Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Says the 'Future is Private' (theverge.com) 153
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he's committed to turning his company around. Onstage at Facebook's F8 developer conference, the chief executive said that privacy will be the defining pillar of his social network's sprawling empire going forward. From a report: His opening statements build on the massive shift in Zuckerberg's vision for the company that he first outlined early last month when he announced that Facebook would transition away from the News Feed and public posts and toward a "privacy-focused communications platform" that unified its messaging products around concepts like ephemerality and encryption. "The future is private," Zuckerberg told the crowd, noting that Facebook's most dominant vision over the last decade was to build global communities that would bring the world together, for better or worse. "Over time, I believe that a private social platform will be even more important to our lives than our digital town squares. So today, we're going to start talking about what this could look like as a product, what it means to have your social experience be more intimate, and how we need to change the way we run this company in order to build this."
That will be impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
Seeing as their business model is selling their user's data, I'm not sure how they are going to do this.
Re:That will be impressive (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, you see, you misunderstood. The future isn't your privacy, it's Facebook's privacy. The Zuck is telling us that in the future, even more of Faceook's workings will be kept a closely guarded secret.
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Facebook has always had strong anti-scraping policies in place.
Because they aren't into sharing (for free).
Can't blame them, blame facebook's users. Those are the morons.
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As you point out, privacy is the least of Facebook's users' concerns. Yes, they only want their shared stuff shared with who they said they want it shared with, and Facebook hasn't even done that in the past. But the real problems with Facebook have to do with their facilitating fraud.
It starts with their ads saying "your friend X likes Amazon (or some other site)" in connection to some product your friend X never clicked like on - or even viewed (though I assume X clicked 'like' on something on the site
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Their Business model was _suppose_ to be their customers will give them the ads and Facebook would be showing those ads to the best group of people. Not giving their user's data to these customers. However this hasn't shone to be true.
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WTF are you doing on /. if you don't know how to block scripts in 2019?
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For the low, low price of just $9.99/mo, Zuck will keep your data private.
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Re:That will be impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."
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Not impressive, google showed how to do long ago (Score:3)
Seeing as their business model is selling their user's data, I'm not sure how they are going to do this.
See google, you indirectly sell your users. The data never has to leave google's or facebook's hands. They merely decide which targeted ads to show to whomever. Only google/facebook know both parties and they control the connection between the two.
Facebook's days of selling the raw data are over. Whether it is voluntary or government mandated. They might as well do it voluntarily to preempt legislation and get the PR brownie points.
FWIW, Facebook already has a thriving targeted ad business where they
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They don't mean privacy from FB, they mean privacy from other users. Basically, they intend to build a giant infidelity support network.
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Yep, this is CYA bullshit on his part. Privacy is anathema to facebook.
Solution exists: collective auctions (Score:2)
There actually is a mathematical solution. You can run the auctions on groups of products. As it could theoretically apply to the google or Facebook, rather than selling out individuals, the advertisers would only be bidding for groups of people without ever knowing the individuals or their personal information. (I actually prepared a couple of business proposals along such lines. Long ago, before the course of the Internet had been firmly set by such "successes" as the google and Facebook.)
Here are the mai
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"only you and me (and everyone we sell data to) will have your data"
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How they're going to do this is by consolidating the societal divisions they have helped create, build walls around the them and feed them more of their own 'truths'.
Nothing else will change.
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I don't think he's saying they won't collect user data or selling ads, but that there will be a greater focus on private social groups.
I think it raises an interesting set of questions. Years ago, the Internet was more dominantly about private communications. During the past 15 years, you've seen a lot of "sharing" social media platforms that are designed to provide a public platform for their users to self-publish creative works and provide commentary to a worldwide audience. These have become immensel
The future definition of privacy will change (Score:5, Insightful)
"Privacy" in the future will mean personal data and communications will be securely kept by third parties like Facebook. As opposed to privacy where such personal data will actually be private and not stored at all by such third parties.
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As opposed to privacy where such personal data will actually be private and not stored at all by such third parties.
