Speaker 1: Hi Brian, Hi Katie Brian. The top website in the
Speaker 1: US is Google. Number two is YouTube. Do you know
Speaker 1: what number three is? Well, if you'd asked me up
Speaker 1: until recently, I would have said maybe Facebook or Amazon.
Speaker 1: You know, you would have been wrong, because it turns out,
Speaker 1: according to the most recent data, the number three website
Speaker 1: in America is actually read It, which I think we
Speaker 1: were both pretty surprised to hear. Yeah, and that brings
Speaker 1: us to our guest today, Reddit CEO and one of
Speaker 1: its co founders, Steve Huffman. We taped this podcast in
Speaker 1: front of a live audience at the wonderful Aspen Ideas Festival.
Speaker 1: I love this festival. I've come every year, I think
Speaker 1: for the past decades, so clearly it's one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: Now many, if not most, of the people who use
Speaker 1: Reddit are in their teens and twenties. So for my
Speaker 1: peers and others who may not be that familiar with it,
Speaker 1: let me get you up to speed. Reddit is a
Speaker 1: site that's made up of lots of different communities called
Speaker 1: sub reddits, where people can post articles, videos, thoughts. The
Speaker 1: sky's the limit really, and there are actually over a
Speaker 1: million subreddits devoted to everything from world news to crafts
Speaker 1: to life hacks like how do you get abs? Like
Speaker 1: Brian Goldsmith answers it's very hard, very funny. The site
Speaker 1: actually has remarkably simple interface, almost dated really, And I
Speaker 1: was very excited to talk to Steve Reddit CEO because
Speaker 1: the site has found itself in the crosshairs of some
Speaker 1: very thorny issues these days. So we spoke with Steve
Speaker 1: about everything from fake news to Russian bods, to pizza
Speaker 1: gate to hate speech, and we started by asking how
Speaker 1: would he describe Reddit? Even at Reddit, this is something
Speaker 1: we debate a lot of what redd it is and
Speaker 1: how to explain Reddit to folks, but effectively read it
Speaker 1: as a network of communities. And so we have communities
Speaker 1: that cover pretty much any topic imaginable. So things that
Speaker 1: that are very recognizable, so news, sports, politics, um, pretty
Speaker 1: much any interest and passion. And birds with arms is
Speaker 1: would be up there. Um birds with arms as a
Speaker 1: community where one photoshops arms on the birds. Um. No,
Speaker 1: it's this is important stuff. I'm glad you're here. Um.
Speaker 1: And then we also have communities. Um uh, excuse me,
Speaker 1: I cleaned myself this morning. I have a hairball. Um.
Speaker 1: Communities uh dedicated to UH support in helping each other out.
Speaker 1: Some communities for new parents who are maybe struggling with that,
Speaker 1: our communities for people are struggling with addiction or other
Speaker 1: difficult times in their life. And so really any topic
Speaker 1: around UH, you know, the things that humans will gather
Speaker 1: around a communicate around, is represented on Reddit somewhere. And
Speaker 1: so our mission Reddit is to bring UH community in
Speaker 1: a sense of belonging to everybody on the planet. So
Speaker 1: since people in this room no offense to you, all
Speaker 1: may not be read it's demographic. Who is Rennet's demographic?
Speaker 1: And why do you think it caught fire so quickly
Speaker 1: at the outset? Sure, so uh you all are are
Speaker 1: maybe not our primary demographic, but um we read it
Speaker 1: is broad enough now that that pretty much everybody has
Speaker 1: represented on Reddit somewhere. So I guarantee all of you
Speaker 1: have a home on Reddit somewhere the way Redd has
Speaker 1: grown our origin. So we're thirteen years old. We started
Speaker 1: in two thousand five. My college roommate and I started
Speaker 1: read it immediately after we graduated, and at the time
Speaker 1: read it was just a pile of links, no categorization,
Speaker 1: no communities, no no commenting even and what what made
Speaker 1: redd at work. Then it was very, very serendipitous. And
Speaker 1: the reason we grew is because both those that serendipity,
Speaker 1: you never knew what you're gonna find. You're gonna find
Speaker 1: some politics, Are you're gonna find an Internet meme? Are
Speaker 1: you going to find commentary critical of Reddit or something else?
Speaker 1: And it was very genuine and authentic, and we resonated
Speaker 1: with I think I think a generation of people who
Speaker 1: had just become kind of skeptical and jaded of of everything, right,
Speaker 1: of all media, of news, of Anything's just this feeling
Speaker 1: of like everything is bullshit, I'm always being lied to,
Speaker 1: And so we still have that aspect to read it,
Speaker 1: and so we still um pick up users in high
Speaker 1: school and college. I think when when when young adults
Speaker 1: are turning into adults and they're starting to develop kind
Speaker 1: of worldviews and skepticism and critical thinking, read it is
Speaker 1: a great place for them. But then we tend to
Speaker 1: keep them, you know, and and and so we're thirteen
Speaker 1: years old now, so I would say our our media
Speaker 1: age is probably you know, let's call it three, but
Speaker 1: our average age is increasing over time. So people who
Speaker 1: want kind of an outlet to express their views and
Speaker 1: to share it with other people are attracted to read it.
Speaker 1: But like all of their social platforms, you all have
Speaker 1: been going through your fair share of controversy, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about some of the challenges that you all
Speaker 1: had faced as a platform in a moment. But first
Speaker 1: we want to talk about how this whole thing began.
Speaker 1: You started Reddit. You and your college roommate founded the
Speaker 1: company just a few weeks after graduating from the University
Speaker 1: of Virginia back in two thousand five. So how did
Speaker 1: you come up with the idea? Well, almost accidentally, my
Speaker 1: roommate Alexis Hanion and I we we have been roommates
Speaker 1: and housemates all through college, and on our last year
Speaker 1: of college, we started talking about companies that we might
Speaker 1: start together. And at the same time an idol of mine,
Speaker 1: this fellow Paul Graham, who he started a company of
Speaker 1: his own that sold during the bubble, and he would
Speaker 1: write online evangelizing startups and and his whole journey, and
Speaker 1: he eventually founded why comminat So he started by Combinator,
Speaker 1: which at the time was a kind of a rag
Speaker 1: tag group of investors and is now the largest siege
Speaker 1: stage investment firm in the world. They do about four
Speaker 1: companies a year. Back in two thousand five, we applied
Speaker 1: to y C with a completely different idea. I had
Speaker 1: to do with ordering food from from your cell phone.
