Facebook ‘corporate fascism’ exposed in shocking testimony from former employee
Social network’s bizarre office environment laid bare as insider reveals secrets of Mark Zuckerberg’s empire
by JASPER HAMILL
The bizarre working atmosphere at Facebook has been laid bare in a no-holds-barred memoir of life at the heart of Mark Zuckerberg’s empire.
Antonio Garcia Martinez, a tech entrepreneur turned author, has published a book called Chaos Monkeys which gives frank details of what it’s like to have a job with Facebook.
In an extract published by Business Insider, he described a cult-like corporate atmosphere where workers wore Facebook t-shirts and even circulated images of their children dressed in “children wearing a Facebook onesie as their social media debut”.
He described the atmosphere as “corporate fascism” and described his fellow workers as “Blueshirts”.
Martinez wasn’t suggesting that Facebook workers are goosestepping Nazis hellbent on world domination, but was referring to fascists’ tendency to bow down to leaders and subsume themselves within a social or corporate structure.
The former social media supremo said workers went through an intense initiation rite whenever they joined Facebook.
“Like immigrants at Ellis Island, [they] left their old, dated cultures behind, replacing them with an all-consuming new one,” he wrote.
“The on-boarding experience was designed precisely as the sort of citizenship oath that new Americans took in front of a flag and a public official.
“It was almost religious, and taken absolutely sincerely and at face value.”
He added: “This corporate fascism was intoxicating.”