FaceMash[edit]

FaceMash, Facebook's predecessor, opened in 2003, developed by Mark Zuckerberg; he wrote the
software for the Facemash website when he was in his second year of college. The website was set
up as a type of "hot or not" game for Harvard students. The website allowed visitors to compare two
female student pictures side by side and let them decide who was more attractive. [9]
While writing the software, Mark Zuckerberg wrote the following blog entries: [10]
I'm a little intoxicated, not gonna lie. So what if it's not even 10 p.m. and it's a Tuesday night? What?
The Kirkland [dorm] facebook is open on my desktop and some of these people have pretty
horrendous facebook pics. I almost want to put some of these faces next to pictures of farm animals
and have people vote on which is more attractive.[10]

— 9:48 pm[11]
Yea, it's on. I'm not exactly sure how the farm animals are going to fit into this whole thing (you can't
really ever be sure with farm animals ...), but I like the idea of comparing two people together.

— 11:09 pm[10]
According to The Harvard Crimson, Facemash used "photos compiled from the online facebooks of
nine Houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the "hotter"
person".[9] Facemash attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours online. [12]
The site was quickly forwarded to several campus group list-servers, but was shut down a few days
later by the Harvard administration. Zuckerberg faced expulsion and was charged by the
administration with breach of security, violating copyrights, and violating individual privacy.
Ultimately, the charges were dropped.[9] Zuckerberg expanded on this initial project that semester by
creating a social study tool ahead of an art history final exam. He uploaded art images to a website,
each of which was featured with a corresponding comments section, then shared the site with his
classmates, and people started sharing notes.[13]
On October 25, 2010, entrepreneur and banker Rahul Jain auctioned off FaceMash.com to an
unknown buyer for $30,201.[14][15]

Facebook[edit]
A "face book" is a student directory featuring photos and basic information. [12] In 2003, there were no
universal online facebooks at Harvard, with only paper sheets distributed [16] and private online
directories.[9][17] Zuckerberg told the Crimson that "Everyone's been talking a lot about a universal face
book within Harvard. ... I think it's kind of silly that it would take the University a couple of years to
get around to it. I can do it better than they can, and I can do it in a week." [17] In January 2004,
Zuckerberg began writing code for a new website, known as "TheFacebook", with the inspiration
coming from an editorial in the Crimson about Facemash, stating that "It is clear that the technology
needed to create a centralized Website is readily available ... the benefits are many." Zuckerberg
met with Harvard student Eduardo Saverin, and each of them agreed to invest $1,000 in the site.
[10]
 On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched it under the name of "TheFacebook", originally located
at thefacebook.com.[18]
Zuckerberg also stated his intention to create a universal website that could connect people around
the university. According to his roommate, Dustin Moskovitz, "When Mark finished the site, he told a
couple of friends ... then one of them suggested putting it on the Kirkland House online mailing list,
which was ... three hundred people." Moskovitz continued to say that, "By the end of the night, we
were ... actively watching the registration process. Within twenty-four hours, we had somewhere
between twelve hundred and fifteen hundred registrants." [19]
Just six days after the launch of the site, three Harvard University seniors, Cameron
Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra, accused Zuckerberg of intentionally misleading
them into believing that he would help them build a social network called HarvardConnection.com,
but instead using their idea to build a competing product. [20] The three complained to the Crimson,
and the newspaper began an investigation. Zuckerberg knew about the investigation so he used
TheFacebook.com to find members in the site who identified themselves as members of
the Crimson. He examined a history of failed logins to see if any of the Crimson members had ever
entered an incorrect password into TheFacebook.com. In the cases in which they had failed to log
in, Zuckerberg tried to use them to access the Crimson members' Harvard email accounts, and he
was successful in accessing two of them. In the end, three Crimson members filed a lawsuit against
Zuckerberg which was later settled.[20][21]
Membership was initially restricted to students of Harvard University. Within the first month, more
than half the undergraduate population at Harvard was registered on the service. [22] Zuckerberg was
joined in the promotion of the site by Saverin (business aspects), Dustin
Moskovitz (programmer), Andrew McCollum (graphic artist), and Chris Hughes. In March 2004,
Facebook expanded to Stanford, Columbia, and Yale.[3] This expansion continued when it opened to
all Ivy League and Boston-area schools. It gradually reached most universities in the United States
and Canada.[23][24][25] Facebook was incorporated in the summer of 2004, and the entrepreneur Sean
Parker, who had been informally advising Zuckerberg, became the company's president. [26] In June
2004, Facebook moved its base of operations to Palo Alto, California.[3] The company dropped 'The'
from its name after purchasing the domain name facebook.com in 2005 for $200,000.[27]
By December 2005, Facebook had 6 million users.[28]

Total active users[N 1]

Users
Date ±% p.m.
(in millions)

2004-2-4 0 —    

2008-8-26 100[29] —    

2009-4-8 200[30] +9.83%

2009-9-15 300[31] +8.02%

2010-2-5 400[32] +6.31%

2010-7-21 500[33] +4.18%

2011-1-05 600[34][N 2] +3.36%

2011-05-30 700[35] +3.29%

 2011-9-22 800[36] +3.60%

2012-04-24 900[37] +1.68%

2012-09-14 1,000[38] +2.27%

2013-03-31 1,110[39] +1.62%

2013-12-31 1,230[40] +1.14%

2014-12-31 1,390[41] +1.02%

2015-12-31 1,590[42] +1.13%

2016-12-31 1,860[43] +1.31%

On October 1, 2005, Facebook expanded to twenty-one universities in the United Kingdom and
others around the world. Facebook launched a high school version in September 2005, which
Zuckerberg called the next logical step.[44] At that time, high school networks required an invitation to
join.[45] Facebook later expanded membership eligibility to employees of several companies,
including Apple Inc. and Microsoft.[46] On December 11, 2005, universities in Australia and New
Zealand were added to the Facebook network, bringing its size to 2,000+ colleges and 25,000+ high
schools throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Australia, New
Zealand, and Ireland. Facebook was then opened on September 26, 2006 to everyone aged 13 and
older with a valid email address.[7][8]
Late in 2007, Facebook had 100,000 business pages, allowing companies to attract potential
customers and tell about themselves. These started as group pages, but a new concept called
company pages was planned. [47]
In October 2008, Facebook announced that it would set up its international headquarters in Dublin,
Ireland.[48]
In 2010, Facebook began to invite users to become beta testers after passing a question-and-
answer-based selection process,[49] and a set of Facebook Engineering Puzzles where users would
solve computational problems which gave them an opportunity to be hired by Facebook. [50]
As of February 2011, Facebook had become the largest online photo host, being cited by Facebook
application and online photo aggregator Pixable as expecting to have 100 billion photos by summer
2011.[51] As of October 2011, over 350 million users accessed Facebook through their mobile
phones, accounting for 33% of all Facebook traffic. [52]
On March 12, 2012, Yahoo! filed suit in a U.S. federal court against Facebook weeks before the
scheduled Facebook initial public offering. In its court filing, Yahoo! said that Facebook had infringed
on ten of its patents covering advertising, privacy controls and social networking. Yahoo! had
threatened to sue Facebook a month before the filing, insisting that the social network license its
patents. A spokesperson for Facebook issued a statement saying "We're disappointed that Yahoo, a
long-time business partner of Facebook and a company that has substantially benefited from its
association with Facebook, has decided to resort to litigation". [53] The lawsuit claims that Yahoo!'s
patents cover basic social networking ideas such as customizing website users' experiences to their
needs, adding that the patents cover ways of targeting ads to individual users. [54] In 2012, Facebook
App Center, an online mobile store, was rolled out. The store initially had 500 Facebook apps which
were mostly games.[55]
On April 24, 2014, Facebook and Storyful announced a new feature called FB Newswire. [56]
In addition to the Android and iOS mobile app, Facebook develops another Android app called
Facebook Lite[57] which uses less data. Another project from Facebook is called Facebook Zero,
which allows users to use a mobile text-only version of Facebook for free, without paying for mobile
data when using some mobile network operators.
In May 2018, the company announced their own dating service, called Facebook Dating.

