WEBVTT - Part One: Let's Look at the Facebook Papers 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:09.400 Uhmerica, I don't know why I opened the show this way. 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:12.440 I really, I really don't know why you did. I 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:17.920 don't know why I did that. Um, Jamie, Jamie, Jamie, Hi, Hi, 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:23.919 is this a podcast? Yeah, it's like, after all these years, 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:27.479 it's a podcast. It's a podcast. It's a podcast. Sometimes 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:30.880 podcast I get on the phone to podcast and I 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:32.720 think that I'm just talking to my friends, But then 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:36.320 I remember that every relationship in my life is dominated 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:39.280 by podcasting, and I don't even know how to interact 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:42.000 with people outside of the filter of a zoom call anymore. 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:49.440 That it is incredibly accurately. I really, that's actually the 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:53.000 saddest thing I've ever heard of my entire life. Thank you, Jamie. 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:56.160 How are you doing it to me? Like? I'm gonna agree? 0:00:56.440 --> 0:01:00.920 I was? I was terrible, and then I was great, 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:03.960 and now I'm fine. Excellent. That sounds like a solid trajectory. 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:06.240 That's a good little hero's journey. That's like the that's 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:08.640 like The Green Night. More or less, I didn't see 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:11.120 that movie. It looked long. It is it is, but 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.000 it's quite a film. I would not see a movie 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:18.400 over an hour and forty minutes anymore. That's marred out. 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:21.280 You know what, I don't recommend for short movies as 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:24.440 Herbert West Reanimator or The Reanimator. Sorry, it was before 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:27.120 the Herbert West one, which was a Halloween movie. I 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:30.720 loved and then rewatched this Halloween and it was really 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:34.480 great up until one one really horrifying scene that I 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:37.959 had kind of forgotten Reanimator before. It's got some amazing 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:39.840 stuff in it if you're a horror movie fan, and 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:44.440 then there is an incredibly uncomfortable sexual assault scene. Um 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:50.160 that is like really bad, like really bad. Wow, thank you. 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:52.680 I think we're opening this episode in a really strong, 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.280 powerful than you focused way. I want to recommend a 0:01:56.280 --> 0:02:00.400 horror movie to you. If it's Midsummer, I'm not going 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:04.320 to listen. It's not. It's not. I only watch Midsummer 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:07.480 to get all horny for Will Poulter, and then I 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:11.920 turned it off Shifter he dies. But that's a reasonable 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:14.840 thing for a person to say. Absolutely, when the person 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:16.799 that I want to have sex with dies, I turn 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:19.600 off the movie because it's boring. After that, it's a 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.480 very healthy way to go through life. Thank you so much. Okay, 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:24.960 So the movie, which I will show you at some 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:29.960 point is called Pin heard of Pin so Pin Pin 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:35.080 is a It's about a pediatrician who has like a 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:39.400 life size medical dummy sitting in his office. Oh, this 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:42.680 doesn't seem like it's going a good place. The pediatrician 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:46.280 the only way. It's like a psychological thriller. It's not 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:49.840 really that gory. But the pediatrician the only way that 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.720 he can communicate with emotional honesty with his children is 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:58.080 by making a little ventriloquist ventriloquist voice for the dummy. 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:02.720 And so the ventriloquist dummy gives the kids sex head 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:07.680 the ventrala because dummy does all this stuff, and then um, 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:10.040 and then one of the kids thinks that the ventrals 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:13.760 quest dummy whose name is Pin, is real. And then 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:16.960 Pin starts to like control his thoughts and actions. And 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:20.560 then there's a scene where a nurse has sex with Pin, 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:24.480 but he's just a dummy. Okay, it's the greatest movie 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:27.040 I've ever seen. I'm not doing it justice that that 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:29.800 that sounds like quite a film, Jamie. That sounds like 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:33.640 quite a film. Mars has sex with Pin, Robert and 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:36.840 I don't. Yeah, I mean that definitely does sound like 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:41.480 a scene that would make me have very specific physical reaction. 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:43.240 And the best part about that scene is that the 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:45.720 nurse never comes back and it's never addressed in the 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:49.320 movie again. And that now that now you're speaking the language, 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:54.000 the language of shoddy filmmaking, something horrible happens and then 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:57.160 you just canonically have to forget in order to watch 0:03:57.240 --> 0:03:59.800 the rest of the movie. No, I'm on board with that. 