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from the take-two-tablets-and-oh...-wait...hold-the-phone...oh...no?...uh-oh dept.
Silicon Valley technologists, including former Google and Facebook employees, have formed the Center for Humane Technology:
A group of Silicon Valley technologists who were early employees at Facebook and Google, alarmed over the ill effects of social networks and smartphones, are banding together to challenge the companies they helped build.
The cohort is creating a union of concerned experts called the Center for Humane Technology. Along with the nonprofit media watchdog group Common Sense Media, it also plans an anti-tech addiction lobbying effort and an ad campaign at 55,000 public schools in the United States.
The campaign, titled The Truth About Tech, will be funded with $7 million from Common Sense and capital raised by the Center for Humane Technology. Common Sense also has $50 million in donated media and airtime from partners including Comcast and DirecTV. It will be aimed at educating students, parents and teachers about the dangers of technology, including the depression that can come from heavy use of social media.
"We were on the inside," said Tristan Harris, a former in-house ethicist at Google who is heading the new group. "We know what the companies measure. We know how they talk, and we know how the engineering works."
Omidyar Network is listed as a key advisor/supporter.
Also at TIME.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @04:45AM (9 children)
The things that could be done with that money!
It's so strange to me that someone thought it would be a good idea to spend millions of dollars on this.
I suppose the key word here is "lobbying". Someone wants to pull the levers of governmental power, but what is the real motive?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @05:13AM (6 children)
Break down the quasi-monopoly of FB/Twitter! Make them pay!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @05:43AM (5 children)
"Why are you a bank robber?"
"I rob banks because that's where the money is."
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 06 2018, @06:12AM (4 children)
So many CEO-s use the same argument. After all, this is what (a certain) society expects them to do: go after the money where those money are.
Granted, very few of them use so crude a mean as bank robbery, those that do it are doing it from the inside (see Bernie Madoff and Lehman Bros).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @07:06AM (3 children)
Also, 2 wrongs don't make a right, or something.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 06 2018, @07:44AM (2 children)
I read the S/N's ToS and beat me if i noticed any mention on the interdiction to go on a tangent.
If you want me to admit the original AC post that triggered this as an example of invalid argumentation, that's fine with me, i have no qualms: yes, that post is borderline trollish.
Which makes your answer to it (the one without 'because that's where the money is') a post equally misdirected.
Which means my tangent stays in no relationship with TFA's topic, but at least I have the (posthoc) excuse of not being me to start it.
Or something...
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @05:11PM (1 child)
So, stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 06 2018, @05:24PM
Now that you mention it, seems like the above is another post in no relation with the topic.
Funny pipe I must have, sorry for that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Rich on Tuesday February 06 2018, @07:08AM
One does indeed wonder where they got all the money from. I had a look around and saw somewhere else (already forgot where...) that old-school TV seemed to be involved. Makes sense, if the zombies and smombies are locked into facebook and youtube, ad-"supported" TV is screwed for good. Someone also dropped the name "Comcast".
Philantropic welfare for the people this is not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @12:20PM
This is a great idea, money well spent. Since people by the Billions are using social media without obviously understanding the Faustian bargain they make people desperately need to be educated.
Surveillance capitalism is not in your best interest.