Financials[edit]

Entrance to Facebook headquarters complex in Menlo Park, California

Facebook's former headquarters in downtown Palo Alto, California

Initial funding[edit]
Facebook was initially incorporated as a Florida LLC. For the first few months after its launch in
February 2004, the costs for the website operations for thefacebook.com were paid for by Mark
Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin, who had taken equity stakes in the company. The website also
ran a few advertisements to meet its operating costs.[58]

First angel investment[edit]

In the summer of 2004, venture capitalist Peter Thiel made a $500,000 angel investment in the
social network Facebook for 10.2% of the company and joined Facebook's board. This was the first
outside investment in Facebook.[59][60][61]
In his book The Facebook Effect, David Kirkpatrick outlines the story of how Thiel came to make his
investment: former Napster and Plaxo employee Sean Parker, who at the time had assumed the title
of "President" of Facebook, was seeking investors for Facebook. Parker approached Reid Hoffman,
the CEO of work-based social network LinkedIn. Hoffman liked Facebook but declined to be the lead
investor because of the potential for conflict of interest with his duties as LinkedIn CEO. He
redirected Parker to Peter Thiel, whom he knew from their PayPal days (both Hoffman and Thiel are
considered members of the PayPal Mafia). Thiel met Parker and Mark Zuckerberg, the Harvard
college student who had founded Facebook and controlled it. Thiel and Zuckerberg got along well
and Thiel agreed to lead Facebook's seed round with $500,000 for 10.2% of the company. Hoffman
and Mark Pincus also participated in the round, along with Maurice Werdegar who led the
investment on behalf of Western Technology Investment. The investment was originally in the form
of a convertible note, to be converted to equity if Facebook reached 1.5 million users by the end of
2004. Although Facebook narrowly missed the target, Thiel allowed the loan to be converted to
equity anyway.[62] Thiel said of his investment:
I was comfortable with them pursuing their original vision. And it was a very reasonable valuation. I
thought it was going to be a pretty safe investment." [62]
Accel investment (Series A)[edit]
In April 2005, Accel Partners agreed to make a $12.7 million venture capital investment in a deal that
valued Facebook at $98 million. Accel joined Facebook's board, and the board was expanded to five
seats, with Zuckerberg, Thiel, and Accel's Jim Breyer in three of the seats, and the other two seats
currently being empty but with Zuckerberg free to nominate anybody to those seats. [63]

Greylock investment (Series B)[edit]

In April 2006, Facebook closed its Series B funding round. This included $27.5 million from a
number of venture capitalists, including Greylock Partners and Meritech Capital, plus additional
investments from Peter Thiel and Accel Partners. The valuation for this round was about $500
million.[61][64][65]
A leaked cash flow statement showed that during the 2005 fiscal year, Facebook had a net gain of
$5.66 million.[66]

Sales negotiations[edit]
With the sale of social networking website MySpace to News Corp on July 19, 2005, rumours
surfaced about the possible sale of Facebook to a larger media company. [67] Zuckerberg had already
stated that he did not want to sell the company, and denied rumors to the contrary. [68] On March 28,
2006, BusinessWeek reported that a potential acquisition of Facebook was under negotiation.
Facebook reportedly declined an offer of $750 million from an unknown bidder, and it was rumored
the asking price rose as high as $2 billion.[69]
In September 2006, serious talks between Facebook and Yahoo! took place concerning acquisition
of Facebook, with prices reaching as high as $1 billion.[70][71] Thiel, by then a board member of
Facebook, indicated that Facebook's internal valuation was around $8 billion based on their
projected revenues of $1 billion by 2015, comparable to Viacom's MTV brand, a company with a
shared target demographic audience.[72]
On July 17, 2007, Zuckerberg said that selling Facebook was unlikely because he wanted to keep it
independent, saying "We're not really looking to sell the company ... We're not looking
to IPO anytime soon. It's just not the core focus of the company." [73] In September 2007, Microsoft
approached Facebook, proposing an investment in return for a 5% stake in the company, offering an
estimated $300–500 million.[74] That month, other companies, including Google, expressed interest in
buying a portion of Facebook.[75]

Microsoft investment (Series C)[edit]

On October 24, 2007, Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook for
$240 million, giving Facebook a total implied value of around $15 billion.[76] However, Microsoft
bought preferred stock that carried special rights, such as "liquidation preferences" that meant
Microsoft would get paid before common stockholders if the company were sold. Microsoft's
purchase also included the right to place international ads on Facebook. [77] In November 2007, Hong
Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing invested $60 million in Facebook.[78]

Entrance to Facebook's former headquarters in the Stanford Research Park, Palo Alto, California. In January
2012 the company moved to a new campus in Menlo Park, California.

Switch to profitability[edit]
In August 2008, BusinessWeek reported that private sales by employees, as well as purchases by
venture capital firms, were being done at share prices that put the company's total valuation at
between $3.75 billion and $5 billion.[77] In October 2008, Zuckerberg said "I don't think social
networks can be monetized in the same way that search did ... In three years from now we have to
figure out what the optimum model is. But that is not our primary focus today." [79]
Facebook hired Sheryl Sandberg as its Chief Operating Officer in March 2008. Sandberg is reported
to have held a number of brainstorming sessions with Facebook employees on their long-term
monetization strategy, which led to the conclusion that advertising would be the main source of
monetization. Under Sandberg's leadership, Facebook made a number of changes to its advertising
model with the aim of achieving profitability. In September 2009, Facebook stated that it had turned
cash flow positive for the first time.[80]
In early 2012, Facebook disclosed that its profits had jumped 65% to $1 billion in the previous year
when its revenue, which is mainly from advertising, had jumped almost 90% to $3.71 billion.
[81]
 Facebook also reported that 56% of its advertising revenue comes from the U.S. alone, and that
12% of its revenue comes from Zynga, the social network game development company. Payments
and other fees were $557 million up from $106 million the previous year.[82]

