5/12/25, 1:42 PM Meta Platforms - Wikipedia

Meta Platforms
Meta Platforms, Inc. is an American
Meta Platforms, Inc.
multinational technology company headquartered in
Menlo Park, California. Meta owns and operates
several prominent social media platforms and
communication services, including Facebook,
Instagram, Threads, Messenger and WhatsApp. The
company also operates an advertising network for its
own sites and third parties; as of 2023, advertising
accounted for 97.8 percent of its total revenue.[9]

The company was originally established in 2004 as

TheFacebook, Inc.,[10] and was renamed
Facebook, Inc. in 2005.[11] In 2021, it rebranded
Headquarters in Menlo Park, California
as Meta Platforms, Inc. to reflect a strategic shift
Trade name Meta
toward developing the metaverse—an interconnected
digital ecosystem spanning virtual and augmented Formerly TheFacebook, Inc.
reality technologies.[12][13][14][15] (2004‍–‍2005)
Facebook, Inc. (2005–2021)
Meta is considered one of the Big Five American
Company type Public
technology companies, alongside Alphabet (Google),
Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. In 2023, it was Traded as Nasdaq: META ([Link]
[Link]/market-activity/st
ranked 31st on the Forbes Global 2000 list of the
ocks/meta) (Class A)
world's largest public companies.[16] As of 2022, it
Nasdaq-100 component
was the world's third-largest spender on research
and development, with R&D expenses totaling S&P 100 component

US$35.3 billion.[17] S&P 500 component

Industry Social media
Advertising
History Founded January 4, 2004 in
Cambridge, Massachusetts,
Facebook filed for an initial public offering (IPO) on U.S.
January 1, 2012.[18] The preliminary prospectus Founders Mark Zuckerberg
stated that the company sought to raise $5 billion,
Eduardo Saverin
had 845 million monthly active users, and a website
Andrew McCollum
accruing 2.7 billion likes and comments daily.[19]
Dustin Moskovitz
After the IPO, Zuckerberg would retain 22% of the
total shares and 57% of the total voting power in Chris Hughes

Facebook.[20] Headquarters Menlo Park, California, U.S.

Area served Worldwide
Underwriters valued the shares at $38 each, valuing
Key people Mark Zuckerberg (Chairman
the company at $104 billion, the largest valuation yet
and CEO)
for a newly public company.[21] On May 16, one day
Javier Olivan (COO)
before the IPO, Facebook announced it would sell
Andrew Bosworth (CTO)
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25% more shares than originally planned due to high Chris Cox (CPO)
demand.[22] The IPO raised $16 billion, making it Products Facebook · Instagram ·
the third-largest in US history (slightly ahead of Messenger · Threads ·
AT&T Mobility and behind only General Motors and WhatsApp · Workplace
Visa). The stock price left the company with a higher Revenue US$164.5 billion (2024)
market capitalization than all but a few U.S. US$69.4 billion (2024)
Operating
corporations—surpassing heavyweights such as income
Amazon, McDonald's, Disney, and Kraft Foods—and US$62.4 billion (2024)
Net income
made Zuckerberg's stock worth $19 billion.[23][24]
Total assets US$276.1 billion (2024)
The New York Times stated that the offering
overcame questions about Facebook's difficulties in Total equity US$182.6 billion (2024)
attracting advertisers to transform the company into Owner Mark Zuckerberg (13.68%
a "must-own stock". Jimmy Lee of JPMorgan Chase equity; 61.2% voting)[1]
described it as "the next great blue-chip".[23] Writers Number of 76,834 (Mar. 2025)
at TechCrunch, on the other hand, expressed employees
skepticism, stating, "That's a big multiple to live up Divisions Reality Labs · Mapillary
to, and Facebook will likely need to add bold new
ASN 32934 ([Link]
revenue streams to justify the mammoth
934)
valuation."[25]
Website [Link] ([Link]
Trading in the stock, which began on May 18, was com/)
delayed that day due to technical problems with the Footnotes / references
[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]
Nasdaq exchange.[26] The stock struggled to stay
above the IPO price for most of the day, forcing
underwriters to buy back shares to support the price.[27] At
the closing bell, shares were valued at $38.23,[28] only
$0.23 above the IPO price and down $3.82 from the
opening bell value. The opening was widely described by
the financial press as a disappointment.[29] The stock
nonetheless set a new record for trading volume of an
IPO.[30] On May 25, 2012, the stock ended its first full
week of trading at $31.91, a 16.5% decline.[31]

On May 22, 2012, regulators from Wall Street's Financial

Billboard on the Thomson Reuters
Industry Regulatory Authority announced that they had
building welcomes Facebook to Nasdaq,
begun to investigate whether banks underwriting Facebook
2012
had improperly shared information only with select clients
rather than the general public. Massachusetts Secretary of
State William F. Galvin subpoenaed Morgan Stanley over
the same issue.[32] The allegations sparked "fury" among
some investors and led to the immediate filing of several
lawsuits, one of them a class action suit claiming more
than $2.5 billion in losses due to the IPO.[33] Bloomberg
estimated that retail investors may have lost approximately
$630 million on Facebook stock since its debut.[34] S&P
Global Ratings added Facebook to its S&P 500 index on
December 21, 2013.[35] Early chart of Facebook's stock

