FACEBOOK WAITED THREE YEARS TO DISCLOSE THIS INCIDENT.

up with an announcement about what it was doing to solve the underlying issue. If Facebook had done this, it wouldn’t be dealing with the mess it’s in today.

What’s more, such a strategy would likely have allowed the company to determine how to solve the problem itself. If Facebook had quickly implemented measures to better protect the privacy of its users, it would have been unnecessary for lawmakers to step in and mandate them. Selfdesigned solutions would almost certainly have been more palatable to the company than the kinds of changes now likely to be imposed from the outside.

That strategy is still the company’s best bet now — even though it will continue to suffer massive reputational damage for its delay. The fact that Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg have stayed silent until now suggests, astonishingly, that they still haven’t learned this rudimentary lesson.