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:02.440 And you know, Jamie, now that you mentioned quitting a 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:03.920 movie as soon as the person you want to have 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:06.480 sex with dies, that may explain where I've never made 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:09.080 it past the halfway point in the first Star Wars movie. 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:12.200 Really wow, Yeah, once Alec Guinness is out of the picture, 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:15.160 why even keep watching? You know? See? Well, yeah, you're like, well, 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:17.479 the hottest person is gone. I don't want not a 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:20.960 single fuckable face. And the rest of that film a 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:24.719 bunch of ug goes Jamie. So you know who else 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:28.400 is a bunch of ug? Gosh that we did it. 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:35.600 It's so perfect. The people who run Facebook, it is 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:38.680 it is. We're talking today about the Facebook papers, which 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:40.960 is we'll talk about this a little bit more in detailed, 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:43.839 but an enormous cash of internal Facebook documents that just 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:46.159 got leaked revealing a tremendous amount of funked up shit. 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:49.800 And I think we have to start with the uncomfortable 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:54.240 situation that is everybody talking shit about how Mark Zuckerberg 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:56.840 looks like an android. I feel so mixed about it 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:00.960 because on one hand, yes, the thing that's bad about 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:04.080 him is not his appearance, but also yes, he does. 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:07.800 He does hit the uncanny valley. There's something missing in 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:10.599 his eyes. Look, there's something and and that's ivy league 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:13.800 boy syndrome, right, Like, that's not just him, that's anyone 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:20.880 who who graduates screen photos. I truly. I mean, even 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:22.960 though we did just refer to the entire cast of 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.520 Star Wars one as a bunch of ugos hideous, do 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:31.360 feel that it's like the worst, the most lazy thing 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:35.000 you could do is go after how someone looks when 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:37.240 there are so many other evil facets of him. I 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:39.400 will agree that there is no light in his eyes. 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:42.599 There's certainly no light in his eyes. There's nothing like 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:46.400 the pupils are very There's not that little thing that's 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:48.440 supposed to be there is not there. Yeah, he could 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:50.279 watch a kitten get murdered and it would just be 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:53.400 a dial tone inside his soul. He looks like a 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:57.520 character from the Polar Express. He looks he looks like 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.920 Herbert West from the movie Rhianna of Matter, but less 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:05.200 cares to check that he looks like Pin. Look up Pen. 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:08.839 I'm not going to look up Pen. At this point 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:11.919 in the history of the show, Jamie, we've recorded a 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.520 lot of podcast episodes about Facebook. You have been there 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:17.960 for what three of them? Um? Yeah, I forget. I 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:20.800 forget entirely how many episodes we did on Facebook. We 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:23.359 did three episodes on like the creation of Facebook, and 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:25.720 it's kind of a brief list of its crimes. I 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:27.839 think we did at least one follow up, maybe two 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:32.120 follow ups. Um. And then we've mentioned Facebook foppery fakery 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:34.400 in episodes of Like It could happen here in Worst 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:36.599 Year Ever. Facebook is personal to me for a couple 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.800 of reasons. Number one, number of people who helped raise 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:42.240 me have slowly lost their grip on reality and the 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:46.160 face of viral propaganda spread be a via Facebook's engagement algorithm, 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:49.200 and that's kind of bumped me out. Um yeah. And 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:51.520 number two, my friends and I all lost our jobs 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:53.599 in the company we built for a decade due to 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.719 the fact that Facebook told criminal lies about video metrics 0:06:57.000 --> 0:06:59.320 that they have currently been find forty million dollars for, 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:03.000 which also frustrating. Actually over it, it sounds like you're 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:05.720 really over it. And you know, I I we've talked 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:07.920 about this. I don't know if it was on micro net, 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:10.320 but yeah, I also asked my job to that. I 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:13.760 mean we worked at the same place. Yeah, worked it 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:17.360 like yeah, I mean they all the whole industry went 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:20.840 up in flames. It's so sace. I'm still I'm still 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:23.120 mad about it. Yeah, I am mad about it, even 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:25.560 though like things have been going fine, great for me 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:29.280 career wise. Um, it's just like kind of bullshit. It's 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:32.080 kind of frustrating. It used to be. Did you catch 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:35.640 that Robert's career is going great? Yea? In my head, 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:39.520 I went, You're welcome. I'm a human rocket ship. I'm 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:43.600 the iggy pop of talking about Facebook Welcome. It's kind 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.720 of nice that we all just had to pivot to, like, Okay, 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:49.480 you can still talk about what you're passionate about, but 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:51.400 just no one has to look at you anymore. And 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:53.880 I'm like, that's actually not the worst thing. That's that ideal. 