Speaker 1: I started Facebook, I run it, and I'm responsible for
Speaker 1: what happens here. Whistle blower Francis Halgan insisting Congress must
Speaker 1: act against a company she says is misleading the public
Speaker 1: promoting hateful and harmful content. She laid ultimate responsibility on
Speaker 1: Facebook founder and CEO Marcus Zuckerberg. Since we wrapped our
Speaker 1: first episode on Facebook, it's been revealed that hell bent
Speaker 1: on growth, Facebook leadership actually knew of the harm that
Speaker 1: they were causing users and they didn't care. So in
Speaker 1: this episode, we continue our exploration of events and learn
Speaker 1: how this information affects Facebook's b S score. And if
Speaker 1: you haven't listened to part one, it's in your feed now.
Speaker 1: We'll be right here when you come back. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Calling bull Shit, the podcast about purpose washing, the gap
Speaker 1: between what companies say they stand for and what they
Speaker 1: actually do and what they would need to change to
Speaker 1: practice what they preach. I'm your host, time Ontogue, and
Speaker 1: I've spent over a decade helping companies define what they
Speaker 1: stand for, their purpose and then help them to use
Speaker 1: that purpose to drive transformation throughout their business. Unfortunately, at
Speaker 1: a lot of organizations today, they're still a pretty wide
Speaker 1: gap between word. Indeed, that gap has a name. We
Speaker 1: call it bullshit. But, and this is important, we believe
Speaker 1: that bullshit is a treatable disease. So when the BS
Speaker 1: detector lights up, we're going to explore things that a
Speaker 1: company should do to fix it. Facebook says its mission
Speaker 1: is to give people the power to build community and
Speaker 1: bring the world closer together, and we've called bullshit on that.
Speaker 1: In fact, in our previous Facebook episode, we gave them
Speaker 1: a sky HIGHBS score of seventy two. But some pretty
Speaker 1: important news has dropped since that episode wrapped, So let's
Speaker 1: do a quick catch up. Since we left off, there's
Speaker 1: been both good news and some seriously bad news from Facebook. First,
Speaker 1: former Facebook data scientist Sophie Young came forward. Sophie says
Speaker 1: that while working there, she noticed political parties across twenty
Speaker 1: five countries had been manipulating Facebook to mislaid and in
Speaker 1: some cases harass it's our in citizens in fairness. Facebook
Speaker 1: then took a step in the right direction by creating
Speaker 1: an independent advisory board, similar to what Cameron Ashgar, founder
Speaker 1: of Cross Media, suggested in our first Facebook episode. When
Speaker 1: I heard of its formation, I thought this might actually
Speaker 1: be a turning point, but then the hammer fell. This
Speaker 1: is the Facebook Files, a series from the Journal. We're
Speaker 1: looking deep inside Facebook through its own internal documents. Francis Hogan,
Speaker 1: a product manager in Facebook's civic Integrity unit, left the
Speaker 1: company in May, taking internal documents with her. She delivered
Speaker 1: those documents to the Wall Street Journal and law enforcement,
Speaker 1: giving us an unprecedented look inside Facebook. The thing I
Speaker 1: saw Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts
Speaker 1: of interest between what was good for the public and
Speaker 1: what was good for Facebook, and Facebook over and over
Speaker 1: again chose to optimize for its own interests, like making
Speaker 1: more money. In October, how Can testified to Congress that
Speaker 1: Facebook had extensive research on all of the problems and
Speaker 1: negative effects of their platforms, from misinformation on Facebook to
Speaker 1: toxic Instagram content target young female users. Not only did
Speaker 1: they know, they chose to do nothing about it. The
Speaker 1: only way we can move forward and heal Facebook as
Speaker 1: we first left him in the truth. Either way we'll
Speaker 1: have reconciliation and we can move forward is by first
Speaker 1: being honest and declaring world bankruptcy. And the way Mark
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg chose to move forward in the midst of their
Speaker 1: very public trial for moral bankruptcy was to change the
Speaker 1: company's name to reflect who we are and what we
Speaker 1: hope to build. I am proud to announce that's starting today.
Speaker 1: Our company is now meta. It was a head scratcher.
Speaker 1: It's a move right out of the big tobacco playbook.
