Facebook has reached its 20th anniversary, but the occasion is not being celebrated in a grand manner. The company achieved this historic milestone on Sunday, commemorating the day in 2004 when a 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg launched a new website. Originally accessible only to Harvard University students and later extended to students at other colleges, it was initially referred to as thefacebook.com. The app, featuring its blue theme, remains easy to recognize, but it has transformed significantly. Facebook now operates under the umbrella of Zuckerberg’s company Meta, which also possesses Instagram and WhatsApp, and is valued at over $1 trillion, making it one of the most valuable American corporations based on its share price. On Thursday, it reported a $39 billion profit for 2023 and 3.07 billion monthly Facebook users, leading to a 20.3% surge in share price the following day. However, Facebook and Meta find themselves in an uncomfortable position on their 20th birthday. Just four days prior, Zuckerberg appeared before a Senate committee and was compelled to apologize to parents who alleged that their children died by suicides or drug overdoses in connection with social media. Zuckerberg, in his capacity as Meta’s CEO and majority owner, faced audible disapproval when entering the hearing room. During several hours, he was subjected to intense questioning from lawmakers about child safety and the company’s investment in resources to protect kids and teenagers. “No one should have to go through the things that your families have suffered,” Zuckerberg told the parents. The Senate hearing highlights a long-standing trend: Zuckerberg’s company appears inexorably linked to controversy and political scrutiny, despite its notable success as a highly profitable business and a trailblazer in social media with features like News Feed and the poke. Lawmakers are moving towards potential landmark legislation to regulate Meta and other social media companies. Some lawmakers advocate partially overturning a 1996 law, Section 230, which has granted internet platforms immunity from various types of lawsuits, including those related to publishing or hosting potentially defamatory content produced by others. Companies such as Meta assert that their immunity under Section 230 is extensive, also protecting them from lawsuits alleging harmful design defects, such as causing addiction or promoting terrorist content. Addressing his tumultuous week, Zuckerberg expressed on Threads on Thursday that he is focused on the long-term. “You’re never as good as they say when you’re up, or as bad as they say when you’re down. Just keep building and doing good work over long periods of time,” he wrote. The relentless scrutiny of Meta by politicians, regulators, advocates, and journalists leaves little room for public celebration, though Zuckerberg may recognize the occasion with a post on Facebook or Instagram, as he has done for previous milestones. A decade ago, Zuckerberg remarked on Facebook’s 10th birthday that he was astonished by the company’s success compared to its competitors. “We just cared more about connecting the world than anyone else,” he wrote in 2014, as reported by TechCrunch. A 20th birthday or anniversary would typically be an occasion for a large public celebration for a major company. Walmart organized parties at its approximately 500 stores when it reached the 20-year milestone in October 1982, according to a press release at the time. Microsoft inaugurated a company museum for its 20th anniversary in 1995, and Apple celebrated in 1997 with a special edition of its personal computer, the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh. Meta, situated in Menlo Park, Calif., has not announced similar plans for celebrating its birthday. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment. Recently, the French newspaper Le Figaro acknowledged the Facebook milestone with a poll on its website, inquiring, “Have social networks been beneficial for society?” As of Friday, 86% responded with “no”. Facebook has encountered controversy since its early days. Shortly before its launch, Zuckerberg faced criticism before a Harvard University administrative board over an earlier site he created, facemash.com, in a harbinger of future congressional testimony. That site allowed his peers to rate their classmates’ physical attractiveness. Zuckerberg’s creation has been controversial ever since. In 2004, two of his Harvard classmates, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, sued him for allegedly stealing the concept of Facebook from them. This was loosely depicted in the 2010 film The Social Network, which won three Academy Awards. Zuckerberg and his co-founders refuted the allegations. The parties settled, with the Winklevii twins receiving $65 million. Although Facebook officially had five co-founders, Zuckerberg was the one in charge from the start, and for years, Facebook’s website included the tagline “a Mark Zuckerberg production.” Many of Facebook’s controversies have revolved around content moderation: the regulations users must adhere to when posting on the site. In 2008, the company faced backlash from breastfeeding mothers due to a rule prohibiting photos containing a nipple. Meta now allows photos of uncovered female nipples in the context of breastfeeding, acts of protest, and other defined exceptions. As similar debates arose over the years, Facebook delegated decision-making to an external “supreme court” known as the Oversight Board. Zuckerberg states that he considers the board’s decisions as “binding.” However, other scandals were of Facebook’s own making, such as in 2012 when Facebook permitted researchers to conduct a psychological experiment on its users, demonstrating what they termed “massive-scale emotional contagion.” Researchers stated that they tested “reducing the amount of emotional content in the News Feed” for 689,003 people and found that doing so consistently influenced their emotions. “When positive expressions were decreased, people created fewer positive posts and more negative posts,” they wrote. The researchers asserted that Facebook users had provided “informed consent” for the tests because they had agreed to Facebook’s Data Use Policy “before creating an account.” However, a backlash ensued when the scientific paper was published in 2014, and Sheryl Sandberg, then Facebook’s COO, apologized, acknowledging the company’s poor communication about the experiments. Undoubtedly, many Facebook users have found value in the service, enabling them to connect with long-lost friends and family, create communities based on shared interests or experiences, and raise awareness and funds for charitable causes. Nevertheless, the stream of criticism has been continuous, particularly since the 2016 election. A Facebook employee had assisted in managing the Facebook advertising division of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and Trump’s campaign credited Facebook with contributing to his victory due to the effectiveness of the platform’s targeted ads. Facebook asserted that it was typical practice at the time for the company to provide hands-on assistance to high-profile political campaigns, a service that it subsequently curtailed. Months later, Facebook disclosed that Russian operatives had conducted a covert influence campaign on the site, altering public perceptions of the power of social media and the absence of safeguards, despite the unclear scale of their impact. As late as November 2016, Zuckerberg downplayed the extent of his influence, deeming it a “pretty crazy idea” to think that fake news on Facebook influenced the election that year. Another public relations crisis erupted in 2018 when the U.K. consulting firm Cambridge Analytica was accused by journalists of improperly harvesting data from Facebook for use in political campaigns. Experts and a British government inquiry concluded that Cambridge Analytica’s capabilities were exaggerated, yet Meta agreed to pay $725 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging the company’s failure to protect user data; Meta did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement. The allegations escalated from there, including reports by U.N. human rights experts and Amnesty International implicating Facebook in disseminating hate speech that led to a genocide in Myanmar. In 2018, the company acknowledged that it was not doing enough to prevent its platform from inciting offline violence and committed to dedicating more resources to address abuse of Facebook in Myanmar. It also stated that it was collaborating with U.N. investigators and initiated a team with the objective of preventing similar instances of offline violence. Over the years, Zuckerberg has testified before Congress eight times, addressing topics ranging from Russian influence to Facebook’s compliance with antitrust laws to the impact of social media on the mental health of teenagers. In 2021, former Facebook employee Frances Haugen disclosed various internal issues at the company, including adverse effects on teen mental health, when she leaked corporate documents to The Wall Street Journal, resulting in a series titled “The Facebook Files.” The company has confronted numerous lawsuits and regulatory actions, including an attempt to break up Facebook. In response, Facebook has sought to dismiss the case for lack of evidence, although the suit is ongoing. In several legal actions, educational institutions are demanding that Facebook and its competitors reimburse them for the indirect costs of students’ presumed social media addiction; the companies have sought to have the suits dismissed, arguing that they cannot be held liable under federal laws related to defective products, without success. David Ingram covers technology for NBC News.
