"I understand that many people don't think Facebook can or would even want to build this kind of privacy-focused platform — because frankly we don't currently have a strong reputation for building privacy protective services, and we've historically focused on tools for more open sharing. But we've repeatedly shown that we can evolve to build the services that people really want, including in private messaging and stories," Zuckerberg said in the post.
Facebook found itself mired in controversy in early 2018 when it surfaced that the company had exposed personal consumer data of over 80 million users to Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm that specialized in data mining.
Cambridge Analytica, whose senior vice president was Steve Bannon and funded by Republican fundraisers, had been hired by President Trump's presidential campaign. The firm received the data from Aleksandr Kogan, a Russian American working at University of Cambridge who developed a Facebook quiz which was taken and shared by millions of users.
Public confidence in Facebook, which has roughly 2.3 billion users, has dropped. The latest Axios Harris survey released Wednesday showed that Facebook had dropped 43 spots, to No. 94, on its Reputation Quotient List compared to 2018. The survey consisted of 18,228 people in the U.S. in a nationally representative sample.
In an effort to turn the company's fortunes around, Zuckerberg said the revamped platform will have the popular Facebook-owned encryption-protected messaging application WhatsApp serve as its model. Several principles around encryption, secure storage, and permanence of posts, photos, and messages, will be the core of the new framework.
"Over the next few years, we plan to rebuild more of our services around these ideas. The decisions we'll face along the way will mean taking positions on important issues concerning the future of the internet. We understand there are a lot of tradeoffs to get right, and we're committed to consulting with experts and discussing the best way forward," Zuckerberg said. "This will take some time, but we're not going to develop this major change in our direction behind closed doors. We're going to do this as openly and collaboratively as we can because many of these issues affect different parts of society."
The kind of privacy protocols that Zuckerberg intends to implement at the new social media platform could put it at odds with many international governments, including those who have spurned Facebook. China, for example, has already cracked down on mobile applications that encrypt consumer data and has already banned messaging services such as WhatsApp and Facebook.
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