Recent developments since the 2016 presidential election—most notably the discovery that Facebook had been manipulated by Russia’s Internet Research Agency—has led many users to question major social media platforms. This manipulation has prompted users to second-guess these networks’ commitment to responsibility over profitability, as well as the seemingly arbitrary algorithms and advertisements that dictate their news feeds.
Facebook became the mammoth that it is by originally serving as a pure social network, which early to mid-2000s university students turned to in order to put names to faces they had seen around campus or at the bar the night before.
