The Atlantic

What We Wrote About Facebook 12 Years Ago

In 2007, a writer for <em>The Atlantic</em> predicted that the social network would dominate as an engine of connection—and an invasive peddler of user data.
Source: Paul Sakuma / AP

The year was 2007, and Myspace was king. With more than 300 million registered users, it was the world’s largest social-networking platform by a mile and, since overtaking Google the previous year, the most visited website in the United States. Friendster had been thoroughly eclipsed. Google’s first attempt at a social network, Orkut, was a domestic flop. Twitter, founded in 2006, still hosted only a fraction of a

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