Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg addresses Facebook users’ privacy concerns in a column in the Washington Post on Monday.
Zuckerberg admits that users find their privacy settings confusing, and promises new, simplified settings “in the coming weeks”. The public statement follows a private email exchange with a blogger in which he admitted “we’ve made a bunch of mistakes“.
The majority of Monday’s column (the thrust of which is quoted below) doesn’t really provide us with new information. It’s the standard patter about Facebook’s mission, and the company’s belief that sharing makes the world a better place. But Zuckerberg does outline a plan to revise the site’s privacy settings:
Facebook has been growing quickly. It has become a community of more than 400 million people in just a few years. It’s a challenge to keep that many people satisfied over time, so we move quickly to serve that community with new ways to connect with the social Web and each other. Sometimes we move too fast — and after listening to recent concerns, we’re responding.
…The biggest message we have heard recently is that people want easier control over their information. Simply put, many of you thought our controls were too complex. Our intention was to give you lots of granular controls; but that may not have been what many of you wanted. We just missed the mark.
We have heard the feedback. There needs to be a simpler way to control your information. In the coming weeks, we will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use. We will also give you an easy way to turn off all third-party services. We are working hard to make these changes available as soon as possible. We hope you’ll be pleased with the result of our work and, as always, we’ll be eager to get your feedback.
I find Zuckerberg’s private response far more impressive than this public one. His private email to Robert Scoble, reprinted with Zuckerberg’s permission, included honest phrasing like “we’ve made a bunch of mistakes” and ” I want to make sure we get this stuff right this time”. Those concessions to critics verge upon being a mea culpa, even if they stop short of a direct apology. The Washington Post piece is much less direct: No doubt vetted by multiple members of the Facebook team, it almost seems to blame the users for being unable to work their privacy controls.
Nonetheless, Facebook is smart to address critics in such a public fashion. Whatever the resolution of this privacy debacle, I’ve no doubt the controversy will eventually be forgotten, just like every other Facebook flap over the years. Simply put, Facebook is on an unstoppable roll right now: It’s the dominant force on the social web, with Google and Twitter trailing far behind.
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Tags: facebook, privacy, Zuckerberg