In a blog post today (7 March) Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced his vision to transform Facebook into a simpler platform that's focused on “privacy first.”

“I believe the future of communication will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services where people can be confident what they say to each other stays secure and their messages and content won't stick around forever. This is the future I hope we will help bring about,” said Zuckerberg.

Over the past few years and more so in 2018, Facebook has increasingly faced backlash from politicians, activists and the general public over privacy issues.

From the hacking incident in which personal info of 14 million accounts was leaked to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, questions have been raised about Zuckerberg’s leadership of Facebook. The company also owns Instagram and WhatsApp.

To counter this criticism, Facebook has been rolling out new privacy-related platforms recently. In the blog post, Zuckerberg outlined six principles around which Facebook’s privacy focus will revolve: Private interactions, Encryption, Reducing Permanence, Safety, Interoperability and Secure data storage.

“I believe we should be working towards a world where people can speak privately and live freely knowing that their information will only be seen by who they want to see it and won't all stick around forever. If we can help move the world in this direction, I will be proud of the difference we've made,” the CEO concluded.