Facebook was invented by Mark Zuckerberg along with his college roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes while they were students at Harvard University. The initial version of the site, originally called "TheFacebook," was launched on February 4, 2004, as a social networking service for Harvard students and later expanded to other universities and eventually the general public

. Before Facebook, Zuckerberg created a website called Facemash in late 2003, which was a "hot or not" style game using photos of Harvard students, but it was shut down quickly due to policy violations and is not directly connected to Facebook's development

. In summary, Mark Zuckerberg is credited as the primary inventor of Facebook, with key contributions from his Harvard roommates who helped develop and expand the platform