The founder of social networking site Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg called US President Barack Obama on Wednesday night to express his frustration about the spying and hacking programs of government.
In a Facebook post on Thursday afternoon he wrote that Facebook’s engineers are working tirelessly to improve security and protecting users against criminals but not their own government.
A report from The Intercept that revealed about how NSA can sneak into someone’s Web browser using the QUANTUM program based on ex-NSA contractor, whistleblower Edward Snowden’s documents had alarmed Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg wrote that the U.S. government should be a champion for the Internet but not a threat. He added that people will believe the worst if they are not transparent about what they’re doing. Zuckerberg talked with the President Obama but he’s not holding any hope for a quick change.
The officials at the White House acknowledged that both Obama and Zuckerberg spoke with each other. However they did not divulge any details about the conversation.
The administration denied accusations against NSA saying NSA does not target any user without appropriate legal authority and such reports are false.
It may sound hypocritical but Facebook has always been criticized for collecting and monetizing user data. Facebook tracks all the user activity much like the NSA and there is no transparency on what it does with the data.
