Why Facebook's New “Privacy Focused” Vision Is Not That Big Of A Deal

Why Facebook’s new “privacy focused” vision is probably not that big of a deal.

- Koh Wanzi

Mark Zuckerberg published a 3,200-word essay in March about what he called a new “privacy-focused vision” for social networking. This lengthy treatise represented quite a shift for the same man who wrote in 2012 that it was Facebook’s social mission to make the world “more open and connected”. This could be seen as either contrite capitulation, especially given the slew of bad press Facebook has received over the past year, or a calculated move to shore up the company’s image.

In truth, it’s probably a mix of both, but there’s good reason to be skeptical. Private messaging, ephemeral stories, and small groups are the fastest growing areas of online communication today, according to him, and this opens up an opportunity to “build a simpler platform that’s focused on privacy first”. That sounds nice and modest, but the problem is that Zuckerberg isn’t really saying anything new.