Silicon Valley Rivals Take Shots at Facebook
Source: Dow Jones News
By Yoree Koh
Facebook Inc. is battling a backlash from lawmakers, regulators and users on multiple continents. Some of the sharpest criticism is coming from close to home.
A succession of Silicon Valley rivals have stepped forward in recent weeks and months to speak out against the social-media giant, some reprising old points of contention, others reacting to revelations about its handling of user data and of deceptive or manipulative content on its platform. The list includes the chief executive of Apple Inc., an artificial-intelligence expert at Alphabet Inc.'s Google, and several former Facebook executives.
A mix of factors are behind the barbs, observers say, from genuine concern to a desire to keep the scrutiny of regulators and lawmakers focused on Facebook and away from their own companies.
"Certainly a political stratagem would be to point to this one entity that's just gotten into trouble and say 'they're the problem, not us,'" said Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, a technology market-research firm.
The industry opprobrium has grown louder with the revelation in mid-March that Facebook user data was improperly obtained by Cambridge Analytica, a data-analytics firm that worked for the 2016 Trump campaign. That incident has rekindled longstanding concerns about privacy practices at Facebook and other tech companies.
Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook on Wednesday criticized companies like Facebook and Google for their practices of collecting personal data across different products and using that data to build user profiles. Speaking to an audience in Chicago, Mr. Cook, who has long sought to differentiate Apple on privacy matters, contrasted its focus on selling devices with Facebook and Google's ad-based businesses that are built on user data.
Asked what he would do if he were Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Mr. Cook replied: "I wouldn't be in this situation." He called for regulation of data and privacy, saying the companies had failed to self-regulate and limit what they collect from users. He also said that Apple could improve its privacy efforts and the way it polices content available on its devices.
Facebook and Google declined to comment. Mr. Zuckerberg has apologized for the Cambridge Analytica episode. He vowed to look for potential abuses of personal data by app developers and tweaked the privacy tools so users will be able to track and change with more ease some of the social network's data about them.
Days earlier, François Chollet, an artificial intelligence engineer at Google, sought to draw a line between his company and Facebook. He tweeted that Google products like search and Gmail help users "to do more, to know more." Facebook's newsfeed, he wrote, "manipulates your worldview and seeks to maximally waste your time."
Mr. Chollet pointed to his blog post about why he believes search engines are less dangerous than social networks. He declined to provide additional comment.
Michael Pachter, a longtime technology analyst at Wedbush Securities, said comments like Mr. Cook's are "exploiting an unfortunate situation at Facebook."
The turn of events contrasts with Facebook's long status as an industry darling. Its journey from dorm-room startup to a profit-spewing juggernaut was the kind of legendary rise that tech entrepreneurs and investors sought to re-create. Mr. Zuckerberg held Facebook up as having a mission bigger than business, to bring the world closer together.
Problems with its image emerged after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, with revelations about how misinformation was spread on Facebook's platform and how Russia allegedly used the company's ad-targeting tools to influence U.S. public discourse. Russia has denied meddling in the elections, and President Donald Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion. That led to a broader discussion about other harmful impact.
In January, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, whose company sells business software services, said that the addictive nature of social media means it should be regulated like a health issue. "I think that you do it exactly the same way that you regulated the cigarette industry, " Mr. Benioff told CNBC when asked how Facebook should be regulated.
Some of the most cutting rebukes have come from people who know Facebook well.
In November, Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, said that Facebook executives, including himself, were "exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology" by designing a platform built on social validation. Mr. Parker didn't respond to a request for comment.
Facebook generally hasn't responded to the criticism, but it did after sharp comments from its former vice president of growth, Chamath Palihapitiya. "The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works," Mr. Palihapitiya said at a talk at Stanford University in November.
After his comments became public a month later, Facebook delivered a public rebuke. In a statement at the time, the company played down his understanding of the company's culture, saying he left in 2011.
Mr. Palihapitiya later softened his comments with a post on Facebook, saying social media has been "used and abused in ways that we, their architects, never imagined" and that his former employer is "coming to terms with its unforeseen influence." He added, "My comments were meant to start an important conversation, not to criticize one company -- particularly one I love." Mr. Palihapitiya declined to comment.
--Deepa Seetharaman and Tripp Mickle contributed to this article.
Write to Yoree Koh at yoree.koh@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 01, 2018 11:31 ET (15:31 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
