Facebook, the world's largest social media platform in terms of user base, remains embroiled in controversies. Despite facing hefty fines from the United States and the European Union for violations of internet security and data privacy laws, approximately three-quarters of the world's population still use Facebook on a daily basis."
Beginning:
Judd Donath says about the journey of Facebook, "They started it from their university but later spread it to other universities. It was such a thing that the more people were involved in it, the more benefit it would have. Students from other universities became connected to it, then their friends and network, and then their relatives also joined in and this network continued to spread."
Finally, in 2006, Facebook became a large social media platform that began to compete with other existing platforms. At that time, there were other popular and big social media networks such as "MySpace" and "Friendster" where people could view the profiles of their acquaintances and learn about their friends. But they were "static" websites and did not change much over time, while on the other hand, Facebook launched its news feed feature to break this stagnation.
Judd Donath says, "Facebook launched the news feed feature and now people could tell their friends and acquaintances about their daily activities. What's happening in their lives, where they're going, and what they're doing.
And when it started for the first time, it was completely new for people. According to Judge Donath, Mark Zuckerberg must have felt that people are very curious to know about each other while designing the initial layout of Facebook.
She says that 'The idea of Contact Covert is that we not only want to know about our friends but also about their friends ahead of us.'
'Sometimes we don't tell someone something that we want to tell a particular person. But what was being said on Facebook was now reaching a large network, so along with the way of sharing information, the equation of mutual relationships also started changing.'
This social media platform became very successful very quickly. Facebook left behind the then-popular 'MySpace' in just four years. Later, many social networking sites came but Facebook still remained at the top.
But a big question is how does Facebook make money?"
In the beginning, Facebook was a company owned by Facebook, but in 2021 its parent company changed its name to 'Meta'.
BBC has spoken with Dr. Marleen Komorowski, senior researcher at the Media Studies department of Cardiff University in the UK.
She says, "Their fundamental business is advertising. 98% of Facebook's earnings come from advertisements. This platform was created on the basis of the practical wisdom of advertisements from the beginning. That is, the more time we spend on Facebook, the more this company earns."
People and companies place and view advertisements on Facebook. But now, Meta has purchased many social networking sites like WhatsApp and Instagram.
Dr. Komorowski says, "All these companies gather information about their social media users. For example, you use your Facebook account to register on many websites. This information is useful for the effective use of advertisements. Advertising companies place ads on these websites and pay Facebook for it."
She says, "People go to these companies' websites and buy their products by seeing their advertisements on Facebook. The more people click on these ads, the more money Facebook earns. That is, if fewer people sign up on Facebook every day, their earnings will also decrease.
Take risks and reap rewards worth millions:
In 2022, the revenue of Facebook continued to decline for three consecutive quarters, but in the fourth quarter, it earned $32 billion, which was better than analysts' expectations.
In total, Facebook earned $116 billion in 2022. While billions of people use Facebook, according to a recent survey, teenagers aged 13 to 19 are increasingly avoiding it, which could be a major risk to its future earnings.
Dr. Marlene says, "The largest age group of Facebook users are people aged 25 to 34, who make up a quarter of its users. However, a large number of people over the age of 60 also use it. Compared to other social media, the elderly are the most active users of Facebook."
But is this good or bad for advertising companies? Dr. Marlene says, "It depends on which age group the advertising company is interested in. However, if young users are not engaging with you, it could be a danger to your future relevance."
She also adds, "The other thing is that Facebook relies solely on revenue from advertisements, which can fluctuate. For example, Google is also selling multiple features alongside Google phone because it is difficult to rely on revenue from one source."
In recent days, Meta has rebranded its company and invested billions of dollars in Metaverse
Doctor Marlene says, "Meta's goal for 2023 is to make the company self-sufficient, so they are reducing expenses. That's why Mark Zuckerberg fired thirteen thousand employees at the end of last year. It's difficult to say whether this is the right way to do it."
BBC spoke with Assistant Professor Tiffanie Lee in the law department at the University of New Hampshire. Professor Lee believes that Facebook is involved in several international issues.
She says, "According to me, the biggest case was Cambridge Analytica in 2018. The company gave permission to many third-party developers to use Facebook users' personal information to reach those people with their ads."
"Cambridge Analytica was also a third-party developer and used this information without people's permission and against Facebook's policies."
In fact, Cambridge Analytica was a political consulting company whose services were hired during Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign. Trump won the election, and this matter came to light in 2018.
It was revealed at the time that the personal information of over eighty million voters was used in the election campaign without their permission. Based on this, supporters of Donald Trump were sent advertising messages.
Tiffanie Lee says, "This created a global controversy. No one wants their information to be used against them, especially when it comes to politics
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