WEBVTT - Hey, Facebook: What’s that smell?, Part 1 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.400 False news is an ever growing virus that threatens to 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:12.000 corrode the very spirit of democracy. Facebook is front and center. 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:14.840 There's more than one problem going on here, right, I 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:19.000 mean the election problem, the media problem. That's one class, 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:22.919 thinks the data privacy is another class. If we are 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:29.240 not serious about facts and what's true and what's not, 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:34.959 if we can't discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:37.920 we have problems. It is our mission to try to 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:40.080 help connect everyone around the world and to bring the 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:43.720 world closer together. Facebook says that they're bringing us together. 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:55.200 Welcome to Calling Bullshit, the podcast about purpose washing, the 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:58.600 gap between what companies say they stand for and what 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:01.640 they actually do, and what they would need to change 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:05.840 to practice what they preach. I'm your host, Time Ontogue, 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:09.360 and I've spent over a decade helping companies define what 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:12.560 they stand for, their purpose and then help them to 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:17.960 use that purpose to drive transformation throughout their business. Unfortunately, 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:21.360 at a lot of organizations today, there's still a pretty 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:25.320 wide gap between word. Indeed, that gap has a name. 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:30.200 We call it bullshit. But, and this is important, we 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:33.760 know that bullshit is a treatable disease. Because we felt 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:37.679 countless companies close that gap. So when the bullshit detector 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:40.720 lights up, we're going to explore things that a company 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:51.360 should do to fix it. We're devoting two episodes to 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:55.720 take a hard look at Facebook. Like you, I've been 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:59.840 thinking a lot about the company since January six one, 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.559 when we will never give up, We will never concede. 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:15.720 An angry, armed mob stormed the United States Capitol. President 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:19.240 Trump and others had fed them the big lie that 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:22.600 the election had been stolen. All of us here today 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:26.119 do not want to see our election victory stolen by 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:29.880 a bald and radical left Democrats, and it spread like 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:35.040 wildfire on social media, including Facebook, ultimately leading to a 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:43.600 frenzied mob out for blood. Glued to the news, watching 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.919 this chaos unfold, I couldn't stop thinking, how in the 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:55.440 hell did we get here? Watching the Capitol riots that day, 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.760 I could clearly see how much damage the gap between 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:04.679 ard indeed can actually do. So I decided I had 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:07.000 to take a harder look at as many of these 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:10.600 so called purpose led organizations as I could to try 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:14.440 to understand how many of them are just purpose washing. 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.560 What I discovered led to the creation of this show. 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:23.600 Each week we feature an organization and invite experts to 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:27.400 help investigate the potential gaps between what they say they 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:32.200 stand for and the actions they're actually taking. Will explore 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:36.760 why these gaps exist and more importantly, what the organization 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:41.279 needs to do to close them. So let's dig into Facebook, 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:46.000 starting with a quick rewind back to when Facebook was 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.760 just an online network for college kids. Born in Mark 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:55.240 Zuckerberg's dorm room at Harvard, Facebook took off fast. In 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:59.000 those early days. The company motto was move fast and 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:01.800 break things. People are just like too careful. I think 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.960 it's more useful to make things happen and then like 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:07.400 apologize later than it is to make sure that you 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:09.720 dot all your eyes now and then like just not 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:13.680 get stuffed on soon. Facebook was for everyone. It was 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:17.120 where we all reconnected with old friends and shared pictures 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:21.400 of our dogs and by if you use Facebook this 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:23.960 past Monday, you were in good company. You went about 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:27.159 a billion other people. That means one in seven people 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:32.000 on Earth. As it grew, some thing's definitely got broken 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.760 and the company came under increased scrutiny, which really reached 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:39.960 a boil around the presidential election. We're learning more about 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.880 how groups believed to be linked to Russia, used Facebook 