Zuckerberg and Facebook: the road to privacy

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Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook will focus on maintaining privacy, which comes with many changes for this and other companies in the United States

The month of March has been turbulent for Mark Zuckerberg. In the first days, he announced that Facebook, his initial platform, would begin to go through a process of change that would lead to a new business model and that the company was going to focus on privacy.

A few days later, on March 13, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram suffered a fall that lasted several hours, to which Zuckerberg explained that the system of a server had failed. However, after much speculation, the businessman shared with his employees a letter in which he says that, in the midst of the change of business model, some of the leaders of the companies have also left.

What is the path to privacy?

On the one hand, the fact that Zuckerberg owns these platforms has facilitated the union between them for users. For example, each person can link all their accounts to have the same contacts and information in the different networks.

For this, among other things, Facebook asks for your phone number. With the excuse to strengthen security, the user provides the platform with their cell phone number, while Facebook, as reported by an entrepreneur named Jeremy Burge via Twitter, uses the number for other things, without giving you the option to remove it from the information. Not to mention, in addition, that the number remains forever in view of people, even if you put it as private as possible.

As harmless as it seems, many times, it also shows you articles, pages, or advertisements in which you may be interested. The interesting thing is you do not know why they can do it.

While it does not do any apparent damage but, on the contrary, makes you see how Facebook knows you, it also implies someone knows you more than you have allowed.

Due to these public questions, such as Burge's, it is now that Facebook intends to move to a social network with more privacy. This model seeks to create more private interactions, where only the user can determine who to connect with. This must be done with stronger encryption, which ensures that nobody else can see the messages of users.

Zuckerberg ensures that people should not worry about what they say in their private conversations, and also speaks of ephemeral messaging, which users can delete when they want, and there will be no record of it.

Similarly, he spoke about the storage of data, so that people are sure that their information will not remain in the network available to others, unless they want it. It would also merge "Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp elements so that messages can be sent and received between the three apps", according to BBC Mundo.

However, the entrepreneur knows the bad reputation that his companies currently have, so he said: "I understand that many people do not believe that Facebook can or wants to create this platform so that it revolves around privacy, because at the moment we do not have the best reputation in terms of creating a privacy protection service (…), but we have repeatedly shown that we can evolve to create services that people really want, including messages and private stories. "

Also read: Bill Gates: the 10 technologies that will improve the world in 2019

The other changes in the Zuckerberg empire

Following the fall of the platforms on the previous Wednesday, March 13, many doubts arose questioning what had happened. Officially, through Twitter, Facebook said that it was a problem "caused by the change of server configuration". However, this story was not credible to many critics of the security and privacy of these platforms.

After speculation, Mark Zuckerberg sent his employees a letter explaining some changes of the companies. This explains the departure of several of his closest friends in the company, these being the people who took Facebook to what it is today.

According to Whats New, a technology news portal, Chris Cox, after 10 years, left the company. He was responsible for Facebook's first 'feed', leading operations, strategy, and even design. The same media states that Cox had been focused on privacy for several years, and aimed to change the course of the platform to "do something that improves things for society."

LatinAmerican Post | Juliana Suárez
Traslated from "Zuckerberg y Facebook: el camino hacia la privacidad"