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| CATEGORIES ABOUT FACEBOOK | |
| 2004 establishments | |
| companies based in silicon valley | |
| global internet community | |
| online social networking | |
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Facebook is a Social Networking Service for High School , College , University , Corporate , Non-profit , and Geographic communities, primarily in English -speaking countries. The site has some similarities to MySpace , but differs in account availability, user control of display content, real-world identity, and overall neatness of appearance. As of December 2005, it has the largest number of registered users among College -focused sites (at over six million US college student accounts created with an additional 20,000 new accounts being created daily).1 Anyone with access to a valid E-mail Address from 2,000+ universities can register for and access the site, a group that includes students, Alumni , faculty, and staff, although the vast majority of Facebook’s users are students. Facebook is also available at 25,000+ American and Canadian High School s as well as ten corporations, such as Microsoft and Pepsi , and one non-profit organization, Teach For America .2 The site is free to users and generates revenue from Advertising including banner ads and sponsored groups. Users create personal profiles, typically containing photos and lists of interests, exchange private or public messages, and join groups of friends. The viewing of detailed profile data is restricted to users from the same school or confirmed friends. The site boasts incredible usage statistics as, according to TechCrunch , "about 85% of students in supported colleges have a profile the site . those who are signed up, 60% log in ''daily''. About 85% log in at least once a week, and 93% log in at least once a month."3 Facebook employs people in s that many colleges give to incoming Student s, Faculty , and Staff depicting members of the campus community. HISTORY Origins and expansion Facebook was founded as thefacebook in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard University with financial help from Eduardo Saverin. The website spread across the Harvard campus and within a few weeks, over half the Undergraduate population had registered. By the end of February, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes had joined Zuckerberg to spread the website. Within two months, Facebook expanded to allow students from the rest of the Ivy League and other prominent universities to register. It became a Network Phenomenon , spreading rapidly to other schools, despite some competition from similar, local websites. By December 2004, the number of registered users exceeded one million. As the website’s popularity rose and advertising revenue grew, Zuckerberg and Moskovitz left Harvard to run Facebook fulltime, while Hughes remained at Harvard to work as the site's spokesperson. Zuckerberg and Moskovitz moved to Palo Alto in June 2004, established an office and recruited a staff of eight, including Sean Parker and Matt Cohler . Stories about Facebook became commonplace in online and print media. Simultaneously, several competitor sites appeared attempting to capture some of the limelight. In late 2004, the owners of the website ConnectU (Divya Narendra, Cameron Winklevoss, and Tyler Winklevoss), another social networking website targeted towards college students, filed a Lawsuit against Facebook, alleging that Zuckerberg had stolen Source Code intended for their website while in their employ.45 In September 2004, Facebook received around $500,000 from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel in an Angel Round . In May 2005, Facebook raised $12.7 million in Venture Capital from Accel Partners .6 In late August 2005, it was announced on the main website that the domain name facebook.com was acquired from Aboutface Corporation, and the website moved domains and dropped the "the" from the site name effective August 23 , 2005 . Also included in the move was a site overhaul, making profile pages more "user-friendly," according to Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg has since added more universities to Facebook (with an emphasis on forgotten schools in Canada as well as in the United States), but unlike in the past, the new schools were no longer publicized on the front page. On September 2 , 2005 , deeming it the "next logical thing" to do, Zuckerberg launched a high school version of Facebook, which was originally kept totally separate from the college version. Although high school students could only join via an invitation for the first weeks, by September 17, an invitation was no longer necessary for most schools. So far, high school Facebook has failed to achieve the same popularity as the college version. However, on February 27 , 2006 , Facebook began to allow college students to add high school students as friends, saying that "so many people requested it".A series of announcements were posted on Facebook at letter.php explaining the changes. By October 2005, Facebook had nearly completed its expansion to smaller universities and junior colleges throughout the United States and Canada. In addition, Facebook expanded to 21 universities in the United Kingdom , and added the entire Instituto Tecnologico system in Mexico , the entire University Of Puerto Rico system in Puerto Rico and the entire University Of The Virgin Islands system in the U.S. Virgin Islands . On December 11 , 2005 , Facebook expanded further, adding universities in Australia and New