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:48.520 to meddle in the election. Facebook's newest scandal revolves around 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:52.320 a data analysis firm called Cambridge Analytica. It raises some 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:56.400 troubling questions, including Facebook's role and targeting voters during so 0:04:56.480 --> 0:05:02.040 in ten, with Americans more polarized than ever before, Mark 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:08.240 Zuckerberg announced a new, kinder, gentler mission. The thing that 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:10.360 I think we all need to do right now is 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:15.599 work to bring people closer together. And I think that 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:18.480 this is actually so important that we're going to change 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:22.520 Facebook's whole mission as a company in order to focus 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:26.240 on this. Give people the power to build community and 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.880 bring the world closer together, Which brings us to the 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:33.840 key question of this episode is that all just a 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:38.560 bunch of bullshit? So get out your BS detector and 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:50.440 join me on a quest to find out. To get 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:53.200 to the bottom of this, I talked to two experts 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:57.160 who spent a lot of time thinking and writing about Facebook. 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:00.400 First up, sent On a Roll, director of the m 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:03.839 I T Initiative on the Digital Economy, founding partner of 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:07.880 Manifest Capital, and author of The Hype Machine. How social 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:11.360 media disrupts our election, our economy, and our health and 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:15.640 how we must adapt sit on. Thank you so much 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:18.159 for joining us, Thanks for having me. I got a 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:22.400 strong sense from the book that you believe that there 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:26.040 is both great good that has flowed from the creation 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:29.960 of social platforms like Facebook, as well as great harm. 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.400 Can you first talk about some of the positive aspects 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:37.080 that you see. We've got to transcend this debate about 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:40.919 whether social media is good or evil, because the answer 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:43.440 is yes. I mean, I call this the promise and 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:47.920 the peril. So we went through a decade of techno utopianism, 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:50.719 which was related to this mantra Facebook was going to 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:53.800 connect the world and provide life saving health information and 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:58.120 so on, and access to jobs and meaningful human connection. 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.960 Then we went through a decade of no dystopianism, where 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:05.800 Facebook was destroying democracy and polarizing society and spreading this 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:09.400 information and so on. The question that we need to 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:12.880 be asking is how do we achieve the promise and 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:16.480 avoid the peril? What is the promise? Well, when Nepaul 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.960 had its greatest earthquake in a hundred years, Facebook spun 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:22.480 up a donate now button and raised more money than 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:26.960 Europe and the United States combined for relief efforts. Sinnon 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.760 also reminded me that Facebook is crucial to the success 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:34.920 of important community efforts like the ice Bucket Challenge, which 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:38.280 raised a quarter of a billion dollars for ALS research, 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:41.920 and the Black Lives Matter movement, which relies on social 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:46.600 media to spread awareness and information. Imagine that globally and 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:50.080 in some countries, Facebook is the entire Internet, like in 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:53.160 the Philippines and parts of Africa. Imagine the value that's 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:56.640 being created worldwide. But I'm also realistic about all of 0:07:56.680 --> 0:08:01.360 the peril false news, election integrity, eurose and a privacy. 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.280 Our real challenge now is how do we achieve the 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:08.000 promise and avoid the peril? Right, you do a great 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:11.960 job of unpacking the promise. Could you spend another minute 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:14.920 just unpacking the peril a little bit? Think back to 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:20.160 the two thousand sixteen US presidential election. Russia sent manipulative 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:23.520 messages to a hundred and twenty six million people on Facebook, 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:26.880 twenty million people on Instagram, ten million tweets from accounts 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:30.600 with six million followers on Twitter. Erosions of privacy, our 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:34.280 lack of control over our own social networks, live streaming 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:37.880 of mass murders like the christ Church New Zealand, mass murder, 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:42.199 lots of bullying and hate speech, potential effects on depression 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:46.479 and loneliness and isolation, which we're still sorting out scientifically. 