WEBVTT - Hey, Facebook: What’s that smell?, Part 2 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:04.240 I started Facebook, I run it, and I'm responsible for 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:08.680 what happens here. Whistle blower Francis Halgan insisting Congress must 0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:11.960 act against a company she says is misleading the public 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:17.600 promoting hateful and harmful content. She laid ultimate responsibility on 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:23.440 Facebook founder and CEO Marcus Zuckerberg. Since we wrapped our 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:27.760 first episode on Facebook, it's been revealed that hell bent 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:32.239 on growth, Facebook leadership actually knew of the harm that 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:36.559 they were causing users and they didn't care. So in 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:40.400 this episode, we continue our exploration of events and learn 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:44.680 how this information affects Facebook's b S score. And if 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:47.560 you haven't listened to part one, it's in your feed now. 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:59.120 We'll be right here when you come back. Welcome to 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:03.920 Calling bull Shit, the podcast about purpose washing, the gap 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:07.160 between what companies say they stand for and what they 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:10.200 actually do and what they would need to change to 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:14.320 practice what they preach. I'm your host, time Ontogue, and 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.720 I've spent over a decade helping companies define what they 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:21.160 stand for, their purpose and then help them to use 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:26.039 that purpose to drive transformation throughout their business. Unfortunately, at 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:28.959 a lot of organizations today, they're still a pretty wide 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:33.440 gap between word. Indeed, that gap has a name. We 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:38.960 call it bullshit. But, and this is important, we believe 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:42.000 that bullshit is a treatable disease. So when the BS 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:45.080 detector lights up, we're going to explore things that a 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:57.440 company should do to fix it. Facebook says its mission 0:01:57.480 --> 0:01:59.840 is to give people the power to build community and 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:04.040 bring the world closer together, and we've called bullshit on that. 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:08.079 In fact, in our previous Facebook episode, we gave them 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:12.680 a sky HIGHBS score of seventy two. But some pretty 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:16.480 important news has dropped since that episode wrapped, So let's 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:21.160 do a quick catch up. Since we left off, there's 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:26.560 been both good news and some seriously bad news from Facebook. First, 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:32.400 former Facebook data scientist Sophie Young came forward. Sophie says 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:36.160 that while working there, she noticed political parties across twenty 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:40.400 five countries had been manipulating Facebook to mislaid and in 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:45.800 some cases harass it's our in citizens in fairness. Facebook 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:48.800 then took a step in the right direction by creating 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:53.320 an independent advisory board, similar to what Cameron Ashgar, founder 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:57.280 of Cross Media, suggested in our first Facebook episode. When 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:00.280 I heard of its formation, I thought this might actually 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:04.960 be a turning point, but then the hammer fell. This 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:09.200 is the Facebook Files, a series from the Journal. We're 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:15.520 looking deep inside Facebook through its own internal documents. Francis Hogan, 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:20.200 a product manager in Facebook's civic Integrity unit, left the 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:24.640 company in May, taking internal documents with her. She delivered 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:27.960 those documents to the Wall Street Journal and law enforcement, 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:32.760 giving us an unprecedented look inside Facebook. The thing I 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:35.640 saw Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.840 of interest between what was good for the public and 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:42.760 what was good for Facebook, and Facebook over and over 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:45.480 again chose to optimize for its own interests, like making 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:48.960 more money. In October, how Can testified to Congress that 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:53.160 Facebook had extensive research on all of the problems and 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:58.040 negative effects of their platforms, from misinformation on Facebook to 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:02.840 toxic Instagram content target young female users. Not only did 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:07.440 they know, they chose to do nothing about it. The 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:10.960 only way we can move forward and heal Facebook as 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:13.760 we first left him in the truth. Either way we'll 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.760 have reconciliation and we can move forward is by first 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:20.200 being honest and declaring world bankruptcy. And the way Mark 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:23.400 Zuckerberg chose to move forward in the midst of their 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:27.279 very public trial for moral bankruptcy was to change the 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:30.919 company's name to reflect who we are and what we 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:35.240 hope to build. I am proud to announce that's starting today. 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:41.279 Our company is now meta. It was a head scratcher. 