Introduction
Facebook Corporation presents as one of the most successful online company in the modern day. The online social company has millions of user all over the world. Facebook offers a platform for users to voice their opinions, their interests, make new friends and get to keep up with current events. Other than these, Facebook, whose primary revenue comes from advertisement, also offers users the opportunity to advertise their items freely. Facebook has incorporated the social, economic and the political aspects of life and made people aware of many issues and events in distant places. Political entities, just like other organizations, use Facebook to facilitate their operations. Political entities have benefited from the use of Facebook in quite many ways especially during campaign times. Consequently, politicians or political entities have faced various challenges emanating from Facebook. This paper aims to describe some of the aspects of the Facebook Company and discuss some of the impacts of Facebook on political entities.
Facebook Inc .
Facebook is a for-profit company that is based in the United States of America. The corporation is an online social media company and a social networking service with its headquarters in Menlo, California. The Facebook website came to life in the year 2004 in February and was launched by its founder, Mark Zuckerberg with his friends from Harvard University. The website was initially limited to students at Harvard University and later expanded to other colleges in Boston. The company later made itself public and began selling stock to the public, and since 2012, it has been recorded as the fastest growing company. The company make on average an annual gross revenue of about 26 billion dollars and is worth almost 500 billion dollars (Kirkpatrick, 2011). The company has many employees ranging between sixteen thousand and eighteen thousand. In the year 2012, Facebook registered about two billion users and was valued at about one hundred million dollars, which too much for any newly listed company.
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Facebook rose very fast since its initial public offering in 2012 and became one of the largest companies in the United States within a concise time. With the increased number of users, the company made a lot of changes in its website and brought many other features in order to attract more users and ensure that more people frequently visited the site. Initially, factors such as age limits and other state regulations controlled user registration. Today, anyone from any part of the world can register and get an account on the website. The company, since the foundation, has been managed by Mark Zuckerberg as the chief executive officer as well as the chairman. Other co-officials include Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer, David Wehner, financial officer, Mike, the technology officer and Chris Cox, the chief product officer. The company mainly its revenue from advertisements and has registered more than two million advertisers.
The primary color of the Facebook website is blue, and the title ‘Facebook' always appear at the top part of the website. New users can easily sign up by keying in their details and building up their profiles once they get access to the site. An individual may decide to put in his or her location detail and other personal details so that other people nearby can be able to find them easily. Facebook offers the platform for people to share their feelings and opinions with other people and the rest of the world. People can as well become friends and communicate through messaging platforms. A lot of information is available on the website; both political and business news. In the modern day, most leaders use online platforms such as Facebook to voice their actions, grievances, and opinions to the intended audience at the quickest and most convenient way possible. Facebook has influenced the social, economic and political aspects of life all over the world (Bond & Messing, 2015).
Impacts of Facebook on Political Entities
Today, many political organizations have taken advantage of various online social platforms to voice their agenda to the people concerned. People have had the opportunity to engage in conversation with their leaders and politicians through such platforms as Facebook. Facebook, being the largest online company with the largest number of users including kids and the aged, offers the best platform for political entities to best voice their agenda. Facebook has impacted on politics and political entities and individuals in different ways. The fact that every person is accorded free access to Facebook and does not have to pay for advertising make it more user-friendly. Due to the fact that anybody may use the platform to share their opinions and post whatever objects they like, puts political entities at crossroads. Information on Facebook may affect political entities positively or negatively (Vitak et al. 2011).
Facebook has become of great help to political organizations especially during the times of campaigns. Today, one does not necessarily have to use a lot of funds for campaigns, rather, Facebook offers an excellent platform on which such a person may even directly engage with people and voice out his or her plans. Facebook has made it possible for many political parties to save money by simply opting to take part of their campaigns to Facebook. Consequently, supporters of various political entities have mobilized themselves, by reminding one another on issues such as registration and the actual voting. One logs into his or her Facebook page and meets a lot of posts on such topics as voter registration or election dates. Other people are tagged on posts related to important events to constantly remind them that they should take part.
Political entities have used Facebook to preach peace, organize fundraising events and also organize protests and revolutions. World political organizations search as the United Nations have used Facebook to demonstrate the importance of keeping peace. Through Facebook, many leaders have reached out to millions of people all over the world, in times of crisis, and preached peace. Today, it has become easier to connect with a lot of people in the most convenient way possible and organize events such as fundraising ceremonies. Political entities have found it easy to approach their supporters and every well-wisher on Facebook to assist them with funds for campaigns. Political entities have favorably organized protests using Facebook and mobilized their supporters effectively. Protests by other people or political divides against certain political entities have also been witnessed on Facebook a number of times.
Facebook has impacted on political entities in other ways such as increased accessibility of politicians and increased youth voting rates. Facebook has brought most politicians closer to their supporters and the people they represent. A politician can directly engage in conversations and share opinions with people freely on Facebook. People also get to ask questions or correct their politicians directly through Facebook. Most youths never used to be involved in voting processes in the olden days. Facebook engagement with leaders and other influential people has made the number youth voters go up considerably (Marzouki et al. 2012).
Facebook also offers its user the opportunity to express themselves, share their ideas and strategies with other people. Politicians often send messages to their supporters on Facebook in the hopes of reaching a huge number of people. Facebook offers various options of posting opinions and ideas such as using live video recordings, using pictures, and a platform for writing among others. Politicians may create videos that show their plans and what they intend to do once elected. Other users and supporters may also choose to post on behalf of their preferred candidates. Consequently, posts which ridicule or undermine other political entities and politicians have also been viewed on Facebook. Various politicians and political entities have faced humiliations and controversies on Facebook due to post by their opponents or opponents’ supporters. Using old posts people can also get to follow the actions of certain political entities in order to check for their consistencies. Issues of disinformation and political attacks on fellow political entities are seen in most of the Facebook posts today. Other people have come up with ways to take advantage of Facebook and cause harm to others intentionally. A lot of false information connected to particular politicians or political entities appear on Facebook (Bonsón, Royo, & Ratkai, 2015).
Conclusion
Facebook, an online social company, founded in 2004, has become one of most famous online company in the current day. Millions of users log into the website to post their opinions, interests, check on current events or communicate with people from other places. Facebook has impacted on the economic, social and political lives of people in a broad way enabling individuals to carry out various operations such as advertising without any charges. Facebook has affected political entities in various ways, both positively and negatively. Politicians have become more accessible to the people which help them voice their plans freely in the most convenient way. Consequently, politicians have also faced challenges such as online political attacks and cases of disinformation.
References
Kirkpatrick, D. (2011). The Facebook effect: The inside story of the company that is connecting the world . Simon and Schuster.
Vitak, J., Zube, P., Smock, A., Carr, C. T., Ellison, N., & Lampe, C. (2011). It's complicated: Facebook users' political participation in the 2008 election. CyberPsychology, behavior, and social networking , 14 (3), 107-114.
Bond, R., & Messing, S. (2015). Quantifying social media’s political space: Estimating ideology from publicly revealed preferences on Facebook. American Political Science Review , 109 (1), 62-78.
Marzouki, Y., Skandrani-Marzouki, I., Béjaoui, M., Hammoudi, H., & Bellaj, T. (2012). The contribution of Facebook to the 2011 Tunisian revolution: A cyberpsychological insight. Cyberpsychology, behavior, and social networking , 15 (5), 237-244.
Bonsón, E., Royo, S., & Ratkai, M. (2015). Citizens' engagement on local governments' Facebook sites. An empirical analysis: The impact of different media and content types in Western Europe. Government Information Quarterly , 32 (1), 52-62.
