Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism

''Careless People” is a genuinely shocking book: an ugly, faceless monster, detailed portrait of one of the most powerful companies in the world. #fb # meta

Excellent read. It gives more insight to the character of the "founder" of facebook, a character most people had a fairly good grip on. Read it and know. You'll love it!

Once I started reading "Careless People" it was virtually impossible to put down. In all honesty I should have been writing a one-pager for an (awesome) investor who wants to be part of my next company. Reading this book made me realise why my previous company had not been super successful: we cared about data integrity and data privacy, we cared about security , we tried to do things the honest and responsible way, knowing that all of this was not really known in terms of right/wrong at the time we were doing it. At least we tried to do the right thing. Unlike the owners and executives at Facebook (now Meta) who just bumbled along trying to ignore their responsibilities to their global community of members/users. Just playing the game of make more profits, no matter the cost to society/the world/people. "Careless People" is unputtdownable and is a warning of what we will face if we don't think way more carefully about how AI is deployed in business and government processes and in personal use. The inaction from governments and regulators worldwide has enabled the toxic mess that is Facebook and X. The effects of fake Facebook, once known as Internet.org (a free version of FB that brought internet to countries that couldn't afford it and which preferenced Facebook apps rather than the full internet where a diversity of views and apps can be found) on the nascent democracy of Myanmar and on the Rohingya people make me cry. I didn't understand how that situation occurred and now I know - Facebook allowed disinformation and hate to enter the veins of a society that didn't have tools to counter the effects. Shame Facebook, shame. And yes, I'll be deleting my Facebook account.

Aaron Sorkin’s film ‘The Social Network’ portrays a fictional Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, as a manipulative, callow, conniving young man determined to do what it takes to make his invention a success and to own as much of it as possible. This he does at the expense of his friends and anyone else he needs to conquer. In Sarah Wynn-Williams’ telling, the real Zuckerberg is not much different, but now, as Facebook collects the data of millions of people around the world, the stakes are so much higher. In Wynn-Williams’ estimation, he and his close associates are, as Tom and Daisy were in ‘The Great Gatsby’, in a wonderfully chosen quoted that precedes the book ‘careless people’ causing endless damage not necessarily on purpose, but without paying attention to what damage their data control can cause. Now the question is: how reliable a narrator is Wynn-Williams? Is Sheryl Sandburg of ‘Lean In’ fame, the COO of Facebook as hypocritical and callous as Wynn-Williams makes her appear? Did she advocate for women’s place at work then ignore the casual harassment and bro-culture at Facebook or was Wynn-Williams exaggerating the behaviour, particularly as it pertained to her? Did Facebook, as she claims, really elect Trump in 2016, is it really responsible for the genocide in Myanmar? To be fair, Wynn-Williams claims more that Facebook was a catalyst than the sole driver but on the harassment she herself suffered my suspicion is that she is right. In today’s anti-DEI climate, her claims would likely be dismissed but that is what Me-too was about. Wynn-Williams makes a convincing case that her boss made her uncomfortable. It makes doing her job difficult. She is asked to work on maternity leave, she is described in public as ‘sultry’. More important is that the leaders at Facebook don’t check any of this and women join together to share stories of a bad work atmosphere and, as is so often the case, none of this is as bad as it could be, but it’s bad. It’s not how work should be and it is careless of women’s feelings and freedom to be as good at work as they can be and it’s part of a culture that puts profit against doing the right thing. We can’t know how reliable Wynn-Williams stories are. The book is described as a memoir and she cannot possibly remember all the events in the details she describes but the strength of her writing, the humour she uses and the clear sense of her liking for those her stories criticize lends to the feeling that this is a clear and accurate portrait of a quite nasty company. Wynn-Williams, a Kiwi lawyer and diplomat before joining Facebook, is an idealist who joins because she believes that the connectivity that Facebook offers can change the world. She doesn’t, naively as she says, see the dark side and once working on the company’s international public policy she does her best to project the good that Facebook could do. In her telling profit and ambition gets in the way. Wynn-Williams comes across as someone I’d like to know. Her desire to leave the world a better place than she entered it is shared by many young people as her understanding of what social media can do is not negated by what it has done. What it has done though is egregious which is why this is an important book. Sure, some of the techniques used by Facebook to target young people’s vulnerabilities have been uncovered and discussed in Congress and elsewhere but Wynn-Williams puts a face on the callousness of Facebook’s leaders and details that are still shocking. You believe her, in part, because of her bravery and determination. She overcame a shark attack as a 13-year-old and near death in childbirth. Someone with that determination, which she treats without bravado, is someone you believe. I only hope that she continues to fight for what she believes is right and we continue to hear from her. Brave book.

El producto estava en buen estado y alegou rápido

This is the sort of book that opens your eyes to what’s behind your day to day and apparently inoffensive use of social media tools like FB. The extent to which the leadership of FB, starting with Mark Zuckerberg, but also Sheryl Sandberg and beyond, has ignored the political implications of developing and sharing FB’s algorithms and user data is shocking… A tale of greed and lack of moral compass. In their quest to make FB global and line pockets at the same time, FB has been used to sway elections in the US, facilitate censorship in China and promote hate crimes against Muslims in Myanmar. I’d heard about this in the press, but hadn’t really understood it till now. Sarah Wynn-Williams role in all of this is questionable, but her bravery in denouncing what takes place in FB is commendable. This book is sometimes hard to read but compelling at the same time, I highly recommend it.