Facebook by Steven Levy

I enjoyed this book and would recommend it if you’re looking for any of the below:

• An in-depth look at Facebook from the beginning until ~2019
• An in-depth look at Mark Zuckerberg
• An understanding of how Facebook operates as an organization and a business

In terms of the writing, I felt like Levy jumped around chronologically to the point of confusion in certain chapters. Adding to this is the fact that a lot of people are named in this book. So the time jumps can be jarring. I also felt that Levy didn’t go far enough with his analysis of events. You can tell that he had more to say. Maybe that’s the price you pay for such unfettered access to Zuckerberg and Sandberg.

In prepping for this review, I asked myself how I feel about Facebook after reading Levy’s book. I also asked myself how I felt about it at the outset. I can be clear about my feelings at the outset: like many people, I felt this distaste towards Facebook the company and Facebook the product. Both have been so marred in controversy that most people seem to distrust Facebook even while continuing, paradoxically, to use the core product as well as Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus. That feeling hasn’t changed much after reading this book. But it has been augmented and fleshed out. I now understand why I felt the way I did. Part of the reason was that Facebook was made the punching bag for the media, politicians, and general public. Who doesn’t love something to hate? Of course, Facebook deserved most of the beatings it got. But that’s not the point. As a public (especially in the United States), we were taught to associate Facebook with “large evil company that doesn’t care about privacy.” Had the public been following Facebook’s actions since its inception, I think most people would’ve seen that Facebook was going to screw things up eventually. As much as Zuckerberg wants to claim that privacy was at the core of Facebook from the get-go, I don’t see it as such. His claim originates from the fact that only people with @harvard.edu email addresses were able to register and profiles weren’t publicly accessible. I see this kind of privacy protection as a side-effect, not an intended goal.

No sooner did Facebook gain mass popularity did Zuckerberg begin introducing “features” that stripped privacy away from users for the sake of growth, revenue, and his own personal desire to succeed. Businesses need growth and revenue, of course. And the CEOs of said businesses need to have a personal desire to succeed. But at what cost? Did the ends justify the means? No, not in my opinion.

Mind you, I do believe that Facebook’s net impact on the world has been positive (though there is an obvious downward trend). I agree with Zuckerberg that connecting the world is an important goal that can and should move forward in the face of difficulty and adverse effects. I simply don’t agree with Zuckerberg that this is why Facebook did what it did.

A few asides:

1. I completely agree with the stance many took at Facebook that technology is not inherently moral. Technology is a tool. A hammer can used to build a home one day and as a murder weapon the next. So too can technology be used to free a people one day and oppress them the next. The answer here is certainly not to cripple the tool for fear of the bad it could do.
2. We tend to forget that those people we see on TV are just that, people. They have their feelings, their own moral compasses and deep-seated fears. I think Zuckerberg, Sandberg, and others should be held accountable for what Facebook has done and continues to do but I don’t think we should attack them personally.