93-479: Beacon formed part of Facebook's advertisement system that sent data from external websites to Facebook, for the purpose of allowing targeted advertisements and allowing users to share their activities with their friends. Beacon reported to Facebook on Facebook's members' activities on third-party sites that also participated with Beacon. These activities were published in users' News Feed . This occurred even when users were not connected to Facebook, and happened without
186-423: A Facebook post, stating that the lawsuits were a good faith effort to pay the partial owners of the land their "fair share". When he learned that Hawaiian land ownership law differs from that of the other 49 states, he dropped the lawsuits. Zuckerberg stated that he regretted not taking the time to understand the process and its history before moving ahead. On April 10 and 11, 2018, Zuckerberg testified before
279-415: A "good guy". The film is based on the book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich , which the book's publicist once described as "big juicy fun" rather than "reportage". The film's screenwriter Aaron Sorkin told New York magazine , "I don't want my fidelity to be the truth; I want it to be storytelling", adding, "What is the big deal about accuracy purely for accuracy's sake, and can we not have
372-501: A "reputation as a programming prodigy". He studied psychology and computer science , resided in Kirkland House , and belonged to Alpha Epsilon Pi . In his second year, he wrote a program that he called CourseMatch, which allowed users to make class selection decisions based on the choices of other students and help them form study groups. Later, he created a different program he initially called Facemash that let students select
465-670: A January 2024 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on child safety and social media platforms, Zuckerberg, along with other tech CEOs, were questioned about their companies' practices. During the hearing, he apologized to the families of children who were victims of online abuse and harm. Court documents allege that Zuckerberg personally rejected Meta's proposals to improve teenagers' mental health. He consistently opposed efforts to enhance well-being on Facebook and Instagram, overriding senior executives such as Instagram head Adam Mosseri and Global Affairs President Nick Clegg , as revealed in an ongoing lawsuit. Internal communications disclosed in
558-580: A constantly updated list of their friends' Facebook activities. Initially, the addition of the News Feed caused discontent among Facebook users, many of which complained that the feed was too intrusive, detailing every moment with timestamps, and violating their privacy. Some called for a boycott of the company. In response to this dissatisfaction, CEO Mark Zuckerberg issued a statement clarifying that "We didn't take away any privacy options." Following this, Zuckerberg later issued an open letter apologizing for
651-404: A lack of information on new features and users' controls, writing that "We really messed this one up. [...] I'd like to try to correct those errors now." The News Feed has received multiple updates over the years since its original setup. In 2008, Facebook added a feedback button to each story in a user's feed, letting them tell the service about their personal preferences for their feed. However,
744-544: A lawsuit in 2004; it was dismissed on a technicality on March 28, 2007. It was refiled soon thereafter in a federal court in Boston . Facebook countersued in regards to Social Butterfly, a project put out by The Winklevoss Chang Group , an alleged partnership between ConnectU and i2hub . On June 25, 2008, the case settled and Facebook agreed to transfer over 1.2 million common shares and pay $ 20 million in cash. In November 2007, confidential court documents were posted on
837-496: A live Q&A session at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park on December 11, 2014. The founder and CEO explained that he does not believe Facebook is a waste of time, because it facilitates social engagement, and participating in a public session was so that he could "learn how to better serve the community". Zuckerberg receives a one-dollar salary as CEO of Facebook. In June 2016, Business Insider named Zuckerberg one of
930-470: A minimal effect on the news feed's diversity, though the study prompted academic criticism. Researchers at the MIT Media Lab Center for Civic Media produced an application called Gobo which allows users to see the results of adjusting the algorithm. Mark Zuckerberg Mark Elliot Zuckerberg ( / ˈ z ʌ k ər b ɜːr ɡ / ; born May 14, 1984) is an American businessman who co-founded
1023-461: A new drop-down button, offering users the ability to view News Feed by categories, including only games, status updates, photos, links, Pages, or specific groups of people. In February 2011, Facebook added News Feed settings to let users specify if they want content from only the people and pages they interact with the most, rather than everyone. In September, Facebook updated the feed to show top stories and most recent stories, rather than relying on
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#17328552254461116-406: A press event to unveil new updates to News Feed, including a more minimalistic design with consistency across both the website and mobile devices. This included a new layout for posts, presenting friends' photos, shared articles, and maps with larger text and images, and brands' logos. New "sub-feeds" show updates in specific areas, such as posts from specific friends or interest updates. However,