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:44.640 It's a move right out of the big tobacco playbook. 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:48.279 Remember when Philip Morris became Altria, and even if it 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:52.120 was genuine, it was pretty much guaranteed to raise suspicion 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:58.359 about the company, not lower it. Zuckerberg isn't going anywhere, 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.120 and he surrounded himsel off with a tight group of 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:04.279 people at the top who literally don't care about harming 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:07.760 the welfare of users, which is why we're seeing Facebook 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:11.760 employees like Jong and Howgan go public, joining former co 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:15.599 founder Chris Hughes, former investor Roger McNamee, and others in 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:19.760 calling for Congress to step in. But as we've seen lately, 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:22.600 Congress finds it hard to agree on some pretty basic 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:26.679 stuff like that an attack on our capitol is bad 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:30.960 and that voting is good, for instance. So I'm not 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:35.960 holding my breath. So here's the question, what the funk 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:45.839 do we do to try to get to the bottom 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:48.080 of this. I reached out to an expert who has 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:52.279 some unusual and I think sorely needed attributes. He's a 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:56.360 trained software engineer with a decidedly humanist point of view. 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:02.320 My guest today is the first century renaissance man, Ramash 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:06.600 Screeny Vazon, a Silicon Valley native U c L, A professor, 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:12.839 AI engineer, anthropologist, and author of several books, including Beyond 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.720 the Valley, How innovators around the World are overcoming inequality 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:21.360 and creating the technologies of tomorrow, and whose Global Village 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:27.080 rethinking how technology shapes our world. First, I want to 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:30.719 thank you for being here, Remage, and welcome to calling bullshit. 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:34.080 Thank you for having me Tie. I'm really excited to 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.320 be part of this. So before we get into the 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:39.599 topic of the day, which is Facebook, I'd love for 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:43.080 you to just introduce yourself. So I'm a very strange 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:46.400 cat in the sense that I'm a mix of a humanist, 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:50.480 a social scientists. Right. I'm I'm pretty trained in like anthropology, 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:54.359 cultural studies, all these issues as well as engineering, and 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:57.440 I think we need all three of these spheres to 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:00.120 be in conversation with one another to get us out 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.520 of the mess, uh the many messes we find ourselves 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:06.320 in right now. My work is really rooted in the 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:10.320 larger question of how we humanize technology, how do we 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:15.640 transform technology so it serves the best purposes of humanism. 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:18.400 And so when I mean humanism, I mean that idea 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:20.960 that we all feel and sometimes we forget that we're 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:23.840 all in it together. You know that your well being 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:26.480 might be connected to my own. So that's sort of 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:31.720 respect of people's and their lives across our planet, particularly 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:35.680 in the continents of Asia, Africa, South America and so on. 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:39.360 You know, these people represent together the vast majority of 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:44.360 technology users, yet they're conspicuously absent really from almost anything 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:49.400 involving major decisions around big technology platforms. So this kind 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:53.240 of idea of dignity and respect for all people's that 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:56.200 has such promise in relation to the Internet, My work 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:58.280 is really trying to drive us back to where that 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:02.080 as our north star. Yeah, and I saw that you 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:05.960 somewhere that you described it as your work is the 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:11.360 intersection of technology, innovation, politics, business and society. What was 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:14.320 it that drew you to that topic? I mean, so, 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:19.240 I am a late nineties Stanford graduate in engineering. I 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:22.640 worked for two years right after my undergrad in Amsterdam 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:27.080 in the Netherlands, developing kind of machine learning technologies, and 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:30.240 all the while, both in my classes as an undergraduate, 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:33.360 in my own personal life because of you know, my 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:36.280 family being from India and are my family traveling to 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:39.280 different parts of the world, but just sort of also 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.839 just generally in my own life, I saw an incredible 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:48.000 disconnect between the priorities, the lives, the values, the belief 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:52.520 systems of people around our beautiful planet and where we 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:55.600 were driving technology. And even in my context as an 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:58.920 AI developer, and you know, the late nineties, with the 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:02.320 realities that I was witnessing and and the insights that 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:04.920 came from other fields in many other parts of the world. 