Facebook built the first version of News Feed in 2006, when social networks were basically profiles.
Resolved true The record shows it happened or was so.
Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?
Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.
What would count as true or false
Judge as of 2024-09-18. The main test is whether Facebook built and launched the first version of News Feed in 2006. The context that social networks were then mainly profile-based is secondary. True: records show News Feed was first built and launched in 2006, and at the time social networks centered on user profiles. Mostly true: the 2006 date is right but the description of social networks is somewhat overstated. Mostly false: News Feed was first built or launched in 2005 or 2007, or Facebook was not the first to build that kind of feed in a way that undercuts the claim. False: the first News Feed came well outside 2006 (more than a year off).
Set before the research began.
Evidence (4)
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E1 Facebook Users Revolt, Facebook Replies | TechCrunch TechCrunch · 6 September 2006
“The products, called News Feed and Mini Feed, allow users to get a quick view of what their friends are up to, including relationship changes, groups joined, pictures uploaded, etc., in a streaming news format.”
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E2 Privacy as information access and illusory control: The case of the Facebook News Feed privacy outcry Electronic Commerce Research and Applications (Elsevier), authors Hoadley, Xu, Lee, Rosson · 2010
“Facebook, a free social networking website that is especially popular among college students, upset its subscribers when it released the News Feed feature on September 5, 2006.”
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E3 "The History of Social Media" Rework.com · 24 October 2026
“Fortune recalls that News Feed launched late on 5 September 2006, when the site had about 10 million users.”
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E4 Social network | Definition, Examples, & Facts Encyclopaedia Britannica · 3 September 2026
“Eschewing the anonymity that had previously been typical of the online experience, billions of people have flocked to social networking sites where members create and maintain personal profiles that they link with those of other members.”
Reasoning
A TechCrunch report from the time (E1) describes News Feed and Mini Feed as newly launched Facebook products in September 2006. A peer-reviewed paper (E2) dates the release to September 5, 2006, and a secondary history citing Fortune (E3) gives the same date. That settles the main test of a 2006 build and launch. On the secondary point, Britannica (E4) describes social networking sites, in general terms, as built around personal profiles that members link to each other, and nothing in the evidence suggests the profile description is overstated.
Cite this claim
Mark Zuckerberg, “Facebook built the first version of News Feed in 2006, when social networks were basically profiles.” (said 18 September 2024). Verdict: resolved true. Reliability API, claim c_5609eaa04f14, method 0.1.0+3f84d14d, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_5609eaa04f14
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
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Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.