US government 'blew it' on NSA communications: Zuckerberg

The US is undergoing privacy woes after it was revealed that the National Security Administration (NSA) was indulging in mass surveillance...

Nishtha Kanal|Sep 12, 2013, 13:53:38 IST

The US is undergoing privacy woes after it was revealed that the National Security Administration (NSA) was indulging in mass surveillance programmes and large Internet companies are taking a stand on the issue. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook believes that the US government “blew it” in its communications with the public.

Speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Zuckerberg said that Facebook is pushing to make transparency a norm since people deserved to know more about government programmes. “We take our role very seriously,” he said. “It’s our job to protect everyone who uses Facebook. It’s our government’s job to protect all of us, our freedom and the economy. They did a bad job at balancing this.” Zuckerberg and Facebook have an 'at will' relationship

Zuckerberg and Facebook have an 'at will' relationship

Government "blew it" over NSA

Facebook recently revealed its transparency report for the year and Zuckerberg has insisted on multiple occasions that the social networking giant only reviewed requests of data by governments in a case-by-case basis. The explanation came after the website too was implicated by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who accused Facebook of being one of the companies that participated in PRISM.

More from News Analysis

The social networking website took up the issue of transparency with the US government. “Oh that’s really gonna help companies that are trying to serve people around the world,” he said. “I think that was really bad.” Zuckerberg added that it was frustrating that Facebook wasn’t allowed to publicly disclose how many NSA requests it granted and denied.

Earlier this week, Facebook joined forces with Yahoo! to file a suit that asked the FISA court to publish more details about the government’s requests for user information. According to the Global Governments Requests Report published by Facebook last month, the US government made the most requests with the figure being in the vicinity of 11,000-12,000.

By Nishtha Kanal

Intrigued by all things social, Nishtha will invariably tweet about you. When not tweeting or writing about the next viral video, you will hear her proclaiming her love to Metallica, James Hetfield, Opeth, Akerfeldt and all bands that go 'growl'. She also obsesses about ACP Pradyuman and South Park and you will always find her moving around with a book. Her focus is on all the happening stuff in the tech domain, and she won't hesitate to take a shot at some of the oddball devices that make their way to our labs.