Facebook

History

The origins of Facebook start with Facemash, a website created by Mark Zuckerberg in order to compare the attractiveness of his fellow female students at Harvard university. Using what he learned from Facemash, Zuckerberg soon realized that he could create a new website to connect all of the Harvard students together which became thefacebook.com in 2003. This website allowed for students to put their ID photo, relationship status, major, clubs, or any other information they wanted to share with others. By 2004, thefacebook.com started expanding to other ivy league universities and eventually it reached almost all universities in the United States. It was not until 2006 that the website became just "facebook" and was opened to the public for anyone who was thirteen or older. 

The Winklevoss Twins

Even as early as when Facebook was just starting out, it faced legal complications because of the Winklevoss Twins, Cameron and Tyler. Along with their fellow student Divya Narendra, the Winklevoss Twins had been previously working on a social network called The Harvard Connection, which Mark himself was supposed to be helping to create. They ended up filing a lawsuit against Mark accusing him of plagiarizing their idea and eventually settled for money and stock from Facebook. This case was one of the reasons that a movie called "The Social Network", which focused on the origins of Facebook and all the legal complications that came with it, was created.

Positive Impact

Facebook was one of the first social media networks that paved the way for almost all of the social media that exist today. Before there was an Instagram or Snapchat, Facebook was one of the few places where you could go to get updates about the people in your life. Facebook changed our way of communicating forever because before there was social media, if you wanted to know anything about somebody, you would have to personally reach out to them. Facebook allows for people all over the world to connect with each other and businesses to reach out to a wider audience. People are also able to express themselves freely, within the guidelines of Facebook, and reach out to others with similar interests to communicate and share ideas.

Negative Impact

Studies have shown that Facebook has had a severe effect on the mental health of many individuals. There were early cases, before Facebook joined the public aside from universities, of increases in depression and anxiety more from college students who were using Facebook versus those who weren't.  These health related issues also showed a decline in academic performance at those same universities where students were using Facebook. There were also a number of political issues that came from Facebook, one of them being "rabbit holes". Facebook's algorithm was designed to continuously share what you're interested in so if you showed an interest in either political party, there was a chance you would be subjected to a "rabbit hole", which led you to the extreme values of that political party. There were also issues of privacy that led Zuckerberg to the Supreme Court where he had to address the selling of data to third parties.