If Facebook was a country it would be the largest in the world. This past summer, Facebook released its financial results for the second quarter of 2016, which saw the platform grow to over 1.7 billion monthly active users (MAUs). Users for WashApp and Messenger were 1 billion, while Instagram registered 500 million users. But Facebook is not the only one growing in terms of users. It’s a trend that seems to indicate that social media platforms are now growing bigger than countries. In fact, if you compare and the monthly active users of some of , a whopping 15 out of 20 are in the digital space, not sovereign nations. the biggest countries in terms of population the largest social networks TOP 2016 RANKING (by estimated population or monthly active users): 1.  Facebook      1,712 million             11. US              3232.  China         1,373                     12. Twitter         3133.  India         1.266                     13. Baidu Tieba     3004.  WhatsApp      1,000                     13. Skype           3004.  Messenger     1,000                     14. Sina Weibo      2825.  QQ              899                     15. Indonesia       2586.  WeChat          806                     16. Viber           2497.  QZone           652                     17. Line            2188.  Tumblr          555                     18. Brazil          2059.  EU              513                     19. Pakistan        20110. Instagram       500                     20. Snapchat        200 _Sources:_ [_CIA World Factbook_](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2119rank.html) _-_ [_Statista_](https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/) While China and India remain the most populous countries in the world, they are outpaced by Facebook in terms of numbers. WhatsApp and Messenger are both 4th and Instagram is 10th. Outside of the Facebook family of apps and tools, Tumblr is 8th, while Twitter, quite static in the ranking with a little over 300 million users, is 12th and Snapchat, with around 200 million MAUs, ranks 20th. In China, Tencent controls QQ, WeChat, and QZone, which are 5th, 6th, and 7th in the list. Weibo ranks right after Twitter, in 13th position. Back in 2014 — when — China and India were topping the rankings, while Facebook was 3rd with a bit more of 1.1 billion users. I first posted on social media rapid growth medium.com Social Media Platforms are growing bigger than countries Facebook is the largest social networks, third after China and India

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