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:56.520 And in my case, it was like you don't have 0:07:56.600 --> 0:08:01.120 to write articles. You just have to tell on a microphone, 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:05.720 which involves writing an article. But I don't know, they're easier. 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:09.520 It's true. You can, like you can really have a 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:11.720 series of bullet points and be like, well, you just 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:15.720 don't have to edit anymore. That's that's what that's what 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:17.840 we that's what we got rid of in this pivot 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:21.800 to podcasting. Editors were all, we're all green walding a 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:24.440 little bit. Yeah, it all worked out, but you know, 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:29.240 but also Q and on stealing the fact that there 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:31.440 will soon be death squads roving many of our neighbor 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:34.160 Like there's there's downsides to it too, you know. Um, 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.200 but then also meta, you know, and then yea meta, 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:39.280 thank god, we're getting meta. We'll be talking about meta 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:42.880 at some point. Um. But yeah, like it's it's Facebook's bad. 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:45.440 I don't like Facebook. But in one of those episodes, 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:47.480 and I forget which of those episodes, I said something 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:49.760 along the lines of, at this point, there's no moral 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:54.240 case for remaining employed by Facebook. Um. And earlier this year, 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:57.200 a Facebook employee named Francis Hoggan came to the same 0:08:57.240 --> 0:08:59.880 conclusion on her own. Rather than jump out with her 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:02.480 dock options or whatever perk she decrued, and then get 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:04.600 another tech industry job, which is what a lot of 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:06.960 people do. I know people who have done this when 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:09.880 they were like, Facebook's kind of fucked up. I'm just 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:12.920 gonna go hop to another country company and make even 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:16.200 more money. Uh. Instead of doing that, Francis spent weeks 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:21.640 painstakingly photographing internal Facebook has its own internal communications network 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:24.160 that is patterned off of Facebook, but it's for like 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:29.000 the corporate the the employees to use. Um well, I 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:32.160 mean it's it's like it's like Slack, but probably more 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:36.240 all consuming and soul destroying. Um yeah, but she is. 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:40.640 There's like nothing worse. I mean, personality wise, I can't 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:44.640 stand someone who's like really killing it on Slack. That's 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:47.760 one of my least favorite traits in a person, as 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:51.160 if they're they're really giving it a percent on Slack. 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:53.959 I'm like, just I'm I'm asleep. I hate it. No, 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:56.640 I mean, Sophie barely hears from me when we need 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:58.920 to work, let alone, when we don't need to work 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:09.720 hardcent not true good stuff. So rather than you know, 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:12.839 take the money and run, so she gets in this 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:15.920 like internal communications app that Facebook has and because they 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:19.360 have protections about like because like they know that this 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:21.720 is a risk people leaking internal documents as a risk, 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:23.840 they have like security things set up and to get 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:26.280 past them, she just photographs a bunch of internal documents 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:29.360 on her phone. Um a huge Like she gets a 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:31.920 lot of shit. Uh, And then she didn't leaks those 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.840 files to several news agencies and are good friends at 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.880 the sec. UH. This week, we're going to go through 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:40.120 some of those documents and all of the damning ship 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:43.600 they reveal. The first and perhaps most important revelation is 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:47.440 this many Facebook employees understand that their company is a 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:49.800 force for evil. Some of them have vowed to fix 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:52.400 it from the inside. Others are convinced the evil is 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:55.720 outweighed by some nebulous good. But at the core of it, 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:59.080 they know that what they were a part of is problematic, 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:00.840 and a lot of them hate themselves for it. You 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:04.520 can really see that coming across in some of these conversations, 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:10.000 evidence of the yeah it's good stuff, don't you love? Yeah, 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:13.559 when human beings compromise the very nature of their soul 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:16.920 uh in the in seeking profit Yeah. And then and 