Facebook and preachings of its founder Zuckerberg

If you are young, successful and have loads of dough, you tend to have numerous plans up your sleeves to make this world a better place to live in. That’s a human trait - a good one too if you ask me.

And the world around you – tiny, large, universal or temporary – sits back and takes notice of your utterances or visionary preachings. The rule is same when your success is limited to a village, region, country and the world. But the circle of influence expands as your success crosses one boundary after another. So is also the number of people, who sit back and take notice.

Mark Zuckerberg, like most of us, was a commoner before 2004. Like many other 20-year-old young men around the world then (he was born in New York, US, on May 14, 1984), he was in the college.

Of course, that college is Harvard College in the US and one of the most acclaimed academic institutions in the world. With five of his college mates and roommates, he launched Facebook as a social networking website for Harvard students before expanding it to other university campuses in the US.

The social networking site was thrown opened to general public in 2006. Since then, there is no looking back for Zuckerberg and his team as Facebook has transcended national boundaries, spread across the world and become the rage among young and old.

Currently, Facebook occupies a prominent position on the social media landscape with over two billion people on board. Facebook founders became billionaires overnight when the social media giant hit capital markets in 2012.

As of now, Zuckerberg is the fifth richest person in the world with a total fortune of $53.6 billion (Rs 3.57 lakh crore). And he controls a large chunk of the global social media space with Facebook, WhatsApp (acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $19.3 billion) and Instagram.

Between them, the three social networking sites have 3.6 billion users, a significant chunk of the world’s population. This massive user base indicates how influential Zuckerberg is globally.

Recently, he came out with a detailed manifesto aimed at transforming the social media giant into a better platform that would eventually make the world a better place to live in. He also touched on global challenges like terrorism, climate change, pandemics and globalisation.

“On our journey to connect the world, we often discuss products we're building and updates on our business. Today I want to focus on the most important question of all: are we building the world we all want?” Zuckerberg asked in the first paragraph of his 5,730-word letter dispatched to nearly two billion users of Facebook last week.

He further maintained that the world was close to taking its next step. “Our greatest opportunities are now global - like spreading prosperity and freedom, promoting peace and understanding, lifting people out of poverty, and accelerating science.

Our greatest challenges also need global responses - like ending terrorism, fighting climate change, and preventing pandemics,” he observed.

The 32-year-old internet wizard, who took the world by storm with his social networking site 12 years ago, pointed out about steep fall in the important social infrastructure of local communities over the past few decades.

“Whether they're churches, sports teams, unions or other local groups, they all share important roles as social infrastructure for our communities. Since the 1970s, membership in some local groups has declined by as much as one-quarter.

The decline raises deeper questions alongside surveys showing large percentages of our population lack a sense of hope for the future,” Zuckerberg observed.

Stating that Facebook has the potential to develop social infrastructure online for the people around the world, he revealed that more than 100 million people on Facebook were members “of what we call ‘very meaningful’ groups”.

These are groups that upon joining quickly become the most important part of our social network experience and an important part of our physical support structure, he said, adding, “for example, many new parents tell us that joining a parenting group after having a child fits this purpose”.

Going forward, we will measure Facebook's progress based on meaningful groups, not groups overall, he said.

He also touched on people left behind by globalisation and protectionist movements, but said: “Progress now requires humanity coming together not just as cities or nations, but also as a global community”.

Underlining the need for building artificial intelligence (AI) to keep people safe, he said: “There are billions of posts, comments and messages across our services each day, and since it's impossible to review all of them…artificial intelligence can help provide a better approach.

We are researching systems that can look at photos and videos to flag content our team should review”.

According to him, Facebook has also started exploring ways to use AI to tell the difference between news stories about terrorism and actual terrorist propaganda so it can quickly remove anyone trying to use its services to recruit for a terrorist organization.

“This is technically difficult as it requires building AI that can read and understand news, but we need to work on this to help fight terrorism worldwide,” he said.

Towards end of his letter, the Facebook founder quoted US President Lincoln's remarks during the American Civil War: "We can succeed only by concert.

It is not 'can any of us imagine better?' but, 'can we all do better?’”
There are many of us who stand for bringing people together and connecting the world. I hope we have the focus to take the long view and build the new social infrastructure to create the world we want for generations to come, Zuckerberg said.

Whatever may be his opinion, there is one thing that deserves appreciation from all. Facebook and another internet age giant Google offer everything free, but their founders transformed these free services into a veritable goldmine and eventually turned the startups into global tech conglomerates in a short span of time.

But will people take Facebook founder’s preaching seriously? That’s a billion dollar question.