Biggest "country" on Earth, Facebook hits 2 billion monthly users
Social network giant Facebook has reached yet another milestone! The total number of monthly active Facebook users is now much more than the population of any country in the world! Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced, "Facebook community is now officially two billion people." Its colossal user base is roughly a quarter of the world's population, which is about 7.5 billion.
Facebook continues to grow steadily
Critics, who said Facebook's growth would be slow as users are attracted to other social networks, have been proven wrong again. The internet giant has reached the major milestone of 2 billion monthly users only 13 years after being launched. In Oct'12, Facebook crossed one billion monthly users only two years after it announced that 500 million people monthly use it.
Zuckerberg launched Facebook from his college dormitory room
When Zuckerberg founded "The Facebook" in 2004, he was still at Harvard University. After creating the social network, he dropped out of the university, in 2005, to focus on developing it into the most popular social-networking platform in the world.
The next billion: A lot tougher than it seems
Facebook ambitions, including "wiring the entire planet", remain huge as increasing its user base, when already a large number of people use it, is not easy. Though not impossible, achieving three billion users is tough, given not every person in the world is connected to the Internet. Also, the social network is blocked in a few places in the world.
With massive growth comes huge responsibility
Facebook's growth put a huge responsibility on its shoulders - preventing the spread of terror-related content. It's been criticized for not effectively blocking such content and preventing terror outfits from using it for recruitment and spreading hate messages. Videos of suicides, murders, and other crimes are increasingly being posted to the network. It recently hired 3,000 additional people to moderate content on the website.
Facebook Chief Product Officer Chris Cox's statement
"It's worth really taking a careful look at what are all the things that we can do to make social media the most positive force for good possible. There's definitely a deep sense of responsibility in every part of the company."