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:51.440 Certainly all of these effects are very important and the 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:57.040 polarization of society. Does the algorithm polarize us into political 0:08:57.120 --> 0:09:01.280 factions that hate each other? Yeah, in the book you 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:05.480 use a term filter bubbles. Could you go into what 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:09.240 you mean by that term. There's two main algorithms that 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.760 run social media. One is the people you May know 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:18.559 or friend recommendation algorithm that really guides the structure of 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:22.040 the human social network online and the other the feed 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:26.240 algorithms that control the flow of information over this network. 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:31.760 And as these algorithms a connect us to people who 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:35.280 are like ourselves, who believe what we believe, and be 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:39.320 feed us information that is more likely to be what 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.040 we already believe in what we want to see. The 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:44.920 more we get trapped into our own way of thinking 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:48.000 and the less we have access to diversity. And this 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:52.440 has been shown in large scale experimental research to polarize 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:57.360 society and to create affective polarization, which is hatred of 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:00.640 the other side, that is a cent What I mean 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:04.400 by filter bubbles being trapped in an information environment where 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:08.600 you're only seeing things that comport with what you already believe, 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:12.640 and the algorithms are designed to do this, while the 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:17.680 algorithms are actually designed to maximize engagement primarily, which means 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:20.760 to keep you engaged with the platform, because that's what 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:24.880 the business model runs on. This is how Facebook works. 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:29.000 It's an attention economy. It needs attention to sell it 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:32.720 to advertisers and to persuade their users, whether it's to 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:36.400 support a political campaign, a good cause, or to convince 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:40.480 you to buy new shoes. Attention is essential to their 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:44.280 business model. So how do you keep the attention by 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:47.640 giving people things that either rile them up, that are 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:51.920 emotionally charged, or that uh comport with what they already believe. 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:55.600 And so though the algorithms are not necessarily designed to 0:10:55.760 --> 0:11:00.199 separate us by by being designed to maximize our our 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:05.800 interaction with them, essentially they pull us apart kind of 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:09.600 as a result of that. Exactly, so, when it comes 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:15.640 to polarization, we know through experimental evidence that the large 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:19.600 scale experiments show that the algorithms pull us apart. Now 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:24.320 is that the soul cause of polarization in America holding 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:30.760 constant news media like CNN versus Fox holding constant politicians, 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:34.880 which are themselves polarizing. It's very difficult to know what 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:39.600 is primarily or solely responsible for polarization, but we do 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:43.720 know that the algorithms have an important role in that. 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:47.440 Sinnan says that even though most of us say we 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:51.360 want truth, what really makes us click is a strong 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:55.760 emotional reaction. And it's here that my bullshit detector is 0:11:55.800 --> 0:12:01.240 going off because Facebook knowingly manipulates the user's emotional reaction 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:06.920 by optimizing the algorithm to reward the inflammatory and the ridiculous. 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:10.200 You point out that one of the you know, primary 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:14.880 drivers of of attention is novelty. I think you said 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:19.320 novelty is the short game and authenticity is the long game, 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:22.480 And I just wonder if you would talk more about 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:27.600 that those two ideas. Yeah, absolutely so. We conducted a 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:30.920 study which was at the time it was published, the 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:34.800 largest longitudinal study of the spread of true and false 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:39.240 news online on the cover of Science magazine in eighteen 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:42.920 and it was a ten year study of the spread 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:46.240 of verify true and false news stories spreading on Twitter. 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:49.840 And what we found in that study was false news 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:53.320 traveled farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.480 in every category of information. And when we looked into 0:12:56.600 --> 0:13:02.480 why novelty was the primary explanation, people were shocked and 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:06.560 awed by things that were surprising to them, and false 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:10.600 news was much more novel, shocking and surprising to them 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:15.560 than true news. And so in a sense, novelty and 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:21.440 surprise and shock and awe are engaging in the short term, 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:23.400 and they are also what we found in that study 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:28.719 was they're also emotionally charged, their blood boiling, their anger inducing. 