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.