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On May 2, 2014, Zuckerberg announced that the company

would be changing its internal motto from "Move fast and
break things" to "Move fast with stable Facebook corporate logo from 2019 to
infrastructure". [36][37] The earlier motto had been 2021
described as Zuckerberg's "prime directive to his
developers and team" in a 2009 interview in Business
Insider, in which he also said, "Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough."[38]

2018–2020: Focus on the metaverse

Lasso was a short-video sharing app from Facebook similar to TikTok that was launched on iOS
and Android in 2018 and was aimed at teenagers. On July 2, 2020, Facebook announced that
Lasso would be shutting down on July 10.[39][40][41]

In 2018, the Oculus lead Jason Rubin sent his 50-page vision document titled "The Metaverse" to
Facebook's leadership. In the document, Rubin acknowledged that Facebook's virtual reality
business had not caught on as expected, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on
content for early adopters. He also urged the company to execute fast and invest heavily in the
vision, to shut out HTC, Apple, Google and other competitors in the VR space. Regarding other
players' participation in the metaverse vision, he called for the company to build the "metaverse" to
prevent their competitors from "being in the VR business in a meaningful way at all".[42]

In May 2019, Facebook founded Libra Networks, reportedly to develop their own stablecoin
cryptocurrency.[43] Later, it was reported that Libra was being supported by financial companies
such as Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Uber. The consortium of companies was expected to pool in
$10 million each to fund the launch of the cryptocurrency coin named Libra.[44] Depending on
when it would receive approval from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory authority to operate
as a payments service, the Libra Association had planned to launch a limited format
cryptocurrency in 2021.[45] Libra was renamed Diem, before being shut down and sold in January
2022 after backlash from Swiss government regulators and the public.[46][47]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of online services, including Facebook, grew globally.[48]
Zuckerberg predicted this would be a "permanent acceleration" that would continue after the
pandemic. Facebook hired aggressively, growing from 48,268 employees in March 2020 to more
than 87,000 by September 2022.[48]

2021: Rebrand as Meta

Following a period of intense scrutiny and damaging whistleblower leaks, news started to emerge
on October 21, 2021 about Facebook's plan to rebrand the company and change its name.[12][49] In
the Q3 2021 Earnings Call on October 25, Mark Zuckerberg discussed the ongoing criticism of the
company's social services and the way it operates, and pointed to the pivoting efforts to building
the metaverse – without mentioning the rebranding and the name change.[50] The metaverse
vision and the name change from Facebook, Inc. to Meta Platforms was introduced at Facebook
Connect on October 28, 2021.[13] Based on Facebook's PR campaign, the name change reflects the
company's shifting long term focus of building the metaverse, a digital extension of the physical
world by social media, virtual reality and augmented reality features.[13][51]

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"Meta" had been registered as a trademark in the United States in 2018 (after an initial filing in
2015) for marketing, advertising, and computer services, by a Canadian company that provided big
data analysis of scientific literature.[52] This company was acquired in 2017 by the Chan
Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), a foundation established by Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan,
and became one of their projects.[53] Following the rebranding announcement, CZI announced
that it had already decided to deprioritize the earlier Meta project, thus it would be transferring its
rights to the name to Meta Platforms, and the previous project would end in 2022.[54]

2022: Declining profits and mass lay-offs

Soon after the rebranding, in early February 2022, Meta reported a greater-than-expected decline
in profits in the fourth quarter of 2021.[55] It reported no growth in monthly users,[56] and
indicated it expected revenue growth to stall.[55] It also expected measures taken by Apple Inc. to
protect user privacy to cost it some $10 billion in advertisement revenue, an amount equal to
roughly 8% of its revenue for 2021.[57] In meeting with Meta staff the day after earnings were
reported, Zuckerberg blamed competition for user attention, particularly from video-based apps
such as TikTok.[58]

The 27% reduction in the company's share price which occurred in reaction to the news eliminated
some $230 billion of value from Meta's market capitalization.[56] Bloomberg described the decline
as "an epic rout that, in its sheer scale, is unlike anything Wall Street or Silicon Valley has ever
seen".[56] Zuckerberg's net worth fell by as much as $31 billion.[59] Zuckerberg owns 13% of Meta,
and the holding makes up the bulk of his wealth.[60][61]

