followed the broad reporting of the report's contents, and the company's statement addressed the question of a possible exit from Europe while describing its efforts regarding cross-border data transfers.
Source
2022
Andrew Forrest brings criminal case against Facebook over scam ads
Andrew Forrest brought a criminal case against Facebook in the Western Australia Magistrates Court, alleging that the platform breached federal anti-money-laundering laws by not sufficiently cracking down on scam ads. Meta, the company behind Facebook, said it takes a multifaceted approach to stop such ads. The case concerns the handling of scam advertisements on the platform and the allegation of insufficient enforcement against them.
Source
2022
Meta fined over Facebook data-breach record-keeping
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission fined Meta €17 million over historical data breaches. The regulator found that Meta failed to have appropriate measures in place to readily demonstrate security measures protecting EU users’ data.
Source

Marketing campaigns

2015Instant Articles
Worldwide
Facebook worked with major news organizations to publish fast-loading articles directly inside the News Feed.
Outcome. The initiative positioned Facebook as a distribution intermediary for publishers, although publisher-platform economics and control remained contentious.
Source
2007Facebook Pages
Worldwide
Facebook introduced Pages as a structured way for brands, organizations and public figures to build audiences and communicate through the platform.
Outcome. Pages became a foundational product for organic audience-building, customer communication and advertising.
Source

Brand decisions

2021
Parent company rebrand to MetaStrategy
Background
The company sought to communicate a strategy extending beyond social networking into virtual and augmented reality.
Action taken
Facebook, Inc. changed its corporate identity to Meta Platforms while retaining Facebook as a product brand.
Aftermath
Facebook continued operating within Meta’s broader family of applications and technology businesses.
Source
2006
Open registration beyond universitiesStrategy
Background
The service had grown through controlled expansion across colleges and universities.
Action taken
Facebook opened registration to a much broader public subject to minimum-age and email requirements.
Aftermath
The decision accelerated worldwide network effects and transformed Facebook from a student network into a general social platform.
Source

Recent events

2026.10.30
Reported2026.10.30
Meta settles with teen plaintiff[100]Meta settles with teen plaintiffthenews.com.pk
Meta settled with a teen plaintiff who had accused the company of designing Instagram and Facebook to be addictive and harming young people's well-being. The settlement was reported by the plaintiff's attorneys.
Unconfirmed
Reported2026.10.21
New Mexico judge orders Meta to pay $25 billion[60]New Mexico judge orders Meta to pay $25 billionperthnow.com.au
A New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found that the company had made misleading statements to consumers. The case concerned allegations that data from Facebook users was obtained without their consent; the jury found that 26 of 29 statements were misleading and that Meta committed more than 43 million violations of state consumer protection laws.
Unconfirmed
Reported2026.10.15
Meta launches AI tools letting users customize Facebook Feed and Reels with natural language[166]Meta推出AI工具，允许用户以自然语言定制Facebook信息流和Reels163.com
Meta is rolling out a series of AI-powered customization tools on Facebook that let users tell the algorithm in natural language what they want to see in their Feed and Reels. The new “Your Algorithms” feature, accessible via the three-dot menu on posts, is powered by large language models that interpret user intent and context from free-text input.
Unconfirmed
Reported2026.10.15
Facebook and TIME dotCom partner on Malaysian internet infrastructure[167]Facebook 与 TIME dotCom 合作建设马来西亚互联网基础设施datacenterdynamics.com
TIME dotCom Berhad entered into a partnership with Facebook to invest in internet infrastructure in Malaysia. The network infrastructure project was expected to be completed by Q2 2020 and to support Facebook and its owned services.
2026.10.07
Reported2026.10.07
Meta discloses action against 33.2 million pieces of child sexual exploitation content in H1 2026[101]Meta discloses action against 33.2 million pieces of child sexual exploitation content in H1 2026techcrunch.com
Meta announced on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, that it took action against 33.2 million pieces of child sexual exploitation content on Facebook and Instagram in the first half of 2026, with more than 97% of that content found by its systems before users reported it; in India, it acted on 5.3 million pieces during the same period, with more than 98% detected before user reports.
Weekdays and relative dates follow the original report; their exact calendar dates have not been verified.
2026.10
Reported2026.10.21
Class action filed against Meta over alleged harm to children[61]Class action filed against Meta over alleged harm to childrenksevradio.com
A class action was filed in an Australian court against Meta Platforms’ Facebook and Instagram. The plaintiffs allege the platforms exposed children to harmful content and used algorithms that kept them addictive; they are seeking compensation.
Unconfirmed
Reported2026.09.17
Meta's Oversight Board orders the company to remove deepfake videos from Facebook[4]Meta's Oversight Board orders the company to remove deepfake videos from Facebooknews.google.com
Meta's Oversight Board has ordered the company to remove deepfake videos from Facebook.
2026.08.20
Reported2026.08.19
Meta launches Meta AI native Mac app in beta[168]Meta 推出 Meta AI 原生 Mac 应用测试版finance.sina.com.cn
Meta launched a new Meta AI app for Mac in beta, aimed at businesses and content creators, integrated with Facebook and Instagram, with window-sharing screen capture, system-wide dictation, analytics tools, and Google Workspace connectivity for professional accounts. Meta also added new Meta AI features for business users across its platforms.
Unconfirmed
Bank Leumi sues Meta for NIS 26.6 million over scam ads[5]Bank Leumi sues Meta over scam adstheyeshivaworld.com
Bank Leumi filed a NIS 26.6 million lawsuit against Meta in Tel Aviv District Court, alleging that fraudulent advertisements impersonating the bank on Facebook and Instagram are used to steal customers' sensitive information and access their accounts, and that Meta's screening and monitoring systems are insufficient to detect and prevent the scams.
Unconfirmed
Reported2026.08.07
New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567 million[6]New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $567 millionnewkerala.com
A New Mexico court ordered Meta Platforms to pay $567 million over alleged harms to young users on its Facebook and Instagram platforms. The order followed a March jury verdict finding that Meta knowingly harmed children's mental health and concealed information related to child sexual exploitation on its platforms.

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