Facebook Profit Drive

For John, BLUF:  There comes a time to step away from Facebook.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Facebook is a ‘living, breathing crime scene,’ says one former tech insider

From NBC News, by Jo Ling Kent, Chiara Sottile, Emma Goss and Alyssa Newcomb, 16 January 2018.

Here is the lede plus one:

With more than 2 billion users, Facebook's reach now rivals that of Christianity and exceeds that of Islam.  However, the network's laser focus on profits and user growth has come at the expense of its users, according to one former Facebook manager who is now speaking out against the social platform.

"One of the things that I saw consistently as part of my job was the company just continuously prioritized user growth and making money over protecting users," the ex-manager, Sandy Parakilas, who worked at Facebook for 16 months,  starting in 2011, told NBC News.  During his tenure at Facebook, Parakilas led third-party advertising, privacy and policy compliance on Facebook's app platform.

As Facebook transitioned from a Harvard dorm-room project into one of the world's most valuable companies, its power grew in ways that founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg never could have anticipated.

It is a long read and there is no definitive smoking gun, but it is an interesting look at social media.

On the other hand, the best defense of truth is a population that samples news from many sources and keeps an open mind, including not jumping to conclusions.

Regards  —  Cliff