Facebook

By Barbara Kollmeyer

Markets reporter

Sharing on Facebook and world peace pretty much go hand in hand.

Or so says Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer of the social media network FB, +1.04%

“Facebook’s mission and what we really focus on giving everyone the power to share all of the things that they care about,” Zuckerberg, the recipient of the first-ever Axel Springer Award for outstanding entrepreneur personality, told the media company’s CEO, Mathias Döpfner, in an interview in Berlin on Thursday.

“What they’re thinking about, what they’re experiencing on a day-to-day basis, and the idea is that everyone has the power to share those things, then that makes the world more understanding, it helps people stay closer to the people who they love, all these good things that we value,” gushed Zuckerberg.

That message seems to be taken to heart by Islamic State, despite efforts to exclude the group from Facebook’s big happy family. A video posted earlier this week by the group’s hacking unit “Sons Caliphate Army” said ISIS has more than 10,000 Facebook accounts, 150 Facebook groups and 5,000 Twitter accounts. “You are not in our league,” the group said in a message addressed to Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO TWTR, +0.55%  Jack Dorsey and “their crusader government.”

Another group of not-so-savory Facebook users is arms dealers. An investigation by IBTimes U.K. found that arms dealers across Egypt, Syria, Libya, Gaza and Iraq are using Facebook to sell weapons and missiles to pretty much anyone who wants to buy a weapon.

And it’s not just the sale of tanks and terror. A Sunday People probe published last November found a 149% rise in serious crimes linked to social media, including murder and blackmail and pedophilia.

But an ever-cheerful Facebook went on a you-make-it-we-share-it binge earlier this month, marking its 12th birthday with #friendsay videos, personalized for every user. Imagine moments and pictures from the last year set to music that could be shared with one click.

Unfortunately, that also meant pages clogged with video after video of all those great moments, which actually weren’t so fabulous for those who were forced to look at exes and departed loved ones.

Zuckerberg may be ever so keen to share even more now that he has a bouncing baby girl, and has not been shy about posting his own happy moments.

But a study published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology last year determined that Facebook can cause depression. That’s all due to social comparison — your friend/relative’s fabulous vacation that you can now enthusiastically like or visibly weep over with new icons.

The whole subject of Facebook and world peace came up as Zuckerberg sought to make a point about trends and how his company is so much a part of that. He said virtual reality will likely become the next big way to share. “There’s a very clear trend to give everyone the power to share everything we care about in richer and richer detail,” he told Döpfner in the interview.

An image of that virtual-reality world was relayed from sidelines of the Mobile World Congress earlier this week as Zuckerberg touted an effort to team up with Samsung Electronics 005930, +0.51%  over the technology. Zuckerberg was snapped near an audience of virtual reality users, which to some didn’t exactly trigger a peaceful easy feeling.

Still you can’t blame a guy for trying to convey more understanding, even if a bunch of cat videos and selfies get in the way.

Now, go grab a Coca-Cola KO, +0.24% and grow some apple trees, all accompanied by your pet turtle dove. And share it all on Facebook, of course.