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Former Facebook Employee Questions the Social Media Life

Posted by samzenpus on from the none-of-us-are-as-lame-as-all-of-us dept.

stevegee58 writes "The Washington Post published an interesting article about Facebook's employee #51, Katherine Losse. As an English major from Johns Hopkins, Losse wasn't the typical Facebook employee. But after starting in customer service, she later became Mark Zuckerberg's personal ghostwriter, penning blog posts in his name. The article traces Losse's growing disillusionment with social networking in general and Facebook in particular. After cashing out some FB stock, Losse resigned and moved to a rural West Texas town to get away from technology and focus on writing."

25 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds like by Sulphur · · Score: 4, Funny

    A total Losse for the big Z.

    1. Re:Sounds like by gl4ss · · Score: 3, Insightful

      well, she cashed out and is now social networking in the "big boys" social network: the media.
      which she as a writer is going to have to do a lot...

      anyhow, her complaints about the online life are not actually facebook specific. people lived that "i'm in a car" online life long before facebook, I remember reading a bit after middle '90s on irc a from a dude "I'm bicycling". and well, that's how our irc chat life went back then but he was one of the very few who had a company paying for gsm data(and a communicator to use that).

      It's not about facebook or "social media", it's about being online and sharing what you do, for some people it's security, for some it's just about sharing, taking part. what it makes harder to do is re-inventing yourself on weekly basis, since everybodys a celebrity and the track record is there, but only sort of since there's 900 million so nobodys really a celebrity in the whole context.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    2. Re:Sounds like by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, and it's easy to look down your nose at the masses when you've already made a boatload of cash and can afford a nice, remote place somewhere to just go unplug, ruminate, and write. :p

      I'd like to move to a tropical island and do heady things. But as it turns out, I'm here in my condo, bs'ing about the mars lander on facebook, waiting for monday morning.

    3. Re:Sounds like by bhcompy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The more connected I'm forced to be, the more disconnected I wish I was. My job at a technology company forces me to be connected 24/7 for various reason. Sooner or later I'm going to retire very early and move to some small town in the Sierra Nevadas. I've come to learn that I hate the privacy walls that are being torn down by both business and government on the internet, and as it evolves past the Old West in to East Berlin, I hate the whole thing more and more.

  2. Fakebook by roman_mir · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I knew that FB had fake accounts, but apparently it also has fake Zuckerberg and more importantly a fake market valuation and probably a fake business model.

    --
    You can't handle the truth.
    1. Re:Fakebook by Kittenman · · Score: 5, Funny

      Now c'mon. You didn't really expect the big "Z" to enter his own blogs? I mean, I'm not even the big "K" - I'm actually an offshore ghost writer for Kittenman who lives somewhere in South Korea.

      --
      "The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
    2. Re:Fakebook by Trepidity · · Score: 5, Informative

      You may be dismayed to learn this, but nearly every large company has fake communications from its CEO. You don't think the Delta CEO personally pens the "from the CEO" letter at the front of each month's in-flight magazine, do you? He may read it and suggest (or even make) changes, but I am pretty sure he isn't writing the draft.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  3. What has the Internet become? by evanism · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What a horror. She saw the light, as did I.

    After 17 years of building, learning and promoting I now realise just how awful it has now become. I have left the industry entirely.

    Facebook is not a product of Zuckerberg, but a reflection of the inevitability that horrendous and highly penetrative technological processes will have on our lives.

    People haven't asked for Big Brother, they demanded him.

    --
    Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
    1. Re:What has the Internet become? by tomhath · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, it started because people wanted other people to know what they were doing. "Look at me, I'm important."

      It is an efficient way to communicate, basically a kiosk. But when the host becomes too intrusive the convenience is outweighted by the cost.

    2. Re:What has the Internet become? by tverbeek · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'd follow her example... if only I had company stock to turn into cash. Unfortunately I'm one of the tech people who got tired of the web without first getting rich from it.

      --
      http://alternatives.rzero.com/
    3. Re:What has the Internet become? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Meh, people will adjust. They're in the honeymoon phase now like I was back in the early 80's with BBS's. I remember back in those days spending entire days doing nothing but dialing BBS after BBS just to converse with people and check out what's new. After a few years I realized how much time I was wasting doing nothing productive.