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.840 So you can't really understand technology and what it means 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:12.640 without really thinking about things that are not about technology, 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:14.960 if you know what I mean. But you know, all 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:17.480 the while, what we tend to do as we elevate, 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:21.360 if not fetishized technology, and that becomes the object of 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:24.560 our gaze and our attention, rather than what it actually 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:28.880 means for our people, for our planet, for diverse cultures, 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:33.080 for democracy, for economic justice, for racial justice, all these 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:37.520 issues those are not questions fundamentally about technology. And I 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:40.160 think I've always been sort of a humanist at heart, 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:45.240 someone who cares about these values more than anything. Yeah, well, 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.760 we need more people like you with that incredibly diverse background, right, 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:51.760 It's very rare, it seems to me, is particularly in 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:54.679 the Valley. That's true. Yeah, and I'm in the Silicon 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:57.320 Valley right now. I'm from Silicon Valley. I went to 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:00.040 the same high school as Steve jobs stand for a 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:02.920 late nineties, So this world is very close to my 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:06.920 own personal world. Yet I've also seen how incredibly opaque 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:10.360 and limited and actually nearest sighted this world is. It's 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:13.760 very disconnected. That's why I called my last book Beyond 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:17.640 the Valley, both in a literal and metaphorical sense. Yeah. 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:20.600 So let's pivot to Facebook, and this is our second 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:24.079 episode on Facebook. In the first one, the inciting incident 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:25.920 really was the Capital, right, and we talked a lot 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:29.520 about that in Facebook's role in it. The big change 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:33.160 since we wrapped episode one is that we've learned via 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:39.000 whistleblower Francis Hogan, that Facebook knows right, Facebook knows that 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:42.000 they are endangering mental health and in some cases physical 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:45.640 well being, and they choose to ignore it. And so 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:50.120 for us at calling BS, that really raises the stakes, 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:53.320 and so first I just love to hear you know, 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:55.880 kind of what you think about all of that. I mean, 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:59.400 what Francis Haagan sort of leaked out that she was 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:02.800 privy to as as a whistleblower was what a number 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:06.079 of scholars, not just me, but like, you know, dozens 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:09.560 of us and journalists by the way we're pointing out, 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:11.960 you know, we all saw these things, but we saw 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:14.840 the effects in various parts of the world. We saw 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.560 the effects with January six. We saw the effects with 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:21.240 the incredible divisiveness associated with Brexit and the and the 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:25.360 Trump election. So we saw, wait a second, what's going 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:29.280 on here? These algorithms are manipulating us psychometrically to be 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.319 more divided than ever. So we were seeing this. It 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:37.880 was extremely helpful for our cause as scholars to get 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:42.000 that corroboration from internal studies that Facebook was doing, showing 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.120 that Instagram, for example, and any of us who've used 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:48.560 Instagram can see this, and you can imagine being a 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:52.000 younger person in their early twenties or teens, just how 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:54.440 it's correlated with the feeling that I'm never good enough. 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:57.160 You know, I'm never good enough, I'm never beautiful enough. 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.320 I'm never hot enough, I'm never smart enough, skinny enough, 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:04.400 because so much of Instagram is artificially filtered, right So, 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:08.199 so basically these revelations were extremely important because they showed 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:11.320 how what Facebook is attempting to do, which other big 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.200 tech companies are also trying to do in their own realms, 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:19.040 is basically dominate our lives in relation to all things 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:22.360 socially oriented. Right. They want to basically be the place 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:27.280 we go to to communicate with no and socialize with 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.319 one another. But in the process, what's occurring is not 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:33.440 tie you and I talking with one another. It's some 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:36.960 weird stuff that's going on in the middle that's manipulating 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:38.680 what you see and when you see it, and what 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:40.840 I see and when I see it. And there's this 