In an announcement this morning, Mark Zuckerberg announced that there are officially one billion active Facebook users. For those of you keeping track at home, there are 6,973,738,433 people alive on planet earth right now. That’s 14% of all living people on earth. Not too shabby for a dorm room startup company.

Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling and by far the thing I am most proud of in my life,” Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post. “I am committed to working every day to make Facebook better for you, and hopefully together one day we will be able to connect the rest of the world too.”

For all the flak Facebook has taken, especially recently, one billion active users is a staggering milestone. Keep in mind, this isn’t a sham statistic that counts people who have registered but never log on. This is active, engaged users. No matter what you think about Facebook, this is a momentous moment  in both the history of the Internet and the history of how we as human beings interact on a daily basis.

However, as you’re well aware, anything that massive and popular is going to attract a fair share of con artists and scammers. So while Facebook does provide unparalleled opportunities to connect and share information, it’s important to be a responsible user and protect yourself and your privacy. From only friending people you know to strictly controlling your privacy settings, it’s vitally important for Facebook users to guard themselves. Facebook is a great tool for good, but, of course, it can also be used maliciously, and it’s up to each individual to ensure they don’t fall prey to these scam artists.

So now that Facebook has crossed this massive milestone, where do they go from here? Onward and upward. Facebook  has designs on expanding geographically into Russia and China while expanding technologically into mobile systems. Love it or hate it, Facebook is going to continue being a big part of 21^st century life (and beyond) all over the world.

Recommended Resources

BitDefender Safego is a Facebook application you can install that will scan your News Feed and help keep you safe from scams on Facebook.

PRIVATE WiFi® is a Personal VPN that encrypts everything you send and receive. Don’t access Facebook from a public WiFi hotspot without it.

Action Alert | Free Parental Control offers a 100% free Internet safety solution designed for parents. There is also a Maximum Protection option for parents that need a more advanced set of tools.