Ex-tech workers plead with
US - The leaders of Facebook should consider their own children when they make decisions that could harm millions of young people hooked on the social network, activists said on Wednesday.
A gathering of Silicon Valley alumni and whistleblowers and Washington lobbyists in the US capital heard warnings of potential links between tech addiction and sleep disruption, poor academic performance, anxiety, depression, obesity, social isolation and suicide. Conference organiser James Steyer, chief executive and founder of Common Sense Media, a not-for-profit promoting safe technology and media for children, criticised giants such as Facebook, Google and Twitter. “Talk is cheap. Show me the money. Period.” There were pleas for Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook co-founder and chief executive, and Sheryl Sandberg, the company’s chief operating officer, to apply values they advocate for their own families. Steyer added: “Mark and Sheryl at Facebook are good people. They are parents too. They have to think about their own kids when making a big picture decision there.” “What I’d like to do is to bring the same values she has at home into the office. Remember that you have to have empathy. If you view your users as fuel stock for your profits you’re not going to make the world a better place.” McNamee is among a group of former tech employees behind the Center for Humane Technology, committed to “reversing the digital attention crisis and realigning technology with humanity’s best interests”, raising alarms about the effects of smartphones and social networks on people’s emotional and intellectual development. It has received $7m in funding from Common Sense Media for a lobbying campaign to combat tech addiction, reminiscent of past anti-smoking drives, as well as adverts targeting 55,000 schools in the US. As a backlash against Silicon Valley gathers momentum, Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff, speaking in Davos last month, called for Facebook to be regulated like a cigarette company because of the addictive and harmful properties of social media. McNamee finds this a useful metaphor. (The Guardian)