Mark Zuckerberg will soon say this to Europe
Mark Zuckerberg will testify before the European Parliament this evening at 18:15 on Facebook’s share in the Cambridge Analytica scandal and what steps he and the company are taking to ensure that this can not happen again. As part of that, Zuckerberg also has a speech ready that he will present, and the text has already been published. You can read it all below (in English):
In order to realize that potential, we need to make technology a force for good. As Facebook has grown, we’ve helped give people a powerful new tool. After the recent terrorist attacks in Berlin, Paris, London and here in Brussels, tens of thousands of people have used Safety Check to let their friends and family know they’re safe. Refugees in Europe are using Facebook to stay in touch with their loved ones back home and find new communities here. There are 18 million small businesses in Europe that use Facebook today, mostly for free – almost half of whom say they have more people as a result.
Whether it’s fake news, abuse of data from users or foreign interference in elections, we have not taken our responsibility and I’m sorry
It will be time to work through the changes we must make. But I am committed to getting people safe. For example, we’re doubling the number of people working for more than 20,000 people by the end of this year. On top of the investments we are making in other areas, I expect this will significantly impact our profitability. But I want to be clear: keeping people safe will always be more important than maximizing our profits.
My first priority has always been to connect people, build communities and bring the world closer together. I still strongly believe in that.
We’re committed to Europe. Ireland is home to our European Headquarters. London is home to our biggest engineering team outside the United States; Paris is home to our artificial intelligence research lab; and we have data centers in Sweden, Ireland, and Denmark, which will open in 2020. By the end of 2018, Facebook will employ 10,000 people across 12 European cities – up from 7,000 today. And we will continue to invest. For example, we’ve been committed to providing one million people and small businesses with digital skills training by 2020.
My top priority is always our social mission of connecting people, helping them to build communities and bringing the world closer together. I deeply believe in what we’re doing. And when we address these challenges, I know we’ll look back and see people in the world.
These are nice words, but they are just like that. meaningless as the words that Zuckerberg spoke for the American Congress. Hopefully, in Europe, the fire will be shaken a little further, but we will know that tonight. How that works: Facebook is not finished with saying sorry.