Acquisitions[edit]
In August 2009, Facebook acquired social media real-time news aggregator FriendFeed,[83] a startup
created by Gmail's first engineer Paul Buchheit.[84][85][86]
In February 2010, Facebook acquired Malaysian contact-importing startup Octazen Solutions.[87] On
April 2, 2010, Facebook announced acquisition of a photo-sharing service called Divvyshot for an
undisclosed amount.[88] In June 2010, an online marketplace for trading private Facebook stock
reflected a valuation of $11.5 billion.[89]
On April 12, 2012, Facebook acquired photo sharing service Instagram for approximately $1 billion
in cash and stock.[90][91]
On March 8, 2013, Facebook announced that they acquired the team from Storylane, but not the
product itself.[92] On October 13, 2013, Facebook acquired Onavo, an Israeli analytics company, for
approximately $120 million.[93][94][95]
On February 19, 2014, Facebook announced its acquisition of WhatsApp, a smartphone instant
messaging application for $19 billion in a mix of stock and cash. The acquisition is the most ever
paid for a venture-capital backed startup. [96]
On March 25, 2014, Facebook announced they had acquired virtual reality startup Oculus VR for $2
billion in cash and stock.[97]
In April 2020, Facebook, Inc. bought a 9.9% stake in Jio, which was the highest foreign direct
investment in the Indian technology sector.[98][99]

Initial public offering[edit]

Main article: Initial public offering of Facebook

Facebook filed for an initial public offering (IPO) on February 1, 2012.[100] The preliminary prospectus
stated that the company was seeking to raise $5 billion. The document announced that the company
had 845 million active monthly users and its website featured 2.7 billion daily likes and comments.
[101]
 After the IPO, Zuckerberg retains a 22% ownership share in Facebook and owns 57% of the
voting shares.[102]
Underwriters valued the shares at $38 each, pricing the company at $104 billion, the largest
valuation to date for a newly public company.[103] On May 16, one day before the IPO, Facebook
announced that it would sell 25% more shares than originally planned due to high demand. [104] The
IPO raised $16 billion, making it the third largest in U.S. history (just ahead of AT&T Wireless and
behind only General Motors and Visa Inc.).[105][106] The stock price left the company with a
higher market capitalization than all but a few U.S. corporations – surpassing heavyweights such
as Amazon.com, McDonald's, Disney, and Kraft Foods – and made Zuckerberg's stock worth $19
billion.[105][106] The New York Times stated that the offering overcame questions about Facebook's
difficulties in attracting advertisers to transform the company into a "must-own stock". Jimmy
Lee of JPMorgan Chase described it as "the next great blue-chip".[105] Writers at TechCrunch, on the
other hand, expressed skepticism, stating, "That's a big multiple to live up to, and [Facebook] will
likely need to add bold new revenue streams to justify the mammoth valuation". [107]
Trading in the stock, which began on May 18, was delayed that day due to technical problems with
the NASDAQ exchange.[108] The stock struggled to stay above the IPO price for most of the day,
forcing underwriters to buy back shares to support the price. [109] At closing bell, shares were valued at
$38.23,[110] only $0.23 above the IPO price and down $3.82 from the opening bell value. The opening
was widely described by the financial press as a disappointment. [111] The stock nonetheless set a new
record for trading volume of an IPO.[112] On May 25, 2012, the stock ended its first full week of trading
at $31.91, a 16.5% decline.[113]
On 22 May, regulators from Wall Street's Financial Industry Regulatory Authority announced that
they had begun to investigate whether banks underwriting Facebook had improperly shared
information only with select clients, rather than the general public. Massachusetts Secretary of
State William Galvin subpoenaed Morgan Stanley over the same issue.[114] The allegations sparked
"fury" among some investors and led to the immediate filing of several lawsuits, one of them a class
action suit claiming more than $2.5 billion in losses due to the IPO.[115] Bloomberg estimated
that retail investors may have lost approximately $630 million on Facebook stock since its debut. [116]

Timeline[edit]
"Facebook timeline" redirects here. For the Facebook feature unveiled in late 2018, see Facebook
features §  Timeline.
 Month and
Yea
date (if Event type Event
r
available)

Mark Zuckerberg releases Facemash, the

2003 October 28 Prelude predecessor to Facebook. It is described as
a Harvard University version of Hot or Not.[117]
 Month and
Yea
date (if Event type Event
r
available)

Mark Zuckerberg begins with his fellow co-

2004 January Creation
founders writing Facebook.[118]

Zuckerberg launches Facebook as a

2004 February 4 Creation
Harvard-only social network.[119][120]

Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo

2004 April 13 Financial/legal Saverin form Thefacebook.com LLC, a
partnership.[121]

Facebook receives its first investment

2004 June Funding
from Peter Thiel for US$500,000.[61]

Facebook incorporates into a new company,

2004 July 29 Financial/legal [122]
 and Sean Parker (early employee
of Napster) becomes its president.[26]

To compete with growing campus-only

service i2hub, Zuckerberg launches Wirehog.
2004 August Product
It is a precursor to Facebook
Platform applications.[123]

ConnectU files a lawsuit against Zuckerberg

2004 September Financial/legal
and other Facebook founders.[121]

Facebook achieves its one millionth

2004 December 30 Userbase
registered user.[124]

Facebook expands to UK
universities. Cambridge, Oxford and
2005 March 10 Userbase
the University of the West of England are the
first three UK universities on the platform.
 Month and
Yea
date (if Event type Event
r
available)

Accel Partners invests $13 million into

2005 May 26 Funding
Facebook.[121]

News Corp acquires MySpace, spurring

2005 July 19 Acquisition talks rumors about the possible sale of Facebook
to a larger media company.[67]

Facebook acquires Facebook.com domain

2005 August 23 Product
for $200,000.[121]

Facebook launches a high school version of

2005 September Product
the website.[125]

Facebook launches its photos feature with no

2005 October Product restrictions on storage (but without the ability
to tag friends).[126]

Facebook introduces the ability to tag friends

2005 December Product
in photos.[126]

A potential acquisition of Facebook is

2006 March 28 Acquisition talks reportedly under negotiations, for $750
million first, then later $2 billion. [69]

Facebook expands its membership

2006 April Userbase requirements to include corporate
employees.[127]

Facebook launches a blogging feature known

2006 August 22 Product
as "Facebook Notes".[128]

2006 September 26 Userbase Membership is opened to anyone.[129]

 Month and
Yea
date (if Event type Event
r
available)

Facebook launches News Feed.[130] The

original news feed is an algorithmically
generated and constantly refreshing
2006 September 6 Product (news feed) summary of updates about the activities of
one's friends. The concept was relatively new
at the time, with Twitter having launched only
a few months in advance.

