Adam Mosseri faces criticism after comparing social media to cars, saying “cars create way more value than they destroy”, even though people die in accidents
a delightful & depressing social lubricant blending short-term euphoria w/ long-term regret that offers to young consumers a messy cocktail of dopamine, disorientation, and dependency. Social media is attention alcohol. https://www.theatlantic.com/ ... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : Although many of us have been deep-linking to the reports this week, I revisited the Wall Street Journal's front page and the packaging of their full Facebook Files investigation is really impressive (and horrific at the same time). https://www.wsj.com/... Will Oremus / @willoremus : Just want to be the 3 millionth person to applaud the WSJ's investigative “Facebook Files” series: https://www.wsj.com/... And join maybe a smaller number in thanking the whistleblowers at FB who took serious personal risks to expose critical findings that their bosses wouldn't. @pinboard : The Wall Street Journal's “Facebook Files” has been widely lauded. But every article in the series also contains Facebook tracking scripts, and this clear conflict of interest (along with the WSJ's financial relationship with Facebook) is never mentioned. https://t.co/pOpKENLv7v David Carroll / @profcarroll : The problem with this metaphor is that it really hinges on the question of age-verification which is not a parenthetical throwaway aside, as presented here. Age-verification is unfortunately grease for the proverbial slippery slope, speaking of metaphors. https://twitter.com/... Jodi Kantor / @jodikantor : Last night, @instagram co-hosted the Met Gala. This morning, the @WSJ published a killer Instagram story showing that the company is fully aware that it is causing harm to teenage girls. https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/... Peter Kafka / @pkafka : “Cars create way more value in the world than they destroyed. And I think social media is similar” Instagram boss @mosseri on WSJ piece re: IG research that suggests the app can be harmful to its teenage users. https://podcasts.apple.com/... Shoshana Wodinsky / @swodinsky : everyone's rightfully dunking on mosseri here but tbh i'm more curious abt how this guy defines “value” than his hella awkward car analogies https://www.cnbc.com/... @mosseri : The number of reporters dunking on this, admittedly less than perfect, analogy on Twitter who clearly didn't listen to the pod, where @pkafka makes sure we cover the obvious next question about regulation, is remarkable. https://twitter.com/... Stephen Diehl / @smdiehl : What the WSJ is uncovering from the Facebook leaks is absolutely terrifying. This is a company defined by complete and utter recklessness with no regard for consequences of their actions. https://www.wsj.com/... @mosseri : I had a chance to tap to the thoughtful @pkafka about this week's WSJ article, regulation, our biggest mistakes, creators, and the MET gala this week. Somewhat of a conversation between an optimist and a pessimist, check it out: https://podcasts.apple.com/... Deepa Seetharaman / @dseetharaman : ***putting my former autos reporter hat on*** — Cars are ~heavily~ regulated, down to the color of the blinker, & regularly tested for safety problems. That industry also needed to be -shoved- into mandating seat belts & other safety features despite knowing they'd save lives. https://twitter.com/... Rory Carroll / @rory_carroll : We'd be so much better off if everybody knew that nobody in tech has better than a middle school understanding of the world https://www.cnbc.com/... @arainert : I get the majority of Facebook users (*all* their apps) aren't reading news every day & couldn't care less about the neverending scandal drumbeat. However, I struggle to understand how ppl who DO read & understand their behavior continue using the products https://www.wsj.com/... Dan Gillmor / @dangillmor : Because driving a car is equivalent to speech... https://twitter.com/... @fboversight : @ceciliakang ... Sounds like a good idea! Cecilia Kang / @ceciliakang : @mosseri @pkafka Hi. Dunker here. How about an AMA to answer questions in the audience? No Context Jeff / @thecultureofme : so you agree? that social networks should be heavily regulated to reduce the harm to its users through oversight, safety measures, and training of anyone in the citizenry who'd like to use one? https://twitter.com/... Arkadiy Kukarkin / @parkan : this is why I am so forceful in convincing younger folks reaching out to me about not working at facebook even for a short time: it (by design) destroys your ability for systemic thinking, to understand the harms done by supposedly benign elements at scale and in context https://twitter.com/... Zach Cole / @zachacole : Fwiw, cars kill roughly 1.3 million people per year (roughly entire population of Maine) and contribute significantly to climate change, obesity, and housing inequality. And the head of IG thinks social media is similar. https://twitter.com/... @accountabletech : This whole quote is like a slow motion car crash. https://twitter.com/... Elizabeth Warren / @ewarren : Facebook gobbled up Instagram because they were too chicken to compete against them fair & square for younger users. When there's one big game in town, there's a whole lot less pressure to offer the best service—or do the least damage. #BreakUpBigTech https://www.wsj.com/... Steve Kovach / @stevekovach : We also regulate cars. Licenses from state governments. Speed limits. Seat belts. Etc. https://twitter.com/... Julia Carrie Wong / @juliacarriew : ah yes, cars, those innovations that never kill anyone, have no meaningful regulation, are in no way related to the greatest crisis facing our planet, and are freely accessible to children under 16 https://twitter.com/... Mathew Ingram / @mathewi : Agreed. Cars as a whole do produce value, but when one manufacturer ignores evidence that their model routinely explodes and kills everyone inside, the government usually steps in https://twitter.com/... Brian Kahn / @blkahn : Transportation is responsible for a quarter of global carbon emissions that are making the planet overheat (to say nothing of deaths tied to air pollution and traffic accidents)... https://twitter.com/... Aaron Naparstek / @naparstek : If you're defending your company's product by arguing that it is merely as destructive as the automobile, then I'm betting your company is in serious trouble. https://twitter.com/... Molly Wood / @mollywood : The metaphor in question, btw. https://twitter.com/... Alex Danco / @alex_danco : For everyone dunking on this saying “OMFG cars are regulated!!!”, ask yourself how Facebook feels about the prospect of social media being regulated https://twitter.com/... Greg Greene / @ggreeneva : We