Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sure is brimming with ideas and plans which he believes can bring about a positive change in the world around us all. And he has penned all that has been cramming his heart and mind in a new 6000-word letter revealed recently.
Not surprisingly, the central idea as portrayed in the letter has much to do with the way Facebook has functioned so far – that of promoting bonds between people irrespective of where they live or what they do. Zuckerberg also stressed on the need for the online bonding or camaraderie that people share online should also reflect in the physical world.
In fact, that’s more a need of the hour right now than ever before given the deep rooted hatred and suspicion that people have developed for others. Worse still, such ill feelings are often justified on religious grounds, a dangerous trend that has helped terrorism to thrive and which Zuckerberg, like most others would like to see eliminated.
Zuckerberg also stated being part of communities can help make one to alleviate the fear of loneliness. Even those suffering from, say a rare disease will know there are others elsewhere in the world that too are going through a similar phase in life.
Similar to terrorism, there are other challenges like climate change, poverty and such that currently happens to be the bane of human civilization. These are something that are better tackled on a global scale, and people need a common platform where they can meet and share ideas on how best to tackle such issues. Needless to say, Facebook has served to be just that for years now.
However, while Facebook with over a billion active users worldwide has emerged to be the biggest social community online, the sheer scale of its operations too has often worked against its core values. Take for instance the issue of fake news and the impact that it might have in promoting the chances of President Trump.
With the sheer volume of posts made each day being practically impossible to be manually monitored by humans, Facebook has no other option but to rely on electronic means to achieve the same. That is also the reason the company has recently been seen promoting AI solutions to weed out fake news or other potentially objectionable content.
The chief executive revealed in his letter of the commendable progress they have made in this regard but also stressed on the need to do a lot more.