Mark Zuckerberg helped create the modern world by connecting nearly a quarter of its citizens to Facebook and giving them a platform to share, well, everything — baby pictures and Pepe memes, social updates and abusive bullying, helpful how-to videos and live-streamed violence.
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Now he wants to remake it, too, in a way that counters isolationism, promotes global connections and addresses social ills — while also cementing Facebook’s central role as a builder of online community for its nearly 2 billion users.
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The Facebook founder laid out his thoughts on Thursday in a sweeping 5,800-word manifesto that hews closer to utopian social guide than business plan. Are we, he asked in the document, building the world we all want?
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In a phone interview with The Associated Press, Zuckerberg stressed that he wasn’t motivated by the recent U.S. election or any other particular event. Rather, he said, it’s the growing sentiment in many parts of the world that connecting the world — the founding idea behind Facebook — is no longer a good thing.
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Across the world there are people left behind by globalization, and movements for withdrawing from global connection, Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook in a Harvard dorm room in 2004, wrote on Thursday. So it falls to his company to develop the social infrastructure to give people the power to build a global community that works for all of us.
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Connecting in Facebook’s Interest
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Zuckerberg, 32, told the AP that he still strongly believes that more connectedness is the right direction for the world. But, he added, it’s not enough if it’s good for some people but it’s doesn’t work for other people. We really have to bring everyone along.
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It’s hardly a surprise that Zuckerberg wants to find ways to bring more people together, especially on Facebook. After all, getting more people to come together…