Facebook

Overview

The network that connected everyone no longer connects the young. According to Pew Research Center’s 2024 survey of 1,391 U.S. teens, only 32% of American teenagers say they use Facebook — down from 71% in 2014–15 — while 90% use YouTube, roughly six in ten use TikTok and Instagram, and 55% use Snapchat (Pew Research Center). Just 20% of teens visit Facebook daily, compared with 73% for YouTube and 57% for TikTok (Pew Research Center). Facebook has become a service the newest generation mostly skips — a striking reversal for a company whose stated mission was connecting the world.

Yet the platform remains enormous and lucrative. Meta’s own second-quarter 2026 report put its “Family daily active people” — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and others combined — at 3.60 billion on average in June 2026, up 3% year over year, with quarterly revenue of $60.8 billion (Meta Platforms). The company no longer breaks out Facebook-only user numbers at all — itself a quiet signal of how the flagship app’s role has changed.

From a Harvard dorm room to a billion users

Facebook began on February 4, 2004, when sophomore Mark Zuckerberg launched TheFacebook from his Harvard dorm room with fellow students Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz and Eduardo Saverin (AP). By March it had spread to other colleges; in June the company moved to Palo Alto, California (AP). The founding was contested from the start: a lawsuit claimed Zuckerberg had stolen the idea from a company co-founded by twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and a third Harvard student. The Winklevosses settled with Facebook for $65 million in 2008 and ended their legal battle in 2011 (AP).

The service expanded in careful steps — high schools in September 2005, corporate email networks in May 2006 — before opening to anyone over 13 in September 2006 (AP). That same month Facebook introduced News Feed, which collected friends’ posts in one place; the privacy complaints it triggered were an early preview of the platform’s defining tension, and News Feed became one of its most popular features (AP).

Two 2007 moves shaped the business. In May, Facebook launched Platform, letting outside programmers build tools for sharing photos, taking quizzes and playing games — a system that gave rise to what the AP called a “Facebook economy” and let companies like game maker Zynga thrive (AP). In October, Microsoft bought a 1.6% stake for $240 million and forged an advertising partnership (AP). Then, in November, came Beacon — a feature that broadcast users’ activities on dozens of outside sites. The backlash was so severe that Facebook first gave users more control over it, then scrapped it entirely as part of a legal settlement (AP).

The milestones came fast after that: Sheryl Sandberg was hired as chief operating officer in March 2008, the Like button arrived in February 2009, Facebook surpassed News Corp.’s MySpace as the leading U.S. social network in June 2009, and a 2011 settlement with federal regulators over privacy violations forced independent audits of its data practices (AP). In February 2012 Facebook filed for its IPO; that April it announced the $1 billion Instagram acquisition; in May it priced the IPO at $38 a share. By October 2012 the company said it had 1 billion active users (AP).

The scandal that won’t close

The privacy backlash of the News Feed and Beacon eras never really ended — it scaled. Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, improperly harvested personal data from millions of Facebook users for targeted political advertising, particularly during the 2016 U.S. election and the Brexit referendum (DAWN). The firm bought its data from a personality-quiz app called “thisisyourdigitallife” that reached 270,000 users and their friends — ultimately touching roughly 87 million Facebook users worldwide (DAWN). Facebook knew Cambridge Analytica had purchased the harvested data in December 2015, but withheld disclosure until April 2018, after a whistleblower came forward — sparking a major political scandal (DAWN).

Eight years later, the case is still producing verdicts. On September 25, 2026, a jury in Santa Fe, New Mexico, found that Meta had deceived users about privacy protections on the platform, in a case linked to the Cambridge Analytica scandal (DAWN). Meta said it disagreed with the verdict and would keep defending itself; monetary penalties were left for the judge to set (DAWN). Meta’s own earnings release acknowledges it is monitoring youth-related legal matters, with trials scheduled in the U.S. in 2026 that “may ultimately result in a material loss” (Meta Platforms).

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not assert a Facebook-only user count for 2026 — Meta reports only family-wide daily actives now, and the older ~3-billion monthly figure is not re-verified here. It names four founders, consistent with this site’s Mark Zuckerberg profile, though some sources count five. The Instagram acquisition price is stated as announced ($1 billion); the closed deal was valued at about $740 million after Facebook’s stock dropped. The September 2026 New Mexico verdict’s penalties had not been set at the time of writing. The Pew teen data dates to late 2024 and describes U.S. teens only — it does not measure Facebook’s adult or non-U.S. audience, which remains the bulk of its users.