Facebook的CEO馬克·扎克伯格最近表態稱，他不會讓反復發生的數據隱私問題和2016年大選期間的“通俄門”等丑聞影響他對Facebook的樂觀。

上周二，扎克伯克對軟件開發者們表示，Facebook和開發者們“都有一些現實的挑戰需要解決，但同時我們也要保持樂觀。”

在Facebook的年度F8開發者大會上，扎克伯格談及過去一年的歷次風波時輕描淡寫地表示：“這確實是緊張的一年”。

當然，扎克伯格這一年過得何止“緊張”。由于與美國總統大選有關的原因，扎克伯格遭受了密集的抨擊。Facebook還曾打著學術研究的名義收集用戶個人信息，并將這些信息轉售給了政治咨詢機構劍橋分析公司，為此他也兩次出席國會的聽證會，接受了立法委員們的質詢。

扎克伯格半開玩笑地說道：“我簡直難以相信，今年才過了四個月。”

在此次開發者大會上，扎克伯格也重申了他在最近的幾次新聞發布會、國會聽證會和季度收益會議上的主要觀點。他再次介紹了公司為彌補近期出現的一些問題所做的各種努力，比如在接下來的各國大選期間，Facebook將采用人工智能工具，自動審核有關政治引導性言論，以及在年底前擴建一支20000人的安全員和內容審核員團隊等等。

會上，扎克伯格還宣布，Facebook將允許用戶刪除他們通過Facebook訪問的網站瀏覽記錄及cookies記錄，以免其他企業追蹤到用戶的瀏覽行為。“清除瀏覽記錄”是不少主流網頁瀏覽器的標配功能，但Facebook卻一直沒有提供該選項，直到一連串數據隱私丑聞接連爆發。

雖然Facebook采取了一些措施彌補服務中的漏洞（扎克伯格稱，這些補救措施也是他2018年的個人目標），但他演講的主旨還是想要說服Facebook的開發者“風物長宜放眼量”，將重點放在下一步開發新功能和新產品上。

扎克伯格表示：“我這一年做的最艱難的決定，并不是斥巨資在安全問題上——這個決定是很容易的。最艱難的決定，是如何找出一條路，繼續做好我們需要做的每一件事。”

扎克伯格表示，Facebook的使命是促進人與人的聯系，它將不會停止研發能夠實現這一目標的工具。因此，Facebook下一步將陸續推出一系列新產品，比如一項新的約會服務，以及最新的Oculus Go頭顯等AR和VR工具等等。另外，Facebook旗下的照片分享服務Instagram也將支持視頻聊天功能。

顯然，為了吸引更多用戶并讓他們癡迷于Facebook的服務，Facebook是不會停止投資研發新工具的。任何增長放緩的跡象都會造成投資者的恐慌，并導致股票大幅下跌。

不過對于Facebook來說，這些新工具推出的時機或許并不理想，尤其是約會服務更是數據隱私問題的重災區。在國會聽證會的第二天，就有立法委員當面駁斥扎克伯克，說Facebook已經就數據隱私問題反復道歉過多次，然而之后還是屢屢再犯。Facebook除了動動嘴皮子，是否真有誠意采取切實行動解決隱患，實在是很難說。

扎克伯格也知道，在接連爆出隱私問題后，大家難免對他的約會服務是否靠譜心中存疑。他表示，Facebook的約會APP“一開始就考慮到了隱私和安全問題”。Facebook最近的幾次隱私丑聞已經表明，Facebook經常低估了不法分子操縱其服務為非作歹的能力，所以這次扎克伯格只得親自為公司約會服務站臺，表示公司在構建該服務時，已經預見到了黑客可能會取用戶數據的手段，并相應做好了防范。

不過，扎克伯格在演講中也承認，Facebook并不完美，“公司會犯錯，也會承擔相應后果，我們也需要解決這些問題”。

考慮到Facebook以后的服務仍然要基于用戶的私人數據搭建，這番誰都不得罪的表態也算相當討巧。不過不管扎克伯格對Facebook的未來有多樂觀，在Facebook的發展過程中，可以預見，它面臨的隱私保護壓力只會有增無減。（財富中文網）

譯者：樸成奎?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg isn’t going to let Facebook-related controversies like its repeated data privacy problems and Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential elections ruin his hopefulness.

The executive of one of the world’s biggest technology companies told an audience of software developers on Tuesday that both Facebook and developers “have real challenges to address, but we have to keep that sense of optimism too.”

Speaking at Facebook’s annual F8 developer conference, Zuckerberg kicked things off by lightheartedly stating the obvious, “This has been an intense year.”

Zuckerberg, of course, spent the past year facing intense criticism for failing to prevent Russian entities from spreading propaganda on the social network. More recently, he attended two congressional hearings during which he fielded lawmakers questions about how Facebook let an academic obtain user data and then sell it to the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.

“I can’t believe we’re only four months in,” Zuckerberg said in jest.

Reiterating comments he made during recent media briefings, congressional hearings, and Facebook’s latest quarterly earnings announcements, Zuckerberg reminded the audience of all the steps the company is doing to remedy its recent problems. Some of these include using artificial intelligence tools to automatically identify propaganda efforts similar to those allegedly carried out by Russia-linked groups in upcoming world elections, and boosting its security and content review team to 20,000 by the end of the year.

A more recent change, Zuckerberg detailed on Tuesday, involves letting people delete a history of the websites they may have visited from Facebook as well as the cookies companies use to track people across multiple sites. This Clear History feature is a standard tool in popular web browsers, but has been noticeably absent in Facebook prior to its wave of data privacy scandals.

But even though Facebook is taking steps to fix a number of problems with its service (Zuckerberg has described those fixes as his personal goal for 2018), his speech mainly focused on why Facebook and developers must move forward by constantly creating new features and products.

“The hardest decision that I made this year wasn’t to invest so much in safety and security—that decision was easy,” Zuckerberg said. “The hard part was figuring out a way to move forward on everything else we need to do too.”

Facebook has a mission to connect people to each other, Zuckerberg explained, and it won’t stop building tools that do so. With that, he summarized a handful of new Facebook products like a new dating service, augmented reality and virtual reality gadgets like its new Oculus Go headset, and new ways to video chat with friends on the Facebook-owned photo sharing service Instagram.

Clearly, Facebook can’t stop investing in new tools to attract more users and keep them glued to its service. Any signs of slowing growth would worry investors and send its stock plummeting.

But, these new tools—especially a service for dating, in which people can be at their most vulnerable with one another—come at a precarious time for Facebook. As lawmakers told Zuckerberg during the second day of his congressional hearing, Facebook has repeatedly apologized over data privacy mishaps followed by further missteps. It’s difficult to tell if the company takes the issue seriously beyond basic lip service.

Zuckerberg, seemingly aware that debuting a dating service after the numerous data privacy problems, said that Facebook designed the dating app “with privacy and safety from the beginning.” As Facebook’s recent scandals have shown, the company tends to underestimate how bad actors can manipulate its service, so people will have to take Zuckerberg’s word that the company built the dating service while anticipating how personal data could potentially be leaked.

And yet, Zuckerberg admitted earlier in his speech that Facebook is not perfect and that the company “will make mistakes and they will have consequences and we will need to fix them.”

It’s a tricky balancing act that Facebook is playing as it continues to build products that are powered by people’s personal data. And it’s not going to get any easier as Facebook continues to forge ahead—no matter how optimistic Zuckerberg is about Facebook’s future.