In a column today in the Washington Post, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg admits they “missed the mark” on recent privacy concerns, as reported by the BBC.
Recent changes to the website have caused thousands of members to leave the website, annoyed that their personal details were made available to Internet search engines, and concerned about the privacy and data protection policies of the site.
In the article Zuckerberg said…
“Sometimes we move too fast – and after listening to recent concerns, we’re responding…The biggest message we have heard recently is that people want easier control over their information. Simply put, many of you thought our controls were too complex. Our intention was to give you lots of granular controls; but that may not have been what many of you wanted. We just missed the mark,”
There have been calls by many for standardisation of the options available to users to maintain their privacy settings on social networking and other websites to ease confusion and to simply the process of maintaining privacy for the majority of users who do not understand the technical ways in which the Internet and websites can operate.
Zuckerberg’s admission comes only three days after Facebook’s admission that it had been sharing user data with advertisers. The site is now facing increasing criticism from civil liberties groups, the US Congress and the European Union.
Despite saying that the privacy issues with the site would be fixed, he stopped short of offering a date by which it would be done. Instead he simple said they were “working hard to make these changes available as soon as possible”.
It will remain to be seen how the recent criticisms will stand with Facebook’s estimated 400 Million users worldwide, and if this is something they will find tolerable enough to stay with the website.