Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, o wned and operated by Facebook, Inc.

[3] As of May 2012, Facebook has over 900 mil lion active users, more than half of them using Facebook on a mobile device.[4] Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a persona l profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automati c notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join com mon-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other ch aracteristics, and categorize their friends into lists such as "People From Work " or "Close Friends". The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other. F acebook allows any users who declare themselves to be at least 13 years old to b ecome registered users of the site.[5] Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow st udents Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.[6] The website's memb ership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expand ed to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University . It gradually added support for students at various other universities before o pening to high school students, and eventually to anyone aged 13 and over. Howev er, according to a May 2011 Consumer Reports survey, there are 7.5 million child ren under 13 with accounts and 5 million under 10, violating the site's terms of service.[7] A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social network ing service by worldwide monthly active users.[8] Entertainment Weekly included the site on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list, saying, "How on earth did we s talk our exes, remember our co-workers' birthdays, bug our friends, and play a r ousing game of Scrabulous before Facebook?"[9] Critics, such as Facebook Detox,[ 10] state that Facebook has turned into a national obsession that results in vas t amounts of time lost and innately encourages narcissism. Quantcast estimates F acebook has 138.9 million monthly unique U.S. visitors in May 2011.[11] Accordin g to Social Media Today, in April 2010 an estimated 41.6% of the U.S. population had a Facebook account.[12] Nevertheless, Facebook's market growth started to s tall in some regions, with the site losing 7 million active users in the United States and Canada in May 2011.[13] Contents [hide] 1 History 2 Website 2.1 User Profile 2.2 Privacy Settings 2.3 Comparison with Myspace 2.4 News Feed 2.5 Facebook Notes 2.6 Facebook Username 2.7 Facebook Messages 2.8 Voice Calls 2.9 Video Calling 2.10 Facebook Subscribe 2.11 Privacy 2.11.1 FTC settlement 2.12 Technical aspects 3 Reception 4 Criticism 5 Impact 5.1 Media impact 5.2 Social impact 5.3 Political impact 6 In popular culture 7 Limitations 8 See also 9 Notes

10 References 11 Further reading 12 External links History Main articles: History of Facebook and Timeline of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg wrote Facemash, the predecessor to Facebook, on October 28, 2003 , while attending Harvard as a sophomore. According to The Harvard Crimson, the site was comparable to Hot or Not, and "used photos compiled from the online fac ebooks of nine houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the 'hotter' person"[14][15] Mark Zuckerberg co-created Facebook in his Harvard dorm room. To accomplish this, Zuckerberg hacked into the protected areas of Harvard's comp uter network and copied the houses' private dormitory ID images. Harvard at that time did not have a student "facebook" (a directory with photos and basic infor mation), though individual houses had been issuing their own paper facebooks sin ce the mid-1980s. Facemash attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours online.[16][17] The site was quickly forwarded to several campus group list-servers, but was shu t down a few days later by the Harvard administration. Zuckerberg was charged by the administration with breach of security, violating copyrights, and violating individual privacy, and faced expulsion. Ultimately, the charges were dropped.[ 18] Zuckerberg expanded on this initial project that semester by creating a soci al study tool ahead of an art history final, by uploading 500 Augustan images to a website, with one image per page along with a comment section.[17] He opened the site up to his classmates, and people started sharing their notes. The following semester, Zuckerberg began writing code for a new website in Janua ry 2004. He was inspired, he said, by an editorial in The Harvard Crimson about the Facemash incident.[19] On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched "Thefacebook ", originally located at thefacebook.com.[20] Six days after the site launched, three Harvard seniors, Cameron Winklevoss, Tyl er Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra, accused Zuckerberg of intentionally misleadin g them into believing he would help them build a social network called HarvardCo nnection.com, while he was instead using their ideas to build a competing produc t.[21] The three complained to the Harvard Crimson, and the newspaper began an i nvestigation. The three later filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, subsequently s ettling.[22] Membership was initially restricted to students of Harvard College, and within t he first month, more than half the undergraduate population at Harvard was regis tered on the service.