News Investigation

I Mentored Mark Zuckerberg. I Loved Facebook. But I Can't Stay Silent About What's Happening.

Jan 2019 🇺🇸 TIME

Published as a TIME cover story and adapted from his book Zucked, this essay traces Roger McNamee's path from early Facebook investor and Mark Zuckerberg mentor to public critic. McNamee argues that advertising-driven platforms compete for attention by amplifying fear and outrage, and he associates this design with polarization, privacy erosion, and habit-forming use he characterizes as 'behavioral addiction' — his description, not a clinical finding. Directly relevant to this library, he warns that a growing share of children may come to prefer hyperstimulating virtual experience to the real world, and that products like Instagram can empower bullies. He closes by calling for public-health research on heavy internet use and for regulation of platform design. TechKids Foundation includes this essay as McNamee's most widely read condensed statement of his platform-design critique.

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CITATION

McNamee, Roger. "I Mentored Mark Zuckerberg. I Loved Facebook. But I Can't Stay Silent About What's Happening." TIME, January 17, 2019. https://time.com/5505441/mark-zuckerberg-mentor-facebook-downfall/

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News Investigation

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Sep 2022 🇺🇸 Crooked Media
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