Facebook has an established pattern: they obliterate privacy defaults in their system, wipe out their users' stated privacy preferences, and then, after a hue and cry, Mark Zuckerberg emerges and apologizes, and the system is reset to a level that is slightly less private than before. At All Things D, Liz Gannes runs through a retrospective of Zuck's last 25 (!) apologies, and finds a common thread.
Zuckerberg almost always tells users that change is hard, often referring back to the early days of Facebook when it had barely any of the features people know and love today. He says sharing and a more open and connected world are good, and often he says he appreciates all the feedback.
Most of all, Zuckerberg seems to take pride in offering an explicit, earnest apology, but doesn’t actually admit he was wrong, just that he’s sorry for how things were rolled out or perceived…
“Sometimes we move too fast” seemed more of a brushoff than a real apology. “It’s a comment on the execution of a policy, not on the policy itself,” John Paczkowski wrote.
That brings us to the present day, where we have what turns out to be a textbook Zuckerberg apology acknowledging the FTC privacy settlement. This time, Zuckerberg tries to argue that Facebook has done more good than harm on privacy throughout its existence.
The Apologies of Zuckerberg: A Retrospective
(via JWZ)