1209-465: A publishing field at the top of the feed, previously exclusive to user profiles, for easy post creation. The publishing field contained the text "What's on your mind?", a similar but also notably different question from Twitter 's "What are you doing right now?" A few weeks later, the company introduced controls to reduce content from app interactions, and enabled the feed to show photos in which friends were tagged. In December 2010, Facebook rolled out
1302-451: A ranking. The site went up over a weekend, but by Monday morning, the college shut it down, because its popularity had overwhelmed one of Harvard's network switches preventing students from accessing the Internet. In addition, many students complained that their photos were being used without permission. Zuckerberg apologized publicly, and the student paper ran articles stating that his site
1395-566: A reporter that Ceglia's counsel had unsuccessfully sought an out-of-court settlement. On October 26, 2012, federal authorities arrested Ceglia, charging him with mail and wire fraud and of "tampering with, destroying and fabricating evidence in a scheme to defraud the Facebook founder of billions of dollars". Ceglia is accused of fabricating emails to make it appear that he and Zuckerberg discussed details about an early version of Facebook, although after examining their emails, investigators found there
1488-708: A result, had chosen to withdraw their participation in Beacon. On December 5, 2007, Facebook announced that it would allow people to opt-out of Beacon. Founder Mark Zuckerberg apologized for the controversy. This has been the philosophy behind our recent changes. Last week we changed Beacon to be an opt-in system, and today we're releasing a privacy control to turn off Beacon completely. You can find it here. If you select that you don't want to share some Beacon actions or if you turn off Beacon, then Facebook won't store those actions even when partners send them to Facebook. On September 21, 2009, Facebook announced that it would shut down
1581-651: A socially inept nerd is overstated ... It is fiction ...". He likewise dismissed the film's assertion that he "would deliberately betray a friend". Zuckerberg voiced himself on an episode of The Simpsons titled " Loan-a Lisa ", which first aired on October 3, 2010. In the episode, Lisa Simpson and her friend Nelson encounter Zuckerberg at an entrepreneurs' convention. Zuckerberg tells Lisa that she does not need to graduate from college to be wildly successful, referencing Bill Gates and Richard Branson as examples. On October 9, 2010, Saturday Night Live lampooned Zuckerberg and Facebook. Andy Samberg portrayed
1674-440: A story is disputed if it has been debunked by one of those fact-checkers. On the Facebook app, Feed is the first screen to appear, partially leading most users to think of the feed as Facebook itself. The Facebook Feed operates as a revolving door of articles, pages the user has liked, status updates, app activity, likes from other users photos and videos. This operates an arena of social discussion. Algorithms are employed on
1767-573: A strictly chronological order. Later the same year, it introduced the "ticker", a real-time extension of News Feed, located on the right side of the screen. At the end of the year, news outlets reported that Facebook would be starting allowing advertisements through "Sponsored Stories" in News Feed for the first time. Advertisements started rolling out on January 10, 2012, with a "Featured" tag declaring its paid status. Advertisements were expanded to mobile in February 2012. In March 2013, Facebook held
1860-423: A surprise guest appearance on Saturday Night Live , which was hosted by Jesse Eisenberg. They both said it was the first time they had met. Eisenberg asked Zuckerberg, who had been critical of his portrayal by the film, what he thought of the movie. Zuckerberg replied, "It was interesting." In a subsequent interview about their meeting, Eisenberg explained that he was "nervous to meet him, because I had spent now,
1953-477: A year and a half thinking about him ...". He added, "Mark has been so gracious about something that's really so uncomfortable ... The fact that he would do SNL and make fun of the situation is so sweet and so generous. It's the best possible way to handle something that, I think, could otherwise be very uncomfortable." According to David Kirkpatrick , former technology editor at Fortune magazine and author of The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of
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#17328552254462046-412: Is a board member of the solar sail spacecraft development project Breakthrough Starshot , which he co-founded with Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking in 2016. Harvard students Cameron Winklevoss , Tyler Winklevoss , and Divya Narendra accused Zuckerberg of intentionally making them believe he would help them build a social network called HarvardConnection.com (later called ConnectU ). They filed
