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

How Facebook is helping some of the worst people in the world do terrible things.

Facebook is an elite product, born in an elite college, fronted by elite Harvard grads who show up for other elite Harvard grads, who are decision makers in all sorts of places.

Despite this, Elliot, Joel, and many of Facebook’s most senior executives devise a cover-up. Facebook issues a second statement that’s a flat-out lie: “Facebook does not offer tools to target people based on their emotional state.” The new statement is circulated to a large group of senior management who know it’s a lie, and approve it anyway.

In April 2017, a confidential document is leaked that reveals Facebook is offering advertisers the opportunity to target thirteen-to-seventeen-year-olds across its platforms, including Instagram, during moments of psychological vulnerability when they feel “worthless,” “insecure,” “stressed,” “defeated,” “anxious,” “stupid,” “useless,” and “like a

Facebook would be pioneering the first undersea cable to directly connect China and the US.

But the “key”offer is that Facebook will help China “promote safe and secure social order.” And what does this mean? Surveillance.

When Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA had hacked into Facebook to spy on its users in 2013, Mark called President Obama to express his frustration over government surveillance and “the damage the government is creating for all of our future.” He and Joel went to the White House to meet with Obama about it, with Mark saying, “The government kind

China is Facebook’s second-largest market, accounting for an estimated $5 billion of revenue at this time and roughly 10 percent of Facebook’s total revenue, trailing only the US. That’s while the company is banned.

“Doesn’t it seem like this is an undue amount of credit for men who are hitting the bare minimum of decency?”