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Former Facebook exec says it’s ‘destroying how society works’

A former Facebook executive says he feels “tremendous guilt” about the social network, which is “destroying how society works.”

Chamath Palihapitiya was the company's vice president of user growth from  2007 to 2011.  According to The Verge, he thinks Facebook has created tools "that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works."

“The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works,” he told the Stanford Graduate School of Business, referring to online interactions drive by hearts, likes and thumbs-ups.

“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.”

Facebook responded to the former employee, an unusual step.

"Chamath has not been at Facebook for over six years," a company spokesperson told The Verge. "When Chamath was at Facebook we were focused on building new social media experiences and growing Facebook around the world.  Facebook was a very different company back then and as we have grown we have realized how our responsibilities have grown too."

Recently, early investor Sean Parker said he has become a "conscientious objector" to social media, and that Facebook and others had succeeded by "exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology."

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