Facebook hits 2 billion users

CAIRO - 4 July 2017: Facebook sent customized appreciation videos to all of its users on Tuesday, the number of which hit the two billion mark as of June 27.

Facebook, the largest social networking website in the world to date, was launched by Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin in 2004 under the name 'The Facebook.'

Back then, the website's initial iteration was limited to connecting Harvard University students, with the duo later expanding to Ivy League universities and dropping the definite article in its name to become 'Facebook.com' in 2005.

It eventually allowed anyone who is 13 or older from across the world with an email address to sign up to the website in 2006.

Facebook hit its first billion users on September 14, 2012 and reached its second milestone in less than 5 years later.

According to U.K. newspaper The Telegraph, "Around 3.7 billion people around the world have access to internet connections, and around 700 million of those are in China.

" Facebook is amongst the sites that were banned in China after the 2009 riots in Xinjiang, a province in Western China, because the government believed that social media sites such as Facebook allowed people to plan and participate in the social unrest.