Facebook discusses with Yahoo! about the

2006 September Acquisition talks latter possibly acquiring the former, for $1
billion.[69]

Facebook launches m.facebook.com and

2007 January 10 Product
officially announces mobile support. [131]

Facebook announces Facebook Platform for

2007 May 24 Product developers to build applications on top of
Facebook's social graph.[132][133]

Microsoft announces that it will purchase a

1.6% share of Facebook for $240 million,
giving Facebook a total implied value of
2007 October 24 Funding
around $15 billion. However, Microsoft also
gained ad exclusivity in this deal, so the $15
billion valuation figure is disputed.[76]

2007 November 6 Product (news feed) Facebook launches Facebook Beacon with

44 partner sites at the time of launch. Beacon
is part of Facebook's advertisement system
that sends data from external websites to
Facebook, for the purpose of allowing
targeted advertisements and allowing users
to share their activities with their friends.
 Month and
Yea
date (if Event type Event
r
available)

Certain activities on partner sites are

published to a user's News Feed.[134] On the
same day, Facebook launched Facebook
Pages.[135]

Facebook removes "is" from status updates,

2007 November 19 Product allowing users to adopt a more free-form
version of status updates.[136]

Adam D'Angelo, an early employee and chief

2008 May Team
technology officer, leaves Facebook.[137]

Facebook settles both

lawsuits, ConnectU vs Facebook, Mark
Zuckerberg et al. and intellectual
property theft, Wayne Chang et al. over The
Winklevoss Chang Group's Social Butterfly
2008 June Financial/legal
project. The settlement effectively had
Facebook acquiring ConnectU for $20 million
in cash and over $1.2 million in shares,
valued at $45 million based on $15 billion
company valuation.[138]

Facebook launches a complete site redesign

with options for tabbed redesign, and allows
2008 July 21 Product
users to opt into it.[139][140] By September 2008,
it forces all users to opt-in.[141]

Employees reportedly privately sell their

shares to venture capital firms, at a company
2008 August Financial/legal
valuation of between $3.75 billion to $5
billion.[77]

Facebook sets up its international

2008 October Physical location
headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.[142]
 Month and
Yea
date (if Event type Event
r
available)

Facebook launches Facebook Credits in

2008 November Product order to help users purchase Facebook gifts.
[143]

Facebook activates the Facebook like button.

2009 February 9 Product [144]

2009 August Acquisition Facebook acquires FriendFeed.[83]

Facebook claims that it has turned cash flow

2009 September Financial/legal
positive for the first time.[145]

Facebook announces a feature whereby

2009 September 10 Product people can @-tag friends in their status
updates and comments.[146][147]

2009 September Product Facebook shuts down Beacon.

Facebook acquires Malaysian contact-

2010 February Acquisition
importing startup Octazen Solutions. [148]

Facebook announces the acquisition of

2010 April 2 Acquisition photo-sharing service called Divvy-shot for an
undisclosed amount.[149]

Facebook introduces Community Pages,

2010 April 19 Product which are Pages that are populated with
articles from Wikipedia.[150]

2010 June Financial/legal Facebook employees sell shares of the

company on SecondMarket at a company
 Month and
Yea
date (if Event type Event
r
available)

valuation of $11.5 billion.[151]

Facebook introduces the option to Like

2010 June Product
individual comments.

The Social Network, a film about the

beginnings of Facebook directed by David
Fincher & stars Jesse Eisenberg as Mark is
released. The film is met with widespread
2010 October 1 Popular culture
critical acclaim as well as commercial
success; however, Mark Zuckerberg says
that the film is a largely inaccurate account of
what happened.

Facebook launches a redesign that

emphasizes the most important parts of
someone's life, including one's biographic
2010 December Product information, photos, education, work
experience, and important relationships. It
replaces the tabs at the top of each profile
page with links on the left side of the page. [152]

$500 million is invested into Facebook for 1%

2011 January Funding of the company, placing its worth at $50
billion.[153]

Facebook application and content aggregator

2011 February Product Pixable estimates that Facebook will host 100
billion photos by summer 2011.[154]

2011 June 28 Competition Google launches Google+, widely perceived

as a competitor to Facebook. Commentators
believe that Facebook's subsequent rapid
release of new features and improvements
may have in part been hastened due to
 Month and
Yea
date (if Event type Event
r
available)

competition from Google+.[155][156]

Facebook partners with Skype to add video

2011 July 6 Product
chat and updates its website interface.[157]

Facebook Messenger is launched for Android

August 9, then
2011 Product and IOS. October 19, 2011 update makes the
October 19
app available to Blackberry os.[158]

Facebook increases the character limit for

September, then status update posts from 500 to 5,000 in
2011 Product
November 30 September and to 63,206 on November 30.
[156]

Facebook allows people to subscribe to non-

friends and to set the extent to which they
2011 September 14 Product
receive updates from their existing friends
and people they are subscribing to.[159]

Facebook partners with Heroku for Facebook

2011 September 15 Product application development using the Facebook
Platform.[160]

Facebook launches new UI Timeline in F8

2011 September 22 Product
Convention.

Facebook for SIM, a

client/server SIM application developed by
international digital
security company Gemalto that enables
2011 October 6 Accessibility
people to access Facebook using
the SMS protocol on their mobile phones,
without needing a data plan, is released in
partnership with select carriers.[161]
 Month and
Yea
date (if Event type Event
r
available)

2011 October 10 Accessibility Facebook launches iPad app.[162]

Facebook login page changes due to

2011 December 21 Product
Facebook Timeline addition.

Facebook starts showing advertisements

(called Featured Posts) in the news feed. The
2012 January 10 Product (news feed) advertisements are generally for pages that
one's Facebook friends have engaged with.
[163][164]

2012 April Acquisition Facebook acquires Instagram for $1 billion.[165]

Facebook IPO: Facebook goes public,

negotiating a share price of $38 apiece,
2012 May 12 Financial/legal valuing the company at $104 billion, the
largest valuation to date for a newly listed
public company.[166]

Facebook launches Facebook
Exchange (FBX), a real-time bidding ad
system where advertisers can bid on users
2012 June 13 Product
based on third-party websites visited by the
users (as tracked by a cookie on the third-
party website).[167][168]

2012 October Userbase Facebook reaches 1 billion active users.[169]

Facebook announces and begins rolling

2013 January 15 Product
out Facebook Graph Search.[170]

2013 January 30, then Product Facebook rolls out detailed and fine-
April 9 grained emoticons to express different
 Month and
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actions and emotional states in one's status

updates (experimental launch January 30,
official launch with universal availability April
9).[171][172]

Facebook announces major planned changes

to the News Feed.[173] However, it is later
2013 March 7 Product (news feed) revealed that Facebook abandoned these
changes after getting negative feedback from
users.[174]

Facebook announces that they acquired the

2013 March 8 Acquisition team from Storylane, but not the product
itself.[92]

Facebook launches Facebook Home, a user

interface layer for Android-compatible phones
April 4, then
2013 Product (mobile-only) that provides a replacement home screen
April 12
that makes it easier for users to browse and
post.[175][176]

Facebook launches a new timeline with Video

2013 April 15 Product
Autoplay.

Facebook launches Stickers, initially only for

2013 April–July Product its iOS apps in April,[177][178] but later expanding
to its web version in July.[179]

Facebook announces support for hashtags,

initially only for the web (June 12).[180][181] Later
June 12, then
2013 Product (June 27), more functionality is added and
June 27
hashtags are extended to the mobile site and
apps.[182]
 Month and
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Zuckerberg joins 700 Facebook employees

for the June 2013 Lesbian Gay Bisexual
Transgender Pride Celebration march in San
Francisco, U.S. The 2013 Pride celebration
2013 June 30 Political activism
was especially significant, as it followed
a Supreme Court of the United States ruling
that deemed the Defense of Marriage Act
(DOMA) unconstitutional.[183][184]

