Google’s former smartphone aficionado has warned British MPs that Facebook is operating like a “priest’s confession booth” that sells private admissions to other people.
Many of its two billion users are unaware that the social network is monitoring as its algorithms track conversations and behaviour on and off its website and app, said Tristan Harris, appearing by video link before the Digital, Culture Media and Sports Committee.
He said: “Facebook is the priest that sells access to the confession booth”, adding that “people do not realise they are making a confession to a priest with a supercomputer by its side”.
“This is an enormous and new species of power that we have never seen before and...