The Empty Space We Need to Create
An Excerpt from “When Fiction Becomes Field Manual: Why We Need to Break Up with Big Tech”
Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former Facebook executive who worked directly with Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, borrows her book title from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness.”
The careless people of the 1920s never went away. They just got venture capital funding and moved to Silicon Valley.
In her darkly funny and genuinely shocking account Careless People, Wynn-Williams portrays Zuckerberg and Sandberg not as evil geniuses, but as something potentially more dangerous: narcissistic, self-obsessed executives whose public images are wildly at odds with their actual selves. These aren’t isolated character flaws—they’re features of a leadership class operating with the ethical framework of toddlers wielding flamethrowers.
When Even the Founders Run Away
Perhaps the most damning indictment comes not from critics but from the people who built these platforms. Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp, walked away from $850 million in unvested stock in 2017 because he couldn’t stomach what Facebook wanted to do with his creation.
Acton revealed that he was coached by Facebook executives to mislead European regulators about the company’s plans to merge Facebook and WhatsApp data. After the acquisition was approved, Facebook did exactly what Acton had been told to deny.
“At the end of the day, I sold my company,” Acton told Forbes. “I sold my users’ privacy to a larger benefit. I made a choice and a compromise. I live with that every day.”
So he left, forfeiting nearly a billion dollars, and invested $50 million of his own money to build Signal—creating a messaging app that does what WhatsApp was supposed to do: protect user privacy without surveillance capitalism.
When the founder of WhatsApp literally pays hundreds of millions of dollars to get away from Facebook and build an alternative, that tells you everything you need to know about what’s happening behind the scenes.
Our Children Are the Collateral Damage
The US Surgeon General has issued warnings that should terrify every parent: adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of depression and anxiety. And teenagers now average 3.5 hours per day on these platforms.
WHO data shows problematic social media use among adolescents jumped from 7% in 2018 to 11% in 2022—a 50% increase in just four years. Girls are particularly vulnerable, with 25% reporting social media hurt their mental health, compared to 14% of boys.
We’re watching an entire generation being psychologically damaged in real-time by platforms designed to be addictive. And the executives running these companies? They restrict their own children’s access to these products while maximizing everyone else’s exposure for profit.
The Power of Empty Space
So what do we do about executives like Zuckerberg and Sandberg—narcissistic, egotistic leaders who have proven themselves clueless about (or indifferent to) the harm they cause?
We create empty space around them.
Not metaphorically. Literally. We stop using their products. We refuse to participate in their systems. We create a social and economic vacuum around these companies so profound that their power simply evaporates from lack of fuel.
When we create empty space around bad actors, we strip them of the one thing they need more than money: relevance. Without users, without data, without engagement, these platforms become exactly what they deserve to be—expensive monuments to ego that nobody visits.
Brian Acton gave up $850 million because he understood what was at stake. We’re not asking you to give up nearly that much—just some digital convenience and the illusion of connection that’s actually making you and your children mentally ill.
Empty space has to start somewhere. And it starts with understanding that the people running these platforms are so ethically compromised that even their own co-founders are running away in horror.
Especially if it means being the first one to leave.
Because empty space has to start somewhere.
From the full essay “When Fiction Becomes Field Manual: Why We Need to Break Up with Big Tech” – exploring the connections between Brave New World, Sarah Wynn-Williams’ Careless People, and the urgent need for digital conscientious objection in the age of AI.