Former Facebook Executive Blasts Social Media

A former Facebook executive is speaking out against social media and expressing regret about his role in having helped build it, reports The Verge.

Chamath Palihapitiya, who joined Facebook 10 years ago and became its vice president for user growth, recently said before an audience at Stanford Graduate School of Business that he feels, quote, "tremendous guilt" about his work for the social media giant, saying, "I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works."

He explained: "No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth. And it’s not an American problem -- this is not about Russians ads. This is a global problem." He also spoke about what he called "bad actors" being able to use social media to manipulate people to do what they want.



There have been recent similar statements of remorse from others, including Sean Parker, an early Facebook investor, who called himself a "conscientious objector" to social media last month, and said that Facebook and other social media companies had achieved success by, quote, "exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology."