Facebook just turned 10. The little social media site that could, started by Harvard undergrads as a platform for college classmates to connect, has now expanded into a publicly traded global empire with new features and app updates debuting all the time, giving founder Mark Zuckerberg a net worth of over $3.7 billion.

Though it only recently jumped into the Washington game, Facebook has made a huge splash in the past few years – and it shows no sign of stopping. In 2012, political contributions from Facebook to candidates increased more than eightfold over their 2008 level, fueled in part by the political action committee the company established in 2011 (prior to that, its giving came only from employees). Moreover, while overall spending on lobbying has been steadily declining for years now, Facebook has gone in the opposite direction, ramping up its lobbying expenditures every year since it entered the Beltway in 2009.

By the numbers, Facebook’s lobbying doesn’t particularly stand out compared to that of other tech giants like Google. But Facebook has been among the first to the front lines on many hot-button legislative issues in recent years, such as Internet surveillance and immigration. In one prominent political foray, Zuckerberg partnered with a number of entrepreneurs to form FWD.us, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that launched in April 2013 to drive action on immigration reform — and spent $600,000 on lobbying in its first year alone.

While the social media giant may not be the biggest political spender from the technology sector, the company and its principles have learned the lessons of their predecessors. Microsoft Corp., formed in 1975, is notorious for being a late bloomer in the political world. The company didn’t put serious thought into its Washington operation until the late 1990s, and by that time, it had already run afoul of the U.S. government, which accused it of antitrust violations in United States v. Microsoft Corp.

Facebook’s political contributions have so far been split pretty evenly between Republican and Democratic candidates — though it appears to be parting with that giving pattern in 2014. In the 2012 election cycle, Facebook’s PAC made its debut by distributing $54,000 among Democrats and $78,500 among Republicans in the House, and $71,000 to Democrats and $65,000 to Republicans in the Senate. Though it’s almost too early to tell, Facebook’s 2014 contributions appear to be skewing increasingly rightward — so far, the PAC has given $12,000 to Democrats and $23,000 to Republicans in the House, and $18,500 to Democrats and $24,000 to Republicans in the Senate.

Donations by Facebook employees and their spouses in the 2008 election cycle clearly favored Democrats: Of the $79,305 doled out, 99 percent went to Democratic candidates. But in the 2012 cycle, the total surged to $361,000, with 65 percent going to Democrats and 35 percent to Republicans. In 2014, however, these contributors are increasingly following the pattern of Facebook’s PAC — so far in this election cycle, it’s more of an even split, with 57% going to Democrats and 43% going to Republicans.

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Even though Facebook still contributes only a fraction of what Microsoft spends on political giving, it’s quickly catching up on the lobbying front — Facebook spent $6.3 million on federal lobbying in 2013 compared to Microsoft’s $10.5 million. In 2013, Facebook’s top issue was immigration, followed closely by computers and information technology, then taxes.

In addition, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has strategically “leaned in” to a series of high-profile political meetings. Sandberg angled for quality time with former Sen. Max Baucus at the Montana Economic Development Summit last September, likely to discuss tax reform. She also scored a prime seat at a December gathering of Silicon Valley executives that met to troubleshoot with President Obama about the problem-plagued rollout of Healthcare.gov.

With 1.23 billion monthly active users, 6 billion likes per day, and 7.8 trillion messages sent on its platform, Facebook undoubtedly has the capacity to carry a big stick in Washington’s inner circles. It shows no signs of decelerating the expansion of its political capital in its next 10 years.



Doug Weber contributed research to this post.

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Image: AP Photo/Martin Sterba



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