Mark Zuckerberg Wrote A 6,000-Word Letter About How Facebook Can Save The World
Mark Zuckerberg Wrote A 6,000-Word Letter About How Facebook Can Save The World
The tech leader wants the social network to help fix everything from polarization to terrorist attacks to how we live together.
The tech leader wants the social network to help fix everything from polarization to terrorist attacks to how we live together.
Mark Zuckerberg wants to make the world a better place.
On Thursday, Zuckerberg shared a lengthy new letter titled "Building Global Community" on his Facebook page, detailing his vision for the future of Facebook. In his ambitious declaration (5700 words long), the Facebook CEO and Co-Founder shed light on the social network's next aspirations:
Our next focus will be developing the social infrastructure for community -- for supporting us, for keeping us safe, for informing us, for civic engagement, and for inclusion of all.
Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook CEO
5 Key Takeaways from Zuckerberg's Letter
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Mark Zuckerberg
I know a lot of us are thinking about how we can make the most positive impact in the world right now. I wrote this letter about how I hope we can come together to build a global community that works for everyone.
In times like these, adds Zuckerberg, the most important thing we at Facebook can do is develop the social infrastructure to give people the power to build a global community that works for all of us.
How are they going to make all of this happen?
Let's break it down.
#1
More than 100 million people on Facebook are members of "very meaningful" groups.
These are groups that upon joining, quickly become the most important part of our social network experience. Parenting groups and cancer-support groups are some examples. In Berlin, a man named Monis Bukhari runs a Facebook group to help refugees find homes and jobs. Online communities like these bring people together. If Facebook can improve its suggestions and help connect one billion people with meaningful communities, it can strengthen the social fabric of our society.
#2
A few examples:
Crisis Intervention
Facebook built tools to raise funds for crisis relief. After the earthquake in Nepal, the Facebook community raised $15 million to help people recover and rebuild
Safety Check
Safety Check allows you to check on friends who might be affected by an attack or natural disaster. Facebook is adding more tools to find and offer shelter, food, and other resources during emergencies.
Prevent Harm
Facebook can help our community identify problems before they happen. When someone is thinking of hurting themselves, Facebook built infrastructure to give their friends tools that could save their life. When a child goes missing, Facebook shows Amber alerts.
#3
In efforts to avoid "fake news" and "filter bubbles",
Facebook will push more diverse perspectives around news and try to kill sensationalized headlines. "In general, if you become less likely to share a story after reading it, that's a good sign the headline was sensational. If you're more likely to share a story after reading it, that's often a sign of good in-depth content. We recently started reducing sensationalism in News Feed by taking this into account for pieces of content".
#4
Facebook wants to create a more politically engaging society.
In the United States election last year, Facebook helped more than 2 million people register to vote and then go vote. Facebook will build new tools to help people connect to their representatives.
Every day, people use their voices to share their views in ways that can spread and grow into movements. The Women's March is an example, where a grandmother wrote a post that led her friends to start a Facebook event that eventually turned into millions of people marching around the world.
#5
Facebook will create better guidelines for what's appropriate and what's not.
Building an inclusive global community requires establishing a new process for citizens worldwide to participate in community governance. Artificial intelligence can help monitor what is happening on Facebook. Facebook is starting to explore, for example, ways to use AI to tell the difference between news stories about terrorism and actual terrorist propaganda.
There are many of us who stand for bringing people together and connecting the world. I hope we have the focus to take the long view and build the new social infrastructure to create the world we want for generations to come.
Thank you for being part of this community,
Mark