Speaker 1: We were wisely rejected this first one. Yes, yeah, it
Speaker 1: was an idea actually ahead of its time. Um uh.
Speaker 1: But but Paul and his partner Jessica basically reached out
Speaker 1: to us and said, we really like you too. If
Speaker 1: you want to be in this program, let's find something
Speaker 1: else for you to do. So we had a brainstorming
Speaker 1: session and in that session we basically decided we were
Speaker 1: going to build I have this on my first page
Speaker 1: and notes, We're going to build a front page of
Speaker 1: the Internet. And that's something we used to say tongue
Speaker 1: in cheek back then um, and I always say it um,
Speaker 1: I think somewhat somewhat proudly now. But that was really
Speaker 1: the genesis of the idea and our motivation in those
Speaker 1: those first months was I didn't want to look stupid
Speaker 1: in front of Paul Graham, and I didn't want my
Speaker 1: mom to be right because she wanted me to get
Speaker 1: a real job. And I was going up to Boston
Speaker 1: to work with this weirdo Paul on this on this
Speaker 1: Reddit thing. Fun fact, by the way, we like to
Speaker 1: sprinkle our podcast with these. Your co founder, Alexis you
Speaker 1: just mentioned, is now married to Serena Williams. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: That is a fun fact. Do you and your wife
Speaker 1: ever double date with them? I am no longer married.
Speaker 1: Well that do you ever go out as a threesome?
Speaker 1: Let's not misinterpret that question. Okay, do you ever tagal
Speaker 1: on ever the third Wheel? Uh? No, very very seldomly
Speaker 1: Alexis and Serna, I have honestly no idea where in
Speaker 1: the world they are at any point in time. But
Speaker 1: you're still good friends with Alexis. We've been friends a
Speaker 1: long time. Yeah. Well, let's talk about after you launched
Speaker 1: the company, because it was seventeen months later and you
Speaker 1: sold it to Conde Nast of all places. You have
Speaker 1: said that you regretted that decision. Why, well, I have
Speaker 1: said that, and I've also backtracked off of that. I've
Speaker 1: in fact changed my story on this a lot over
Speaker 1: the years, you know, as it serves me, and really
Speaker 1: in gendering trust there, mostly with perspective. So the context
Speaker 1: in which we sold the company, this was in two
Speaker 1: thousand six. As I mentioned, when we started the company,
Speaker 1: we didn't have a vision or a mission. We were
Speaker 1: a little dysfunctional. We didn't know where we were going.
Speaker 1: The economy wasn't looking pretty on the horizon. And along
Speaker 1: came Conde and asked offering to give us a bunch
Speaker 1: of money for this thing, and so we said, well,
Speaker 1: this seems like a pretty good idea, and and it's funny.
Speaker 1: I went into that acquisition with the mentality of I
Speaker 1: thought I was going to have the stereotypical Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: startup journey, which is founder starts, company, founder sales, company,
Speaker 1: founder leaves two weeks later. I end up staying for
Speaker 1: another three years. I really really enjoyed working on Reddit,
Speaker 1: and I left in two thousand nine because for a
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. One, I felt stagnant um. I felt
Speaker 1: like as a person I wasn't learning and growing, and
Speaker 1: I felt like I was too young to have that
Speaker 1: feeling at work. And it's any when I look back
Speaker 1: in that time, I think that's like just absolutely insane, right,
Speaker 1: because now I just feel like I have so much
Speaker 1: to learn and I'm like so far behind. But at
Speaker 1: the time that's how I felt. I also, uh, I
Speaker 1: liked perspective. I didn't realize I didn't appreciate how special
Speaker 1: red it was. It was the only thing we had
Speaker 1: ever done, and and and so I had this perspective
Speaker 1: that if you put something online, it'll just grow and
Speaker 1: and and that was my experience with thout it. So
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I want to do something else
Speaker 1: that just grows, but this time actually makes money. So
Speaker 1: I started a company with another buddy called hip Monk,
Speaker 1: which did travel search and hip Monk was interesting because
Speaker 1: we were not burdened with growth um and and so
Speaker 1: that was a really good set of lessons I learned
Speaker 1: there in that time, and actually as as as a
Speaker 1: as a business person, learned a lot of really important
Speaker 1: lessons about how to be discipline, about customers and product
Speaker 1: development and growing a team and shrinking a team at
Speaker 1: the same time. Right, it continued to grow and grow
Speaker 1: and grow, and during this period when you were off
Speaker 1: working on hip Monk, credit was still growing. It hired
Speaker 1: Ellen Powell to be the CEO, and she was famous,
Speaker 1: of course pursuing Kleiner Perkins, the venture firm for gender discrimination,
Speaker 1: and when Pal got to read it, she took a
Speaker 1: number of tough, tough steps. She banned revenge porn. For example,
Speaker 1: she banned five sub credits that engaged in various forms
Speaker 1: of harassment. About two users signed a petition asking her
Speaker 1: to leave, which ultimately she did with the benefit of hindsight.
Speaker 1: Do you think that she was treated unfairly at Reddit?
Speaker 1: Do I? I? You know, I think Ellen had a
Speaker 1: rough go at a readit um, some within her control
Speaker 1: and some knots. And but I think that the general
Speaker 1: criticisms of of of Ellen, both from the Reddit community
Speaker 1: and from the kind of just greater community, we're really unfair. UM.
Speaker 1: Having been on the receiving end of that myself as well,
Speaker 1: I I know what that feels like. Um. Do you
Speaker 1: think the criticisms were motivated by gender? I think there
Speaker 1: was that dimension to it, And certainly I think when
Speaker 1: you also look at it through the lens of her
Speaker 1: very public lawsuit against Kleiner, that that only served to
Speaker 1: amplify that that narrative, and I think that was really
Speaker 1: unfortunate in light of a me too movement. Do you
Speaker 1: look at what happened to her any differently? Have you
Speaker 1: had an epiphany or did you always feel that this
Speaker 1: was unfair. No. I always felt that way, you know,
Speaker 1: and study because when when she was going through that,
Speaker 1: I was not at Reddit. I was I was a civilian.
