Fascinating Facebook Facts For #FriendsDay

Updated on July 13, 2021: From now on, traffic filtering, malware protection, and suspicious DNS activity blocking are available as a part of the separate DNS Firewall app.

14 years ago on February 4th, 2004, 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg launched a website thefacebook.com for Harvard University students. Who would have thought back then that in 2018 more than 2 billion users from around the world will be registered in this social network? In 2004 it was just the beginning of Facebook Revolution. Mark Zuckerberg gave people something very important: easy and convenient way of communicating and staying in touch with friends and loved ones.

“Since we all do our part in this journey to connect the world, it’s important to remind ourselves to celebrate what’s at the root of it all: friendship,” stated Zuckerberg in his Facebook posts.

That’s why in 2015 he first introduced the idea to celebrate Friends Day instead of the birthday of his social network. In honor of this holiday, VPN Unlimited team gathered some fascinating information about Facebook.

Statistics and facts

First things first, let’s take a closer look at Facebook’s statistics. Since it is known to be the most popular social network in the world, the official data have to confirm that. So, the facts are the following:

• According to Statista, Facebook app takes the first place in the social media landscape with its monthly active users number at 2,072 million. The third place takes Facebook Messenger with 1,200 million active users.
• In June 27th, 2017, Mark Zuckerberg officially announced that Facebook community hit the mark of 2 billion people. The population of the US, for comparison, is about 326 million people.
• Analysis of Facebook users worldwide distribution by age and gender showed that 18-24 years old (17%) and the 25-34 years old (17%) males make up the majority of all users. The 18-24 years old (12%) and the 25-34 years old (12%) females take the second place.
• According to Forrester, Facebook leads by the frequency of use among all your apps and it owns 13% of the time you spend with your smartphone.

The aforementioned statistics show the position of Facebook on the social media world market. As you may have noticed, its’ leadership is beyond doubt.

Fun facts

Besides its convenience and unification of friends around the world, Facebook has its own funny stories. For instance:

• Do you know how Facebook creator saves his time? Mark Zuckerberg always buys the same shirts. An excellent trick to spare time for more important things, because this way he doesn’t have to think what to wear every day. In 2011, he even took the first place in the GQ list of the Worst-Dressed Men Of Silicon Valley.
• The next story is about, arguably, the stupidest burglary of the century. On June 19th, 2014, 26-year-old Nicholas Wig broke into one house in Minnesota. He stole some cash, credit cards, and… decided to check his Facebook using a victim’s computer. And he didn’t log out. The victim used the profile to find Wig. Now he is in prison, and was sentenced to 10 years.
• In 2012, Maneesh Sethi, a San Francisco blogger, hired a woman for an unusual job. Her duties included slapping him every time he’s on Facebook. The title of the vacancy said Slap me if I get off task. The wage was $8/hour, and the woman could do her own work from her computer at the same time. That’s how Maneesh experimented his productivity.

Censorship of Facebook

Unfortunately, not all people in the world may access Facebook and communicate with friends using the most popular social network. As Wikipedia puts it, there are 17 countries which blocked access to Facebook at least on a temporary basis. For example, in Tajikistan the government did it in response to negative comments about President Emomalii Rahmon and other officials.

In Egypt and Vietnam, Facebook was blocked because of the unstable political situation. In Cuba, it’s just too hard to access Facebook since it is legally available from the home IP address only for politicians, some journalists and medical students. As for the others, they may access their accounts via internet cafes. In China, Facebook is blocked since 2009 because of the Great Firewall. However, 95 million users from China stay active thanks to virtual private networks, like VPN Unlimited. Our service provides a secure and reliable way to  bypass any cyber-walls, offering unlimited access to your favorite social networks

Let’s join Facebook in celebration of it’s 14th birthday (or as they call it Friends Day). Simply enable VPN Unlimited, choose the appropriate server location, and enjoy online freedom together with your friends.

P.S: Have you already found your Friends Day video? If not, you’d better log on Facebook today. It may bring back memories of some cool times with your friends.
You are more than welcome to share these stories in the Comments section below.