As many of you know, Sunday was Facebook’s 20th birthday. I’ve been thinking about this milestone a lot and struggled with how to commemorate/talk about it. I did the interview with Latika, but on Sunday, as many of my former co-workers and I went down memory lane, I felt the need to do something more. At first, I decided to write a letter to the company. I did it to the company versus any person because what Facebook/Meta was and will be is because of many people.
However, after writing it and thinking about it, I realized that while it was very therapeutic and might help those of you going through similar emotions with your employer, it’s not exactly informative.
So, I will publish the letter below, but I’m also bringing you my timeline of key moments at the intersection of Facebook and politics/elections. This is not everything; I have 71 entries so far and growing. It’s also a simple list without context or links for why I picked these. In all honesty, that’s because of the time I have. Forgive my laziness. I will note that you can see the focus shift from before November 2016, when platforms were excited to lean into politics, to after, when it shifted to integrity issues.
Someday - maybe sooner rather than later - I hope to write a book about this history - not just with Facebook, but across online platforms. Basically, a book version of this brief history was published on the BPC site. If I work on it this year, I could have something ready to release in 2025, which could be a nice milestone in which to do something like that. I’m still debating it.
But without any more rambling from me - here’s my list of 45 milestones for Facebook, politics and elections.
Please support the curation and analysis I’m doing with this newsletter. As a paid subscriber, you make it possible for me to bring you in-depth analyses of the most pressing issues in tech and politics.
Brief History of Meta/Facebook and Politics/Elections
Early 2007 - Chris Hughes departs from Facebook to volunteer for the Obama campaign.
November 6, 2007 - Launch of Facebook pages and a broader ads platform, including pages for every member of Congress. DC office established to help onboard politicians.
2008 - Facebook works to stream conventions and inauguration. First 'I Voted' button launched and is used by 6 million people.
November 2, 2010 - Release of the second Election Day reminder, contributing to a 2012 Nature article about voter turnout enhancement.
November 28, 2010 - Facebook hosts Former President George W Bush for a town hall.
April 22, 2011 - Town hall featuring Mark Zuckerberg and President Obama.
September 26, 2011 - The “Young Guns” - Congressmen Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy visit Facebook for a Q&A with Sheryl Sandberg.
December 7, 2011 - Organization of the first Congressional hackathon.
January 8, 2012 - Partnership with NBC for a Facebook Debate.
September 12, 2012 - Publication of a Nature article about the 'I Voted' sticker.
November 6, 2012 - Election Day featuring the 'I Voted' sticker as well as 'Bing and Find Your Polling Place' feature.
April 2014 - Launch of the first international Election Day reminders during the Indian elections.
May 1, 2015 - Facebook lights up London Eye into General Election pie chart
July 20, 2015 - Samidh Chakrabarti begins leading the civic engagement product team.
August 2015 - Collaboration with FOX News for a debate and the first livestream by Trump.
September 27, 2015 - A town hall event featuring Mark Zuckerberg and India Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
December 2015 - Trump posts about proposed policy of implementing Muslim bans.
May 9, 2016 - The Philippines election
May 19, 2016 - Trending topics controversy
June 23, 2016 - The Brexit vote
September 2016 - Controversy over the 'Terror of War' photo.
October 9, 2016 - Inclusion of a social media (Facebook data) based question in a general election debate.
November 8, 2016 - Instagram's Empire State Building light-up feature for the US election
November 10, 2016 - Mark says the idea that fake news spread on Facebook influenced the outcome of the U.S. election is "crazy."
December 2016 - Launch of Facebook's fact-checking initiative.
April 2017 - Facebook releases white paper outlining their understanding of organized attempts to misuse the platform
September 6, 2017 - The first takedown of Russian ads under the CIB initiative
October 31, 2017 - The first of many Congressional hearings involving tech leaders
March 17, 2018 - Emergence of the Cambridge Analytica story
April 2018 - Mark Zuckerberg testifys to Congress for first time
May 3, 2018 - Kofi Annan does Q&A session with Chris Cox
May 24, 2018 - Introduction of political ad transparency tools
November 5, 2018 - Ban of the Trump caravan ad
Spring 2019 - Elections in Israel, Indonesia, India, the EU, and Australia.
Fall 2019 - Controversies regarding fact-checking of politicians and political ads
May 29, 2020 - Controversy over Trump's posts about vote-by-mail and the 'when the looting starts, the shooting starts' statement.
