But it also strikes a sharp contrast with the criticism Facebook has taken recently — not so much for connecting the world (a big chunk of it, anyway) as for failing to anticipate how vulnerable that connectedness could be to those who abuse it.
JOURNEY BACK
Zuckerberg, who like the graduates is a millennial, started Facebook in his dorm room in 2004. What began as a closed networking site for Harvard students is now a global communications force with nearly 2 billion members. Facebook’s founding was the subject of a Hollywood movie, “The Social Network,” in 2010.
Facebook’s effect has been profound. It has connected people who would have never met otherwise, letting them form supportive networks online and offline. And it has allowed people to communicate in developing countries even if they don’t have a phone number or a smartphone.
But it has also served to spread misinformation bordering on propaganda, hateful views and bullying, reflecting the worst parts of humanity back to us.
In his commencement speech, in interviews and in his February manifesto, Zuckerberg is decidedly optimistic about all that. He’s been saying he wants to make the world more open and connected for more than a decade now, and he doesn’t relent.
