Ever since the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica saga unfolded, fingers have been pointed at Mark Zuckerberg for failing to protect users' data and questions have been raised about his intentions about the Facebook platform.
It took the Facebook CEO more than a couple of days to respond to the charges against his platform, which sounded more like an explanation than an apology for the act. This week, Zuckerberg sat down with Ezra Klein of Vox for a lengthy tete-a-tete on a variety of pointers that have seldom been publicly discussed by the much maligned social networking giant.
Here’s everything Zuckerberg spoke his heart out about – subjects like fake news, Facebook’s continuing position in the world and its effects at a global level.
It Will Take 'A Few Years' to Fix Facebook: Zuckerberg
When a global internet behemoth grows beyond everyone’s imagination, taking a closer look at its current state is always a challenge. If not for the recent data misuse that has unfolded, Facebook’s admission of needing to be fixed would not have come to the fore as it has.
I think we will dig through this hole, but it will take a few years. I wish I could solve all these issues in three months or six months, but I just think the reality is that solving some of these questions is just going to take a longer period of time.Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook to Vox
Most of the fixing is required at the administration level, which in many ways has catapulted the spreading of fake news, destroying the genesis of its existence. What does Zuckerberg mean by the term fixing? He is focused on making Facebook more accountable for the actions that take place on or courtesy of the social media platform.
This agenda was highlighted by Zuckerberg during his manifesto for Facebook recently, about sanitising the kind of content that gets shared.
The interviewer points to Facebook’s current status mirroring that of a government, which works around regulations and policies that Facebook doesn’t have. Zuckerberg says he is still pondering the way to globally make Facebook liable for its user base of more than a billion, but admits that he can’t do that for everyone by sitting in his office in California.
It’s just not clear to me that us sitting in an office here in California are best placed to always determine what the policies should be for people all around the world. I really think we need to get it right. Because I’m just not sure that the current state is a great one.Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook to Vox
Having said that, Zuckerberg is confident that with a controlled company at his service (and not a shareholder reliant firm), they have the bandwidth to change things for the communities betterment.
The Fake News Epidemic is a Worry
Citing the example of the 2016 elections in the United States, Klein directly questioned Zuckerberg about Facebook’s plan to curb the rise of fake news. Bots and lack of governance resulting in over 30,000 fake accounts spreading the wrong information seem to have played a big part in the US elections. Zuckerberg accepts the criticism.
He also points out the changes that have been brought about since, which have reflected positively on the subsequent French and German elections.
In 2016, we were behind having an understanding and operational excellence on preventing things like misinformation, Russian interference. And you can bet that’s a huge focus for us going forward. Right now in the company, I think we have about 14,000 people working on security and community operations and review, just to make sure that we can really nail down some of those issues that we had in 2016.Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook to Vox
He also made claims that for the 2017 special elections in Alabama, they had set up new tools to identify those spreading fake news. Further detailing Facebook’s understanding of the fake news hierarchy, Zuckerberg enlisted the following points:
- Groups of people like spammers ran Facebook ads on their webpages. So, we decided to cut-off their access to monetisation via our platform. Once that happened, Facebook believes that the spammers reduced their dependence on the platform to make money by spreading fake news.
- The second form of fake news was circulated by Russian interference. Fixing this was a bigger challenge, for which Facebook worked with local government, who provided it with the insights across their country, thereby getting rid of fake accounts and tools used to push such agenda.
- And finally, there are media outlets who are sharing information which according to them is true but is not accurate all the time. In order to cull the rise of this issue, Facebook changed its reading of the News Feed, to boost the visibility of the few trusted news sources, preferred by the user.
The push towards quality, according to Zuckerberg, could bring back the user’s trust and credibility of the platform.
Apple CEO’s Jibe Over Privacy Extremely Glib
Claiming to be building an affordable model, Zuckerberg feels that not everyone can be connected if the price barrier isn’t kept to a limit. This in return, forces the service to function around an advertising-supported model.
He even claims that his first priority is to focus on the well-being of the community, rather than pleasing his sales team and his decisions tend to show that. Taking a direct jibe at Apple and its expensive ecosystem of products, Zuckerberg believes that one can’t build a service for everyone if only the rich can afford to own it.
He even quotes Jeff Bezos from one of the Kindle launches few years back, which again, seems to be direct dig at how Apple runs its shop.
I thought Jeff Bezos had an excellent saying on this in one of his Kindle launches a number of years back. He said, “There are companies that work hard to charge you more, and there are companies that work hard to charge you less.”Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook to Vox
With Facebook, Zuckerberg says it has always sided with companies that look to charge the users less or provide free service if possible, and that’ll continue to be its motto.
Rooting for High-Quality Journalism
Zuckerberg shared two different strategies Facebook is working on in order to promote “high-quality journalism”. Facebook is keen to accentuate the visibility of platforms that work on a subscription-based model and enable them to better their revenue sources, said Zuckerberg.
The other side of this is to get the right focus by promoting local news. Zuckerberg feels that any news that goes beyond the printed newspaper in a small community can, and should be made available to the people. For this, Facebook is working to fund such organisations, either via creating a subscription model for them or escalating their avenues of making money.
There’s a lot that needs to be done at the social networking giant, and Zuckerberg, at the helm of affairs will be spearheading the cause to make sure that another Cambridge-Analytica type saga doesn’t occur.
(Source: Vox)
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