Users can also communicate directly with each other with Messenger, edit messages (within 15 minutes after sending),[10][11] join common-interest groups, and receive notifications on the activities of their Facebook friends and the pages they follow.
The subject of numerous controversies and lawsuits, Facebook has often been criticized over issues such as user privacy (as with the Cambridge Analytica data scandal), political manipulation (as with the 2016 U.S. elections) and mass surveillance.
[12] The company has also been subject to criticism over its psychological effects such as addiction and low self-esteem, and over content such as fake news, conspiracy theories, copyright infringement, and hate speech.
These facilities vary according to country, as some nations require the company to make data available (and limit access to services), while the European Union's GDPR regulation mandates additional privacy protections.
[125] In many countries the social networking sites and mobile apps have been blocked temporarily, intermittently, or permanently, including: Brazil,[148] China,[149] Iran,[150] Vietnam,[151] Pakistan,[152] Syria,[153] and North Korea.
[162] Facebook has been criticized for electricity usage,[163] tax avoidance,[164] real-name user requirement policies,[165] censorship[166][167] and its involvement in the United States PRISM surveillance program.
Specifics include copyright and intellectual property infringement,[179] hate speech,[180][181] incitement of rape[182] and terrorism,[183][184] fake news,[185][186][187] and crimes, murders, and livestreaming violent incidents.
[199] Since 2009, Facebook has been participating in the PRISM secret program, sharing with the US National Security Agency audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs from user profiles, among other social media services.
[212] Facebook was accused of committing "systemic" racial bias by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission based on the complaints of three rejected candidates and a current employee of the company.
"[230][231][232] Carol Davidsen, the Obama for America (OFA) former director of integration and media analytics, wrote that "Facebook was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn't stop us once they realised that was what we were doing".
[242] On December 19, 2019, security researcher Bob Diachenko discovered a database containing more than 267 million Facebook user IDs, phone numbers, and names that were left exposed on the web for anyone to access without a password or any other authentication.
[267] In November 2021, a report was published by Fairplay, Global Action Plan and Reset Australia detailing accusations that Facebook was continuing to manage their ad targeting system with data collected from teen users.
[199] In addition to publicly apologizing, Facebook has said that it will be reviewing and auditing thousands of apps that display "suspicious activities" in an effort to ensure that this breach of privacy does not happen again.
[288] In 2017, Facebook partnered with fact checkers from the Poynter Institute's international fact-checking network to identify and mark false content, though most ads from political candidates are exempt from this program.
In October 2020, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan urged Mark Zuckerberg, through a letter posted on government's Twitter account, to ban Islamophobic content on Facebook, warning that it encouraged extremism and violence.
[317][318][319] In 2018, Facebook said that during 2018 they had identified "coordinated inauthentic behavior" in "many Pages, Groups and accounts created to stir up political debate, including in the US, the Middle East, Russia and the UK.
"[327] In October 2018, The Daily Telegraph reported that Facebook "banned hundreds of pages and accounts that it says were fraudulently flooding its site with partisan political content – although they came from the United States instead of being associated with Russia.
[345] In the run-up to the 2020 United States elections, Eastern European troll farms operated popular Facebook pages showing content related to Christians and Blacks in America.
Citing the "exceptionally severe human rights abuses and the clear risk of future military-initiated violence in Myanmar", the tech giant also implemented the move on its subsidiary, Instagram.
[348] In March 2021, The Wall Street Journal's editorial board criticized Facebook's decision to fact-check its op-ed titled "We'll Have Herd immunity by April" written by surgeon Marty Makary, calling it "counter-opinion masquerading as fact checking.
[377] In 2018, a UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee report had criticized Facebook for its reluctance to investigate abuse of its platform by the Russian government, and for downplaying the extent of the problem, referring to the company as 'digital gangsters'.
[378][379][380]"Democracy is at risk from the malicious and relentless targeting of citizens with disinformation and personalised 'dark adverts' from unidentifiable sources, delivered through the major social media platforms we use every day," Damian Collins, DCMS Committee Chair[380]In February 2019, Glenn Greenwald wrote that a cybersecurity company New Knowledge, which is behind one of the Senate reports on Russian social media election interference, "was caught just six weeks ago engaging in a massive scam to create fictitious Russian troll accounts on Facebook and Twitter in order to claim that the Kremlin was working to defeat Democratic Senate nominee Doug Jones in Alabama.
[405][406] On February 24, Mohan challenged summons issued by the Delhi assembly for failing to appear before it as a witness in connection with the 2020 riots in the Supreme Court, saying that the 'right to silence' is a virtue in present 'noisy times' and the legislature had no authority to examine him in a law and order case.
[408] On September 23, 2023 it was reported that Facebook had delayed for about a year when in 2021, it removed a network of accounts ran by India's Chinar Corps which spread disinformation that would put Kashmiri journalists in danger.
[430][431] On January 6, 2022, France's data privacy regulatory body CNIL fined Facebook a 60 million euros for not allowing its internet users an easy refusal of cookies along with Google.
[434] A commentator in The Washington Post noted that Facebook constitutes a "massive depository of information that documents both our reactions to events and our evolving customs with a scope and immediacy of which earlier historians could only dream".
[450][451][452] Professor Larry D. Rosen stated that teenagers on Facebook exhibit more narcissistic tendencies, while young adults show signs of antisocial behavior, mania and aggressiveness[citation needed].
[474] A poll by CBS News, UWIRE and The Chronicle of Higher Education claimed to illustrate how the "Facebook effect" had affected youthful voters, increasing voting rates, support of political candidates, and general involvement.
Industry experts suggested[clarification needed] that there are several other ways for misinformation to reach voters on social media platforms and blocking political ads will not serve as a proven solution to the problem.
The 2010 film The Social Network, directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, stars Jesse Eisenberg as Zuckerberg and went on to win three Academy Awards and four Golden Globes.
