Chamath Palihapitiya, who joined Facebook when it was barely a year old and worked to increase its userbase, has hit out at the social network that he helped bring to prominence.
At a Stanford Graduate School of Business event, the former executive said (via The Verge) that "we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works".
He urged people to take "a hard break" from social media, because of the "huge tension" they create.
"If you look at my Facebook feed I probably have posted less than 10 times in seven years," he added.
"We curate our lives around this perceived sense of perfection because we get rewarded in these short term signals – hearts, likes, thumbs up.
"The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we've created are destroying how society works."
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It's not just the personal effects on people's happiness that Palihapitiya says are dangerous, but the rise of #fakenews.
"No civil discourse, no co-operation; misinformation, mistruth," he continues.
"And it's not an American problem – this is not about Russians ads. This is a global problem.
"We are in a really bad state of affairs right now."
Although he added that he believes Facebook the company "overwhelmingly does good in the world", he said that his own children "aren't allowed to use that shit".
Related: Facebook is, uh, now asking users to upload their nudes to combat 'revenge porn'
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