120 new york | september 16–29, 2019S
omefriendsaredisturbed
tohearofmysecretInstagramsys-
tem,thoughnonesuspectit untilI
tellthem.TheyareoffendedthatI
don’tseetheirpostsandcommentsorare
weirdedouttoimaginemygoingtothe
troubleofsendingsomeonesomething
designed to look in-the-moment or
impulsive.
I’mnotsuremyInstagrampostswere
eververy“inthemoment”;I’vealways
laboredoverthem.Asfarasotherpeople’s
postsgo,I stilllookatsomeaccountson
mycomputerasthoughtheywereblogs.
SometimesI checkcommentsthere,too,
whereit’slesstemptingtogetsuckedin,andthisyear,I starteda Googledoc
wherethispersonpastesanyfeedbackI
mightbeinterestedin,accordingtothe
criteriaI’vespecified:thekindofper-
sonal,detailedcommentsI usedtoseeon
Rookieormyblog;constructivecriticism;
andanythingfroma verifiedaccount—
Instagramis a networkingtool,afterall.I
amashamedtoadmithowmanynice
commentsI don’tsee,butinternalizing
praisecanbejustasunhealthyasinter-
nalizingcontempt.
InNovember2018,fora hostoffinan-
cialandpersonalreasonsyouprobably
sawcoming,Rookiefolded.I publisheda
longlettertoourreadersaboutwhyand
spenta dayreadingthelovingreactions
onTwitterandInstagrambeforeunder-
standingthatI stillfelttooraw.I opted
forsomequiet.
SinceRookieended,lotsofpeoplehave
referredtoit asoneofthesafest,kindest
placesontheinternet.Andit wasgenu-
inelyveryspecial,thankstothethought-
fulnessandtalentsofeveryoneinitscom-
munity.Still,I suspectthatpartofwhyit
hastakenona mythicqualityasoneof
veryfewexceptionstotheinternet’sgen-CONTINUED FROM PAGE 47Tavi
Gevinsoneral hostility is that social-media plat-
forms are designed to feel hostile, and if
that’s where you spend most of your time,
you probably think social media is the
whole of the internet.
As Jia Tolentino writes in her essay
“The I in the Internet,” social-media
platforms work best—that is, as they are
intended to—when they are unsatisfy-
ing. For all the knowledge and inspira-
tion that many social-media users have
given me via their profiles, the apps
themselves (I mean Instagram and Twit-
ter) were designed to be hierarchical and
addictive. Despite these platforms’
recent attempts to be less detrimental to
their users’ mental health, to monitor
and improve “conversation health,” and
to retroactively apply journalistic ethics
to cesspools of abuse and misinforma-
tion, their business models are based on
exploiting people’s psychology for maxi-
mum engagement, much like a video
game you can’t stop playing but will
never win.
Since enacting my system, I think
about 20 people in a day instead of
500,000. I am largely absent from amakers. About 30 House Democrats
showed up to the dinner, which lasted
around two and a half hours. “I’m not sure
they yet recognize the gravity of [what’s hap-
pening],” says David Cicilline, the Rhode
Island congressman who leads the House’s
antitrust subcommittee. “The conduct of
Facebook and the leadership of that com-
pany has been one of repeat offenders.”
Again and again, Washington Demo-
crats were shocked that the company
could be so blind to its own faults and so
uninterested in doing penance. Weeks
after the Pelosi-video debacle, Facebook
representatives trekked back up Capitol
Hill to explain the company’s new crypto-
currency plan, apparently unprepared, in
Democrats’ eyes, for the skepticism they’d
encounter. “Facebook is dangerous,” said
Ohio senator Sherrod Brown to the Face-
book official overseeing the project. “Now,
Facebook might not intend to be danger-
ous, but surely they don’t respect the
power of the technologies they’re playing
with. Like a toddler who has gotten his
hands on a book of matches, Facebook has
burned down the house over and over and
called every arson a learning experience ...
Facebook has demonstrated through
scandal after scandal that it doesn’t
deserve our trust. It should be treated like
the profit-seeking corporation it is, just
like any other company.”
Facebook, of course, isn’t just any othercompany, and Silicon Valley isn’t just any
other industry. But the more leading Dem-
ocratic senators treat them as such, the
more Big Tech’s evolving role in politics
seems poised to follow Wall Street’s from
just a few years earlier—perhaps even with
Silicon Valley’s leaders complaining all the
while about having been forced to second-
guess their support of Democrats. After all,
even an Establishment Democrat like Joe
Biden, devoted above all else to the princi-
ple of cooperation, has started looking
askance at Big Tech. Shortly before Pelosi
stopped taking Zuckerberg’s calls, Biden
said breaking up Facebook is “something
we should take a really hard look at.”
This spring, when Warren announced
her proposal to break up companies like
Facebook, an employee asked Zuckerberg
about it: Was he concerned? There was
already reason to believe Facebook was
monitoring Warren closely—it had taken
down her ads calling for its dissolution but
restored them when people noticed, claim-
ing the ads had violated company policy
for depicting its logo.
I run Facebook, and she’s a presidential
candidate calling to break Facebook up,
Zuckerberg said onstage. Of course I’m
concerned. But it hadn’t occurred to him
that it might, at some point, have been
worth at least trying to give Warren a call.
She certainly wasn’t likely to call him any-
time soon. ■Facebook for months, telling journalist Kara
Swisher in April about her “questioning atti-
tude” toward the company. No one from
Facebook had called her to discuss those
comments, and as fury now mounted in her
caucus that the company wouldn’t budge on
the video—and therefore continued to make
money from it—Pelosi grew livid. Recogniz-
ing the peril of ending up on the House
Speaker’s bad side, Zuckerberg—who has
two ex–Pelosi aides on Facebook’s lobbying
team—called her office to discuss the clip
and disinformation more broadly. But
Pelosi, fed up with him, didn’t pick up and
refused to call back. In June, the House
Judiciary Committee opened a probe into
tech giants’ anti-competitive behavior, and
Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, a close Pelosi
ally who represents much of Silicon Valley,
invited Roger McNamee, an early Zucker-
berg adviser who has become one of his
fiercest critics, to address interested law-CONTINUED FROM PAGE 39Big Tech
Romance