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Netizens have reacted to social media giant Facebook turning 21 today. It was created on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg and four other Harvard University students— Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.
During its initial days, membership was only restricted to Harvard University students. It gradually expanded to include students from all North American universities. In 2006, Facebook started allowing everyone above 13 to register, except in some nations where the age requirement was 14 years.
As per Meta's official reports, there were over 3.07 billion Facebook users in the last quarter of 2023. Another separate analysis (published by Oberlo) suggests that the number of users is projected to reach 3.11 billion by 2027.
Several users took to X to celebrate the social media giant's 21st birthday. Among them, user @moderatelywarm quipped about the social media giant reaching the legal drinking age in the United States. They commented:
"You mean Facebook can walk into a bar now?"
"Facebook older than the majority of people on the internet these days," added another.
"Hopefully he gets drinks now that he can and changes that attitude," joked another user on X.
"Happy adulthood to the Facebook," another user chimed in.
"It’s been drunk for years and everybody knows it," wrote another.
A netizen took a dig at Mark Zuckerberg, commenting:
"Zuckerberg has been ruining social media for 21 years, it’s insane"
"Congratulations to Facebook. I can't believe it's been that many years," declared another person on X.
"I did not realize Facebook was around in 2004, that is wild," added a user.
Some other reactions on X are as follows:
"I'm older than Facebook and I barely use it," a user commented.
"Younger than Nicki," quipped another.
"Nowadays all are using x and Instagram," inferred another user on X.
Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg says Meta was "too dismissive" of TikTok in leaked recording
Mark Zuckerberg recently acknowledged that Facebook's parent company, Meta, was too slow to predict TikTok's meteoric rise in the social media industry. According to him, Meta's executives didn't consider short videos as truly social—an oversight that pushed them behind in the social media race.
Mark Zuckerberg commented on the same in an all-hands meeting, recordings of which were obtained by Business Insider. An employee asked whether Meta's current focus on artificial intelligence might make them miss the next social media trend, similar to what happened with TikTok. Zuckerberg responded by saying:
"When I look back on TikTok, I think part of the reason why we were slow to it is because we didn't think TikTok was social. We looked at it and we thought, 'Oh, this is like, a little more like YouTube."
According to the 40-year-old tech mogul, Meta construed social media interaction as something that was restricted to friends posting about each other and commenting on the same. They allegedly failed to recognize that the act of sharing TikTok content was becoming a primary source of communication among friends.
"Because we were too dismissive up front, it wasn't just about people commenting in the feed. It was about people seeing stuff in their feed and then sharing it into message threads," he explained.
Zuckerberg also touched on TikTok's uncertain future in the United States. After getting banned for a day, President Donald Trump signed an executive order, allowing TikTok to operate within the United States for 75 days. If owner ByteDance doesn't divest from TikTok within that time, the company will be forced to shut its operations within the country.
"We don't have control of what's going to happen to Tiktok. We have a lot of competitors, but they're an important one. So, who's gonna own Tiktok at the end of the year? What's gonna happen? I mean, that's a pretty big deal, something that's a card that we get to turn over," explained the Meta boss.
Talking about the future, Zuckerberg emphasized that the company needed to avoid "too narrow of a view" while navigating the advancements of artificial intelligence. He also outlined his vision of the future of social media feeds centered around AI. According to him, the feeds will feature AI-powered agents that will communicate with the users and make their experience more immersive.
Meta did not respond to Business Insider's request for comment on Zuckerberg's remarks.
