Facebook friends no more
Some of Facebook’s former friends are starting to express some serious doubts about the social network they helped create.
Facebook exploits a ‘‘vulnerability in human psychology’’ to addict its users, Sean Parker, the company’s first president, said last month.
Chamath Palihapitiya, a former Facebook vice-president who joined the company in 2007, recently told an audience at Stanford in the United States that the company was ‘‘ripping apart the social fabric of how society works’’.
And Roger McNamee, a venture capitalist and early investor in Facebook and Google, wrote that both companies ‘‘threaten public health and democracy’’.
In early November, Parker told the news site Axios that Facebook was built to answer the question, ‘‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’’ He called its stream of comments, ‘‘likes’’ and reactions a ‘‘social validation feedback loop that exploits how human brains work’’.
A few days later, McNamee stated in the Guardian that Facebook and Google had used ‘‘persuasive techniques developed by propagandists and the gambling industry’’, combining them with modern technology to maximise their profits while pushing ‘‘appeals to fear and anger’’ and other material that reinforced filter bubbles and addictive behaviour.
Last month Palihapitiya said he felt ‘‘tremendous guilt’’ about helping create tools that had widened social divisions. He recommended that people take a break from social media.
Facebook, in an emailed comment, said it was ‘‘working hard to improve’’, and noted that it’s not the same company it was when Palihapitiya, who left six years ago, worked there.
‘‘We’ve done a lot of work and research with outside experts and academics to understand the effects of our service on well-being, and we’re using it to inform our product development,’’ the company’s statement read.
‘‘We are willing to reduce our profitability to make sure the right investments are made.’’
Not all early investors are critical. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman acknowledged in an interview concerns around how social media systems are causing what he called ‘‘lightly addictive behaviour’’. But, he added, ‘‘that’s also been true of television, that’s also been true of sugar’’. –
"Facebook is ripping apart the social fabric of how society works."
Former Facebook vice-president Chamath Palihapitiya