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D8 Video: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Privacy

June 2, 2010 at 7:55 pm PT

As expected, Facebook’s privacy controls and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s views on privacy figured prominently in his Wednesday appearance at D8. Is the company violating its members’ expectation of privacy? Is it pushing them to overshare? Shouldn’t they be given the option of opting in to the company’s instant personalization feature rather than having it automatically personalize things for them?

If you’re looking for straightforward answers to those questions, you’re going to be disappointed. But no matter how Zuckerberg responds, his stance is consistent: He thinks his users want to share their information with the world, and he wants to help them do just that.

Tagged with: digital, Facebook, instant personalization, Internet, interview, Kara Swisher, Mark Zuckerberg, Mark Zuckerberg D8, privacy, users, video, Walt Mossberg

comments so far. Add yours.

joecassara

Zuckerberg's arrogance and unscrupulousness outweigh his talent. It's time to stage an 80s Apple-style coup and hand control of Facebook over to seasoned adults.
dhennessy

Zuckerberg is not a trustworthy person. He dodges the true answer which is that Facebook is all about making money from peoples connections and content and respecting peoples need for privacy would diminish that.
NoRelationToNed

Has he ever smiled?
Anonymous

Z.’s answer: …”even if it takes just one more click (to opt in), there is too much friction….”

gee, they had him right there. basically, his attitude is if not enough people will sign up for something I want them to do – I’ll do it for them.
http://feldmanfile.blogspot.com Len Feldman

Zuckerberg is clearly a guy who's not comfortable with having his ideas challenged, but he couldn't get away with lashing out or dismissing Mossberg and Swisher. I can only imagine what meetings inside Facebook must be like.
narg

Can anyone tell me why people are putting private information on a PUBLIC WEB SITE!!!!!

I don't think the Facebook CEO is stupid. If you put private info on a web site like this, you are stupid.
http://xentek.net/ Eric Marden

Facebook can hardly be considered a public web site. It started (and is expected by most of its users) as a place where the info we share is only shared with those folks we choose.

Semi-Public, maybe, but he's violated these expectations time and time again, and always as an Opt Out and never an Opt In.
http://macsmiley.tumblr.com/ MacSmiley

Twitter is a public website. Always has been. Always will be.

Contrarily, Facebook began as a “walled garden”. People have joined and entrusted their personal lives to Facebook under one set of conditions which is now morphing into something completely different.

Facebook's tagline, 2008: “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.”

versus

Facebook's current mission statement: “Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.”

Facebook is Zuckerberg's website. He can make it as open as he wants it to be… as long as he's honest about it. And honest he is not. To Zuckerberg, privacy is merely a device to get people to “connect and share more”. Privacy, more appropriately termed limited publicness, is no longer a core company value.

The lack of a clearly understood and easily available DELETE button is proof alone that Zuckerberg is anything but deceptive.
http://netjunky.com/ Jonathan Karon

Almost every new web app / social service has to overcome the critical mass problem — if not enough people use / opt-in / activate a feature the feature is more or less useless.

Amazing product designers find solutions to this problem.

Facebook's answer is to switch everyone on by default and maybe let them opt out. What a cop out.
derekdevine

Zuckerberg is to young to run Facebook. And he's untrustworthy.
http://www.makovision.com Don Mak

For two days I keep trying to watch these videos – from home, from the office, from client offices – but the playback and streaming is atrocious.
narg

Make all the excuses or false reasons you want MacSmiley. You can't change a site that doesn't belong to you. Facebook was NEVER intended to be anything about privacy.
narg

You didn't read the user agreement did you? You made up something that never exsisted.
http://xentek.net/ Eric Marden

Actually, I have read the User Agreement, and each of its iterations. Of course I wasn't talking about the ToS. I was talking about the expectation of privacy and the numerous over night changes that damaged that expectation.
http://macsmiley.tumblr.com/ MacSmiley

Who said I'm trying to change Facebook?
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_O2MAAJAQY3YAT33CMILIEJIWJM Dewayne White

Please … He created it, you all flocked to it – now you cry (but won’t leave it) when he monetizes it. Viva’La America! You haven’t figured that out yet? to make beats

D8 Video: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Privacy

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