Zuckerberg already busy in 2018.
Mark Zuckerberg wants the company to help bridge divides
Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg typically kicks off the new year by announcing he’s learning something new.
He’s toured the United States, studied Mandarin and even built an artificial intelligence assistant for his home.
But this year, the 33- year- old says he’s focusing on self- improvement — by working to fix the problems confronting the company he co-founded.
Since the 2016 presidential election, Facebook has faced mounting criticism that the world’s most popular social media site could actually be dividing the world rather than bringing people closer together.
From divisive Russian ads to hate speech, Zuckerberg pledged Thursday to do a better job in 2018.
“The world feels anxious and divided, and Facebook has a lot of work to do— whether it’s protecting our community from abuse and hate, defending against interference by nation states, or making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent,” he wrote on Facebook. “My personal challenge for 2018 is to focus on fixing these important issues.”
One of the questions that companies like Facebook have been grappling with is whether technology puts more power in the
hands of people, he said.
“Today, many people have lost faith in that promise. With the rise of a small number of big tech companies — and governments using technology to watch their citizens — many people now believe technology only centralizes power rather than decentralizes it,” he wrote.
While fixing Facebook might seem like just a part of his daily job, the tech mogul said he believes setting a goal will help. The tech firm has more than 2 billion monthly active us-
“Theworld feels anxious and divided, and Facebook has a lot of work to do.” — Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg
ers worldwide.
“This may not seem like a personal challenge on its face, but I think I’ll learn more by focusing intensely on these issues than I would by doing something completely separate,” he said. “These issues touch on questions of history, civics, political philosophy, media, government, and of course technology.”