Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg talked about his company’s meteoric rise Monday, a missive written on the social media behemoth’s 15^th anniversary — and as is customary, attracted a lot of criticism for that missive.

Zuckerberg opened by talking about how an idea for connecting university students turned into a giant plexus connecting 2.7 billion people globally. He then alluded to the fact that such a network, and other networks, were inevitable in the scheme of things and how they have empowered people.

“Before the internet, if you had different views or interests from the people in your neighborhood, it was harder to find a community that shared your interests,” wrote Zuckerberg. “If someone you knew moved away, you’d often lose touch. If you wanted to raise attention for an issue, you usually had to go through politicians or the press.”

Connecting the world has not come without a whole bunch of negatives, though, which last year all came bubbling to the fore. Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook was a work in progress and problems are still being ironed out, but he managed to rankle some members of the press, partly through this shot at the press and other critics:

“As networks of people replace traditional hierarchies and reshape many institutions in our society — from government to business to media to communities and more — there is a tendency of some people to lament this change, to overly emphasize the negative, and in some cases to go so far as saying the shift to empowering people in the ways the internet and these networks do is mostly harmful to society and democracy.”

The Guardian in the U.K. expressed what many people may have been thinking, in that Zuckerberg has also created a “money machine” not always managed in the interest of free speech. “You seem not to acknowledge how much power you have accumulated, nor the extent to which you represent a club of billionaires and companies that have steadily concentrated their power over the past 50 years, with a steady acceleration of that concentration over the past 15 years,” said the newspaper.

The New York Times was similarly dismissive of Zuckerberg’s remarks, creating a sardonic “honest Facebook friendship anniversary video.” The video reminds users of the many Facebook scandals, from privacy breaches to fake news promulgation to the spread of hate speech that had an impact on certain groups of people. Such a video quickly neutralizes Zuckerberg’s “deep desire” to connect people and do good in the world.

In The Atlantic, Ben Mezrich, author of the book “The Social Network,” chimed in, giving plenty of reason to give Facebook a “thumbs down” for what it has become. “From the very beginning, Zuckerberg has shown a pattern of deflecting and discarding things and people that don’t conform to his worldview or his ambition,” wrote Mezrich.

Vox asked 15 influential people what they thought about Facebook and what has become of it. “Platforms are only as socially useful as their owners want them to be,” wrote author Malcom Gladwell. Others, such as Buzzfeed Chief Executive Jonah Peretti and popular science author Steven Pinker, said it’s too soon to tell if Facebook will have a positive effect on humanity.

Photo: Sriharsha/Flickr