Here are six things to know.
1. Former Facebook and Google employees are joining forces with the nonprofit media watchdog group, Common Sense Media, to raise awareness surrounding the dangers of technology.
2. They are concerned with issues like depression and disturbing content muddling kids’ minds as new platforms, such as Facebook’s messaging service that is aimed at children as young as 6 and YouTube Kids, spring up.
3. The new group is planning an anti-tech addiction lobbying effort and an ad campaign targeting 55,000 public schools in the U.S. titled The Truth About Tech. It will be funded with $7 million from Common Sense, as well as other capital the Center has already raised.
4. According to The New York Times, some of the Center’s members include the biggest names in tech, like: Sandy Parakilas, a former Facebook operations manager; Lynn Fox, a former Apple and Google communications executive; Dave Morin, a former Facebook executive; Justin Rosenstein, who created Facebook’s Like button and is a co-founder of Asana; Roger McNamee, an early investor in Facebook; and Renée DiResta, a technologist who studies bots.
“We were on the inside,” said Tristan Harris, a former in-house ethicist at Google. Mr. Harris is taking lead on the new group. “We know what the companies measure. We know how they talk, and we know how the engineering works.”
5. The group will first hone in on lobbying a bill being introduced by Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., that would fund research on technology’s impact on children’s health. It will also advocate a bill in the California State Senate that would prohibit the use of digital bots without identification.
6. Mr. McNamee, one of the group’s members, sees the group as “an opportunity for [him] to correct a wrong,” he told The New York Times. “Facebook appeals to your lizard brain — primarily fear and anger … And with smartphones, they’ve got you for every waking moment.”
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