Early Facebook investor says company uses methods to addict you
Facebook is using the techniques of Edward Bernays, the “father of public relations” who promoted smoking for women, and Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda chief, an early investor in the social network said.
Roger McNamee, who made a fortune from early backing of Facebook, said it and other technology giants like Google has replaced “phony relationships for real relationships” and were not being held acｃountable for their actions. He said: “In order to maintain your attention they have taken all the techniques of Edward Bernays and Joseph Goebbels, and all of the other people from the world of persuasion, and all the big ad agencies, and they’ve mapped it onto an all day product with highly personalised information in order to addict you. We are all to one degree or another addicted.”
Mr. McNamee told The Telegraph: “Many of these methods are the same as they use in casinos. The problem is the advertising business model (they use). There are millions of things they can show you and they pick the 20 things most commercially valuable to them, and these are not designed to make you wiser, better educate or healthier, or more successful at work.
“These guys knew what they were doing was wrong. …”
Mr. McNamee also told a panel in Washington that the tech giant had “weaponized” the First Amendment to “essentially absolve themselves of responsibility.” He added: “I say this as somebody who was there at the beginning.”
His criticism of Facebook came as Sean Parker, the former president of the giant social network, denounced it for “exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology” and suggested it might be putting children’s mental health at risk.
Mr. Parker told Axios News earlier this week:
“It literally changes your relationship with society, with each other. It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.”
“The inventors, creators, understood this consciously. And we did it anyway.”
It was the latest criticism of Facebook by individuals involved with its development, either as a product or financially.
Last month Justin Rosenstein, a former Facebook engineer who built a prototype of the network’s “like” button, called the creation the “bright dings of pseudo-pleasure” and said he was limiting his own use of Facebook.
He said it was “very common for humans to develop things with the best of intentions and for them to have unintended, negative consequences.” …
(In July 2017 Forbes listed Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who is 33 years-old, as the 3rd richest man in the world with a net worth of $72 billion. Google co-founder Sergey Brin is worth an estimated $42 billion.)
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VOCABULARY WORDS
1.Acｃountable/adjective: (of a person, organization, or institution) required or expected to justify actions or decisions; responsible.
2.Persuasion/noun: the action or fact of persuading someone or of being persuaded to do or believe something.
3.Addict/noun: a person who is addicted to a particular substance, typically an illegal drug.
4.Denounce/verb: Publicly declare to be wrong or evil.
5.Vulnerability/noun: vulnerability; the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally.
6.Consequence/noun: a result or effect of an action or condition.
7.Estimate/verb: roughly calculate or judge the value, number, quantity, or extent of.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. What accusations has Facebook’s early backer Roger McNamee made against the company? Be specific – list three.
2. What does McNamee say is Facebook’s goal for using these methods? (What is the motive behind their actions?)
3. What result has Facebook achieved by using these techniques?
4. a) What accusation did former Facebook president Sean Parker make about the company? Be specific.
b) How does the use of Facebook affect people, according to Mr. Parker?
5. What do both McNamee and Parker say about Facebook founders’ knowledge of the harm Facebook causes people?
6. Who is Justin Rosenstein? How does he view the idea of using Facebook regularly?
8. a) What social media or gaming are you addicted to?
b) How should you break your addiction?
