Assignment `1-4 Facebook

For this week’s analysis I chose the culture topic, Facebook. Facebook is a social networking site that allows users to virtually communicate with people through posts, videos, pictures, and even games. I chose this topic because Facebook has greatly influenced today’s culture. This website was founded in 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg. Since July 2010, Facebook has grown to over 500 million users (Facebook Inc., 2011).It has changed the way many people communicate with each other, and helped them reconnect with friends and family.

 There has been widespread media attention towards the young founder and CEO of the website, Mark Zuckerberg. He began the website as a Harvard sophomore to Harvard students, then to high school and college students (Facebook Inc., 2011). It quickly transgressed into the one of the largest social networking sites, overtaking MySpace. A movie was made called, The Social Network, about how the founder went from rags to riches in a couple years. While Mark Zuckerberg has downplayed the movie, as simply fiction, many of the ideas inspired by the story are true. For example, three other Harvard students have claimed that they originally came up with the idea for Facebook, and there is a pending legal lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook Inc., 2011).

In addition to the possible controversy and legal trouble, Facebook also has posed some privacy concerns for people with Facebook accounts. If you do not adjust your privacy settings on Facebook, anyone that has an account with Facebook can access your private information, such as photos, personal info, and wall posts. However, you can adjust your Facebook to allow as much or little information to be allowed by other users. Also many viruses have leaked through Facebook that have been despised as videos, “fake” friends, and through instant messages. I have myself, fallen victim to one of these viruses that integrated my entire system. This virus caused me to run antivirus protection software, and delete all of the dangerous Trojans. Now I am much more careful when opening up messages and aware of what I do on Facebook.

Despite the concern over Facebook’s legal trouble, privacy issues, and viruses; Facebook has still revolutionized the way people communicate and connect with each other around the world. It has allowed people to transfer information, join groups, and voice their opinion to many people at once. I believe that the outcome of Facebooks’effects on society will remain mostly positive as it allows a rapid exchange of vast sources of communication instantly. This empire has reached millions of people who continue to join daily, and has created a new market in the business world. 

References:  

Facebook Inc. (2011, March 29). Business Day. Retrieved April 1, 2011, from The New York Times: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/facebook_inc/index.html