Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg: Private encrypted communication is the future

Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said the future of his company’s product development will be focused on private, ephemeral and encrypted communication, a striking change for the social network that built its business on open sharing.

More people want to interact privately or in more intimate groups online, instead of in “the digital equivalent of a town square” provided by Facebook and Instagram, Zuckerberg said Wednesday in a blog post. To serve that demand, the world’s largest social-networking company will rebuild many of its features, he wrote, noting that smaller groups and more private, temporary posts are the fastest-growing areas of digital communications.