Former backers rip into Facebook
Some of Facebook’s former friends are starting to express 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 in a public forum last month. Chamath Palihapitiya, a former Facebook vice-president, recently told an audience at Stanford that the company is “ripping apart the social fabric of how society works”.
And Roger McNamee, an early investor in Facebook and Google, wrote that both firms “threaten public health and democracy” in an August USA Today op-ed .
It has been a rough year for the tech industry, especially social media companies.
It opened with concerns about fake news and “filter bubbles” that can shield people from contrary beliefs, segued into pressure on Facebook and Twitter to clamp down on trolling and online harassment, and culminated with congressional hearings into Russian agents’ alleged use of their platforms to meddle with the 2016 presidential election .
All of that came against a steady drumbeat of tweets from President Donald Trump, who used the service to praise his allies and castigate foes.
But the unkindest cut of all may have come from people who helped build Facebook in its early days. 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 wrote an essay for the Guardian in which he argued that Facebook and Google have 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 reinforces filter bubbles and addictive behaviour.
Facebook said it was “working hard to improve,” and noted it was not the same company it was when Palihapitiya, who left six years ago, worked there.
Not all early investors are critical. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman acknowledged 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.”