2139-655: Is intertwined with the aim of the Internet.org project, whereby Facebook, with the support of other technology companies, seeks to increase the number of people connected to the internet. Zuckerberg was the keynote speaker at the 2014 Mobile World Congress (MWC), held in Barcelona , Spain, in March 2014, which was attended by 75,000 delegates. Various media sources highlighted the connection between Facebook's focus on mobile technology and Zuckerberg's speech, stating that mobile represents
2232-508: Is just not an attractive idea to me." The same year, speaking at Y Combinator 's Startup School course at Stanford University , Zuckerberg made a controversial assertion that "young people are just smarter" and that other entrepreneurs should bias towards hiring young people. He restated these goals to Wired magazine in 2010, "The thing I really care about is the mission, making the world open." Earlier, in April 2009, Zuckerberg had sought
2325-483: Is that you can build something really good in a night", Zuckerberg told Levy. "And that's part of the personality of Facebook now ... It's definitely very core to my personality." In 2007, Zuckerberg was added to MIT Technology Review 's TR35 list as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35. Vanity Fair magazine named Zuckerberg number 1 on its 2010 list of the Top 100 "most influential people of
2418-906: The Information Age ". Zuckerberg ranked number 23 on the Vanity Fair 100 list in 2009. In 2010, Zuckerberg was chosen as number 16 in New Statesman ' s annual survey of the world's 50 most influential figures. In a 2011 interview with PBS shortly after the death of Steve Jobs , Zuckerberg said that Jobs had advised him on how to create a management team at Facebook that was "focused on building as high quality and good things as you are". On October 1, 2012, Zuckerberg met with then Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow to stimulate social media innovation in Russia and to boost Facebook's position in
2511-560: The News Feed , is a web feed feature for the social network. The feed is the primary system through which users are exposed to content posted on the network. Feed highlights information that includes profile changes, upcoming events, and birthdays, among other updates. Using a proprietary method, Facebook selects a handful of updates to show users every time they visit their feed, out of an average of 2,000 updates they can potentially receive. Over two billion people use Facebook every month, making
2604-547: The United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation regarding the usage of personal data by Facebook in relation to the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal . He called the whole affair a breach of trust between Aleksandr Kogan , Cambridge Analytica , and Facebook. Zuckerberg refused requests to appear to give evidence on the matter to a Parliamentary committee in
2697-557: The company public in May 2012 with majority shares. He became the world's youngest self-made billionaire in 2008, at age 23, and has consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest individuals . He has also used his funds to organize multiple donations, including the establishment of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative . A film depicting Zuckerberg's early career, legal troubles and initial success with Facebook, The Social Network ,
2790-630: The "Top 10 Business Visionaries Creating Value for the World" along with Elon Musk and Sal Khan , due to the fact that he and his wife "pledged to give away 99% of their wealth-then estimated at $ 55.0 billion". On May 25, 2017, at Harvard's 366th commencement day, Zuckerberg, after giving a commencement speech , received an honorary degree from Harvard. In January 2019, Zuckerberg laid plans to integrate an end-to-end encrypted system for three major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp . On August 14, 2020, Facebook integrated
2883-482: The "mythical place" of Silicon Valley , the center of computer technology in California. They had already turned down offers by major corporations to buy the company. In an interview in 2007, Zuckerberg explained his reasoning: "It's not because of the amount of money. For me and my colleagues, the most important thing is that we create an open information flow for people. Having media corporations owned by conglomerates
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2976-410: The 2016 United States elections ) via advertisements on his service, Mark Zuckerberg announced in his traditional January post: We're making a major change to how we build Facebook. I'm changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions Following surveys of Facebook users, this desire for change will take
3069-456: The Company that is Connecting the World (2011), "the film is only 40% true ... he is not snide and sarcastic in a cruel way, the way Zuckerberg is played in the movie." He says that "a lot of the factual incidents are accurate, but many are distorted and the overall impression is false", and concludes that primarily "his motivations were to try and come up with a new way to share information on
3162-518: The Computer Revolution , wrote that Zuckerberg "clearly thinks of himself as a hacker ". Zuckerberg said that "it's OK to break things" "to make them better". Facebook instituted " hackathons " held every six to eight weeks where participants would have one night to conceive of and complete a project. The company provided music, food, and beer at the hackathons, and many Facebook staff members, including Zuckerberg, regularly attended. "The idea