[23] Eduardo Saverin (business aspects), Dustin Moskovitz ( programmer), Andrew McCollum (graphic artist), and Chris Hughes soon joined Zuck erberg to help promote the website. In March 2004, Facebook expanded to Stanford , Columbia, and Yale.[24] It soon opened to the other Ivy League schools, Boston University, New York University, MIT, and gradually most universities in Canada and the United States.[25][26] Facebook was incorporated in mid-2004, and the entrepreneur Sean Parker, who had been informally advising Zuckerberg, became the company's president.[27] In Jun e 2004, Facebook moved its base of operations to Palo Alto, California.[24] It r eceived its first investment later that month from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel .[28] The company dropped The from its name after purchasing the domain name fac ebook.com in 2005 for $200,000.[29] Total active users[N 1] Date Users (in millions) Days later Monthly growth[N 2] August 26, 2008 100[30] 1,665 178.38% April 8, 2009 200[31] 225 13.33% September 15, 2009 300[32] 160 9.38% February 5, 2010 400[33] 143 6.99%

July 21, 2010 500[34] 166 4.52% January 5, 2011 600[35][N 3] 168 3.57% May 30, 2011 700[36] 145 3.45% September 22, 2011 800[37] 115 3.73% April 24, 2012 900[38] 215 1.74% Facebook launched a high-school version in September 2005, which Zuckerberg call ed the next logical step.[39] At that time, high-school networks required an inv itation to join.[40] Facebook later expanded membership eligibility to employees of several companies, including Apple Inc. and Microsoft.[41] Facebook was then opened on September 26, 2006, to everyone of age 13 and older with a valid emai l address.[42][43] On October 24, 2007, Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6% share of F acebook for $240 million, giving Facebook a total implied value of around $15 bi llion.[44] Microsoft's purchase included rights to place international ads on Fa cebook.[45] In October 2008, Facebook announced that it would set up its interna tional headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.[46] In September 2009, Facebook said tha t it had turned cash-flow positive for the first time.[47] In November 2010, bas ed on SecondMarket Inc., an exchange for shares of privately held companies, Fac ebook's value was $41 billion (slightly surpassing eBay's) and it became the thi rd largest U.S. Web company after Google and Amazon.[48] Traffic to Facebook increased steadily after 2009. More people visited Facebook than Google for the week ending March 13, 2010.[49] In March 2011 it was reported that Facebook removes approximately 20,000 profile s from the site every day for various infractions, including spam, inappropriate content and underage use, as part of its efforts to boost cyber security.[50] In early 2011, Facebook announced plans to move to its new headquarters, the for mer Sun Microsystems campus in Menlo Park, California.[51][52] Release of statistics by DoubleClick showed that Facebook reached one trillion p ageviews in the month of June 2011, making it the most visited website in the wo rld.[53] It should however be noted that Google and some of its selected website s are not counted in the DoubleClick rankings. According to the Nielsen Media Re search study, released in December 2011, Facebook is the second most accessed we bsite in the US.[54] In March 2012, Facebook announced App Center, an online mobile store which sells applications that connect to Facebook. The store will be available to iPhone, A ndroid and mobile web users.[55] In April, Facebook bought the application Insta gram for US$1 billion.[56] In early May of 2012, Facebook acquired social discovery start-up Glancee.[57] Facebook, Inc. held an initial public offering on May 17, 2012, negotiating a sh are price of $38 apiece, valuing the company at $104 billion, the largest valuat ion to date for a newly listed public company.[58] In April 2012, Facebook acquired the mobile customer loyalty firm Tagline.[59] In May 2012, the company settled a class action lawsuit regarding the use of mem ber's images in ads called "sponsored stories" for $10 million.[60] Facebook bought facial-recognition technology company Face.com in June 2012.[61] Website Main articles: Facebook features and Facebook Platform Facebook "Timeline" profile shown in May 2012 Profile shown on Thefacebook in 2005 User Profile Users can create profiles with photos, lists of personal interests, contact info rmation, and other personal information. Users can communicate with friends and other users through private or public messages and a chat feature. They can also create and join interest groups and "like pages" (called "fan pages" until Apri l 19, 2010), some of which are maintained by organizations as a means of adverti

