San Francisco: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called for new ways for communities to govern themselves and legitimate regulation around elections, harmful content, privacy, and data portability in the new decade.
Stressing that he does not think private companies should be making so many important decisions that touch on fundamental democratic values, Zuckerberg drafted a 10-year vision in a Facebook post late Friday.
“This decade I’m going to take a longer-term focus. Rather than having year-to-year challenges, I’ve tried to think about what I hope the world and my life will look in 2030 so I can make sure I’m focusing on those things,” said the CEO of a company that has faced intense scrutiny on several fronts, mainly users’ privacy.
One of the big questions for the next decade is: how should we govern the large new digital communities that the internet has enabled?
“One way to address this is through regulation. As long as our governments are seen as legitimate, rules established through a democratic process could add more legitimacy and trust than rules defined by companies alone,” said Facebook.
Several US lawmakers and former Facebook employees have called for breaking-up the social networking giant with nearly 2.5 billion users to control it better.
“There are a number of areas where I believe governments establishing clearer rules would be helpful, including around elections, harmful content, privacy, and data portability. I’ve called for new regulation in these areas and over the next decade I hope we get clearer rules for the internet,” he mentioned.
Zuckerberg called for establishing new ways for communities to govern themselves.
“An example of independent governance is the Oversight Board we’re creating. Soon you’ll be able to appeal content decisions you disagree with to an independent board that will have the final decision in whether something is allowed,” said the Facebook CEO.
Facebook, he said, is a millennial company with the issues of this generation in mind.
“Our digital social environments will feel very different over the next 5+ years, re-emphasizing private interactions and helping us build the smaller communities we all need in our lives,” he added.
Across Facebook services, more than 140 million small businesses reach customers — mostly for free.
“Over the next decade, we hope to build the commerce and payments tools so that every small business has easy access to the same technology that previously only big companies have had,” he mentioned.