Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook from his Harvard dormitory room. An earlier inspiration for Facebook may have come from Phillips Exeter Academy, the prep school Zuckerberg graduated in 2002. It published its student directory, “The Photo Address Book,” which students referred to as “The Facebook.” Such photo directories were an essential part of the student social experience at many private schools. With them, students could list attributes such as their class years, friends, and telephone numbers.
Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth has fallen by more than $6 billion in a few hours, knocking him down a notch on the list of the world’s wealthiest people after outages took Facebook Inc.’s flagship products offline. A selloff sent the social-media giant’s stock plummeting 4.9% on Monday, adding to a drop of about 15% since mid-September. On Monday, the stock slide sent Zuckerberg’s worth down to $121.6 billion, dropping him below Bill Gates to No. 5 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. According to the index, he’s down the pecking order from losing almost $140 billion in a few weeks.
Apart from the shutdown, a whistleblower had earlier revealed that the company prioritized profit over the public good. Frances Haugen, a 37-year-old former Facebook employee, alleged that Facebook knows its platforms are used to spread hate, violence, and misinformation and that the company tried to hide that evidence. She filed complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that the company is hiding research about its shortcomings from investors and the public. Mark Zuckerberg posted a staunch defense of his company in a note to Facebook staffers, saying that recent claims by the ex-employee about the social network’s adverse effects on society “don’t make any sense.” After the shutdown, Mark released a statement on his page to address the situation. He discussed people’s argument that Facebook intentionally creates content that causes people to be angry for profit is unreasonable and doesn’t sound logical. Zuckerberg further stressed in the released memo, which can also be found on his Facebook wall, “We are making money from people’s ads, and advertisers occasionally inform us that they don’t want their ads to be placed next to harmful or toxic content. Also, he stressed that no technology company would create a product to get people angry or emotionally down. The moral, business, and product incentives all point in the opposite direction”. Zuckerberg has been noticeably silent on Haugen and the internal documents she gave to The Wall Street Journal until now. Sunday, the same day she revealed her identity on 60 Minutes, he posted a video of him sailing, which lawmakers later pointed to as evidence that he was avoiding scrutiny.
According to data on Downdetector, the three social media platforms owned by Mark Zuckerberg completely stopped working shortly before 5 pm (GMT+1) on Monday, leaving millions of users worried. In a Twitter post, Facebook said it is aware of the issue and working to fix it. “We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. Facebook further released a statement on their Twitter handle to express their concern and offer support to people affected by the shutdown and those who still have difficulties accessing their apps and products. They issued out apologies and vowed to get it resolved as quickly as possible. Instagram and WhatsApp also tweeted that they are currently fixing the issues.
