The media reaction to Mark Zuckerberg’s memo on privacy and Facebook has mostly fallen into two camps: skepticism and open mockery.
Mockery of the notion that, as TechCrunch put it, Zuckerberg has suddenly “discovered privacy.” Skepticism as typified by Mashable’s helpful warning that “if the last 15 years of Facebook have taught us anything, it’s that we shouldn’t take Zuckerberg’s words at face value” and the Washington Post’s adorably credulous claim that “should [Zuckerberg’s] ambition be realized, it is nothing less than an epochal shift in Facebook’s business model.”
Even Zuckerberg himself acknowledged how hard it is to believe that Facebook really cares about creating a space where users can communicate privately and in small numbers.
“I understand that many people don’t think Facebook can or would even want to build this kind of privacy-focused platform — because frankly we don’t currently have a strong reputation for building privacy protective services…”
I mean, we killed democracy, gave a platform to Nazis, sold your data to the highest bidder so… kinda hard to believe a single word we say, right?
Ho ho ho!
No…