Facebook has reached an important, and somewhat terrifying milestone: It is used by more than a quarter of the planet’s population.
Of the around 7 billion on planet Earth, 1.94 billion of them use Facebook every single month.
Over 1.28 billion of those people use Facebook every single day and that figure is showing no sign of going down anytime soon.
The revelation comes as Facebook revealed its Q1 earnings showing a 76 per cent rise in profits year-on-year.
Despite these strong numbers the company has warned investors that its advertising revenue will slow down. Why? Well quite simply the company can’t show any more ads than it already does so growth will now become heavily reliant on the number of new people that Facebook can bring to its social network.
There will now surely be increasing pressure on Facebook to better monetise its other products including WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger.
The strong financial figures have come amid a tumultuous time for the company after its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company would be hiring 3,000 more staff to help prevent the spate of violent content that has been appearing on the site.
The decision was in direct response to a series of violent deaths that were broadcast in the last fortnight using Facebook Live.
“If we’re going to build a safe community, we need to respond quickly. We’re working to make these videos easier to report so we can take the right action sooner ― whether that’s responding quickly when someone needs help or taking a post down.” he said.
“These reviewers will also help us get better at removing things we don’t allow on Facebook like hate speech and child exploitation.” explained Zuckerberg. “And we’ll keep working with local community groups and law enforcement who are in the best position to help someone if they need it ― either because they’re about to harm themselves, or because they’re in danger from someone else.”
Before that the company came under fire for its handling of fake news stories being published on the site.
Eventually Facebook responded by revealing a three-pronged plan that involved removing economic incentives through advertising, building ‘new products’ and by giving users the means to find out if a story is false or not.