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:34.319 They are um, you know, emotional, and that gets your attention. 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:37.839 The only problem with that is that I don't want 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:40.360 to see that all the time. When I think about 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:44.040 what I want out of the information that I consume online, 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:47.520 the types of people that I'm drawn to in terms 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:51.600 of influencers and so on are people who are authentic, 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:57.400 are people who are real, and people who are relatable. 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:01.040 And so what I mean by that is that the 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:05.760 short term shock and awe, anger inducing, blood boiling, surprising, 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:11.000 shocking information might be short term engagement spiking, but it's 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.600 not sustainable. And so the true leaders of the new 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:18.079 social Age are going to be the ones that realize 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:23.600 that long term shareholder value of their companies really should 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:29.720 align with society's values, not just the shock and awe 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:34.480 of the short term spikes and attention. Preach love that. 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:36.960 So do you think that there's a world in which 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:41.760 the algorithms could actually be redesigned to do a better 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:46.120 job of bringing us together? Absolutely? I think that that's 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:49.560 really part of the promise. Now, two things that are 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:55.760 essential to achieving that are algorithmic transparency and choice. We 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:59.160 need to know how these algorithms work. We need to 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:03.880 give consume humors choices between different algorithms and be upfront 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:08.720 about which algorithm is going to deliver what type of result. 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:14.040 So sit on on the Bullshit podcast. We are always 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:18.680 trying to discover how wide the delta is between word 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:23.240 and deed in a company. Fundamentally, Facebook says that they 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:28.320 are bringing us together. So bottom line, how why do 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:34.360 you think Facebook's delta is? Uh? Currently, their delta is 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:39.720 very wide. They have espoused a tremendous amount of the 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:43.400 promise and they haven't paid enough attention to the peril. 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:49.320 So I do believe that they would prefer to be 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:54.280 achieving the promise and avoiding the peril but it takes 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:58.480 effort and it sometimes costs to do that, and I 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:04.920 think that they haven't invested enough in addressing the problems 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:09.520 that are being created in society. They're realizing that their 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:14.320 current path is not sustainable. The question is what is 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:17.960 the path to closing the delta? Right now, we're at 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:21.760 a crossroads. We're at a crossroads between truth and falsity. 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:26.600 We're at a crossroads between meaningful human connection and polarization, 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:31.880 where at a crossroads between democracy and authoritarianism. And the 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:36.200 next eighteen to twenty four months are absolutely critical because 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:40.160 right now the world's attention is on these platforms. We 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:44.880 have to lean in, we have to make the right decisions, 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:48.400 and we have to have science under the hood of 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:52.120 all of these conversations. We need those transparent discussions to 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:54.080 take place, and we need them to take place now. 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:59.520 Sitan believes in the promise of Facebook, but because they 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:03.360 haven't to efficiently addressed the peril, we as a society 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:07.520 are at a crossroads. How Facebook responds in the next 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:11.240 eighteen to twenty four months will be crucial for closing 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:14.879 that gap. And because of this prognosis, I wanted to 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:18.240 get a second opinion. My next guest, Lucy Green is 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:22.920 a futurist, strategist and author of the book Silicon States, 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:26.359 The Power and Politics of Big Tech and What it 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:30.520 Means for our Future. I first asked her why she 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:34.760 thought Facebook changed its mission to focus on bringing people 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:40.600 together in the first place. I think it's partly to 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:44.200 do with the scale of these companies and how quickly 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:49.480 they grew. They epitomized, let's say, in the post bubble era, 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:55.280 this very glamorous idea of startups and hacking and all 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:57.719 of that stuff. And like a certain point, with the 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:02.840 scale that Facebook had reached, it becomes disingenuous. You see 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:07.400 the rise of this idea of purpose branding generally becoming 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:10.960 a bigger thing. So Facebook is not in a vacuum. 