This Post Has 10 Comments

1. Informative & Valuable Mountain of Evidence Demonstrating Meta’s Widespread & Severe Damage!
   After 30+ years of IT experience with large companies and the last 2 years of which were in the thick of the front-end, client-side, e-commerce space, I am fortunate to have a decent understanding of the mechanics behind how and why Meta is able to cause such horrible atrocities without any consequences. What Jeff and his resources have provided here is very consistent with that understanding.I completely agree with the other 5-star reviewers! Jeff and the persons who have helped him bravely expose what we NEED TO HEAR about, have now given us hope and laid the groundwork for a new generation of companies, gaining an advantage on their competitors by positioning themselves as “Meta-Free” businesses, winning over today’s and tomorrow’s consumers who are increasingly demanding a privacy-centric and socially responsible user experience! We are already starting to see signs of this, thanks to some businesses which have moved past 2017 and learned that even indirectly contributing to genocide, human trafficking, teenage eating disorders and political polarization, is not a particularly prudent advertising model.When a large company does very, very bad things, we need to stop using its products. If a company is using FB plugins on its website, which nearly anyone can detect using basic browser tools, we will now run to that company’s competitors. Fortunately, some companies and customers are starting to understand all of this, but we have a long way to go.Thank you, Jeff Horwitz, for sacrificing so much to help Frances Haugen and the others who have come forward to keep us informed, so we can eventually get out of this mess. While it will take all of us doing more to protect our own privacy, and choosing companies NOT using Meta products as much as possible, we would never even have such an opportunity if it was not for those who brought us this knowledge, especially Jeff Horwitz.

   Reply

2. a bit wonky but, overall, an excellent body of work
   Horowitz has done yeoman’s work on this book. It avoids speculation in favor of data and facts. It was clearly carefully researched. Kudos to Jeff Horowitz and the WSJ for developing a great source in France’s Haugen.

   Reply

3. Detailed Account of Facebook’s Evils
   Horwitz gives a behind-the-scenes glimpse of Facebook’s repeated decisions to place business over society at large. By cultivating an impressive roster of former Facebook insiders (including the mother of all sources, Frances Haugen), the book paints a disturbing picture of Facebook’s inner workings. Horwitz gives numerous insider-accounts of Executives (Zuckerberg especially) repeatedly choosing increased usage-metics despite evidence of actual societal harm — i.e. the Rohingya Genocide, Indian ethnic violence, the Jan 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol etc.

   Reply

4. Irritating writing style
   I am in the process of reading this book. The author’s choice of vocabulary seems less than eloquent. For example, he uses words like “incent” meaning to incentivize and “liase” meaning to establish a liaison.The subject matter, Facebook’s CEO’s gross lack of ethics, while claiming to serve humanity, is also very depressing.

   Reply

5. The Zuck still sucks
   The main take away, meta-face, sounds like a horrible place to work. The book is a solid reminder that “social media” is neither social or media. The “leadership” of these tech companies seem to lack even the most basic humanity. Just reminds me of why I got clean of Facebooks toxic sludge.

   Reply

6. informative and instructive
   A great overview of how good intentions when met with profit-seeking can lead to disaster. This is a definite must read for anyone in a company leadership position. This shows a slow slide and erosion of values to risk undermining a society.

   Reply

7. Essential reading for anyone wondering if Facebook (Meta) is dangerous to society.
   I won’t spoil the story, but if you have ever wondered whether Facebook does enough to protect its users, this book clearly shows it does not. If you’ve ever wondered whether Facebook is safe, this book clearly shows it is not.

   Reply

8. Important book
   Well-researched account showing Facebook leadership’s repeated failures to address the polarization and the spread of radicalizing content. Please read it.

   Reply

9. Interesting investigation into the difference between the public statements of Facebook in respect of its societal impact and what they actually prioritise. So its all about engagement rather than feeling any responsibility for how their platforms are used – or gamed by bad actors. If you were to turn on your tap and raw sewage came out, the water companies would get sued… Facebook enables a lot of toxic usage under the guise that they aren’t there to manage the quality of user content. Hence why so much inappropriate content doesn’t violate their usage policies… essentially they haven’t really got any and anything goes… More people should read this sort of investigative journalism as we are about to repeat on steroids with AI….

   Reply

10. After the first engaging chapter, the second felt like a repeat but with different words and different people. The entire book ended up being chapter after chapter on the discourse of political opinions and their influences of the platform.This is more a discourse on personal political opinions rather than actual insight into how the platform works, its flaws in management and the technical issues faced by the teams.It became so exhausting after the third chapter, repeating the same talking points of the previous two, that I just gave up.I don’t really care about US politics and their elections, maybe that’s why I felt it was just pointless.Once you read the first chapter you essentially have read the whole thing.Let me save you the headache of reading this book.TLDR : Facebook is a mess and it’s on the way out…

    Reply