Zealand . As of December 2005, the network had expanded to include 2,000+ college and 25,000+ high school institutions across the United States, Canada, Mexico, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland , including more than 11 million users worldwide.7 On March 28 , 2006 , BusinessWeek reported rumors of a possible acquisition of the site. According to the article, the company declined an offer of $ 750 million and began asking for $2 billion.8 The idea that a two-year old website started by college sophomores could sell for such a price ignited massive debate and speculation in the Blogosphere . In April 2006, Facebook acquired an additional $25 million in venture capital from Peter Thiel, Greylock Partners , and Meritech Capital Partners .9 Addition of features created for '' Three's Company '' character Chrissy Snow . Although they are prohibited by official Facebook policy, many fake or celebrity profiles exist on the site.]] See Also: Facebook features The expansion of Facebook to colleges and high schools has been accompanied by a gradual increase in the number of Features the site provides to its users. Originally, a user's Profile consisted of little more than a Picture that could be uploaded and a few fields of biographical information and favorites that could be filled in. In the spring of 2004, users were able to designate themselves as alumni for the first time, and users were also given the option of listing their summer plans. In September 2004, the feature appeared that month as well. From late 2004 to early 2006, Facebook was linked to Wirehog , a Peer-to-peer File Sharing program. Until at earliest March 2005, Facebook officially endorsed the p2p client, saying "Thefacebook and Wirehog are integrated so that Wirehog knows who your friends are in order to make sure that only people in your network can see your files. Thefacebook certifies that it is okay to enter your facebook email address and password into Wirehog for the purposes of this integration."10 (cache of thefacebook.com/wirehog.php) Recording Industry Association Of America spokesman Jonathan Levy commented on the use of Wirehog saying "the laws remain the same whether it's 'sharing' copyrighted works without permission to one person or to a million people."11 On October 27 , 2005 , the " My Photos " feature came into existence, allowing users to post pictures in photo albums for friends to view. Users were given the option of "tagging" friends in their photos, linking the photos to the user profiles of those pictured. For many, the photo sharing option transformed Facebook by providing a real reason to spend time on the site, using it as more than simply a directory. Also in the autumn of that year, Facebook users were presented with the option of listing their "Favorite TV Shows." On ," and the ability for a user to state how he or she is friends with someone, called " Friend Details ." Only a few weeks later, January 13 , 2006 marked the introduction of the " Social Timeline " feature, which utilizes Friend Details information from users to construct a complete chronology of a particular user's social setting. On February 27 , 2006 Facebook users with high school and college accounts were allowed for the first time to add users from the other branch as friends. Primary reasons for the change included popular demand and the claim that "it will help people keep up with more of their friends." It was also around this time that Facebook removed the "Currently Logged In" banner on profiles of members currently online, making it harder to stalk them. However, on April 17 of the same year, the feature was returned in the form of the status box. On March 17 , 2006 ( St Patrick's Day ), Facebook users could make Wall posts with a green hue by typing "green," "lucky charms," "leprechaun," "St. Patrick," or other related keywords somewhere within their messages. On March 23 , 2006 , Facebook users were given the option of creating "Limited Profiles", or restricting the information that certain friends could see about a profile. Facebook customer service describes the practice with the words "You can establish a Limited Profile that will create a limited view of your Facebook profile for selected people. These individuals will not be informed that they are not able to see certain profile features." On March 25 , 2006 , Facebook allowed users to search by entering keywords to find matching profiles, groups, and events in their network, making searching much easier. On April 7 , 2006 , the "Recently Updated" section of "My Friends" was updated to arrange in order of most recently updated, showing how long ago each profile was updated. This was a change from alphabetical listing of recently updated profiles. On April 15 , 2006 , the "Groups" section of Facebook got a facelift, in which a number of minor changes were made. Like users, groups now have walls and images can be uploaded. In addition, groups can now be classified into numerous categories, helping users find related groups. Unfortunately, this has meant that all groups are categorised as "n/a" until their admins update it. Furthermore, email notification of group discussions has been removed, requiring users to check the groups pages themselves to keep up-to-date. On April 17 , 2006 , Facebook reintroduced Facebook Mobile. Users who activated the service could send text messages from their Cellular Phone to FBOOK (32665) to look up someone's basic profile info or to poke, message, wall post or add other users as friends.Facebook.com Mobile FAQ Another element, the status