Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg says he'll reorient the company toward encryption and privacy
Source: Washington Post
Facebook, which for a generation has encouraged billions of people to widely share their life updates and pictures, is trying to reinvent itself as a place for private communication.
Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday announced a sweeping reorientation toward privacy, explaining in a lengthy essay posted to his account that he would spend the coming years focusing Facebooks distinct apps WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook on content that is encrypted, meaning data is scrambled so that outsiders, and even Facebook, cannot read it. But the shift, which shows how the embattled company is positioning itself for an uncertain future marked by consumer distrust, declining growth on its core social network and ongoing fights with regulators around the world, could cause an upheaval in Facebooks business model of mining peoples information to show them ads.
While offering few specifics, Zuckerberg said the company would move from being a social network where people broadcast information to large groups of people a town hall to a service that is modeled after a living room, where people communicate with smaller trusted groups.
-snip-
Reactions to Zuckerbergs announcement were swift and skeptical. Privacy advocates said Zuckerberg needs to go beyond touting encryption to provide concrete information about whether less data will be collected and used for Facebooks profits. Why does it always sound like we are witnessing a digital version of Ground Hog Day when Facebook yet again promises when its in a crisis that it will do better, said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a nonprofit privacy advocacy group in Washington. Will it actually bring a change to how Facebook continually gathers data on its users in order to drive big profits?"
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/03/06/facebooks-mark-zuckerberg-says-hell-reorient-company-towards-encryption-privacy/?utm_term=.265a68752ae7&wpisrc=al_news__alert-economy--alert-national&wpmk=1
Fullduplexxx
(7,864 posts)dalton99a
(81,515 posts)marble falls
(57,102 posts)it'll just make it harder for others to steal any of our data from him.
47of74
(18,470 posts)rpannier
(24,329 posts)or that are implemented in such a half-assed way that they're meaningless
And that, I have no doubt, is by design
EricMaundry
(1,619 posts)Then it will be business as usual. Just ask Vladimir Putin.
RockRaven
(14,972 posts)from unknown sources including hostile foreign governments? You remember that, don't you Mark, the thing people are actually f-ing complaining about?
That's like a restaurant manager saying "Hi, we've heard you have complaints about a wobbly table leg. We want you to know our spaghetti bolognese is made with only organic grass-fed beef."
ret5hd
(20,495 posts)spaghetti bolognese is made with hooves, tripe, and roadkill. We want you to know we fixed that wobbly table leg."