Something is changing on Facebook. Beyond the promises of improved privacy, which are still part of their marketing strategy, important internal critical voices are beginning to emerge on the social network. At the end of December, Andrew Bosworth, VP of Facebook for the virtual and augmented reality division, sent an internal letter with a strong message on confidentiality.
“The way we have operated for so long no longer represents the best way to serve those who use our products,” explains the Facebook manager, recognized for being one of the most heard voices within the company, after several similar letters which marked the internal culture and 15 years of work for Zuckerberg.
Facebook seeks an internal cultural revolution similar to that of Microsoft
Internal letter, unveiled by Big Technology, shows how Facebook manager asks prioritize privacy, even at the expense of user experience: “The general feeling has clearly changed to the point that people are ready to make sacrifices on the quality of the products. ”
Examples and cases of Facebook with privacy are well known and are listed in the letter. Testimonies Zuckerberg had to give in the US Senate, to the multi-million dollar FTC trials. And that doesn’t seem like something that’s going to change in the next few years, at least given Joe Biden’s belligerent view on Facebook.
The fight that Facebook offers internally is equivalent to that that Microsoft led in the 2000s with security problems. A battle for privacy that “This will only be effective to the extent that we stop fighting them at the cultural level”said Bosworth. The following paragraph of the letter clearly defines the position Facebook should take:
“Instead of imagining a product and slicing it up to meet modern data privacy and security standards, we’ll assume that we can’t collect, use or store data. It is our responsibility to demonstrate why certain data is really necessary for the product to work. ”
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The example of Microsoft in the 2000s, cited in the letter, serves to give us an idea of the current state of the company. They’ve spent so much time working with our data that it’s hard to design a different business.
Bosworth explains that users did not trust Microsoft because of viruses. But Microsoft managed to come back and today is one of the most trusted software companies in the world.
“I think he’s a role model for us on Facebook. We must become the clear leader in providing privacy-friendly software», Explains the manager.
Recently, Facebook had to postpone WhatsApp’s new privacy terms due to the controversy generated. In 2019, at the annual Facebook F8 conference, Zuckerberg said on stage that “the future is private.” We are still waiting for that future.
Image | Joshua Hoehne
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