A common mistake in communication lies between how the message is sent and how it is received. When you read the comments to the letter that Mark Zuckerberg posted last Tuesday, you will see a good example of miscommunication. This article is written to help translate what Mark Zuckerberg said, and what we believe he actually meant.

It has become apparent to me after reviewing comments to the “Open Letter from Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg” regarding the upcoming changes to the Facebook platform, that many have read, but not quite understood what is to come of Facebook. I admit, it was difficult to find actual comments about this new change after sifting through the cheap guerrilla marketing posts, but I managed to read some posts from Facebook users who are truly concerned about what is to come of their favorite online social networking group. Some users posted suggestions about more changes that they want Facebook to make, while some posted threats to stop using Facebook if any more changes are made. I even ran across comments from readers who believed that this letter was about customizing your wall/profile page to be more like MySpace. Perhaps the confusion among these select readers came from the way the letter was written.

That’s quite alright. I think I have a pretty good filter for decoding what was said and what was actually meant. I have broken it down one paragraph at a time and translated it into lamense terms for those who aren’t expected to naturally understand organizational strategy for the online world.  The quoted text is from Mark Zuckerberg (what he said). The paragraphed text is broken down (what he meant).

Here you go:

Open Letter from Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg; Broken Down

“It has been a great year for making the world more open and connected. Thanks to your help, more than 350 million people around the world are using Facebook to share their lives online.”

(Thank you all 350 million of you for helping Facebook help you share your lives online and stay connected.)

“To make this possible, we have focused on giving you the tools you need to share and control your information. Starting with the very first version of Facebook five years ago, we’ve built tools that help you control what you share with which individuals and groups of people. Our work to improve privacy continues today.”

(We know that one of the things that you really love about Facebook is the ability to control the information you share. That’s why we focus on making sure you can control your privacy settings. We are continuing to improve that because we know how important it has been to you.)

“Facebook’s current privacy model revolves around “networks” — communities for your school, your company or your region. This worked well when Facebook was mostly used by students, since it made sense that a student might want to share content with their fellow students.”

(Facebook’s privacy settings were designed for students to share content with each other. Now that the Facebook user base has reached way beyond the student community, we need to redesign the privacy settings to accommodate the masses.)

“Over time people also asked us to add networks for companies and regions as well. Today we even have networks for some entire countries, like India and China.”

(Once again, Facebook has reached way beyond the student community. And we have been asked by other companies and regions, such as India and China, to add a whole network for them too. This means an entire network for all of China. An entire network for all of India. An entire network for each company, organization and region, etc.)

“However, as Facebook has grown, some of these regional networks now have millions of members and we’ve concluded that this is no longer the best way for you to control your privacy. Almost 50 percent of all Facebook users are members of regional networks, so this is an important issue for us. If we can build a better system, then more than 100 million people will have even more control of their information.”

(Adding new networks resulted in a Facebook growth spurt and millions of members in these new regions and companies take up 50% of the Facebook population. It looks like it may be time to redesign our privacy settings to accommodate the growth and diversity of users.)

“The plan we’ve come up with is to remove regional networks completely and create a simpler model for privacy control where you can set content to be available to only your friends, friends of your friends, or everyone.”

(Here’s the plan; Remove regional networks. Create a simpler model for privacy control.)

“We’re adding something that many of you have asked for — the ability to control who sees each individual piece of content you create or upload. In addition, we’ll also be fulfilling a request made by many of you to make the privacy settings page simpler by combining some settings. If you want to read more about this, we began discussing this plan back in July.”

(We’re working on simplifying privacy settings and expanding your ability to control what you share.)

“Since this update will remove regional networks and create some new settings, in the next couple of weeks we’ll ask you to review and update your privacy settings. You’ll see a message that will explain the changes and take you to a page where you can update your settings. When you’re finished, we’ll show you a confirmation page so you can make sure you chose the right settings for you. As always, once you’re done you’ll still be able to change your settings whenever you want.”

(We are going to need you to update your own individual privacy settings. You will see a message that will explain the changes and will take you to a page where you can update your settings. When you’re finished, you will see a confirmation page so you can double check your work to make sure you did it right. If you didn’t do it right, and you realize that later, you can still go back and change them just like you can now.)

“We’ve worked hard to build controls that we think will be better for you, but we also understand that everyone’s needs are different. We’ll suggest settings for you based on your current level of privacy, but the best way for you to find the right settings is to read through all your options and customize them for yourself. I encourage you to do this and consider who you’re sharing with online.”

(We’ve build a system that can make suggestions on how to set your privacy controls, but you should really read through the information yourself before you start making your changes.)

“Thanks for being a part of making Facebook what it is today, and for helping to make the world more open and connected.”

(Thanks for being a part of making Facebook what it is today, and for helping to make the world more open and connected.)

“Mark Zuckerberg”

(Mark Zuckerberg)

There now. Glad we got that all cleared up.

Thanks for reading.