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:19.560 then you know, you watch the you watch the light 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:21.440 leave their eyes, and then you're supposed to feel bad 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:25.240 for them. Uh. Evidence of the struggle over the soul 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:27.920 of Facebook can be found in the reactions of employees 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:30.120 to the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement. After 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:33.959 the murder of George Floyd by a cop that June, 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:37.280 as protests reached their height, a Facebook employee posted a 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:41.560 message to the company racial justice chatboards stating, get bright 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:44.080 Bart out of news tap. He was enraged at the 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:46.559 fact that the far right publisher was pushing this information 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:49.680 about violence at protests, and included screen grabs of bright 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:54.199 Bart articles with titles like Minneapolis Mayhem, massive looting, buildings 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:59.760 and flames, bonfires exclamation point, and BLM protesters pummel police cars. 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.680 Wonder how much more attention they paid the police cars 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:05.400 than the man who was choked to death by a cop. Anyway, 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:09.960 good stuff, good journalism, nailing it. This employee claimed that 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:12.680 these articles were part of a concerted effort by Breitbart 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:15.200 and other right wing media sites to quote paint Black 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:18.440 Americans and Black lead movements in a negative way. He 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:21.320 argued that none of those hyperpartisan sites deserved to be 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:25.959 highlighted by the Facebook news tab, so Facebook's News tab 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:29.520 consists of two tiers of content providers. Right, It's just 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:30.960 like the tab that tells you what's going on in 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.400 the world, and all of the people whose stories get 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.119 in there have been vetted to some extent by Facebook. 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:39.040 So there's a first tier of big publishers like the 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:42.280 New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, like the big dogs, 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:44.319 and they get paid. Facebook gives the money to be 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:46.319 a part of the News tab. And then there is 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:48.760 a second tier of news sites who are not paid 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:51.440 but did have to get vetted as a reliable news 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:53.600 source for Facebook to put them on their News tab. 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.200 And bright Bart is in that ladder tier, which means 0:12:57.200 --> 0:13:00.480 Facebook isn't giving them money directly, but is institutionally pumping 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:03.880 a shipload of of like traffic towards their propaganda and 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.440 throwing a lot of their propaganda out into people's news feeds. 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:10.160 In their public facing statements, Facebook claims to only include 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:13.280 sites on their newstab who do quality news reporting. Sites 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:17.320 that repeatedly share disinformation, it claims are banned. This functions 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:21.120 on a strike system. In July, President Trump tweeted a 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:24.440 Brightbart video claiming you don't need a mask to protect 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:28.960 against COVID nineteen. The video also spread misinformation about hydroxy clarquin. 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:32.880 Despite the fact that this video clearly violated Facebook stated standards, 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:34.800 it was able to reach millions of people through the 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:38.080 newstab before Facebook took it down from the Wall Street Journal. 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:41.720 According to Facebook's fact checking rules, pages can be punished 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:44.320 if they acquire too many strikes, meaning they published content 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:47.679 deemed false by third party fact checkers. It requires two 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.319 strikes within ninety days to be deemed a repeat offender, 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:53.240 which can result in a user being suspended from posting content. 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:56.840 More strikes can lead to reductions and distribution and advertising revenue. 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.840 In a town hall, Mr Zuckerberg said Brightbart wasn't punished 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:02.200 for video because that was its only infraction in a 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:05.720 ninety day period. According to internal chats described to describe 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:09.480 the Yeah, now that seems wrong, right, knowing Brightbart that 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:12.800 they would have one strike and that's so I mean, 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:16.160 and was the reason that that video reached so many 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:17.960 people before it was taken down. It was that just 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:21.120 like a delay in fact checking, does that mean that 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:24.320 a certain number of people need to like? No? I mean? 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:26.800 Trump tweeted it and it spread and Facebook didn't want 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:29.160 to take it down until it had it had already 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:31.640 kind of made them some money, I think. I also 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:33.200 think it's just like they don't put a lot of 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:35.400 work into checking on this stuff. They don't. They don't 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:36.840 want to piss it. We're talking about all this, but 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:39.920 like they also just don't want to piss any conservatives off. 