Facebook launches Internet.org in
collaboration with six cellphone companies
(Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Oper
a Software, and Qualcomm). Internet.org
Userbase/accessibilit
2013 August 20 aims to bring affordable Internet access to
y
everybody by increasing affordability,
increasing efficiency, and facilitating the
development of new business models around
the provision of Internet access.[185][186][187][188]

Facebook begins letting people edit their

2013 September 26 Product
posts and comments after publishing.[189][190]

Facebook announces that it will begin rolling

2013 September 29 Product out Graph Search for posts and comments.[191]
[192]

Facebook acquires Onavo, an
2013 October 13 Acquisition Israeli analytics company, for approximately
$120 million.[93][94][95]

A number of news outlets reports that

2013 November 13 Acquisition talks Facebook offered to buy Snapchat for US$3
billion but was spurned.[193][194]

2013 December 18 Financial/legal Facebook, Zuckerberg, & banks face IPO

 Month and
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lawsuit.[195]

Facebook acquires Branch Media, and it is

announced that the team working on the
startup will join Facebook to work on
conversations products for Facebook that
2014 January 13 Acquisition builds on similar ideas as Branch Media's
products, while Branch Media's existing
products will continue to operate separately.
Facebook confirms that the acquisition is a
talent acquisition.[196][197]

Facebook launches Trending Topics for its

web version in the US, UK, Canada, India,
2014 January 16 Product and Australia.[198][199] This is based on feedback
to a pilot version tested both on the web and
mobile starting August 2013.[200][201]

On January 30, Facebook

announces Facebook Paper, a
separate iOS app that provides a newspaper-
like or magazine-like experience for reading
on the phone, scheduled for launch on
February 3.[202] Facebook also
announces Facebook Creative Labs, an intra-
company effort to have separate teams
January 30, then working on separate mobile apps that
2014 Product (mobile-only)
February 3 specialize in different facets related to the
Facebook experience, rather than trying to
make changes to Facebook's main web
version, mobile version, or its iOS and
Android apps, and says that Facebook Paper
is the first product of Facebook Creative
Labs.[174][203][204] Facebook Paper receives mixed
reviews, and some commentators note its
similarity with Flipboard.[205][206]

2014 February 4 Milestone Facebook marks the ten-year anniversary of

 Month and
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its launch (February 4, 2004), and Mark

Zuckerberg writes a public post about why he
is proud of Facebook so far.[207][208][209] The Pew
Research Center releases a report about
increasing Facebook usage by adults to mark
the occasion.[210] Many other commentators
write articles about Facebook to honor the
occasion.[174][211][212][213]

On February 4, on the occasion of its tenth

anniversary, Facebook introduces its Look
Back feature that creates an automated video
2014 February 4–7 Product for each person looking back on the person's
life as recorded on Facebook.[214] On February
7, Facebook adds the ability to edit the Look
Back videos.[215]

Facebook opens up many new LGBTQ-

2014 February 13 Political activism friendly gender identity and pronoun options.
[216][217][218][219]

2014 February 19 Acquisition Facebook announces that it is acquiring

the Sequoia Capital-backed multi-platform
mobile messaging app WhatsApp for US$16
billion ($4 billion in cash, $12 billion in
Facebook shares) plus an additional $3
billion in restricted stock units to be granted
to WhatsApp’s founders and employees that
will vest over four years subsequent to
closing.[220][221][222][223][224][225] According to the
announcement, WhatsApp will continue to
operate independently, Facebook will
continue developing Facebook Messenger,
and WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum will join the
Facebook Board of Directors.[220] On February
24, in a keynote address to the Mobile World
Congress in Barcelona, Zuckerberg says that
the WhatsApp acquisition is part of
 Month and
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the Internet.org vision.[226]

Rumors are circulated that Facebook is

buying drone maker Titan Aerospace for $60
million. It is believed that the acquisition will
2014 March 3 Acquisition help bolster Facebook's vision
with Internet.org.[227][228] Later, on April 14,
2014, the Wall Street Journal reports that
Google is acquiring Titan Aerospace.[229]

Facebook announces that it will begin rollout

of a somewhat modified news feed. The
changes are along the same lines as those
2014 March 6 Product (news feed)
announced in the planned revamp
announced March 7, 2013 (that was halted),
but are more minor and focused.[230][231][232]

Facebook's face recognition algorithm

2014 March 17 Product (DeepFace) reaches near-human accuracy in
identifying faces.[233][234]

Facebook announces that it is

acquiring Oculus VR, Inc., a leading virtual
2014 March 25 Acquisition
reality company.[235][236] The amount is reported
to be $2 billion in cash and stock.[237][238][239]

Facebook announces a Connectivity Lab as

part of the Internet.org initiative, with the goal
2014 March 27 Accessibility of bringing the Internet to everybody via
drones, using acqhires from Ascenta.[240][241][242]
[243]

Facebook announces FB Newswire to help

2014 April 24 Product
journalists find news on its website.[56]
 Month and
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Facebook launches anonymous login so that

2014 April 30 Product, accessibility people can use apps without giving them
their data.[244]

Facebook releases Facebook Slingshot, an

instant messaging software application for
2014 June 18 Product (mobile-only)
sharing photos and videos with friends, for
Android and iOS devices.[245][246][247][248][249]

Facebook launches Save, a read-it-later

2014 July 21 Product feature that allows users to save links,
places, and media pages for later perusal. [250]

Facebook cracks down on the Facebook

profiles of drag queens in San Francisco,
asking them to switch to using their real
names, and shutting down the accounts of
those who refuse to comply.[251] There is
considerable pushback, including a planned
protest at Facebook headquarters, that is
delayed for a meeting with Facebook, but
Facebook refuses to budge on its policy.
[252]
 Many people, particularly those in or
September 15 sympathetic to the LGBTQ community, sign
2014 Userbase/controversy
onward up for competing social network Ello, that
does not enforce a real names policy,
promises to remain "ad-free and porn-
friendly", and aims to have a zero-tolerance
policy for hate speech.[253][254] On October 1,
Facebook announced a clarification to its real
name policy and said that drag queens could
continue operating their accounts. The
company clarified that people should use
their authentic real-world names but need not
use their legal names.[255]

2014 October 6 Acquisition Facebook officially completes the acquisition

of WhatsApp, and WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum
 Month and
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agrees to match Mark Zuckerberg's $1

salary.[256]

Facebook launches pseudonymous app

Rooms, where Facebook users can create
and participate in forums on any topic and do
2014 October 23 Product
not need to use their real names.[257] The
forthcoming launch of the app had been
reported on October 7.[258][259]

Facebook creates a custom Tor link, making

it easier for people to access Facebook
2014 October 31 Accessibility
anonymously in locations where it is
censored.[260][261][262]

Facebook makes it easy for people to

unfollow friends and pages they've liked, both
2014 November 7 Product (news feed) while viewing pages in the feed and while
reviewing summaries of the most prolific
contributors to their feed.[263][264]

