Alex Stamos urged his colleagues to take responsibility for the social network’s failings amid the fallout of the most infamous scandal in the company's 14-year history.
The memo, which has not previously been circulated outside Facebook, read: “We need to build a user experience that conveys honesty and respect, not one optimised to get people to click yes to giving us more access. We need to intentionally not collect data where possible, and to keep it only as long as we are using it to serve people.
“We need to listen to people (including internally) when they tell us a feature is creepy or point out a negative impact we are having in the world. And we need to be open, honest and transparent about our challenges and what we are doing to fix them.”
In response Christopher Littlejohns, EMEA manager at Synopsys, said "Facebook's mission statement is 'give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together'. This is at the heart of both the massive opportunity social media platforms have, but also at the heart of the problem.
"The likes of Facebook have a huge responsibility: They are platforms for both the good and the bad. This is what I believe Stamos was alluding to. I believe it was Voltaire (as well as Churchill and Roosevelt) who said 'with great power comes great responsibility'.
"Alex seems to recognise that there has been a fundamental shift in the power to influence in the social platform age, and it is clearly not good if leaders of these organisations do not recognise that. His call to action to such organisations is to put in place a moral framework and policies that guide their thinking of how to run their companies to ensure that they are not complicit in making things worse."
Thank you for your input
Thank you for your feedback
DataIQ is a trading name of IQ Data Group Limited
10 York Road, London, SE1 7ND
Phone: +44 020 3821 5665
Registered in England: 9900834
Copyright © IQ Data Group Limited 2024