The hearing in the US Senate on Wednesday may have thoroughly put Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg out of the celebratory mood. After harsh accusations that Facebook and other platforms were not doing enough to combat child pornography, the 39-year-old had to apologize to parents present: “I’m sorry that you had to go through all of that.”
This scene fits Facebook, the world’s first social media platform, which launched 20 years ago tomorrow, February 4th: hit by crises, threatened by growing competition – and yet not killed. On the contrary: Facebook is still the number one social media with three billion monthly active users.
Loyal fans among those aged 40 to 60
This is followed by YouTube (2.5 billion), WhatsApp and Instagram (two billion each), although the last two also belong to Zuckerberg’s “meta” empire. “Facebook is far from dead,” says Andre Wolf from the Mimikama association, which exposes internet abuse. While young people can now be found on platforms with a high entertainment factor such as TikTok, Snapchat or Instagram, Facebook has loyal fans among 40 to 60 year olds: “They have always been there and will remain there.”
20 years ago, Facebook was the first platform that made it possible to interact online, put your own stories online at lightning speed and achieve enormous reach. But that requires dramatization, says Wolf: “That opens the door to false reports and hate speech.” Facebook’s data collection frenzy among users is also problematic, says Wolf: “It will remain a struggle.”
Facebook-History
- 14. May 1984: Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is born in White Plains. He studies psychology and computer science (Harvard, without a degree). In 2002 he founded the “Facematch” platform. The women’s rating system has to be taken offline following protests.
- February 4, 2004: Zuckerberg and friends move to Palo Alto. The social network “Thefacebook” goes online. The platform already had more than six million users in 2005, and a year later the platform became accessible to the general public (previously students and employees of large companies).
- 18. May 2012: Facebook goes public, Zuckerberg becomes a multi-billionaire as a 28 percent owner (estimated assets 70 billion euros). The company later buys WhatsApp and Instagram. Three days following the IPO, he married his collage love Priscilla Chan. The two have two children.
- April 2018: The company cannot adequately protect its users’ data. The US presidential election campaign is being influenced by manipulation; a British company is misusing data from around 87 million accounts.
- July 2021: Zuckerberg wants to transform Facebook into a “Metaverse”. The platform is losing out particularly among young users