If only there was a way you could store and control your own personal or company data, that was collated by use
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Oh wait that costs and most people won't pay $20 to do it themselves
Re: The future definition of privacy will change (Score:2)
Just owning a domain name isn't enough.
Never thought I'd see the day (Score:3)
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+1 Funny, but
We'll miss ya Facebook.
No we won't.
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I'd miss Zuckerberg.
Mostly 'cause every time I get him lined up and ready, someone would bump my shoulder saying "shoot, shoot already!"
in other news... (Score:4, Funny)
Well, he did just expand the H2-B program (Score:2)
[Hysterical Laughter] (Score:2)
Hold my beer as I laugh hysterically for the next five years.
Taking bets now (Score:2)
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone (Score:5, Informative)
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks
Threat to make him personally responsible worked (Score:2)
Slashdot Delivers! [slashdot.org]
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The future is private but everything in the present and the past is fair game!
Well that's doubleplusgood brother zuck (Score:1, Funny)
Glad my privacy has been increased by Facebook.
Let me take a deep breath... (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
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Raise what?
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The proper verb should have been rise.
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Unless the dead are playing poker from the grave. Then they could, indeed, raise from the grave.
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Well, never say never, at the celebration of our company's 100 years existence, all workers that were there when the founder opened the business got a huge raise. Allegedly, I was not one of them.
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The proper verb should have been rise.
Pedants decide not to comment just this once...
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What he means (Score:1)
What he really means is that the future is private because Facebook hasn't figured out how to extract data from the future yet. Once they do...
That word... (Score:2)
I do not think it means what you think it means...
BS (Score:1)
This translates as "Please government, don't try to regulate the tech industry, we mean well... honest, pinky swear to do better"
The Stages (Score:5, Informative)
1) shit happens
2) zuck makes promises
3) zuck doesn't actually act on said promises
4) shit continues to happen
5) rinse and repeat
how many times do we need the same articles over and over again, but just a new day of the week !?
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1) shit happens 2) zuck makes promises 3) zuck doesn't actually act on said promises 4) shit continues to happen 5) rinse and repeat
how many times do we need the same articles over and over again, but just a new day of the week !?
Until people realize Facebook has always been about the advertising data? It's like expecting Coca-Cola to sincerely apologize for bubbles, sugar, and caffeine.
And in other news (Score:2, Insightful)
Translation: (Score:2)
Trust Me I wouldn't Fuck You for a fourth, fifth or sixth time would I?
I don't appreciate this (Score:5, Funny)
An open F you to Suckerburg (Score:1)
Word of the Day: Guillotine: the inevitable outcome of the neo-feudalist stage of capitalism.
Impossible to make (Score:2)
How do you make PRIVATE spaces if your other goal is POLICING people's spaces for wrong think? It's not exactly "private" if Facebook reads everything you read, say, think, and do to ensure you're not commiting a thought crime.
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That way, politicians won't complain that there is bias on Facebook, because the candidates will see coverage that is favorable to them.
Zuckerberg told the crowd to thunderous applause (Score:1)
Your private life belongs to you and me and no one else!
LOL seriously? (Score:2)
"Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Says the 'Future is Private'"
LOL, the fucking irony is off the scale for this shit.
In fact, the needle on my Hypocrisy-O-Meter just blew through the side of the case and was last seen rocketing through low Earth orbit on its way to Saturn.
It might not be possible, if if earnestly intended (Score:3)
The responses here are all terribly cynical and dismissive of the whole thing - as they should be.
But, just for a moment, let's play a mind game where we assume that Zuckerberg finally outgrew adolescence and became an adult, had his moral epiphany, and genuinely aspires to do right. (Don't laugh, it's just a game after all.)
Second, assume that, contrary to the cynical statements above, the new vision for Facebook that professes privacy is actually about user privacy, not Facebook hording your information in its own private vaults. (Let me remind you again, this is just a game.)
