With 2 billion users, Facebook is bigger than any single country or continent — with the exception of Asia, which it’s been banned in since 2009. But with this massive size and scale comes an existential question that some of its users — and creator Mark Zuckerberg — have been asking. What even is Facebook?
A recent New York Magazine article begs the question, pointing out startling realities about an internet company with “vertigo-inducing” size. For one, the company has admitted it sold $100,000 in advertisements to Russian-government-linked accounts who used Facebook to influence the election. Since then, it’s worked to “ensure the integrity of the German elections.” That is language expected from a government, political party or NGO, not a media company and certainly not a social network.
Then there’s the matter of Zuckerberg traveling to all of the states he hasn’t yet been to, meeting with religious leaders and regular citizens in places like Texas, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and South Carolina. It looked to many like a “listening tour,” where politicians campaign to show voters their “hearts are in the right place” before announcing their candidacy. But Zuckerberg has insisted that he isn’t running. So what was the tour for? What company CEO in history would embark on the same type of travel?
This article was featured in the InsideHook newsletter. Sign up now.
