After building the world's biggest and most powerful social network in history, Mark Zuckerberg says the future of Facebook is something else. The strategic shift announced this week by Zuckerberg suggests Facebook no longer wants to be a "digital town square," but a "digital living room" for secure, private communications, in what could be a major transformation on privacy.
But Zuckerberg's announcement also prompted considerable head-scratching on the implications for Facebook's ad-supported business model, and on the growing pressure to weed out nefarious content and misinformation. "Should this ambition be realized, it is nothing less than an epochal shift in Facebook's business model," Henry Farrell, a George Washington University professor, wrote in the Washington Post.
Farrell noted that Facebook's pivot comes amid pressure from governments to weed out "hate speech" and other inappropriate content, and in some cases use the social network to spy on its population. By making more communications private and encrypted, "it makes some kinds of political manipulation harder to carry off at a wide scale," Farrell wrote. "However, it also means, obviously, that government authorities will not be able to see what people are saying to one another."
Farrell argued that Zuckerberg "isn't just changing course because he was pushed. He is also being pulled by new opportunities, which might provide a more politically sustainable business model."
Somewhat overlooked in Zuckerberg's announcement was his plan to offer new services on a privacy-focused platform. He proposed to "build more ways for people to interact" with "video chats, groups, stories, businesses, payments, commerce, and ultimately a platform for many other kinds of private services."
Fred Wilson, a venture investor who blogs on the tech sector, called Zuckerberg's announcement a bold effort to "completely reboot the company's business model to position itself to win the next wave in tech."
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