Meta

Company Information

• Date founded: February 2004
• Industry: Social Media and Digital Services
• Corporate headquarters: Menlo Park, California
• Type: Public

Overview

Meta is a digital services provider primarily focused on social media. The company, founded by entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg, began as Facebook. Its flagship product was a social media website that allowed for simple communication between students at Harvard. However, it was quickly expanded to include all colleges and universities across the United States, then to all people over thirteen years old.

Facebook is the world's largest and most successful social media service in the world, boasting more than two billion active users. The company also owns several other social media services, including WhatsApp, Instagram, Oculus VR, and Messenger, which provide different social media experiences.

In 2021, Zuckerberg announced that he intended to grow his company beyond traditional social media. Instead, he planned to develop a digital world space in which users could interact in real-time in virtual reality. He called this eventual product the metaverse. In recognition of this new goal, Facebook was renamed Meta. Though the company planned to continue to maintain Facebook, it planned to eventually integrate all its social media services through the metaverse.

Facebook has been praised by experts for its remarkable ability to bring people together. The social media service enables people to remain in touch and share life events regardless of physical distance. However, it has also been criticized for its correlations with negative mental health, addiction, and political misinformation and propaganda.

History

Meta traces its history back to the entrepreneurial drive of Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg began coding as a child, creating his first social media program, ZuckNet, as a teenager. When Zuckerberg attended Harvard University in 2002, he majored in psychology but continued studying computer science on the side. In 2003, he published Facemash, a website that allowed Harvard students to rank the attractiveness of other students. This proved controversial, as Zuckerberg had not secured permission to use many of the photos on the website. Facemash was quickly taken down, and Zuckerberg was threatened with expulsion. He was allowed to stay at Harvard after a public apology. However, though his project landed him in trouble with school authorities, Zuckerberg’s work had garnered tens of thousands of views in just a few days.

Zuckerberg’s next project, TheFaceBook, launched in February 2004. Like many modern social media websites, TheFaceBook allowed users to create a digital profile, upload images, and connect with other users. At the time, this website was designed to serve as a networking service for college students and was initially open only to individuals with a Harvard email address. However, the website was later opened to members of any college or university in the United States and Canada to increase its user base.

In August 2005, Zuckerberg decided to drop “the” from his product’s name, changing it to Facebook. Soon after, the user base was expanded to include high school students. Zuckerberg then withdrew from Harvard, dedicating himself full-time to running Facebook as CEO. Soon, Facebook added universities and high schools across the world to its growing network. In September 2006, the social media giant officially welcomed anyone over thirteen years old, regardless of any school affiliation. Throughout the following year, Facebook’s user base grew from twelve million members to more than fifty million.

Facebook launched its initial public offering in May 2012, raising $16 billion and reaching an estimated market value of $102.4 billion. These astounding values quickly generated media attention, making Facebook one of the largest media firms on the market and firmly establishing the company as the dominant social media service. That same year, Facebook acquired rival social media service Instagram, allowing the company to continue to operate under the Facebook banner.

In 2014, Facebook began publishing trending topics, similar to its social media rival Twitter. It then purchased the virtual reality company Oculus for $2 billion. In 2015, Facebook began testing its Live feature, which allowed users to broadcast video to their followers in real time.

In 2016, during Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the social network was used to broadcast political media. Much of this media contained false information created in a way that made it seem real. Because of this, Facebook was accused of broadcasting fake news. The company was also accused of intentionally censoring conservative media from its Trending Topics section. Soon after, Facebook announced that it had surpassed two billion active users, cementing its place as the largest social network on the internet. At that point, more than 35 percent of the world’s population used Facebook. That same year, Facebook suffered a major hacking incident, leaking the personal data of as many as thirty million users.

In 2021, Zuckerberg announced that Facebook and its subsidiaries would be reorganized under the new company Meta. With Meta, users would be able to enter a three-dimensional virtual world called the metaverse. Functioning through a combination of social media and virtual reality, the metaverse would allow people to share immersive experiences regardless of physical distance or capabilities. Zuckerburg announced that the company would develop the metaverse over the coming decade and planned to include storefronts, real estate, and gathering places. Many investors surmised that the metaverse would significantly change the online economy, similar to cryptocurrency's impact. However, some experts believe that the digital infrastructure necessary for the creation of the metaverse did not yet exist.

Zuckerberg clarified that Meta would continue to develop Facebook as its primary product. However, he noted that the company’s future goals no longer revolved around Facebook, and that the transition to Meta would provide an anchor for its future products and endeavors. Over time, Meta planned to unify Facebook and the company’s other products and brands, such as Oculus VR, WhatsApp, and Instagram, through the metaverse. In 2022, Zuckerberg engaged in public demonstrations and art installations of his vision for the future of the metaverse.

