In the beginning was Facebook, which begot Instagram, WhatsApp and more than 70 other siblings, ranging from face recognition software to ecommerce, from augmented reality to a fitness tracking app, messaging and software development. The creator, a 19-year-old nerd in a dormitory in Harvard, dreamed up the idea as a tool to rate “hot” students on his campus.

The back story is as rich and seemingly as unlikely as a movie script and was the nub of the narrative in the 2010 Oscar-winning film The Social Network.

It all began in 2003 when Mark Zuckerberg and friends created an online programme called Facemash in a dorm room in Kirkland House on the Harvard campus.

It was created as a platform to connect students, if only to rate each other’s attractiveness, and Zuckerberg almost faced expulsion. There were other online directories but none which cover the entire student body.

Overnight success

On February 4, 2004, the first version of Facebook – then known as thefacebook.com – was unveiled for students. It proved a raging, overnight success. There were claims that Zuckerberg had stolen the idea from three other students, and four years later he agreed to settle their law suit with 1.2 million shares in the company to each one.

What was unique about Facebook was that with a few strokes on the keyboard it united friends, no matter where in the world they lived, whether or not they had recently been in contact, it allowed people to share ideas, memories, photographs, every day thoughts and ambitions. Celebrities clicked on that this was an unspun, unadulterated way of reaching fans. And previous unknowns became newborn stars on Facebook. The platform spawned the social media phenomenon.

It also quickly became clear that this had a huge advertising potential and as Facebook perfected its research, amassed its data and finessed its algorithms the targeting of people, based on their likes and comments on the platform.

It enabled them to reach into the homes and minds, likes and ambitions of anyone who had signed up. And for only a fraction of conventional advertising. Facebook took off and Zuckerberg was on his way to a personal fortune of somewhere north of $60 billion.

He was canny enough to realise, also, that if he couldn’t quash any opposition he could buy it out. Facebook gobbled up Instagram for $1 billion, and then What’sApp, but so far the owners of Snapchat have resisted. Zuckerberg, true to form, has adapted Instagram to mimic and embellish his competitor’s platform. While he may be a digital innovator he is an old-school capitalist entrepreneur.

Digital’s dark side

FACEBOOK, Instagram and other social media platforms have been blamed for everything from knife crime to teenage suicide. Last week a parent, Ian Russell, blamed Instagram for the death of his 14-year-old daughter Molly, who took her own life in November 2017. Her Instagram, account contained horrific material about depression and suicide.

Russell said: “The more I looked, the more there was that chill horror that I was getting a glimpse into something that had such profound effects on my lovely daughter.”

This prompted the Children’s Commissioner for England to write an open letter to all social media platforms, accusing them of losing control of the content they carried. Anne Longfield called for the creation of a “digital ombudsman” to ensure that companies were protecting young children and the vulnerable and to quicken the removal of disturbing material.

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock also warned that he would use the law if they don’t clean their act.

Social media has also been blamed for soaring of knife crime, particularly among young people. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick claimed trivial disputes could escalate into violence “within minutes” when rivals goaded each other online.

In July last year Facebook’s value on the stock market dropped by a record $130 billion in just two hours. This happened immediately after the company posted its quarterly results, the first full financial report since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, and although it was the poor sales results which prompted the fall, the social traumas besetting the company may well have been a contributor.

The company dropped in value to around $500bn and Zuckerberg lost almost $17bn from his personal holding – down to a mere $60bn.

Zuckerberg’s purchase of Instagram in 2012 was another masterstroke. He realised Facebook had an ageing demographic and Instagram was a key to the youth market. Before acquisition Facebook had been worth $58bn, at close of play on Friday, despite last year’s fall, it was still topping $500bn.

Last week Facebook proved the doubters wrong, moving back towards its Teflon-coated status. Its fourth-quarter earnings showed a 30 per cent growth on 2017 with revenues of almost $17bn, topping Wall Street estimates by more than $500m. As he looks back tomorrow 34-year-old Zuckerberg will have no trepidation about the future.

How rumour and suspicion surround data gathering

THE sheer volume of data Facebook holds, and shares between its other arms, is difficult to comprehend. It logs every action by you and your friends and also substantial offsite browsing through its share button. It also co-ordinates and collates information provided by friends.

There have also been repeated claims that the app eavesdrops on your conversations and then targets advertisements tailored to you.

One freelance journalist once claimed that after a conversation with her partner about urination devices for their camper-van that next day an ad for them popped up on her timeline.

A later discussion about a stabbing brought an ad for a stab-proof vest, she said.

Facebook denies spying and ascribes events like this to part of a long-standing conspiracy theory, but there’s no denying that its apps often include an agreement giving permission to access your camera and microphone because people film video and take pictures for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and its Messenger service.

Last year Facebook became embroiled in the controversy over the British company Cambridge Analytica and the targeting of political ads during the 2016 US presidential elections and the UK referendum.

Facebook shared the data from 87 million accounts with the company which then used the information to convince potential Trump voters to turn out to vote, and Leavers to do the same.

Zuckerberg was asked three times to testify before a UK parliamentary committee investigating the Cambridge data-harvesting scam but refused, nominating deputies in his stead.