      I mean it wasn't all wasted time. I met many friends that became friends in real life. I even met several girlfriends this way (there actually were quite a few normal girls on BBS's even in the 80's, especially the younger/teen set like I was).

      When the Internet got popular I noticed new geeks going through the same phases. Now it's being repeated with everyone else (ie. mainstream "normal" people). I think most people will figure it out eventually. They may even temporarily reject technology like this woman is doing. I firmly believe they will eventually reintegrate technology into their lives except with a more controlled attitude. Technology is too beneficial to completely reject.

    4. Re:What has the Internet become? by Johann+Lau · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Are you suggesting that it is possible for the entire population except you to care about the things you care about?

      No, and maybe that was a bad/extreme example. Say, you live under a dictatorship and don't enjoy torture. If the police thinks otherwise, and your fellow citizens don't mind or don't dare to help you, you have no choice. That's also extreme, but much more realistic.

      I know I'm dangerously close to say "we can only choose what society offers us as choice", and in a way I mean that, but of course, we all are part of that society, and we can come up with new things as individuals, thereby helping form that society. But a LOT of the ideas we examine, and keep or throw away, have been prepared by others. We are, biologically, not any different than humans 5000-10000 years ago. That means a human from back then could be born today and you might not even notice. Let them have attentive parents and a good school and they might cure cancer. Let a modern baby grow up with cavemen, and it will hunt whatever cavemen hunted. (I don't mean to say any of this as if you don't know that, I'm just rambling ^^) Yes, we can achieve a lot in a lifetime, we can cover a lot of distance, but we always start out where society is currently at.

      You see, my problem isn't so much that I'm bored "because people are boring". Only boring people get bored! But I imagine to see continuing trends I don't like, I don't accept them as given, until I know exactly why and how they come to be; that these trends exist does not automatically justify their continued existence. We all sit in little pockets and cliques and classes, feeding the same machinery *we* are building, while pretending it is some kind of anonymous force, and judge ourselves by how well we are adapted to that. I find that nuts, when I stop to think about it, and what you call concerning oneself with the fate of the world, I might also call concerning oneself with the actions of yourself and your contemporaries. Sure, it's a middle class luxury thing to ponder these things, but for me thinking/talking about this stuff is no chore; silently enduring it would be.

      And then there is power and its abuses lurking constantly. Maybe we don't get more shallow and driven because "that's just how it goes", maybe it's like hysterical laughter at the dinner table can be connected to the abuse taking place in that family. Man, I suck with analogies, but yeah. Where there is smoke, there is fire?

      It is far better to encourage these things in each person you meet.

      I don't disagree at all. But still, how much have you learned from books? I learned a big deal. I knew wise people, but the wisest ideas, or the most eloquent ways to put what I "had on the tip of my tongue", came from people I never met, or who were already dead for a long time. You can encourage people you meet AND ramble about it on the interwebs. I don't chat, I always liked forums, and thinking aloud in written form. It ain't literature, but it's what I can do. I've been influenced by others who do that, so I don't think it's presumptuous to say each of us is also having a small effect on some of the people who read it. I try to speak the same way, but of course that's so heavily limited in polite company with strangers, compared to talking to strangers on the net :O

      But yes, I'm not responsible for what others do, and of course loosing the plot and fighting windmills is silly. As easily as I forget that, as easily I remember it, it's basic hygiene of the soul I guess. Though when I regained my calm and humour, I still care. I accept that the world is as it is, but I'd still like more justice; and for that I need people to actually think, and I need doublethink and sophistry to be "uncool" - I need to have words for these things, so I can criticize them. By criticizing them, I hope to help preserving those concepts for future generations.

      Damn, that sounds quite pompous, even to me. Think o

  4. It's not really social by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It sounds like she thought this was something of meaning but, imo, it's not. It's not even really social. From what I can see, it doesn't matter how many "friends" people have. They often don't chat to each other. They talk about themselves and hopefully get a lot of people telling them how awesome they are. That's probably because most people don't have real friends on facebook. It's a list of people that decided to friend them for no good reason or because they met once or twice. It's impossible to have 500 actual friends.

