20 Years Of Facebook In 10 Landmarks: A Definitive Timeline
20 Years Of data-facebook In 10 Landmarks: A Definitive Timeline
Facebook 20 Years: Check out how far this social media giant has come. From lawsuits to several other controversies, data-facebook has seen it all.
Facebook 20 Years
On this day 20 years back, a Harvard Sophomore, Mark Zuckerberg, along with his roommates, unveiled TheFacebook.Com before their batchmates. The journey of both Zuckerberg and data-facebook has been like a rollercoaster ride filled with ups and downs. The first controversy of this journey kicked off with the founders of ConnectU, a startup founded by Harvard students, accused Zuckerberg of stealing their idea and presenting it as his own, to him having to testify before the US Congress.Let us have a look at the timeline of Facebook's biggest moments in the past 20 years
2004 — Winklevii Suing Facebook
ConnectU, a startup founded by Harvard students Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and divya Narendra, sued TheFacebook.com for breach of contract in 2004. The ConnectU founders alleged that Zuckerberg stole their idea and presented it as his own. As per their claims, he breached an oral contract that he made to develop a social network for Harvard students which was called the Harvard Connection back then. The HarvardConnection founders approached Zuckerberg for help in building the website but they were unaware of the fact that he was simultaneously building data-facebook based on the same idea.2006 — news Feed Launch
Earlier data-facebook was more or less just a directory of people's profiles. The launch of news Feed in september 2006 changed things and Zuckerberg never looked back. Users were outraged with their actions being visible to all their friends. Users said that it became almost impossible to keep their information to themselves. data-facebook initially defended it by saying that the information of users is being shared with their friends.2007 — data-facebook Launches Ads
Zuckerberg launched data-facebook Ads and Pages for brands in november 2007. Instead of offering advertisers a general audience like television and print advertising, data-facebook gave them a way to find exactly the people they wanted to reach by using all the data that the social media platform had collected on its users over time.Facebook also launched another product called Beacon. Through Beacon, businesses shared information with data-facebook about what their customers were buying. data-facebook would then broadcast that information to the friends of users friends. data-facebook eventually settled a class-action lawsuit over Beacon, and it shut the product down entirely in 2009.
2009 — data-facebook Launches Like Button
The company created a currency for the Internet in 2009 when it introduced the Like button. The Like button fed human beings' constant craving for validation by turning every post into a popularity contest. It also became an informal poll test for politicians. Facebook was not the first company to do this but because of its scale, the blue thumbs-up became ubiquitous.2011 — FTC Investigation Into Facebook's Privacy Settings Concludes With Consent Decree
After the FTC concluded an investigation into 'deceptive privacy practices at Facebook', the company signed a consent decree in 2011. Among other things, the company promised not to misrepresent users' privacy and security settings and to obtain consent before making changes to those settings. However, a political consulting firm called Cambridge Analytica in 2018 revealed that until mid-2015, data-facebook was still giving developers access to users' friends' data without their explicit consent which violated the decree.