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In major shift, Facebook puts focus on users’ privacy

FILE - In this May 1, 2018, file photo, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers the keynote speech at F8, Facebook's developer conference in San Jose, Calif. Zuckerberg said Facebook will start to emphasize new privacy-shielding messaging services, a shift apparently intended to blunt both criticism of the company's data handling and potential antitrust action. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a major strategy shift on Wednesday, declaring that the world’s largest social network will develop a highly secure private communications platform based on the company’s popular Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp services.

David O’Brien, assistant director of research at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, compared Zuckerberg’s statement to the 2002 “Trustworthy Computing” memo issued by Microsoft Corp.’s cofounder Bill Gates. Back then, Microsoft had developed a terrible reputation for building insecure, easily hacked software. The top-to-bottom transformation of the company’s security practices announced by Gates helped rescue its image.

“This is the Trustworthy Computing moment all over again,” said O’Brien.

Read more in the Boston Globe...

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