Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerburg, outlined a detailed vision for the future of the social media platform today, specifically its messaging services. Notably, in contrast to how the company operates today, he says the future of the platform will be privacy-focused with features like end-to-end encryption, interoperability between its various apps like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, reducing how long it holds data, secure storage of personal data, and more.

Zuckerburg shared the privacy-focused vision in a Facebook post today:

He notes the shifting growth of communication in private groups and ephemeral posts like Instagram Stories and the rise of social payment services:

Early on, he tackles the elephant in the room:

He goes on to share the belief that the future of communication will be about services users can be confident will provide an encrypted, private experience.

Here are the pillars that Zuckerberg says the future of the Facebook will be built on:

  • Private interactions. People should have simple, intimate places where they have clear control over who can communicate with them and confidence that no one else can access what they share.
  • Encryption. People’s private communications should be secure. End-to-end encryption prevents anyone — including us — from seeing what people share on our services.
  • Reducing Permanence. People should be comfortable being themselves, and should not have to worry about what they share coming back to hurt them later. So we won’t keep messages or stories around for longer than necessary to deliver the service or longer than people want them.
  • Safety. People should expect that we will do everything we can to keep them safe on our services within the limits of what’s possible in an encrypted service.
  • Interoperability. People should be able to use any of our apps to reach their friends, and they should be able to communicate across networks easily and securely.
  • Secure data storage. People should expect that we won’t store sensitive data in countries with weak records on human rights like privacy and freedom of expression in order to protect data from being improperly accessed.

Zuckerberg goes on to describe each of these principles in detail and how it might apply to Facebook in the future. He says the changes will be made over “the next few years.”

In closing Zuckerberg shares the criteria by which he’ll feel good about Facebook’s impact: