Facebook

Facebook is a major social networking service, being the current prominent social media website above Twitter, and surpassing it's predecessor MySpace. It is used to communicate by friends, groups, and corporations and besides socializing capabilities is also a tool for polling and statistics and for some countries, a tool of policing or propaganda.

This website and wiki was inspired through the Chiang Kai-shek Facebook Page.

Background
Facebook was established in 2004 in the United States of America by Marc Zuckerberg, a Harvard University student who took the idea from another group of students who wanted him involved in their own version.

It began first at Harvard University and then spread to other Ivy League colleges in the United States of America, and then highschools. Eventually, it spread to the rest of the world.

As a website it functioned as an ever-updating social networking service, establishing profiles for it's users to share statuses and pictures and to comment on these and those of other profiles. Eventually, groups and pages were developed for almost anything to organize profiles and network them together by interests or occupations.

Pros & Cons
There are multiple advantages to Facebook, but likewise multiple disadvantages. It is more organized and unified than any other social network, being highly integrated with almost everything linked on the website to everything else.

This is what many call "Social Media"; the social networks becoming news networks onto themselves. This can be bad, however, as rumors and speculation on Facebook can often be mistaken as truth.

Also, polling and other statistical gathering has began being used on Facebook and Twitter. This can be negative, too, however, as in certain parts of the world like the Communist-controlled People's Republic of China on Mainland China, as a tool to police the people and find any detractors from it's regime.

A major source of income for Facebook as well as a feature used politically is it's ability to advertise to large populations worldwide. This is lucrative and efficient, however, it has been known to take subliminal-type advertising to a whole new level. This can also be bad as many political groups or totalitarian nations use Facebook as a propaganda tool.