Facebook rolls out keyword search for all

posts, part of Facebook Graph Search, to all
US English users on desktop and
using iPhones.[265][266][267] It is cited as a potential
2014 December 8 Product
competitor to Yelp and other product
recommendation engines[268] and also as a
potential way to surface old, embarrassing
posts by people.[269]

2014 December 11 Outreach Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg holds his

second Q&A, open to the public, about
Facebook, where he discusses the dislike
button and Facebook's role in promoting
viewpoint diversity, helping people share
more, and facilitating social and political
 Month and
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transparency.[270][271][272]

Facebook acquires Wit.ai, a Y Combinator

2015 January 5 Acquisition startup founded 18 months ago to create an
API for building voice-activated interfaces.[273]
[274][275][276][277][278]

Facebook acquires QuickFire Networks, a

company that built a custom hardware and
software platform for reducing video file sizes
2015 January 8 Acquisition
and upload times. The Wall Street Journal
got the news on January 8, with confirmation
later arriving on QuickFire’s site.[279][280][281][282]

Facebook open sources the Torch library,

containing some of its deep learning tools in
machine learning, including new code that
2015 January 16 Open sourcing runs 23 times as fast for
training convolutional neural networks as the
fastest publicly available code until that time.
[283][284][285]

Facebook announces that it will show fewer

hoaxes in the news feed, and mark items it
2015 January 20 Product (news feed)
identifies as potential hoaxes so that readers
can view them more critically.[286][287][288]

Facebook introduces a free friend-to-friend

payment service within its Messenger app.
2015 March 17 Product This is touted by some tech journalists as
potential competition for PayPal's Venmo
service.[289][290][291]

2015 March 25 Product At the first day of the 2015 F8 conference (a

conference for Facebook to make
announcements about major product and
 Month and
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service changes), the company makes a

bunch of announcements, with the unifying
theme being that the company wants to be an
integrated bunch of apps, each fulfilling a
somewhat different role. Currently, the
company's leading apps include its main app,
Messenger, and externally built and acquired
apps such as Instagram and WhatsApp.
[292]
 Specific announcements include
making Facebook Messenger more of a
platform, a new real-time comments system,
embeddable videos, spherical video, Parse
for the Internet of Things, updates to ad
exchange LiveRail, and analytics for apps.[293]

Facebook releases its React native

framework for building native apps as open
2015 March 26 Open sourcing
source. This is announced on the second day
of the F8 conference.[294]

Facebook launches a feature called

Scrapbook that allows parents to give their
kids an official presence on Facebook even
when they are too young to have their own
accounts on the network by tagging them in
photos. A Scrapbook can be owned by two
2015 March 31 Userbase, product
people who have indicated to Facebook that
they are in a relationship. When the kids grow
old enough and get their own accounts, they
can take over ownership of the Scrapbook
and change the privacy settings thereof.[295][296]
[297]

2015 April 22 Product Facebook launches an Android app called

Hello to instantly matches phone numbers of
incoming and outgoing calls to Facebook
profiles to show information about the
caller/callee, block calls from commonly
blocked numbers, and search for businesses
 Month and
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to call, with initial rollout in the United

States, Brazil, and Nigeria. There is no
corresponding iOS app, because iOS does
not allow apps to interact with phone calls.[298]
[299][300]
 Commentators compare Facebook
Hello to the native Android dialer app[301] and
to TrueCaller, an app with crowdsourced
data.[302]

Facebook announces that it is shutting down

April 28
its friends data API, forcing developers to
(announcement)
2015 Product, platform migrate to the Graph API. The company is
, April 30
also allowing for more granular control of
(closure)
data that users may share with apps.[303][304][305]

2015 May 12 Product Facebook launches "Instant Articles" for

Publishers.[306] Publishers who use Instant
Articles can opt in to have some of their
articles shown to mobile users inside
Facebook's app itself, without users having to
leave the app and visit the customer's
website. Initial launch partners
include BuzzFeed, the New York
Times, National Geographic and six others.
The article as displayed on Facebook mimics
the article on the website in terms of layout,
and Instant Articles allows for correct
attribution and analytics with tools such
as Google Analytics, Omniture,
and Comscore, in addition to publishers
benefiting from Facebook's own analytics.
Publishers can choose to have only a subset
of their content available as Instant Articles,
and Facebook handles the porting of the
article to the Instant Article format
itself. BuzzFeed praised Facebook for
complying with its requests for compatibility
with analytics tracking, and said the process
was very collaborative throughout. Load
times are claimed to be ten times faster than
 Month and
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the mobile web. Publishers can keep all the

ad revenue if using their own ads, but
Facebook gets a 30% cut if the ads are
shown by Facebook.[306][307][308][309][310]

Facebook confirms official support for GIFs.

Autoplay settings for GIFs would be the same
as those for videos: users who have video
autoplay set to on (the default setting) will
2015 May 29 Product (news feed)
have GIFs autoplay when they scroll to the
GIF in their news feed. Others can play the
GIF manually by clicking the GIF button on
the feed item with the GIF.[311]

Facebook adds more features for pages to

make it easier for businesses to use them.
These include: allowing pages to display how
quickly they respond to messages,
2015 June–August Product [312]
 allowing pages to send saved replies to
messages,[313] allowing pages to use private
messages for customer support,[314] and
adding buy button integration to pages.[315]

Facebook makes changes to its news feed

algorithm in a few different directions. It
relinquishes some control to users allowing
them to dictate what they see first in the news
feed.[316][317] Also, it announces that it will start
2015 June–July Product (news feed)
using information on how long people hover
on a particular item in their news feed to
gauge their level of interest in the item, in
addition to the more explicit signals it
currently uses (likes, comments, shares).[318]

2015 August Product On August 5, Facebook launches live-

streaming, initially restricted only to
celebrities.[319] Subsequently, on August 12, it
announces that the feature will be made
 Month and
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available to journalists and those with verified

profiles.[320]

Facebook begins rolling out a human- and AI-

powered virtual assistant called "M". M is
available through Facebook's Messenger
app, and is capable of performing tasks on
behalf of users, including placing restaurant
2015 August 26 Product
reservations and booking travel.[321][322] At
launch, M is only available to a small group of
testers, and in April 2016 Facebook would
confirm that it could be years before M is
broadly available.[323]

Facebook announces that it has hit the

2015 August 27 Userbase milestone of 1 billion users accessing it on a
single day.[324]

Facebook announces an initiative called 2G

Tuesdays. With this initiative, Facebook
engineers can opt in to access Facebook
at 2G speeds for an hour every Tuesday
(thus partly mimicking the experience of a
2015 October 27 Accessibility nonnegligible fraction of Internet users in
developing countries). The goal is to make
Facebook engineers better understand the
challenges of using Facebook with poor
Internet speeds, and in turn help improve the
Facebook experience for these users.[325][326]

Facebook announces that it will add a feature

for booking a ride through its messaging
2015 December Product application. Users of Facebook Messenger in
the U.S. will be able to summon an Uber car
with a few taps.[327]

