At Facebook’s developer conference, CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the social media company is shifting focus from the digital town square to a more private place. In addition to the digital town square, we also need a digital equivalent of the living room that is just as built out as a platform with all of the different ways that we want to interact privately with messaging and small groups and sharing where the content doesn’t stick around forever, simple and secure payments, private ways to share your location, and over time lots of more different ways to interact privately. With more than 1 billion users, Facebook has come under fire worldwide for how it’s handled user data and how it monitors extreme views on its site. Zuckerberg told conference goers, Facebook is changing to focus on private messaging, a rapidly growing area as well as encrypting Instagram and Messenger to its main services. So the communication can’t be seen by others, even by Facebook.

All type of technology, there has to be some kind of evolvement, and then I believe that there can be security measures that can be put in place. I think that technology can be used for good. The part of the incubation is very important for us, because, for example, we want to provide some communication, private communication with our final users in order to provide information about our products, for example, pricing or details or something like that.

With Facebook, people talk about the negative, but for me, as a social worker, I work with nonprofits. A lot of nonprofits have no access to technology that allow them to do the job that they need to do, especially reach up to clients and have this community process.

And with Facebook allows these nonprofits to engage without the need to expense their monies which they don’t have in the first place to engage with the clients. Zuckerberg says he wants Facebook to be a force for good in the world, a place where users can move easily from the town center to a living room, to a space where interest groups can meet. Not just the big moments or the social movements, the breakthroughs, but also all the everyday good of the emotional support, that the jokes with friends, that the feeling of being together with your family, both in private and in public, the living room and our town squares. Still unclear is whether Facebook’s changes will resonate with users, and help the company sidestep controversy in the future.

Michelle Quinn, VOA News, San Jose, California.