Facebook Supports U.S. Privacy Regulation

Facebook has repeatedly stressed how important user privacy is to the future of its company. After all, if people don’t trust the platform to keep them safe, they may not continue using it. That’s why the social media giant just took its biggest step yet to reassure lawmakers and the public alike that it has our best interests at heart. This week, one of Facebook’s top executives promised that it would unequivocally support government regulation of its privacy practices.

“We support strong and effective privacy legislation in the United States and around the world,” said Erin Egan, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, while speaking to a privacy conference at the European Parliament. “We recognize the value of regulation of privacy.”

However, Mark Zuckerberg walked back Egan’s message a bit in a video address shown at the same conference. The company’s founder and CEO stopped short of fully supporting regulation, and instead reiterated that Facebook takes privacy “incredibly seriously” and that users “do need to trust us.”

Despite these mixed messages, it seems clear Facebook will one day soon need to submit itself to oversight. And while government regulation isn’t a perfect solution, it’s better to have another group keeping tabs on Facebook instead of none at all—as is currently the case.