The first social network to reach this kind of global scale, Facebook is the social media giant to which other platforms are still trying to catch up, championing almost three billion monthly active users (MAU) as of January 2023. Since being founded in 2004, Facebook has seen many controversies and changes, the most recent one being a major rebranding and a name change in 2021. The platform’s parent company Facebook Inc. became Meta Platforms, and the eponymous social network is now part of Meta’s Family of Apps, alongside WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger – a move similarly employed by Alphabet née Google to broaden the scope of its operations.