3255-571: The Facebook Blog in November 2011 as a "mistake." Although Beacon was unsuccessful, it did pave the way for Facebook Connect , which has become widely popular. Beacon created considerable controversy soon after it was launched, due to privacy concerns. On November 20, 2007, civic action group MoveOn.org created a Facebook group and online petition demanding that Facebook not publish their activity from other websites without explicit permission from
3348-592: The Facebook platform every month. Approximately 62 percent of adults in the United States use social media to get news, meaning Facebook's influence has become a liability for the company. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election , the Russian government used the Facebook platform to disseminate fake news that more frequently favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. As a social media platform, user-generated content and media created content can be shared vastly within
3441-449: The Facebook platform to curate a personalized experience for users that is predominantly featured in the Feed. Adam Mosseri is Facebook's vice president in charge of Feed and Chief Product Officer while Chris Cox runs the Facebook app and Feed. On October 1, 2018, it was announced Adam Mosseri would become the head of Instagram. Facebook's proprietary recommendation algorithms compare
3534-404: The Internet". Although the film portrayed Zuckerberg's creation of Facebook in order to elevate his stature after not getting into any of the elite final clubs at Harvard, Zuckerberg stated that he had no interest in joining the clubs. Kirkpatrick agreed that the impression implied by the film is "false". Karel Baloun, a former senior engineer at Facebook, noted that the "image of Zuckerberg as
3627-466: The Massachusetts-initiated legal action depict Zuckerberg's resistance to better protect over 30 million teens on Instagram in the U.S., highlighting his substantial influence on Meta's decisions impacting billions of users. These documents also shed light on occasional tensions between Zuckerberg and other Meta officials advocating for improved user well-being. A movie based on Zuckerberg and
3720-411: The Russian market. Russia's communications minister tweeted that Medvedev persuaded Zuckerberg to open a research center in Moscow instead of trying to lure away Russian programmers. In 2012, Facebook had roughly 9 million users in Russia, while domestic clone VK had around 34 million. Rebecca Van Dyck, Facebook's head of consumer marketing, said that 85 million American Facebook users were exposed to
3813-483: The US Capitol Building , and its efforts to combat misinformation and hate speech. Zuckerberg acknowledged that Facebook had a responsibility to address these issues and outlined the steps that the company is taking to improve its policies and practices. The hearing was part of a broader effort by Congress to hold tech companies accountable for their role in shaping public discourse and protecting user privacy. In
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3906-657: The United Kingdom. On October 1, 2020, the US Senate Commerce Committee unanimously voted to issue subpoenas to the CEOs of three top tech firms, including Zuckerberg, Google 's Sundar Pichai and Twitter 's Jack Dorsey . The subpoenas aimed to force the CEOs to testify about the legal immunity the law affords tech platforms under Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934. US Republicans argued that
3999-405: The advice of former Netscape CFO Peter Currie regarding financing strategies for Facebook. On July 21, 2010, Zuckerberg reported that Facebook had reached the 500-million-user mark. When asked whether Facebook could earn more income from advertising as a result of its phenomenal growth, he explained: I guess we could ... If you look at how much of our page is taken up with ads compared to
4092-408: The average search query. The average for us is a little less than 10 percent of the pages and the average for search is about 20 percent taken up with ads ... That's the simplest thing we could do. But we aren't like that. We make enough money. Right, I mean, we are keeping things running; we are growing at the rate we want to. In 2010, Steven Levy , who wrote the 1984 book Hackers: Heroes of
4185-410: The best-looking person from a choice of photos. Arie Hasit, Zuckerberg's roommate at the time, explained: We had books called "Face Books", which included the names and pictures of everyone who lived in the student dorms. At first, he built a site and placed two pictures or pictures of two males and two females. Visitors to the site had to choose who was "hotter" and according to the votes there would be
4278-432: The browser after explicitly logging off from Facebook prevented the third-party site from knowing a user's Facebook identity. As part of a class action settlement, Facebook terminated Beacon. Facebook was also required by a court order to notify its users of the settlement. Facebook set up a $ 6 million fund to establish an independent non-profit foundation that will identify and fund projects and initiatives that promote
