As Facebook just turned 13 — which also happens to be the minimum legal age to be on Facebook — Mark Zuckerberg published a lengthy note yesterday sharing his ambitions for generations to come, the questions we will need to address as a global community, and how Facebook can help in the process:
Today we are close to taking our next step. Our greatest opportunities are now global — like spreading prosperity and freedom, promoting peace and understanding, lifting people out of poverty, and accelerating science. Our greatest challenges also need global responses — like ending terrorism, fighting climate change, and preventing pandemics. Progress now requires humanity coming together not just as cities or nations, but also as a global community.
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We may not have the power to create the world we want immediately, but we can all start working on the long term today.
For the past decade, Facebook has focused on connecting friends and families. With that foundation, our next focus will be developing the social infrastructure for community — for supporting us, for keeping us safe, for informing us, for civic engagement, and for inclusion of all.
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Our job at Facebook is to help people make the greatest positive impact while mitigating areas where technology and social media can contribute to divisiveness and isolation. Facebook is a work in progress, and we are dedicated to learning and improving. We take our responsibility seriously, and today I want to talk about how we plan to do our part to build this global community.
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There are many of us who stand for bringing people together and connecting the world. I hope we have the focus to take the long view and build the new social infrastructure to create the world we want for generations to come.
According to Mark Zuckerberg’s note, building a global community is by nature a global challenge, which will require us to find ways to build a Supportive, Safe, Informed, Civically-engaged & Inclusive community.
In other words, after 13 years spent connecting the world, Facebook now aims at building a better global commynity, or simply put, a better world.
What’s in it for Social Media Managers: as social media professionals, we have a a great deal of power — and consequently a great deal of responsibility — regarding the way we shape these online platforms. We can therefore contribute to making the world a better place. Literally.
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