Speaker 1: Remember when Philip Morris became Altria, and even if it
Speaker 1: was genuine, it was pretty much guaranteed to raise suspicion
Speaker 1: about the company, not lower it. Zuckerberg isn't going anywhere,
Speaker 1: and he surrounded himsel off with a tight group of
Speaker 1: people at the top who literally don't care about harming
Speaker 1: the welfare of users, which is why we're seeing Facebook
Speaker 1: employees like Jong and Howgan go public, joining former co
Speaker 1: founder Chris Hughes, former investor Roger McNamee, and others in
Speaker 1: calling for Congress to step in. But as we've seen lately,
Speaker 1: Congress finds it hard to agree on some pretty basic
Speaker 1: stuff like that an attack on our capitol is bad
Speaker 1: and that voting is good, for instance. So I'm not
Speaker 1: holding my breath. So here's the question, what the funk
Speaker 1: do we do to try to get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of this. I reached out to an expert who has
Speaker 1: some unusual and I think sorely needed attributes. He's a
Speaker 1: trained software engineer with a decidedly humanist point of view.
Speaker 1: My guest today is the first century renaissance man, Ramash
Speaker 1: Screeny Vazon, a Silicon Valley native U c L, A professor,
Speaker 1: AI engineer, anthropologist, and author of several books, including Beyond
Speaker 1: the Valley, How innovators around the World are overcoming inequality
Speaker 1: and creating the technologies of tomorrow, and whose Global Village
Speaker 1: rethinking how technology shapes our world. First, I want to
Speaker 1: thank you for being here, Remage, and welcome to calling bullshit.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me Tie. I'm really excited to
Speaker 1: be part of this. So before we get into the
Speaker 1: topic of the day, which is Facebook, I'd love for
Speaker 1: you to just introduce yourself. So I'm a very strange
Speaker 1: cat in the sense that I'm a mix of a humanist,
Speaker 1: a social scientists. Right. I'm I'm pretty trained in like anthropology,
Speaker 1: cultural studies, all these issues as well as engineering, and
Speaker 1: I think we need all three of these spheres to
Speaker 1: be in conversation with one another to get us out
Speaker 1: of the mess, uh the many messes we find ourselves
Speaker 1: in right now. My work is really rooted in the
Speaker 1: larger question of how we humanize technology, how do we
Speaker 1: transform technology so it serves the best purposes of humanism.
Speaker 1: And so when I mean humanism, I mean that idea
Speaker 1: that we all feel and sometimes we forget that we're
Speaker 1: all in it together. You know that your well being
Speaker 1: might be connected to my own. So that's sort of
Speaker 1: respect of people's and their lives across our planet, particularly
Speaker 1: in the continents of Asia, Africa, South America and so on.
Speaker 1: You know, these people represent together the vast majority of
Speaker 1: technology users, yet they're conspicuously absent really from almost anything
Speaker 1: involving major decisions around big technology platforms. So this kind
Speaker 1: of idea of dignity and respect for all people's that
Speaker 1: has such promise in relation to the Internet, My work
Speaker 1: is really trying to drive us back to where that
Speaker 1: as our north star. Yeah, and I saw that you
Speaker 1: somewhere that you described it as your work is the
Speaker 1: intersection of technology, innovation, politics, business and society. What was
Speaker 1: it that drew you to that topic? I mean, so,
Speaker 1: I am a late nineties Stanford graduate in engineering. I
Speaker 1: worked for two years right after my undergrad in Amsterdam
Speaker 1: in the Netherlands, developing kind of machine learning technologies, and
Speaker 1: all the while, both in my classes as an undergraduate,
Speaker 1: in my own personal life because of you know, my
Speaker 1: family being from India and are my family traveling to
Speaker 1: different parts of the world, but just sort of also
Speaker 1: just generally in my own life, I saw an incredible
Speaker 1: disconnect between the priorities, the lives, the values, the belief
Speaker 1: systems of people around our beautiful planet and where we
Speaker 1: were driving technology. And even in my context as an
Speaker 1: AI developer, and you know, the late nineties, with the
Speaker 1: realities that I was witnessing and and the insights that
Speaker 1: came from other fields in many other parts of the world.
