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Article

14 Feb 2018

Author:
Nellie Bowles, The New York Times

USA: Former Facebook & Google employees launch coalition to fight dangerous effects of technology

"Early Facebook and Google Employees Form Coalition to Fight What They Built", 4 Feb 2018

A group of Silicon Valley technologists who were early employees at Facebook and Google, alarmed over the ill effects of social networks and smartphones, are banding together to challenge the companies they helped build...The cohort is creating a union of concerned experts called the Center for Humane Technology. Along with the nonprofit media watchdog group Common Sense Media, it also plans an anti-tech addiction lobbying effort and an ad campaign at 55,000 public schools in the United States...

The campaign, titled The Truth About Tech...will be aimed at educating students, parents and teachers about the dangers of technology, including the depression that can come from heavy use of social media...The effect of technology, especially on younger minds, has become hotly debated in recent months...

...[Center for Humane Technology's] first project to reform the industry will be to introduce a Ledger of Harms — a website aimed at guiding rank-and-file engineers who are concerned about what they are being asked to build. The site will include data on the health effects of different technologies and ways to make products that are healthier...The new group also plans to begin lobbying for laws to curtail the power of big tech companies...[also refers to Apple, Comcast,DirecTV & YouTube]