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:14.240 Here you have Google removing the whole like Adobe evil, 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:17.920 but sort of also making big claims to solve disease 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:22.760 and solve aging, and air BMB being about belonging. And 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:24.880 this was led by big tech in a major way. 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:29.280 The lexicon of brand messaging really shifted during this moment 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:32.240 to something that there was bigger. In the bigger context, 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:34.960 you have Facebook that can no longer claim to be 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:42.399 a plucky startup moving into international markets like India, like Africa, 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:48.440 like South America, and having a sort of reckless image 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:51.359 is not the way that you do that, right, That 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.600 makes sense. What I did notice in the timeline is 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:57.600 that right after he made this announcement, or very soon 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:01.280 after he made this announcement, the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke. 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:03.920 Do you think that's a coincidence or do you think 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:08.560 those might be connected. I think it's interesting in Facebook's trajectory, 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:12.960 they are quite responsive to these major well, depending on 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.480 how they perceived major scandals to be. Like. So for example, 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:21.320 the previous major big change that you saw in Facebook's 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:26.320 messaging maybe after move Fast and Break Ship, is after 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:29.720 that Aaron Sorkin movie comes out, which is hugely unflattering. 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:33.040 That's right, the social network, Right, so the social network 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:36.240 comes out and suddenly Mark Zuckerberg presents himself as a 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:40.240 major philanthropist, Right, so he was sort of using major 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:44.160 philanthropy as a bomb to negative imagery about him being 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:46.800 sort of an immature brat who created a sort of 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:51.280 women face comparison website. So you do see that as 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:54.600 a sort of pattern, And I wonder also the degree 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:57.840 to which Lenin might have been to some degree strategic 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:02.480 about lack of diversity at Facebook. After the Cambridge Analystic scandal, 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:08.040 I listened to the shareholder call with Facebook, and the 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:13.720 shareholders were saying, even if this was incompetence or lack 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:18.560 of foresight, you should be investing more in looking at 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:24.239 potential fallout from policies like this because they could have 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:27.159 a real knock on effect on the share value of 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:30.119 this company. Well, they were extremely dismissive of that, but 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:34.240 it became very clear that Facebook's notion of foresight, be 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:36.879 its strategic or ethical or whatever. To me, it should 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:40.480 be all of those things. It's sort of woefully under 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:44.600 invested in. And I also think structurally is not empowered. 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:46.640 I speak to people from Facebook often, I have friends 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:48.440 that work for Facebook, and it's very much the sort 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:52.480 of yes culture. People don't like it. If you disagree 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:57.680 or question or debate anything, what would you say their 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:01.040 real mission is? What are they really trying to do? 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:06.119 I think they're trying to own more and more aspects 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:10.919 or like the total communication experience in terms of dialogue 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:16.199 and expression, but also the way not just individuals but 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:19.440 business communications. So they're ramping up their B two B 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:25.000 communication hugely integrating without much I haven't seen much about 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:27.800 the privacy of B two B messaging and so on. 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:32.280 Just trying to own more share of human and business 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:38.400 communication to monetize that through targeted advertising. So just following 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:40.960 the threat of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, for just a 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:46.080 second after it broke, there was a consumer backlash hashtag 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:49.280 delete Facebook. I had a bunch of friends who deleted 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:52.280 their Facebook accounts at the time, but it didn't seem 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:55.560 to have much effect. I think there's a real cognitive 0:21:56.040 --> 0:22:01.479 dissonance between what is becoming more discussed in the public 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:06.840 sphere and what is totally embedded in people's consumer behaviors. 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:10.280 I think people are becoming more and more aware of 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:14.200 the way Amazon treats its employees, but they're still using Amazon. 