FEVERISH 15S FACEBOOK

DAMIAN COLLINS, chairman of the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select said just recently : ''We need external bodies that have got the power to set rules and standards for all social networks.''

His comments were followed by reports from both the Children's Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield and the Technology and the Science select-committee, which call on legislation to police sites such as Facebook.

However, as it turns, 15, Facebook is starting to look forward again.

In an update following the release of its financial results, founder Mark Zuckerberg said 2018 had seen the company ''fundamentally change'' how it was run, and while it would continue to work on  ''making progress on the major social issues facing the Internet and our company'', he said some focus would also shift in 2019.

''We're also going to allocate more of our energy to building new and inspiring ways to help people connect and build community,'' he said.

''I'm not talking about the many day-to-day iterative improvements we make so that making gets a bit better, or things get somewhat faster, but major improvements to people's lives that whole communities recognise and say, 'wow, we're all doing something new on Facebook or WhatsApp that we weren't doing before.''

But with even the firm's new head of global affairs and communications, Sir Nick Clegg, recently acknowledging that government had a place in regulating social media, the company's next birthday may involve dealing with legislation as well as innovation. [Agencies]