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Listen to thisEarly Facebook and Google Employees Form Coalition to Fight What They Built
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/04/technology/early-facebook-google-employees-fight-tech.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FChildren%20and%20Youth&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection
A group of Silicon Valley technologists who were early employees at Facebook and Google, alarmed over the ill effects of social networks and smartphones, are banding together to challenge the companies they helped build.
The cohort is creating a union of concerned experts called the Center for Humane Technology. Along with the nonprofit media watchdog group Common Sense Media, it also plans an anti-tech addiction lobbying effort and an ad campaign at 55,000 public schools in the United States.
The campaign, titled The Truth About Tech, will be funded with $7 million from Common Sense and capital raised by the Center for Humane Technology. Common Sense also has $50 million in donated media and airtime from partners including Comcast and DirecTV. It will be aimed at educating students, parents and teachers about the dangers of technology, including the depression that can come from heavy use of social media.
“We were on the inside,” said Tristan Harris, a former in-house
ethicist at Google who is heading the new group. “We know what the
companies measure. We know how they talk, and we know how the
engineering works."
The effect of technology, especially on younger minds, has become
hotly debated in recent months. In January, two big Wall Street
investors asked Apple to study the health effects of its products and to
make it easier to limit children’s use of iPhones and iPads. Pediatric
and mental health experts called on Facebook last week to abandon a
messaging service the company had introduced for children as young as 6.
Parenting groups have also sounded the alarm about YouTube Kids, a
product aimed at children that sometimes features disturbing content.
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“The largest supercomputers in the world are inside of two companies – Google and Facebook – and where are we pointing them?” Mr. Harris
said. “We’re pointing them at people’s brains, at children.”
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Silicon Valley executives for years positioned their companies as tight-knit families and rarely spoke publicly against one another. That has changed. Chamath Palihapitiya, a venture capitalist who was an early employee at Facebook, said in November that the social network was “ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.”
The new Center for Humane Technology includes an unprecedented alliance of former employees of some of today’s biggest tech companies. Apart from Mr. Harris, the center includes Sandy Parakilas, a former Facebook operations manager; Lynn Fox, a former Apple and Google communications executive; Dave Morin, a former Facebook executive; Justin Rosenstein, who created Facebook’s Like button and is a co-founder of Asana; Roger McNamee, an early investor in Facebook; and Renée DiResta, a technologist who studies bots.
The group expects its numbers to grow. Its first project to reform the industry will be to introduce a Ledger of Harms – a website aimed at guiding rank-and-file engineers who are concerned about what they are being asked to build. The site will include data on the health effects of different technologies and ways to make products that are healthier.
Jim Steyer, chief executive and founder of Common Sense, said the Truth About Tech campaign was modeled on antismoking drives and focused on children because of their vulnerability. That may sway tech chief executives to change, he said. Already, Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, told The Guardian last month that he would not let his nephew on social media, while the Facebook investor Sean Parker also recently said of the social network that “God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.”
Mr. Steyer said, “You see a degree of hypocrisy with all these guys in Silicon Valley.”
The new group also plans to begin lobbying for laws to curtail the power of big tech companies. It will initially focus on two pieces of legislation: a bill being introduced by Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, that would commission research on technology’s impact on children’s health, and a bill in California by State Senator Bob Hertzberg, a Democrat, which would prohibit the use of digital bots without identification.
Mr. McNamee said he had joined the Center for Humane Technology because he was horrified by what he had helped enable as an early Facebook investor.
“Facebook appeals to your lizard brain – primarily fear and anger,”
he said. “And with smartphones, they’ve got you for every waking
moment.”
He said the people who made these products could stop them before they did more harm.
“This is an opportunity for me to correct a wrong,” Mr. McNamee said.
By Nellie Bowles
4 February 2018
More than 100 child health experts are urging Facebook to withdraw an app aimed at under-13s.
In an open letter to Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg, they call Messenger Kids an "irresponsible" attempt to encourage young children to use Facebook.
Young children are not ready to have social media accounts, they say.
Facebook says the app was designed with online safety experts in response to parental calls for more control over how their children used social media.
It is a simplified, locked-down version of Facebook's Messenger app, requiring parental approval before use, and data generated from it is not used for advertising.
The open letter says: "Messenger Kids will likely be the first social media platform widely used by elementary school children [four- to -11-year-olds].
"But a growing body of research demonstrates that excessive use of digital devices and social media is harmful to children and teens, making it very likely this new app will undermine children's healthy development.
"Younger children are simply not ready to have social media accounts.
"They are not old enough to navigate the complexities of online relationships, which often lead to misunderstandings and conflicts even among more mature users."
In response, Facebook said: "Since we launched in December we've heard from parents around the country that Messenger Kids has helped them stay in touch with their children and has enabled their children to stay in touch with family members near and far.
"For example, we've heard stories of parents working night shifts being able to read bedtime stories to their children, and mums who travel for work getting daily updates from their kids while they're away."
The letter questions whether there is a need for Facebook to fulfil such a role, saying: "Talking to family and friends over long distances doesn't require a Messenger Kids account.
"Kids can use parents' Facebook, Skype, or other accounts to chat with relatives. They can also just pick up a phone."
The letter cites a range of research linking teenagers' social media use with increased depression and anxiety.
"Adolescents who spend an hour a day chatting on social networks report less satisfaction with nearly every aspect of their lives.
"Eighth graders [13- to 14-year-olds] who use social media for six to nine hours per week are 47% more likely to report they are unhappy than their peers who use social media less often."
It also cites a study of 10- to -12-year-old girls who are "more likely to idealise thinness, have concerns about their bodies, and to have dieted".
Other statistics, quoted from a range of different research, include:
The experts also dispute Facebook's claims that Messenger Kids provides a safe alternative for children who have lied their way on to social media platforms, by pretending to be older than they are.
"The 11- and 12-year-olds who currently use Snapchat, Instagram, or Facebook are unlikely to switch to an app that is clearly designed for younger children.
"Messenger Kids is not responding to a need – it is creating one," the letter states.
The letter is signed by a range of child welfare groups, chief among them the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. Other signees included Massachusetts American Civil Liberties Union and Parents Across America. A host of individuals also signed, including British scientist Baroness Susan Greenfield.
The UK government met social media companies and hardware manufacturers such as Apple in November 2017 and asked them to look at a series of issues – including:
By Jane Wakefield
30 January 2018