sing.[62] A 2012 Pew Internet and American Life study identified that between 20 30% of Facebook users are "power users" who frequently link, poke, post and tag the mselves and others.[63] Privacy Settings To allay concerns about privacy, Facebook enables users to choose their own priv acy settings and choose who can see specific parts of their profile.[64] The web site is free to users, and generates revenue from advertising, such as banner ad s.[65] Facebook requires a user's name and profile picture (if applicable) to be accessible by everyone. Users can control who sees other information they have shared, as well as who can find them in searches, through their privacy settings .[66] Comparison with Myspace The media often compares Facebook to MySpace, but one significant difference bet ween the two Web sites is the level of customization.[67] Another difference is Facebook's requirement that users give their true identity, a demand that MySpac e does not make.[68] MySpace allows users to decorate their profiles using HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), while Facebook allows only plain text.[69] Fac ebook has a number of features with which users may interact. They include the W all, a space on every user's profile page that allows friends to post messages f or the user to see;[70] Pokes, which allows users to send a virtual "poke" to ea ch other (a notification then tells a user that they have been poked);[71] Photo s, where users can upload albums and photos;[72] and Status, which allows users to inform their friends of their whereabouts and actions.[73] Depending on priva cy settings, anyone who can see a user's profile can also view that user's Wall. In July 2007, Facebook began allowing users to post attachments to the Wall, wh ereas the Wall was previously limited to textual content only.[70] News Feed On September 6, 2006, a News Feed was announced, which appears on every user's h omepage and highlights information including profile changes, upcoming events, a nd birthdays of the user's friends.[74] This enabled spammers and other users to manipulate these features by creating illegitimate events or posting fake birth days to attract attention to their profile or cause.[75] Initially, the News Fee d caused dissatisfaction among Facebook users; some complained it was too clutte red and full of undesired information, others were concerned that it made it too easy for others to track individual activities (such as relationship status cha nges, events, and conversations with other users).[76] In response, Zuckerberg issued an apology for the site's failure to include appr opriate customizable privacy features. Since then, users have been able to contr ol what types of information are shared automatically with friends. Users are no w able to prevent user-set categories of friends from seeing updates about certa in types of activities, including profile changes, Wall posts, and newly added f riends.[77] On February 23, 2010, Facebook was granted a patent[78] on certain aspects of it s News Feed. The patent covers News Feeds in which links are provided so that on e user can participate in the same activity of another user.[79] The patent may encourage Facebook to pursue action against websites that violate its patent, wh ich may potentially include websites such as Twitter.[80] One of the most popular applications on Facebook is the Photos application, wher e users can upload albums and photos.[81] Facebook allows users to upload an unl imited number of photos, compared with other image hosting services such as Phot obucket and Flickr, which apply limits to the number of photos that a user is al lowed to upload. During the first years, Facebook users were limited to 60 photo s per album. As of May 2009, this limit has been increased to 200 photos per alb um.[82][83][84][85] Privacy settings can be set for individual albums, limiting the groups of users that can see an album. For example, the privacy of an album can be set so that o nly the user's friends can see the album, while the privacy of another album can be set so that all Facebook users can see it. Another feature of the Photos app lication is the ability to "tag", or label, users in a photo. For instance, if a photo contains a user's friend, then the user can tag the friend in the photo.

This sends a notification to the friend that they have been tagged, and provides them a link to see the photo.[86] On 7th June 2012,facebook launched its App Ce nter to its users. It will help the users in finding games and other application s with ease.[87] Facebook Notes Facebook Notes was introduced on August 22, 2006, a blogging feature that allowe d tags and embeddable images. Users were later able to import blogs from Xanga, LiveJournal, Blogger, and other blogging services.[42] During the week of April 7, 2008, Facebook released a Comet-based[88] instant messaging application calle d "Chat" to several networks,[89] which allows users to communicate with friends and is similar in functionality to desktop-based instant messengers. Facebook launched Gifts on February 8, 2007, which allows users to send virtual gifts to their friends that appear on the recipient's profile. Gifts cost $1.00 each to purchase, and a personalized message can be attached to each gift.[90][9 1] On May 14, 2007, Facebook launched Marketplace, which lets users post free cl assified ads.[92] Marketplace has been compared to Craigslist by CNET, which poi nts out that the major difference between the two is that listings posted by a u ser on Marketplace are seen only by users in the same network as that user, wher eas listings posted on Craigslist can be seen by anyone.[93] On July 20, 2008, Facebook introduced "Facebook Beta", a significant redesign of its user interface on selected networks. The Mini-Feed and Wall were consolidat ed, profiles were separated into tabbed sections, and an effort was made to crea te a "cleaner" look.[94] After initially giving users a choice to switch, Facebo ok began migrating all users to the new version starting in September 2008.[95] On December 11, 2008, it was announced that Facebook was testing a simpler signu p process.