Thirteen years ago, Facebook began with the mission of “making the world more open and connected.”
Now, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says something was off with that idea. At the Facebook Communities Summit, he said, “I used to think that if we just give people a voice and help some people connect that that would make the world a whole lot better by itself.”
He continued, “Look around and our society is still so divided. We have a responsibility to do more, not just to connect the world but to bring the world closer together.” Hence, the new mission statement.
Facebook’s mission is now to “give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.”
Zuckerberg, who is also a billionaire philanthropist, said he feels the company has “a responsibility to do more.” More involves organizing Facebook into groups with “meaningful members.” He said, “We want to help 1 billion people join meaningful communities. If we can do this it will not only reverse the whole decline in community membership we’ve seen around the world… but it will also strengthen our social fabric and bring the world closer together.”
Facebook is currently approaching 2 billion active members per month. According to TechCrunch, Facebook considers only 100 million of its users to be “meaningful” group members.
The social network’s new mission statement appears to be the culmination of an evolution spurred by last year contentious election which laid bare social division in the U.S. Zuckerberg wrote 6,000-word letter titled “Building Community.” And shortly thereafter challenged Harvard graduates to “create a world where every single person has a sense of purpose.”
Daniel White for TechFunnel.com
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