Trace through how this works. Scenario one - it is too private, too inaccessible to outside intrusion or reading. How does that influence the advertisers and data monsters that pay Facebook? Revenues and profits sink. They might not evaporate, but they will find a new lower level. So, FB must downsize, and if they do, the lose their cachet (good or bad), and their subscriber base falls off, the next MySpace.
Or, scenario two - it is too private, too inaccessible to outside intrusion or reading, so users who gorge themselves on the trivialities of everybody else's life cannot get their "fix", so they drop out, bored and disinterested, or they seek their data addiction elsewhere. The article implies that users will have tighter more private personal networks, so that keeps your inner circle safe, but is that fun anymore for many users?
Sadly, as illicit and detestable as FB is (and by the way, I have never had an account with them), it survives because people want it or use it, and they cannot stay away. I have no respect for FB or its executives, but they survive because people just can't say no. Sure, there are plenty of normal honest regular folk using it responsibly, but the platform is as rich and robust as it is because people buy in regardless the consequences to their personal identities. As long as there is a massive public user base that craves more Twinkies or Cheetos, more cigarettes, more heroin or cocaine, or more Facebook, their current model is not going to change anytime soon. And, as much as Slashdotters who respond here may be immune to persuasions to drink the Kool-Aid, that is not true in general, which is why FB is ascendant in the first place.
Even if Zuckerberg has his epiphany, it might necessitate significant downsizing, and either way the user base might not want things any other way. A social experiment gone bad, the modern techno analog of Fascism and Communism. Just let it die.
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But, just for a moment, let's play a mind game where we assume that Zuckerberg finally outgrew adolescence and became an adult, had his moral epiphany, and genuinely aspires to do right.
He's tired of being harassed by politicians and dragged into congress to testify. What he's building will be a band-aid that will try to prevent that from happening again.
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You're asking us to do this for far too long!
Zuckerburg is scared (Score:2)
1.5 Million Counts? (Score:2)
Is Zuck facing 1.5 million CFAA charges yet for harvesting all the emails from his users without their consent in pursuit of advertising profit?
After all, Assange is facing extradition for one CFAA count related to possibly helping crack a ZIP file password in pursuit of exposing war crimes as a publisher.
What? Does he plan suicide? (Score:2)
Because that would at this point be the only thing that he could do to make even one step in that direction...
"Privacy is dead, get over it" - Mark Zuckerberg (Score:3)
"Privacy is dead, get over it" - Mark Zuckerberg
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That was Scott McNealy.
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No, McNealy said in 1999 âoeYou have zero privacy anyway. Get over it."
Zuckerberg made the quote I listed in 2010 TechCrunch Interview.
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Ah, my error.
"We harvested all the data. Now everyone stop!" (Score:3)
Now we shall lobby to make it impossible for any competitor of ours to harvest just as much data."
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What he really means... (Score:2)
What he really means is _your_ private information is the future. Once he has that, he'll have everything he needs!
Massive shift? (Score:2)
That's interesting (Score:1)
Only customer left to sell it to. (Score:2)
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Zuck him! ;)
Private ads (Score:1)
The ads get the "privacy" they need to track and stay with the user. Protected from any ad blocking software.
The ILLUSION of privacy is the 'future' (Score:2)
Trust (Score:2)
Five years from now (Score:2)
Five years from now, we’ll all link back to this post and say “Remember when Zuck promised Facebook would be the pillar of privacy?”
And then we’ll all laugh over this all over again
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Not a snowball's chance.. (Score:2)
C'mon folks, why would you ever believe a company that says it's going to cripple itself over a few tiny concerns about...uh... Privacy. They've done literally everything they can think of to keep people strung along this long, do you think that's suddenly going to change?
LOL! (Score:1)
As we say in NZ 'Yeah Right' (Score:2)
A leopard.... (Score:1)
Who's Future? (Score:1)
Who's Future?
Zuck, get a better calender (Score:2)
It's first of May, not first of April.
How? (Score:2)
Isn't privacy the antithesis to Facebook?
How would this even work?
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Using your hand isn't a social experience...