It is not clear that Facebook will be able to stave off regulators, but Mr. Zuckerberg and his colleagues might want to consider this: a “Why Me?” button. (Google, Amazon and others might want to take note, too.)

Facebook suffers from a lack of trust because of the asymmetrical nature of the relationship users have with it. We provide it all sorts of information. But we have no idea how the information is being used, how our data is being harvested, how that data is being commingled and cross-referenced with other data sets and ultimately sold to advertisers. (Facebook already has a button, relatively buried in a list of other items, that it calls “Why Am I Seeing This Ad?” It is, to some degree, a crippled version of what I’m suggesting should be introduced on all of Facebook’s properties.)

To his credit, Mr. Zuckerberg does appear to recognize the problem that his company faces over privacy concerns. After acknowledging that protecting users’ data is one of the company’s biggest responsibilities, he went on to say, “If you think about what our services are, at their most basic level, you put some content into a service, whether it’s a photo or a video or a text message — whether it’s Facebook or WhatsApp or Instagram — and you’re trusting that that content is going to be shared with the people you want to share it with.”

But the solution Facebook offered last week — putting all of your privacy settings on one screen and blocking some third parties from access to data — is just a Band-Aid. It’s a start, but it doesn’t provide a road map for how your information is being used.

That’s where the “Why Me?” button could help. This button would sit next to every advertisement and piece of content that appears before you on all of Facebook’s properties, including Instagram and WhatsApp.