4371-423: The cause of online privacy, safety, and security. Facebook also set up a website about the lawsuit. Under the contingency fee arrangement with the plaintiffs, the law firms that filed the case would get a fee, likely to be $ 3–$ 4 million, but the average Facebook user would receive no monetary award. Facebook notified its users about the court order. Facebook received intense criticism because of Beacon. The case
4464-410: The chat systems for Instagram and Messenger on both iOS and Android devices. The update encouraged cross-communication between Instagram and Facebook users. A month after Zuckerberg launched Facebook in February 2004, i2hub , another campus-only service, created by Wayne Chang and focusing on peer-to-peer file sharing, was launched. At the time, both i2hub and Facebook were gaining the attention of
4557-485: The digital community. This has come with repercussions for Facebook , as they were accused of releasing personally identifiable information of approximately 82 million users to Cambridge Analytica . The Cambridge Analytica Scandal drew much attention to the privacy settings and influence of the Feed on the Facebook platform. The Feed has become a significant contributor to the spread of misinformation; as former U.S. president Barack Obama put it, "misinformation...looks
4650-632: The enforcement of China's online policy, at Facebook's headquarters on December 8, 2014. The meeting occurred after Zuckerberg participated in a Q&A session at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, on October 23, 2014, where he conversed in Mandarin Chinese ; although Facebook is banned in China, Zuckerberg is highly regarded among the people and was at the university to help fuel the nation's burgeoning entrepreneur sector. Zuckerberg fielded questions during
4743-497: The feedback button was removed in April, and returned in July, with Facebook reportedly removing the first iteration of the feedback options due to a low impact on user satisfaction compared to other aspects of the algorithm. In March 2009, Facebook rolled out the option to "Like" a page to see updates from it in their feed, gave users customizable filters to determine what friends they wanted to see News Feed updates from, and also added
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#17328552254464836-557: The first day of the Home promotional campaign on April 6, 2013. On August 19, 2013, The Washington Post reported that Zuckerberg's Facebook profile was hacked by an unemployed web developer. At the 2013 TechCrunch Disrupt conference, held in September, Zuckerberg stated that he was working towards registering the 5 billion people who were not connected to the Internet as of the conference on Facebook. Zuckerberg then explained that this
4929-508: The five billion people without it as of the launch date. The project faced significant opposition in India, where activists said its limited internet ran counter to the principle of net neutrality ; Zuckerberg responded by saying that a limited internet was better than no internet. Internet.org was shut down in India in February 2016, although Zuckerberg later met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss further possibilities. Zuckerberg
5022-444: The form of a reconfiguration of the News Feed algorithms in order to: These changes are expected to improve "the amount of meaningful content viewed". However, a 2022 study shows that when news content is removed from the Feed, "many users will find almost nothing of value". In 2022, Facebook's parent company, Meta Platforms , announced it is renaming the "News Feed" to simply be named "Feed". Approximately two billion people use
5115-456: The founding years of Facebook, The Social Network , was released on October 1, 2010, starring Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg. After Zuckerberg was told about the film, he responded, "I just wished that nobody made a movie of me while I was still alive." Also, after the film's script was leaked on the Internet and it was apparent that the film would not portray Zuckerberg in a wholly positive light, he stated that he wanted to establish himself as
5208-646: The functionality of the Feed has been debated as to whether or not it is an echo-chamber. Facebook has been researching this situation since 2010, and initially used an algorithm known as EdgeRank . By late 2013, clickbait articles had become significantly prevalent, leading Facebook's chief product officer Chris Cox's team to hire survey panels to assess how Feed was working. As a result, Facebook began adding ever-increasing numbers of data points to its algorithm to significantly reduce clickbait. A 2015 study published in Science concluded that Facebook's algorithms had
5301-461: The future of the company. Zuckerberg's speech expands upon the goal that he raised at the TechCrunch conference in September 2013, whereby he is working towards expanding Internet coverage into developing countries. Alongside other American technology figures such as Jeff Bezos and Tim Cook , Zuckerberg hosted visiting Chinese politician Lu Wei , known as the "Internet czar" for his influence in
5394-399: The information about my purchase? A. "Absolutely not. One of the things we are still trying to do is dispel a lot of misinformation that is being propagated unnecessarily." On November 30, 2007, Louise Story of The New York Times blogged that not only had she received the impression that Beacon would be an explicit opt-in program, but that Coca-Cola had also had a similar impression, and as
