
A Privacy-Focused Vision for Social Networking - minimaxir
https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/a-privacy-focused-vision-for-social-networking/10156700570096634/
======
jakejarvis
They might want to finish up the "Clear History" feature he announced _last
May_ [0] first...

> "If you watch the presentation, we really had nothing to show anyone," said
> one person, who was close to F8. "Mark just wanted to score some points."
> [1]

[0] [https://www.recode.net/2018/12/17/18140062/facebook-clear-
hi...](https://www.recode.net/2018/12/17/18140062/facebook-clear-history-
update-privacy-targeting-data-collection)

[1] [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-
privac...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/facebook-privacy-
optics-clear-history-zuckerberg)

------
Invictus0
This isn't just a humanitarian gesture by Zuckerberg; this is a move to
address an existential threat to Facebook. The writing has been on the wall
for years: teens don't use Facebook. Instead of letting go of the social feed
and the unified social platform vision, Facebook has just piled more crap onto
the platform by buying competitors or just building out their features. The
result is the overloaded, overfeatured Facebook with no actual social
interaction we know today.

Teens know that they could easily become the next victim of the national
outrage and humiliation machine. They never wanted to share their fun with
grandma and their future employers. They don't want to be their own PR agent
and cultivate an online persona. They want to experiment, express themselves
freely with no repercussions, do stupid shit and face no consequences; in
other words, have the same childhood everyone had before the internet came
around. The content you see on Snapchat and Instagram reflects that: is not
designed for permanency, it's not meant for adults, it's not meant for
Facebook. What Mark is saying here is that he recognizes that reality, and
hopefully will begin to tear down the old Facebook infrastructure.

Social media is the business of cool, and Facebook today is currently more GE
than startup. If Zuckerberg is going to deliver this vision, he is going to
need to let go of a lot of things that Facebook built over the years and maybe
even start from the ground up.

------
Animats
Yeah, right. The US Congress is currently considering a Federal privacy law
which will severely impact Facebook's business model.[1] Facebook is pushing
for a Federal privacy law which will preempt California's new law, which turns
on in 2020.

[1] [https://www.economist.com/united-
states/2019/02/28/congress-...](https://www.economist.com/united-
states/2019/02/28/congress-is-trying-to-create-a-federal-privacy-law)

------
neaden
I just don't believe that he actually means any of this. Facebook's actions
over the years do not indicate that Mark Zuckerberg cares about the privacy of
his users.

~~~
the_pwner224
I'd go so far as to say that there is no point in even bothering to read the
article because of this.

~~~
jen729w
I see downvotes, but I have to agree.

I skim-read this, partly because it’s ludicrously long, but mostly because my
feeling about Facebook at this point — more than a feeling, _my entire mental
map of the company_ — tells me that this is just a big pile of horse shit.

Put another way: this memo could have said pretty much anything, but as long
as it purports to be about Facebook doing “a privacy thing”, I’m just going to
ignore it.

Why would I believe them?

------
SamuelAdams
Let's say Facebook actually pulls this off. They deliver a privacy-focused
social media platform. It's used by billions of people, daily.

How do they make money off it? If everything is encrypted, they cannot have
targeted ads. They can't read the data to push ads for different demographics.

Personally, I think a (more) private social network is a _great_ idea. But I
don't see how Facebook's financial incentives align with whatever this is.

~~~
fit2rule
Do you think this privacy-oriented platform will be free?

I think it'll be: free Facebook is old Facebook (we will own your data) ..
profit-Facebook is new Facebook (pay us to keep your secrets) ...

~~~
lapnitnelav
This isn't going anywhere :

People that don't "care" -in the sense HN does- about privacy will stay in the
free tier. Why should they pay now?

People that do care have either stopped using the platform or will be not be
trusting FB enough to bother.

------
seem_2211
My favourite bit: "As we build our infrastructure around the world, we've
chosen not to build data centers in countries that have a track record of
violating human rights like privacy or freedom of expression."

