History Platform / Facebook

In 2021, Zuckerberg announced the larger Facebook company had been rebranded as '''Meta''', though the flagship social network would keep the Facebook name, in a manner similar to Google's reorganization as Alphabet.

Facebook started out as thefacebook.com, which was ''intended'' to be a social networking site for college students.

* LeapDay: The site wishes a happy birthday to persons born February 29 ''twice'' in the years when there's no February 29 — on February 28 and on March 1.

A movie about the founding of Facebook, titled ''Film/TheSocialNetwork'', was released in 2010, directed by Creator/DavidFincher, (''{{Film/Se7en}}'', ''Film/FightClub'') and written by Creator/AaronSorkin. [[Music/NineInchNails Trent Reznor]] and Atticus Ross provided the soundtrack.

* NoSwastikas: Particularly enforced since about 2016, and regardless of the context. Any picture with a Swastika, especially historical pictures of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, has a chance of quickly being deleted by the site. Which has pissed off quite a number of users of non-revisionist/non-Neonazi UsefulNotes/WorldWarII history groups, specially those who got weeks-long posting bans for it while what they posted had nothing to do with apology of Nazism.

Most troubling is the extent to which the company has been complicit in mass violence. They were accused in a United Nations report to have been complicit in the genocide of the Rohingya Muslim ethnic group in Myanmar. They did not hire a translator to moderate their traffic, letting AI do the work. The AI was not able to catch the nuances in the language and allowed the state to post anti-Rohingya propaganda as well as coordinate. They've also not cooperated with the Gambia's attempts to bring Myanmar's ruling party to justice at The Hague and has asked the federal district court based out of Washington, DC to not allow the case to move into the discovery phase. Notably, other social media networks like Twitter have cooperated. In June 2019, a viral post led to an event of ethnic violence in Ethiopia in which 78 people were killed.

* FoodPorn: As on [[Website/{{Instagram}} another major social networking site]], people seem to feel an inexplicable urge to let the world know what they're eating for lunch (with pictures).

Since the mid 2010s, the company has embroiled in controversy after controversy over privacy, free speech, and democracy with 2018 being the roughest year. The compounding scandals go back as far as 2014 but the troubles really began during the 2016 American Presidential election. In a February 2018 indictment, the US Special Counsel in charge of investigating Russian interference in the election, Robert Mueller , laid out how the Russian government was able to use the platform (among others) to spread disinformation and conspiracy theories. They sold roughly $100,000 worth of ads to the state-sanctioned troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, which was seen by about ten million Americans. Facebook wasn't charged with anything and was seen more as a conduit rather than an intentional malicious actor but the scandal tarred their image for being greedy and reckless[[note]] Some ads were paid for in Rubles [[/note]].

* OrwellianEditor: Users are able to delete any content they want, but there's always someone who takes a screenshot before incriminating posts get deleted.

* {{GIFT}}: Mostly averted, since the site requires users to use their real names. But that doesn't stop some people from being {{Jerkass}}es anyway—additionally, Facebook isn't always ''that'' vigilant, so a few users can slip past the censors using fake names and cause trouble.

* ShamedByAMob: A TropeCodifier for doing this online. It is [[YouKeepUsingThatWord not trolling]] when people post abuse on Facebook, but gang stalking (i.e. organized psychological harassment).

In 2006, regional, corporate and high school networks [[NewbieBoom were established]], leading to an [[ItsPopularNowItSucks outcry among]] college students, who felt that Facebook was becoming another [=MySpace=]; a counter-contingent appeared who disagreed. This outcry only intensified when the whole "official college e-mail address" thing was abolished later in the year and ''anyone'' with an e-mail address was allowed to join. The complaints later became HilariousInHindsight, as now it's ''[=MySpace=]'' that's trying to copy Facebook's every move, ever since it became DeaderThanDisco.

* OnlinePersonas: Facebook users can fit every conceivable sub-trope of this one.

* TheInternetIsForPorn: Even though anything but the most softcore photos will probably get deleted, people still [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar try to sneak crap past the radar.]]

* {{GIFT}}: Mostly averted, since the site requires users to use their real names. But that doesn't stop some people from being {{Jerkass}}es anyway—additionally, Facebook isn't always ''that'' vigilant, so a few users can [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar slip past the censors]] using fake names and cause trouble.

