Mark Zuckerberg declares victory at the end of a brutal year for Facebook: 'I'm proud of the progress we made' (FB)

Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook had a difficult 2018.
Mark Zuckerberg's public goal this year was to fix the social network's issues.
"I'm proud of the progress we've made," Zuckerberg wrote in a post on Friday.
He wrote that Facebook has intentionally made changes that would harm its bottom line, in the name of building a stronger service: "One change we made reduced the amount of viral videos people watched by 50 million hours a day."

Facebook has had a difficult 2018, enduring issues that included data-leakage scandals, congressional enquiries, and even accusations that foreign governments used the social network to spread misinformation and propaganda.

But looking back on the year, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg sees a job well done.

"For 2018, my personal challenge has been to focus on addressing some of the most important issues facing our community -- whether that's preventing election interference, stopping the spread of hate speech and misinformation, making sure people have control of their information, and ensuring our services improve people's well-being," he wrote in a note posted to his Facebook page on Friday.

"In each of these areas, I'm proud of the progress we've made."

Zuckerberg famously gives himself an ambitious goal every year as part of his New Year's resolutions. In 2018, it was to fix Facebook.

Mission accomplished, Zuckerberg said, although there's still more work to be done.

"To be clear, addressing these issues is more than a one-year challenge. But in each of the areas I mentioned, we've now established multi-year plans to overhaul our systems and we're well into executing those roadmaps," Zuckerberg wrote.

The rest of Zuckerberg's lengthy note goes into how Facebook has improved its systems and incorporated artificial-intelligence systems to fight propaganda, remove harmful content, and even reduce the amount of time people spend on viral videos on the site.

"One change we made reduced the amount of viral videos people watched by 50 million hours a day," Zuckerberg wrote. "In total, these changes intentionally reduced engagement and revenue in the near term, although we believe they'll help us build a stronger community and business over the long term."

Zuckerberg didn't reveal what his personal goal for 2019 is in Friday's post, but if it's anything like what he did last year, it's sure to make headlines.