    So most interactions on facebook aren't really socialising. That patting each other on the back (or blowing each other depending on how far you take it) and to be honest I think the days of geocities were more social. People made websites with interesting content that would spark conversation even if were just between you and the author via email. I'd genuoinely say the vast majority of content I see people posting on FB is no interesting, it's not remotely deep or thoughtful. it's shit like announcements that someone likes amazon. Well good for you, you're like 99% of the population.

    I don't really like having an account which is reflected in the fact I don't use my own name or talk about myself. It's there basically to keep in touch with some people which unfortuantely think there is no other way to keep in contact on the internet and since they're family it's a bit more awkward to tell them to suck it up and use email like a normal person. Though I feel that day coming up pretty soon.

  5. Please sign in to access this article and other ex by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sign in

    Use your Washington Post account.

            E-mail Address:
            Password: Forgot your password?
            Remember me on this computer.

    Or use your preferred network credentials.

            Login with Facebook

    Kids, if you're wondering what this "irony" thing is that we oldsters like to talk about...?

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  6. Sums up every bad 'social media expert' by Lord_of_the_nerf · · Score: 4, Funny

    An underqualified English major pretending to be a douchebag.

  7. Registration Sucks Almost as Bad as Facebook by garcia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But her concerns continue to grow. When Zuckerberg, apparently sensing this, said to Losse, âoeI donâ(TM)t know if I trust you,â she decided she needed to either be entirely committed to Facebook or leave. She soon sold some of her vested stock. She wonâ(TM)t say how much; they provided enough of a financial boon for her to go a couple of years without a salary, though not enough to stop working altogether, as some former colleagues have.

    And that's the end of the story because the Washington Post won't let me read the rest.

    So, if I understand this correctly, she got rich and decided working wasn't for her and she wanted to chase every writer's dream to lock themselves away in some far off locale to write their lifetime novel?

    How is this news? Because it deals with the side of Facebook everyone knows about but ignores so they can post photos of their kids and let other people tell them how cute they are or is there something I missed in the last two pages?

  8. I don't have a Facebook account by circletimessquare · · Score: 3, Insightful

    and I wish Facebook an accelerated death as is certain as people grow more wise to their feeding of personal details to an ad making machine

    but in reality, Losse's words and opinion seem to have more to do with Losse's own life trajectory than with Facebook itself

    human beings are social animals. this has powered Facebook's growth. but the Internet is still young, and you can forgive the world for not understanding the nature of the beast it was feeding. as it dawns on them what Facebook really means to their lives and their society, they will continue to be just as social, but on sites that do not exist for the goal that Facebook does

    meanwhile, humans are not universally social, or social their entire lives. some are more introspective and seek a more monklike existence in order to plumb the depths of their spirit or their mind. this is 100% fine and I myself have this tendency. but i recognize that this tendency of mine, and as it exists also in Losse, is not an enemy of human sociability, nor should it be, nor should we evangelize that everyone should tune out and drop out, just like we should not evangelize that everyone should plug in and focus in

    to each their own. Losse is making the mistake of projecting her own life's trajectory on the story of Facebook and/ or social networking in general. don't make the same mistake as Losse. unless you yourself are equally interested in tuning out and dropping out. in which case, this is fine, power to you. i hope something constructive comes out of it, for Losse, and for you. now unplug the computer

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  9. Full Article here - no registration by microcars · · Score: 5, Informative

    You get the full article, rather than 4 pages that eventually require you to "sign in" or "register", if you access the PRINT option.
    Link HERE

    --
    I like microcars
  10. A life with no privacy is no life by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Telling the whole world when, where and what you have taken your lunch, when, where and what you did when you were with your gf/bf is a life with no privacy whatsoever

    Absolutely not the kind of life a normal, self-respecting human being would lead
     

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
    1. Re:A life with no privacy is no life by b4dc0d3r · · Score: 5, Funny

      A difference of opinion. I agree with you, but most people I know do not. They want to be connected.

      They complain when their phone doesn't allow multiple people on a text message, and they have to copy/paste to send the same thing to different people.

