Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg thinks he's finally found a solution to the site's privacy woes.
On Wednesday, Zuckerberg announced modifications that will allow Facebook users to choose whether to share information with friends only, with friends of friends, or with everyone.
The settings will work retroactively with previous posts.
“Now we feel like we have the privacy model that's going to help us scale the service to millions and millions of more people and this is the end of the overhaul that we're doing,” Zuckerberg said during a conference call.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during a news conference at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California May 26, 2010.— REUTERS
Users can also access advanced settings to further customize exactly what is shared and how widely.
The site's engineers have tinkered with privacy settings over the last several months, sparking a backlash from users.
Zuckerberg defended those changes, blaming the uproar on poor communication by Facebook.
He conceded that the implementation made it too confusing and cumbersome for some users to guard their personal information.
Zuckerberg also said he took user complaints to heart.
“We really think about the trust issues — I do think about it. It seems like a lot of people right now are upset with us over these changes and I take that really seriously,” he said.
“We're not doing a good job of serving all these people in the way that we want to and when you have more than 400 million users you're going to have users who don't like what you do and do like what you do.
“But we always want to serve everyone as best as possible.”
Zuckerberg also recorded a video (registration req) for the public, detailing some of the changes and thanking users for their feedback.
Despite the recent privacy-related complaints, he insisted that Facebook users want to broadly share stories, photos and videos.
