Former Facebook exec says social media is ripping apart society

[Norm dePlume]

Former Facebook exec says social media is ripping apart society

Another former Facebook executive has spoken out about the harm the social network is doing to civil society around the world. Chamath Palihapitiya, who joined Facebook in 2007 and became its vice president for user growth, said he feels “tremendous guilt” about the company he helped make. “I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works,” he told an audience at Stanford Graduate School of Business, before recommending people take a “hard break” from social media.

Palihapitiya’s criticisms were aimed not only at Facebook, but the wider online ecosystem. “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works,” he said, referring to online interactions driven by “hearts, likes, 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.”

He went on to describe an incident in India where hoax messages about kidnappings shared on WhatsApp led to the lynching of seven innocent people. “That’s what we’re dealing with,” said Palihapitiya. “And imagine taking that to the extreme, where bad actors can now manipulate large swathes of people to do anything you want. It’s just a really, really bad state of affairs.” He says he tries to use Facebook as little as possible, and that his children “aren’t allowed to use that shit.” He later adds, though, that he believes the company “overwhelmingly does good in the world.”

I think the internet is to social consciousness as LSD is to a human brain. It wildly increases the speed and volume of the connections made and overwhelms the cognitive filters.

[gary m]

I think the internet is to social consciousness as LSD is to a human brain. It wildly increases the speed and volume of the connections made and overwhelms the cognitive filters.

Maybe it was a ham and cheese on moldy rye

[scott]

Maybe this is a biased look at "the masses" without realizing that the entire premise suffers from selection bias.

[Celeste Chalfonte]

Maybe this is a biased look at "the masses" without realizing that the entire premise suffers from selection bias.

Probably, but I'm at a loss to understand how my intelligent, articulate sister, who would no more read supermarket tabloids for news than she would vote Republican, relies so heavily on Facebook for both news and social interaction. Schools are not the only place that "dumbing-down" occurs. Wasting hours per day on a website that presents everything, fact and fiction, commercial, social and political propaganda, hoaxes and sincere appeals for one cause or another, all as if of equal weight, accuracy, and value, is appalling.

[80zephyr]

I have a cousin who is a raging liberal, that posts every cockamamie thing he finds on the net. A few day ago, he said he is taking a break from Facebook because it became "too divisive".

Well, guess what dumb ass, you post stupid stuff and people are gonna call you on it.

Mark

[Celeste Chalfonte]

I have a cousin who is a raging liberal, that posts every cockamamie thing he finds on the net. A few day ago, he said he is taking a break from Facebook because it became "too divisive".

Well, guess what dumb ass, you post stupid stuff and people are gonna call you on it.

[Norm dePlume]

Like McLuhan told us, the medium is the message. Every medium shapes the information it carries. Facebook is a medium best suited for snap judgements on simple presentations. Complex issues are reduced to memes. Here's a picture with as many as eight words on it that you can sanction with one click or scroll past. Sometimes there's a link to an article, but most of those are to propaganda sites (left and right). There is space for discussion, but when discussion happens it mostly collapses out of sight. Long written opinions are rare and they, too are collapsed to just a few lines unless you choose to expand it. The nature of Facebook as a medium encourages its users to be opinionated first and informed second (if at all).