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:41.880 Like there's a lot of things going into why this 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:46.280 stuff is not in fashioned to any degree. Now you 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:49.200 express surprise at the fact that that Brightbart only had 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:53.160 one strike in ninety days. Let's talk about why. Yeah, So, 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:56.160 thanks to Francis Hoggans leaked documents, we now know that 0:14:56.200 --> 0:15:00.440 Brightbart was one of the news sites Facebook considered managed partners. 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:03.000 These sites are part of a program whereby the social 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.840 network pairs handlers who work at Facebook with the website. 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:09.920 These handlers give Facebook a back channel to sites that 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:13.360 spread disinformation, which allows them to have content removed or 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.720 altered without giving the content maker a strike. So, in 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:18.840 other words, they put out the content it gets few 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:22.720 millions of times. Facebook one employee like messages and editor 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:24.840 and says like, hey, you need to change this now. 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.240 It gets changed after it's spread around, and they have 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:29.280 a way to strike and thus stay on the news tab. 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:33.640 That's a good way to do a back channel. That's 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:36.800 so dark, Okay, I mean that. I I guess if 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:39.320 you're looking for a way to keep misinformation up, that 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:42.760 is a logical way to go about it. Yeah. Yeah, 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:46.120 they do a perfect job. So it's actually you're saying 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:50.680 that bright Bart is accurate. Yes, perfectly accurate. That is 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.600 what we always say about Bridbart and Andrew Brightbart, a 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:56.320 man who did not do cocaine to until he died. 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.840 Um about someone who's who's got light in his eyes. 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:05.240 Not anymore, It doesn't so actual strikes were automatically escalated 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:08.200 for review by senior Facebook executives, who could decide to 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.600 overturn the punishment and remove a strike. Through these methods, 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:15.400 Facebook strike system for spreading disinformation actually proved to be 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.320 nothing at all, and he sufficiently large right wing website 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:22.040 was given numerous opportunities to avoid strikes without being delisted. 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:24.800 This was a problem that went further than Breitbart, as 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:27.680 The Wall Street General reports. In an internal memo, the 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:29.840 engineer said that he based his assessment in part on 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:32.640 a queue of three dozen escalations that he had stumbled onto. 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:35.120 The vast majority of which were on behalf of conservative 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:38.280 content producers. A summary of the engineer's findings was posted 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:40.960 to an internal message board. One case he cited regarding 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:44.120 pro Trump influencers Diamond and Silk, third party fact checkers 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:47.120 rated as false post on their page that said was 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:50.200 like porn stars Wait diamonded Silk? Oh do you not 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:53.600 know about Diamond and Silk? Oh? They are? Are they banned? 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:56.720 They're not great? No, no, but they're bad. They they're 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:00.640 not not nice people, not good people. Um so they 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:04.040 got yeah, it's a fact Checkers rated false a post 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:06.280 a post that Diamond and Silk made stating how the 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:08.840 hell is allocating million dollars in order to give a 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:10.880 raise to House members that don't give a damn about 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:15.399 Americans going to help stimulate America's economy. When fact checkers 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:18.119 rated that post false, a Facebook staff are involved in 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:20.360 the partner program, argued that there should be no punishment, 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:23.159 noting the publisher has not hesitated going public about their 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:26.720 concerns around alleged anti conservative bias on Facebook. So this 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:28.439 is a pretty minor case, but it shows what's going 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:30.640 on there. They post something that's not accurate. This raise 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:34.200 is not something that's like going through UM and fact 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:36.920 checkers flag it is inaccurate, which should mean it gets removed. 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:39.240 But then someone at Facebook is like, if we remove it, 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:41.520 they're gonna yell about us removing their post and it's 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:43.120 going to be a pain in the asked for us. 