Facebook's Own Business May Be Doing Good But It Seeding 'Misinformation And Mistrust' Has 'Cost All Of Us,' Says Salesforce CEO

Salesforce.com Inc. CRM CEO Marc Benioff said that the failure of Facebook Inc. FB and other social media companies to address misinformation on their platforms has cost others, including his company.

What Happened: “I hope one day they’ll make the change, but today, wow. It’s just unacceptable to see this kind of behavior in such a large and important company like that,” Benioff said in an interview with CNBC’s “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer.

The billionaire tech entrepreneur also believes that trust is not the highest value at Facebook, deriding the company for seeding "misinformation and mistrust" in society.  Benioff said that the misinformation, including about COVID-19, may not have cost Facebook, with its business doing well in recent years, but it has “cost all of us.”

See Also: CEO Of Salesforce.Com Trades $6.29 Million In Company Stock

Why It Matters: Benioff had criticized Facebook earlier too and called for the company to be broken up.

In 2018, Benioff had called Facebook “the new cigarettes for our society” and described the social media giant’s platform as “addictive.”

Facebook has been accused by critics of allowing misleading, inflammatory content on its platform simply because it generates more attention and clicks than mainstream news.

It was reported that a recent study from New York University and the Université Grenoble Alpes in France found that news sources known to spread misinformation received six times the amount of likes, shares and interaction on Facebook than posts by traditional news outlets.

Meanwhile, Facebook’s internal researchers have found that the company’s photo and video sharing app Instagram is harmful to teenage girls, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Price Action: Salesforce.com shares closed 0.1% lower in Tuesday’s trading at $257.97, while Facebook shares closed 0.5% higher at $357.48.

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