Mark Zuckerberg explains why an ad-free Facebook isn’t as simple as it sounds
As trust in Facebook and its ability to handle user data has eroded over the past year, one particular question has been asked a lot: Why isnt there an ad-free version of Facebook?
People who dont mind targeted ads could keep using Facebook for free, and those who dont want those ads could pay to remove them.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long argued that Facebook needs to be free in order for the company to accomplish its mission of connecting the world.
When the conversation turned to an ad-free Facebook, Zuckerberg correctly identified that the problem most people seem to have with Facebook is not actually with Facebooks ads its with the personal data that Facebook collects and uses to target people with those ads.
Partially what someone would want to do if they were going to really actually pay for you would want to have a control so that Facebook didnt have access or wasnt using that data or associating it with your account.
Zuckerbergs argument is that it wouldnt be fair to stop collecting data about people only if they can afford to pay for it.
Instead, it sounds as though Zuckerberg thinks Facebook needs to create a way for all users to better control Facebooks data collection, and once everyone has that ability, it would make sense to let some people pay for an ad-free version, if they choose.
Facebooks data collection is so broad and ingrained into the internet that the company has to build new features in order to stop collecting data about people.
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