Most of us know the now-infamous founding story of Facebook; Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in his Harvard dorm room, only to be worth more than 100 billion dollars 18 years later. However, from the very first day of Facebook’s launch, Zuckerberg and his associates have been fraught with criticisms. These accusations range from claims of misogyny and objectification to concerns of national security and massive security violations and are seemingly never-ending.

The Early Days

Years before the criticisms of potential security issues, Facebook was a revolutionary start-up that was blowing up the relatively new world of social media. However, its very founding caused a myriad of legal troubles and social accusations for Zuckerberg. It was founded as a site called “Facemash” to rank fellow female college students by attractiveness, a fact that was well-known and protested by students in the early days of the social media giant. His former business partner, Eduardo Saverin, sued and later settled with him over allegations that his shares of Facebook were unfairly diluted to worthlessness, while his other colleagues continued to profit. Zuckerberg was also sued by former Harvard classmates Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss and Divya Narendra, for allegedly stealing their idea for a social networking site named “The Harvard Connection”. Facebook later settled for 20 million dollars and 1.2 million common shares.

Security Concerns

Flash forward to 2022, and Facebook has been the subject of countless criticisms much more concerning than dirty business practices. In the 2016 presidential election, Facebook allowed a political analysis group called Cambridge Analytica to collect data on millions of its users to influence campaign strategies and court potential voters with their profiles. Two years later, hundreds of millions of profiles were found to be easily accessible to unauthorized employees, leading to concerns on how easily this information can leak. In 2019, it was discovered that Facebook’s app collected obscene amounts of personal data, including information on users’ internet and cell phone usage. 

Inappropriate and Dangerous Content

Facebook’s sheer size and influence have been a point of contention with users, simply for the impossibility of regulating every single account. Facebook is used in every single corner of the globe by approximately 2.9 billion users (as of 2021). This is shocking, especially when contrasted with the supposed 15,000 moderators employed directly and indirectly by Facebook. How can the moderators, even if all 15,000 work every single minute of the day, possibly ensure the disturbing and dangerous content is scrubbed from the platform? The introduction of Facebook Live in 2019 opened a brand new avenue for disturbing content going unchecked – there have been reports of murders and suicides live-streamed on Facebook Live without swift removal. One 2020 report states that a man’s suicide and dead body was broadcasted for three hours before it was removed, and later circulated widely around the Internet. According to NPR, Facebook even internally admitted to helping stoke the fury over the 2020 election that led to the “Stop the Steal” protest, and later the January 6th insurrection, because its algorithm targeted users that it pinpointed to be open to ideas of election fraud. Many make the point that as Facebook is such a massive site, such content cannot possibly be filtered out by the algorithm and only a few thousand moderators. However, others say that such content is Facebook’s responsibility, and should be dealt with accordingly. Regardless of these opinions, we will see in the coming years – will Facebook continue to balloon in size and influence, or will its day of reckoning come?