Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) lost 1.96% in the last trading session to close at $169.13 at the back of CEO Mark Zuckerberg indicating that the company is changing its approach after 15 years to be more secure, private and end-to-end encrypted.
Privacy will be the focus of the future for Facebook
In a blog post, Mark said that Facebook previously was like an open town square but that is about to change, and communications on the platform will be more privacy-focused. He added that privacy offers people the freedom to connect and grow their social networks. Looking forward the company will be focusing on privacy in social media platforms which will be critical compared to the open platforms.
The company is considering making posts short lived which means that after some time the messages will disappear. The feature will apply for the integrated messaging product which combines Instagram, Messenger, and Whatsapp. The platform that the company is building will focus on ephemerality and encryption to enhance privacy.
There are doubts about Facebookâs privacy update
However, Facebook critics have greeted the privacy update with skepticism considering Facebook has faced numerous data privacy scandals over the past. In a tweet, Ashkan Soltani, former Federal Trade Commission technologist indicated that he supports online communications privacy but the suggestion was not genuine, and it was a ploy to gain competitive advantage using privacy as an excuse. Although it may seem like a privacy-friendly move, the timing shows that is a competition play geared at limiting cross services sharing of data.
Forensics Director at Tow Centre for Digital Journalism, Jonathan Albright, warned against combining platform security and user privacy enhancements because privacy has to the user’s right to control what they share know how it gets accessed.
The CEO seemed to be aware of cynicism that may come from privacy experts, and he indicated that he was aware that people would doubt if they can build a privacy-focused platform since the company’s reputation has not been good when it comes to privacy. He added that the company has demonstrated that it can offer services that users want which include private messaging.