Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe
by Roger McNamee
Roger McNamee, the author, was a mentor to Mark Zuckerberg, invested very early in Facebook, and introduced Zuck to Sheryl Sandberg. But when after the 2016 election he informed them he thought Facebook had become a danger to democracy, they didn't seem to want to talk about it.
McNamee is a smart guy, and figured out earlier than most that Facebook's unintended consequences were harming public health and enabling any number of bad actors to influence elections (Trump, Brexit) and oppress minorities (Myanmar, Sri Lanka). Facebook can be and in fact is incredibly harmful to children--for commercial gain. This is the sharp edge of what Shoshana Zuboff calls Surveillance Capitalism.
If there's a sliver lining at all, it's that McNamee and a small team of experts has been busy educating people of the hazard and what can be done. His briefs included the US Senate Intelligence Committee, the House Intelligence Committee, Nancy Pelosi's staff, experts in academia, the EU, and elsewhere. But make no mistake: Facebook (and Google, and the rest of Big Tech) won't give up money and power without a fight. And they have all of our data.
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