In March, days after confirming his plans to leave the company, Facebook’s highest-ranking security official implored his colleagues to take responsibility for the social network’s failings amid the fallout of the most notable privacy scandal in the company’s 14-year history.
Advocating for dramatic shifts in Facebook’s culture, Alex Stamos, the company’s outgoing chief security officer, sent a reflective, brutally honest note to employees on March 23 attributing the social network’s problems to “tens of thousands of small decisions made over the last decade.” The memo, which has not previously been circulated outside Facebook, is a rare look at some of the internal debate currently taking place over the company’s future direction and the growth-at-any-cost attitude that has driven it for years.
“We need to build a user experience that conveys honesty and respect, not one optimized to get people to click yes to giving us more access,” Stamos wrote. “We need to intentionally not collect data where possible, and to keep it only as long as we are using it to serve people.”