"Facebook is acting like a hostile foreign power; it’s time we treated it that way."
“Mark Zuckerberg, unlike Einstein, did not dream up Facebook out of a sense of moral duty, or a zeal for world peace. This summer, the population of Zuckerberg’s supranational regime reached 2.9 billion monthly active users, more humans than live in the world’s two most populous nations—China and India—combined. (…) This is plain to see in its single-minded focus on its own expansion; its immunity to any sense of civic obligation; its record of facilitating the undermining of elections; its antipathy toward the free press; its rulers’ callousness and hubris; and its indifference to the endurance of American democracy.”
Read more via ‘The Atlantic’
“Facebook is developing its own money, a blockchain-based payment system known as Diem (formerly Libra) that financial regulators and banks have feared could throw off the global economy and decimate the dollar. (…) Now, according to The New York Times, Facebook is considering forming a kind of legislative body, a commission that could make decisions on elections-related matters—political bias, political advertising, foreign interference. This would further divert scrutiny from Facebook leadership.”
Read more via ‘The Atlantic’
View my new playlist on the Future of Social Media
“Facebook’s rise is part of a larger autocratic movement, one that’s eroding democracy worldwide as authoritarian leaders set a new tone for global governance. Consider how Facebook portrays itself as a counterbalance to a superpower like China. Company executives have warned that attempts to interfere with Facebook’s untrammeled growth—through regulating the currency it is developing, for example—would be a gift to China, which wants its own cryptocurrency to be dominant. In other words, Facebook is competing with China the way a nation would.”
Read more via ‘The Atlantic’
“What could we do in return? “Socially responsible” companies could boycott Facebook, starving it of ad revenue in the same way that trade sanctions deprive autocracies of foreign exchange. In the past, however, boycotts by major corporations like Coca-Cola and CVS have barely made a ripple. Maybe rank-and-file Facebook employees could lobby for reform, but nothing short of mass walkouts, of the sort that would make the continued operation of Facebook impossible, would be likely to have much effect. And that would require extraordinary courage and collective action.”
Read more via ‘The Atlantic’
The Future of Social Media: Keynote for NEC Forum'21 PT
Watch this riveting keynote where I talk about how the social media industry already has quite a few parallels to the oil, gas and coal business: while private make huge profits from extracting the ‘oil’ (i.e. user data).
What kind of future do you want? #Futurist Gerd Leonhard comments on the future of #socialmedia (1)
NEW! Social Media Futures Playlist on Youtube
Watch short clips of Gerd’s interviews and keynotes on his NEW Social Media Futures Playlist on Youtube