According to published reports by Bloomberg on March 30, 2022, Meta turned over data such as
phone numbers, physical addresses, and IP addresses to hackers posing as law enforcement
officials using forged documents. The law enforcement requests sometimes included forged
signatures of real or fictional officials. When asked about the allegations, a Meta representative
said, "We review every data request for legal sufficiency and use advanced systems and processes
to validate law enforcement requests and detect abuse."[62] In June 2022, Sheryl Sandberg, the
chief operating officer of 14 years, announced she would step down that year. Zuckerberg said that
Javier Olivan would replace Sandberg, though in a “more traditional” role.[63]

In March 2022, Meta (except Meta-owned WhatsApp) and Instagram were banned in Russia and
added to the Russian list of terrorist and extremist organizations for alleged Russophobia and hate
speech (up to genocidal calls) amid the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.[64] Meta appealed
against the ban, but it was upheld by a Moscow court in June of the same year.[64]

Also in March 2022, Meta and Italian eyewear giant Luxottica released Ray-Ban Stories, a series of
smartglasses which could play music and take pictures. Meta and Luxottica parent company
EssilorLuxottica declined to disclose sales on the line of products as of September 2022, though
Meta has expressed satisfaction with its customer feedback.[65][66][67]

In July 2022, Meta saw its first year-on-year revenue decline when its total revenue slipped by 1%
to $28.8bn.[68] Analysts and journalists accredited the loss to its advertising business, which has
been limited by Apple's app tracking transparency feature and the number of people who have
opted not to be tracked by Meta apps. Zuckerberg also accredited the decline to increasing
competition from TikTok.[69][70][71] On October 27, 2022, Meta's market value dropped to $268
billion, a loss of around $700 billion compared to 2021, and its shares fell by 24%. It lost its spot
among the top 20 US companies by market cap, despite reaching the top 5 in the previous year.[72]
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In November 2022, Meta laid off 11,000 employees, 13% of its workforce. Zuckerberg said the
decision to aggressively increase Meta's investments had been a mistake, as he had wrongly
predicted that the surge in e-commerce would last beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. He also
attributed the decline to increased competition, a global economic downturn and "ads signal
loss".[73] Plans to lay off a further 10,000 employees began in April 2023.[74] The layoffs were part
of a general downturn in the technology industry, alongside layoffs by companies including Google,
Amazon, Tesla, Snap, Twitter and Lyft.[75][76]

Starting from 2022, Meta scrambled to catch up to other tech companies in adopting specialized
artificial intelligence hardware and software. It had been using less expensive CPUs instead of
GPUs for AI work, but that approach turned out to be less efficient.[77]

Since 2023: Threads, AI and all-time high stock value

In 2023, Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner imposed a record EUR 1.2 billion fine on Meta
for transferring data from Europe to the United States without adequate protections for EU
citizens.[78]: 250

In March 2023, Meta announced a new round of layoffs that would cut 10,000 employees and
close 5,000 open positions to make the company more efficient.[79] Meta revenue surpassed
analyst expectations for the first quarter of 2023 after announcing that it was increasing its focus
on AI.[80] On July 6, Meta launched a new app, Threads, a competitor to Twitter.[81]

Meta announced its artificial intelligence model Llama 2 in July 2023, available for commercial
use via partnerships with major cloud providers like Microsoft. It was the first project to be
unveiled out of Meta's generative AI group after it was set up in February. It would not charge
access or usage but instead operate with an open-source model to allow Meta to ascertain what
improvements need to be made. Prior to this announcement, Meta said it had no plans to release
Llama 2 for commercial use. An earlier version of Llama was released to academics.[82][83]

In August 2023, Meta announced its permanent removal of news content from Facebook and
Instagram in Canada due to the Online News Act, which requires Canadian news outlets to be
compensated for content shared on its platform. The Online News Act was in effect by year-end,
but Meta will not participate in the regulatory process.[84] In October 2023, Zuckerberg said that
AI would be Meta's biggest investment area in 2024.[85] Meta finished 2023 as one of the best-
performing technology stocks of the year, with its share price up 150 percent.[86] Its stock reached
an all-time high in January 2024, bringing Meta within 2% of achieving $1 trillion market
capitalization.[87]

In November 2023 Meta Platforms launched an ad-free service in Europe, allowing subscribers to
opt-out of personal data being collected for targeted advertising. A group of 28 European
organizations, including Max Schrems' advocacy group NOYB, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties,
Wikimedia Europe, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, signed a 2024 letter to the
European Data Protection Board (EDPB) expressing concern that this subscriber model would
undermine privacy protections, specifically GDPR data protection standards.[88]

Meta removed the Facebook and Instagram accounts of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in
February 2024, citing repeated violations of its Dangerous Organizations & Individuals policy.[89]
As of March, Meta was under investigation by the FDA for alleged use of their social media

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platforms to sell illegal drugs.[90]

On 16 May 2024, the European Commission began an
investigation into Meta over concerns related to child safety.[91][92][93][94]