2016 January – March Product Facebook Live that was originally launched in
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August 2015 and limited to celebrities,

becomes available to all U.S. iPhone users
on January 28.[328][329] On February 18, the
global rollout begins.[330] It becomes available
to U.S. Android users in the week following
February 26.[331] Starting March 1, Facebook
starts pushing live content more compared to
older content.[332] Commentators describe
Facebook Live as marking Facebook's entry
into the live-streaming space, competing
with Twitter-owned Periscope.[328]

Facebook releases Facebook Reactions to

the general public. The feature allows people
to use five additional reactions beyond just
the "like" action to convey their reaction to a
post. The new reactions are "Love", "Haha",
"Wow", "Sad", and "Angry" (another reaction,
"Yay", that was used in initial testing of the
2016 February 24 Product
feature, has been removed).[333] Although the
names differ across languages, the
emoticons used are the same across
languages. Each user can add at most one
reaction to a post.[334][335] An early version of
Reactions was released in October 2015
in Ireland and Spain.[336][337]

Facebook provide "Basketball Game"

2016 March 18 Product
function in Messenger.[338]

2016 April 12 and 13 Product Facebook F8 for 2016 includes a number of

announcements about the product roadmap.
Key highlights include: Messenger chatbots
and a new bot engine, open source virtual
reality camera, more tools for Facebook apps
and Facebook Live, allowing businesses to
send sponsored messages to people who
have messaged them in the past, more
changes around improving rights
 Month and
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management for videos, and increased

support for React Native
from Microsoft and Samsung.[339][340][341]

Facebook announces that it is updating its

news feed algorithm to take into account the
time that a person spends reading the article,
off Facebook (using various techniques to
control for load time and article length). In the
previous set of updates rolled out in June and
July 2015, Facebook had started taking into
account the time people spend viewing the
item in their news feed, but the new change
2016 April 21 Product (news feed) takes into account the user's activity outside
Facebook. The change is part of Facebook's
Feed Quality Program, and is a result of
research showing that people's activity on
Facebook failed to fully capture the extent to
which they were interested in particular items.
[342][343]
 Commentators believe that this is likely
to lead to a significant reduction in the
circulation of misleading clickbait on the
social network.[344]

2016 April 27 and 28 Financial/legal, Facebook releases its 2016 Q1 earnings

userbase report, showing an increase in earnings to 77
cents per share up from 42 cents per share a
year ago. The earnings beat analyst
expectations, and cause Facebook share
prices to soar, leading its market cap to
exceed that of Johnson & Johnson.
Facebook also reports an increase of 57% in
advertising revenue to $5.2 billion, with
mobile advertising now accounting for 82% of
advertising revenue. It also reports a year-
over-year increase in daily active users by
16% to 1.09 billion and in monthly active
users by 15% to 1.65 billion.[345][346]
[347]
 Facebook also announces a proposal to
 Month and
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create a new class of nonvoting stock.[347][348]

Gizmodo publishes a series of articles about

alleged problems with Facebook's Trending
Topics section, including lack of integration of
the Trending Topics team with Facebook's
overall culture and workforce, discretion
vested in that team to make decisions
(including the ability to artificially inject
content into Trending Topics even if it has not
been trending so far), and potential for bias in
the way the discretion is exercised, with a
particular focus on bias against conservatism.
[349][350][351]
 The controversy is picked up by other
news media, the United States Senate
2016 May Product, controversy Committee, and many conservative outlets. [352]
[353][354]
 Facebook defends itself against the
allegations,[355] but also invites leading
conservatives, including United States
Republican presidential primary
frontrunner Donald Trump, libertarian-leaning
conservative commentator Glenn Beck (who
is very impressed with Facebook's actions),
and CNN commentator S. E. Cupp, for a
meeting to discuss and address concerns.[356]
[357]
 On May 23, Facebook announces
changes to its Trending Topics section, and
releases a 28-page document on the subject.
[358][359]

Facebook announces that it is shutting

down Facebook Exchange (FBX), its desktop
ad exchange. The reasons cited include that
FBX makes a very small share of Facebook's
2016 May 25 Product
ad revenue, and that it is of limited utility
because is purely desktop-based, and any
successful ad campaign must include mobile,
that people are increasingly using. [360][361][362]
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Facebook introduces the secret Messenger

2016 June 15 Product soccer game, similar to the basketball game.
[363][364]

Facebook publishes its list of "News Feed

Values" that will guide its decisions and
algorithms for the news feed. A core value
2016 June 29 Product (news feed) listed is that friends and family come first, and
Facebook announces that it is increasing the
circulation of content about friends and family
relative to publisher content.[365][366][367]

Facebook announces algorithm changes that

penalize "clickbait" titles, based on a score
assigned by a machine-learned model. The
model is trained based on cases where users
2016 August 4 Product (news feed)
like a link, click it, and then immediately
bounce and unlike pages. The algorithm is
applied both at the web domain level and at
the Facebook page level.[368][369][370]

2016 August 11 Product (advertising) Facebook and AdBlock Plus enter into an

escalating war. AdBlock Plus tries to block
advertisements and sponsored content on
Facebook's site, but Facebook releases a
workaround, to which AdBlock Plus releases
its own workaround. Facebook's argument is
that ad blockers are a crude solution, and
Facebook's approach of giving users more
fine-grained control over the content they see
in the feed is superior. AdBlock Plus
disagrees with the assessment and says ad
blockers should not be blamed for users'
desire to have an ad-free experience. [371][372]
[373]
 The ad blocking war continues into
September[374][375] and discussion continues
into November, with Facebook reportedly
having boosted its ad revenue owing to its
 Month and
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blocking of ad blockers.[376]

In the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand,

Facebook launches Marketplace, a way to
buy and sell items through Facebook.
2016 October 3 Product
Marketplace appears as a tab in the mobile
app.[377] The feature has been compared
to Craigslist.[378]

Facebook launches in select

countries[379] Instant Games on Messenger
and Facebook News Feed, which allows
users to play games without installing new
apps. The games are provided via HTML5. At
2016 November 30 Product
launch, Instant Games does not allow game
developers to place ads or in-game
payments in games, but Facebook commits
to allowing eventual monetization.[380][381] The
platform initially has 17 games. [382]

Facebook announces a set of news feed

updates to combat the problem of fake news
and hoaxes. These include more streamlining
for users reporting fake news, a partnership
with signatory organizations to Poynter’s
2016 December 15 Product (news feed) International Fact Checking Code of
Principles to examine items reported as fake,
learning from lower share rates for people
who view the article that the item might be
fake, and warnings to users when they share
news that is disputed or possibly fake.[383][384][385]
[386]

Facebook introduces the Facebook

Journalism Project, an effort to bolster its
2017 January 11 Outreach
relationship with media and news
organizations and journalists.[387][388]
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Facebook begins integrating the Messenger

interface into the messages inbox, replacing
2017 end of January Product the old inbox interface. This change makes
the Facebook messages inbox interface
similar to that seen on messenger.com. [389]

In the United States and Canada, Facebook

launches a feature to search for jobs. The
feature allows businesses to post job
2017 February 15 Product
openings through the status update
composer, and allows users to apply to those
job postings.[390][391][392][393]

Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook's principal

founder and CEO) pens a long note on his
personal Facebook titled "Building Global
Community" that talks about supportive, safe,
2017 February 16
informed, civically-engaged, and inclusive
community.[394] The note receives widespread
discussion, including comparisons with a
political manifesto.[395][396]

Facebook adds reactions and mentions

2017 March 23 Product (messaging) inside Messenger (both the app and the web
experience).[397]

Facebook launches Messenger Lite in over

2017 April 27 Accessibility
100 additional countries.[398][399][400]

Facebook adds reactions to comments.

