
Facebook announces “privacy-focused” changes to website and app
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says new features on the social networking website and app on are all part of the company’s shift toward a “privacy-focused” future.
A new “Groups” tab is at the center of the app and content from Groups will appear more often in News Feed. Zuckerberg says the new tweak will give users more prompts to discover and join new groups. Facebook is adding new features for specific types of communities and also now plans to encrypt users’ messages to one another by default. This means Facebook can no longer read your private communications with friends.
“I believe the future is private,” Zuckerberg said. “I know that we don’t exactly have the strongest reputation on privacy right now, to put it lightly,”…(but) at the end of the day this isn’t just about building some new products, it’s a major shift in how we run this company.”
In addition to the site overhaul, Zuckerberg also briefly discussed the eventual integration of WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram. While many of the new changes to Facebook appear to focus on privacy and creating a more intimate experience for users, many of the changes in store for WhatsApp and Instagram focus on e-commerce.
Zuckerberg revealed WhatsApp is debuting a payments product in India. Instagram is adding a new “Shopping” panel in the explore section. A pilot program allowing users to buy directly from influencer posts is also in the works.
Despite this new focus on privacy, Facebook, and its external advertisers will still have large amounts of data on users, data which includes information what other sites users visit, the amount of time spent on those sites, the communities users belong to, what items users shop for and purchase online for example.
Facebook’s handling of that data has been the source of a lot of anger from users. According to a study by Edison Research, Facebook now has 15 million fewer users in the U.S. than it did in 2017. However many of those users switched to Facebook-owned Instagram. The company has apologized repeatedly for a number of mishaps involving privacy, data and security and announced in late April that it is setting aside $3 billion to cover a possible fine from the U.S.Federal Trade Commission over privacy violations.