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:46.120 So just like fuck it. Yeah, this is I feel 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:49.440 like this is always the route that Facebook does. It's 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:56.240 just like this big, gigantic, bureaucratic style operation that people 0:17:56.760 --> 0:18:00.879 uh do shitty things so that they're not convenience or 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:04.639 yelled at by someone else. Like it's also insidious and 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:09.200 also so boring at the same time. Yeah, it's it's 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:13.840 the consequences that aren't boring. Um. And to some extent, 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:16.320 this is true of a lot of the worst things 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:21.199 in history. There were an awful lot of men intotalitarian 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:24.960 societies who signed effectively or literally the death warrants of 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:28.000 their fellow man because like, well, otherwise it's going to 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:30.520 be a real pain in the ass for me, My 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:33.440 day at the office is going to be terror I 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:35.720 don't want to take this to the boss. I don't 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:40.240 want to escalate this yet just kill them. Yeah, yeah, 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:42.800 I mean it is so I like the most evil 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:45.160 stuff is done in a very slow and boring way. 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:47.960 I feel like it's just because if you can get 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:50.280 people to, you know, fall asleep, you can get away 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:54.800 with fucking murder. Like literally, Yep, it's good stuff. Loving 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:58.800 these papers, Robert, Yeah, they're very fun. So Diamond and 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:01.440 Silk were able to be the third party fact checker 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.440 into changing the rating on their article down from to 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:07.639 partly false, and with the help of the managed partner 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:11.320 escalation process, all of their strikes were removed. Um the 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.479 chat conversations that the general review showed that inside the company, 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:19.040 Facebook employees repeatedly demanded that higher ups explain the allegations. Quote, 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:22.520 we are apparently providing hate speech policy consulting and consequence 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:26.560 mitigation services to select partners, wrote one employee. Leadership is 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:29.960 scared of being accused of bias, wrote another. So that 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:33.560 seems bad. That seem good. Now, that seems like the 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:35.320 root of a lot of problems we've been having as 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:38.600 a society. Then like, well, conservatives are loud when they're angry, 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:41.200 so let's just let them lie and try to get 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:45.040 people killed. Diamond and Silk was doing that in that case, 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:47.360 but that that's a thing in writing media. Now when 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:49.080 you're saying, I don't know what to picture when you 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:51.480 say diamond and silk. So at first I was picturing 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:56.960 porn stars. Then I was picturing hair metal band looked 0:19:56.960 --> 0:20:00.440 more like gospel singers. I was picturing two Springer sp annuals. 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:03.119 Most recently, I don't think I'll stay there. Yeah, no, 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:07.359 I wouldn't. I wouldn't. You should? You should look them up. UM, Yeah, 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:10.640 they're they're they're. There are two musicians who like opposed 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.560 with Trump and have like a I think they're on TikTok. 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:18.000 They're just like right wing media influencers, and they're they're 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.240 they're not they're not great people. UM. In a farewell 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.840 memo of colleagues in late one member of Facebook's Integrity 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:27.280 team UM and the Integrity team, their job is to 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:31.240 reduce harmful behavior on the platform, UH complained that Facebook's 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:35.040 tolerance for Britbarts stop them from effectively fighting hate speech. Quote. 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:37.919 We make special exceptions to our written policies for them, 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:40.720 and we even explicitly endorsed them by including the mistrusted 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:45.720 partners in our core products. Yeah, it's it's bad, and 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:48.480 you can see, like there's this constant with the Facebook 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:52.159 papers revealed, there's this constant seesaw and aggressive between the 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:56.080 integrity team, the people whose job is to reduce the 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:59.600 harm the site does, and everyone else who's only real 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:02.119 job is to increase engagement on the site. Right. That 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:03.880 is how you get your bonus, That is how you 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:06.520 get the kudos from the boss is keeping people on 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:09.560 the site for longer. So most of Facebook that is 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:11.600 their job, and a small number of people their job 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:13.560 is to try and make sure the site doesn't contribute 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:16.560 to an ethnic cleansing, and the ethnic cleansing people like 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:19.000 the people trying to stop that. The best way to 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:20.640 do that is always going to be to do things 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:23.359 that cut down on engagement with the site, and so 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:27.879 they nearly always lose the fights they have with everybody else. Um, 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:32.679 Jesus Christ. Yeah, it's great, Okay, okay, Yeah, that is 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:36.160 the scariest extension of that logic, yep ye. One thing 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:38.040