5487-401: The initial limited rollout of the new design saw a trend of lower user engagement, prompting the company to stop the rollout. A year later, in March 2014, Facebook once again updated its News Feed, but in response to criticism from users, the company chose to scale back its efforts. While bringing bigger photos that span the width of the feed, font changes, and design tweaks to buttons and icons,
5580-531: The issue with the United Nations General Assembly . In June 2010, Paul Ceglia, the owner of a wood pellet fuel company in Allegany County, upstate New York , filed suit against Zuckerberg, claiming 84 percent ownership of Facebook and seeking monetary damages. According to Ceglia, he and Zuckerberg signed a contract on April 28, 2003, that an initial fee of $ 1,000 entitled Ceglia to 50% of
5673-418: The knowledge of the Facebook user. The service was controversial and became the target of a class-action lawsuit, resulting in it shutting down in September 2009. One of the main concerns was that Beacon did not give the user the option to block the information from being sent to Facebook. Beacon was launched on November 6, 2007, with 44 partner websites. Mark Zuckerberg , CEO of Facebook, characterized Beacon on
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#17328552254465766-420: The last year, we've spent a lot of time seeing what people were saying, what was working, what wasn't working, and we're rolling out the version that takes all of that feedback into account". In January 2018, following a difficult 2017, marked by accusations of relaying fake news and revelations about groups close to Russia which tried to influence the 2016 US presidential election (see Russian interference in
5859-507: The law unduly protected social media companies against allegations of anti-conservative censorship. On March 25, 2021, Zuckerberg testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee regarding Facebook's role in the spread of misinformation and hate speech on the platform. During the hearing, he was questioned about Facebook's handling of user data, its role in the January 6, 2021, attack on
5952-416: The merits of about 2,000 potential posts every time the app is opened, using a complex system based on providing a meaningful experience, over that of clicks, reactions, or reading time. The Feed has been described as a filter bubble , showing users personalized results about information deemed interesting to them, in contrary to showing all information, even information that they disagree with. Subsequently,
6045-442: The money used in founding a relevant non-profit organization to educate people about privacy issues seemed to be a better-off deal serving the same interests. Beacon, as "a recommendation from a trusted friend" referred by Mark Zuckerberg , raised ongoing concerns regarding user privacy on social media sites and outraged privacy advocates. Beacon hurt Facebook's reputation by violating its Software Engineering tenets and disrespecting
6138-413: The network's Feed the most viewed and most influential aspect of the news industry. The feature, introduced in 2006, was renamed "Feed" in 2022. Before 2006, Facebook simply consisted of profiles, requiring the user to visit a profile to see any new posts. On September 6, 2006, Facebook announced a new home page feature called "News Feed". The new layout created an alternative home page in which users saw
6231-466: The new design removed the drop-down menu, placing relevant entries in a navigation on the left side of the screen while removing some of the sub-feeds. It also simplified the comments system, altered the appearance of profile photos in the feed, and added a search bar at the top of the page. News Feed product manager Greg Marra explained that "People don't like us moving their furniture around, because you break muscle memory ". Marra also stated that "Over
6324-399: The press and growing rapidly in users and publicity. In August 2004, Zuckerberg, Andrew McCollum, Adam D'Angelo , and Sean Parker launched a competing peer-to-peer file sharing service called Wirehog , a precursor to Facebook Platform applications, which was launched in 2007. In 2013, Zuckerberg launched Internet.org , which he described as an initiative to provide Internet access to
6417-596: The privacy rights of its users. Since the failure of launching Beacon, Facebook has been mired in controversy in terms of privacy issues. The Beacon stories led many Internet Surfers to believe that "Facebook and other profit-oriented social networking sites are large Internet-based surveillance machines." In general, Beacon was viewed as a mistake because it appeared to be too explicit about the intentions inscribed in its protocol. By learning from its unsuccessful experience, Facebook has been seeking other ways to monetize its user database through social advertising. Unlike Beacon,
6510-427: The process of commercialization tends to happen in the back-end system thus becoming invisible to the users. In this way, a lot of resistance from the user population could be largely removed. To be more specific, some argue that Facebook Beacon had paved the way for its subsequent service, Facebook Connect, both adopting the idea of utilizing third-party data. News Feed Facebook 's Feed , formerly known as
