Facebook Chief Mark Zuckerberg is pledging to introduce new features to the platform that would respect the users’ privacy with the thinking that the future is private.
For majority of over one billion Facebook users that might sound a hard thing to understand. Since its launch, the FB has been leapfrogging as a fast-paced experiment in the global market like one avenue joined in from many perspectives and multiple facets of life – a platform for networking, friendships, business, political messaging, tourism and entertainment.
All this has been possible due to an array of marketing tools that the FB brings to users to expand their sphere of activity – from personal branding to business marketing to pitching new ideas of creativity and community mobilization. But all this global way of discussions and business has come with some bargain.
The users get this networking facility with strings attached by sharing some of their information as a necessity. They also have the option to share their data through use of features that tell friends and networks about their activity and brand preferences. For example, they use Facebook live-streaming at the events they host or attend. The users can also turn on the location check in feature. This helps the advertising companies to target users with ads.
While these features connect people, commerce and ideas in a big way, the Facebook, and not unexpectedly so, has also been rocked by a spate of scandals like a company Cambridge Analytica’s scooping up of user data from Facebook, Russia’s intrusion with fake accounts into the 2016 U.S. elections, or the criminal exploitation of the platform by destructive forces like the terrorist who live-streamed shooting of Muslim worshipers in New Zealand mosques.
But Facebook’s importance as a huge entrepreneurial and networking success and its being a valuable platform for community organization, dialogue and marketing remains immense, especially for the people and entrepreneurs who cannot possibly compete with large companies in the absence of the Internet – the great equalizer.
In some ways, Zuckerberg’s intention to protect privacy of conversations via WhatsApp is a welcome measue.
Credit: Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook
But, the company – an evolving mix of technology, innovation and public participation – has a lot to do to reassure users of what the future would look like in terms of protection of their personal information.
The Facebook leader himself has acknowledged the need for clarity and has promised to share information as the company evolves into fulfilling its future promise.
Here is Zuckerberg’s post on the new features to make the future privacy-focused.
“Today at F8, I talked about how we’re starting to build out a privacy-focused social platform.
For the last 15 years, we’ve built Facebook and Instagram into digital equivalents of the town square, where you can interact with lots of people at once. Now we’re focused on building the digital equivalent of the living room, where you can interact in all the ways you’d want privately — from messaging and stories to secure payments and more.
To bring this vision to life, we’re building Messenger and WhatsApp into platforms for all kinds of private interactions and working on making end-to-end encryption the default for both. We’ve redesigned Facebook to make communities as central as friends. We’ve added new ways to buy things securely on Instagram. Augmented and virtual reality also create more personal and intimate experiences — so we’re bringing WhatsApp to Portal, adding end-to-end encryption for all calls, and launching Portal internationally. And I’m very excited that this year we’re shipping Oculus Rift S and Oculus Quest, the headset that gives you full freedom of movement with no cables.
As we build more of our services around this privacy vision, we’re also changing how we run our company. We’re committed to consulting with experts on the major tradeoffs and social issues to find the best path forward, taking a more active role in making sure developers use our tools in good ways, and building out the technical infrastructure to support this vision. This is going to take time and we don’t have all the answers yet, but we’re focused on getting this right and doing it openly. I’m looking forward to sharing more with you as we continue on this journey to build a private social platform.”
