Facebook?s pivot to privacy has huge implications ? if it?s real

And so Facebook’s CEO took a step then unavailable to any of the 2.2 billion other users of his platform: he snapped his fingers, Thanos-like, and the messages disappeared.Some of Zuckerberg’s correspondents noticed that their old conversations had suddenly become one-sided, and eventually told TechCrunch’s Josh Constine, who broke the story last April. That Zuckerberg deleted all of his chats, while leaving his recipients’ messages intact, says more about how he views privacy than any belated apology ever could.Imagine my surprise, then, when Zuckerberg today announced — in a 3,200 word blog post — that he planned to pivot the entire company toward more private messaging. People plan terrorism and other crimes using encrypted messaging apps, and in Facebook’s encrypted future, we can expect law enforcement agencies around the world to make great hay out of Facebook’s complicity. (Or have those messages used to target ads at them, in the way Messenger currently does.) This was Snapchat’s original insight, and Facebook is still learning it all these years later.Zuckerberg is fond of grand pronouncements — it’s less than four years since he declared that the News Feed would one day primarily be video, and just two years since he announced that Facebook would concentrate on “developing social infrastructure,” whatever that might have meant. Facebook’s reputation takes a hit in new surveySpeaking of surveys: Facebook’s reputation fell to a new low in a national poll conducted by Axios, Scott Rosenberg reports.Congo’s internet shutdown disrupted news outlets under the guise of tackling fake newsTrésor Kalonji writes about the extraordinary efforts of journalists in Congo to report on a recent election despite an internet shutdown by the ruling party:The shutdown lasted for 20 days — from 31 December 2018 until 19 January 2019 — and had major implications for the country, except for select businesses which were allowed to retain full access. Crossing the border to Rwanda is free of charge, but staff who do not have Rwandan residency had to cross back before it closed at 10pm.Snap Paid Settlements to Women Who Alleged DiscriminationGeorgia Wells has a scoop on how Snap is dealing with its mistreatment of women employees — by paying them off!Snap last year paid settlements to at least three female employees who were let go in layoffs that they alleged disproportionately targeted women, according to people familiar with the matter.The layoffs came months after an engineer at the company raised concerns in an email to colleagues about what she said was a sexist culture, an assessment that Chief Executive Evan Spiegel later described as a “wake-up call.”Facebook Shakes up Policy Communications TeamAshley Gold reports that two of my trusted Facebook communications folks, Matt Steinfeld and Robert Traynham, are moving on. They’re marking down how much they actually like the person who took the risk of being publicly judged — putting on clear display, for everyone to see, the difference between how much a person thought she was valued and the real deal.Tinder Privately Valued at Roughly $10 Billion by Match Group: Sources“A recent independent valuation of Tinder commissioned by parent company Match Group has placed the dating app’s value at roughly $10 billion, an astounding increase from a $3 billion valuation less than two years ago,” Alex Heath reports.Facebook’s promised Clear History privacy tool now launching later this yearFrom last week, when the newsletter was on a break, but newly relevant with today’s privacy pivot.