Facebook is literally built on violating user privacy.

~~~
Tomte
So not in America. Or Britain. Or Germany.

Where are those data centers? Switzerland?

~~~
Pharmakon
Switzerland’s neutrality is entirely self serving, and they seem to have no
problems with taking stolen assets from monsters if it makes them money.

Switzerland: “We don’t violate human rights, but we’re the bankers for those
that do.”

------
speeq
> First, Apple doesn't allow apps to interoperate with SMS on their devices,
> so we'd only be able to do this on Android.

Mark, I don't want you to read my SMS. Thanks.

------
jen729w
The man needs to hire a copy editor. My girlfriend would have that down to 70%
of its current length on the first pass.

~~~
intopieces
This was my thought too, it sounds like something written for Wikipedia Simple
English.

~~~
smt88
Given Facebook's massively global user base, it's not unlikely that it _was_
edited to have a similar style as Wikipedia Simple English.

------
CharlesColeman
> Over the next year and beyond, there are a lot more details and tradeoffs to
> work through related to each of these principles. A lot of this work is in
> the early stages, and we are committed to consulting with experts,
> advocates, industry partners, and governments -- including law enforcement
> and regulators -- around the world to get these decisions right.

Translation: we want to head off regulation by giving empty assurances to
lawmakers that we're working on the problem, but we plan to slow walk this so
we can continue business-as-usual for the foreseeable future.

------
soziawa
A lengthy article with no mention of meta-data. And this is where the key is,
Facebook has realised that they don't need to track you around the internet.
People give Facebook the data it needs by contacting businesses on WhatsApp.
Someone who has contacted a bike shop is of course interested in bikes.

------
tschellenbach
Smart strategy for keeping the majority of their user base happy. Think it
will work and they will continue to grow. (Regardless of how the HNews bubble
feels about it)

~~~
elliekelly
I feel like we've come a long way in educating the general public about the
importance of data privacy but reading some of the comments on this Facebook
post made me realize there's still quite a lot of work to be done.

------
motohagiography
He's right. It's possible the facebook brand may have to step into the
background to do it, but this decision for tech companies is being forced by
governments now.

It makes sense to take an independent stance, as arguably in most markets
today, governments need the consent of facebook users more than facebook needs
the consent of governments.

I have always been a facebook skeptic, but this post comes at a very crucial
time for encryption policy and the role of globalized tech companies. When
Barak Obama said in a speech some years ago something to the effect of how we
can't have people walking around with swiss bank accounts in their pockets, as
far as many countries without sophisticated interception programs are
concerned, they have had to live with the equivalent for the last 10 years.

To me, Zuckerberg's post signals that large tech companies are looking at
their 5-10 year horizons and placing small bets that they are going to outlast
their opposition on encryption. Brexit is going to cost both the UK and Europe
their negotiating leverage, and surveillance in the US won't get a popular
mandate.

There are obviously immediate product and competitive needs, but I think his
post was driven by macro factors like these.

------
g45y45
The only way forward for privacy would be the complete deconstruction of the
facebook machine. There is nothing that can be done to salvage this beast.
Don't be the last person to delete your account. We can turn facebook into
myspace. All it takes is for you to let go of your excuses of why you still
use their awful products.

------
ck425
This is all well and good but where's the apology? Where's the I was wrong?
Like it or not, Zuckerberg has a personal brand that screams I'll screw you
over if it'll get me to my goals. Nobody is going to trust him, or Facebook,
until he rehabilitates himself, and this doesn't cut it.

------
JustSomeNobody
Comments (on the letter) like these are why FB still exists:

> Data protection is a huge concern for us all, and appreciate Facebook are
> working to making this platform the best it can be, with our safety in mind.

> Thanks Mark & the FB team.

I mean, seriously? That is some strong Kool-Aide that person has drunk.

------
EGreg
I applaud this vision, but Facebook is not the one to do it. They have gone
too much in the other direction over the years.

I believe the main problem is the lack of GOOD SOFTWARE alternatives to
facebook and google. How would you collaborate on a document without google
docs? Or share videos without YouTube or Facebook? We have all the hardware we
need but not the software. And I mean this in a big way: we don’t even have
consumer software for local area networks anymore!

Watch this and let me know what you think:

[https://youtu.be/OzXnVSZbvAw](https://youtu.be/OzXnVSZbvAw)

------
panarky
The word "encrypt" appears 24 times.

But the following weasel words let Facebook shout "end-to-end encryption" from
the rooftops while quietly undermining it with back doors.

 _> There are still many open questions here and we'll consult with safety
experts, law enforcement and governments on the best ways to implement safety
measures [in end-to-end encryption]._

There is no way Facebook will make their services truly secure, end-to-end.
They just want to clean their badly stained reputation by pretending to do so.