Speaker 1: I was a user watching this, and it was very
Speaker 1: frustrating to watch from a couple of dimensions. Right one
Speaker 1: as somebody who knows Reddit really well. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, there are things you just need to
Speaker 1: do that I think you can get ahead of this
Speaker 1: because one of the things we we saw is or
Speaker 1: always I observed from the outside, and I think Ellen
Speaker 1: was starting to get there. It's the the volume of
Speaker 1: the the vitriol was not in proportion to the number
Speaker 1: of people behind it, and that, to me is a
Speaker 1: technology problem, and that's something I read it. We've always
Speaker 1: thought a lot about, and this is something that I've
Speaker 1: always thought a lot about. So watching that was particularly
Speaker 1: frustrating cause I was like, there are some solutions here.
Speaker 1: At the same time, it was the that whole conversation
Speaker 1: was just I think, very unproductive and toxic and and
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know if we really got anywhere
Speaker 1: with it, to be honest, either, Silicon Valley is you know,
Speaker 1: has an abysmal record on gender and racial equality. So
Speaker 1: you know, having done this company, what what kinds of
Speaker 1: things can be put in place that will change that
Speaker 1: or improve it? Yeah, I would say you're you're not wrong,
Speaker 1: and I think on the history of Silicon Valley on
Speaker 1: the the silver lining, however, is that it is impossible
Speaker 1: to have a conversation in Silicon Value where this topic
Speaker 1: does not come up. Um, And I think, uh, we
Speaker 1: and I say we, as somebody you know from from
Speaker 1: that area, are very aware of this issue, and I
Speaker 1: think that's probably one of the most important steps to take.
Speaker 1: And so, um, I think we're trending in the right direction,
Speaker 1: but I think we also have a long way to go.
Speaker 1: So do you think real policy initiatives will follow that
Speaker 1: greater awareness? Now, it depends what you mean by policy initiatives.
Speaker 1: And if we're talking about I think a massive problem
Speaker 1: like gender equality is going to take probably policy changes,
Speaker 1: just awareness changes, cultural changes. There's a generational aspect to
Speaker 1: it as well. There's a lot of things that have
Speaker 1: to happen, and you know, regulation is one part of that.
Speaker 1: So in two thousand fifteen, six years after you left,
Speaker 1: you came back to read it as the CEO, and
Speaker 1: you were soon confronted by a number of controversies, and
Speaker 1: I want to talk about a couple of them. The
Speaker 1: first was pizza Gate, and I don't know whether you
Speaker 1: all are familiar with this crazy and false story, but
Speaker 1: it started on Facebook and Twitter in October of UM.
Speaker 1: The allegation basically was that Hillary and some people close
Speaker 1: to her operated a child sex trafficking ring out of
Speaker 1: a pizza parlor called Comet Pizza in d C. Which
Speaker 1: would be laughable, um, except that the sort of fake
Speaker 1: news had real consequences when a man named Edgar Welch
Speaker 1: from North Carolina showed up at Comet with an a
Speaker 1: R fifteen to rescue the kids, the sex slaves who
Speaker 1: were trapped in the basement, only to find that there
Speaker 1: were no kids and no basement. Um. And this was
Speaker 1: on Reddit to both before and after the election. So
Speaker 1: the bottom line is it could have been a real tragedy.
Speaker 1: Do you ever feel like, as the founder of this platform,
Speaker 1: it's the CEO of this platform, Oh my god, I
Speaker 1: created a monster. No, not quite in that dimention. You know.
Speaker 1: Pizza Gate was the community that that we saw develop
Speaker 1: on Reddit, and we banned it after about two weeks,
Speaker 1: long before the the incident with the the gentleman in
Speaker 1: the pizza parlor. Um. And we do watch these things
Speaker 1: very closely because while I don't think we want to
Speaker 1: be in a position where we say conspiracy theories are
Speaker 1: not allowed, right, because sometimes conspiracy theories end up be
Speaker 1: being something um, But we do watch, especially in these
Speaker 1: fringe communities, um, where is the where is the conversation going,
Speaker 1: what direction is it heading? And with that one in particular,
Speaker 1: we saw it going in a bad place, and it
Speaker 1: was also easily disproven, and so that's why we got
Speaker 1: rid of them as quickly as we did, and I
Speaker 1: think we were one of the first to do so.
Speaker 1: But could something like this happen again on Reddit? You know,
Speaker 1: obviously the human awareness of this is not infallible. So
Speaker 1: do you worry that this kind of situation, this kind
Speaker 1: of inform misinformation can get out of control and lead
Speaker 1: to something that may have far worse consequences. I do
Speaker 1: think this sort of thing can happen in any place
Speaker 1: where people congregate and misinformation is uh, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's a real threat and it's a it's a real
Speaker 1: thing that we all face on Reddit and and anywhere
Speaker 1: else online or offline for that matter. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think one of the you know, we will do
Speaker 1: our our our best to do our partner, but I
Speaker 1: also think there is a collective burden we all have
Speaker 1: as a as a people to be skeptical and to
Speaker 1: push back on these stories, UM because you know, as
Speaker 1: a as a private company or even an individual, we're
Speaker 1: not always going to know all of the facts or
Speaker 1: be able to see everything. So we will do our
Speaker 1: best on our platform. And and in fact, we have
Speaker 1: a number of teams dedicated to this, you know, in
Speaker 1: our Trust and Safety Team and our Anti Evil Team,
Speaker 1: which is our Trust and Safety team, is a team
Speaker 1: of people that enforce our content policies UM and and
Speaker 1: and in these communities, whether the conspiracy theory or generally
Speaker 1: badly behaving, they generally violate all of our policies. And
Speaker 1: so so our policies, for context are no harassing or bullying,
Speaker 1: no involuntary sexualization of miners or or adults, uh, no spam,
Speaker 1: no inciting or glorifying violence. And so we look at
Speaker 1: these things very closely and and pretty pretty consistently. And
Speaker 1: then we also have another team called the Anti Evil Team,
Speaker 1: which is a team of engineers that supports the former
Speaker 1: team at scale and tries to do this in an
Speaker 1: automated fashion. Um, but the operative word being tried. I mean,
Speaker 1: how can you really police all the things that are
Speaker 1: part of Reddit when I how many posts are put
Speaker 1: up there a day, Steve, I have no idea how
Speaker 1: many millions, millions and millions, So can you really patrol
Speaker 1: and keep this kind of misinformation even worse off the platform? Well,
Speaker 1: so another thing that's that's really important to us, and
Speaker 1: I think that separates Reddit from our peers is our
Speaker 1: structure of community moderation. So all of our communities are
Speaker 1: created by moderators, and those are those are not employees
Speaker 1: have read it there, just users like anybody else, and
Speaker 1: their job is to set the rules and standards for
Speaker 1: their community and enforce those standards. And of course the
Speaker 1: communities themselves are submitting all of the content and curating
Speaker 1: the content. So every the structure of Reddit is basically
Speaker 1: there are over a hundred thousand communities. Within those communities, uh,
Speaker 1: community members, users, you know, me and you anybody can
Speaker 1: submit content and then every piece of content can be
Speaker 1: voted up or down. And so what you see is
Speaker 1: what is the most popular at any point in time.
