What does Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg think of the immensely popular Snapchat application? He thinks it’s beneficial as a “privacy phenomenon”.
Zuckerberg talks Snapchat
On Wednesday, Zuckerberg sat down with John Hennessy (president at Stanford) inside the Memorial Auditorium where he talked to students, professors, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) employees, and trustees. Here is what he had to say about Snapchat and its importance to Facebook:
“I think a lot of the most interesting startups today are actually doing different interesting things like this. Whether they’re messenger companies that are allowing different ways to communicate very quickly with small groups. I think Snapchat is a super interesting privacy phenomenon because it creates a new kind of space to communicate which makes it so that things that people previously would not have been able to share, you now feel like you have place to do so. And I think that’s really important and that’s a big kind of innovation that we’re going to keep pushing on and keep trying to do more on and I think a lot of other companies will, too.”
Problems with Facebook’s privacy standards
Given Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s previous issues with user privacy, this could be a problem. In 2009 and 2010, the social media giant made the recommendation to users to share status updates and images with the public. The website soon defaulted users to share their posts with the public. The company also gave marketers access to public posts as well as entice users to add Twitter-like features to their posts such as hashtags and trending topics. Facebook benefits when users share personal information publicly and become prime targets for marketers.
During the chat session, Zuckerberg also discussed venture capitalists and the NSA. He thinks some venture capitalists aren’t finding the funds for solutions. He also shared his concerns that insistence on surveillance could make the rest of the world lose faith in that particular ideal.
