Rowan Williams, formerly Archbishop
of Canterbury, spoke out repeatedly on the innate social nature of human
beings. Before we can talk, we are talked to. Social interaction is firmly
rooted in human nature as well as how we are constituted in groups and societies.
Whereas Williams called for more compassion to emerge out of our social nature,
a political realist might point out that we don’t have to look very closely to
find a power-dynamic existing in practically any group. Nietzsche argues in Genealogy
of Morals that exploitation naturally exists in how we as a social species are
constituted because the will for power is the strongest human instinct. This
motive can operate stealthily as compassion and even altruism. The Jansenist
priest, Pierre Nicole, wrote an essay in 1677 to point out that what we moderns
call enlightened self-interest is nonetheless rooted in self-love even when it
is extended in acts of compassion that appear to spring solely from
other-regard. On August 26, 2026, a landmark settlement was announced to end a
trial in which 47 U.S. member states sued Meta, which owns and operates
Facebook. Regardless of whether Meta executives agreed to pay $17 billion just
to get rid of the bad publicity or because the accusations were true, the
dollar figure alone suggests that Facebook’s management had indeed been intending
to manipulate children by addicting them to feeds. In other words, the company had been short on
compassion even under the rubric of social media. Nietzsche would not have
been at all surprised at such power being played to extract value from human
beings under stealth.
Speaking on the settlement,
Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones said, “For years, Meta intentionally deceived
the public about the addictive and harmful design features that have wreaked
havoc on youth mental health.”[1]
The design features, such as unlimited “scrolling” and “likes,” were intentionally
put in place to addict kids; that did not come about as an unintended by-product.
Although Meta was not required to admit guilt formally, it is reasonable to
assume that a business would pay such a hefty penalty as $17 billion were there
not something to the case against the company in terms of evidence even of
intent. So besides protecting “children from online harm,”[2]
the settlement has value societally in exposing the intent to addict at the
detriment of even children. The operative perspective at Facebook was likely
one oriented to viewing humans for our use-value alone.
It is no accident that extracting
use-value from human beings was part of a secret seminar at Stanford University.
Also in 2026, Theo Baker, a student at Stanford, publicly exposed the seminar,
which was being taught by Justin Lewis-Weber, a CEO in Silicon Valley. In his
book, How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University,
Baker reports that the course explicitly taught students how to extract value
from people. Gaining utility from people without regard to how they are
impacted, whether mentally or physically, stems from self-love manifesting
narrowly as selfishness even if under the subterfuge of helping children to be
more social with their peers. In other words, the students were learning manipulation
tactics that could be used under the subterfuge of altruism. Phoebe Gates, founder
of Phia, used the course to recruit employees. In 2026, wire fraud charges were
filed against that company.
The upshot from all this is
that the public (and elected representatives) knew very little of the sordid mentality
underlying Meta’s corporate culture; even just from the $17 billion settlement
we can only infer guilt because why else would a company agree to settle
at such a cost? Many years earlier, Facebook had been found to have sold user-information
to Cambridge Analytic, a political organization, but that was treated as a “one
off” rather than as indicative of the way Facebook executives actually did
business—and Facebook (or Meta) is a business; it is not social even though its
industry is social media.
In terms of business ethics, intentionally
or even unintentionally but continuing to addict young users of Facebook
and Instagram violates Kant’s “kingdom of ends,” wherein rational beings are
(ethically) to be treated not just as means (to one’s own self-interest), but
also as ends in themselves. It is by the use of reason, Kant argues, that we
assign value to things, so reason itself must have absolute value. A being that
has reason thus has absolute value and should not be used merely as a
means. This does not exclude using other people for one’s own ends, but
this should not be the end of the matter, for other people should also be
treated as ends in themselves. Addicting kids does not fall under “ends in
themselves,” and so Meta can be held to have acted unethically. As much as
business ethics focuses on ethical decision-making, ethical theories provide
the real grist for the mill. Furthermore, the continuing negative impact of
corporate culture is very relevant, as the case of Enron illustrates (e.g., “burn
baby burn.”). Even a highly squalid
(ethically speaking) corporate way of doing business can be hidden from the
public and regulators, and managers can dismiss ethical concerns very easily. So
as in the case of Facebook (Meta), an episodic approach is typically assumed by
external stakeholders; connecting the dots would take more effort and insight
into the way corporate decisions are really being made.
Finally, we can pause for a moment to glance at the sheer pathos of distance that exists between Williams’ claim that the inherently social human nature can easily afford being more compassionate and the selfish addicting of kids at Facebook. Religion and business management seem to be disparate domains, and the easy compartmentalization by business managers who identify themselves as Christian renders the separation all too ubiquitous. The distinctively Christian divine command of love as universal benevolence, especially to outsiders and even enemies as selfless (or self-in-abeyance) compassion, runs counter to the firm-centric perspective and profit-centric rubric in business. The contrast is so distinct, even severe, that it is no surprise that business practitioners who self-identify as Christian have resorted to compartmentalizing their work from even themselves as human beings. The statement, “I’m a manager,” supports the construction of a “manager compartment,” but look at the underlying assumption: that a person’s essence is solely a matter of one’s functionality. It is easy to extend from this perspective to viewing social-media users solely in terms of their functionality, and thus use-value, as if value is a function of use.
