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Salesforce founder tells CNN that Facebook is ‘not fundamentally doing good things to improve the state of the world’

By: MarketWatch | December 29, 2019

‘Facebook is the new cigarettes for our society,’ Marc Benioff says, calling for regulation

The world is facing a “crisis of trust,” Marc Benioff says, and the Salesforce.com founder and co-chief executive puts much of the blame on Facebook Inc.

“Facebook is the new cigarettes for our society. It’s something that badly needs to be regulated.”
Marc Benioff

In an interview with CNN’s “Reliable Sources” on Sunday, Benioff ripped Facebook and again called for the social-network giant — which has been wracked by scandals in recent years — to be regulated or split up.

“They’re certainly not exactly about truth in advertising,” he told CNN’s Brian Stelter. “Even they have said that. That’s why we’re really in squarely a crisis of trust, when the core vendor themselves cannot say that trust is our most important value. Look, we’re at a moment in time where each one of us in every company has to ask a question: What is our highest value?”

“I expect a fundamental reconceptualization of what Facebook’s role is in the world,” Benioff said. “When you have an entity that large with that much potential impact, and not fundamentally doing good things to improve the state of the world, well, then I think everyone is going to have it in its crosshairs.”

Benioff, a noted philanthropist and outspoken advocate of liberal causes, earlier this year urged fellow CEOs to become activists to fix chronic problems such as income inequality, homelessness and climate change. Benioff said in Sunday’s interview that he hopes Time magazine, which he bought in 2018, can be a “a steward of trust” by fulfilling its journalistic duties.

Salesforce shares CRM, +0.29% are up about 20% year to date, compared to the S&P 500’s SPX, +0.00% 29% gain.

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