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Facebook is an online social media and networking service founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg along with his fellow Harvard college roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Chris Huges and Dustin Moskovitz. Facebook was initially made available for Harvard University students and later it was expanded for other colleges, schools and universities. It was made available to everyone above the age of 13 in the year 2006. According to the company's website, Facebook's mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. While attending the Harvard University as a second year student Zuckerberg wrote a program called 'Facemash' that used compiled photos that was gained by Zuckerberg by hacking into Harvard's computer network and copying the images. He then placed two photos at a time and asked the users to choose the 'hotter' person. The site was then forwarded to several other campuses and servers. However, the site was shut down by Harvard University and Zuckerberg had to face expulsion. After returning to the university, Zuckerberg in the next semester got inspired by an editorial in The Harvard Crimson about the Facemash incident and then Zuckerberg launched "Thefacebook" website on 4th February 2004 and it was located at the facebook.com. Membership of Thefacebook was initially for the students of Harvard College and it later was opened to other universities like the University of Columbia, Stanford and Yale and later it was opened for most of the universities in Canada and United States. Zuckerberg's informal advisor Sean Parker became the company's president in mid 2004 and in 2005 Thefacebook dropped 'the' from its name after purchasing the domain name facebook.com for US$200,000. The company moved to Palo Alto in California in June 2004 and the next month the company received its first investment from Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal. Later in May 2005, Facebook received investment of $12.7 million from Accel Partners and $1 million from Jim Breyer. Facebook then launched a a high-school version in September 2005 and was also made available to the employees of Apple Inc. and Microsoft. Gaining steady popularity, the forum was opened to general public on September 26, 2006. Anybody above the age of 13 with a valid email id could open a Facebook account. Facebook gained popularity in no time and by January 2009 a study by ompete.com ranked Facebook as the most used networking service on the basis of monthly active users. The company continued to gain traffic and by July 2010, the company announced that it has crossed the 500 million users mark to become the largest online social network in the world at the time. By November 2010, Facebook's value was marked at $41 billion based on SecondMarket Inc. study. This made Facebook the third largest American web company. Facebook filed for an Initial Public Offering on 1st February 2012 and negotiated a share price of US$38. This valued the company at $104 billion, the largest valuation for a newly listed public company. As of September 2016, Facebook's headquarter is located at 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park, California and as of June 30 2016, Facebook has 14,495 employees working. The company has on average 1.13 billion daily active users, and a total of 1.71 billion monthly. With over 84.5% of daily active users outside the US and Canada, the social media behemoth is easily one of the largest influence on the internet today. Facebook also owns WhatsApp and Instagram that has 1 billion and 500 million monthly users respectively. Facebook has been able to create a social impact on human life. Facebook allows people to connect to different people worldwide and enabling them to continuously can stay in touch with their relatives and friends. It also helps in uniting people with common interest and they can create their own open or closed private groups. Facebook also has been able to change the way people communicate. People now use images and videos to communicate and his friends or colleagues can respond to their posts through 'likes' or various other emoticons that were recently introduced by Facebook. Facebook also has been able to create a political impact and majority of the major political parties around the globe have their presence on Facebook. However, Facebook also has been a subject to many criticisms around the globe. According to a report released by Geenpeace on 21st April 2011, Facebook was the most reliant on coal for electricity for its data center and it consumes up to 2% of all global electricity and the amount was projected to increase in the future. Facebook was condemned in India for its Free Basics offer in collaboration with Reliance Communications. Issue of privacy and security bug also has been a major reasons creating negative image of Facebook. Facebook has been blocked temporarily or permanently in many countries. The government of Bangladesh has been blocking Facebook, WhatsApp and many other social media apps since 18th November 2015. To boot, it has been the center of many billion dollar lawsuits. Irrespective of all this, the social networking site continue to grow and is easily one of the largest influence today.

Facebook now 'fifth estate', take it seriously: Mark Zuckerberg
Staff | October 18, 2019 4:00 PM IST
A defiant Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has stressed that his platform has now become a 'Fifth Estate...
Facebook now 'fifth estate', take it seriously: Mark Zuckerberg
indiacom
2019-10-18T05:00:05+00:00
2019-10-18T05:00:05+00:00
Facebook
India.com
WhatsApp for iOS gets latest 2.19.100 update with Memoji support
Staff | October 17, 2019 3:15 PM IST
WhatsApp's latest stable version on iOS has now added the Memoji Stickers feature as well. The Faceb...
WhatsApp for iOS gets latest 2.19.100 update with Memoji support
indiacom
2019-10-17T04:15:07+00:00
2019-10-17T04:30:12+00:00
Facebook
India.com
Instagram to give users more control over the data they share: All you need to know
Staff | October 16, 2019 8:00 PM IST
Instagram has revealed that users will soon be able to control their personal information they share...
Instagram to give users more control over the data they share: All you need to know
indiacom
2019-10-16T09:00:05+00:00
2019-10-16T09:15:03+00:00
Facebook
India.com
PM Narendra Modi has more followers on Instagram than US President Donald Trump
Staff | October 14, 2019 4:45 PM IST
Guess who is the most popular leader on Instagram? Yes, it is Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India...
PM Narendra Modi has more followers on Instagram than US President Donald Trump
indiacom
2019-10-14T05:45:04+00:00
2019-10-14T05:45:04+00:00
Facebook
India.com
WhatsApp Now Back on Google Play Store
IANS | October 13, 2019 10:17 AM IST
San Francisco: Facebook-owned WhatsApp has confirmed that the app was now back on the Google App sto...
