Facebook's former security chief warns of tech's 'negative impacts' -- and has a plan to help solve them

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/10/16/facebooks-former-security-chief-warns-techs-negative-impacts-has-plan-help-solve-them/

By Craig Timberg and Elizabeth Dwoskin
The Washington Post
October 16, 2018

For two years, Alex Stamos was the Facebook executive tasked with 
defending the company's systems against Russian interference and other 
critical threats.

Now the former chief security officer, who left the social network in 
August, says Facebook -- and the entire technology industry -- needs a 
systems of checks and balances to help it weigh the complex decisions 
Silicon Valley companies are making in areas including security and 
democratic expression.

On Tuesday, Stamos plans to announce the creation of an initiative to do 
that, in some of his first public remarks since leaving Facebook and 
joining Stanford University as an adjunct professor and Hoover fellow.

"There aren't processes to thoughtfully think through these trade-offs," 
he said in an interview ahead of his talk at the university’s Center for 
International Security and Cooperation. "You end up with these for-profit, 
very powerful organizations that are not democratically accountable, 
making decisions that are in their best and often short-term interest ... 
without there being a much more open and democratic discussion of what 
these issues are."

[...]

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