what is FB (said to be) about?
Connection and marketplace of ideas(1) successful network of sharing and bonding(2) pluralism and democratic self-governance (3) a social community where a marketplace of ideas enables democratic self-government
Elections of 2008
(the Facebook Election): Facebook has become a powerful tool for political movements when more than 1,000 Facebook groups were formed in support of either Democratic candidate Barack Obama or Republican candidate John McCain.
Elections of 2016
(the Russian interference): Russian agents intending to sow discord among American citizens disseminated inflammatory posts that reached 126 million users on Facebook. Facebook had said it identified more than $100,000 in advertisements paid for by the Internet Research Agency (a Russian company linked to Kremlin).
The successof FB?
-Worldwide, there are over 2.27 billion monthly active Facebook users (2018) -1.49 billion people on average log onto Facebook daily (2017) -Photo uploads total 300 million per day -Every 60 seconds on FB: 510,000 comments are posted - 293,000 statuses are update, -136,000 photos are uploaded -One in five page views in the United States occurs on Facebook (2012)
advertising
98.5% of company's revenues
2003
FB history begins at Harvard University as Facemash, an online service for students to judge the attractiveness of their fellow students. Primary developer? Mark Zuckerberg
business model
FB is a commercial company that has been built on imperatives of advertisingand data collection
2012
Facebook files to become a public company.
2006
Facebook opens its membership beyond students to anyone over the age of 13.
PROBLEMS
Progress cannot be built on an open platform for "a large community of people" acting on impulse. FB gives disproportionate power to bad actors in the marketplace, to "almost never-ceasing union of the wicked and the weak." (John Jay) Users: believe false information that conforms their worldview
mission
SOCIAL CONNECTION: "bringing us closer together and building a global community" MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS: "giving everyone a voice... increases the diversity of ideas shared"
2004
Zuckerberg registers the URL http://www.thefacebook.com. He then creates a new social network at that address (with fellow students Saverin, Moskovitz, and Hughes).
COMMUNITY
a body of people of common interests scattered through a larger society
SELF-GOVERNMENT
control by a group of people independent of central or local government
2005
thefacebook.com becomes facebook.com