Reactions were previously available on
2017 May 3 Product
messages (sent via Messenger) and
Facebook posts but not in comments.[401][402]

2017 May 21 Controversy The Guardian publishes The Facebook Files,

 Month and
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leaked Facebook documents detailing

Facebook's moderation policies for graphic
depictions of sex and violence as well as
racist, sexist, and hate speech.[403][404] The
revelations lead to public discussion of the
specifics of Facebook's policies, as well as
calls on Facebook to be more transparent.[405]
[406][407][408]

Facebook Fundraising is launched. On March

30, the fundraising tools are introduced in
March 30, May
2017 Product (fundraising) beta.[409][410][411] On May 24, the product exits
24
beta and is available in the United States for
all users over 18 years of age. [412][413]

Facebook reaches 2 billion monthly active

2017 June 27 Userbase
users.[414][415][416][417][418]

Facebook Messenger rolls out rich text

formatting, with support for bold, italics, inline
2017 August 18 Product (messaging) code, and strike-through.[419] In
addition, LaTeX math expressions are
implemented through KaTeX.[420][421]

Facebook blocks 470 fake accounts after

claiming them to be linked
to Russia’s Internet Research Agency, which
is suspect to have bought thousands of ads
2017 September 7 Userbase/controversy during the United States presidential
campaign.[422] The company claims having
discovered a Russian-funded campaign to
promote divisive social and political
messages on its network.[423]

2017 September 27 Controversy United States president Donald

Trump declares
on Twitter that Facebook was always "anti-
 Month and
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Trump". However, the claim wouldn't have

sequel in the stock market, with Facebook’s
share price on the rise.[424]

Facebook and Instagram experience
widespread outage impacting a large number
of users' ability to access the services across
the world, with the areas experiencing the
2017 October 11 Outage most problems appearing to be
the West and East Coasts of North America,
and various parts of Europe, with parts of
South America and Southeast Asia getting
errors as well.[425][426][427]

Under intensifying pressure from legislators

and consumers to clean up its site, Facebook
2017 October 31 Staff
pledges to double its 10,000-person safety
and security staff by end of 2018. [428]

In an effort to combat revenge porn,

Facebook encourages users in Australia to
submit their nude photos to a pilot project
designed to prevent intimate images from
being shared without consent. Adults who
have shared nude or sexually explicit photos
with someone online, and who are worried
about unauthorised distribution, under the
2017 November 8 Program launch
program can securely send the photos to
themselves via Messenger, a process that
allows Facebook to "hash" them, creating an
identifier which would block any further
distribution on Facebook, Instagram and
Messenger as a pre-emptive strike against
revenge porn, a common method of abuse
and exploitation online.[429][430][431]

2017 November 16 Product In an effort to combat fake news and promote

authentic, fact-based journalism, Facebook
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launches Trust Indicators, a tool to help users

determine how each particular publication
works. The measure is also taken
by Google and Twitter.[432][433][434][435]

After live videos having skyrocketed on

Facebook in the last months, the social
network launches Facebook Creator, an app
for mobile video posts offering influencers
2017 November 16 Product Live Creative Kit for adding intros and outros
to broadcasts, a unified inbox of Facebook
and Instagram comments
plus Messenger chats, cross-posting
to Twitter and expansive analytics.[436][437][438][439]

Facebook opens new office in London,

expecting to hire 800 new staff. Interiorly
2017 December 3 Staff designed by Frank Gehry, the office would be
Facebook's biggest engineering hub outside
the United States.[440][441][442]

Facebook launches Messenger Kids, a

version of Messenger for children from ages
six to 12. The app does not require a
Facebook account (illegal for this range of
2017 December 4 Product age). Rather, parents are able to manage a
child’s Messenger Kids app from their
Facebook account, controlling which friends
and family members the child is able to
contact.[443][444][445]

2017 December 19 Product In an effort to prevent people from

impersonating others, Facebook expands its
use of facial recognition technology by
introducing new tool that would alert people
that a friend, or a friend of a friend, uploaded
a photo of them, even if they haven't been
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tagged in the picture.[446][447][448][449]

Facebook acquires personalized image

2018 January 11 Acquisition
search engine Dreambit.[citation needed]

Facebook acquires Boston-based biometric

ID verification startup Confirm.io, which offers
2018 January 23 Acquisition a system for verifying the authenticity of ID
cards, biometrics and facial recognition.[450][451]
[452]

Facebook admits to the United States

Senate that its software, in some cases,
recommended content produced by Russian
propaganda operatives around the time of the
2018 January 25 Controversy
2016 presidential election; stating however
that it has found insignificant overlap between
Russian-produced content and pages created
by the Trump's election campaign.[453][454][455]

In an intentionally broad policy aimed at

stopping scammers, Facebook bans all ads
2018 January 30 Policy
promoting cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin
and initial coin offerings.[456][457]

Facebook reports losing daily users for the

first time ever in the United
States and Canada. However, globally, the
2018 January 31 Userbase number of people using Facebook daily rose
14% compared to the previous year, but
falling by 700,000 people in the US and
Canada for the first time.[458]

2018 March 17–26 Controversy A whistleblower reveals that British political

consulting firm Cambridge
Analytica harvested 50 million Facebook
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profiles and used personal information taken

without authorisation in early 2014 to build a
system that could profile individual voters in
the United States, in order to target them with
personalized political advertisements.[459] On
March 26, the United States Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) announces it is
investigating Facebook's privacy practices
following the revelations.[460] The scandal
would affect deeply the image of Facebook,
with a loss of nearly US$50 billion in market
capitalization since the data scandal.[461]

Mark Zuckerberg attends his first

congressional hearings at Capitol
Hill, Washington, D.C. testifying about
controversies over Facebook data privacy,
and being questioned for almost 10 hours in
two days by senators and representatives
over the company's privacy policies. [462] On
the first day, Zuckerberg repeatedly
apologizes and promises privacy reforms on
Facebook, but also pointedly defends his
company against the threat of new
2018 April 10–11 Legal
legislation.[463] Facing tougher questions on
the second day regarding Facebook policies
about user privacy, data collection, political
bias and the social network's business
model, Zuckerberg would reject suggestions
from Congress members that Facebook
users did not have enough control over their
data.[464] However, he would explain plans to
tighten data policies, protect users from
further leaks and become more transparent
about who's advertising on his site.[465]

2018 April 26 Legal Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer is grilled for

five hours by the UK Parliament; he is a
stand-in for CEO Mark Zuckerberg.[466] Among
other things, in the testimony he gives
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estimates of Facebook's numbers of "dark

ads" on Facebook, in connection with
consumer advocate Martin Lewis whose
name was used by malicious advertisers on
advertisements for spam and misleading
products.[467]