Idea Transcript
Former Facebook Exec: Social Media Is Ripping Our Social Fabric Apart Posted By Tim Hains On Date December 11, 2017
Chamath Palihapitiya, who worked at Facebook beginning in 2007 and eventually became its vice president for user growth, warned that the social network is "ripping apart the social fabric of how society works."
During a "View From The Top" talk in November at Stanford, Palihapitiya said that he does not allow his children to use social media or Facebook. "If you feed the beast, that beast will destroy you," he warned.
"If you push back on it, we have a chance to control it and rein it in. And it is a point in time where people need to hard brake from some of these tools, and the things that you rely on. The short-term dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works," he added.
"What it really is, is fake, brittle popularity," he said about social media in general. "That's short-term and that leaves you even more, and admit it, vacant and empty before you did it."
"Because then you're in this vicious cycle, like, what's the next thing I need to do now, because I need it back. Think about that compounded by two billion people, and then think about how people react then to the perceptions of others. It's just a really bad thing," he said. "It's really, really bad."
CHAMATH PALIHAPITIYA: I feel tremendous guilt.
I think we all knew in the back of our minds, even though we feigned this whole line of there probably aren't any really bad unintended consequences. I think in the back recesses of our mind, we kind of knew. Something bad could happen.
But I think the way we defined it was not like this.
It literally is a point now where I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. That is truly where we are. I would encourage all of you, as the future leaders of the world to really internalize how important this is. If you feed the beast, that beast will destroy you.
If you push back on it, we have a chance to control it and rein it in. And it is a point in time where people need to hard brake from some of these tools, and the things that you rely on. The short-term dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works.
No civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth, and it is not an American problem. This is not about Russian ads. This is a global problem. So, we are in a really bad state of affairs right now, in my opinion. It is eroding the core foundations of how people behave by and between each other.
I don't have a good solution. My solution is, I just don't use these tools anymore, I haven't for years.
It created huge tension with my friends, huge tensions in my social circles. If you look at my Facebook feed, I've posted maybe like two times in seven years.
Three times, five times, it is less than ten. And it's weird, I guess, I kind of innately didn't want to get programmed, and so I just kind of tunes it out. But I didn't confront it. And now to see what's happening, it really bums me out.
I think about these examples where there was a hoax at WhatsApp, where in some village in India, people were afraid that there kids were going to get kidnapped etc. And then there were these lynchings that happened as a result. Where people were like vigilante running around. They think they found a person, and they, I mean seriously?
That's what we're dealing with. Imagine when you take 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, and we compound the problem. We curate our lives around this perceived sense of perfection because we get rewarded in these short-term signals; hearts, likes, thumbs up. And we conflate that with value, and we conflate it with truth.
And instead what it really is, is fake, brittle popularity. That's short-term and that leaves you even more, and admit it, vacant and empty before you did it. Because then you're in this vicious cycle, like, what's the next thing I need to do now, because I need it back. Think about that compounded by two billion people, and then think about how people react then to the perceptions of others. It's just a really bad thing, it's really, really bad...
You don't realize it, but you are being programmed. It was unintentional, but now you gotta decide how much you're willing to give up. How much of your intellectual independence, and don't think, yeah, not me, I'm a genius, I'm at Stanford. You're probably the most likely to fall for it. Because you are check-boxing your whole damn life. No offense, guys.
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Gadsden_1968
Leader ·
My Mother in law has become completely consumed with the fanatical Marxist propaganda. She hates her whiteness, hates America, hates men, hates anyone who does not blindly submit to her fanatical cultural Marxist ideology. She was quite normal a few years ago, but after she submit to the fanatical left wing sites such as Mother Jones and SPLC her ability to think for herself diminished. She is a shell of the woman she was, now she is just a bitter woman full of hate, that signs everything "love Trump's hate". The hypocrisy. Reply · Share · 19 · MJJSTOO1
Leader
Gadsden_1968 ·
Life will prevail and Mother-In-Laws could be replaced by Robots someday? Just kidding! However, in Roman Times if you look this up, once a Couple got Married, there was a Law the Mother-In-Law had to leave Town for One Year until the the Couple adjusted to each other, so I was told. If what I was told is wrong, look it up, and tell me I was wroomg and I will Thank You for Correcting and Educating me. If I was right and that did happen in Roman Days, I am sure you acn use it somehow in letting your Mother-In-Law know, but remember your Own Wife has a Mother-In-Law as well. ... See more Reply · Share · Jane Sinclair
MJJSTOO1 ·
I believe you missed the point made by Gadsen-1968. It's not about the relationship between mother in law and writer. It's about the affect social media has on the mother in law's point of view and how it completely influenced her thought process. You also assume it was written by a man.. Couldn't determine that either. Reply · Share · 2 ·
Le Modele Francais
Leader ·
I quit Facebook nearly three years ago. Facebook, however, refuses to quit me.... (Not unlike the Hotel California, you can checkout anytime you like, but you can never leave....) Reply · Share · 13 · Agar
Leader
Le Modele Francais ·
I quit Facebook 2009, just after I signed up.... Still cannot get rid of it.... I just don't respond to ANY facebook requests Reply · Share · 3 ·
CHEMST
Leader ·
· Edited
He makes his point well and then undermines it with his elitism. Reply · Share · 8 · Just_A_Simple_Guy
Leader
CHEMST ·
Yet his main point is so true. People become absolutely addicted in the truest sense of the word, and what's worse is it's a giant feedback loop for confirmation bias. I suppose that's why it's so addictive. We're always looking for validation in one form or another, and this form of validation is extremely shallow and divisive. Reply · Share · 5 · MJJSTOO1
Leader
CHEMST ·
Well said, and has no clue how to fix what he claims he created? If all Social media seeks the truth, Corrects Mistakes, and agtrees to teach, learn, and share together, everyone can benefit from a Free Social Media not controlled by Power Elites, Dictators, and a Select Few like Kim Jong-Un, China's Communists Politburo, or Religious Oligarchs like in Iran where Religious Police rule with a Iron Hands slapping Open Ears to Prevent Free Speech! Reply · Share ·
dixierat
Leader ·
Isn't that exactly what the Social media sites, mostly run by leftists and Progressives, set out to do? A 5th column for the Alinsky followers at worst. At best the Progressive propaganda arm. Reply · Share · 8 · Agar
Leader
dixierat ·
>100% correct Reply · Share · 1 ·
OldSouth69
Leader ·
· Edited
I don’t use Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Instagram, Snapchat, any of that junk...because, I simply don’t need it. Reply · Share · 6 ·
SoCalGuy
Leader ·
McLuhan famously said "The Medium is the Message." In other words, it's the medium itself that changes our lives, not the content of the medium. So what is the message of "social media?" I think it could be that we're drones and Facebook is the hive. That would make Zuckerberg the Queen Bee. Reply · Share · 3 · The Norwalk Avenger
Contributor
SoCalGuy ·
Zuckerberg would like nothing more than to be that very thing. Those guys are just the new generation of robber barons. They want to be the new Rockefellers and Carnegies and Vanderbilts. Reply · Share · 2 · SoCalGuy
Leader
The Norwalk Avenger ·
I think you're right. They've already far outstripped the old generation of monopolists in terms of wealth and power. Reply · Share · 2 ·
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