Lawfare discusses Broken Code

An interview with Jeff Horwitz about Facebook's shady practices

Here’s a strong recommendation for Technoskeptic readers to check out this episode of The Lawfare Podcast. Lawfare covers a lot of issues at the intersection of technology, privacy, and culture, often in detail you cannot find in other outlets. (Note: the posted link leads to the Lawfare episode on PodBay. Podbay does not require a membership, subscription, or sign-up to download podcasts).

In this episode, Lawfare is speaking to Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz, who broke the “Facebook Whistleblower” story by working closely with Frances Haugen for months. In his new book, Broken Code, Horwitz gets down into the details of the corporate culture at Facebook. Without stealing Horwitz’s thunder, the more he saw, the less he liked, particularly when it came to the total lack of concern at Facebook for user safety.

It is easy in the fast-moving world of tech and social media to think of Facebook/Meta as almost an anachronism, as Facebook in the US is no longer the trendy social media platform. But Meta also controls Instagram and WhatsApp. It controls Twitter-killer Threads. It is pumping out open-source AI models that can be stripped of safety features and used for nefarious reasons. It is pouring massive resources into enticing a new generation into the Metaverse. If Meta employs the same growth-at-all-costs tactics to grow the Metaverse which were used to grow Facebook, 1. the tactics will harm Metaverse users, and 2. Meta will lie about that.