Mark Zuckerberg’s End Of Year Facebook Message Receives Backlash

From privacy scandals to issues with data protection to government probes, it hasn’t been that great of a year for Facebook. Even so, Facebook’s hoodie-clad fearless leader Mark Zuckerberg decided to stay on the brighter side of things in his end of year Facebook message saying that he is “proud of the progress we’ve made.” But a lot of users and critics didn’t share the same sentiment.

Zuckerberg said that it has been a personal challenge when it comes to addressing the many things affecting the social media site “whether that’s preventing election interference, stopping the spread of hate speech and misinformation, making sure people have control of their information, and ensuring our services improve people’s well-being.”

He went on to say that the site was different from last year. “We’ve fundamentally altered our DNA to focus more on preventing harm in all our services, and we’ve systematically shifted a large portion of our company to work on preventing harm,” he said. “We now have more than 30,000 people working on safety and invest billions of dollars in security yearly.”

It didn’t take long for the critics to come through and say “really?” to Zuckerberg. Forbes said his message was “bizarrely worded” while TechCrunch said his “tone-deaf remarks read like 1,000 words of patting himself on the back.”

Yikes.

But it doesn’t stop there. Commenters on Facebook and Twitter started to drag Zuckerberg’s words.

“Nothing about selling our data without our consent I see. I guess it’s just too deeply ingrained in Facebook’s ‘DNA'” said one user. Another said, “Too bad u allowed access to ur users data. No need to put a lock on a door which has already been opened.”

This user did not mince words: “Here’s a New Year’s resolution for you Mr. Zuckerberg: Stop insulting our intelligence by referring to Facebook users as “our community.” We’re your PRODUCT and we now know you made a decision early on to sell us to the highest bidder, consequences be damned.”

But not everyone was dissatisfied with Zuckerberg’s message. “Wishing Facebook a safer and more secure future with users at heart” said a loyal Facebook user. Another gushed, “THANK YOU FOR CARING ABOUT US. I also that you share what’s important to you and your intentions with users, not too many tech companies do that. Facebook is a very valuable public service and will be for many years to come.”