In May 2023, Iraqi social media influencer Esaa Ahmed-Adnan encountered a troubling issue
when Instagram removed his posts, citing false copyright violations despite his content being
original and free from copyrighted material. He discovered that extortionists were behind these
takedowns, offering to restore his content for $3,000 or provide ongoing protection for $1,000 per
month. This scam, exploiting Meta’s rights management tools, became widespread in the Middle
East, revealing a gap in Meta’s enforcement in developing regions. An Iraqi nonprofit Tech4Peace’s
founder, Aws al-Saadi helped Ahmed-Adnan and others, but the restoration process was slow,
leading to significant financial losses for many victims, including prominent figures like Ammar al-
Hakim. This situation highlighted Meta’s challenges in balancing global growth with effective
content moderation and protection.[95]

On 16 September 2024, Meta announced it had banned Russian state media outlets from its
platforms worldwide due to concerns about "foreign interference activity." This decision followed
allegations that RT and its employees funneled $10 million through shell companies to secretly
fund influence campaigns on various social media channels. Meta's actions were part of a broader
effort to counter Russian covert influence operations, which had intensified since the invasion.[96]

At its 2024 Connect conference, Meta presented Orion,[97] its first pair of augmented reality
glasses. Though Orion was originally intended to be sold to consumers, the manufacturing process
turned out to be too complex and expensive.[98] Instead, the company pivoted to producing a small
number of the glasses to be used internally.[99]

On 4 October 2024, Meta announced about its new AI model called Movie Gen, capable of
generating realistic video and audio clips based on user prompts. Meta stated it would not release
Movie Gen for open development, preferring to collaborate directly with content creators and
integrate it into its products by the following year. The model was built using a combination of
licensed and publicly available datasets.[100]

On October 31, 2024, ProPublica published an investigation into deceptive political advertisement
scams that sometimes use hundreds of hijacked profiles and facebook pages run by organized
networks of scammers. The authors cited spotty enforcement by Meta as a major reason for the
extent of the issue.[101]

In November 2024, TechCrunch reported that Meta were considering building a $10bn global
underwater cable spanning 25,000 miles.[102]

In the same month, Meta closed down 2 million accounts on Facebook and Instagram that were
linked to scam centers in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines, and the United Arab
Emirates doing pig butchering scams.[103]

In December 2024, Meta announced that, beginning February 2025, they would require
advertisers to run ads about financial services in Australia to verify information about who are the
beneficiary and the payer in a bid to regulate scams.[104]

On December 4, 2024, Meta announced it will invest US$10 billion for its largest AI data center in
northeast Louisiana, powered by natural gas facilities.[105]

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On the 11th of that month, Meta experienced a global outage, impacting accounts on all of their
social media and messaging applications. Outage reports from DownDetector reached 70,000+
and 100,000+ within minutes for Instagram and Facebook, respectively.[106]

In January 2025, Meta announced plans to roll back its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)
initiatives, citing shifts in the "legal and policy landscape" in the United States following the 2024
presidential election. The decision followed reports that CEO Mark Zuckerberg sought to align the
company more closely with the incoming Trump administration, including changes to content
moderation policies and executive leadership.[107] The new content moderation policies continued
to bar insults about a person's intellect or mental illness, but made an exception to allow calling
LGBTQ people mentally ill because they are gay or transgender.[108] Later that month, Meta
agreed to pay $25 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit brought by Donald Trump for suspending his
social media accounts after the January 6 riots.[109] Changes to Meta's moderation policies were
controversial among its oversight board, with a significant divide in opinion between the board's
US conservatives and its global members.[110]

Mergers and acquisitions

Meta has acquired multiple companies (often identified as talent acquisitions).[111] One of its first
major acquisitions was in April 2012, when it acquired Instagram for approximately US$1 billion
in cash and stock.[112] In October 2013, Facebook, Inc. acquired Onavo, an Israeli mobile web
analytics company.[113][114] In February 2014, Facebook, Inc. announced it would buy mobile
messaging company WhatsApp for US$19 billion in cash and stock.[115][116] Later that year,
Facebook bought Oculus VR for $2.3 billion in cash and stock,[117] which released its first
consumer virtual reality headset in 2016. In late November 2019, Facebook, Inc. announced the
acquisition of the game developer Beat Games, responsible for developing one of that year's most
popular VR games, Beat Saber.[118] In Late 2022, after Facebook Inc rebranded to Meta Platforms
Inc, Oculus was rebranded to Meta Quest.

