After a series of high-profile privacy breaches and subsequent enquiries in Washington and Westminster, Facebook has now come to the table with its 'privacy-focused' vision for users worldwide.

Key points: In future Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp messages may be integrated

In future Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp messages may be integrated The company says it will introduce 'end-to-end' encryption in messages

The company says it will introduce 'end-to-end' encryption in messages It is rumoured that Facebook will develop WeChat-style functions

Looked at one way, Facebook's manifesto read as an apology of sorts for its history of privacy breaches, and suggested that the social network would de-emphasise the 'public' aspect of the social network in favour of private messaging between individuals and among small groups.

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But another reading suggested the whole thing was a public-relations exercise designed to lull its users into a false sense of security while continuing to mine user data to feed its voracious advertising machine.

As with many things regarding Facebook, the truth lies somewhere in between.

Facebook so far hasn't elaborated much further on Mr Zuckerberg's manifesto — so here's a few ways to look at it.

Is Facebook changing?

Not really. Facebook's existing social network, with its newsfeeds and pages and 2.3 billion global users and $US22 billion ($31 billion) 2018 profit, won't change and will likely continue to grow.

Although user growth has been stagnant in North America, its global user base expanded 9 per cent in the last quarter of 2018.

But Mr Zuckerberg suggested Facebook's future growth would depend more on private messaging such as what it offers with its WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram message services.

The Facebook CEO said private messaging between individuals and small groups is "by far" the fastest growing part of online communications.

What's going to happen to your messages?

Sorry, this video has expired In 2018, Mr Zuckerberg admitted his personal data was breached in a Facebook privacy leak.

Its first step will be to make its three messaging services communicate better with each other.

That would let you message a friend on WhatsApp from Facebook Messenger, which isn't currently possible.

It would also link your messaging accounts to your Facebook ID, so people can find you more easily.

It will implement 'end-to-end' encryption for messaging, which would scramble them so that no one but the sender and recipients could read them, thereby blocking access by governments and Facebook — a feature already available on WhatsApp.

While your Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp contacts might be quite different now, if the services combine to some degree, your contact lists will, too.

"As these services merge, we might end up basically having these huge combined address books from three messaging services," said Siva Vaidhyanathan, director of the Centre for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia.

When will this happen?

Instagram messages will be integrated with WhatsApp and Facebook accounts in future. ( ABC News: Elise Pianegonda )

You're not likely to see any of these changes anytime soon.

In his blog post, Mr Zuckerberg said the plan would be rolled out "over the next few years … A lot of this work is in the early stages".

But online marketing analyst Debra Aho Williamson pointed out that previous Facebook plans hadn't quite panned out.

Have we hit peak Facebook? Facebook is not invulnerable. It has to face pressure from regulators, advertisers and users ready to log off, writes Ariel Bogle. Read more Read more

What this does show is that Facebook is trying to adapt as people shift toward services like Instagram and WhatsApp over Facebook, which has shed 15 million US users since 2017, according to Edison Research.

In his post Mr Zuckerberg said he expected Messenger and WhatsApp would eventually become the main ways people talk to each other under Facebook's umbrella.

"There's not a sense that things will fundamentally change overnight, or even probably this year," Ms Williamson said.

"But it signals Facebook is thinking more seriously about embracing the way people communicate today."

Facebook won't stop collecting your data

Facebook collects data from more than 2 billion users worldwide. ( Facebook )

Encrypted messaging is in many ways a big plus for privacy.

But the way Facebook collects information about you on its main service site isn't changing, said Jen King, director of consumer privacy at Stanford Law School's Centre for Internet and Society.

"This is limited to a very specific part of the platform and it doesn't really address all the ways Facebook is still collecting data about you," she said.

Facebook said it may consider an 'auto-delete' function on Messenger, taking down messages after a certain period of time.

"This would reduce the risk of your messages resurfacing and embarrassing you later," Mr Zuckerberg said.

"And we could also provide an option for you to set individual messages to expire after a few seconds or minutes if you wanted."

Facebook may get to a point where you may never leave it

Facebook may emulate WeChat, a Chinese 'super app' that gives users few reasons to leave the platform. ( ABC News: Jarrod Fankhauser )

Facebook would likely also expand the way users can use its platform to pay for things, said Justin Brookman, director of consumer privacy and technology policy for Consumer Reports.

Mr Zuckerberg didn't mention any new payment plans specifically but did bring up payments four times in his post.

Currently the platform lets its users pay friends or businesses digitally by linking a credit card or PayPal account and that method is not likely to change anytime soon.

But as Facebook looks to emulate Chinese tech platform WeChat — a 'super app' that hosts the Chinese Government's controversial social credit system — the next generation of Facebook could let you reserve a table and order a taxi to a restaurant without the need to leave the app.

"Ideally Facebook will try to get a cut of all transactions," Mr Brookman said.

A digital currency of Facebook's own is also rumoured to be in the works.

"Like many other companies Facebook is exploring ways to leverage the power of blockchain technology," Facebook said in a statement.

"This new small team is exploring many different applications. We don't have anything further to share."

ABC/AP