Speaker 1: So you can't really understand technology and what it means
Speaker 1: without really thinking about things that are not about technology,
Speaker 1: if you know what I mean. But you know, all
Speaker 1: the while, what we tend to do as we elevate,
Speaker 1: if not fetishized technology, and that becomes the object of
Speaker 1: our gaze and our attention, rather than what it actually
Speaker 1: means for our people, for our planet, for diverse cultures,
Speaker 1: for democracy, for economic justice, for racial justice, all these
Speaker 1: issues those are not questions fundamentally about technology. And I
Speaker 1: think I've always been sort of a humanist at heart,
Speaker 1: someone who cares about these values more than anything. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: we need more people like you with that incredibly diverse background, right,
Speaker 1: It's very rare, it seems to me, is particularly in
Speaker 1: the Valley. That's true. Yeah, and I'm in the Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley right now. I'm from Silicon Valley. I went to
Speaker 1: the same high school as Steve jobs stand for a
Speaker 1: late nineties, So this world is very close to my
Speaker 1: own personal world. Yet I've also seen how incredibly opaque
Speaker 1: and limited and actually nearest sighted this world is. It's
Speaker 1: very disconnected. That's why I called my last book Beyond
Speaker 1: the Valley, both in a literal and metaphorical sense. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So let's pivot to Facebook, and this is our second
Speaker 1: episode on Facebook. In the first one, the inciting incident
Speaker 1: really was the Capital, right, and we talked a lot
Speaker 1: about that in Facebook's role in it. The big change
Speaker 1: since we wrapped episode one is that we've learned via
Speaker 1: whistleblower Francis Hogan, that Facebook knows right, Facebook knows that
Speaker 1: they are endangering mental health and in some cases physical
Speaker 1: well being, and they choose to ignore it. And so
Speaker 1: for us at calling BS, that really raises the stakes,
Speaker 1: and so first I just love to hear you know,
Speaker 1: kind of what you think about all of that. I mean,
Speaker 1: what Francis Haagan sort of leaked out that she was
Speaker 1: privy to as as a whistleblower was what a number
Speaker 1: of scholars, not just me, but like, you know, dozens
Speaker 1: of us and journalists by the way we're pointing out,
Speaker 1: you know, we all saw these things, but we saw
Speaker 1: the effects in various parts of the world. We saw
Speaker 1: the effects with January six. We saw the effects with
Speaker 1: the incredible divisiveness associated with Brexit and the and the
Speaker 1: Trump election. So we saw, wait a second, what's going
Speaker 1: on here? These algorithms are manipulating us psychometrically to be
Speaker 1: more divided than ever. So we were seeing this. It
Speaker 1: was extremely helpful for our cause as scholars to get
Speaker 1: that corroboration from internal studies that Facebook was doing, showing
Speaker 1: that Instagram, for example, and any of us who've used
Speaker 1: Instagram can see this, and you can imagine being a
Speaker 1: younger person in their early twenties or teens, just how
Speaker 1: it's correlated with the feeling that I'm never good enough.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm never good enough, I'm never beautiful enough.
Speaker 1: I'm never hot enough, I'm never smart enough, skinny enough,
Speaker 1: because so much of Instagram is artificially filtered, right So,
Speaker 1: so basically these revelations were extremely important because they showed
Speaker 1: how what Facebook is attempting to do, which other big
Speaker 1: tech companies are also trying to do in their own realms,
Speaker 1: is basically dominate our lives in relation to all things
Speaker 1: socially oriented. Right. They want to basically be the place
Speaker 1: we go to to communicate with no and socialize with
Speaker 1: one another. But in the process, what's occurring is not
Speaker 1: tie you and I talking with one another. It's some
Speaker 1: weird stuff that's going on in the middle that's manipulating
Speaker 1: what you see and when you see it, and what
Speaker 1: I see and when I see it. And there's this
Speaker 1: massive acquisition of data that is being used to target
Speaker 1: us as psycho graphic subjects, not demographic, but psychographic. What
Speaker 1: will drive you crazy, what will get you aroused, what
Speaker 1: will get you to be more extroverted? As I was
Speaker 1: preparing for this, I ran across a quote by Sean Parker,
Speaker 1: Facebook's first president, in Axios, and in this interview, he
Speaker 1: said that Facebook and Instagram constantly ask themselves one question
Speaker 1: how do we consume as much of the user's time
Speaker 1: and attention as possible? And then he went on to
Speaker 1: say we were exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. The investors, creators,
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg, Kevin's Systrom, all of these people understood it consciously,
Speaker 1: and we did it anyway. And I guess my question
Speaker 1: is how why is this even legal? Like it's odd
Speaker 1: to me that we allow this to go on? Well,
Speaker 1: partly because we're only wrapping our heads around what's going
Speaker 1: on recently, and our lawmakers are even more slowly wrapping
Speaker 1: their heads around what is happening here. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to work with as many of them as I can.
Speaker 1: One piece of good news is that lawmakers across the
Speaker 1: political spectrum for various reasons. The thing is that what
Speaker 1: is occurring here is, you know, leveraging the kind of
Speaker 1: principles of free speech. And I'm all for free speech.
