Former Facebook Executive Expresses Guilt for his Role in Creating the Social Media Giant
Former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya,
who served as vice-president for user growth at Facebook before he left the
company in 2011, has said he feels “tremendous guilt” over his work on “tools
that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works”. The remarks
against his former employer were made to an audience at a Stanford
Business School event in November, but were only brought to light this
week by tech website The Verge.
In Chamath Palihapitiya’s address he recommended that people
should take a “hard break” from social media in general, adding that, “The
short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how
society works,” he said in reference of course to online interactions driven by
“hearts, likes, and thumbs-up.” “No civil discourse, no cooperation;
misinformation, mistruth. And it’s not an American problem - this is not about
Russians ads. This is a global problem.”
As pointed out by The Guardian, Palihapitiya’s comments last
month were made just one day after Facebook’s founding president, Sean
Parker, criticised Facebook for “exploiting a vulnerability in human
psychology” by creating a “social-validation feedback loop” during an interview
at an Axios event. It seems that negative sentiment toward the company is
rising on the whole, and they will want to be careful to ensure that this does
not become a significant hurdle to future success. It is worth noting however
that despite his general criticism on their flagship platform, Palihapitiya did
later add that he believes the company “overwhelmingly does good in the world”.
“I can’t control them,” Palihapitiya said of his former
employer. “I can control my decision, which is that I don’t use that s**t. I
can control my kids’ decisions, which is that they’re not allowed to use that
s**t.”
Palihapitiya’s comments provide an interesting inside
perspective on the massively popular platform and the larger company, and the
fact that he still supports their endeavours on the whole is truly telling
given his criticism of their best-known service. At this point we would be eager
to hear your thoughts on the matter, so be sure to let us know in the comments
section below.
Sam
is an aspiring novelist with a passion for fantasy and crime thrillers.
Currently working as Editor of Social Songbird, he hopes to one day drop that
'aspiring' prefix. Follow him @Songbird_Sam
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Former Facebook Executive Expresses Guilt for his Role in Creating the Social Media Giant
Reviewed by Unknown
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Wednesday, December 13, 2017
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Reviewed by Unknown
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Wednesday, December 13, 2017
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