Facebook 'founder' claims social media site has caused 'countless deaths' by failing to protect users

The founder of the original 'Facebook' has claimed that the social media platform has caused “countless deaths” by failing to protect users.

Aaron Greenspan, who won a confidential pay-out from Facebook after claiming he came up with the concept for the social network first, has reopened his feud with Mark Zuckerberg by claiming the social media boss sacrificed safeguards on cyberbullying, extremists and data security to pursue growth at all costs.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr Greenspan said Mr Zuckerberg had ignored his warnings and instead designed the platform to be as addictive as tobacco in order to recruit and keep users.

“Facebook’s addictive qualities may not kill anyone directly as cigarettes do every day but it is now established that the site has led to countless deaths,” claimed Mr Greenspan, who created the 'Universal Face Book' at Harvard four months before Mr Zuckerberg registered Facebook.com and launched it incorporating features from Mr Greenspan's site.

Mr Greenspan cited the recent leaked memo written by Facebook vice president Andrew Bosworth, in which he said the site's pursuit to "connect people" might "cost someone a life by exposing someone to bullies" or deaths in a "terrorist attack co-ordinated on our tools."

Mr Greenspan said: "Andrew, my former computer science teaching fellow [at Harvard], pronounced in a now-infamous memo such deaths were merely the cost of Facebook’s growth, a ‘de facto good’. With growth equated to good, the analogy to cancer as a result of the addictive process is especially apt.

“Mark and I fundamentally disagreed over the importance of quality versus quantity. Mark floored the accelerator for 15 years straight to achieve maximum quantity and he succeeded at that.

“Had I remained involved somehow, I would have stressed the importance of quality in the trade-off even more. That would have meant a much smaller network.”

Mr Greenspan’s feud with Mr Zuckerberg over who came up with the idea for Facebook is less well-known than the social media boss’s legal battles with the Winklevoss brothers, which featured in the Hollywood film The Social Network.

Mr Greenspan was, however, the first to develop an online 'facebook' at Harvard from the student houses’ antiquated email systems and the paper-based profiles of students and staff distributed on campus. 

By September 2003, the “Universal Face Book” was a feature of Mr Greenspan’s student web portal, including current Facebook features such as birthday reminders, a student market place, message boards, photo album, digital flyer adverts, event calendar - with online RSVPs -, map integration, job placement and local business reviews.

Mr Greenspan and Mr Zuckerberg were at different houses at Harvard, but Mr Greenspan said Mr Zuckerberg knew about his Facebook and had joined it before inviting him to dinner on January 8 2004.

Mr Greenspan said he sensed at the dinner that Mr Zuckerberg was trying to pick his brains about his site, but claims Mr Zuckerberg was secretive about his own plans.

Both men asked if they would help each other, according to Mr Greenspan, but he said no agreement emerged as they were “wary of each other” and he didn’t trust Mr Zuckerberg

Three days after the dinner on January 11, Mr Zuckerberg bought the Facebook.com name, and a month later launched the site that would become the worldwide social network with 1bn active users, making him worth some $70bn.

In the confidential settlement with Mr Greenspan's company Think, Mr Zuckerberg paid tribute to Mr Greenspan’s “hard work and innovation” in developing the Universal Face Book feature, which added member profiles and ways of recording relationship strengths after Mr Zuckerberg launched his Facebook.

Facebook denied it was designed to be addictive, saying it was working with experts to better understand excessive use and develop products that encourage healthy use. It said it was also continuing to invest heavily in security and privacy as it recognised its responsibility to keep people safe.

Mr Bosworth said the sentiments in his email were not something he agreed with but had been designed simply to raise “hard topics” and “bad ideas” for discussion if only to eliminate them.