6603-412: The project. Zuckerberg, Moskovitz and the other co-founders moved to Palo Alto, California , where they leased a small house that served as an office. Over the summer, Zuckerberg met Peter Thiel , who invested in his company. They got their first office in mid-2004. According to Zuckerberg, the group planned to return to Harvard, but eventually decided to remain in California, where Zuckerberg appreciated
6696-463: The protection of identity and personal information online". Around $ 3 million was distributed to the original plaintiffs and attorneys. One of the class action organizers made an objection to the Supreme Court, arguing that members from the class action received little money from the settlement as a result of donating to a newly founded charity. The person also raised the issue that the settlement
6789-526: The role of Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg himself was reported to have been amused, "I thought this was funny." Stephen Colbert awarded a "Medal of Fear" to Zuckerberg at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on October 30, 2010, "because he values his privacy much more than he values yours". Zuckerberg appeared in the climax of 2013 documentary film Terms and Conditions May Apply . The South Park episode " Franchise Prequel " mocked him. According to CNET , he
6882-447: The same when you see it on a Facebook page or you turn on your television." After the 2016 election, journalist Margaret Sullivan called on Facebook inc. to hire an editor to monitor the News Feed to ensure accuracy and balance of news stories. In late 2016, Facebook described plans to issue warning labels on certain News Feed posts. Facebook has a partnership with fact-checkers like Snopes.com and PolitiFact , and would display that
6975-471: The service. On October 23, 2009, a class action notice was sent to Facebook users who may have used Beacon. The proposed settlement would require Facebook to pay $ 9.5 million into a settlement fund. The named plaintiffs (approximately 20) would be awarded a total of $ 41,000, the remainder consisting of legal fees. Facebook Beacon worked through the use of a 1x1 GIF web bug on the third-party site and Facebook cookies . Clearing Facebook cookies from
7068-561: The social media service Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms , of which he is the chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling shareholder. Zuckerberg has been the subject of multiple lawsuits regarding the creation and ownership of the website as well as issues such as user privacy. Zuckerberg briefly attended Harvard College , where he launched Facebook in February 2004 with his roommates Eduardo Saverin , Andrew McCollum , Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes . Zuckerberg took
7161-452: The student social experience at many private schools. With them, students were able to list attributes such as their class years, their friends, and their telephone numbers. Six days after the site launched, three Harvard seniors, Cameron Winklevoss , Tyler Winklevoss , and Divya Narendra , accused Zuckerberg of intentionally misleading them into believing that he would help them build a social network called HarvardConnection.com , when he
7254-628: The three filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg that resulted in a settlement. The agreed settlement was for 1.2 million Facebook shares and $ 20 million in cash. Zuckerberg's Facebook started off as just a "Harvard thing" until he decided to spread it to other schools, enlisting the help of roommate and co-founder Dustin Moskovitz . They began with Columbia University , New York University , Stanford University , Dartmouth College , Cornell University , University of Pennsylvania , Brown University , and Yale University . Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard in his sophomore year in order to complete
7347-521: The true be the enemy of the good?". Upon winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture on January 16, 2011, producer Scott Rudin thanked Facebook and Zuckerberg "for his willingness to allow us to use his life and work as a metaphor through which to tell a story about communication and the way we relate to each other". Sorkin, who won for Best Screenplay, retracted some of the impressions given in his script: In January 2011, Zuckerberg made
7440-446: The user's listening habits, which was posted to Slashdot and received a rating of 3 out of 5 from PC Magazine . The New Yorker once said of Zuckerberg, "some kids played computer games. Mark created them." While still in high school, he attended Mercy College taking a graduate computer course on Thursday evenings. The New Yorker noted that by the time Zuckerberg began classes at Harvard in 2002, he had already achieved
7533-430: The user. In fewer than ten days, this group gained 50,000 members. After the class-action lawsuit, Lane v. Facebook, Inc. , Beacon was changed to require that any actions transmitted to the website would have to be approved by the Facebook user before being published. On November 29, 2007, Stefan Berteau, a security researcher for Computer Associates , published a note on his tests of the Beacon system. He found that data
7626-462: The website of 02138 , a magazine that catered to Harvard alumni. They included Zuckerberg's Social Security number, his parents' home address, and his girlfriend's address. Although Facebook filed to have the documents removed, the judge ruled in favor of 02138 . In 2005, Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg and Facebook, alleging that Zuckerberg had illegally spent Saverin's money on personal expenses. The lawsuit
