Lights and shadows in the brief history of Facebook, today Meta

Abstract

This article has the objective of making a historical review of the overwhelming presence of Facebook since its inception, where it is appreciated that it is a social experiment of great influence and impact on the culture of contemporary societies. Its protagonist is Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook is Zuckerberg and Zuckerberg is Facebook. Meta, his latest creation, will also be Zuckerberg. In this way, Zuckerberg intends to transform his empire into a universe, where the risks for the web are enormous. Worse yet, for humans. With this argument, the text is developed in twelve chapters that follow the path that Zuckerberg and his empire have traveled, with successes and notorious legal, economic and media scandals.
Despite their philanthropic actions and attempts to accelerate the penetration of the Internet in the world and its connectivity, the image of Zuckerberg and Facebook is inevitably associated with a business where the monopoly, privacy and use of data have always been and are matters for resolve, from its first socio-digital network, FaceMash, to Meta. Now with his Metaverse, he wants to start a new era, leaving behind social networks, also criticized for fake news and hate speech, to open a new space with augmented reality and virtual reality projects. However, governments and users do not forget pending accounts.