2018 has to be the worst year in Facebook’s history and we are surprised by how Mark Zuckerberg’s year review post isn’t an apology but an update on the “progress” they’ve made.
Earlier this week we discussed 7 reasons why we think that Facebook is dying. Despite being a hub for over 2 billion users, Facebook’s practices in 2018 were what forced us to consider the possibility and the recent post shows Zuckerberg is content with his platform.
“I’m proud of the progress we’ve made,” says Zuckerberg in his Facebook post. The post acknowledged the role Facebook played in spreading hate speech, interfering in elections and losing user data to hackers. However, it felt as if Facebook was more proud of the progress than apologetic for its actions.
In the post, he talked about how Facebook was limiting data that can be accessed by developers. He also said that Facebook would now be using less personal data for showing ads and how they had improved their message encryption.
It’s amusing how just recently we discovered that services like Netflix and Spotify had access to “encrypted” private messages. The best part is that even they didn’t know that they had such access, so what progress is Zuckerberg talking about?
He’s particularly proud of the 30,000 people he has in his team for security. The number is big, but Facebook has 2.27 billion users! So that’s 1 person for every 75,660 users. So do we want him to hire a million people? Maybe because at the moment, whatever they are doing isn’t working. Case in point, Facebook latest leak, exposed 6.8 million users’ private photos.
The highlight of the message has to be how Facebook sacrificed itself for the community. Zuckerberg talked about how Facebook was now showing less viral videos but was losing money all in the name of “community”.
Everyone knows that in light of new social media players, Facebook is starting to lose its presence and their current practices have only made people run away from them. So this wasn’t done for people but for a “stronger community and business over the long term.”
Facebook needs to realize that people are not just tools for making money. They need to realize that the internet has made people more aware of their practices and that they will not take everything they say without scrutiny. There is a reason as to why it’s the least trusted tech company.
Facebook has a huge responsibility and 2018 has proved one thing, the community that generates billions for Facebook can also wipe billions from their value in no time.