Speaker 1: But the download is also important. Right in there, that's
Speaker 1: where the community sets the tone, removes content that's inappropriate.
Speaker 1: And one of one of our beliefs is that the
Speaker 1: only thing that scales with users is users. And so
Speaker 1: one of the things we spent a lot a lot
Speaker 1: of time thinking about is how do we push this
Speaker 1: burden of enforcement into our user base so that they
Speaker 1: have control over this, because there's no way that a
Speaker 1: company of our size, which is around four people, or
Speaker 1: any size for that matter, can police the entire internet. Um. However,
Speaker 1: I do think as a as a as a people,
Speaker 1: whether we're talking about our community or if we were
Speaker 1: to kind of take this these challenges up a notch
Speaker 1: and just talk about our society in general as a people,
Speaker 1: we can do that, and and and and as I
Speaker 1: think all of our burden to to police ourselves in
Speaker 1: that matter. In fact, you you wrote, you wrote a
Speaker 1: letter to users, and you say it, I believe the
Speaker 1: biggest risk we face is our own ability to discern
Speaker 1: reality from nonsense. And this is a burden we all bear.
Speaker 1: But isn't that a bit of a cop out basically
Speaker 1: saying this is the user's responsibility primarily. I think if
Speaker 1: you were to interpret that as this is only the
Speaker 1: user's responsibility, that would be a cop out. Um. I
Speaker 1: think we all have rules to play here. I read.
Speaker 1: The thing that I think we are the most effective
Speaker 1: at is building the tools and providing the framework for
Speaker 1: doing these things at scale. And of course, something that
Speaker 1: we were talking about earlier, which is very much a
Speaker 1: technology problem, which is ensuring that the the volume of
Speaker 1: any particular viewpoint on Reddit, whether it's positive or negative,
Speaker 1: true or false, is in proportion to the number of
Speaker 1: people who are saying it. Um. You know, to not
Speaker 1: let our our systems be abused by bots or what
Speaker 1: we call vote manipulation people, you know, trying to steal
Speaker 1: the conversation in the wrong way. That's something that we
Speaker 1: spend quite a bit of time thinking about, because I
Speaker 1: think we should keep in mind the this this the
Speaker 1: scale at what we're talking about, which is um. If
Speaker 1: I were to paint with a broad brush, I would
Speaker 1: say about Reddit mirrors humanity and about of our communities
Speaker 1: and users are wonderful, creative, collaborative, you know, interesting people.
Speaker 1: And I would say the same thing about this people
Speaker 1: in general, and one percent are are nasty and they're
Speaker 1: up to no good. And that means if we do
Speaker 1: our job on the technology side and and and enforcing
Speaker 1: that that can set appropriate standards and has visibility into
Speaker 1: what's going on, we can we can drown out the negative,
Speaker 1: you know, marginalize the negative, and do it that way
Speaker 1: when it comes to dealing with that nasty one percent,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to understand how much of that content is
Speaker 1: dealt with by non Reddit employees, community managers who are
Speaker 1: enforcing the standards, and how much of it really is
Speaker 1: on you and how much But do you have to
Speaker 1: actively go and take down So for example, the year
Speaker 1: you came back, I read that you had to remove
Speaker 1: two sub reddits. One was called fat People Hate, the
Speaker 1: other was called coon Town, which were by the way,
Speaker 1: as repugnant as they sound. And then the hate speech,
Speaker 1: you know, sub communities went down, and overall hate speech
Speaker 1: went down on the platform because participants in those communities
Speaker 1: either left the site or they changed their language. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't the moderators or the non employees who did it.
Speaker 1: It was you guys who had to do it. Yes
Speaker 1: and no, So those communities were repugnant and and and
Speaker 1: we took them down. We also did behind the scenes
Speaker 1: a lot of work on the individuals in those communities
Speaker 1: um on. One of the things we've gotten a lot
Speaker 1: better at over the years is how proactive we are.
Speaker 1: So during that era, so this is two thousand fifteen,
Speaker 1: we were reactive in terms of individuals reports. So something
Speaker 1: bad is happening on Reddit, user reports it, then we action.
Speaker 1: Now we are Gosh, I don't know the exact number
Speaker 1: off the top of my head, I want to say
Speaker 1: somewhere between se proactive, which means we are finding uh,
Speaker 1: instances of bad behavior before it even gets reported. How
Speaker 1: do you do that? Is it? Is it like playing
Speaker 1: a game of whack a mole or or do you
Speaker 1: have like software algorithms that can detect yes, yes to both? Yes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's the thing. It's there. There is an
Speaker 1: element of an arms race, there's an element of whack
Speaker 1: a mole. Um, there's an element of of of being
Speaker 1: clever with with how we find things. Again, as I
Speaker 1: was saying before, we're talking about a relatively small population
Speaker 1: of users, and even in those communities, um well, the
Speaker 1: names are deliberately offensive and their motivation was in many
Speaker 1: respects to draw attention to waste our time to troll
Speaker 1: us um, and it was it was more organized than organic.
Speaker 1: And that behavior stands out like we we can detect
Speaker 1: that with computers. Um. And and so when we remove
Speaker 1: those communities, yes, that the general tone of rehddick got better,
Speaker 1: but I would also point out to the fact that
Speaker 1: we got a lot better at UH enforcement on an
Speaker 1: individual level, and then other communities around reddits, our users
Speaker 1: were doing the enforcement right. If you show up into
Speaker 1: you know, ask Creddit, Ask Gredda is one of our
Speaker 1: largest communities, and and and if you're new to read it,
Speaker 1: it's it's a place where I wuld invite you to
Speaker 1: get started. Um. People post thousands of questions every day
Speaker 1: that are completely you know, irreverence. UM. The one one
Speaker 1: I saw the other day was teachers of creddits, Um,
Speaker 1: what happened to that weird kid in your class? Um?
