Facebook Celebrates Turning 12 With “Friends Day” Videos



Now Facebook has its own holiday it calls “Friends Day”. On February 4th, the social network turns 12 years old. But in typical self-less Zuckerberg fashion, Mark said “rather than having this birthday that focuses on us, we should make sure that the world focuses on what’s important”. Namely, its users.

So today Facebook is sending everyone a Friends Day video card featuring photos them and their friends. Similar to its year in review videos, you can edit the clip if you want to nix anything awkward and then share it. There’s some Friends Day stickers too.

Facebook’s also reminding people how close it makes everyone in the world. It’s doubled in size from 750 million to over 1.59 billion users since 2011, but its network has actually grown denser. That means the average two users are just 3.57 degrees of separation away from each other now, if you were playing that Kevin Bacon game, down from 3.74 degrees away in 2011.

That might sound like a silly stat but it’s pretty remarkable considering Facebook’s push to make phone numbers obsolete and let everyone in the world contact each other over Messenger.

Facebook did throw itself a little private pre-birthday party at its Menlo Park headquarters this week. It invited 18 users from Saudi Arabia, Louisiana, Hungary, and other places to share how Facebook changed their lives.

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