In May 2020, Facebook, Inc. announced it had acquired Giphy for a reported cash price of $400
million. It will be integrated with the Instagram team.[119] However, in August 2021, UK's
Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) stated that Facebook, Inc. might have to sell Giphy,
after an investigation found that the deal between the two companies would harm competition in
display advertising market.[120] Facebook, Inc. was fined $70 million by CMA for deliberately
failing to report all information regarding the acquisition and the ongoing antitrust
investigation.[121] In October 2022, the CMA ruled for a second time that Meta be required to
divest Giphy, stating that Meta already controls half of the advertising in the UK. Meta agreed to
the sale, though it stated that it disagrees with the decision itself.[122] In May 2023, Giphy was
divested to Shutterstock for $53 million.[123]

In November 2020, Facebook, Inc. announced that it planned to purchase the customer-service
platform and chatbot specialist startup Kustomer to promote companies to use their platform for
business. It has been reported that Kustomer valued at slightly over $1 billion.[124] The deal was
closed in February 2022 after regulatory approval.[125]

In September 2022, Meta acquired Lofelt, a Berlin-based haptic tech startup.[126]

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Lobbying
In 2020, Facebook, Inc. spent $19.7 million on lobbying, hiring 79 lobbyists. In 2019, it had spent
$16.7 million on lobbying and had a team of 71 lobbyists, up from $12.6 million and 51 lobbyists in
2018.[127] Facebook was the largest spender of lobbying money among the Big Tech companies in
2020.[128] The lobbying team includes top congressional aide John Branscome, who was hired in
September 2021, to help the company fend off threats from Democratic lawmakers and the Biden
administration.[129]

In December 2024, Meta donated $1 million to the inauguration fund for then-President-elect
Donald Trump.[130]

Censorship
In August 2024, Mark Zuckerberg sent a letter to Jim Jordan indicating that during the COVID-19
pandemic the Biden administration repeatedly asked Meta to limit certain COVID-19 content,
including humor and satire, on Facebook and Instagram.[131]

In 2016 Meta hired Jordana Cutler, formerly an employee at the Israeli Embassy to the United
States, as its policy chief for Israel and the Jewish Diaspora. In this role, Cutler pushed for the
censorship of accounts belonging to Students for Justice in Palestine chapters in the United States.
Critics have said that Cutler's position gives the Israeli government an undue influence over Meta
policy, and that few countries have such high levels of contact with Meta policymakers.[132]

Following the election of Donald Trump in 2025, various sources noted possible censorship related
to the Democratic Party on Instagram and other Meta platforms.[133][134][135] In February 2025, a
Meta rep flagged journalist Gil Duran's article and other "critiques of tech industry figures" as
spam or sensitive content, limiting their reach.[136]

In March 2025, Meta attempted to block former employee Sarah Wynn-Williams from promoting
or further distributing her memoir, Careless People, that includes allegations of unaddressed
sexual harassment in the workplace by senior executives. The New York Times reports that the
arbitration is among Meta's most forcible attempts to repudiate a former employee's account of
workplace dynamics.[137] Publisher Macmillan reacted to the ruling by the Emergency
International Arbitral Tribunal by stating that it will ignore its provisions.[138] As of
15 March 2025, hardback and digital versions of Careless People were being offered for sale by
major online retailers.

Disinformation concerns
Since its inception, Meta has been accused of being a host for fake news and misinformation.[139]
In the wake of the 2016 United States presidential election, Zuckerberg began to take steps to
eliminate the prevalence of fake news, as the platform had been criticized for its potential influence
on the outcome of the election.[140] The company initially partnered with ABC News, the
Associated Press, [Link], Snopes and PolitiFact for its fact-checking initiative;[141] as of
2018, it had over 40 fact-checking partners across the world, including The Weekly Standard.[142]

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A May 2017 review by The Guardian found that the platform's fact-checking initiatives of
partnering with third-party fact-checkers and publicly flagging fake news were regularly
ineffective, and appeared to be having minimal impact in some cases.[143] In 2018, journalists
working as fact-checkers for the company criticized the partnership, stating that it had produced
minimal results and that the company had ignored their concerns.[142]

In 2024 Meta's decision to continue to disseminate a falsified video of US president Joe Biden,
even after it had been proven to be fake, attracted criticism and concern.[144][145]

Misinformation and hate speech

In January 2025, Meta ended its use of third-party fact-checkers in favor of a user-run community
notes system similar to the one used on X.[146][147]

While Zuckerberg supported these changes, saying that the amount of censorship on the platform
was excessive, the decision received criticism by fact-checking institutions, stating that the changes
would make it more difficult for users to identify misinformation.[148] Meta also faced criticism for
weakening its policies on hate speech that were designed to protect minorities and LGBTQ+
individuals from bullying and discrimination.[149][150][151] While moving its content review teams
from California to Texas, Meta changed their hateful conduct policy to eliminate restrictions on
anti-LGBT and anti-immigrant hate speech, as well as explicitly allowing users to accuse LGBT
people of being mentally ill or abnormal based on their sexual orientation or gender
identity.[152][153][154][155]

In January 2025, Meta faced significant criticism for its role in removing LGBTQ+ content from its
platforms, amid its broader efforts to address anti-LGBTQ+ hate speech. The removal of LGBTQ+
themes was noted as part of the wider crackdown on content deemed to violate its community
guidelines. Meta's content moderation policies, which were designed to combat harmful speech
and protect users from discrimination, inadvertently led to the removal or restriction of LGBTQ+
content, particularly posts highlighting LGBTQ+ identities, support, or political issues. According
to reports, LGBTQ+ posts, including those that simply celebrated pride or advocated for LGBTQ+
rights, were flagged and removed for reasons that some critics argue were vague or inconsistently
applied. Many LGBTQ+ activists and users on Meta's platforms expressed concern that such
actions stifled visibility and expression, potentially isolating LGBTQ+ individuals and
communities, especially in spaces that were historically important for outreach and
support.[149][151][150]

Lawsuits
Numerous lawsuits have been filed against the company, both when it was known as Facebook,
Inc., and as Meta Platforms.