Speaker 1: And it's just like at this incredible discussion and perspective
Speaker 1: that you wouldn't see in the stories that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: see anywhere else online. UM. If somebody shows up into
Speaker 1: that community, yeah, exactly right. If you show up in
Speaker 1: that community and and and start saying, you know, nasty stuff,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get You're gonna get crushed long before we
Speaker 1: see it right, You're gonna get downloaded by normal users,
Speaker 1: You're gonna get banned by moths, and and that will
Speaker 1: be the end of it. So we all have roles
Speaker 1: to play on this. And I'm not claiming pfection by
Speaker 1: any means, UM, but I do, ah, I am proud
Speaker 1: of the progress that we are making. I think, especially
Speaker 1: confronting what are it's a little bit of a new
Speaker 1: frontier and a new set of challenges for I'm curious
Speaker 1: how many humans you have actually with the sole job
Speaker 1: of really trying to manage all of this. Dozens on
Speaker 1: our staff. So our staff is four hundred, about half engineer,
Speaker 1: half engineering. UM. One of our largest teams collectively of
Speaker 1: the community, Trust and Safety and ANI Evil Team make
Speaker 1: up a significant portion of our employees. To Evil Team
Speaker 1: INTI Evil, Yes, that's the engineering team that UM you
Speaker 1: know works behind the scenes, does the stuff at scale.
Speaker 1: But then of course it is I do think both
Speaker 1: on Reddit and in the real world, UM, we need
Speaker 1: to enable ourselves to to self govern and to self heal,
Speaker 1: because we don't want the government deciding what you can
Speaker 1: and cannot say, And I'm sure you don't want a
Speaker 1: private company, let alone me deciding what you can and
Speaker 1: cannot say, or can and cannot think. I think that's very,
Speaker 1: very dangerou It's time to take a quick break. We'll
Speaker 1: be back with Reddit co founder and CEO Steve Huffman.
Speaker 1: That's right after this and now back to our conversation
Speaker 1: with Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, live from the Aspen Ideas Festival.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about this other challenge that
Speaker 1: you've had related to the presidential election, that was Russian
Speaker 1: interference and the proliferation of fake news. And by fake news,
Speaker 1: I mean false stories, not stories the president doesn't like.
Speaker 1: The Internet Research Agency, which was aligned with the Kremlin,
Speaker 1: famously put fake news on Facebook, but they also put
Speaker 1: it on Reddit. Do you ever think as a result
Speaker 1: of that I contributed to the election of Donald Trump?
Speaker 1: So uh, not as a result of that, I mean
Speaker 1: the two reddits. It is where grassroots movements start, um,
Speaker 1: and we've seen it with our last three presidential elections.
Speaker 1: We were very very early on Obama. Um, it's those
Speaker 1: as you know, I'm obviously extremely bicyclesn't right at all time,
Speaker 1: but it was the first place where I learned of him.
Speaker 1: We were very early on Bernie Sanders, right, who's who
Speaker 1: had a very vocal grassroots campaign in the US, and
Speaker 1: we're also early on Trump, who also had that kind
Speaker 1: of populist support. As it relates to Russia, we published
Speaker 1: a couple of months ago everything we found. We've published
Speaker 1: all of the accounts that we found, everything they posted,
Speaker 1: and that's still online for for our users, for journalists,
Speaker 1: for for the government to to investigate and see what's there.
Speaker 1: And we've been fully cooperative, uh, you know, with the
Speaker 1: government behind the scenes this entire time. What we found, though,
Speaker 1: is the structure of Reddit's largely worked. Of the nine
Speaker 1: or so accounts that we believe we're compromised, um, a
Speaker 1: handful fewer than ten actually found any meaningful traction on Reddit.
Speaker 1: The vast majority were banned by moderators long before they
Speaker 1: said anything, you know, anything relevant. So there was some there,
Speaker 1: but there wasn't a lot of there there. The challenge, however,
Speaker 1: that we face and and I and I need to
Speaker 1: continually remind people of this that when we talk about
Speaker 1: the president, sixty million people voted for that guy. Those
Speaker 1: weren't Russian boats. Those were real Americans, And um, but
Speaker 1: is what ideas were the Russian bots putting into the
Speaker 1: minds of those Americans. I'm not suggesting that they were
Speaker 1: all manipulated by fake news. I'm simply saying, were they
Speaker 1: all making their decision on the basis of facts as
Speaker 1: opposed to fake news? As you know, it's hard to
Speaker 1: say because I think fake news is a new word
Speaker 1: for propaganda and propagandas as old as politics. Um and
Speaker 1: and we've seen this, and we see this on our
Speaker 1: own you know, cable news channels, which are effectively the
Speaker 1: propaganda department for for various political parties in the US. Um,
Speaker 1: this is a real issue we face. Um uh, not
Speaker 1: just on Reddit, not just on on Twitter and Facebook.
Speaker 1: But I think as a people, but Russian interference was
Speaker 1: relatively unprecedented in this last election, So certainly you can't
Speaker 1: really compare sort of what you might term propaganda as
Speaker 1: a spousing beliefs that would be supportive a particular candidate
Speaker 1: or party with a foreign country actually interfering in our
Speaker 1: democratic process. I think the Russia thing is a real
Speaker 1: problem on on reddits because of the nature of Reddit,
Speaker 1: those accounts, those efforts largely fell flats. Let's let's talk
Speaker 1: about that. You said you have done and you're doing
Speaker 1: your best to identify and remove Russian bots, Russian propaganda.
Speaker 1: You said you've removed nearly a thousand Russian trolls from
Speaker 1: your site. Just mechanically, can you walk us through how
Speaker 1: you did that? How do you identify who's a Russian troll?
Speaker 1: How do you get that troll off of Reddit? Sure
Speaker 1: there are I don't want to get into the super
Speaker 1: specifics because these techniques are still valuable to us, UM,
Speaker 1: but when they help us as an ation, if you
Speaker 1: did share those technics, well, let me shure, let me
Speaker 1: share at at a high level. So, UM, there is
Speaker 1: there's information we get from from our peers, right accounts
Speaker 1: that they found i p s that they found we
Speaker 1: as a as a best practice of Reddit. We've done
Speaker 1: this long before the election and still do it now.
