Skip to main content

Facebook

See All Stories

Facebook is the most popular social media service in the world with 2.32 billion monthly active users as of December 31, 2018

Facebook is the most popular social media service in the world with 2.32 billion monthly active users as of December 31, 2018. It also averages 1.52 billion daily active users as of December 2018.

Facebook was launched in February of 2004 (as The Facebook) for college students and then rapidly grew as it opened the service to more than those with a .edu email address. It was the subject of the 2010 movie called “The Social Network“.

In 2012, the social media giant offered its IPO and Facebook earned the title of the fastest company to grow to $250 billion market capitalization in the S&P 500.

In recent years, the company has been at the center of attention related to its role in the Russian interference in the 2016 US election. Since then, it’s been a continual stream of negative news for the company. They recently had all of their enterprise certificates for iOS revoked after it was discovered they had repackaged Onavo VPN as a ‘Research’ app and were paying teens $20/month to sneakily sideload it.

In early 2019, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a “privacy shift” for the company. He outlined a detailed vision for the future of the social media platform, specifically its messaging services. Notably, in contrast to how the company operates today, he says the future of the platform will be privacy-focused with features like end-to-end encryption, interoperability between its various apps like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, reducing how long it holds data, secure storage of personal data, and more.

Chart provided by TradingView

META Chart by TradingView

Instagram teen research: Facebook releases two reports, the ‘WSJ’ shares four more

Site default logo image

Facebook has attempted to defuse the controversy over its Instagram teen research by releasing two of the reports to the public, annotating them with what it says is important context.

The social network also accuses the WSJ, which obtained copies of the reports, of “mischaracterizing” their conclusions. The paper has not yet directly responded to that accusation, but has instead shared four more reports that Facebook did not make public …

Expand Expanding Close

Instagram is harmful to teenage girls, says internal report; Facebook denies

Instagram is harmful to teenage girls says report

An internal report describes a number of ways in which Instagram is harmful to as many as 20% of teenage girls using the app. It can increase anxieties about physical attractiveness, social image, and money, and even increase suicide risk, according to Facebook’s own research.

However, the social network says that the leaked report has been misunderstood …

Expand Expanding Close

ProPublica WhatsApp report acknowledges ‘unintended confusion’ [U]

Site default logo image

Facebook has confirmed to me that all WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted, and that a ProPublica report is based on a misunderstanding. Update: ProPublica has added a ‘clarification’ and amended its story to reflect Facebook’s explanation.

A previous version of this story caused unintended confusion about the extent to which WhatsApp examines its users’ messages and whether it breaks the encryption that keeps the exchanges secret. We’ve altered language in the story to make clear that the company examines only messages from threads that have been reported by users as possibly abusive. It does not break end-to-end encryption.

Expand Expanding Close

Manage push notifications

notification icon
We would like to show you notifications for the latest news and updates.
notification icon
Please wait...processing
notification icon
We would like to show you notifications for the latest news and updates.
notification icon
Please wait...processing