16 Years of Facebook: From The Dorms To Internet Dominance

2014

• January 16: Trending Topics

Facebook applied Twitter’s concept of trending topics with the hopes of becoming the number destination for the latest news. It did not go as planned.

• February 19: The Domination Continues

WhatsApp was bought by Facebook for $19 billion dollars. This was their strategy to dominate another aspect of social media.

• March 25: Virtual Reality

Oculus, a VR startup, was bought by Facebook. Zuckerberg claims that VR is the next big “platform of tomorrow”.

2015

• December 1: Giving Back

Upon adopting a new philanthropic life, Zuckerberg plans to give almost all of his money from Facebook to charity.

2016

• March 28: VR Headsets Debuts

Oculus’ Right VR headsets hit the market. But the prices drop and the co-founder steps down within a year.

• April 6: Live Video Content

The company rolls out Facebook Live, which is their live video service. Companies such as The New York Times and Buzzfeed were asked to create live content to be featured on their video service.

• May 3: Claims of Censorship

Facebook was accused of censoring conservative news on its Trending Topics section. This lead to them having to deal with a PR crisis.

• November 10: Facebook’s Influence

It is said that Facebook was a big catalyst for Donald Trump winning the elections. The fact that Russian influence campaigns used the social media platform to share fake news to a larger audience.

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2017

• January 3: Zuckerberg On Tour

In order to escape Silicon Valley and the aftermath of the elections, Zuckerberg travels across the United States to meet people.

• June 27: Billion Upon Billion

Facebook hits a new record as it hit over 2 billion active users monthly.

• September 20: Rohingya

Facebook was accused of trying to cleanse the ethnic group of Rohingya in an article published by The Guardian. This allegation stemmed from the company labeling the group from Myanmar as a “dangerous organization”.

• October 9: Epic VR Fail

After the dreadful incident of Hurricane Maria, Zuckerberg released a virtual reality tour of Puerto Rico. Upon realizing his mistake, he apologizes.

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