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Yesterday Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Facebook, published a blog post sharing his vision of the future of Facebook. In his post he revealed a very different future for not only Facebook, but also for sister services Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.
In a post titled A Privacy-Focused Vision for Social Networking, Zuckerberg explained that he sees Facebook as becoming more of a place for private social messaging than for interacting with large groups of friends.
He compared traditional Facebook as being more of a town square while private messaging seems more like an intimate conversation in your living room. “In a few years, I expect future versions of Messenger and WhatsApp to become the main ways people communicate on the Facebook network.”
As Facebook evolves, he expects the platform to change in these areas:
Privacy Interactions — The emphasis of Facebook will be more towards private messages as opposed to sharing widely. Zuckerberg said, “People should have simple, intimate places where they have clear control over who can communicate with them and confidence that no one else can access what they share.”
Encryption — Messages between Facebook users will be encrypted to protect from hackers, overzealous governments and other security breaches. Encrypted messages would be private between the users, and even Facebook would not be able to know the content of the messages.
Reducing Permanence — Over the years Facebook has become a repository of people’s photos, stories and more. Zuckerberg recognizes that not all Facebook posts or messages should become permanent. “People want to know that what they share won’t come back to hurt them later, and reducing the length of time their information is stored and accessible will help.”
Zuckerberg suggests having an automatic expiration period, after which content would be archived or deleted from Facebook. This time period could range from a few seconds to an hour to a month to a year.
Users could opt out of automatic expirations if they wanted to retain their information on Facebook. They could also lengthen or shorten the default time period their information is available on Facebook to suit their privacy needs.
Safety — Zuckerberg wants people to feel more safe on Facebook, explaining “People should expect that we will do everything we can to keep them safe on our services within the limits of what’s possible in an encrypted service.”
Interoperability — A connection between Messenger, Instagram Direct, WhatsApp and SMS text messages is in Facebook’s future. You would be able to interact with people across these platforms, without having to check four different apps to see and respond to your messages.
Zuckerberg explained, “Today if you want to message people on Facebook you have to use Messenger, on Instagram you have to use Direct, and on WhatsApp you have to use WhatsApp. We want to give people a choice so they can reach their friends across these networks from whichever app they prefer.”
With interoperability you could interact with businesses, Facebook friends, organizations and others with whom you don’t want to share your phone number. You could share not only messages but also payments across theses apps.
Zuckerberg warns, however, that because of current Apple restrictions, interoperability with traditional SMS text messages would only work on Android devices. “Apple doesn’t allow apps to interoperate with SMS on their devices, so we’d only be able to do this on Android.”
Combining the messaging services would be optional. If you wish to keep these apps separate, you would be able to opt out, according to Zuckerberg.
Secure data storage — Facebook wants to be committed to keeping your data private. To do so it pledges to store data only in countries it believes will respect the privacy of its users.If Facebook believes a country has a history of human rights violations then Facebook will not store data in that country.
Zuckerberg explains, “As we build our infrastructure around the world, we’ve chosen not to build data centers in countries that have a track record of violating human rights like privacy or freedom of expression. If we build data centers and store sensitive data in these countries, rather than just caching non-sensitive data, it could make it easier for those governments to take people’s information.”
Facebook’s commitment to secure data storage may mean that Facebook will be blocked in certain countries that insist on having its citizens’ data stored within its boundaries. “That’s a tradeoff we’re willing to make. We do not believe storing people’s data in some countries is a secure enough foundation to build such important internet infrastructure on,” Zuckerberg said.
Your Thoughts
Do you agree with Mark Zuckerberg about the future of Facebook? Do you like the directions in which Facebook is heading? Would you find Facebook combining its messaging apps to be helpful?
Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
*Mark Zuckerberg image (edited) courtesy of Anthony Quintano via Wikimedia
Hi Carolyn,
This is a very good post. I really think it is a welcome move. It is of utmost importance to keep data safe. I am happy that finally Facebook is going to take steps on that.
Thanks for sharing, have a good day.
Hi Sajid, Yes, it is important to keep our data safe and encrypting messaging is a good way of doing that. But Facebook probably should do much more to keep the data that we’ve shared on Facebook’s main site safe from others.
Great post and I think I have missed his blog regarding the future of Facebook as I completely agree with him and I think nowadays people already use FB messenger and Whatsapp for communicating and one thing is good that now messages on facebook messenger are encrypted as well as they introduced on Whatsapp first and that was the only app with encrypted messages overall future is always bright and we hope for the best thank you for sharing.
Hi Steven, Yes, it is interesting to read what Mark Zuckerberg thinks the future of Facebook is. To keep Facebook current it has to evolve. But whether this new direction for Facebook is what people actually want remains to be seen.
Well, I completely agree with you and let’s see where is this new direction taking facebook if it will be good then people will love and if it’s not good then people will hate it either one of them.
You’re right, Steven. Mark Zuckerberg may envision these changes as the future of Facebook, but if users resist these changes, Facebook may take a different path after all.