Dangers of Facebook

For several weeks we have been carrying reports on the damage that social media is causing to the mental health of young people. This newspaper has been campaigning for a statutory duty of care to be applied to technology companies to ensure that they act responsibly.

The story we carry today emphasises the need for such a law. Former executives with Facebook have admitted designing addictive technology that hooks users and may harm children. They have attached features that exploit vulnerabilities in human psychology as part of a business model that secures advertising revenues by keeping people online for as long as possible.

This has been long suspected, but to have it confirmed by people in the organisation itself is revelatory. One ex-platform manager claimed the firm’s goal was to “addict” people and sell their time. “They know what the negative effects are and they are not being honest,” he said. A product manager who invented the “like” button now advises vulnerable teenagers to avoid the site after she became addicted to it and saw her selfesteem plummet. The disclosures in a BBC

Panorama programme include an admission by Facebook co-founder Sean Parker that the company knew how addictive the technology was but went ahead and “did it anyway”.

This feels like 1994, when executives of the tobacco giants testified before Congress that their products were not addictive. They were forced to recognise the dangers and act accordingly. The same must happen with internet companies.