Facebook ‘destroying civil society for profit’: US congresswoman
US Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has accused American social media giant Facebook of “destroying civil society… for profit.”
Ocasio-Cortez on Friday harshly criticized Facebook after the company decided to change its corporate name to Meta — a reference to a Facebook "metaverse."
“Meta as in ‘we are a cancer to democracy metastasizing into a global surveillance and propaganda machine for boosting authoritarian regimes and destroying civil society… for profit!’” she wrote in a tweet.
The New York progressive democrat quote-tweeted a news outlet that had published a video of the Facebook announcement in its message.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday announced that his company would be rebranded to Meta, saying the old name of Facebook did not “encompass everything we do.”
The metaverse is a term coined in the dystopian novel "Snow Crash" three decades ago that refers broadly to the idea of a shared virtual realm that can be accessed by people using different devices, according to Reuters.
"Right now, our brand is so tightly linked to one product that it can't possibly represent everything that we're doing today, let alone in the future," said Zuckerberg.
A whistleblower has said that Facebook prioritizes profits over mitigating dangerous or hate speech and misinformation on its platform.
Frances Haugen earlier this month revealed to US lawmakers at the congressional subcommittee how the social media giant pushed for higher profits while being cavalier about user safety.
The former Facebook product manager testified in Congress against the firm in front of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation's subcommittee for consumer protection, product safety and data security, warning lawmakers that the American social media platform operated without proper oversight.
She urged Congress to hold the tech giant accountable for the harm it inflicted on children and its refusal to properly police its content.
But then articles appeared revealing that Facebook whistleblowers had confirmed links to the US intelligence community.
Haugen "was cultivated and legally represented by an organization led by former intelligence insiders," the Ron Paul Institute reported, adding that the Facebook whistleblower had the backing and support of a group "with close ties to the US national security state."
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