Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: 'We Just Missed The Mark'

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg published an op-ed in the Washington Post responding to users' privacy complaints and laying out Facebook's plan to offer simplified privacy settings.

"Our intention was to give you lots of granular controls; but that may not have been what many of you wanted," Zuckerberg wrote in the op-ed, titled "From Facebook, Answering Privacy Concerns With New Settings. "We just missed the mark."

Zuckerberg offered details on Facebook's plan to offer users simpler privacy controls:

In the coming weeks, we will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use. We will also give you an easy way to turn off all third-party services. We are working hard to make these changes available as soon as possible. We hope you'll be pleased with the result of our work and, as always, we'll be eager to get your feedback.

(Facebook's chief of public policy, Tim Sparapani, referenced these simplified options in an earlier interview)

Interestingly, Zuckerberg uses the word "privacy" only once in the entire post ("We will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use").

The new settings may appease some, but as All Things D's Peter Kafka argues, the company's solution still pushes its users to share more.

Kafka writes, "Zuckerberg never promises the move Facebook would make if it wanted users to keep their information truly private: Make 'private' the default setting, and make all sharing options 'opt-in.'"

Whereas the op-ed consisted mostly of "standard patter about Facebook's mission,"/a> the Facebook CEO was more candid about his company's privacy blunders in an email sent to Robert Scoble.

"I know we've made a bunch of mistakes," Zuckerberg wrote. "My hope at the end of this is that the service ends up in a better place and that people understand that our intentions are in the right place and we respond to the feedback from the people we serve."

"I want to make sure we get this stuff right this time," he added. (Read the full letter here)

Many have been waiting for Zuckerberg to respond to the backlash over his site's privacy changes. But does the op-ed hit its mark? What should he have said that he didn't? What are you glad to have heard? Tell us your reaction in the comments section below.

More on Facebook and privacy:

• Facebook Alternatives: 9 Other Secure Social Networks You Could Switch To

• Facebook CEO 'Doesn't Believe In Privacy'

• Facebook Privacy Policy Explained: It's Longer Than The Constitution

• Facebook Calls All Hands Meeting On Privacy

• Visual Guide To Facebook's Privacy Changes Over Time

• The Ultimate Guide To 11 BIG Facebook Changes--And What They Mean

• Facebook Usernames, Email, Photos exposed on Yelp!

• 'How Do I Delete My Facebook Account?' Query Soars In Popularity

• WATCH: How To Fix Your Facebook Privacy Settings In 2 Minutes

• Facebook CEO Allegedly Mocked Users For Sharing Personal Data With Him

• FLIP FLOP? Facebook CEO Praised Privacy Controls In 2008

Comments

[wassilij]

09:25 PM on 05/26/2010

This site will scan your privacy settings on facebook so that you can make the necessary adjustments.
It works real well......took less than 5 minutes to adjust mine....then rescans to make sure the settings are ok!!

http://www.reclaimprivacy.org/facebook

[Clare53]

07:59 PM on 05/26/2010

He's just a kid with little or no experience and he's a tad sociopathic.

[rongway1]

10:14 AM on 05/25/2010

I deleted my Facebook account 2 days ago...

[majordump]

12:00 AM on 05/25/2010

is it just me or did Zuckerkorn balloon up?

[BabaLou7]

12:20 AM on 05/25/2010

Quite the opposite; he looks like he just took a majordump.

[majordump]

01:18 PM on 05/27/2010

you flatter me, babalou- but i take dumps bigger than him before lunch...

[Christian]

08:45 PM on 05/24/2010

I took my pages down, I just cannot stand this kid CEO and will not support his company.

[paulczarnecki]

06:47 PM on 05/24/2010

Facebook is a great site. There are likes and dislikes in regarding to facebook The great thing about facebook is that I get in touch with people that I hung out with back in the old days(1980's - 1990's). Another thing is when I want to post items such as favorite movies or songs, I begin to have a limit and I don't think that's fare. See what we notice is that our facebook is taking our freedom away from posting more favorite movies and songs. I wanna be able to post more favorite movies and songs. Plus when I use directory to find people, I have to click every second to find the right person and that's really ridiculous. Frankly I was so disappointed with the way facebook set up a directory. In pertaining to directory, it should easy, quick and simple. I click on the letter A and I should be able to scroll down and be able to see faces. I don't need to see their privacy because I know that's not my business what they exactly do. Here is link for directory. http://www.facebook.com/directory/people/P30947232-30948412#/directory/people/A Frankly it does get tiring when I have to click every second. To tell you the truth, directory is so screwed or messed up and it needs to be fixed. I am not going to hold grudges against zuckerberg but he needs to make a turnaround in this facebook.

[skiptowne]

05:52 PM on 05/24/2010

Sometimes it pays to have older CEOs with some life experience, then again, there are the banks...Oh, forget it.

[Jaime Roth]

05:34 PM on 05/24/2010

Anyone read 1984?

[majordump]

12:01 AM on 05/25/2010

war is peace- Palin for president, 1984

[abrakadabra]

05:12 PM on 05/24/2010

Just stop using Facebook, he will be out of business.
What is it that people do not get?
I do not belive in any of the social networks, they are overpromoted, understudied, and they all do the same in the end: use you.
The entities who promote the use of Facebook make money, Facebook makes money.

What part of the story do people not understand?

[paulczarnecki]

07:14 PM on 05/24/2010

I agree with you.

[Clare53]

07:58 PM on 05/26/2010

Yeah right, 400 million people are going to just quit FB.

[mudshark12]

04:55 PM on 05/24/2010

There is another definition of "missing the mark": it's called sin.

[Marc Antony Biondo]

04:43 PM on 05/24/2010

Facebook begins by asking me to surrender my entire Yahoo address book just to respond to a Hug a friend sends to my FB wall. Miss the mark? By a long shot. Every game to which friends invite requires the same invasion of my private address book. With mere simplistic software I could harness a database consisting of everyone listed on popular places like Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc. if I were to go about the same thing. Admittedly that would be very ambitious of me, but the point is an enormous database could be generated. As Google and Facebook fight it out in the online ad competition, I do not wish to give over my family and friends this way.

[loki]

04:42 PM on 05/24/2010

Im just amazed at the amount of people who sign up for facebook and others like it, then act shocked every month when things like this crop up. But , they stay and act as if it never happened, until it happens again and they all get upset, then forget it until the next time, and so on. In my humble opinion, anyone who signs up for the social websites and stay there after the first privacy incident, they deserve what they get. Just figure once you post it online, its there for life, and treat it as such. OR, just get use to having no privacy anymore and stop complaining about it

[loki]

04:37 PM on 05/24/2010

give this boy a harvard degree. What an idiot. This is the same kid that just months ago spouted out that he believed privacy does not exist anymore and face book users have to many expectations of privacy. Now he backpedals ...

[lucayo]

04:12 PM on 05/24/2010

Total privacy should be the default. Anyone who wants to share information should be able to, but it should be them who have to take extra steps to share. Not the way it is now.

[kinogod]

03:18 PM on 05/24/2010

Blah blah blah Zuck.