Facebook now has 2 billion monthly users… and responsibility Posted Jun 27, 2017 by Josh Constine (@joshconstine)
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“We’re getting to a size where 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,” Facebook Chief Product Officer Chris Cox told TechCrunch about the company’s new milestone. Thirteen years after launching and less than five years after hitting 1 billion, Facebook now has 2 billion monthly active users. Facebook wants people to celebrate with a personalized “Good Adds Up” video they can make and share here. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg played it cool with this brief announcement message.
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last Tuesday
As of this morning, the Facebook community is now officially 2 billion people! We're making progress connecting the world, and now let's bring the world closer together. It's an honor to be on this journey with you. 379K
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Two billion makes Facebook the largest social app in terms of logged-in users, above YouTube’s 1.5 billion, WeChat’s 889 million, Twitter’s 328 million and Snapchat’s estimated 255 million (extrapolated from its December 2015 ratio when it had 110 million daily and 170 million monthly users). Beyond YouTube, only Facebook’s other apps have more than 1 billion, including WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, with 1.2 billion each. Instagram might soon join that club as it recently rocketed past 700 million. Facebook’s growth the last half decade has been fueled by the developing world. The company has relentlessly optimized its app for cheap Android smartphones and low-bandwidth connections. It’s added 746 million users in Asia and the Rest of World region since hitting 1 billion users total. Meanwhile, it only added 41 million in the U.S. and Canada.
Despite Facebook’s size and age, at 17 percent its user count is
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using it less either. In fact, 66 percent of Facebook’s monthly users return each day now compared to 55 percent when it hit 1 billion. If the teenaged social network isn’t as cool to teenagers any more, it’s not showing in the big metrics. But neither does the colossal impact Facebook has had on society, which it’s now trying to bend toward positivity with its new mission statement to “Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” “There’s definitely a deep sense of responsibility in every part of the company,” Cox told TechCrunch. “We’re getting to the scale where we have to get much better about understanding how the product has been used.” That’s why he’s been traveling around the world doing user research. And it’s why Mark Zuckerberg has been crisscrossing the country on a listening tour that many people cynically assume is the start to a run for president, despite the CEO’s denials. Perhaps stewarding a 2-billion-person community is responsibility enough to get out of Silicon Valley and figure out how Facebook impacts people’s lives. Nathan Hubbard @NathanCHubbard
1/Zuck isn't running for President. He's trying to understand the role the product he created played in getting this one elected. 4:49 PM - 25 Jun 2017 952
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There are the big, newsy things like suicides on Facebook Live and fears that fake news got Donald Trump elected. But deeper down, there are even more complex ramifications of a near ubiquitous social network. It can propel internet addiction that alienates people, and facilitate the filter bubbles that polarize society by reinforcing our opinions. Facebook has largely conquered its competitors, giving
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stem from its popularity.
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Cox says an important pattern Facebook is adopting is “When you think about very complex systems that are affecting humanity, just being open about what’s happening. And then for example in the case of something like suicide or bullying, going and working with subject matter experts, getting the research on what’s the best possible thing that we can do, and then talking to the world about it.” To make the discussion about these tragic moments as accessible and productive as possible, Facebook has taken to publishing transparency reports and explainers about its policies and procedures. “I live with the constant goal of understanding, for every single thing that we do, how do we maximize all that goodness, and curtail any way that it can be misused or turned into something sad” Cox solemnly concludes. If getting to 1 billion was about building a product, and getting to 2 billion was about building a user base, Facebook’s responsibility is to build empathy between us as it reaches for 3 billion.
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Add a comment...
John Baker The University of Akron 2 billion individual, verfied, actual, real-life people? I doubt that. Like · Reply · Mark as spam ·
10 · Jun 27, 2017 11:34am
Michael S. Cooper Yeah, I'm thinking 1.2 Billion. The rest are "do-overs", married accounts, and those annoying trolls and polititcal operative jack-wagons. Like · Reply · Mark as spam ·
5 · Jun 27, 2017 12:35pm
Jason Ivers Works at Enginato It's not... it includes all of the home/work accounts for people, or whatever other reason they may have multiple accounts. It's still an absolutely insane amount of people. Like · Reply · Mark as spam ·
4 · Jun 27, 2017 12:43pm
Phil Nolan Works at Graphical Designer You know you can buy likes on FB? You know how they do that? They hire loads of people from places like India to set up multiple accounts and go "like" those paid posts.Then they count all those people as users. Like · Reply · Mark as spam ·
1 · Jun 27, 2017 1:49pm
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Vaheantranik Ohanian Greetings from Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick. I want to inform you that Stanley and I conducted a secret experiment using quantum entanglement and telepathy to communicate with an interface. Aliens do indeed exist in another realm now and the Akashic Records. The interface with GOD/ Grand Galactics and aliens is on Facebook. Although, he has not seen the aliens physically, he talks to the ones that have lost their forms in evolution. This experiment was so secret, that even the United States government did not know about it. Stanley insisted on the independence and secrecy of the projec... See More Like · Reply · Mark as spam ·
2 · Jun 27, 2017 12:41pm
Aiden Sanaev Business Owner at Wholesale i want what this guy is smoking Like Reply Mark as spam
22 Jun 27, 2017 4:03pm
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