In March 2020, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) sued Facebook, for
significant and persistent infringements of the rule on privacy involving the Cambridge Analytica
fiasco. Every violation of the Privacy Act is subject to a theoretical cumulative liability of $1.7
million. The OAIC estimated that a total of 311,127 Australians had been exposed.[156]

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On December 8, 2020, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and 46 states (excluding Alabama,
Georgia, South Carolina, and South Dakota), the District of Columbia and the territory of Guam,
launched Federal Trade Commission v. Facebook as an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook. The
lawsuit concerns Facebook's acquisition of two competitors—Instagram and WhatsApp—and the
ensuing monopolistic situation. FTC alleges that Facebook holds monopolistic power in the U.S.
social networking market and seeks to force the company to divest from Instagram and WhatsApp
to break up the conglomerate.[157] William Kovacic, a former chairman of the Federal Trade
Commission, argued the case will be difficult to win as it would require the government to create a
counterfactual argument of an internet where the Facebook-WhatsApp-Instagram entity did not
exist, and prove that harmed competition or consumers.[158]

On December 24, 2021, a court in Russia fined Meta for $27 million after the company declined to
remove unspecified banned content. The fine was reportedly tied to the company's annual revenue
in the country.[159]

In May 2022, a lawsuit was filed in Kenya against Meta and its local outsourcing company Sama.
Allegedly, Meta has poor working conditions in Kenya for workers moderating Facebook posts.
According to the lawsuit, 260 screeners were declared redundant with confusing reasoning. The
lawsuit seeks financial compensation and an order that outsourced moderators be given the same
health benefits and pay scale as Meta employees.[160][161]

In June 2022, 8 lawsuits were filed across the U.S. over the allege that excessive exposure to
platforms including Facebook and Instagram has led to attempted or actual suicides, eating
disorders and sleeplessness, among other issues. The litigation follows a former Facebook
employee's testimony in Congress that the company refused to take responsibility. The company
noted that tools have been developed for parents to keep track of their children's activity on
Instagram and set time limits, in addition to Meta's "Take a break" reminders. In addition, the
company is providing resources specific to eating disorders as well as developing AI to prevent
children under the age of 13 signing up for Facebook or Instagram.[162]

In June 2022, Meta settled a lawsuit with the US Department of Justice. The lawsuit, which was
filed in 2019, alleged that the company enabled housing discrimination through targeted
advertising, as it allowed homeowners and landlords to run housing ads excluding people based on
sex, race, religion, and other characteristics. The U.S. Department of Justice stated that this was in
violation of the Fair Housing Act. Meta was handed a penalty of $115,054 and given until
December 31, 2022, to shadow the algorithm tool.[163][164][165]

In January 2023, Meta was fined €390 million for violations of the European Union General Data
Protection Regulation.[166]

In May 2023, the European Data Protection Board fined Meta a record €1.2 billion for breaching
European Union data privacy laws by transferring personal data of Facebook users to servers in the
U.S.[167]

In July 2024, Meta agreed to pay the state of Texas US$1.4 billion to settle a lawsuit brought by
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton accusing the company of collecting users' biometric data
without consent, setting a record for the largest privacy-related settlement ever obtained by a state
attorney general.[168]

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In October 2024, Meta Platforms faced lawsuits in Japan from 30 plaintiffs who claimed they were
defrauded by fake investment ads on Facebook and Instagram, featuring false celebrity
endorsements. The plaintiffs are seeking approximately 2.8 million dollars in damages.[169]

In April 2025, the Kenyan High Court ruled that a US$2.4 billion lawsuit in which three plaintiffs
claim that Facebook inflamed civil violence in Ethiopia in 2021 could proceed.[170]

In April 2025, Meta was fined 200 million euros ($230 million) for breaking the Digital Markets
Act, by imposing a “consent or pay” system that forces users to either allow their personal data to
be used to target advertisements, or pay a subscription fee for advertising-free versions of
Facebook and Instagram.[171]

