Facebook Refines Mission Statement To Bring People In The World Together, ‘A Responsibility To Do More’

For the first time in its history, Facebook has overhauled its mission statement, reflecting the social network's major focus on building communities. Originally, Facebook's mission was "to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected", whereas now, it's "to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together".

The differences might be subtle, but Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is focused on making sure his social network is the best it can be for communities. It needs to be a place that people can gather with others of similar interests, a place to learn different perspectives, and a place to give people support. It could even be a place to buy and sell. If you're a Facebook user, chances are very good that you're part of an FB Group, and that's the subject of one of the company's biggest focuses at the moment. 

Providing a good platform for communities to thrive isn't that difficult, but what is difficult, is managing the inevitable side-effects. Over the past year, we've seen a number of stories surrounding the legitimacy of some news that gets shared on the social network (a la "Fake News"), and even worse, disturbing live video feeds. It's not easy to handle, a fact that's exemplified by the first "Communities Summit" Facebook just held in Chicago, which was attended by over 300 group administrators who learned about conflict resolution, and heard speeches from key Facebook staff.

It might not seem obvious at first, but Facebook can give voices to people who might otherwise be unheard. When groups grow to a certain size, they begin to attract attention. In one example, a group called "Clean Up Miami Beach" ultimately led to new legislation being passed that outlawed Styrofoam from being brought into the city. This is just one example of a Facebook group coming together for good and this is what Zuckerberg and his team want to foster. As Zuckerberg notes, the company has "a responsibility to do more" with its large scope of influence.

Facebook has a Group for absolutely everyone

Facebook says that 1 billion of its users are involved in a group (or multiple groups), but that only 10% of those are in "meaningful" groups (unlike a buy/sell group); groups that become part of your support structure or band together for good. For that reason, Facebook employs the use of AI to help make better group recommendations to its users. Ultimately, the stronger Facebook's Group features become, the more important it will be to those users, making Facebook even more pervasive than it is today.