box, was added to users' profiles. The status box indicated if users were active on the Facebook website, if they had enabled Facebook Mobile and, if so, if they recently sent a Facebook text or were not receiving Facebook texts at the time. Users were also able to chose status messages such as "in class" or "at the library" or could create their own (in 100 characters or less). (Mobile features had previously been available but were disabled in the past.) On April 24 , 2006 , a number of layout changes were made to the profile page and the interface for updating it. The "Your Friends" section and randomly chosen thumbnails now incorporate friends in other networks, thereby raising the user's displayed friend count. This system favors users with many high school friends, placing foreign users at a disadvantage. Instead of listing the user's friends categorized by school, the "Other Networks" section now contains a message stating, "''Name'''s friends page shows his/her friends in other networks." Also, the "Mutual Friends" section now features thumbnails in addition to names. New features include the ability to join multiple networks, add multiple concentrations, merge multiple accounts, and list the user's work history. Deleted features include the "Clubs and Jobs" field and the date the user joined. Also on April 24th, High School users could access the "Pulse" feature, which was previously only available to college students. Another new feature was the full integration of personal high school and college facebooks. On April 25 , 2006 , Facebook corrected a large Security Hole which previously allowed any user to potentially post malicious scripts within their profiles. The "Edit My Profile" input forms no longer tolerate once-allowed HTML tags.12 On April 26 , 2006 , Facebook reversed its "Your Friends" layout change, which was originally implemented on April 24 , 2006 . There are now two separate friend counts, one for in-school network and one for all networks combined. The Mutual Friends box has also merged with the general Friends box, and the Networks With Friends section has been reinstated. Facebook thanked their users for their feedback by posting the following on the front page: "Thanks for the feedback...After hearing your comments, we've added the "Friends at Other Networks" box back to profiles. We're also working on improving search, and hopefully that will be done soon. Thanks for helping us make the site better." On April 27 , 2006 , Facebook reinstated some changes made in April 24 , 2006 . This includes the Mutual Friends section. Also, Facebook now only shows the top 7 friends from other networks under "Networks with the most friends" and "Networks you belong to". However, there is still an option to show friends from all networks. Facebook also added support for corporate facebooks. Initially supported companies include Microsoft, Pepsi, Accenture , Apple , Gap , Amazon , Electronic Arts , Intuit , PricewaterhouseCoopers , and Intel . The non-profit Teach For America was also added as a network. On May 01 , 2006 ,Facebook reinstated the Merge Multiple Accounts option, which had first shown up on April 24, 2006. The feature was breifly taken off the site in order to fix some bugs. CRITICISMS Privacy concerns There have been some concerns expressed regarding the use of Facebook as a means of surveillance and students were able to download, using an automated script, over 70,000 Facebook profiles from 3 schools as part of a research project on Facebook privacy.15 ( PDF ) Another clause that some users are critical of reserves the right to sell user's data to private companies, stating ''"We may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship."'' This concern has also been addressed by spokesman Chris Hughes who said "Simply put, we have never provided our users' information to third party companies, nor do we intend to."16 It is unclear if Facebook plans to remove that clause as well. Integration of high school users Following the February 27 integration of the high school and college levels, some college users began creating groups critical of the decision.17 It should be noted that users from opposite branches could only fully interact if they were friends and that some separation did remain. The site also released the Limited Profile privacy settings and advised students on how to hide pictures and other features from younger siblings. However, many college users felt that the site's former exclusivity had been key to their experience.18 Some expressed concerns about the ability of unknown persons to create accounts on the high school version (since University addresses are not required) and use them to access the college version; by default, strangers can message and view users' friends through a simple global search. Some made predictions that the site would soon face issues with spammers, stalkers, or worse, and worried this would result in controversies similar to the Bad Publicity Seen By MySpace .19 USE IN INVESTIGATIONS See Also: Facebook's use in investigations The information students provide on Facebook has been used in investigations by university and local police. Facebook's Terms of Use specify that "the website is available for your personal, noncommercial use only," misleading some to believe that college administrators and police may not use the site for conducting investigations. Alcohol policy violations It has become increasingly common for colleges and universities to use Facebook to investigate Underage Drinking and violations of Dry Campus policies. Students who violate