[96] Facebook Username On June 13, 2009, Facebook introduced a "Usernames" feature, whereby pages can b e linked with simpler URLs such as http://www.facebook.com/facebook instead of h ttp://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=20531316728.[97] Many new smartphones offe r access to Facebook services through either their Web browsers or applications. An official Facebook application is available for the operating systems Android , iOS, and webOS. Nokia and Research In Motion both provide Facebook application s for their own mobile devices. More than 425 million active users access Facebo ok through mobile devices across 200 mobile operators in 60 countries.[98] Facebook Messages On November 15, 2010, Facebook announced a new "Facebook Messages" service. In a media event that day, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, "It's true that people will be able to have an @facebook.com email addresses, but it's not email". The launch o f such a feature had been anticipated for some time before the announcement, wit h some calling it a "Gmail killer". The system, to be available to all of the we bsite's users, combines text messaging, instant messaging, emails, and regular m essages, and will include privacy settings similar to those of other Facebook se rvices. Codenamed "Project Titan", Facebook Messages took 15 months to develop.[ 99][100] In February 2011, Facebook began to use the hCalendar microformat to mark up eve nts, and the hCard microformat for the events' venues, enabling the extraction o f details to users' own calendar or mapping applications.[101] Voice Calls Since April 2011 Facebook users have had the ability to make live voice calls vi a Facebook Chat, allowing users to chat with others from all over the world. Thi s feature, which is provided free through T-Mobile's new Bobsled service, lets t he user add voice to the current Facebook Chat as well as leave voice messages o n Facebook.[102] Video Calling On July 6, 2011, Facebook launched its video calling services using Skype as its technology partner. It allows one to one calling using a Skype Rest API.[103] Facebook Subscribe On September 14, 2011, Facebook launched a Subscribe button. The feature allows for users to follow public updates, and these are the people most often broadcas

ting their ideas.[104] There were major modifications that the site released on September 22, 2011.[105] As reported by TechCrunch on February 15, 2012, Facebook is introducing Verified Ac count concept like that of Twitter & Google+. Though as of March 3, 2012, verified accounts don t get any badges or denotations, but such accounts will get more priori ty in Subscription Suggestions of Facebook.[106] On March 6, 2012, Facebook officially launched Messenger for Windows, which give s users of Windows 7 access to some Facebook services without using a web browse r.[107] Privacy According to comScore, an internet marketing research company, Facebook collects as much data from its visitors as Google and Microsoft, but considerably less t han Yahoo!.[108] In 2010, the security team began expanding its efforts to reduc e the risks to users' privacy,[109] but privacy concerns remain. On November 6, 2007, Facebook launched Facebook Beacon, which was an ultimately failed attempt to advertise to friends of users using the knowledge of what purchases friends m ade. As of March 2012, Facebook's usage of its user data is under close scrutiny .[110] FTC settlement On November 29, 2011, Facebook agreed to settle US Federal Trade Commission char ges that it deceived consumers by failing to keep privacy promises.[111] Technical aspects Facebook is built in PHP which is compiled with HipHop for PHP, a source code tr ansformer built by Facebook engineers that turns PHP into C++. The deployment of HipHop reportedly reduced average CPU consumption on Facebook servers by 50%.[1 12] Facebook is developed as one monolithic application. According to an interview i n 2012 with Chuck Rossi, a build engineer at Facebook, Facebook compiles into a 1.5 GB binary blob which is then distributed to the servers using a custom BitTo rrent-based release system. Rossi stated that it takes approximately 15 minutes to build and 15 minutes to release to the servers. The build and release process is zero downtime and new changes to Facebook are rolled out daily.[112] Reception

Facebook popularity. Active users of Facebook increased from just a million in 2 004 to over 750 million in 2011.[113] Registered Facebook users by age as of 2010. According to comScore, Facebook is the leading social networking site based on m onthly unique visitors, having overtaken main competitor MySpace in April 2008.[ 114] ComScore reports that Facebook attracted 130 million unique visitors in May 2010, an increase of 8.6 million people.[115] According to Alexa, the website's ranking among all websites increased from 60th to 7th in worldwide traffic, fro m September 2006 to September 2007, and is currently 2nd.[116] Quantcast ranks t he website 2nd in the U.S. in traffic,[117] and Compete.com ranks it 2nd in the U.S.[118] The website is the most popular for uploading photos, with 50 billion uploaded cumulatively.[119] In 2010, Sophos's "Security Threat Report 2010" poll ed over 500 firms, 60% of which responded that they believed that Facebook was t he social network that posed the biggest threat to security, well ahead of MySpa ce, Twitter, and LinkedIn.[109] Facebook is the most popular social networking site in several English-speaking countries, including Canada,[120] the United Kingdom,[121] and the United States .[122][123][124][125] In regional Internet markets, Facebook penetration is high est in North America (69 percent), followed by Middle East-Africa (67 percent), Latin America (58 percent), Europe (57 percent), and Asia-Pacific (17 percent).[ 126] The website has won awards such as placement into the "Top 100 Classic Websites"

