Fundraising for a cause
One of the things people often do in the world is try to figure out a way to make it better. Every day, people are working on solving lots of hard problems. Facebook fits into this because it can help you spread the word to friends about the causes you're passionate about. And if your friends care about the same things, they in turn might bring along their friends to create a large group of people willing to help out. In addition to simply passing along information, you can create fundraisers where your friends help you reach a charitable goal. Fundraisers are covered in Chapter 12.
THE BIRTH OF THE ’BOOK
In ye olden days, say, the early 2000s, most college freshmen would receive a thinly bound book containing the names and faces of everyone in their matriculating class. These face books were useful for matching names to the students seen around campus or for pointing out particular people to friends. However, these face books had several problems. If someone didn’t send in his picture, the books were incomplete. They were outdated by junior year because many people looked drastically different, and the books didn’t reflect the students who had transferred in or who were from any other class. Finally, they had little information about each person.
In February 2004, Mark Zuckerberg, a sophomore at Harvard, launched an online “book” to which people could upload their photos and personal information, a service that solved many of these problems. Within a month, more than half of the Harvard undergraduates had signed up.
Zuckerberg was then joined by others to help expand the site into other schools. Carolyn was the first Stanford student to receive an account. During the summer of the same year, Facebook moved to Palo Alto, California, where the site and the company kept growing. By December 2004, the site had grown to one million college students. Every time Facebook opened to a new demographic — high school, then work users, then everyone — the rate at which people joined the site continued to increase.
At the end of 2006, the site had more than 10 million users; 2007 closed out with more than 50 million active users. At the time of this book’s publication in 2021, that final count has grown so that now more than two and a half billion people across the globe use Facebook to stay in touch.
Keeping in Mind What You Can’t Do on Facebook
Facebook is meant to represent real people and real associations; it’s also meant to be safe. Many of the rules of participation on Facebook exist to uphold those two goals.
You can’t lie
Okay, you can, but you shouldn't, especially not about your basic information. Facebook’s community standards include a commitment to use an authentic identity, which means Facebook wants you to create only one timeline for yourself. You don’t have to use your real name, but we recommend that you do. (A few exceptions to this rule include teachers wanting to keep some professional distance from their students by using an alias.) However, if you create multiple accounts or fake accounts, there's a good chance they will be flagged, disabled, and removed from Facebook.
You can’t be 12 or younger
Seriously. A U.S. law prohibits minors under the age of 13 from creating an online timeline for themselves. This rule, which Facebook enforces, is in place for the safety of minors. If you or someone you know on Facebook is under 13, deactivate (or make him or her deactivate) the account now. If you’re reported to the Facebook Community Operations team and they confirm that you’re underage, your account will be disabled.
You can’t troll, spam, or harass
On the Internet, trolling refers to posting deliberately offensive material to websites to get people upset. Spamming refers to sending out bulk promotional messages. When we talk about harassment, we mean deliberately tormenting or bothering another person or group of people. If you do any of these things on Facebook, there’s a good chance your posts will be removed and your account can be shut down.
Facebook is about real people and real connections. It’s one thing to message a mutual friend or the occasional stranger whose timeline implies being open to meeting new people if the two of you have matching interests. However, between Facebook’s automatic detection systems and user-generated reports, sending too many unsolicited messages is likely to get your account flagged and disabled.
Similarly, Facebook aims to be a trusted environment for people to exchange ideas and information. If people deliberately disturb the peace with pornographic, hateful, or bullying content, that trust is pretty much broken. While there are many places on Facebook where you can find spirited public discussion of controversial topics, Facebook does respond to reports of offensive material and will take down anything it deems hate speech. (The definition of hate speech is a notoriously difficult needle to thread, so a common complaint against Facebook is that it allows too much hateful material to stay up for too long.)
If you see trolling, spam, harassment, or hate speech taking place, you can report the content or person to Facebook (you see how to report a photo, for example, in Chapter 11). Its Community Operations team will investigate the report. If you’re getting warnings about things like spamming, chances are you just need to tweak how you’re using Facebook. For example, you may need to create a Page instead of using your personal account for mass messaging. You see how to promote your business (or yourself) in Chapter 14.
You can’t upload illegal content
Facebook users live in virtually every country in the world, so Facebook is often obligated to respect the local laws for its users. Respecting these laws is something Facebook must do regardless of its own position on pornography (where minors can see it), copyrighted material, hate speech, depictions of crimes, and other offensive content. Doing so is also in line with Facebook’s value of being a trusted place for people 13 and older.
Realizing How Facebook Is Different from Other Social Sites
Lots of social sites besides Facebook try to help people connect. Some popular sites are Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat, and WhatsApp. We start with the biggest reason Facebook is different. Literally, the biggest: Facebook has over two billion users across the world (yes, billion with a b). Other social sites might be popular in one country or another, but Facebook is popular pretty much everywhere.