Fb

Market position

Facebook is one of the largest social networking services globally. As of December 2023 it reported approximately 3.07 billion monthly active users, and as of July 2025 it ranked as the third-most-visited website in the world, with 23 percent of traffic originating from the United States. It was the most downloaded mobile application of the 2010s. Its iOS app ranks #5 in Social Networking on the App Store and Facebook Lite ranks #5 top free social on Google Play. In 2017 its parent was the sixth largest company in the world by stock market valuation.

Scale and breadth of functionality distinguish the service: a single platform combining Feed, groups, Messenger messaging, reels, stories, Marketplace commerce and an integrated AI assistant, offered in 112 languages. The separate Facebook Lite client extends reach by preserving core features while minimizing storage use and operating on 2G connections, and the service is embedded in Meta's wider product family including Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp and Quest.

Technology

The service is written in C++, Hack (as HHVM) and PHP. Product technology spans feed ranking and personalization, reels creation and editing tools, generative AI for custom stickers and images, and the Meta AI assistant integrated into search and in-app answers. Facebook Lite is engineered for small install size and usability on 2G networks. The Android apps state that data is encrypted in transit and that users can request deletion of their data.

Go-to-market

Distribution is direct-to-consumer through the web and through mobile apps on the Apple App Store and Google Play, including the low-bandwidth Facebook Lite client aimed at constrained devices and networks. Growth historically proceeded by sequential audience unlocks — Harvard, then other universities, then high schools, then general public registration in September 2006 for anyone 13 or older with an email address.

Individual consumers aged 13 and over worldwide (14 in South Korea, Spain and Quebec) who use the service for social connection, groups, entertainment and buying and selling; advertisers and businesses that purchase ads and operate Pages; creators and small businesses; and nonprofit organizations that use the platform's fundraising tools.

Geography

Available worldwide except in blocking countries, in 112 languages. Meta Platforms, Inc. is headquartered at 1 Meta Way, Menlo Park, California, United States. The United States accounts for 23 percent of the site's traffic as of July 2025.

History

After launching at Harvard in February 2004, the service expanded to other Ivy League and Boston-area universities and then more broadly across North American colleges. In the summer of 2004 Zuckerberg left school and set up headquarters in a ranch house in Palo Alto, where PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel joined the board of advisers and invested $500,000. Accel Partners invested $12.7 million in May 2005; by that autumn the network had more than five million users and by the end of 2005 covered more than 2,000 colleges and 25,000 high schools. A $27.5 million round followed in April 2006 with Accel, Thiel, Greylock Partners and Meritech participating, and in September 2006 the service opened to anyone aged 13 or older with a valid email address. Facebook rejected acquisition approaches, including a reported $750 million offer from Viacom and a $1 billion approach from Yahoo! in 2006, and in October 2007 Microsoft bought a 1.6% stake for $240 million. Digital Sky Technologies bought a nearly 2% stake for $200 million in 2009, and a 2009 dual-class stock structure preserved early-investor control. The company filed its S-1 on February 1, 2012 and went public on Nasdaq on May 18, 2012 at $38 per share. It acquired Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, passed one billion active users in October 2012 and two billion in July 2017, and was renamed Meta Platforms, Inc. in 2021 as part of a shift toward metaverse development, with the stock ticker changing from FB to META on June 9, 2022.

Risks & controversies

Facebook has been repeatedly criticized over user privacy, including the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal in which reporting by The New York Times and The Guardian in March 2018 said 50 million users' personal data was harvested for use by the political firm Cambridge Analytica; the UK fined the company £500,000 for failing to protect user data. Other criticism covers political manipulation around the 2016 U.S. elections, mass surveillance, psychological effects such as addiction and low self-esteem, and the spread of fake news, conspiracy theories, copyright infringement and hate speech, with commentators alleging the company facilitated such content and overstated user numbers to appeal to advertisers. In September 2017 a report revealed the network received $100,000 to publish Kremlin-linked ads. Litigation and regulatory matters listed include Young v. Facebook (2011), Fraley v. Facebook (2016), Force v. Facebook (2019) and the ongoing FTC v. Meta Platforms. The 2012 IPO was disrupted by a Nasdaq computer glitch that delayed trading, and the stock later fell as low as about $17.70–$18 per share; in 2018 the stock closed the year at $131.09, down 25.7 percent, amid slowing user growth (from 11 percent to nine percent in Q3) and concerns about declining use among younger people. App store reviews cite account-recovery and customer-support difficulties, content-moderation complaints, and app functionality problems.