Mark Zuckerberg has outlined a new mission statement for Facebook:
This is a time when many of us around the world are reflecting on how we can have the most positive impact. I am reminded of my favorite saying about technology: “We always overestimate what we can do in two years, and we underestimate what we can do in ten years.” We may not have the power to create the world we want immediately, but we can all start working on the long term today. In times like these, 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.
For the past decade, Facebook has focused on connecting friends and families. With that foundation, 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.
Kara Swisher spoke with Mark over at Recode about the manifesto:
He is particularly concerned about the use of headlines as the only signal to online users. “In most news consumed on paper, the headline is not separate from the content,” he said. “Online the headline is often the only indicator and that is a problem.”
Zuckerberg seems to get how complex it is and how damaging fake news is to the Facebook platform. “Our community wants good information and no one ever said, ‘I want misinformation,’” he said.