have copious laws that determine where and how people can use motor vehicles — and for how long certain people who drive especially large vehicles can do so. If a top corporate official Facebook means to imply he wants the same regime for his business, sign me up. https://twitter.com/... @tante : Holy fuck is this painful to read. Especially coming from the head of the “Unhappiness Machine” Instagram https://twitter.com/... Nate Parrott / @nateparrott : very strong argument in favor of getting rid of social media https://twitter.com/... Elad Ratson / @eladratson : For Adam @Mosseri, Facebook's Instagram Chief, Social media is like cars. Indispensable technologies which may harm when misused. I couldn't agree more. This is precisely why social media companies should be as regulated as the car industry! https://twitter.com/... @mosseri : @MikeIsaac We certainly have bias, but yes we believe connecting people does more good than bad. We have shared data that suggests as much, but I'm not sure anyone, within the company or externally, has tried to - or can - fully measure all the benefits and costs. @mosseri : @goldman That was @pkafka next question, which we talked about on the pod. The car analogy is quite stretched; it was just one point in an hour long conversation. Eric Morrow / @morroweric : I don't think you can look at the effects of climate change and say cars are creating more value than not unchallenged https://twitter.com/... Nick Statt / @nickstatt : “Like... imagine if cars didn't exist?” Right. Society would be better, and your cities would look more like those in Denmark or Japan. Instead, we'll never have high speed rail or robust public transit and have to live with shitty cars forever. So yeah, not the best comparison. https://twitter.com/... Karen Kornbluh / @karenkornbluh : This can only be said in an environment in which we have forgotten about how democratic countries set rules - so it's not all or nothing. Cars are regulated - from speed limits, insurance, to fuel efficiency, seat belts, etc etc. https://twitter.com/... Billy Perrigo / @billyperrigo : In 2015 Volkswagen was found to have systematically lied about its emissions amid a campaign to sell more diesel cars https://twitter.com/... @davidshepardson : The total societal harm of car crashes in the United States in 2010 was $836 billion; in 2019, 36,096 people were killed and 2.7 million injured https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/ ... https://twitter.com/... Noah Waldman / @waldville : https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Karan Bhangui / @karanbhangui : I think this is largely true. Social media has huge negatives on mental health, social cohesion, and threat vector for foreign actors, but is overall hugely net positive. https://twitter.com/... @stsdrex : This kind of thinking is a really reliable way to get stuck in local minimums. Cars have been successful because they offered more than horses. No one is suggesting we abandon vehicles, people are suggesting a more mature approach. Same for social media. https://twitter.com/... @denimandsteel : Oh he actually does go there, and still clocks up car culture as worth the price in blood. Are facebook execs really this monstrous, or just that clueless about the world? https://twitter.com/... Jason Goldman / @goldman : The production and use of cars is one one of the most highly regulated consumer goods on earth. https://twitter.com/... Monica Chin / @mcsquared96 : Excellent point. Let's limit Facebook use to those who have earned Facebook Licenses https://twitter.com/... Alex Newhouse / @alexbnewhouse : - cars are regulated like crazy - the greater industry around cars is literally the reason we don't have good mass transit and why pollution is so bad in the United States https://twitter.com/... @nathanjurgenson : the sound of a thousand STS scholars pasting this quote into their slide decks https://twitter.com/... Alex Anderson / @accentshift : the automotive industry is wildly regulated by the United States government https://twitter.com/... Jackson LaSarso / @jacksonlasarso : Great point, let's regulate Big Tech like we do cars and see what their lobbyists think https://twitter.com/... Justin Hendrix / @justinhendrix : Can we talk about the fact that A) Cars are highly regulated, licensed, inspected and policed B) Are known to produce harmful pollution that also remains a substantial concern and may contribute to the entire planet being uninhabitable https://twitter.com/... Sean Garrett / @sg : Who's the clown car now? https://twitter.com/... David Carroll / @profcarroll : Let's talk about all the regulation in the automobile industry and traffic laws and taxpayer funded public infrastructure and on and on this metaphor is not as smart as they think it is! https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Mosseri had previously associated Instagram with product changes meant to reduce the pressure created by public Like counts, while reporting on his earlier tenure described support for removing fake news and demoting Breitbart. The backlash puts those moderation- and wellbeing-oriented positions beside a public defense of social media’s net value.
Related coverage subsequently identified car-and-chair comparisons as a recurring Facebook leadership argument for downplaying criticism through familiar-tool analogies. That makes the dispute consequential beyond a single interview: it tests whether the company’s language about harm is seen as accountability or deflection.
First-order effects
- Public criticism directly raises the reputational cost for Mosseri and Instagram of presenting platform harms as an acceptable tradeoff against social media’s benefits.
- Facebook’s leadership messaging becomes a focal point of the safety debate, rather than Instagram’s product changes alone.
Second-order effects
- Instagram’s claims that design changes can reduce pressure face a higher credibility bar when its leader’s public framing is read as minimizing harm.
- Critics can treat the car comparison as evidence of a broader Facebook communications strategy, increasing pressure for concrete product and moderation measures over broad value claims.
Third-order effects
- If platforms repeatedly answer harm critiques with comparisons to established technologies, trust will depend increasingly on demonstrable safeguards and measurable product choices rather than executives’ analogies.
- The episode points to platform governance shifting from debates over social media’s aggregate value toward scrutiny of how companies identify, mitigate, and communicate specific harms.
The trend: Platform leaders are being judged less on whether they defend social media’s overall value and more on whether their product and moderation choices substantiate claims of responsible governance.