~~~
smolder
They are notably trying to redefine the term "end-to-end" which was meant to
say contents are not possible to see for anyone but the parties communicating.
Law enforcements suggestion to fix end-to-end encryption for their purposes is
to break/remove/circumvent the encryption, do key escrow, etc, at which point
it is NOT end-to-end.

------
bogomipz
>"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. This
is the future I hope we will help bring about. "

Yes that will be the future and it won't be on FB. You are helping bring it
about alright but mostly as a reaction to your awful policies and practices.

>"I understand that many people don't think Facebook can or would even want to
build this kind of privacy-focused platform -- because frankly we don't
currently have a strong reputation for building privacy protective services,
and we've historically focused on tools for more open sharing."

That's only partially why people think that Mark. Let's not leave out your
outright lies and omissions in front of Congress last year along with your
other public denials. You don't have a good or credible reputation period.

>"I believe we should be working towards a world where people can speak
privately and live freely knowing that their information will only be seen by
who they want to see it."

And FB, advertisers and whomever else who ponies up some cash are assumed to
always be included in that group as well. And this is exactly why nobody buys
a word of your bullshit.

------
jMyles
If facebook wants us to believe that it is committed to privacy in the ways
that it is suggesting here, than the solutions being proposed here (basically
another E2EE messenger) are not sufficient.

Facebook can promise to put itself out of business, spending its cash reserves
on development of an ecosystem of interoperable, open source, fully
decentralized solutions to replace all of what it does with no central
authority and no possibility of censorship or surveillance.

It can find ways for this new decentralized network to be accessible in China,
unlike its current platform.

Instead of saying "we'll consult with safety experts, law enforcement and
governments on the best ways to implement safety measures," it can expressly
refrain from working in any capacity with governments who seek to inhibit
speech or expression on the internet.

It can disclose all of the algorithms and decisions that produce the news feed
and allow people to opt in or out of them, ensuring that their news feed is
not a means of manipulation.

I mean, I can go on and on course. None of this takes any serious genius, just
a decision to prioritize freedom and justice in society over money.

------
EGreg
Here is how you actually do it. Social Networking would just be sharing of
keys. We need open web standards for it:

[https://qbix.com/blog/2018/08/28/vision-for-a-new-truly-
dece...](https://qbix.com/blog/2018/08/28/vision-for-a-new-truly-
decentralized-web/)