October 14, 2020 - NY Post controversy over Hunter Biden's laptop and Mark Zuckerberg's testimony.
November 2020 - Restructuring of the Civic Integrity team/social impact, followed by Mark Zuckerberg's testimony on
November 17, 2020 - Mark Zuckerberg testifies to Senate Judicary Committee
January 7, 2021 - Trump's suspended from Facebook
February 10, 2021 - Reduction of political content in the Facebook feed
March 25, 2021 - Mark Zuckerberg's testimony to the house
May 5, 2021 - Oversight Board's decision on Trump
September 13, 2021 - Launch of the WSJ Facebook Files series
January 25, 2023 - Meta reinstates Trump on its platforms
Here’s my letter to Facebook/Meta.
To Facebook/Meta,
Happy Birthday, and congratulations. Twenty years is a milestone for anyone - let alone a platform and company that has greatly changed the world.
I think about you a lot - you are my Roman Empire - but even more so this week of your birthday, and I’m in the Bay Area. As I write this, I’m at my friend’s house behind the MPK buildings. A wave of emotion comes over me whenever I visit your offices.
Those emotions are multi-faceted. I feel grateful, guilty, joyful, angry, sad, and hopeful all at once. It’s hard to hold all those emotions at the same time.
You don’t do anything without drama and a range of emotions. I remember the high of the IPO turning into the low of the stock dropping to $17. You went through a rough Senate hearing this past week and had the highest daily stock increase ever. You also hold the record for the biggest stock drop. I always tell people that change is the only thing one can guarantee about you.
That’s why these emotions are so hard. A lot of my career is wrapped up in you. I remember the day I first signed up in 2005. I used my alumni email to get in before you opened it to everyone in 2006. I was at the Republican National Committee trying to figure out what digital campaigning would be.
Six years later, I was walking through the doors at Page Mill Road, excited to join this rocket ship whose founder had just been on the cover of TIME as person of the year and helping to overthrow dictators as part of the Arab Spring.
Silicon Valley was so different than DC. Part of the reason I wanted to come to work for you is that I wanted to be in a place that pulled me into a future versus a place where I felt like I was struggling to pull it forward. Straddling between these two has become a core part of who I am.
I’m acutely feeling it this week. I’m here for a month, and when I was offered the job at Duco, I didn’t want to move away from DC. But being here in the Bay Area, I’m experiencing the future. I’m seeing friends I haven’t in a long time. My ways of thinking are changing. It’s a honeymoon period, and I think splitting my time will still be the way to go long-term.
Those friends I’m getting to see are because of you. They are the people that make up the company and the culture. They brought me to you and helped me leave you. Some I lost touch with only to have them reappear when I needed them with gifts of poetry or a place to stay to a homemade meal. Little things that made me feel so loved at a time when I desperately needed them.
These are also some of the smartest and most thoughtful people I know working on some of the hardest problems. I am so blessed to spend my days conversing and building with them.
And I haven’t even gotten to how much you gave me career-wise. You let me work on things I could have never dreamed of. I came to you with a desire and a plan to work on elections worldwide, and you said yes. This led to what might be some of the hardest years of my career but the most formative. How lucky am I to be able to have to figure out solutions for things where there is no playbook? To have to go through so much scrutiny that has, in turn, given me empathy for how much impact you’ve had on the world and how hard these problems are. If people didn’t care about that impact, they wouldn’t be trying to hold us to higher standards.
And, yes, I’m still hurt by how it all went down in the end. But I’m grateful. Years later, I know it was the needed push for me to grow and not have my identity completely wrapped up in where I worked and what I did.
You continue to perplex and amaze me every day. I have the freedom to be more than my work thanks to the financial support you and everyone who has ever worked for you built.
I’m sad that the world isn’t in that place 20 or even ten years ago when the promise of what tech could do for politics was euphoric. I wonder sometimes if it was all for naught.
But then I have conversations with those smart people who came from within your walls who are building amazing things and trying to solve the problems. They give me a new perspective. New ways to think about how I can have an impact - including at the intersection of politics and technology.
I hope you know that when I’m critical, I do it because I care and am trying to find the right solutions.
To quote one of my favorite Kenny Chesney songs, I’m grateful for knowing you. Thank you. The journey is still only 1% finished.
Katie
Please support the curation and analysis I’m doing with this newsletter. As a paid subscriber, you make it possible for me to bring you in-depth analyses of the most pressing issues in tech and politics.