In late April 2025, a case was filed against Meta in Ghana over the alleged psychological distress
experienced by content moderators employed to take down disturbing social media content
including depictions of murders, extreme violence and child sexual abuse.[172] Meta moved the
moderation service to the Ghanaian capital of Accra after legal issues in the previous location
Kenya. The new moderation company is Teleperformance, a multinational corporation with a
history of worker's rights violation.[173] Reports suggests the conditions are worse here than in the
previous Kenyan location, with many workers afraid of speaking out due to fear of returning to
conflict zones. Workers reported developing mental illnesses, attempted suicides, and low pay.[173]

Structure

Management
Meta's key management consists of:[174][175]

Mark Zuckerberg, chairman and chief executive officer

Javier Olivan, chief operating officer
Sir Nick Clegg, president, global affairs
Susan Li, chief financial officer
Andrew Bosworth, chief technology officer Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder, chairman
David Wehner, chief strategy officer and CEO of Meta, in 2012

Chris Cox, chief product officer

Jennifer Newstead, chief legal officer
As of October 2022, Meta had 83,553 employees worldwide.

Board of directors
As of June 2024, Meta's board consisted of the following directors;[176]

Mark Zuckerberg (chairman, co-founder, controlling shareholder, and chief executive officer)
Peggy Alford (non-executive director, executive vice president, global sales, PayPal)
Marc Andreessen (non-executive director, co-founder and general partner, Andreessen
Horowitz)
Drew Houston (non-executive director, chairman and chief executive officer, Dropbox)
Nancy Killefer (non-executive director, senior partner, McKinsey & Company)
Robert M. Kimmitt (non-executive director, senior international counsel, WilmerHale)
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Tracey Travis (non-executive director, executive vice president, chief financial officer, Estée
Lauder Companies)
Tony Xu (non-executive director, chairman and chief executive officer, DoorDash)
Hock Tan (CEO of Broadcom) [177]
John D. Arnold (former Enron executive) [177]
Dana White (non-executive director, president and CEO of UFC)[178]
John Elkann (Stellantis chairman, and Exor CEO)[179]
Charlie Songhurst[180]

Company governance
Roger McNamee, an early Facebook investor and Zuckerberg's former mentor, said Facebook had
"the most centralized decision-making structure I have ever encountered in a large company".[181]

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes has stated that chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg has too
much power, that the company is now a monopoly, and that, as a result, it should be split into
multiple smaller companies. In an op-ed in The New York Times, Hughes said he was concerned
that Zuckerberg had surrounded himself with a team that did not challenge him, and that it is the
U.S. government's job to hold him accountable and curb his "unchecked power".[182] He also said
that "Mark's power is unprecedented and un-American."[183] Several U.S. politicians agreed with
Hughes.[184] European Union Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager stated that
splitting Facebook should be done only as "a remedy of the very last resort", and that it would not
solve Facebook's underlying problems.[185]

Revenue
Facebook ranked No. 34 in the 2020 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by
revenue, with almost $86 billion in revenue[201] most of it coming from advertising.[202][203] One
analysis of 2017 data determined that the company earned US$20.21 per user from
advertising.[204]

According to New York, since its rebranding, Meta has reportedly lost $500 billion as a result of
new privacy measures put in place by companies such as Apple and Google which prevents Meta
from gathering users' data.[205][206]

Revenue by market (2024)[207]

Market Revenue $ Share
United States 59.7 36.3%

Europe 38.4 23.3%

Asia-Pacific (excl. China) 26.7 16.2%

China 18.4 11.2%

Rest of the World 17.9 10.9%

Canada 3.5 2.1%

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Number of advertisers Revenue

(in millions USD)
In February 2015, Facebook announced it had reached two
Year Revenue $ Growth %
million active advertisers, with most of the gain coming from
small businesses. An active advertiser was defined as an entity 2004 $0.4[186] —
that had advertised on the Facebook platform in the last 28 2005 9[186] 2150
days. [208] In March 2016, Facebook announced it had reached
2006 48[186] 433
three million active advertisers with more than 70% from
outside the United States.[209] Prices for advertising follow a 2007 153[186] 219
variable pricing model based on auctioning ad placements, 2008 280[187] 83
and potential engagement levels of the advertisement itself.
2009 775[188] 177
Similar to other online advertising platforms like Google and
Twitter, targeting of advertisements is one of the chief merits 2010 2,000[189] 158
of digital advertising compared to traditional media. 2011 3,711[190] 86
Marketing on Meta is employed through two methods based
on the viewing habits, likes and shares, and purchasing data of 2012 5,089[191] 37

the audience, namely targeted audiences and "look alike" 2013 7,872[191] 55
audiences. [210]
2014 12,466[192] 58

2015 17,928[193] 44
Tax affairs
2016 27,638[194] 54
The U.S. IRS challenged the valuation Facebook used when it
2017 40,653[195] 47
transferred IP from the U.S. to Facebook Ireland (now Meta
Platforms Ireland) in 2010 (which Facebook Ireland then 2018 55,838[196] 37
revalued higher before charging out), as it was building its 2019 70,697[196] 27
double Irish tax structure.[211][212] The case is ongoing and
2020 85,965[197] 22
Meta faces a potential fine of $3–5bn.[213]
2021 117,929[198] 37
The U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 changed Facebook's
global tax calculations. Meta Platforms Ireland is subject to the 2022 116,609[199] -1