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:44.520 massive acquisition of data that is being used to target 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:49.240 us as psycho graphic subjects, not demographic, but psychographic. What 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:52.800 will drive you crazy, what will get you aroused, what 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:56.480 will get you to be more extroverted? As I was 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.920 preparing for this, I ran across a quote by Sean Parker, 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:04.160 Facebook's first president, in Axios, and in this interview, he 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:08.720 said that Facebook and Instagram constantly ask themselves one question 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:11.520 how do we consume as much of the user's time 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:14.080 and attention as possible? And then he went on to 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:19.800 say we were exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. The investors, creators, 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:24.679 Mark Zuckerberg, Kevin's Systrom, all of these people understood it consciously, 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:27.680 and we did it anyway. And I guess my question 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:32.040 is how why is this even legal? Like it's odd 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:34.839 to me that we allow this to go on? Well, 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:38.280 partly because we're only wrapping our heads around what's going 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:41.840 on recently, and our lawmakers are even more slowly wrapping 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:44.480 their heads around what is happening here. I mean, I'm 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:46.480 trying to work with as many of them as I can. 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:49.959 One piece of good news is that lawmakers across the 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:54.080 political spectrum for various reasons. The thing is that what 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:57.520 is occurring here is, you know, leveraging the kind of 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:01.640 principles of free speech. And I'm all for free speech. 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:05.439 These technology companies have actually they used that as their 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:08.240 sort of crutch and then they do whatever they want 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:11.000 with us. I don't mind that the Internet supports the 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.360 capacity for all types of speech, but what I do 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:18.480 mind deeply is that the most heinous forms of speech 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:21.200 are what are being most prioritized. So you know, Tye, 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:23.520 it's one thing for me to say, Tie, you know, 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:26.560 you should be able to speak how you wish, and 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:29.240 you should be able to read what you want. It's 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:31.240 another thing to say that, Tie, I'm just going to 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:36.120 keep feeding you insane, crazy and at times conspiratorial and 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:39.680 outrageous content. So you so you go crazy with a 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:42.440 dopamine firing in your head, and it's like staring at 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:45.560 a burning car the entire time. It's so Actually, these 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:48.680 companies are not prioritizing actual free speech in the sense 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:51.360 that all forms of speech are, you know, maybe even 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:55.920 equally accessible. But no, I'm sorry, I'm I'm interrupting. Here 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:58.040 you go, I'm excited now. Just the last thing I 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:02.800 would say is in democratic societies, there's always been voices 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:06.920 that are a little extreme on various margins those that's 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:10.960 part of democracy. Here, what's happening is, you know, we're 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:14.240 all being presented with completely different worlds in front of 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:16.800 our fingertips, and we're all glued to our phones and 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:19.120 on these apps and on these websites all the time, 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:23.080 so our entire experience is completely different. Tights, say, you 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:26.680 and I were like the same demographically, the same, politically, 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:29.160 the same in terms of economic class. We could be 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:33.800 presented with completely different dissenting worlds on these platforms, right, 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:38.240 We live in completely different reality bubbles on the platform. Yeah. Well, 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:41.600 and that's the thing. They claim that they shouldn't be 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:46.520 responsible because they exercise no editorial control on the platform. 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:51.080 They are not a media platform. But the algorithms exercise 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:54.960 editorial control. That's the point. It's just not it's non human. 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:58.640 But that shouldn't absolve them. They created the algorithms. That's 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:01.520 the point. Opt In is a default on every level, 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:03.920 and it's not just opt in. You know, people like 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:06.640 Edward Snowden have made the point that even if our 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:10.080 phones were on airplane mode, we're being recorded all the time. 