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Mark Zuckerberg Just Put Facebook Into Maintenance Mode
The dawn of Facebook’s second act…
So, that Mark Zuckerberg Facebook privacy memo. What stood out to me when it was published was that it was one of the first non-faceplants (not to mention non-facepalms) Facebook had done from a PR-perspective in months. It’s actually pretty well-written, seemingly straight-forward, and unquestionably interesting.
Upon reflection, a week later, I believe there’s quite a bit more nuance in terms of what it means. Essentially, it means almost nothing in the short term, and almost everything in the long term.
What Zuckerberg signaled with the memo is simply an intent. He intends to steer the Facebook ship towards the private waters that they’ve largely shunned in the past. Instead, Facebook has operated almost solely in the public seas and enticed billions of users to join them there. But a rogue wave has rolled that party this year. And as those troubled waters have begun to recede, everyone is now seeing the very real downsides of living our lives and leaving our data exposed out in the open.
This is an existential threat to Facebook. But the network’s demise has been overstated in these times of trouble because of its sheer size and scope. Facebook is too big to fail — at least to fully flatline. Instead, it will…
