Zuckerberg’s New Year’s resolution: ‘Fixing’ Facebook
Facebook Inc. chief executive Mark Zuckerberg will spend 2018 trying to correct persistent problems — including the proliferation of hate speech and misinformation — that have dogged his wildly popular social network for the past two years.
“We won’t prevent all mistakes or abuse,” Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post on Thursday, announcing his annual personal challenge. “But we currently make too many errors enforcing our policies and preventing misuse of our tools.”
He vowed to take a comprehensive look at Facebook’s role in society, recruiting experts and using his personal time to closely study issues that he said “touch on questions of history, civics, political philosophy, media, government, and of course technology.” Facebook declined to make Zuckerberg available for an interview.
The announcement was something of a departure for the 33-year-old founder, who has generally used his annual New Year’s announcement for more lighthearted pursuits. For instance, in past years he has promised to run every day, start a book club, and, most memorably, to only eat meat that he killed with his own hands.
Of course, “fixing Facebook,” is probably a taller order than any of those. Zuckerberg spent most of 2017 trying, fitfully at times, to address the same issues that he has promised to focus on in 2018.
After initially dismissing concerns about the influence of socalled fake news on Facebook, especially during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, Zuckerberg released a 6,000-word “community letter” in February, explaining how Facebook would attempt to prevent harmful uses of its platform and focus on building relationships between people.
This summer, Facebook organized its first Communities Summit, where Zuckerberg unveiled improved functionality to make it more useful to organizers of offline local groups, such as churches. During its earnings call in November, Zuckerberg warned investors that Facebook’s investments in security to prevent abuse of its platform would hurt profitability.
But those announcements have been overshadowed by disclosures about the activity of Kremlin-connected propagandists. In December, two former executives, Sean Parker and Chamath Palihapitiya, suggested that Facebook use might be harmful.