Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg breaks silence on WhatsApp fiasco

CALIFORNIA: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has finally spoken over the WhatsApp fiasco that has badly affected the company’s credibility as a secured messaging app.

In a long Facebook post on his official account detailing his priorities areas, Zuckerberg said, “there are four big themes I'm focused on for the year ahead: communities, private messaging, commerce tools for small businesses, and building the next computing platform.”

“WhatsApp is also an important part of our strategy,” he said.

Addressing the concerns regarding the security of users’ data, Mark Zuckerberg clarified that “this update does *not* change the privacy of anyone's messages with friends and family.”

“All of these messages are end-to-end encrypted – which means we can't see or hear what you say, and we never will unless the person you message chooses to share it.”

Business accounts

Zuckerberg said that more than 175 million people message a WhatsApp business account every day and the company is building new features to make it even easier to transact with businesses in the app.

He said that since many businesses need more than a phone to manage their customer service, the company is “building tools to let businesses store and manage their WhatsApp chats using our secure hosting infrastructure if they would like.”

“We're in the process of updating WhatsApp's privacy policy and terms of service to reflect these optional experiences.”