Until recently, Facebook Inc.’s mission statement had been to “make the world more open and connected,” and it looks like the social media giant has made some good progress toward that goal, as it now boasts more than 2 billion monthly active users.

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) announced the new milestone today in a post on Facebook, and he noted in a comment that the social network hit its first billion milestone just five years ago. Zuckerberg also reiterated Facebook’s new mission, which is to not only connect the world, but to bring it closer together by helping users build “meaningful communities.”

In a blog post, Facebook Product Director Mike Nowak and Product Manager Guillermo Spiller expanded on Facebook’s goals in light of the new milestone, highlighting some new features aimed at promoting communities.

One of the new features announced today is a personalized video called Good Adds Up, which showcases “fun facts about how people are contributing to the community.” This includes posts to which they have reacted positively or that other users have liked or shared. Facebook is also showing a message thanking users when they use the Like or Love reaction on posts.

“As Mark mentioned last week at the Facebook Communities Summit, our mission is to bring the world closer together,” Nowak and Spiller said. “Reaching this milestone is just one small step toward that goal. We are excited to continue to build products that allow people to connect with one another, regardless of where they live or what language they speak.”

Having such a large user base is obviously a good thing for Facebook, but it also presents plenty of challenges for the company. The social network has been struggling to adapt to its diverse global community, which includes dozens of countries that all have their own laws and customs regarding privacy and censorship.

For example, Facebook has been criticized in the past for complying with censorship requests in countries such as Turkey, but the company has also stressed that it must comply with local law wherever it operates. To address many of these concerns, Facebook announced earlier this month that it would be answering “hard questions” about how it tackles problems like extremist content and censorship.

“The decisions we make at Facebook affect the way people find out about the world and communicate with their loved ones,” Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s vice president for public policy and communications, said in a statement at the time. “It goes far beyond us.”

Photo: Facebook