WhatsApp Now Back on Google Play Store
indiacom
2019-10-12T23:17:44+00:00
2019-10-12T23:17:44+00:00
Facebook
India.com
WhatsApp disappears from Google Play Store for a while
Staff | October 12, 2019 2:30 PM IST
In a bizarre incident, Facebook-owned WhatsApp seemed to have disappeared from the Google Play Store...
WhatsApp disappears from Google Play Store for a while
indiacom
2019-10-12T03:30:04+00:00
2019-10-12T03:30:04+00:00
Facebook
India.com
Sony ends Facebook support on PlayStation 4
Staff | October 10, 2019 6:00 PM IST
Sony Interactive Entertainment has removed Facebook support integration from the PlayStation 4, whic...
Sony ends Facebook support on PlayStation 4
indiacom
2019-10-10T07:00:04+00:00
2019-10-10T07:00:04+00:00
Facebook
India.com
Instagram dark mode rolls out to users; here's how to enable it
Staff | October 9, 2019 9:15 AM IST
Facebook-owned Instagram becomes the latest app to support dark mode. The social media app now suppo...
Instagram dark mode rolls out to users; here's how to enable it
indiacom
2019-10-08T22:15:06+00:00
2019-10-08T22:30:08+00:00
Facebook
India.com
Google may acquire TikTok rival Firework: Report
Staff | October 7, 2019 3:00 PM IST
Google is reportedly interested in purchasing US-based social video app Firework that lets users sha...
Google may acquire TikTok rival Firework: Report
indiacom
2019-10-07T04:00:05+00:00
2019-10-07T04:15:04+00:00
Facebook
India.com
Tim Cook takes a dig at Facebook, says no to Apple digital coin
Staff | October 5, 2019 2:00 PM IST
Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that his company does not intend to create its own cryptocurrency, sayin...
Tim Cook takes a dig at Facebook, says no to Apple digital coin
indiacom
2019-10-05T03:00:05+00:00
2019-10-05T03:15:05+00:00
Facebook
India.com
Apple gets sued by a man for 'turning him gay'
Staff | October 4, 2019 4:00 PM IST
A Russian man has sued Apple after claiming that a message sent to his iPhone drove him to homosexua...
Apple gets sued by a man for 'turning him gay'
indiacom
2019-10-04T05:00:05+00:00
2019-10-04T05:15:08+00:00
Facebook
India.com
Facebook launches Threads from Instagram on iOS and Android; yet another Snapchat-like app
Staff | October 4, 2019 12:45 PM IST
In yet another attempt to clone Snapchat, Facebook has launched a stand-alone app for Instagram user...
Facebook launches Threads from Instagram on iOS and Android; yet another Snapchat-like app
indiacom
2019-10-04T01:45:09+00:00
2019-10-04T01:45:09+00:00
Facebook
India.com
Instagram adds a new 'Restrict' feature to help fight bullying
Staff | October 3, 2019 4:15 PM IST
Instagram is globally rolling out a new feature to its app, which is called "Restrict." The new tool...
Instagram adds a new 'Restrict' feature to help fight bullying
indiacom
2019-10-03T05:15:04+00:00
2019-10-03T05:30:11+00:00
Facebook
India.com
WhatsApp's new security bug may steal your files with a malicious GIF file
Staff | October 3, 2019 3:15 PM IST
A security bug has been found in Facebook-owned instant messenger WhatsApp that could let attackers ...
WhatsApp's new security bug may steal your files with a malicious GIF file
indiacom
2019-10-03T04:15:08+00:00
2019-10-03T04:15:08+00:00
Facebook
India.com
Here's how to link your Facebook account to Call of Duty: Mobile
Staff | October 3, 2019 1:30 PM IST
The newest mobile battle royale game in town is Call of Duty: Mobile, which released a couple of day...
Here's how to link your Facebook account to Call of Duty: Mobile
indiacom
2019-10-03T02:30:05+00:00
2019-10-03T02:30:05+00:00
Facebook
India.com
UK police can access Facebook and WhatsApp messages of suspects in a deal with US tech companies
Staff | September 30, 2019 5:15 PM IST
Facebook and WhatsApp will be forced to share users' encrypted messages with British police. The agr...
UK police can access Facebook and WhatsApp messages of suspects in a deal with US tech companies
indiacom
2019-09-30T06:15:04+00:00
2019-09-30T06:15:04+00:00
Facebook
India.com
Facebook Suffers Total Blackout in UK, Instagram Down Too
IANS | September 28, 2019 10:17 AM IST
San Francisco: Facebook and Instagram suffered a total outage in the UK and in some parts of Europe ...
Facebook Suffers Total Blackout in UK, Instagram Down Too
indiacom
2019-09-27T23:17:32+00:00
2019-09-27T23:17:32+00:00
Facebook
India.com
Facebook begins test to let users hide Likes
Staff | September 27, 2019 4:00 PM IST
Facebook is set to begin a test for hiding Likes. This will make the number of reactions, views and ...
Facebook begins test to let users hide Likes
indiacom
2019-09-27T05:00:09+00:00
2019-09-27T05:15:14+00:00
Facebook
India.com
ICC Announces Partnership With Facebook For Carrying Out Digital Content
ANI | September 26, 2019 2:34 PM IST
The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Thursday announced a partnership with social media giant ...
ICC Announces Partnership With Facebook For Carrying Out Digital Content
indiacom
2019-09-26T03:34:59+00:00
2019-09-26T03:34:59+00:00
Facebook
India.com
Instagram for Android gets an AMOLED dark theme in alpha update
Staff | September 25, 2019 2:45 PM IST
Following the trend of 'Dark mode' in mobile operating system and apps, Instagram for Android has al...
Instagram for Android gets an AMOLED dark theme in alpha update
indiacom
2019-09-25T03:45:04+00:00
2019-09-25T04:00:07+00:00
Facebook
India.com