Zuckerberg’s Prepared Statement Shows Facebook’s Alarming Lack Of Control

Despite repeated assurances that it knew what it was doing, the most recent privacy incidents have made it clear that Facebook has become far too big for its founder Mark Zuckerberg and his staff to handle. The prepared statement of the social network’s boss for his testimony in front of Congress also only served to reinforce this point.

The document containing the carefully curated words that Zuckerberg was meant to use to soften the blowback to Facebook as a result of his testimony to Congress was recently released. There is plenty to go through with the whole thing, but the most important bits to bear in mind are those hinting at how badly out of control the social network has become.

In terms of revelations, the statement didn’t offer anything new and is the expected dull collection of obvious remarks and apologies from the Facebook founder. Some parts did jump out for anyone with a keen eye, however, including the parts about how the social network has only been largely reactive up to this point.

“If we detect suspicious activity, we’ll do a full forensic audit. And if we find that someone is improperly using data, we’ll ban them and tell everyone affected,” a part of the statement reads.

When addressing the matter of the 2016 elections, the same pattern emerges: “We were too slow to spot and respond to Russian interference, and we’re working hard to get better… We will continue working with the government to understand the full extent of Russian interference, and we will do our part not only to ensure the integrity of free and fair elections around the world, but also to give everyone a voice and to be a force for good in democracy everywhere.”

As Futurism notes, it really isn’t that surprising that Facebook has not been proactive in actually safeguarding its users. When the company was started back in 2004, it likely never crossed Zuckerberg’s mind that he would one day have access to the personal information of over two billion people.

Yet, this is exactly the position he has found himself in and for the most part, his biggest concern was growing his company. It’s simply unfortunate that this desire for growth is exactly why he seems to have lost so much control. Facebook is now the Frankenstein’s Monster of tech companies.