'Privacy-focused' Facebook puts the spotlight on groups

(1 May 2019) Facebook is launching a major redesign of its app and website built around letting people connect with groups that share their interests — an attempt to shift its focus away from the untrammeled public sharing that has helped spread hate speech, extremism, misinformation and live streamed video of massacres.

The new features, announced Tuesday at the company's annual F8 developer conference, are part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's broader strategy for countering Facebook's growing array of critics, emboldened regulators and competitors.

Zuckerberg, who at one point stood in front of a giant display reading "The future is private," acknowledged widespread skepticism of his plan to turn Facebook into a "privacy-focused" social network.

"Look, I get that a lot of people aren't sure that we are serious about this," he said to laughter from the crowd. "We are committed to doing this well and to starting a new chapter for our products."

The redesign isn't without risks of its own. When Snapchat rolled out major changes in late 2017, people hated them so much the service lost 3 million users in a single quarter ; analysts think it still hasn't recovered.

The privacy changes extend to Instagram as well. Facebook executives say the company is starting to test new features that hide "likes" from photos. Users will still be able to see how many likes their photos get, but the number won't appear at the bottom of each post.

Facebook's dating service will come to U.S. users later this year. Facebook also announced a way to date friends — but only if each user separately adds the other to his or her own "secret crush" list.



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