by PC Magazine in 2007,[127] and winning the "People's Voice Award" from the We bby Awards in 2008.[128] In a 2006 study conducted by Student Monitor, a New Jer sey-based company specializing in research concerning the college student market , Facebook was named the second most popular thing among undergraduates, tied wi th beer and only ranked lower than the iPod.[129] On March 2010, Judge Richard Seeborg issued an order approving the class settlem ent in Lane v. Facebook, Inc., the class action lawsuit arising out of Facebook' s Beacon program. In 2010, Facebook won the Crunchie "Best Overall Startup Or Product" for the thi rd year in a row[130] and was recognized as one of the "Hottest Silicon Valley C ompanies" by Lead411.[131] However, in a July 2010 survey performed by the Ameri can Customer Satisfaction Index, Facebook received a score of 64 out of 100, pla cing it in the bottom 5% of all private-sector companies in terms of customer sa tisfaction, alongside industries such as the IRS e-file system, airlines, and ca ble companies. The reasons why Facebook scored so poorly include privacy problem s, frequent changes to the website's interface, the results returned by the News Feed, and spam.[132] In December 2008, the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory ruled th at Facebook is a valid protocol to serve court notices to defendants. It is beli eved to be the world's first legal judgement that defines a summons posted on Fa cebook as legally binding.[133] In March 2009, the New Zealand High Court associ ate justice David Gendall allowed for the serving of legal papers on Craig Axe b y the company Axe Market Garden via Facebook.[134][135] Employers (such as Virgi n Atlantic Airways) have also used Facebook as a means to keep tabs on their emp loyees and have even been known to fire them over posts they have made.[136] By 2005, the use of Facebook had already become so ubiquitous that the generic v erb "facebooking" had come into use to describe the process of browsing others' profiles or updating one's own.[137] In 2008, Collins English Dictionary declare d "Facebook" as its new Word of the Year.[138] In December 2009, the New Oxford American Dictionary declared its word of the year to be the verb "unfriend", def ined as "To remove someone as a 'friend' on a social networking site such as Fac ebook. As in, 'I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook after we had a figh t.'"[139] In early 2010, Openbook was established, an avowed parody (and privacy advocacy) website[140] that enables text-based searches of those Wall posts that are avai lable to "Everyone", i.e. to everyone on the Internet. Writers for The Wall Street Journal found in 2010 that Facebook apps were transm itting identifying information to "dozens of advertising and Internet tracking c ompanies". The apps used an HTTP referrer which exposed the user's identity and sometimes their friends'. Facebook said, "We have taken immediate action to disa ble all applications that violate our terms".[141] In May 2012, the countries with the most Facebook users were:[142] United States with 157.3 million members India with 50 million members(July 2012).[143] Brazil with 47.0 million members Indonesia with 42.2 million members Mexico with 33.1 million members All of the above total 309 million members or about 38.6 percent of Facebook's 8 00 million worldwide members.[144] Criticism Main article: Criticism of Facebook Facebook has met with controversies. It has been blocked intermittently in sever al countries including the People's Republic of China,[145] Iran,[146] Uzbekista n,[147] Pakistan,[148] Syria,[149] and Bangladesh on different bases. For exampl e, it was banned in many countries of the world on the basis of allowed content judged as anti-Islamic and containing religious discrimination. It has also been banned at many workplaces to prevent employees from using it during work hours. [150] The privacy of Facebook users has also been an issue, and the safety of us er accounts has been compromised several times. Facebook has settled a lawsuit r

