Facebook get serious about blockchain, shakes up its executive team

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is still on top, but other parts of the Facebook universe have gotten shuffled around.

Zuckerberg will now oversee three core groups within products and engineering: "Central product services," "new platforms and infrastructure," and "family of apps," according to a report from Recode. The business, design, and other sides of the business will remain untouched.

Facebook confirmed all the leadership changes, but wouldn't comment on the decisions. Back in January, Zuckerberg said he wanted to fix the social media platform as part of his New Year's resolutions.

Within the family of apps, Facebook-owned products like Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Facebook are overseen by chief product officer Chris Cox. Everything but Instagram also has new heads. WhatsApp CEO cofounder Jan Koum left last week and has been replaced by Chris Daniels.

David Marcus' Messenger messaging app is changing hands to Stan Chudnovsky. That's because Marcus is leading up a blockchain team within new platforms, which he confirmed in a post Tuesday afternoon. In his new role he'll be "setting up a small group to explore how to best leverage Blockchain across Facebook, starting from scratch."

The changes don't end there. Adam Mosseri, who runs Facebook's News Feed, is moving over to VP of product at Instagram. Mosseri's been vocal about trying to explain Facebook's algorithm changes and motives for how the News Feed works and supplies the network's users with information. Instagram will be something of a reprieve — the biggest issue isn't about misleading information but chronological posts.

This is a lot of change after a tumultuous few months with Facebook's Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, in which user data spread through a third-party quiz on the platform. The social media company didn't inform users about the breach until a whistleblower report came out in March.

In a separate announcement Tuesday, Facebook brought Cranemere CEO Jeff Zients onto its board of directors. Zients joins six other non-Facebook employee directors (Zuckerberg and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg are also on the board). While Zuckerberg posted about the new director, he didn't mention the massive structural change.

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