Mark Zuckerberg Apologizes, Admits Facebook “Missed the Mark”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has heard our cries and officially admitted that Facebook “missed the mark” with its new privacy settings and confirmed that the company will release simpler privacy controls beginning this week. In a one-page mea culpa letter to the Washington Post, Zuckerberg wrote that it’s a challenge to keep over 400 million users happy and that sometimes the company can “move too fast” with changes.

From the letter:

“The challenge is how a network like ours facilitates sharing and innovation, offers control and choice, and makes this experience easy for everyone. These are issues we think about all the time. Whenever we make a change, we try to apply the lessons we’ve learned along the way. The biggest message we have heard recently is that people want easier control over their information. Simply put, many of you thought our controls were too complex. Our intention was to give you lots of granular controls; but that may not have been what many of you wanted. We just missed the mark.

We have heard the feedback. There needs to be a simpler way to control your information. 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.

Whether you believe the authenticity of his apology or not, Zuckerberg’s concession shows that privacy is most definitely not dead. It is and will continue to be an important issue for users and hopefully Facebook understands that now.