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A24 TECHNOLOGY
Friday 8 March 2019

Can Zuckerberg really make a privacy-friendly Facebook?

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE that Facebook has be-
AP Technology Writer come so powerful — even
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — a threat to democracy as
After building a social net- well as to people’s privacy
work that turned into a — that it needs to be reined
surveillance system, Face- in by tougher regulations or
book CEO Mark Zucker- even a corporate breakup.
berg says he’s shifting his But unraveling Facebook
company’s focus to mes- could become more diffi-
saging services designed cult if Zuckerberg can suc-
to serve as fortresses of pri- cessfully stitch together the
vacy. messaging services behind
Instead of just being the an encrypted wall.
network that connects ev- “I see that as the goal of
eryone, Facebook wants this entire thing,” said Blake
to encourage small groups Reid, a University of Colora-
of people to carry on en- do law professor who spe-
crypted conversations that cializes in technology and
neither Facebook nor any policy. He said Facebook
could tell antitrust authori-
ties that WhatsApp, Insta-
gram Direct and Facebook
Messenger are tied so tight-
In this April 11, 2018, file photo, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg pauses while testifying before a ly together that it couldn’t
House Energy and Commerce hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington about the use of Facebook unwind them.
data to target American voters in the 2016 election and data privacy. Combining the three ser-
Associated Press vices also lets Facebook
other outsider can read. It those problems, but it could generate $67 billion in rev- build more complete data
also plans to let messages make others worse. Secu- enue this year, according profiles on all of its users.
automatically disappear, rity is an “admirable goal,” to the research firm eMar- Already, businesses can
a feature pioneered by its said Forrester Research keter. already target Facebook
rival Snapchat that could analyst Fatemeh Khatibloo. If everything falls into place, and Instagram users with
limit the risks posed by a “I’m just not sure it address- Facebook will also display the same ads, and mar-
trail of social media posts es the bigger issues Face- similar advertising on the keting campaigns are
that follow people through- book is facing right now.” privacy-protected messag- likely coming to WhatsApp
out their lives. Facebook grew into a co- ing services. Those services eventually.Facebook’s fo-
It’s a major bet by Zucker- lossus by vacuuming up are also likely to offer other cus on messaging privacy
berg, who sees it as a way people’s information in ev- moneymaking features, raises other concerns. Mes-
to push Facebook more ery possible way and dis- such as a digital wallet, saging apps have in the
firmly into a messaging secting it to shoot targeted as Facebook attempts to past helped fake news
market that’s growing fast- ads back at them. Any- build something similar to and rumors spread fast,
er than its main social net- thing that jeopardizes that Tencent’s popular WeChat sometimes with deadly
working business. It might machine could pose a ma- service in Asia. consequences. A report
also help Facebook ward jor threat to the company’s “If you think about your life, from University of Oxford
off government regulators, share price, which would you probably spend more researchers last year found
although the Facebook also affect its ability to at- time communicating pri- evidence of widespread
CEO made clear that he tract and retain talented vately than publicly,” Zuck- disinformation campaigns
expects the company’s engineers and other em- erberg said during the AP on chat applications like
messaging business to ployees. interview. “The overall op- WhatsApp. In one particu-
complement, not replace, In a Wednesday interview portunity here is a lot larger larly brutal example, the In-
its core businesses. with The Associated Press, than what we have built in dian government last year
But there are plenty of Zuckerberg predicted terms of Facebook and Ins- accused WhatsApp of fuel-
obstacles. Facebook has Facebook’s emphasis on tagram.” ing rumors that led to lynch-
weathered more than two privacy will do more to help That’s far from proven. ings and mob violence that
years of turbulence for re- the company’s business While Facebook has al- wounded dozens.
peated privacy lapses, than hurt it. While most of ready tried to show ads Facebook responded by
spreading disinformation, the stock market slipped in in the Messenger app, it’s restricting the number of
allowing Russian agents to Wednesday trading, Face- seen only limited success. It groups to which a message
conduct targeted propa- book’s shares gained $1.25 hasn’t even tested the con- could be forwarded and
ganda campaigns and a to close at $172.51. cept in WhatsApp since it labeling forwarded mes-
rising tide of hate speech The Facebook CEO has acquired that service for sages as such. On Wednes-
and abuse. Zuckerberg been telegraphing some $22 billion in 2014. day, Zuckerberg said that
submitted to two days of of these changes to inves- “There are some huge un- Facebook needs to protect
grilling on Capitol Hill last tors for the past six months, knowns about how suc- both privacy and safety as
April. All that increases the but his Wednesday blog cessful Facebook is going it encrypted messaging ser-
challenge of convincing post is the first time he has to be rolling advertising into vices, although he noted to
users that Facebook really explained the idea to the a more private messaging an “inherent trade-off” be-
means it about privacy this more than two billion peo- environment,” said eMar- tween security and safety,
time. ple that use Facebook’s keter analyst Debra Aho simply because Facebook
Encrypted conversations services and look at its ads. Williamson. won’t be able to read en-
could alleviate some of Those ads are expected to Some critics are convinced crypted conversations.q