egarding claims over source code and intellectual property.[151] In May 2011 ema ils were sent to journalists and bloggers making critical allegations about Goog le's privacy policies; however it was later discovered that the anti-Google camp aign, conducted by PR giant Burson-Marsteller, was paid for by Facebook in what CNN referred to as "a new level skullduggery" and which Daily Beast called a "cl umsy smear".[152] In July 2011, German authorities began to discuss the prohibition of events orga nized on Facebook. The decision is based on several cases of overcrowding by peo ple not originally invited.[153][154] In one instance, 1,600 "guests" attended t he 16th birthday party for a Hamburg girl who accidentally posted the invitation for the event as public. After reports of overcrowding, more than a hundred pol ice were deployed for crowd control. A policeman was injured and eleven particip ants were arrested for assault, property damage and resistance to authorities.[1 55] In another unexpectedly overcrowded event, 41 young people were arrested and at least 16 injured.[156] In May 2011, HCL Technologies announced that approximately 50% of British employ ers had banned Facebook from the workplace.[157] Facebook has been blamed for lo wer worker productivity and has been called a national obsession by anti-Faceboo k blogs such as Facebook Detox.[158] A 2011 study in the online journal First Monday, "Why Parents Help Their Childre n Lie to Facebook About Age: Unintended Consequences of the Children's Online Pr ivacy Protection Act," examines how parents consistently enable children as youn g as 10 years old to sign up for accounts, directly violating Facebook's policy banning young visitors. This policy technically allows Facebook to avoid conflic ts with the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), requiring tha t minors aged 13 or younger gain explicit parental consent to access commercial websites. Of the more than 1,000 households surveyed for the study, more than th ree-quarters (76%) of parents reported that their child joined Facebook when she was younger than 13, the minimum age in the site's terms of service. The study notes that, in response to widespread reports of underage users, a Facebook exec utive has said that "Facebook removes 20,000 people a day, people who are undera ge." The study's authors also note, "Indeed, Facebook takes various measures bot h to restrict access to children and delete their accounts if they join." The fi ndings of the study raise questions primarily about the shortcomings of federal law, but also implicitly continue to raise questions about whether or not Facebo ok does enough to publicize its terms of service with respect to minors. Only 53 % of parents said they were aware that Facebook has a minimum signup age; 35% of these parents believe that the minimum age is a site recommendation (not a cond ition of site use), or thought the signup age was 16 or 18, and not 13.[159] In November 2011, several Facebook users reported that their accounts were hacke d and their profile pictures were replaced with pornographic images. For more th an a week, users' news feeds were spammed with pornographic, violent and sexual contents. It has been reported that more than 200,000 accounts in Bangalore, Ind ia were hacked. Facebook has denied the claims, citing that "safety of the users was on the top of their priority list".[160][161] There has been much user discontent over Facebook's mandatory changeover to the new Timeline profile. Some Facebook users reported discontent with having many F acebook status updates and photos from the past easily visible.[162][163] According to a leading counter terrorism expert, terrorists are using Facebook f or hiring loners from western nations like Australia.[164] Impact Media impact In April 2011, Facebook launched a new portal for marketers and creative agencie s to help them develop brand promotions on Facebook.[165] The company began its push by inviting a select group of British advertising leaders to meet Facebook' s top executives at an "influencers' summit" in February 2010. Facebook has now been involved in campaigns for True Blood, American Idol, and Top Gear.[166] New s and media outlets such as the Washington Post,[167] Financial Times[168] and A BC News[169] have used aggregated Facebook fan data to create various infographi

cs and charts to accompany their articles. Social impact Main articles: Social networking service#Social impact and Social impact of the Internet#Social networking and entertainment Facebook has affected the social life and activity of people in various ways. Wi th its availability on many mobile devices, Facebook allows users to continuousl y stay in touch with friends, relatives and other acquaintances wherever they ar e in the world, as long as there is access to the Internet. It can also unite pe ople with common interests and/or beliefs through groups and other pages, and ha s been known to reunite lost family members and friends because of the widesprea d reach of its network. One such reunion was between John Watson and the daughte r he had been seeking for 20 years. They met after Watson found her Facebook pro file.[170] Another father-daughter reunion was between Tony Macnauton and France s Simpson, who had not seen each other for nearly 48 years.[171] Some argue that Facebook is beneficial to one's social life because they can con tinuously stay in contact with their friends and relatives, while others say tha t it can cause increased antisocial tendencies because people are not directly c ommunicating with each other. Some studies have named Facebook as a source of pr oblems in relationships. Several news stories have suggested that using Facebook can lead to higher instances of divorce and infidelity, but the claims have bee n questioned by other commentators.[172][173] Political impact Saint Anselm College debates in 2008. The stage at the Facebook Facebook's role in the American political process was demonstrated in January 20 08, shortly before the New Hampshire primary, when Facebook teamed up with ABC a nd Saint Anselm College to allow users to give live feedback about the "back to back" January 5 Republican and Democratic debates.