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:12.760 Say I'm hanging out with Utah, but I left my 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:15.640 phone at home. Data about me is still being gathered 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:18.440 through your phone, through your device, which is creepy because 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:22.760 you can stitch together data points triangulate. Yeah. Okay, so 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:25.280 let me shift gears for a sec here and just 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.680 get into another aspect of this. My sense, given that 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:32.400 Facebook scale, that we're all affected by Facebook in some 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:35.320 way today. But I'm wondering what you would stay to 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:38.360 somebody who says, well, if you don't like what they do, 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:42.720 just delete the platform, don't use the product. Easy, Easier 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:44.680 said than done. If you're in a country in the 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:47.640 world where Facebook is the media network, they say, we don't. 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:49.560 We are not a media network. They're the biggest media 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:53.040 network in the history of the world period period, you know. 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:55.960 I mean they're only vuying with like a YouTube, which 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:58.520 is of course part of Google, right. I mean, if 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:01.400 you want to look at Instagram, Facebook, I mean the 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:03.840 technologies and WhatsApp. If you look at the union of 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:06.479 those three groups, we're talking about three point five billion 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:09.439 people out of eight billion or so people in the world. 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:14.080 That's that they're all media platforms, and they are together, 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:16.320 if you put it all together, the biggest media network 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.320 in the history of the world. So it's like saying 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:22.520 to someone like, oh, well, too bad, you can just 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:25.560 choose to get off of our platform and use something else. 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:30.080 It's just not It's really unrealistic on so many levels, right, 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:33.560 I mean, because of what we call network effects. I'm 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:36.600 on Facebook, not because I care about Facebook. I'm on 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:39.520 Facebook to connect with my relatives in India, with people 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:42.240 I worked with in South America. That's why I'm there. 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:46.200 So it's like too late. They are essentially a utility, 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:49.560 if not something approaching a monopoly. So they are the 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:53.760 de facto place for socializing. And I don't mean Facebook 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:57.359 the technology. I mean Facebook the company which owns again 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.720 Oculus right, which is their gateway to meta by the way, 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:05.560 um Instagram, what'sapp in Facebook? Ye? And in terms of 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:09.280 Facebook's attitude about all this, I read another thing that 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:13.720 I found sort of outrageous. This long time Facebook executive 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:18.040 and now new Chief Technology officer ct O Andrew Bosworth 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:20.760 came right out and said that he blames users for 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:24.360 the choices that they make on the platform. He said 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:27.600 a bunch of that's insane. Yeah, he said a bunch 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:30.840 of crazy things. He said, rather than social media people 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:35.080 are to blame for the proliferation of misinformation online, He 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:37.640 said the owners should be on the individual and any 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:42.800 meaningful democracy. He called Facebook a fundamentally democratic technology, despite 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:46.040 the recent revelation that the platform allowed high profile users 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:50.760 to break its policies. Asked whether vaccine hesitancy would be 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:53.280 the same with or without social media, he said that 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:57.000 individuals choose what sources to trust. That's their choice. They're 0:18:57.040 --> 0:18:59.359 allowed to do that. If you have an issue with 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:02.439 those people, you don't have an issue with Facebook. You 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:07.440 can't put that on me. I just that attitude seems 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:10.639 I don't know, anti human in a way like it 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:15.199 just seems wrong. It's uninformed also right, in addition to 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:18.920 being just being untrue, it's uninformed. And sometimes these are 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:22.200 these are perspectives you hear from people like who are 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:26.840 just so ensnared within the kind of tech bubble they 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:29.359 somehow think that what they're creating is an open portal 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:32.320 to the world. How is that possible? If what I 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:36.879 see on Facebook is determined computationally and algorithmically by Facebook, 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:40.040 can they tell me how I can experience my Facebook 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:42.240 feed in a in a way that is more open 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:45.080 or is more self directed by my own choices, my 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:49.719 own values. Of course not. Yes, indeed, so just spending 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:52.879 another minute outside the US. As you pointed out, the 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:56.760 vast majority of users are outside the US, and one 0:19:56.800 --> 0:19:59.520 aspect is that the US is where most of their 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:03.000 modern ration happens. In other words, they pay much more 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:07.119 attention to the US platform than they do outside the US, 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:10.720 which means that most of their users are looking at 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:15.560 a completely unmoderated platform in terms of hateful content, and 