Ep. 063 - Guarding Against Tech: While Facebook Hungers for Power, We Pay the Price | Alex Hern - The Guardian

In June 2006 Yahoo tried to buy Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg ignored advice to reject the offer. That September, Facebook launched News Feed, once again against strong advice. Now, Zuckerberg has been conditioned to believe he knows best. In episode 063 of Social Minds, The Guardian’s UK tech editor, Alex Hern, joins us to discuss Facebook’s growing power and the repercussions of that. Alex says that, while Zuckerberg is skilled at making the right decision for Facebook’s business model, those decisions are rarely best for everybody else. In this episode, we learn the heavy responsibility of a tech reporter today. Plus we get the insider account of Snapchat’s dossier, the dark life of content moderators and the crucial role of the whistleblower.