Facebook Founded
Facebook was launched in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, then a sophomore at Harvard University, and it grew from a campus directory into one of the most influential communications platforms in history. By the 2020s its parent company's apps reached billions of people, and the service helped define the modern era of social media, reshaping how people share news, keep in touch, advertise, and organize politically.
The idea built on earlier online networks and on a long tradition of printed student directories, sometimes called "face books," which colleges handed out to help students learn who their classmates were. Sites such as Friendster and MySpace had already shown that people would build online profiles and link them to friends. Zuckerberg, who had been writing software since his teens, had also created a controversial Harvard site called Facemash in 2003, which drew complaints about privacy and led to disciplinary action by the university. That episode is often cited as a forerunner of the larger project.
Zuckerberg launched "TheFacebook" from his dorm room, initially limiting it to Harvard students. It spread quickly, and within months it had expanded to other elite universities and then to colleges more widely. Several of his classmates, including Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Andrew McCollum, helped in the early period. The company moved to California, and early investors, notably Peter Thiel, provided funding. Disputes over the site's origins followed: the Winklevoss twins and their partner claimed that Zuckerberg had taken their idea for a similar network, and the matter ended in a settlement.
Facebook opened to high-school students in 2005 and to the general public in 2006. Features such as the News Feed, photo sharing, and the Like button made the platform more engaging, while a mobile app extended its reach as smartphones spread. The company, later renamed Meta, bought Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. Facebook itself is commonly reported to have passed three billion monthly users in the early 2020s, though such figures count accounts and activity in ways that outside observers cannot easily verify.
The platform's legacy is both celebrated and contested. It enabled families and communities to stay connected across distances, gave small businesses new ways to find customers, and played a role in social movements. It has also faced sustained criticism over privacy, most notably the Cambridge Analytica data scandal revealed in 2018, as well as misinformation, harmful content, and the effects of social media on mental health. Governments around the world continue to debate how such platforms should be regulated.