Facebook

Type: Public
Traded as: NASDAQ: FB
Founded: February 4, 2004
Headquarters: Menlo Park, California, US
Area served: United States (2004–05), Worldwide (2005–present)
Founders: Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes
Key people: Mark Zuckerberg (Chairman and CEO), Sheryl Sandberg (COO)
Industry: Internet
Subsidiaries: Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus VR, PrivateCore
Website: facebook.com
Written in: C++, PHP and D language
Type of site: Social networking service
Registration: Required
Available in: Multilingual

Facebook is a social networking website that allows users to publish content, and exchange messages. Second most visited website in the world after Google, it now has, according to Mark Zuckerberg, the founder, over one billion active users.

Facebook was founded in 2004 at Harvard University; initially restricted to students of that university, it is then open to other American universities before becoming available to everyone in September 2006. The site name is also inspired photo albums (“facebooks”) gathering pictures of the faces of all the students taken earlier the academic year.

As an application of social network, Facebook allows users to enter personal information and interact with other users. The information may be made available to the network concerning the civil status, education and hobbies. This information allows users to find common interests. They can form groups and invite other people. Interactions between members include sharing correspondence and multimedia. A principle also found on other social networks like Orkut or general addressing the business world as Viadeo.

The firewall of some organizarions and schools prohibits employees and students from accessing Facebook. However, access through port 443 (using https) sometimes still possible.

Facebook Connect is a system created by Facebook that allows developers to log their users via their Facebook account. This system requires the Facebook API and an application. Graph system, allowing to retrieve information about the Facebook user, can be used.

Larry Rosen, an expert on the psychology of new technologies, and Dominguez Hills, California State University, highlighted the possibility of a correlation between the use of Facebook and narcissistic tendencies, addiction to alcohol and other mental disorders. However, Facebook can also create virtual empathy – the ability to feel the emotions of others at a distance.

Criticism and controversy

Facebook issues a lot of controversy. The site has been blocked intermittently in several countries including China, Vietnam, Iran, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Syria, and Bangladesh, on different bases. For example, the site has been banned in some countries for its content deemed anti-Semitic and religiously discriminatory. The site was also blocked by a number of companies to prevent employees to access during working hours. The personal data of Facebook users were also threatened and account security has been compromised several times. Facebook has also been sued, and is considered by some that practice tax evasion.

In July 2011, the German authorities discuss the prohibition of events organized on Facebook. The decision is based on squatting individuals with events when they were originally not invited. 1600 “guests” appeared in the 16th anniversary of a teenager located in Hamburg when the invitation was incorrectly marked for the public. One hundred police were deployed. A policeman was attacked and eleven participants were arrested for assault, damage and resistance to authorities.

In June 2013, following revelations of the affair PRISM by Edward Snowden, it appears that Facebook has collaborated with the NSA, allowing it free access to all data from all users. A few days after these revelations, the former guarantees the protection of data Facebook is hired by the NSA, as announced by the New York Times.