I invested in Facebook. By 2016, I couldn’t stay silent.

Why an early Facebook investor is now Facebook's biggest critic.

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  • Investor Roger McNamee joined Facebook as an early investor when the company was just two years old.
  • In this video, he explains why he went from Facebook supporter to public critic, and why he came to write the book "Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe".
  • The next billion dollars Facebook makes means nothing if it doesn't reform its practices, says McNamee.
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Videos

Slactivism: The problem with moral outrage on the internet

Why virtue signaling does nothing.

"A big problem with moral outrage on the Internet is that it leads people to think they’ve done something when in fact they haven’t done something," says author Alice Dreger. Sure, you might get a little rush out of updating your status to say something, but all you're really doing is virtue signaling. Alice's latest book is Galileo's Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and One Scholar's Search for Justice.

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Politics & Current Affairs

Creation without consequence: How Silicon Valley made a hot mess of progress

At the dawn of the AI era, where decisions made now could affect the future of mankind, regulation over tech giants is needed now more than ever.

Joanna Bryson isn't a fan of companies that can't hold themselves responsible for their actions. Too many tech companies, she argues, think that they're above the law and that they should create what they want, no matter who it hurts, and have society pick up the pieces later. This libertarian attitude might be fine if the company happens to be a young startup. But if the company is a massive behemoth like Facebook that could easily manipulate 2 billion people worldwide — or influence an election, perhaps — perhaps there should be some oversight. Tech companies, she argues, could potentially create something catastrophic that they can't take back. And at the dawn of the AI era, where decisions made now could affect the future of mankind, regulation over these tech giants is needed now more than ever.

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Technology & Innovation

Agents of revolution: How 500 years of social networks shaped humanity

Facebook might be the biggest social network but it's far from the first, despite what those in Silicon Valley will have you believe.

Facebook might be the biggest social network but it's far from the first, despite what those in Silicon Valley will have you believe. Stanford University fellow and Oxford University historian Niall Ferguson argues that social networks have been around for centuries and the most prominent of which — the Freemasons — could very well be responsible for democracy as we know it. Started in the 1700s in England and carried over to what would later become America, it was a place where class and social strata didn't count and people could exchange ideas freely... and its members included none other than George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. Niall's latest book is the tantalizing The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook.

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Videos

Don’t raise fools: How to prepare kids for life on social media

Should kids be on social media? If yes, what are some good rules to have?

Should kids be on social media? The kneejerk reaction, for some parents, is to control what they do. But journalist Virginia Heffernan thinks that how children and teenagers use social media is how we all use social media — we're just too proud to admit it. Those of us that use social media inevitably are painting an avatar of personality online, testing what works and what doesn't, and through fine-tuning our own selves in the process. It is absolutely true that you can fall victim to narcissism if you follow the "like" economy to its fullest, but a healthy attitude towards social media can lead to some old-fashioned self-exploration that many older folks may have forgotten about. Because young people know... perhaps more than adults... that you have to try on a lot of metaphorical hats before you find the one that fits. Virginia Heffernan's latest book is Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art.

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Mind & Brain