You have made a public post addressing the concerns that people have when they consider the degree to which Facebook has infiltrated our lives and poisoned our daily routines, and the statement shows an appalling lack of perspective.
You have a public relations problem and your attempt at public relations talks about how many people love your service. You have made the classic failure of the successful, that you think that your success is still admired, when it has in fact worn thin.
You think that you are the change to the system, but the years since you left the ivy league have passed like wind, and now you are the system.
People outside of the bubble of your influence don’t make a distinction between Facebook the company and ‘the system’ at large, they’re simply not capable of it. In a world of discontent, a world which cries out to be free from surveillance, your system simply is an affront to free-thinking individuals on the left and the right.
You are in the unique position of being hated in a bipartisan fashion.
Your people have operated as if they are above the general tenets of human decency. May the names of the researchers who experimented on human subjects without their consent live forever in shame, having forgotten the professional standards they must hew to in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
Some of us still haven’t forgotten that the true face of your organization, that your organization once showed people information you believed would cause them emotional harm in order to see if it would, without telling them that they were being experimented upon.
There is no apology you can give for such a transgression.
I would tell you that your data harvesting must stop, that you must pay people for their data in order to address the spiritual imbalance of your entire organization.
But companies, like years, fade like wind.
And when a man’s paycheck makes him incapable of facing the truth, that man is in trouble if he is in charge.
I know not what people will use after Facebook, but I pray every day for its arrival, and that is the public relations problem you have, and it is not resolvable because you will never walk away from the money and make a platform people want to be on.
You write:
At the most basic level, I think most of us just don’t recognize the false picture of the company that is being painted.
Mark Zuckerberg, attempting damage control
In what universe can you declare the public image of the company false and not be fundamentally in denial about how all of this works?
You are making the failure of mistaking logical argument for political statement, but your logic is flawed in any case, because your examples are picked by you and that is not the luxury you have in this public conversation.
But when it comes to young people’s health or well-being, every negative experience matters.
Mark Zuckerberg, showing concern for the young people so he can gain access to their information
Advertising to children is inherently harmful for them.
We’re committed to doing more research ourselves and making more research publicly available.
Mark Zuckerberg, whose organization has hidden its research from the public eye at every turn
Are you just sorry you got caught, Mr. Zuckerberg?
Because that I could understand.
But you don’t actually seem to fundamentally understand the problem you have, judging from the vacuous nature of this attempt at damage control.
People. Hate. Facebook.
When I reflect on our work, I think about the real impact we have on the world — the people who can now stay in touch with their loved ones, create opportunities to support themselves, and find community. This is why billions of people love our products. I’m proud of everything we do to keep building the best social products in the world and grateful to all of you for the work you do here every day.
Mark Zuckerberg, forgetting that people stayed in touch before Facebook
When a giant like Facebook falls, there will be dancing on its corpse.
The Impassionata Project 