Facebook has almost 2 billion monthly active users. Just to put this huge number in perspective- the world population is 7.5 billion. With more than a quarter of world population on Facebook, it is a not just a social network. It is a network of behemothic proportions.
We have collated 20 astonishing facts about Facebook, which we bet you did not know.
1. Best graffiti assignment ever
In 2005, Facebook hired graffiti artist David Choe to paint murals in their new office space; Choe accepted Facebook shares instead of a small cash payment of several thousand dollars, and when Facebook went public in 2012, his payment for the murals ballooned into a 200-million-dollar payoff. Source
2. Facebook blues
Facebook is predominantly blue in color because Mark Zuckerberg is red-green color blind and blue is the “richest color” that he can see. Source
3. Facebook offers to freeze eggs of female employees to have babies later
Apple and Facebook have said they will cover the cost of freezing the eggs of female employees who want to delay having a baby while they pursue their careers. They appear to be the first major employers to offer this coverage for non-medical reasons, both offering to cover costs up to $20,000. Tech firms are hardly alone in offering generous benefits to attract and keep talent, but they appear to be leading the way with egg freezing. Source
4. Facebook might have something to do with wrecking of your marriage
We all are slowly becoming slaves to social media overriding all real interactions. A third of all divorce filings of 2011 in the U.S. contained the word ‘Facebook’. More than 80 percent of U.S. divorce attorneys say that role of social networking in divorce proceedings is on the rise. Source
5. Julian Assange called Facebook ‘most appalling spying machine’
In 2011, Julian Assange called Facebook the “most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented. He was quoted saying, “here we have the world’s most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations, their communications with each other, their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to U.S. intelligence.” Source
6. Dead people stay social at Facebook
Over 30 million Facebook accounts belong to dead people. Facebook has become a virtual memorial with more than 30 million accounts belonging to people who have passed away. Such huge number of dead people form a Vast Virtual Cemetery. Source
7. Facebook is helping Iceland in rewriting its constitution
Iceland is using Facebook to rewrite its constitution: citizens can use the social network to make their own suggestions, engage in online debates, or follow the proceedings in real-time. More specifically, the 25-member council drafting the new constitution is reaching out to its citizens through Facebook (although Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr are also being used). Source
8. The costliest rejection ever
Facebook Turned Down WhatsApp Founder Brian Acton for a Job before they bought his app for 19 Billions dollars. After Facebook said no to Acton, he and a colleague from Yahoo, Jan Koum, decided to work on their own startup. WhatsApp, an instant messaging company, was born. Source
Facebook turned me down. It was a great opportunity to connect with some fantastic people. Looking forward to life's next adventure.
— Brian Acton (@brianacton) August 3, 2009
Got denied by Twitter HQ. That's ok. Would have been a long commute.
— Brian Acton (@brianacton) May 23, 2009
9. Giving up citizenship to save taxes
Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin renounced his U.S. citizenship to avoid paying $700 million in taxes. However, according to Saverin, he renounced his citizenship because of his “interest in working and living in Singapore” where he has been since 2009. Source
10. Facebook once conducted a huge psycho-experiment
Facebook secretly conducted a huge psychological experiment on its users to see if it could alter their emotional state. The results were published in a reputed journal PNAS- Unbeknown to users, Facebook had tampered with the news feeds of nearly 700,000 people, showing them an abnormally low number of either positive or negative post. News of the research sparked outrage from people who felt manipulated by the company. Source
11. Like other web giants Facebook owns weird domain names having ‘Facebook’ in them
Facebook owns hundreds of Domain names, including faceboo.com, fb.com, and IHateTheFacebookLikeButton.com along with typo-error variations like Faceobok.com. Source
12. Facebook is better than FBI in facial recognition
The facial recognition algorithms in use by Facebook outperforms those in use by the FBI. DeepFace is a deep learning facial recognition system created by a research group at Facebook. It identifies human faces in digital images. The system is said to be 97% accurate, compared to 85% for the FBI’s Next Generation Identification system. Source
13. Facebook was once offered for sale to MySpace
In 2005 Mark Zuckerberg offered to sell Facebook to Myspace. Myspace CEO Chris DeWolfe rejected Zuckerberg’s asking price of 75 million dollars. Source
14. Zuckerberg called his first followers dumbf***s
The derogatory adjective was revealed in a string of unguarded instant messages sent by him to his college friends in 2004. Zuckerberg joked in an exchange that 4,000 people have submitted emails, pictures, and addresses to his budding Harvard social network. “People just submitted it … I don’t know why … They ‘trust me’ … dumb f***s.” Source
15. Facebook is probably the most gender diverse network ever
Facebook has 56 custom gender options, bringing the total number of options to 58 including male and female. Source
16. Facebook knows where you are and shows it to you too
The Facebook notification globe icon changes, depending on where you are in the world. The default icon portrayed the Americas. Facebook in 2014 introduced a new icon for its desktop users in Europe, Africa, and Asia, which shows the globe from the other side. Source
17. Ella Schuler who was almost 114 years old couldn’t put her real date of birth on Facebook
Due to the fact that Facebook does not allow members to identify their date of birth as being prior to January 1, 1900, Schuler was unable to register her actual date of birth with the site. She was the site’s oldest member. Source
18. Facebook engineers originally wanted to call the “Like” button the “Awesome” button
Mark Zuckerberg up vetoed the idea in favor of the blander “Like”. Source
19. There is something called as ‘Techapella’ where tech giants let their hair down
Techapella Holiday Concert, the second annual gathering of A cappella singing groups culled from the engineering, sales, and management teams of Silicon Valley’s tech giants. Google, Twitter, Facebook and Dropbox all have employee acappella groups that perform together in an annual concert. Source
20. Vending machine for keyboards
At Facebook, if an employee’s keyboard breaks, they can get a new one from a vending machine instead of waiting for IT to replace it. when Facebook engineers spill coffee on their keyboard (a common mishap) they head to a nearby vending machine instead of hitting up their IT guy or just grabbing a replacement from a nearby cabinet. They swipe their badge, key in their selection and voila—a brand new keyboard drops down for them to take. Source
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