* YourCheatingHeart: Got a paramour on Facebook you're hiding from your partner? Sorry, they're going to find out eventually. There is no such thing as privacy on this site. The large number of joint accounts for couples might be an attempt for one partner to prevent philandering by another.

They were also accused in a United Nations report to have been complicit in the genocide of the Rohingya Muslim ethnic group in Myanmar. They did not hire a translator to moderate their traffic, letting AI do the work. The AI was not able to catch the nuances in the language and allowed the state to post anti-Rohingya propagnda as well as coordinate. There were also several smaller scandals involving privacy issues like sharing data with third party apps as well as videos and pictures that were meant to be private.

As of 2014, Facebook remains one of the most popular (and actually still more low-key; it hasn't taken as much flak as [[NewMediaAreEvil whipping boy]] [=MySpace=]) networking sites out there. More and more sites are adding Facebook Like buttons on their pages, making it look as if Facebook is taking over the Internet. It lacks most of [=MySpace's=] profile-customization options; no sparklies or rainbow-colored fonts allowed. This may be to Facebook's benefit, as it creates a more professional feeling. However, there are a huge number of applications that one can add to one's profile, for anything from horoscopes to celebrity-lookalike pictures. As of now, it has over '''2 billion''' users.

More recently, the company has been accused of looking the other way while the site foments extremism and misinformation. ''The Wall Street Journal'' reported in May 2020 according to their own research, their lax regulations was causing division and extremism to flourish but ignored it. In particular, one-third of German extremists groups were found by the recommendation button. That year, Zuckerberg also announced that the company wouldn't be fact checking anything by any political campaign as they believed it violated free speech and would continue to allow political ads, even though other social media networks like [=YouTube=] and Twitter have taken down false information and scaled back or completely eliminated political advertising. Under pressure, they finally developed a feature to turn off political advertising if desired for the entirety of the 2020 election cycle.

The latter half of TheNewTens has seen the company embroiled in controversy after controversy over privacy and democracy with 2018 being the roughest year. The compounding scandals go back as far as 2014 but the troubles really began during the 2016 American Presidential election. In a February 2018 indictment, the US Special Counsel in charge of investigating Russian interference in the election, Robert Mueller , laid out how the Russian government was able to use the platform (among others) to spread disinformation and conspiracy theories. They sold roughly $100,000 worth of ads to the state-sanctioned troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, which was seen by about ten million Americans. Facebook wasn't charged with anything and was seen more as a conduit rather than an intentional malicious actor but the scandal tarred their image for being greedy and reckless[[note]] Some ads were paid for in Rubles [[/note]].

The scandal ridden year caused the company to lose roughly 20% of its valuation. It’s also lead many places around the world to instate new privacy laws, specifically the two huge markets of the European Union and India. Similar laws are being looked at in countries like Australia, New Zealand, and Chile. On the American side, Facebook is being sued by the state of New York and District of Columbia in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Senators Amy Klobuchar and John Kennedy are leading a bi-partisan charge in the senate to create a new privacy bill modeled after the one in the European Union. Zuckerberg and his deputy Sheryl Sandberg have begun to ignore subpoenas from other countries’ governments to testify on their privacy policy so do not expect either to go to Canada or the UK anytime soon as they’d likely be arrested upon entry.

** And you likely know a married couple who share a Facebook page with a name something like "[[PortmanteauCoupleName Billyandmaria Smithperson]]". And unless they say who's posting, you can't tell which one is. In reality, someone probably got caught cheating.

In 2006, regional, corporate and high school networks were established, leading to an [[ItsPopularNowItSucks outcry among]] [[EternalSeptember college students]], who felt that Facebook was becoming another [=MySpace=]; a counter-contingent appeared who disagreed. This outcry only intensified when the whole "official college e-mail address" thing was abolished later in the year and ''anyone'' with an e-mail address was allowed to join. The complaints later became HilariousInHindsight, as now it's ''[=MySpace=]'' that's trying to copy Facebook's every move, ever since it became DeaderThanDisco.

The scandal ridden year caused the company to lose roughly 20% of its valuation. It’s also lead many places around the world to instate new privacy laws, specifically the two huge markets of the European Union and India. Similar laws are being looked at in countries like Australia, New Zealand, and Chile. On the American side, Facebook is being sued by the state of New York and District of Columbia in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Senators Amy Klobuchar and John Kennedy are leading a bi-partisan charge in the senate to create a new privacy bill modeled after the one in the European Union.