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Facebook Should Be 'Regulated Like Cigarette Industry', Salesforce CEO Says (theguardian.com)
Facebook should be regulated like a cigarette company, because of the addictive and harmful properties of social media, according to Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff. From a report: Social networks would be regulated "exactly the same way that you regulated the cigarette industry," Benioff told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos. "Here's a product -- cigarettes -- they're addictive, they're not good for you, maybe there's all kinds of different forces trying to get you to do certain things. There's a lot of parallels. I think that, for sure, technology has addictive qualities that we have to address, and that product designers are working to make those products more addictive, and we need to rein that back as much as possible," he added. Benioff, who founded B2B cloud computing company Salesforce in 1999, and is now worth more than $4bn, suggested that regulation of some form was inevitable for the technology industry. "We're the same as any other industry," he said. "Financial services, consumer product goods, food -- in technology, the government's going to have to be involved. There is some regulation but there probably will have to be more."
No. Just no. Facebook is a form of free speech. The internet is an platform for free speech. Stop trying to regulate free speech!
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Are we going to have to show our driver's license before we log on? Put warning labels on it? Tax it heavily? Run anti-Facebook adds on TV? "Here is your brain. Here is your brain on Facebook. Any questions?"
The "Second hand" argument only works because smokers are a minority.
Try regulating something enjoyed by the majority, like automobiles, because of the 'secondhand' damage they do to your health, and watch society balk.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
You mean I won't be able to post to facebook within 200 feet of a school. And I'll start seeing my tax dollars used to fund obnoxious adds on tv now?
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
It's hard to take a CEO seriously when their own products promote vendor lock-in. It's literally a "leaving us feels difficult" versus a "leaving us is difficult" situation.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Facebook should just die! It should go the fuck away!
Automobiles are absolutely essential to society - without them, you starve to death in a few days.
Cigarettes are a luxury, like chocolate. If they disappeared tomorrow, no non-smoker would care.
think about the advertisers, the Russians trying to influence voting, people who post murders, guns, and abuse on BookFace? /s
5. People who have better things to do with their time than disclose every personal detail about their lives on facebook
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
All you really need to know about Marc Benioff is that it took him only 4 years to go from college graduate to vice president of Oracle Corporation.
Yes, that Oracle Corporation.
Making that big a leap in that environment requires a stratospheric level of ruthlessness and ambition, combined with an active willingness to kiss Larry Ellison's ass and swear it tastes like butterscotch. Daily.
Benioff is the guy who coined the phrase "software as a service" - you know, rent seeking? - that has taken the Valley by storm. Because, what the hell, why not take the marks for every possible penny?
(It's worth noting here that Wikipedia's page on Benioff reads like it was written by his PR department.)
Yes, he's big humanitarian. Yada-yada. What's infinitely more important is that his company, Salesforce, is based on a business model of locking its customers into its "platform" (a strategy he adopted from Oracle). Which is to say getting them hooked so firmly on a very expensive sales management solution that it would be castastrophically expensive for them to replace it.
Which makes Marc Benioff a - what's the word I'm groping for?
Oh, yeah: "hypocrite" ...
Check out my novel.