Read more: Here’s How to Fix Facebook, According to Former Employees and Leading CriticsĮverything we do on a smartphone, every financial transaction we make, every trip, every prescription and medical test, every action we take on the Internet or in apps is tracked, and most of it is available for purchase in a data marketplace. It is immensely profitable because humans make decisions in predictable ways, which facilitates manipulation. Surveillance capitalists also use the models to inform recommendation engines that manipulate choices and sometimes behavior. The economics of surveillance capitalism come from converting human experience into data, building models for every human from that data, and using those models to predict and influence behavior. economy operates according to the dictates of a system that Harvard University’s Shoshana Zuboff calls “surveillance capitalism.” Analogous to oil companies and other extraction businesses, surveillance capitalists assert property rights to every piece of data they touch, including data derived from public spaces and from the experience and property of others.
It is clear that policymakers and the media have consistently underestimated the threat posed by Facebook, buying into the company’s rosy claims about the power of connecting the world and giving benefit of the doubt where none was deserved.īecause many other companies are imitating Facebook in the hopes of profit, fixing Facebook will not be enough.Ī huge portion of the U.S. In many cases, the documents show, Facebook chose to double-down despite awareness of the harm it was causing and the pressure for change.
The documents she provided to the Wall Street Journal’s “Facebook Files” series confirmed that harms from Facebook’s business model are not an accident, but rather the inevitable result of a dangerous design. The courageous Facebook whistle-blower Frances Haugen has transformed the conversation about technology reform, accomplishing more than what I and others had achieved in years of effort.
The last three weeks have changed the game. I wrote for TIME in 2019, urging Facebook and Silicon Valley to adopt human-driven technology over addictive, dangerous algorithms. Since then, I and countless others have pressed Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg to reform Facebook. I had been involved with the company in its early days as an adviser and investor. Five years ago, I embarked on a mission to help Facebook change its culture, business model and algorithms.
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