      They get together and start talking about that trip they took or that thing they did. When I ask, they ask back, "It was on my facebook, didn't you see the pictures?"

      We evolved as social creatures, which allowed us to come together to form an agrarian society, as I have been told. From the users' perspectives, they are not telling the whole world, they are telling whomever they have friended. That Facebook employees can see the data, let alone analyze and make money off it, isn't even in their sphere of consideration. And when you point it out, there are two responses.

      People either don't get technology, and therefore don't care who sees the mundane details of their lives, or they see it as a free service that provides what they want, in exchange for personal details. The latter group are no different from the people who have loyalty memberships or agree to the new car insurance monitoring devices.

      There are relatively few people in the world who would agree with your statement, despite the disproportionate representation on this particular website. The fact that you have zero replies (not counting the post of someone else's lyrics) and +5 moderation suggests this site's audience is lacking in general sociology education, or has forgotten it.

      A normal human would embrace the opportunity to keep in touch with family and friends who do not live in their subdivision. A modern normal human would appreciate keeping up with someone without having to endure the sometimes stifling social conventions involved in making arrangements to meet to talk in person, or IMO the more stifling conventions of a personal phone call.

      Facebook is the ultimate social outlet, where you can post what's on your mind, and let people respond or ignore as they wish. No wondering if you are boring someone on the other end of the conversation - they can scroll past. No wondering what everyone else is doing, and if you are fitting in - it is almost telepathy, knowing what your friends are into besides what they talk about when you are together. And then seeing a stranger's comment on your friend's post - and realizing you have something in common.

      Again, I agree with you. But I also understand why the 1 billion active users, 1/7 of the world, disagree.

  11. blood money by slew · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Although the title of the article made it seem like she walked away from social media in general, it seems to me that she merely walked away from fakebook (oops) because she didn't drink enough the Zuck's koolaid (claims that zuck said "I don't know if I trust you" to his supposed ghost writer)...

    I was once asked to ghost write (in a quasi-technical context), and I politely refused. Didn't cost me too many points with the CEO as there was plenty of other jobs to do in the company. I understand her position was not necessarily the same, but she took that new job and then apparently didn't like it and probably considered it blood money and needed to clean her soul of it.

    I submit that the most common outcome of selling your soul for blood money is usually the same for most people. It destroys you from inside until you walk. You usually never really have to take blood money, but the opportuntiy often comes up in a seductive way and challenges you in your weakest moment. The best thing to do is say no, but not everyone does. I'll wager that she didn't have to move in the the position that left her the most disillusioned, but it was likley a most seductive opportunity (to ghost write for the Zuck)...

    Hopefully the lesson about blood money doesn't get diluted by polluting it with the equally intriguing, but overdone story about the dangers in the vitualization of real social interaction and trusting your privacy to a bunch of 20-some frat boy wannabes...

  12. Fake users? Hah! They have Facebook in heaven... by Life2Short · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's a lot worse than you think! FTFA:

    "Celebrities had found Marfa too. The town's beloved food truck, the Food Shark, has nearly 1,700 'Likes' on its Facebook page -- including ones from luminaries such as Bob Dylan, Tammy Wynette, and Willie Nelson."

    According to Wikipedia Tammy Wynette died in 1998. Facebook was launched in February 2004.

  13. Pampered Gen Y quits something by Swampash · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Cites "disillusionment"

    Stay tuned for more breaking details of this unique event.

    1. Re:Pampered Gen Y quits something by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That girl really has no idea of how the world works for 99.999% of its population. She caught a lucky break doing an easy job and got stinking rich from it. Perhaps she should spend some time around Walmart cashiers until she realizes that most people just can't afford to be 'disillusioned' by their jobs.

  14. Re:Dark Profiles by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Dark profiles indeed. Go to Yahoo. Make sure you have Noscript turned on. Let's say you for some insane reason want to leave a comment.

    Try to do it without Facebook getting and tracking it. No membership required.

    People who think that Apple, Google or Microsoft are evil ought to check out how FB is tracking everyone. It's not just Yahoo, they are just folks I am familiar with.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.