U.S. GILTI tax of 10.5% on global intangible profits (i.e. Irish 2023 134,902[200] 16
profits). On the basis that Meta Platforms Ireland Limited is 2024 164,501[7] 22
paying some tax, the effective minimum US tax for Facebook
Ireland will be circa 11%. In contrast, Meta Platforms Inc. would incur a special IP tax rate of
13.125% (the FDII rate) if its Irish business relocated to the U.S. Tax relief in the U.S. (21% vs. Irish
at the GILTI rate) and accelerated capital expensing, would make this effective U.S. rate around
12%.[214][215][216]

The insignificance of the U.S./Irish tax difference was demonstrated when Facebook moved 1.5bn
non-EU accounts to the U.S. to limit exposure to GDPR.[217][218]

Facilities

Offices
Users outside of the U.S. and Canada contract with Meta's Irish subsidiary, Meta Platforms Ireland
Limited (formerly Facebook Ireland Limited), allowing Meta to avoid US taxes for all users in
Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and South America. Meta is making use of the Double Irish

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arrangement which allows it to pay 2–3% corporation tax on all international revenue.[219] In
2010, Facebook opened its fourth office, in Hyderabad, India,[220] which houses online advertising
and developer support teams and provides support to users and advertisers.[221] In India, Meta is
registered as Facebook India Online Services Pvt Ltd.[222] It also has support centers in
Chittagong; Dublin; California; Ireland; and Austin, Texas.[223]

Facebook opened its London headquarters in 2017 in Fitzrovia in central London. Facebook
opened an office in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2018. The offices were initially home to the
"Connectivity Lab", a group focused on bringing Internet access to those who do not have access to
the Internet.[224] In April 2019, Facebook opened its Taiwan headquarters in Taipei.[225]

In March 2022, Meta opened new regional headquarters in Dubai.[226]

In September 2023, it was reported that Meta had paid £149m to British Land to break the lease
on Triton Square London office. Meta reportedly had another 18 years left on its lease on the
site.[227]

Entrance to Meta's headquarters Entrance to Facebook's previous

complex in Menlo Park, California headquarters in the Stanford Research Park,
Palo Alto, California

Facebook headquarters in 2014

Data centers
As of 2023, Facebook operated 21 data centers.[228] It committed to purchase 100% renewable
energy and to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 75% by 2020.[229] Its data center technologies
include Fabric Aggregator, a distributed network system that accommodates larger regions and
varied traffic patterns.[230]

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Reception
US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded in a tweet to Zuckerberg's announcement
about Meta, saying: "Meta as in 'we are a cancer to democracy metastasizing into a global
surveillance and propaganda machine for boosting authoritarian regimes and destroying civil
society ... for profit!' "[231]

Ex-Facebook employee Frances Haugen and whistleblower behind the Facebook Papers responded
to the rebranding efforts by expressing doubts about the company's ability to improve while led by
Mark Zuckerberg, and urged the chief executive officer to resign.[232]

In November 2021, a video published by Inspired by Iceland went viral, in which a Zuckerberg
look-alike promoted the Icelandverse, a place of "enhanced actual reality without silly looking
headsets".[233]

In a December 2021 interview, SpaceX and Tesla chief executive officer Elon Musk said he could
not see a compelling use-case for the VR-driven metaverse, adding: "I don't see someone strapping
a frigging screen to their face all day."[234]

In January 2022, Louise Eccles of The Sunday Times logged into the metaverse with the intention
of making a video guide. She wrote:

Initially, my experience with the Oculus went well. I attended work meetings as an avatar
and tried an exercise class set in the streets of Paris. The headset enabled me to feel the
thrill of carving down mountains on a snowboard and the adrenaline rush of climbing a
mountain without ropes. Yet switching to the social apps, where you mingle with
strangers also using VR headsets, it was at times predatory and vile.

Eccles described being sexually harassed by another user, as well as "accents from all over the
world, American, Indian, English, Australian, using racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic
language". She also encountered users as young as 7 years old on the platform, despite Oculus
headsets being intended for users over 13.[235]

See also
Big Tech
Criticism of Facebook
Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal
2021 Facebook leak
Meta AI
The Social Network

Notes

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External links
Official website ([Link]
Meta Platforms ([Link] on
OpenSecrets, a website that tracks and publishes data on campaign finance and lobbying

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Meta Platforms companies ([Link]

ms) grouped at OpenCorporates
Business data for Meta Platforms, Inc.: Google ([Link] ·
Reuters ([Link] · SEC filings ([Link]
gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=1326801) · Yahoo! ([Link]
com/quote/META)

Retrieved from "[Link]

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