Zuckerberg’s challenge: more talking
Facebook CEO wants to talk about the future of tech all year long
After Facebook’s tumultuous 2018, Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday announced his personal challenge for this year: to talk about the future of technology and its impact on society.
Since 2009, the Facebook CEO has shared with the public his personal challenge at the beginning of each year. They have included building an artificial-intelligence assistant for his home, visiting all 50 states, and learning Mandarin.
Last January, Zuckerberg declared that his personal challenge in 2018 was to fix the important issues Facebook was facing, such as abuse and hate on the world’s largest social network, election interference, misinformation and more. Tuesday, his Facebook post indicates he thinks he made some progress. “Facebook is a different
company now than it was a couple of years ago because of a much greater focus on these questions,” he said.
But despite Facebook’s continuous promises about trying harder to safeguard user privacy, news reports last year revealed that a political data consulting company, Cambridge Analytica, accessed the personal information of up to 87 million Facebook users without their permission. That led to Zuckerberg having to testify before two congressional panels — to talk about his own company’s impact on society.
Another news report revealed that Facebook shared user data with other big companies, in some cases without user consent. After each revelation, Facebook said it has improved its practices. But repeated instances of privacy breaches have prompted a push for more government regulation of tech companies, and some lawmakers are calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether Facebook is violating the terms of a privacy-related settlement.
As for misinformation, Facebook is now looking into whether a left-leaning organization violated its community standards and advertising policies, supposedly by misleading right-leaning voters during the midterm election.
“These issues are complex and we will continue focusing on them for years to come,” Zuckerberg wrote.
This year, however, he wants to talk more broadly about tech. “In a world where many physical communities are weakening, what role can the internet play in strengthening our social fabric?” he wrote.
Among the other topics Zuckerberg plans to discuss publicly every few weeks with “leaders, experts and people in our community” this year, in various ways on Facebook, Instagram and elsewhere: “Do we want technology to keep giving more people a voice, or will traditional gatekeepers control what ideas can be expressed?”
It’s an interesting question considering Facebook, which has 2 billion users worldwide, has become a powerful gatekeeper, and its decisions on what it allows on its platform can be controversial.
Zuckerberg mentioned other subjects he wants to talk about, like building technology that “creates more jobs rather than just building AI to automate things people do,” and keeping up with the pace of technological and scientific progress.
Near the end of his post, he shared a realization: “I’m an engineer, and I used to just build out my ideas and hope they’d mostly speak for themselves. But given the importance of what we do, that doesn’t cut it anymore.”
Reaction to the tech billionaire’s chosen challenge ranged from hostile to supportive. “Just keep my (expletive) secure and don’t (expletive) sell it to a 3rd party,” said one commenter on Facebook. Another wrote, “Ignore the haters and those who try to put a break on your aspirations… the users of Facebook support you all the way.” And one freelance journalist wants in on the discussions: “Will you let us know when and where we can attend one of these discussions or participate, Mark Zuckerberg?”