US: Facebook prioritizes Privacy

According to the Wall Street Journal Facebook plans to offer encrypted messaging across all of its major products and allow people to make private conversations ephemeral, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post. It also will develop products within those messaging services, such as payments and e-commerce, that eventually could allow it to diversify from the ad-supported business model that led to a number of privacy missteps, he said.

In an interview, Mr. Zuckerberg couched the shift as a response to user demand, saying people increasingly prefer to communicate in small groups or one-to-one in the style of its WhatsApp messaging platform, rather than blasting their thoughts to a public audience, as most users do on its Instagram and the company’s flagship Facebook platform.

“I don’t view this as replacing the public platform. Facebook and Instagram will continue to get more important,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. But “there is as rich of a platform to develop around the intimate and private communications as there is around the more public one.”