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Zuckerberg denies reporting that EU privacy regulations won’t apply to all users

Facebook has been having a rough last couple of weeks. In case you haven’t heard, the social media company has been dealing with a leak of over 50 million users data to a third-party company.

Today, the company is expanding on its promise on doubling down on privacy. In a press release, Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer lays out nine changes that the company will be doing in the coming months.

This begins with Facebook Events. The company plans on reducing the amount of usage developers have access to. Starting today, developers will no longer be able to access the guest list nor the event wall. Facebook states that “in the future, only apps we approve that agree to strict requirements will be allowed to use the Events API.”

In addition, Facebook will be revamping its Groups API, requiring Facebook approval to see if “they benefit the group” and that developers will “no longer be able to access the member list of a group.” Furthermore, Facebook says it is removing the personal information, such as names and profile photos, attached to posts or comments that approved apps can access.

On the user-facing level, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is denying a report (via TechCrunch) from earlier today, claiming that EU privacy regulations won’t apply to all users. This is an interesting comment as the company is trying to regain trust from its users.

We intend to make all the same controls available everywhere, not just in Europe.

While he says that he intends to bring this out to all users around the world, it will vary depending on the current laws in place for each country.

The European privacy regulations, formerly named GDPR, are set to roll out starting May 25. Regulating privacy is a huge step in the right direction as certain companies are being very vague about its privacy policies, making it nearly impossible to understand in certain circumstances.

Overall, these API changes will help Facebook regain trust from its users. However, it won’t stop people leaving the social media platform in droves. The #DeleteFacebook campaign gained traction earlier last month, though Zuckerberg is skeptical of its impact:

The full press release, along with all changes being made can be found here.


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