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:17.200 We've seen that from clear data points, more and more 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:21.800 aware of the gig economy and how predatory it is, 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:24.840 and yet we're all still catching ubers and ordering from 0:22:24.880 --> 0:22:27.679 caviare and so on. And I think it's been very 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:31.160 easy for people to leave Facebook itself. That's where your 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:34.359 mom hangs out right. It's become more extreme, it's become 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:38.600 more light wing, but they're requiring much more in every 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:41.280 acquisition they're acquiring, or for now, you know, they might 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:44.040 be broken up we saw this week. But like you know, 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:47.600 it's very easy to leave Facebook, it's very difficult to 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:51.399 leave WhatsApp. I think by diversifying in the way that 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:54.720 they have, they've managed to make sure, at least to 0:22:54.760 --> 0:22:58.960 some degree, that they're capturing some part of your life 0:22:59.000 --> 0:23:02.080 in a way that is sort of been escapable. Right, Yeah, 0:23:02.200 --> 0:23:04.919 so you can leave Facebook, but you can't ever really 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:07.920 leave Facebook is sort of the idea, right, They've got 0:23:07.920 --> 0:23:12.359 you surrounded. Yes, losing a few eyeballs during delete Facebook 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:14.720 didn't seem to slow them down. But I actually thought 0:23:14.720 --> 0:23:17.240 more recently in the wake of the George Floyd murder 0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:22.239 in Minnesota, when a new outcry arose from organizations like 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:27.480 Stop Hate for Profit asking advertisers to boycott Facebook because 0:23:27.520 --> 0:23:32.320 the platform has continued to essentially condone and spread hate speech. 0:23:32.920 --> 0:23:36.480 And a lot of advertisers responded and signed up Big Ones, 0:23:36.560 --> 0:23:41.480 Coca Cola, north Face, ri I, Unilever, like giant Global corporations. 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:44.400 But even that seems to have petered out. At that point. 0:23:44.480 --> 0:23:48.199 I thought maybe they would listen because ad dollars ultimately 0:23:48.240 --> 0:23:49.679 at the end of the day, or the thing that 0:23:49.720 --> 0:23:53.320 they care about, but that didn't even seem to have 0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:57.480 an effect. I think it speaks to how much they 0:23:57.640 --> 0:24:03.000 own the consumer experience, right, right, So even advertisers can't 0:24:03.000 --> 0:24:06.480 avoid it. I think advertisers have literally no power in 0:24:06.480 --> 0:24:10.120 this scenario. So if you are an advertiser, there isn't 0:24:10.119 --> 0:24:14.320 really much alternative And if you're a CMO an accountable 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:16.280 for that stuff, I think you just ultimately have to 0:24:16.359 --> 0:24:21.840 vote with your KPI s right, Okay, Lucy, we are 0:24:21.920 --> 0:24:25.640 always trying to discover how wide the delta is between 0:24:25.720 --> 0:24:29.400 word and deed in a company. Facebook says that they're 0:24:29.440 --> 0:24:35.399 bringing us together. How wide do you think Facebook's delta is? 0:24:40.280 --> 0:24:44.200 I mean, it could not be more polar, right, There's 0:24:44.240 --> 0:24:47.080 just this huge, huge gap. Just to put a fine 0:24:47.200 --> 0:25:00.760 point on it, Lucy, is Facebook a bullshitter? Yes? Thank you, folks. 0:25:00.920 --> 0:25:04.200 It is time to make the call. Is Facebook really 0:25:04.359 --> 0:25:07.040 giving people the power to build community and bringing the 0:25:07.080 --> 0:25:10.400 world closer together? Based on what I've heard so far, 0:25:11.160 --> 0:25:16.560 I'm calling bullshit? But remember bullshit is a treatable disease. 0:25:17.240 --> 0:25:21.840 So after the diagnosis, we always discussed the cure. So 0:25:21.880 --> 0:25:24.680 I've invited three authorities on the topic to join us 0:25:24.680 --> 0:25:29.000 for a roundtable discussion of the positive actions Facebook should 0:25:29.040 --> 0:25:34.440 take to sort themselves out. This conversation and Facebook's official 0:25:34.600 --> 0:25:57.120 BS score right after a quick break, welcome back. Since 0:25:57.160 --> 0:26:00.520 we've concluded that there is a pretty big gap between 0:26:00.560 --> 0:26:04.800 what Facebook says it stands for and what it's actually doing, 0:26:05.520 --> 0:26:07.919 what should Mark Zuckerberg and his leadership team do to 0:26:08.040 --> 0:26:11.840 solve it? In this podcast, we don't just curse the darkness. 0:26:12.240 --> 0:26:14.800 We also like to light a few candles, So I've 0:26:14.840 --> 0:26:17.560 assembled a panel of experts and asked them to propose 0:26:17.640 --> 0:26:21.000 some concrete things that Facebook should do to get back 0:26:21.040 --> 0:26:26.240 on track. Joining us, we have sit on it Roll, 0:26:26.640 --> 0:26:29.800 who you have already met and who graciously agreed to 0:26:29.880 --> 0:26:33.080 join us for the group discussion here as well. Thank 0:26:33.119 --> 0:26:36.159 you for that sit On and welcome Thanks for having me, 0:26:36.480 --> 0:26:39.880 and we are joined by two new guests. Cameron Nascar, 0:26:40.480 --> 0:26:44.720 Founder and CEO of Cross Media. Founded in two thousand, 0:26:45.160 --> 0:26:51.040 Cross Media is a forward thinking, transparent, highly analytical, totally 0:26:51.040 --> 0:26:54.600 integrated creative media agency with over a hundred and sixty employees. 0:26:55.160 --> 0:26:59.240 Thanks so much for being here today, Cameron, You're very welcome. Last, 0:26:59.320 --> 0:27:02.520 but certainly not at least, we have Rosemary Ryan, founder 0:27:02.520 --> 0:27:06.359 and co CEO of co Collective and also my business partner. 0:27:06.960 --> 0:27:10.200 Rosemary is a renowned leader, brand builder, and rabble rouser 0:27:10.240 --> 0:27:14.480 in the marketing industry. Thank you for being here, Rose here. 0:27:15.320 --> 0:27:18.080 All right, so let's get right into it. So on, 0:27:18.240 --> 0:27:21.040 I'm gonna ask you to go first. What are some 0:27:21.119 --> 0:27:24.880 things that Facebook could do differently to truly live its 0:27:24.920 --> 0:27:27.639 mission to empower people, to build community and bring us 0:27:27.640 --> 0:27:30.640 all closer together. Well, I think it's a good mission 0:27:30.800 --> 0:27:33.040 if we can live up to it, and I think 0:27:33.040 --> 0:27:36.200 there are three things that Facebook could do. Two more 0:27:36.280 --> 0:27:40.240 closely aligned with their mission, and that is moved from 0:27:40.640 --> 0:27:45.680 UH perspective of short term thinking, two more long term thinking. Second, 0:27:45.800 --> 0:27:52.160 to listen to their employees, and third to truly embrace transparency. 0:27:52.160 --> 0:27:55.080 And let me tell you what I mean. So right now, 0:27:55.240 --> 0:28:00.679 Facebook's business model UH is based on attention and engagement, 0:28:01.240 --> 0:28:04.520