Speaker 1: UM have a variety of information sources. For example, there
Speaker 1: are gray hat hackers that basically that we can get
Speaker 1: information from on. These are compromised VPNs, These are i
Speaker 1: p s areas we should start looking. UM. From there,
Speaker 1: you can find a couple of accounts UM, And by
Speaker 1: gray hat you mean they they would be willing to
Speaker 1: work for both sides in a in a way that
Speaker 1: a bad guy can acquire. Um, you know, i'd say
Speaker 1: there's a data breach, right, Equifax is hacked, right, and
Speaker 1: they have all this information. That information is getting sold
Speaker 1: to somebody. Sometimes it's getting sold to the good guys
Speaker 1: who can say which of our which who has been compromised? Right?
Speaker 1: And so that's very common. Right. And you can go
Speaker 1: all these websites to see has is my information in there?
Speaker 1: Is my email information in there? Then we can look
Speaker 1: at behavioral things, right, and and this and this is
Speaker 1: these are techniques that again we've been doing for a
Speaker 1: long time. I read it because we care about the
Speaker 1: integrity of our systems. You know, cookie hygiene, right? Are
Speaker 1: people sharing this account? Are people in multile geography sharing
Speaker 1: this account? Those things start to stand out. And so
Speaker 1: from there we can build out a weapon. So you know,
Speaker 1: we do it piece by piece by piece, and we
Speaker 1: grow this, We grow this stuff out. So the stuff
Speaker 1: we shared a couple of months ago was everything we
Speaker 1: have found so far. Um, we are by no means,
Speaker 1: you know, done that. This is as I said before,
Speaker 1: Reddit's primary role in this is ensuring that our systems,
Speaker 1: the integrity of our systems, and so there is, you know,
Speaker 1: as as we said earlier, in an arm serice element
Speaker 1: to this, and we're constantly learning and the challenges are
Speaker 1: constantly evolving. But it is an issue we take incredibly seriously,
Speaker 1: both as reddit and and as Americans. I know that
Speaker 1: American redditors who then promote or repeat or share the
Speaker 1: misinformation that is put out there by Russian bots, that's
Speaker 1: a thorny r issue, isn't it? And work difficult And
Speaker 1: that's where you believe user responsibility and our ability to
Speaker 1: discern fact from fiction or fake news from real news,
Speaker 1: is that's when that comes into play. I mean, if
Speaker 1: we're to make it even thornier, the president is repeating
Speaker 1: that nonsense as well, and so I mean we have
Speaker 1: to ask ourselves some serious questions like what does it
Speaker 1: mean when the president is is is propagating you know,
Speaker 1: lies and fake news or whatever. Yes, that burden is
Speaker 1: on us, and I think we have a some serious
Speaker 1: challenges in front of us. I'll fight what does it mean? Well,
Speaker 1: I think one of the the the silver linings of
Speaker 1: all of this, and I think of this what I
Speaker 1: would call it a challenging time is that our immune
Speaker 1: system is being tested, right, and in the same way
Speaker 1: that your body gets a virus and you're sick for
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks and you eventually developed antibodies and
Speaker 1: can fight against the next time. I think we as
Speaker 1: a people are going through the same thing. People care
Speaker 1: about quality journalism again, um, people are more more skeptical
Speaker 1: than they have been in the past. I think our
Speaker 1: values are being tested. Um, your values don't mean anything
Speaker 1: until you use them. And I would say I think
Speaker 1: we as as as Americans, UM, haven't had to haven't
Speaker 1: had to flex some of these these these these muscles
Speaker 1: and in a little while and and so well, the
Speaker 1: medicine doesn't taste good. I think we will come out
Speaker 1: of this. I hope you know. I'm an optimist. I
Speaker 1: think we will come out of it healthier on the
Speaker 1: other side, with a more skeptical population, with higher quality journalism,
Speaker 1: with higher standards of discourse. But it doesn't feel good
Speaker 1: right now, so to too awkwardly continue the metaphor how
Speaker 1: strong is the body politic in eighteen as opposed to
Speaker 1: how vulnerable are we to all of these factors and
Speaker 1: forces this year? I mean, I would I would UM,
Speaker 1: I often look to Reddit as a leading indicator of
Speaker 1: what's going to happen. So, uh, in the two thousand
Speaker 1: and sixteen election, if you spend any time on Reddit,
Speaker 1: Trump when in the election was not exactly a surprise. UM.
Speaker 1: The engagement of the Trump support us on Reddit in
Speaker 1: terms of voting on Reddit was five times higher than
Speaker 1: that of the Hillary supporters. So when I look at
Speaker 1: what's going on now, um on Reddit the midterms, there
Speaker 1: are a number of communities galvanizing around the mid terms.
Speaker 1: And what kind of communities? What are they called? Like
Speaker 1: I think once it's called blue mid terms. There's probably
Speaker 1: half a dozen or so mid terms two thousand and eighteen. Um,
Speaker 1: how are they weighed in terms of red versus blue?
Speaker 1: Almost entirely blue. All of these new communities are in
Speaker 1: response to, hey, we we cannot let our guard down, right,
Speaker 1: is we have to show up and actually vote. Um.
Speaker 1: I think you know, even when you look at the
Speaker 1: voter turnout, it's it's always it's always dismal. And I
Speaker 1: think that's the that's the largest opportunity we have going forward,
Speaker 1: is is taking all these people who now care, who
Speaker 1: now know what's at stake, and getting them to the polls.
Speaker 1: I have to ask you about Charlotte's Ville. Yeah, vote everyone. Um,
Speaker 1: As we mentioned, we both went to the University of Virginia.
Speaker 1: You graduated just a couple of years after I did.
Speaker 1: What's so funny? Um? Now, on a serious note, I
Speaker 1: was in smack in the middle of that white supremacist
Speaker 1: rally in Charlottesville last August. And I know that was
Speaker 1: a real epiphany for you, wasn't it. Um? That was
Speaker 1: very difficult, right. You know, I'm with a school in
Speaker 1: Charles Cille. I grew up about an hour from there.
Speaker 1: That is that is very much my home. And it's
Speaker 1: was incredibly painful to watch, and and I still get
Speaker 1: emotional when I think about it, and and and for
Speaker 1: us that's we actually we were in the process at
Speaker 1: the time of finding our voice in our content policy.