[174][175][176] Charles Gibson moderated both debates, held at the Dana Center for the Humanities at Saint Ans elm College. Facebook users took part in debate groups organized around specific topics, register to vote, and message questions.[177] ABCNews.com reported in 2012 that the Facebook fanbases of political candidates have relevance for the election campaign, including: Allows politicians and campaign organizers to understand the interests and demog raphics of their Facebook fanbases, as with Wisdom for Facebook, to better targe t their voters. Provides a means for voters to keep up-to-date on candidates' activities, such a s connecting to the candidates' Facebook Fan Pages. Unless you get out of Facebook and into someone s face, you really have not acted. Thomas L. Friedman, 2012[178] Over a million people installed the Facebook application "US Politics on Faceboo k" in order to take part, and the application measured users' responses to speci fic comments made by the debating candidates.[179] This debate showed the broade r community what many young students had already experienced: Facebook as a popu lar and powerful new way to interact and voice opinions. An article by Michelle Sullivan of Uwire.com illustrates how the "Facebook effect" has affected youth v oting rates, support by youth of political candidates, and general involvement b y the youth population in the 2008 election.[180] In February 2008, a Facebook group called "One Million Voices Against FARC" orga nized an event in which hundreds of thousands of Colombians marched in protest a gainst the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, better known as the FARC (fro m the group's Spanish name).[181] In August 2010, one of North Korea's official government websites and the official news agency of the country, Uriminzokkiri, joined Facebook.[182] In 2011 there was a controversial ruling by French government to uphold a 1992 d ecree which stipulates that commercial enterprises should not be promoted on new s programs. President Nicolas Sarkozy's colleagues have agreed that it will enfo rce a law so that the word "Facebook" will not be allowed to be spoken on the te

levision or on the radio.[183] In 2011, Facebook filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to form a political action committee under the name FB PAC.[184] In an email to The Hill, a spokesman for Facebook said "FB PAC will give our employees a way to make the ir voice heard in the political process by supporting candidates who share our g oals of promoting the value of innovation to our economy while giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected."[185] In popular culture At age 102, Ivy Bean of Bradford, England joined Facebook in 2008, making her on e of the oldest people ever on Facebook. An inspiration to other residents of th e care home in which she lived,[186] she quickly became more widely known and se veral fan pages were made in her honor. She visited the British Prime Minister G ordon Brown and his wife, Sarah, in Downing Street early in 2010.[187] Some time after creating her Facebook page, Bean joined Twitter, when she passed the maxi mum number of friends allowed by Facebook. She became the oldest person to ever use the Twitter website. At the time of her death in July 2010, she had 4,962 fr iends on Facebook and more than 56,000 followers on Twitter. Her death was widel y reported in the media and she received tributes from several notable media per sonalities.[188] American author Ben Mezrich published a book in July 2009 about Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook, titled The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding o f Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal.[189] In response to the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day controversy and the ban of the we bsite in Pakistan, an Islamic version of the website was created, called MillatF acebook.[190] "You Have 0 Friends", an April 2010 episode of the American animated comedy seri es, South Park, explicitly parodied Facebook.[191] The Social Network, a drama film directed by David Fincher about the founding of Facebook, was released October 1, 2010.[192] The film features an ensemble cast consisting of Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Sa verin, Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, and Armie Hammer as Cameron and Tyler W inklevoss. The film was written by Aaron Sorkin and adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2 009 book. The film was distributed by Columbia Pictures. No staff members of Fac ebook, including Zuckerberg, were involved with the project. However, one of Fac ebook's co-founders, Eduardo Saverin, was a consultant for Mezrich's book. Mark Zuckerberg has said that The Social Network is inaccurate.[193] On May 16, 2011, an Israeli couple named their daughter after the Facebook "like " feature. They explained that it wasn't to advertise for Facebook, but because they fancied the meaning behind the word.[194][195] In 2012 sammarinese singer Valentina Monetta released a song about Facebook call ed The Social Network Song (There is a previous version called Facebook Uh Oh Oh ).[196] Limitations Maximum quantity of friends in one's account: 5,000. Maximum quantity of pictures in an album of one's account: 200. Maximum quantity of tags in a picture in an album of one's account: 50.