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In December 2009, Facebook published the results of a complex analysis designed to determine the ethnic diversity of its user base.  Because Facebook does not collect data about the race or ethnicity of its members, the social network relied on information it possessed about its users' surnames.  It combined this information with data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau.  According to Facebook, the "U.S. Census Bureau's Genealogy Project publishes a data set containing the frequency of popular surnames along with a breakdown by race and ethnicity."

Facebook concluded that: "Since 2005, Asian/Pacific Islanders have been much more likely to be on Facebook than Whites, and that has remained so. While Hispanics were once 40 percent as likely as Whites to be on the site, this number has been steadily climbing since early 2007 and currently is at 80 percent. This graph also shows that Black users are now about as likely to be on the site as White users."

See image below for charts illustrating the racial/ethnic breakdown of Facebook users (click to enlarge).