Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated during a recent earnings call that the company plans to split in two to create both a public forum and a more private encrypted space over the next five years.
Business Insider reports that during a recent earnings call with analysts, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed his future plans for the company which would see Facebook split in two. In a 3,200-word blog post published last month, Zuckerberg outlines plans to create two distinct Facebook spaces, one being a public forum or “town square,” and the other being a private encrypted space referred to as a “living room.”
Zuckerberg stated in the blog post: “My focus for the last couple of years has been understanding and addressing the biggest challenges facing Facebook. This means taking positions on important issues concerning the future of the internet. In this note, I’ll outline our vision and principles around building a privacy-focused messaging and social networking platform. There’s a lot to do here, and we’re committed to working openly and consulting with experts across society as we develop this.”
One analyst asked Zuckerberg about his timeline for separating Facebook’s services during the earnings call, to which Zuckerberg replied: “I think that this is going to be a central focus for the company for the next five years or longer.” Zuckerberg stated that the company plans to spend at least a year consulting with experts, government, and law enforcement on how best to manage the private, closed-off service.
“There are really important safety and content issues in messaging and if we don’t have the ability to see the content, we need to make sure we have different tools in place to handle that,” Zuckerberg said. “A few years ago, we probably would’ve rolled this out and tried to deal with issues as they came up with but now part of our new approach of trying to be more proactive about social issues is trying to build in from the ground up, getting this right upfront.”
Zuckerberg stated that the company plans to reveal more details about the plan at Facebook’s F8 developer conference.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
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