However, it soon became clear that Zuckerberg's intentions would not go as planned. In November 2022, Zuckerberg announced that Meta would be laying off significant numbers of employees due to financial concerns. The company announced it was cutting over 11,000 jobs, or approximately 13 percent of its workforce, with layoffs affecting multiple departments. Despite myriad controversies, the company's stock and revenues continued to rise into early 2022. However, that year, with the announcement of the company's rebranding to Meta in late 2021 and the resulting focus on developing the metaverse, proved to be a challenge. In addition, the worldwide economic slowdown and strong competition from social media platforms like TikTok contributed to Meta's financial struggles. The company's stock dropped by about 70 percent during 2022. Meta also planned to reduce budgets and implement a hiring freeze.

Layoffs continued through the 2020s. In February 2025, Meta laid off about 5 percent of its workforce, or around 3,600 employees. The company said these dismissals were part of an initiative to streamline operations as particular areas, like artificial intelligence, expanded. Around the same time, Meta also dismissed several employees for leaking company information to the media. Despite layoffs, Meta's stock recovered and, in early 2024, reached an all-time high. Its continual investments in evolving technology and product development drove its success.

In July 2023, Meta launched Threads, its text-based social media platform that aimed to compete with X (formerly Twitter). In January 2025, Meta began monetizing Threads by testing advertisements in the United States and Japan. This decision intended to capitalize on the surge of users switching to Threads over X because they were dissatisfied with the company’s policies under Elon Musk.

Impact

Though social media existed before Facebook, the company reached more computer users than any prior social network. In doing so, it allowed people to communicate more easily across long distances, share information with one another, and normalize new methods of online communication. This made it easier to maintain long-distance relationships and contact with distant friends and relatives. Facebook also has the potential to reduce loneliness in individuals who are elderly or disabled and find it difficult to travel. Facebook also revolutionized advertising by making it easier for people to share information about events, services, media, and products.

Despite its positive effects on social relationships, both social media and Facebook, in particular, have significant societal downsides. Facebook has been shown to be addictive. Individuals who spend four or more hours on Facebook each day may become addicted to the social media service. This is an especially common problem in teenagers and young adults. Individuals who are addicted to Facebook or social media may spend less time socializing in person. It may also harm relationships that require offline social interactions.

Facebook has also been shown to cause people to change their perceptions of the lives of others. The more time people spend on Facebook each day, the more they tend to believe that the lives of others are better than they truly are. This can cause tension during interpersonal relationships and have a negative effect on self-esteem. These feelings are exacerbated by social media users’ tendencies to post only the positive aspects of their lives while keeping negative events private.

In 2021, it was revealed that numerous world governments were utilizing social media services, including Facebook, to influence public opinion. These governments used Facebook to spread propaganda. Because the propaganda was initially posted by false accounts that readers believed to be genuine, then shared by users’ peers, Facebook users were more likely to believe fake news through this medium. Though Facebook took measures to combat the spread of fake news through its services, the social media platform was unable to completely prevent the use of Facebook for propaganda. In the mid-2020s, Meta discontinued its third-party fact-checking program, adopting a "Community Notes" system similar to the system that X (formerly Twitter) used. This allowed users to add context to or correct misleading or incorrect posts. The company also relaxed its hate speech policies that restricted discussions that victimized particular groups.

Because of Facebook’s popularity, Zuckerberg has faced his share of controversy and been the subject of numerous lawsuits. In 2009, he reportedly paid out $65 million to settle a lawsuit filed against Facebook by the founders of ConnectU Inc. The lawsuit alleged that Zuckerberg pilfered their business ideas while a student at Harvard. In 2018, lawyers for Rohingya refugees filed a class-action lawsuit seeking $150 billion, alleging that Facebook’s actions in Myanmar stirred up violence toward refugees. In 2019, Zuckerberg and Facebook were fined $5 billion for violating users’ privacy. The CEO was also fined $70 million by British authorities in 2021 for withholding information about its acquisition of Giphy, an app used to create and host animated graphics. In early 2025, Meta settled a $25 million lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump for suspending his accounts on their platform in 2021.

In February 2025, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) initiated an inquiry into potential censorship practices by major technology platforms, including Meta. The investigation examined how tech companies may have engaged in practices that suppress or limit user speech, which FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, appointed by President Trump, called "un-American" and "potentially illegal."

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