Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen testified in Congress yesterday. And Mark Zuckerberg was mystified. He was surely thinking, “Can’t they see that we’re out to help humanity?” Today I deconstruct his sincere statement to employees after all the negative news about Facebook in the past month. If you read this critically and with the right perspective,…
We now know that Frances Haugen, Facebook’s former civic integrity product manager, is the whistleblower who leaked Facebook’s internal documents to the Wall Street Journal. She was just interviewed on “60 Minutes.” And after listening to her, I no longer trust anything Mark Zuckerberg or Facebook’s communications team has to say. On “60 Minutes,” Haugen…
Every male on Facebook has experienced this phenomenon: An attractive woman in a sexy pose asks you to be friends. If you click through, she says that she and her friends have formed a WhatsApp group for women who want sex, and she invites you to join. It’s an obvious scam. It’s trivially easy to…
Last week, I said we need to crush Facebook. A lot of you agreed. But a few found ways to explain that Facebook is just a normal part of the internet, magnifying stuff that we find engaging, and so crushing it is an overreaction. I respect these arguments and the people who make them. But…
Apparently, yesterday was International Daughters’ Day. My social media feeds were filled with parents posting photos of their beautiful daughters. Why is “beautiful” the first the word that comes to mind when we talk about our daughters? The posts I viewed shared a lot of common characteristics. They included a photo of one or more…
Abortion rights are under threat. There is no middle ground on this issue, and in the wake of a restrictive Texas law, both sides are gearing up their rhetoric. Does this justify distorting what a historical figure said? No. Never. The ACLU decided to make Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s words more modern and inclusive Here’s a…
Facebook is toxic. And its leaders no longer give a crap about even appearing to be otherwise. The reporting about Facebook this month has been brutal and disturbing. Here’s how the Wall Street Journal describes its “Facebook Files,” series, based on internal Facebook documents: Facebook Inc. knows, in acute detail, that its platforms are riddled with flaws…
In yesterday’s Boston Globe, Boston’s most visible sportswriter, Dan Shaughnessy, wrote a column about the Red Sox asking, “Are they a team you can embrace?” In case you’re not a Red Sox fanatic like many of us here in New England, here’s the backstory. The Red Sox seemed like a team unlikely to go far…
The Wall Street Journal says Facebook’s algorithm change in 2018 rewarded outrage. It’s no surprise what happened next. But if you think about it, you’ll see that its evolution towards rage is completely predictable. The article, by Keach Hagey and Jeff Horwitz, is titled “Facebook Tried to Make Its Platform a Healthier Place. It Got…