Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg has unveiled a new mission statement that sets the social media behemoth on a new growth trajectory. The latest mission statement is not focused on just people connectivity, rather “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.”
The Verge describes it as a culmination of months, “perhaps years, of apparent soul-searching,” and “strategic directional changes for Facebook as a product”.
Speaking to CNN Tech on the new mission, Zuckerberg noted that the company has transitioned to a point where it realizes the need to do more.
“It’s important to give people a voice, to get a diversity of opinions out there, but on top of that, you also need to do this work of building common ground so that way we can all move forward together,” He said.
The development is the first time Facebook is remaking its mission statement which had previously been “To give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.”
To drive the new mission, Zuckerberg is hoping to leverage Facebook Groups which is presently being used by one billion people, more than half the population on the social network.
Critics have also said that Facebook’s decision comes on the heels of a contentious US election in which the possibility of the social network’s influence had exerted on the outcome was debated. Also the network could no longer ignore the proliferation of fake news and the impact they were having. The use of Facebook Live to broadcast suicide and murder was a major controversy that the company would have loved to avoid.
Zuckerberg acknowledge in February that Facebook could no longer afford to focus on just connecting people but in building communities. He believes that Facebook Groups is the perfect tool to achieve the sense of community.
In a blog post on Thursday, 22 June, the company said it plans to achieve the community spirit by supporting group administrators which it describes as “real community leaders on Facebook.”
“More than 1 billion people around the world use Groups, and more than 100 million people are members of “meaningful groups.” These are groups that quickly become the most important part of someone’s experience on Facebook. Today we are setting a goal to help 1 billion people join meaningful communities like these,” company wrote.
