Facebook has been blunt about its take on NSA data collection from the beginning and today CEO of the company Mark Zuckerberg made it clear by blaming the government for not being co-operative. The young CEO was addressing the Tech Crunch conference when he said “Frankly I think the government blew it-communicating the balance of what they were going for here with this.”
It is notable that Facebook was the first social media network to release the transparency report that shows that US government tops the chart when it comes to seeking private information of Facebook users. Along with the report Mark Zuckerburg also showed concern over raising government demand for breaching their user’s privacy.
While showing his concern for the US government’s lack of public communication over this issue Zuckerberg said “I think it’s my job and [Facebook’s] job to protect everyone that uses Facebook. For the government he mentioned that “It is our government’s job to protect all of us and also protect our freedoms and protect the economy and protect companies.”
But Yahoo’s CEO Marisa Mayer took safe approach while addressing the issue at the TechCrunch conference as she said “If you don’t comply, it is treason,” and I could end up in jail for that. Marisa also said that “We can’t talk about it because it is classified,”. She argued that “Releasing classified information is treason, and you are incarcerated. In terms of protecting our users, it makes more sense to work within the system.”
It’s notable that social media giants like Facebook, Google, Microsoft & Yahoo along with several web networks are aggressively approaching the US government to be more transparent. The companies want to be open about how the US government spy agencies are using personal information on social media in the name of national safety.