these policies may be discovered through photographs of illicit drinking behavior, membership in drinking-related groups, or party information posted on the Facebook website. For example, four students at Northern Kentucky University were fined for posting pictures of a drinking party on Facebook. The pictures, taken inside a dormitory, were considered proof that the students were in violation of the university's dry campus policy.20 In response to the monitoring, some students have begun to submit " Red Herring " party listings.21 In one case at The George Washington University , shown at CakeParty.org , students advertised their party and were raided by campus police. The police found only cake, no alcohol, and later claimed the dorm raid had been triggered by a noise complaint.22 Other investigations The United States Secret Service met with a University Of Oklahoma freshman in March 2005 after he posted a joke about assassinating President Bush. However, this investigation began after a fellow OU student alerted the Secret Service to the threat and did not stem from federal monitoring of the site as some proposed.23 During student government elections held in October 2005, results at both the University Of Missouri and University Of Pennsylvania were delayed due to early campaigning violations on Facebook.2425 The University of California, Berkeley has also experienced similar problems. Students have been Expelled over criticism of a campus police officer26 and the posting of pictures showing the student in question dressed in drag.27 One student was arrested after he set a composite Sketch of a rape suspect as his profile picture.28 Others have been punished for rushing a football field,29 hate speech against gays,30 and criticizing an instructor.31 At the University Of Louisville , on the other hand, students who had created a Facebook group to complain about a professor's teaching shortcomings helped lead to the dismissal of their targeted instructor in February of 2006, and were not punished.32 Other uses of profile information It has been documented that some employers look at Facebook profiles of prospective employees or interns.33 Whether or not this practice is common is unknown, but students looking for jobs should be aware that information posted on Facebook is potentially accessible to employers with faculty or alumni accounts.34 It can be argued that the use of Facebook in this manner violates the Facebook terms of service , in that this would not be classed as "non-commercial use". Information posted on the site is sometimes distributed publicly. Students who are related to politicians or other public figures have had screenshots of their profiles or photo albums taken and shared in an attempt to embarrass their relatives.35 Also, a group calling itself Performing Politics, Inc. publicly displayed the profiles of students at Yale who had made comments about homosexuality in an effort to show evidence of homophobia at the school.36 Militant members of the Animal Liberation Front in Britain appear to have threatened students at Oxford who support the university's proposed South Parks laboratory saying they are legitimate targets for attack. A counter-activist group called Pro-Test has warned students not to support the lab's construction on Facebook as they believe ALF is monitoring the site.37 RESPONSES Schools block access The University Of New Mexico in October 2005 blocked access to Facebook from UNM campus computers and networks, citing unsolicited e-mails and a similar site called UNM Facebook.38 After a UNM user signed into Facebook from off campus, a message from Facebook said, "We are working with the UNM administration to lift the block and have explained that it was instituted based on erroneous information, but they have not yet committed to restore your access." UNM, in a message to students who tried to access the site from the UNM network, wrote, "This site is temporarily unavailable while UNM and the site owners work out procedural issues. The site is in violation of UNM's Acceptable Computer Use Policy for abusing computing resources (e.g., spamming, trademark infringement, etc.). The site forces use of UNM credentials (e.g., NetID or email address) for non-UNM business." Many high schools across the United States have blocked access to Facebook on all school computers after students have started anti-school groups like the notorious ''School Sucks'' group. Some schools have even gone as far as to suspend students that are members of Facebook hate groups towards peers or staff members. Facebook memorials A notable ancillary effect of social networking websites, particularly Facebook, is the ability for participants to mourn publicly for a deceased individual. On Facebook, students often leave messages of sadness, grief or hope on the individual's Wall, transforming it into a sort of public book of condolences. This particular phenomenon has been documented at a number of schools, including University Of Missouri - Kansas City ,39 University Of Virginia ,40 Boston University ,41 and Brown University .42 According to Facebook spokesperson Chris Hughes , "In the past, we have removed profiles as soon as we were made aware of the student's death, but we are now re-evaluating the policy in light of numerous requests to the contrary from users."43 (front page of the newspaper, online version is dead) SEE ALSO
NOTES AND REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS Official website
Print media
College newspapers
Online media
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