Speaker 1: We spent a lot of time debating these and choosing
Speaker 1: the right words, and so we were in the process, um,
Speaker 1: prior to Charlotsville, of how do we talk about violence
Speaker 1: and inciting violence and what are the rules there? And
Speaker 1: then in Charles still happened, and I actually had a
Speaker 1: very emotional reaction with my team where I was just
Speaker 1: like just go ban all those people. Right. We had
Speaker 1: banned the all right communities I think a month or
Speaker 1: two before, but there are still kind of some fringe
Speaker 1: you ones, and I was like, just just ban them all.
Speaker 1: And fortunately, you know, I'm not the sole decider, you know,
Speaker 1: in these conversations, and we have, UM, we have actually
Speaker 1: quite a large team. It's it's me, it's our our
Speaker 1: GC who's in the audience, our head of policy, our
Speaker 1: head of trust and safety, UM debate these issues. UM.
Speaker 1: But Charleston, I think was was very clarifying for us
Speaker 1: and probably the country about like this sort of behavior
Speaker 1: should not be tolerated. And in fact, as a result,
Speaker 1: you updated your content policy banning content that glorifies insights
Speaker 1: or calls for violence against an individual, groups of people
Speaker 1: are animals, after noting that the previous rules that you
Speaker 1: had you all had establed wish had been too vague.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious, have you seen any positive result from
Speaker 1: strengthening that policy? Sure? I mean when the policies always
Speaker 1: really important because it allows us to make decisions a
Speaker 1: lot faster, right, And and we're often kind of in
Speaker 1: this position where we're trying to reconcile what our policies
Speaker 1: say and what our gut tells us to do, and
Speaker 1: can we find a way to articulate what our instinct
Speaker 1: is telling us to do in a way that can
Speaker 1: be enforced consistently and fairly, because that is is very important,
Speaker 1: especially for a platform like us that is home to
Speaker 1: you know, views um of incredible diversity and consistency and
Speaker 1: enforceability is really important. But once we find those words,
Speaker 1: even if it's a couple of sentences, um, then we
Speaker 1: can go ham on these things, right, and we can
Speaker 1: be like you're done, You're done, You're done, You're done.
Speaker 1: And that actually feels very good. But I guess the
Speaker 1: big question, as you mentioned earlier, Steve, is how do
Speaker 1: you control harmful speech without becoming a censor and violating
Speaker 1: the First Amendment? I mean that they're there in lies
Speaker 1: the rub right. Well, that is the challenge with the
Speaker 1: First Amendment. It is it is one of the founding
Speaker 1: principles you know, over this country, and it's it's incredibly
Speaker 1: important to our democracy, the marketplace of ideas and specifically
Speaker 1: supporting political speech and and and debates, and so the
Speaker 1: way we think about it, and if you look at
Speaker 1: our content policy, it's largely structured around behaviors and not beliefs.
Speaker 1: Beliefs are very different, difficult to police, and you are
Speaker 1: free to have whatever belief you like, both on Reddit
Speaker 1: and the United States generally, but it's your behavior as
Speaker 1: we care about. And just like free speech in the
Speaker 1: United States, which does have restrictions, right there's one about
Speaker 1: inciting violence, UM, yelling fire in a crowded theater, slander
Speaker 1: and slander and libel and false advertising. There are, in
Speaker 1: fact many restrictions, but political speech is very very important
Speaker 1: and very critical. And on Reddit we try to take
Speaker 1: our cues from the government the same way. So our
Speaker 1: content policies are things I shared before. Harassing and bullying,
Speaker 1: inciting violence, those are behaviors, UM, those are more objective.
Speaker 1: Your your your beliefs, your political beliefs in particular, we
Speaker 1: do our best to to keep that off limits. That
Speaker 1: doesn't mean we're not tested from time to time. And
Speaker 1: and one of the actually the big lessons I've learned
Speaker 1: over the last few years is when I came back
Speaker 1: to read, I actually wanted to draw a fine line
Speaker 1: this is good behavior, this is bad behavior. I have
Speaker 1: since learned that that is basically impossible, right, wherever that
Speaker 1: line is, somebody's going to walk right up against it
Speaker 1: and stick their nose over it. Instead, we accept that
Speaker 1: there's some gray area there, and that's where we spend
Speaker 1: our time. And so we we define our content policies
Speaker 1: to define that the clear area, and then we spend
Speaker 1: our time as a team and the gray errors and
Speaker 1: figure out is this, you know, is this on the
Speaker 1: right or wrong side of our content policy? Do we
Speaker 1: need to adjust our policies? This is a new behavior,
Speaker 1: and and so it's a constant evolution. How do you
Speaker 1: think Facebook is doing handling the issue of fake news
Speaker 1: and bots and privacy and all the stuff that's emerged
Speaker 1: since the election. I'll give you I'll give you two answers.
Speaker 1: Um One, I have some empathy for what Facebook is
Speaker 1: going through, uh, in that I know they didn't build
Speaker 1: that platform for abuse, right. I brought that platform for
Speaker 1: for friends to connect, and they built an incredible business
Speaker 1: on top of it. Um. You know in Zuckerberg's congressional
Speaker 1: hearings talking about how AI is going to be the
Speaker 1: solution to all of their problems, I I don't believe that.
Speaker 1: I think AI can help. Computers can help. But as
Speaker 1: I said before, this is a people problem, and people
Speaker 1: do we humans share some of the burden. And one
Speaker 1: of the sayings we've had it read it for a
Speaker 1: long time is is like humans do the hard part.
Speaker 1: I think as it relates to privacy, we are very
Speaker 1: different companies, right privacy to read it, that is in
Speaker 1: our d n A. We don't know your name, We
Speaker 1: don't know your gender, your age, barely know your location.
Speaker 1: Because of your you know your your computer tells us
Speaker 1: we don't want to know those things. We think that's
Speaker 1: really important. Both we don't want the burden of of
Speaker 1: personal information. We're not building a business off of selling
Speaker 1: your personal information. And we believe that people when they
Speaker 1: detached from their real world identity and their names, can
Speaker 1: actually be more authentic, They can be more true to themselves.
Speaker 1: There are many facets of your personality, uh and you
Speaker 1: as a human that are not encapsulated in your name.
Speaker 1: Right on this stage, I'm Steve Huffman on the CEO
Speaker 1: of Reddit, but there are many communities I spend time
Speaker 1: on Reddit where I am not the CEO of Reddit. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm not telling you and that's important. Um and and
Speaker 1: because you can find it, because you don't want to
Speaker 1: share everything right, you know. Uh. For for example, community
Speaker 1: I I learned about a couple of days ago. So
Speaker 1: we do these these moderator road shows where we go
Speaker 1: around the country and we meet with our moderators to
Speaker 1: say thank you for what you do and to put
Speaker 1: faces and names to to to the screen names that
Speaker 1: we've known for years. Um. I met this couple in London.