7719-432: The website's revenue, as well as an additional 1% interest in the business per day after January 1, 2004, until website completion. Zuckerberg was developing other projects at the time, among which was Facemash , the predecessor to Facebook, but did not register the domain name thefacebook.com until January 1, 2004. The Facebook management dismissed the lawsuit as "completely frivolous". Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt told
7812-605: Was "completely improper". In January 2004, Zuckerberg began writing code for a new website. On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched "Thefacebook", originally located at thefacebook.com, in partnership with his roommates Eduardo Saverin , Andrew McCollum , Dustin Moskovitz , and Chris Hughes . An earlier inspiration for Facebook may have come from Phillips Exeter Academy , the prep school from which Zuckerberg graduated in 2002. It published its own student directory, "The Photo Address Book", which students referred to as "The Facebook". Such photo directories were an important part of
7905-474: Was captain of the fencing team. Zuckerberg learned computer programming in his childhood. At about the age of eleven, he created "ZuckNet", a program that allowed computers at the family home and his father's dental office to communicate with each other. During Zuckerberg's high-school years, he worked to build a music player called the Synapse Media Player. The device used machine learning to learn
7998-523: Was ended by a permanent termination of the system and an establishment of a Privacy Foundation. Before Beacon terminated, 19 people against Beacon organized a class action lawsuit. Settling the case, Facebook finally paid $ 9.5 million in total to resolve the privacy concerns around its users. It established a non-profit foundation called Digital Trust Foundation with $ 6.5 million, aiming to "fund and sponsor programs designed to educate users, regulators and enterprises regarding critical issues relating to
8091-473: Was hosted on Facebook. The investigation also named the anonymous German woman who created the contest. Sidiqque asked the country's police to contact Interpol to have Zuckerberg and the three others arrested for blasphemy . On May 19, 2010, Facebook's website was temporarily blocked in Pakistan until Facebook removed the contest from its website at the end of May. Sidiqque also asked its UN representative to raise
8184-495: Was no mention of Facebook in them. Some law firms withdrew from the case before it was initiated and others after Ceglia's arrest. In 2014 Zuckerberg purchased 700 acres of land on the Hawaiian island of Kauaʻi . In January 2017, Zuckerberg filed eight " quiet title and partition " lawsuits against hundreds of native Hawaiians to claim small tracts of land that they owned within his acreage. Zuckerberg responded to criticisms in
8277-728: Was released in 2010 and won multiple Academy Awards . His prominence and fast rise in the technology industry has prompted political and legal attention. Mark Elliot Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York to psychiatrist Karen ( née Kempner ) and dentist Edward Zuckerberg. He and his three sisters (Arielle, Randi , and Donna ) were raised in a Reform Jewish household in Dobbs Ferry, New York . His great-grandparents were emigrants from Austria, Germany, and Poland. Zuckerberg initially attended Ardsley High School before transferring to Phillips Exeter Academy . He
8370-416: Was settled out of court and, although terms of the settlement were sealed, the company affirmed Saverin's title as co-founder of Facebook, and Saverin agreed to stop talking to the press. In June 2010, then Pakistani Deputy Attorney General Muhammad Azhar Sidiqque launched a criminal investigation into Zuckerberg and Facebook co-founders Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes after a " Draw Muhammad " contest
8463-460: Was still being collected and sent to Facebook despite users' opt-outs and not being logged in to Facebook at the time. This revelation was in direct contradiction to the statements made by Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook's vice president of marketing and operations, in an interview with The New York Times published the same day: Q. If I buy tickets on Fandango, and decline to publish the purchase to my friends on Facebook, does Facebook still receive
8556-401: Was unfair because Facebook still controlled the foundation since an employee from Facebook was in charge of it. In response to the challenge of the settlement, Facebook explained that direct payment would not be a wise decision compared to setting up a foundation. Each potential plaintiff would only share a tiny amount of money as it is being divided by a huge number of class action members. Thus,
8649-425: Was using their ideas to build a competing product. The three complained to The Harvard Crimson , and the newspaper began an investigation in response. While Zuckerberg tried to convince the editors not to run the story, he also broke into two of the editors' email accounts—for which he made use of their private login data logs from TheFacebook. Following the official launch of the Facebook social media platform,
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