Harvard’s third-most famous dropout, Mark Zuckerberg, has revealed his personal challenge for 2018: fixing Facebook, the company he is already in charge of fixing. This is no small task considering the flack Facebook has received in the last year over its role in spreading alt-right propaganda, Russian interference in the 2016 election, and hosting graphic, disturbing content.
By tackling the complaints of Facebook’s two billion monthly active users, Zuckerberg—who has already taken some not-so-subtle steps toward preparing a potential presidential run—may be hoping to improve his reputation by 2020. With a wealth of engineering talent and cold, hard cash at his disposal as the company’s CEO, here are all of the different ways we predict Zuckerberg might try to improve Facebook in 2018:
1. Overhauled policies regarding political activity
In the wake of the criticism surrounding Facebook’s role in the 2016 election, company policies regarding political activity on the platform will face internal review. All political parties will be subject to stricter guidelines for ad buys, barring the newly-formed, impeccably-vetted Social Network Party.
2. Updated geotagging
Facebook users will now receive notifications any time Zuckerberg geotags the location of a small-town diner in the photo from yet another spur-of-the-moment trip to Iowa or New Hampshire.
3. Post engagement guidelines
To foster a less toxic community experience, “crying face” and “angry face” emoji responses will be disabled on any posts published on official Facebook customer support pages, or on the personal pages of Facebook staff. To facilitate greater honesty in exchanges between American consumers and corporate titans, however, all “thumbs-up” and “smiley face” emojis will be disabled on posts made by Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, and Sundar Pichai.
4. More accessible Facebook Live streams
Starting in 2018, all Facebook Live videos will automatically stream with subtitles so that the hearing impaired can still enjoy the incredible improvisational style iconic to a Zuckerberg stump speech.
5. Improved Facebook Messenger
Facebook Messenger currently contains a payment system that allows users to send and request money from friends, modeled on the success of Paypal and its services like Venmo. In an attempt to stay ahead of its competition, Facebook will combine its friend-to-friend payment system and its already-existing donation system into one streamlined process. Every payment sent through Messenger will automatically deduct a small percentage that will be sent as a political donation toward to a completely randomized Super PAC, picked from a list of one.
6. Modernized “About” sections
In an effort to improve the personalization options for “About” sections, Facebook will provide users more choices under “Gender” and “Religious Views,” and, under “Political Views,” will hyperlink any choice made to a website that simply flashes the words “WHY NOT ZUCK?” over and over again.