Facebook: from Harvard dorm to scandal-plagued social media titan
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In 2003, 19-year-old computer whiz Mark Zuckerberg begins working out of his Harvard dormitory room on an online network aimed at connecting the prestigious US university's students.On February 4, 2004, he launches thefacebook.com with three friends. Membership is opened up to other colleges around North America. Zuckerberg leaves Harvard and moves to California's Silicon Valley. The new company receives its first major outside investment of $500,000 from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, and officially becomes Facebook in 2005.First privacy concernsAfter Facebook rejects bids from US media conglomerate Viacom and Yahoo, Microsoft takes a $240 million stake in 2007. By now it has 50 million users.That year, Zuckerberg apologises for a feature called Beacon that alerted the whole com...