Speaker 1: They were at an American and a British person that
Speaker 1: that it got married. They started a community called still Trying,
Speaker 1: and this is for couples that are trying to have
Speaker 1: a baby but struggling with it, and it's a place
Speaker 1: for them to to vent, to support each other, to
Speaker 1: you know, to go through this difficult time with other
Speaker 1: people like them. And you wouldn't find that on other platforms,
Speaker 1: especially associated with your name. You wouldn't would go talk
Speaker 1: about some of these really personal issues. And I think
Speaker 1: that's that for for us is what when we talk
Speaker 1: about are we are? We are we proud of reddits.
Speaker 1: We are certainly extremely proud to have to have brought
Speaker 1: this out of people and to have created this enriching
Speaker 1: experience in a place where people can be themselves and
Speaker 1: be vulnerable and be authentic, and so that's really that's
Speaker 1: what we deal on day to day. And so so
Speaker 1: you think we're going to get to the other side
Speaker 1: and closing, there's so much information, a tsunami of information
Speaker 1: that sort of floods us every day that isn't verified
Speaker 1: or edited, in many cases, no fact checkers, and it's
Speaker 1: designed in in many ways to foment outrage rather than understanding.
Speaker 1: So right now where we are today, not on the
Speaker 1: other side, if you're hoping we'll get is this good
Speaker 1: or bad for our democracy? I am hesitant to make
Speaker 1: quick classifications of what is a really complex issue. I
Speaker 1: think that the fat for hundreds of years in the
Speaker 1: US that people can say anything and debate anything, that
Speaker 1: is the cornerstone of our democracy. The fact that we
Speaker 1: live in a time where it's less of a debate right,
Speaker 1: and and more of a low brow, quick to judge
Speaker 1: label everything, you know, identity, apolitis all these things that
Speaker 1: is bad for our democracy. And so how do we
Speaker 1: get back to the marketplace of ideas, getting the most
Speaker 1: value out of free expression without losing it? And that's
Speaker 1: one of the things I'm most scared about when we
Speaker 1: talk about fake news. How do we eliminate fake news
Speaker 1: without eliminating free speech and discussion and and real debates.
Speaker 1: I think that is a real challenge. It's to end
Speaker 1: on a positive note. I think we do all have
Speaker 1: a role to play. I think as people, skepticism is
Speaker 1: really important, as as as journalists being that arbiter of
Speaker 1: truth is plays a really important role. As a as
Speaker 1: a technologist, ensuring that the conversation is is is fair
Speaker 1: and authentic is important as well. So I think if
Speaker 1: we all play our roles and do our jobs, that
Speaker 1: we will get back to a healthier place. Well, Steve Kaufman,
Speaker 1: we really appreciate your honest and thoughtful discussion of these
Speaker 1: really challenging issues. Thank you so much for joining us today. So, Brian,
Speaker 1: I thought that Steve Huffman was forthcoming, But obviously there
Speaker 1: are a lot of challenges that make it a very
Speaker 1: imperfect system when it comes to monitoring hateful, disgusting, gross,
Speaker 1: or just fake content on REDDA, as it is on
Speaker 1: many other social media platforms. And that's why he's trying
Speaker 1: to make the case that the burden rest as much
Speaker 1: with the users as with the platform itself. I'm just
Speaker 1: not sure how much the public is going to accept
Speaker 1: that because there are dangerous real life consequences to the
Speaker 1: sort of speech that gets disseminated on social platforms like REDDA.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure people have the time or really want
Speaker 1: to put the effort in and really evaluating the credibility
Speaker 1: of some of the information that they're seeing. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think they should be skeptical, obviously, but is that
Speaker 1: really their job? I mean, that's an open ended question.
Speaker 1: And there's also a chicken and egg open ended question,
Speaker 1: which is is is the hate speech caused by the
Speaker 1: platforms that give them a forum or was the hate
Speaker 1: speech always out there and has read it just bringing
Speaker 1: it to the fore or giving it more of a
Speaker 1: spotlight than otherwise it would have had. Well, I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's b I worry about sort of the
Speaker 1: contagious effect of hate speech and how it incites other
Speaker 1: people to be hateful. In other words, it kind of
Speaker 1: unleashes hate that's been sublimated in our psyches. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm getting too heavy deep in real right now. But
Speaker 1: it was a very very interesting conversation, and I appreciate
Speaker 1: the fact that he's willing to to feel tough questions
Speaker 1: about his platform and about his business, and at least
Speaker 1: right now, we're a lot more aware of these issues
Speaker 1: than we were two years ago. There's much more of
Speaker 1: a focus on preventing fake news and hate speech from spreading,
Speaker 1: and so maybe that will have a positive impact. Has
Speaker 1: that for an attempt at a happy ending. Well, we'd
Speaker 1: like to thank the Asthment Ideas Festival again for having
Speaker 1: us special thanks to Kitty Boone and Zach say Lewis
Speaker 1: for all of their help, and thanks to Gianna Palmer,
Speaker 1: Nora Richie, and Jared O'Connell our team at Stitcher who
Speaker 1: helped make this show happen week after week. We'd also
Speaker 1: like to thank Betha Mas and Alison Bresnik who helped
Speaker 1: with the pod from their posts over at Katie Current Media. Also,
Speaker 1: I wanted to say quick thank you to Eliza from
Speaker 1: Costas Costas from the University of Virginia who's now working
Speaker 1: at the Aspen Institute, who helped make sure that we
Speaker 1: made it to the studio and of course that Brian
Speaker 1: found the bathroom anyway, and she was a wonderful first
Speaker 1: name by the way, right just like your little girl. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Brian and I are the executive producers around here. Mark
Speaker 1: Phillips wrote our theme music. Have you subscribed to our
Speaker 1: show yet? Shame on you if you haven't. Yes, we're
Speaker 1: really into shaming people here. Have you left a rating
Speaker 1: an Apple podcast? Shame on you for that too. We'd
Speaker 1: love it if you would do both of these things.
Speaker 1: It really helps us out. In the meantime, we would
Speaker 1: like to say thank you very much for listening, and
Speaker 1: we'll talk to you next week. Thank you very much.