------
blastbeat
I wonder, who is supposed to be the recipient of that message. People, who
care about privacy, will never believe it.

~~~
bogomipz
>"People, who care about privacy, will never believe it."

It's hard to imagine that anyone who's even remotely familiar with him will
believe it either. It's the lead story on nytimes.com now and tenor of the
comments is no different than that of HN regarding his nonsense blog post.

------
ihuman
> We plan to start by making it possible for you to send messages to your
> contacts using any of our services,

Didn't Facebook Messanger use XMPP back when the service was new? It sounds
like they're going to a closed version.

------
intopieces
The entire idea of a privacy-focussed social network seems oxymoronic. I agree
there are practical improvements to be made to social networking to address
the unintended or unpredicted consequences of data sharing (including
regulation). But calling the social network itself 'privacy focussed' sets the
wrong impression. Better inform users about what is happening to their data,
but don't sell your product as private when it isn't.

------
ppetty
Sounds great; setting a reminder to check in on Facebook in a few years.

Not too happy that my data from my deleted account might actually be gone by
the time Facebook becomes privacy aware.

Seriously, I saw the movie, it took a few college kids a few months; now a
rewrite for privacy will take years?

They’re buying time, and I am pretty sure people are already willing to buy
privacy. Why can’t they sell that?willing

------
theNJR
The DNA of Facebook does not support marks vision of close communities and
private communication. Kodak made one of the first digital cameras, but it
was, at is core, an analog company. Facebook, at its core, is a company that
vacuums data to sell back to advertisers. Targeted ads in a private chat will
never feel private, no matter how loud they scream that it is.

------
dwighttk
I missed the section on:

Advertising Profiles

People expect that if they don't have a Facebook account we aren't mining
their friends' address books to build profiles of them that can't be erased
because they aren't our customers. We are sorry that we did that and after
deleting them earlier this morning we will no longer operate that way...

(not a quote, just what I'd like to have seen)

~~~
ggggtez
They'd never agree to delete their shadow profiles though. The thing about
facebook is that they have over a billion users _and_ information probably
about another billion non-users.

~~~
dwighttk
Until they believe in the root of privacy, they'll never be privacy-focused.

------
mtgx
Translation: "We're finally getting a bit worried about all this talk about
social media regulation. Still, we're going to do our best to implement the
smallest possible privacy changes to minimize the impact on our revenues,
while still looking like "we're doing something" about the privacy scandals."

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Heh, no. This is yet more empty promises. They'll not do anything in this
letter.

------
dqh
I wonder if the aim of this statement is to make it harder for a privacy
focused social network to raise money.

------
dwighttk
Sure... whatever... I'm going to be in the Late Majority or Laggards on this
train.

------
bogomipz
He should have submitted this to the Onion. Seems like a real missed
opportunity.

------
FridgeSeal
Coming from Facebook? Yeah right. I'd say I would believe it when I see it,
but given their shadiness I still wouldn't believe it.

------
nategri
Could some kind soul with enough genuine interest slog through this monster
and post a few-sentence summary?

~~~
elliekelly
I read the entire thing and it's honestly not worth summarizing. There's
nothing of substance, just a lot of empty platitudes. He describes a lot of
generic privacy protections (limiting metadata collection, reducing data
permanence, secure data storage) but says nothing as to how or when Facebook
will ever implement them.

It basically boils down to a promise that Facebook will "think about privacy"
at some unspecified future date.

------
sbussard
> But we've repeatedly shown that we can evolve to build the services that
> people really want, including in private messaging and stories.

Do people really want bots in their private messages? Didn't Instagram and
Facebook steal the stories feature from Snapchat?

What people really want is React. How about making a React library for making
facebook apps? Like AWS Amplify, but for Facebook.

------
petard
Let the fox guard the henhouse

------
0_gravitas
With a title like that I expected a link to an Onion article.

~~~
tschellenbach
You're getting downvoted, but I for one thought that was spot on :)

------
altairiumblue
When I saw the headline, at first I thought it was an old article that you can
read in a different light and have a laugh.

Writing it now is just obnoxious. A lot of text with no meaningful content,
mentioning a bunch of problems without offering solutions and without taking
any responsibility.

Don't talk about "people prefer", "people expect", "working towards" and "we
as a society" \- _you created this_. With all of its problems, and all of the
ethical and legal violations. You did things this way because it was extremely
profitable and _you are still doing it._

How does anyone take him seriously at this point?

------
bogomipz
This is similar to McDonalds wanting to help fight obesity by adding a salad
to the menu.

Mark Zuckerberg has exactly zero credibility at this point.

------
cityzen
It's like Freaky Friday but it's Wacky Wednesday. Waiting for Trump to
announce that he's opening the Whitehouse to immigrants until they get on
their feet.

Sorry Mark, no one believes you dummy.

