Ex-Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya told CNBC on Tuesday that social media is creating a society that confuses “popularity” with “truth.”
“The tools that have created today are starting to erode the social fabric of how society works,” he said in a “Squawk Box” interview, in response to comments he made that went viral.
At a recent Stanford Graduate School of Business event, Palihapitiya said social media is tearing society apart.
On CNBC, he explained what he meant. “Today we live in a world now where it is easy to confuse truth and popularity. And you can use money to amplify what ever you believe, and get people to believe what is popular is now truthful. And what is not popular may not be truthful.”
“The reality is, I can take money and I can use that through all the social media systems that exist to to hundreds of millions of people,” he said. “We can do that about vaccines, we can do that about gay rights, we can do that about bathroom laws, we can do that about Roy Moore.”
Palihapitiya said the question people have to ask is “how do we live in a world where that is now possible?”
