Taking a digital camera on a night out, then tagging your friends in dozens of pictures was a staple of teenage life in the late noughties.
The most publicised case was the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2014, which led to Facebook paying $725m to settle legal action due to a significant data breach.
For example, in the five months leading up to the US presidential election of 2020, incumbent President Donald Trump’s team spent more than $40m on Facebook adverts, according to Statista research.
Facebook has had a hand in changing grassroots politics too - by enabling disparate groups of users to gather, campaign and plan action on a global scale.
With the huge success of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg built a social network and technology empire that remains unprecedented in terms of users and its consequent power.
In 2022, Meta was forced to sell GIF-maker Giphy at a loss after UK regulators blocked it from owning the service due to fears of over-dominance in the market.
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