Has anyone read Zucked?

I’ve seen an article on this new book about Zuckerberg and the FB catastophe (the author’s term, not mine) - has anyone here read it yet? It’s on order at my local library and I’m first on the reserved list…curious if anyone has seen it and if so what your thoughts are.

2 Likes

Haven’t read it, but thanks for mentioning it!

We had talked before about forming a book club. A few of us have recently experimented with Zoom as a way to connect and communicate. Maybe we could meet and talk that way?

Also as discussed before, we could have a conference. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

1 Like

I can’t wait to read it. I don’t think it’s out yet. I’m going to go to the launch event (with author Roger McNamee) later this week in NYC. Anybody New Yorkers wanna join?

Yes yes yes. We need a book club. I met Cal Newport tonight at the launch of his book Digital Minimalism. Very appropriate topic for this group, obviously.

1 Like

I’m sad to say that Chapter 4 of Zuck misleads people about my work. If you want details, I can post them here.

I’ve gone through this chapter line by line, and I’ve marked the parts that distort the truth, as well as parts that are simply not true.

For example, Roger writes:

Another tool from the Fogg tool kit is the “bottomless bowl.”

That’s not true. And there is so much more misinformation about me. I’m stunned by what seems a deliberate effort to portray me as a bad guy.

I’ve long supported Tristan and this work. Now, in this book, Roger writes things that are not true about me, and he refuses to correct them.

I haven’t read the book, but I was intending to. Can you please, for those of us who haven’t yet read it, summarize the points that are misleading. Thank you.

Rather than list issues in the book, let me do this for now . . .

I did a lot of groundbreaking work on the ethics of persuasive technology.

You can see some key points here: https://medium.com/@bjfogg/the-facts-bj-fogg-persuasive-technology-37d00a738bd1

Read what I’ve done, at the link above.

Then read Chapter 4.

You can then decide what’s accurate and what is not.

Hi @BJFogg thank you for posting and elaborating this. In addition for you and others reading this, I would also like to add a link to what Tristan Harris just tweeted today on the same topic, and that puts you in the right:

3 Likes

I took a look at this article and was appalled by some of the comments. Reminded me of a true story Will Storr tells in his book Selfie: a brilliant young man ends up killing himself because his actions have been misinterpreted and he is mobbed on the Web.

I’ve added a link to this post on MeWe.com.

2 Likes