14 years of Mark Zuckerberg saying sorry, not sorry about Facebook

Do you trust Mark Zuckerberg?

From the moment the Facebook founder entered the public eye in 2003 for creating a Harvard student hot-or-not rating site, he’s been apologizing. So we collected this abbreviated history of his public mea culpas.

It reads like a record on repeat. Zuckerberg, who made “move fast and break things” his slogan, says sorry for being naive, and then promises solutions such as privacy “controls,” “transparency” and better policy “enforcement.” And then he promises it again the next time. You can track his sorries in orange and promises in blue in the timeline below.

All the while, Facebook’s access to our personal data increases and little changes about the way Zuckerberg handles it. So as Zuckerberg prepares to apologize for the first time in front of Congress, the question that lingers is: What will be different this time?

November 2003

After creating Facemash, a Harvard hot-or-not site.

“ This is not how I meant for things to go and I apologize for any harm done as a result of my neglect. ”

September 2006

After introducing News Feed, which exposed updates to friends in one central place.

“ We really messed this one up. ... We did a bad job of explaining what the new features were and an even worse job of giving you control of them. ”

December 2007

After launching Beacon, which opted-in everyone to sharing with advertisers what they were doing in outside websites and apps.

“ We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it. … People need to be able to explicitly choose what they share. ”

February 2009

After unveiling new terms of service that angered users.

“ Over the past couple of days, we received a lot of questions and comments. … Based on this feedback, we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues. ”

May 2010

After reporters found a privacy loophole allowing advertisers to access user identification.

“ Sometimes we move too fast. … We will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use. We will also give you an easy way to turn off all third-party services. ”

November 2011

After Facebook reached a consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission for deceiving consumers about privacy.

“ I’m the first to admit that we’ve made a bunch of mistakes. … Facebook has always been committed to being transparent about the information you have stored with us — and we have led the internet in building tools to give people the ability to see and control what they share. ”

July 2014

After an academic paper exposed that Facebook conducted psychological tests on nearly 700,000 users without their knowledge. (Apology by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg)

“ It was poorly communicated. … And for that communication we apologize. We never meant to upset you. ”

December 2016

After criticism of the role of Facebook in spreading fake news about political candidates.

“ I think of Facebook as a technology company, but I recognize we have a greater responsibility than just building technology that information flows through. … Today we’re making it easier to report hoaxes. ”

April 2017

After a Cleveland man posted a video of himself killing 74-year-old Robert Godwin Sr.

“ Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Robert Godwin Sr., and we have a lot of work — and we will keep doing all we can to prevent tragedies like this from happening. ”

September 2017

While revealing a nine-step plan to stop nations from using Facebook to interfere in one another’s elections, noting that the amount of “problematic content” found so far is “relatively small.”

“ I care deeply about the democratic process and protecting its integrity. … It is a new challenge for internet communities to deal with nation states attempting to subvert elections. But if that’s what we must do, we are committed to rising to the occasion. ”

September 2017

After continued criticism about the role of Facebook in Russian manipulation of the 2016 election.

“ For the ways my work has been used to divide rather than to bring us together, I ask for forgiveness and I will work to do better. ”

January 2018

Announcing his personal challenge for the year is to fix Facebook.

“ We won’t prevent all mistakes or abuse, but we currently make too many errors enforcing our policies and preventing misuse of our tools. … This will be a serious year of self-improvement and I’m looking forward to learning from working to fix our issues together. ”

March 2018

After details emerged about Cambridge Analytica taking user data.

“ We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you. … We will learn from this experience to secure our platform further and make our community safer for everyone going forward. ”

April 2018

After revealing Cambridge Analytica got unauthorized data on up to 87 million Facebook members — and that nearly all Facebook users may have had their public profile scraped.

“ We’re an idealistic and optimistic company. … But it’s clear now that we didn’t do enough. We didn’t focus enough on preventing abuse and thinking through how people could use these tools to do harm as well. … [We are] going to do a full investigation of every app that had a large amount of people’s data. ”

April 2018

In prepared comments for his congressional testimony.

“ It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. … There’s more we can do here to limit the information developers can access and put more safeguards in place to prevent abuse. ”

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