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Get Up! co-founder: 'Facebook's rhetoric doesn't match reality'

AdNews, Arvind Hickman

Facebook needs to be more realistic about how it communicates its transparency and users should regard their relationship with the platform as similar to citizens of a country.

That’s the view of Jeremy Heimans, the co-founder of social movement platform GetUp! and movement marketing agency Purpose.

Heimans, an prominent digital activist, joins a growing chorus of experts who believe that Facebook’s advertising-funded business model which incentivises users to post attention-grabbing content, doesn’t align with its public image of “creating a more connected world” and “bringing people together”.

“We have a term we use to describe platforms like Facebook – we describe them as participation farms,” Heimans told AdNews on a recent visit to launch movement marketing agency Purpose in Sydney and promote his book New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World.