Social Media Trivia
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116 free Social Media trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
64 free Social media trivia questions with answers. Social media trivia for anyone who remembers Myspace Tom, the fail whale and the first hashtag. This quiz covers the whole story: the 1997 site that started it all, how Facebook grew out of a Harvard dorm, the first YouTube video and what it shows, why Twitter's limit was 140 characters, the check-in app that turned into Instagram, and the Stanford project that became Snapchat. It also digs into the deals and the records: what Google paid for YouTube, what Facebook paid for Instagram and WhatsApp, the egg that beat Kylie Jenner, the app that hit 100 million users in five days, and the words the Oxford dictionaries crowned because of us all. Founders, mascots, features and flops all get a turn. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is marked on every question. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and the primary sources it cites, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 116 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which early social network, launched in 1997, was named after a theory of how people are connected?
SixDegrees.com
SixDegrees.com. YouthStream Media Networks bought it in 1999 for $125 million in stock, barely three years after it launched.
Q 02Friendster turned down a $30 million buyout offer in 2003 from which search giant?
Google. Founder Jonathan Abrams raised venture capital instead, and by 2004 he was out of the company after falling out with those investors.
Q 03Which company bought Myspace for $580 million in July 2005?
News Corporation
News Corporation. By April 2008, though, Facebook had caught up with Myspace in monthly visitors worldwide.
Q 04Which pop star co-bought Myspace in June 2011 for roughly $35 million?
Justin Timberlake
Justin Timberlake. His partner in the deal, Specific Media, later renamed itself Viant and was bought by Time Inc., Myspace and all, in 2016.
Q 05Which TheFacebook co-founder fought the company in court after his stake was diluted in 2005?
Eduardo Saverin
Eduardo Saverin. The two sides settled in 2009, and Facebook put his name back on its list of founders.
Q 06What was Zuckerberg's 2003 Harvard site that asked users to pick the 'hotter' of two students called?
Facemash
Facemash. It came down within days after student groups protested, and Harvard's Administrative Board did not make him leave school.
Q 07Which video-sharing site added a 'like' button as early as November 2005?
Vimeo
Vimeo. Developer Andrew Pile said the team liked Digg's concept but didn't want to call them 'Diggs', so they came up with 'Likes'.
Q 08Which whistleblower went public weeks before Facebook rebranded as Meta?
Frances Haugen
Frances Haugen. She had copied tens of thousands of internal documents, including research on how Instagram affects teenagers.
Q 09YouTube's three founders had all previously worked at which company?
PayPal
PayPal. Their former PayPal finance chief, Roelof Botha, was by then at Sequoia, which put $3.5 million into YouTube.
Q 10'Me at the zoo', the first YouTube video, shows Jawed Karim in front of which animals?
Elephants
Elephants. In 2013 Karim used the clip's page to protest a new rule for commenting on YouTube videos.
Q 11Twitter began in 2006 as a side project inside which company?
Odeo
Odeo. Twitter's first prototype was a tool for the podcasting startup's staff, and Evan Williams later bought back its investors' stakes.
Q 12When Twitter doubled its 140-character limit in 2017, which language's tweets kept the old limit?
Japanese
Japanese. One character there can carry far more meaning, so only a small share of Japanese tweets had been hitting 140.
Q 13Elon Musk acquired Twitter in October 2022 for approximately how much?
$44B
$44B. Nine months later Musk renamed Twitter X and retired its famous blue bird logo.
Q 21Which name did the ephemeral-photo app founded by Evan Spiegel launch under on iOS in July 2011?
Picaboo
Picaboo. Reggie Brown, who pitched the disappearing-photo idea, was forced out within months and later won a settlement.
Q 22The ghost mascot 'Ghostface Chillah' is named after a member of which hip-hop group?
Wu-Tang Clan
Wu-Tang Clan. When Reggie Brown later sued his co-founders, he said he had come up with the ghost himself.
Q 23Which LinkedIn co-founder later became a famous venture capitalist?
Reid Hoffman
Reid Hoffman. Years before LinkedIn, he had started SocialNet, a site for meeting people, mainly for dating.
Q 14What was Twitter's overload error image of birds hoisting a sea creature nicknamed?
The fail whale
The fail whale. Artist Yiying Lu had first drawn it, as 'Lifting a Dreamer', to send birthday wishes to faraway friends.
Q 15Who first proposed using the # symbol to group tweets, in a 2007 tweet?
Chris Messina
Chris Messina. He says Twitter told him hashtags were 'for nerds', yet they caught on that autumn during the San Diego wildfires.
Q 16Before Twitter, the # symbol already labeled channels on which chat system?
IRC
IRC. Its # channel names inspired the 2007 proposal that brought hashtags to Twitter.
Q 17Instagram began life as a location check-in app with what name?
Burbn
Burbn. Kevin Systrom had raised a $500,000 seed round for the check-in app before he and his co-founder cut it down to photo sharing.
Q 18Facebook bought Instagram in April 2012 for approximately how much?
$1B
$1B. Britain's competition regulator and the US Federal Trade Commission both examined the deal before clearing it in August 2012.
Q 19Which post overtook the record-holding egg as the most-liked Instagram post in December 2022?
Lionel Messi celebrating the World Cup
Lionel Messi celebrating the World Cup. The egg it toppled had been posted in 2019 with a caption urging people to beat Kylie Jenner's record.
Q 20The @world_record_egg account, which set Instagram's most-liked record in 2019, was revealed to belong to whom?
A British advertising creative
A British advertising creative. Chris Godfrey and two friends then turned the egg into a Hulu ad raising mental health awareness.
Q 24Which company bought LinkedIn in 2016 for $26.2 billion?
Microsoft
Microsoft. To win the last regulator's approval, it promised rival professional networks could keep plugging into Office.
Q 25Reddit was founded in June 2005 by two roommates at which school?
Virginia
Virginia. Right after graduating, they joined Paul Graham's first Y Combinator class, where the idea for Reddit took shape.
Q 26What is the name of Reddit's alien mascot?
Snoo
Snoo. Alexis Ohanian drew the alien himself, and it became Reddit's logo.
Q 27Which site did Ben Silbermann launch in 2010 after his shopping app Tote failed to take off?
Pinterest. Tote's users rarely bought anything, but they kept saving favourite items, and that habit gave Silbermann the idea.
Q 28Which live-streaming app did Twitter buy in early 2015, before the app had even launched?
Periscope
Periscope. Twitter shut it down in March 2021, calling the app an unsustainable 'maintenance-mode' product.
Q 29Vine, the looping video app Twitter bought for $30 million in 2012, limited clips to how long?
Six seconds
Six seconds. It couldn't keep up once Instagram and other rivals added short video, so Twitter shut it down.
Q 30Which company bought Tumblr for $1.1 billion in 2013?
Yahoo
Yahoo. Six years later Verizon, which had taken over Yahoo, sold Tumblr to Automattic, the owner of WordPress.com.