A “privacy-focused” Facebook or simply trust

If you are a Facebook user, which I’m sure you are, you should read Facebook’s or rather Mark Zuckerberg’s new business model as described in detail on his FB account. In a few words, Facebook will change from being a public social network to a private social network. This is what he said:

I believe a privacy-focused communications platform will become even more important than today’s open platforms. Privacy gives people the freedom to be themselves and connect more naturally, which is why we build social networks.

and

I believe the future of communication will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services where people can be confident what they say to each other stays secure and their messages and content won’t stick around forever.

One thing I can tell you for sure, the word “privacy-focused” is going to be used repeatedly by many people across the mainstream media (as it already is) and all social media platforms. I was curious to see how the potential change is being received. So far, there’s been more positive statements than negative as elucidated in the chart below (source: Brand24).

I’m still trying to make sense of his new plan especially on the end-to-end encryption. But one of the key principles highlighted that struck me was on Safety where encryption includes the privacy of people doing bad things. Which means, it’s even more difficult to catch the bad guys. In other words, it’s easier for the bad guys to do bad things.

There’s definitely a lot of work to be done before they can launch the new business model and there should be a balance between protecting for safety vs. protecting for business. If you put too much limitations/rules, the business environment will become too rigid for you to prosper. At the end of the day, it all comes down to trust. If only everyone’s trust can be measured.