Meta Platforms operates Facebook, the world’s largest social network by many commonly cited measures, and ranks among the largest firms by market capitalization.
Facebook was created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. It began at Harvard before expanding to other universities and then to users more broadly.
The parent company was known as Facebook, Inc. until 2021, when it became Meta Platforms. The corporate name changed, but Facebook remained the name of the flagship platform. Meta also owns Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, giving it several major communication and advertising services.
A frequent source of confusion is the difference between a platform’s size and its parent company’s market cap. User totals and market value measure different things. Market capitalization changes with the share price, while user counts depend on definitions such as monthly or daily active users.