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:17.520 so I just wondered if you could talk about the 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:20.720 impact in places like the global South, India for example, 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:24.359 and you know what the effects are on democracy worldwide? Yeah, 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:27.159 I mean Facebook. You know, the company understands that the 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:29.600 most you know, kind of crop that they're going to 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:32.840 get or will have to kind of deal with is 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:36.639 in the US, right, So in other countries, you know, 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:39.680 this approach to where just getting people content that rolls 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:42.160 them up, that outreaches them, that drives them a little 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:45.560 crazy is the norm. Right. So we've seen how that 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:49.760 manifests in genocides in myyan Mar with the Rohinga community. 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:52.520 We've seen how it's actually manifested in the more recent 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:56.920 attack on Burmese people by the state government. We're seeing 0:20:56.920 --> 0:21:01.120 it right now in the Two Grayan region of Ethiopia. 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:04.040 We've seen this in Sri Lanka. We've seen it right 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:06.520 here at home in January six. We see it all 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:09.840 around the world. And we can also see how despots 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:14.160 and authoritarians, people like Rodrico de Terite in the Philippines, 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:19.080 Jayur Bolsonaro in Brazil have been able to use social 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:23.560 media to divide and conquer to polarized people. And our 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:28.159 former president was a master at being a central node 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:32.320 of digital activity on many different platforms. He put out 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:36.760 content messaging that worked perfectly well for these dystopic forms 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:41.680 of virality and visibility that I'm speaking about. Ramatous take 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:46.520 on Mark zuckerberg obstacles to regulation and Facebook's revised BS 0:21:46.600 --> 0:22:07.359 score right after this, back with Roma Srinivasan, author of 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:10.720 Beyond the Valley, how innovators around the world are overcoming 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:19.760 inequality and creating the technologies of tomorrow. So just different topics, 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:23.240 but but relevant, I think is and and some of 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:26.560 our listeners may not understand this. I didn't for a 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:29.840 long time that Mark Zuckerberg is an unusual CEO and 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:34.440 that he holds absolute power at Facebook because he owns 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:38.639 the majority of the voting shares and so unlike most 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:42.680 normal companies, he doesn't report to the board as most 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:47.800 CEOs do, so the board doesn't decide Mark does on everything. 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:52.800 And so when you look at his actions personally, well, 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:56.080 I guess professionally, they're hard to peel apart, Like, what 0:22:56.160 --> 0:22:59.320 do you think it tells us about his goals for 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:02.280 the future. So the way Zuckerberg is able to get 0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:05.000 away with this is through what's called dual class share 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:09.600 of structures. That basically means that Zuckerberg actually owns, you know, 0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:13.399 a different class, a different what's called class of equity. 0:23:13.440 --> 0:23:16.720 This is an equity that can't be overcome by other 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:20.480 people on the board's decisions. Facebook basically has a strategy 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:23.320 from this example to other ones, including their you know, 0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:29.080 so called independent you know, advisory board. They basically say like, hey, 0:23:29.119 --> 0:23:32.639 we're down with regulation, We're down with your opinions, your voices. 0:23:32.680 --> 0:23:34.359 But at the end of the day, these are just 0:23:34.440 --> 0:23:38.159 little advisory groups or the board that actually doesn't have 0:23:38.200 --> 0:23:41.240 any power. You know, why would the board actually even 0:23:41.320 --> 0:23:44.120 care to change the status quo unless they have more 0:23:44.200 --> 0:23:47.959 humanist or humanitarian sensibilities given that they're making more money 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:51.679 than ever. So what you actually see is again abate 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:54.480 and switch. They say they're innovative, but actually they're really 0:23:54.520 --> 0:23:57.360 anti innovation in the sense that they're not resourceful at all. 0:23:57.640 --> 0:24:00.880 They say they're you know, supporting democracy. Really what they're 0:24:00.920 --> 0:24:04.760 doing is figuring out a masterful model of a triumph 0:24:05.200 --> 0:24:09.160 of a kind of oligarchic capitalism over democracy. So this 0:24:09.240 --> 0:24:11.560 is kind of like when we talk about the governance 0:24:12.040 --> 0:24:15.480 of these technology companies, you know, you can't expect them 0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:18.440 to do any sort of self regulation at all, because 0:24:18.480 --> 0:24:21.560 it's it's actually just you know, like little fake sort 0:24:21.600 --> 0:24:24.800 of agreements to the public like hey, okay, next time 0:24:24.840 --> 0:24:28.280 we'll have better AI. Okay, next time we're you know, 0:24:28.320 --> 0:24:31.080 we're part of this consortium with the a c l U. 0:24:31.560 --> 0:24:34.399 None of those things ultimately change the decisions that are 0:24:34.440 --> 0:24:39.280 made on a business or technological level by the company itself. Right, Yeah, 0:24:39.359 --> 0:24:42.720 I think that you don't agree with this, but but 0:24:42.800 --> 0:24:45.480 obviously you'll correct me. So let me take a run 0:24:45.520 --> 0:24:48.200 at this. Mark has absolute power, and he doesn't seem 0:24:48.240 --> 0:24:51.000 to care whether Facebook is good for people or good 0:24:51.040 --> 0:24:53.560 for the world at all. In fact, we know that 0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:57.040