The Facebook Effect

“I don’t want Facebook to be an American

company,” CEO Zuckerberg told Stanford University
students last year. “Every country is pretty different.”
The site has been translated into more than 70
languages, and more than 70 percent of Facebook’s
users are now outside the U.S., but the expansion
hasn’t come without challenges.
U.S.
Canada 144 million users
19.9 million users* Some 47 percent of U.S. residents
The site agreed to strengthen are on Facebook. The Federal Trade
privacy policies after the Commission is investigating privacy
government complained. issues. Two people familiar with the
matter say there may be a settle-
Brazil ment within weeks in which Face-
book agrees to independent “privacy
18.6 million users audits” and promises to ask members
Despite Google’s well-document- to opt in to any privacy policy change.
ed failures in social media,
the company’s seven-year-old
social network, Orkut, remains Russia
the most popular online
hangout in Brazil—but perhaps 9.5 million users
not for long. Facebook tripled Lax copyright laws in Russia may
its number of Brazilian members help Vkontakte, the country’s larg-
in the past year. est social network, populate its
site with music and movies al-
leged to be pirated. That’s made
competing in the region tough for
Facebook, but it has a strong ally:
Moscow-based Digital Sky Tech-
nologies, which holds more than
10 percent of the company.

China
Germany
0 users (officially)
31.8 million users
Facebook is banned in China, and
In 2008, Facebook sued
the world’s largest Internet popu-
German social networking
lation can sign on only through
leader StudiVZ, claiming “proxy” services that circumvent
the site is a “knock-off” whose government censors, although the
only major distinction is a red company just opened a sales office
motif instead of a blue one. The in Hong Kong and has explored
case was settled in 2009. a possible joint venture with local
Facebook surpassed StudiVZ search engine Baidu.
in users.
India
Egypt
31.6 million users
7.1 million users
Struck a deal to make mobile
The social network became a social networking free to custom-
tool of blogger-activists orga- ers of Bharti Airtel, India’s largest
nizing the street protests that phone company. An ad campaign
helped drive President Hosni for a skin whitening cream, which
Mubarak from power. encouraged users to upload
photos of themselves to
Facebook and virtually lighten
their skin, landed the company in
a pile of controversy.
*Active monthly users in March, according to comScore (Egypt: according to Inside Network)

Active Facebook Users

December 2005 December 2006 April 2007 August 2008 December 2009 July 2010
DATA: FACEBOOK

5.5m 12m 20m 100m 350m 500m