Speaker 1: These technology companies have actually they used that as their
Speaker 1: sort of crutch and then they do whatever they want
Speaker 1: with us. I don't mind that the Internet supports the
Speaker 1: capacity for all types of speech, but what I do
Speaker 1: mind deeply is that the most heinous forms of speech
Speaker 1: are what are being most prioritized. So you know, Tye,
Speaker 1: it's one thing for me to say, Tie, you know,
Speaker 1: you should be able to speak how you wish, and
Speaker 1: you should be able to read what you want. It's
Speaker 1: another thing to say that, Tie, I'm just going to
Speaker 1: keep feeding you insane, crazy and at times conspiratorial and
Speaker 1: outrageous content. So you so you go crazy with a
Speaker 1: dopamine firing in your head, and it's like staring at
Speaker 1: a burning car the entire time. It's so Actually, these
Speaker 1: companies are not prioritizing actual free speech in the sense
Speaker 1: that all forms of speech are, you know, maybe even
Speaker 1: equally accessible. But no, I'm sorry, I'm I'm interrupting. Here
Speaker 1: you go, I'm excited now. Just the last thing I
Speaker 1: would say is in democratic societies, there's always been voices
Speaker 1: that are a little extreme on various margins those that's
Speaker 1: part of democracy. Here, what's happening is, you know, we're
Speaker 1: all being presented with completely different worlds in front of
Speaker 1: our fingertips, and we're all glued to our phones and
Speaker 1: on these apps and on these websites all the time,
Speaker 1: so our entire experience is completely different. Tights, say, you
Speaker 1: and I were like the same demographically, the same, politically,
Speaker 1: the same in terms of economic class. We could be
Speaker 1: presented with completely different dissenting worlds on these platforms, right,
Speaker 1: We live in completely different reality bubbles on the platform. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and that's the thing. They claim that they shouldn't be
Speaker 1: responsible because they exercise no editorial control on the platform.
Speaker 1: They are not a media platform. But the algorithms exercise
Speaker 1: editorial control. That's the point. It's just not it's non human.
Speaker 1: But that shouldn't absolve them. They created the algorithms. That's
Speaker 1: the point. Opt In is a default on every level,
Speaker 1: and it's not just opt in. You know, people like
Speaker 1: Edward Snowden have made the point that even if our
Speaker 1: phones were on airplane mode, we're being recorded all the time.
Speaker 1: Say I'm hanging out with Utah, but I left my
Speaker 1: phone at home. Data about me is still being gathered
Speaker 1: through your phone, through your device, which is creepy because
Speaker 1: you can stitch together data points triangulate. Yeah. Okay, so
Speaker 1: let me shift gears for a sec here and just
Speaker 1: get into another aspect of this. My sense, given that
Speaker 1: Facebook scale, that we're all affected by Facebook in some
Speaker 1: way today. But I'm wondering what you would stay to
Speaker 1: somebody who says, well, if you don't like what they do,
Speaker 1: just delete the platform, don't use the product. Easy, Easier
Speaker 1: said than done. If you're in a country in the
Speaker 1: world where Facebook is the media network, they say, we don't.
Speaker 1: We are not a media network. They're the biggest media
Speaker 1: network in the history of the world period period, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean they're only vuying with like a YouTube, which
Speaker 1: is of course part of Google, right. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you want to look at Instagram, Facebook, I mean the
Speaker 1: technologies and WhatsApp. If you look at the union of
Speaker 1: those three groups, we're talking about three point five billion
Speaker 1: people out of eight billion or so people in the world.
Speaker 1: That's that they're all media platforms, and they are together,
Speaker 1: if you put it all together, the biggest media network
Speaker 1: in the history of the world. So it's like saying
Speaker 1: to someone like, oh, well, too bad, you can just
Speaker 1: choose to get off of our platform and use something else.
Speaker 1: It's just not It's really unrealistic on so many levels, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, because of what we call network effects. I'm
Speaker 1: on Facebook, not because I care about Facebook. I'm on
Speaker 1: Facebook to connect with my relatives in India, with people
Speaker 1: I worked with in South America. That's why I'm there.
Speaker 1: So it's like too late. They are essentially a utility,
Speaker 1: if not something approaching a monopoly. So they are the
Speaker 1: de facto place for socializing. And I don't mean Facebook
Speaker 1: the technology. I mean Facebook the company which owns again
Speaker 1: Oculus right, which is their gateway to meta by the way,
Speaker 1: um Instagram, what'sapp in Facebook? Ye? And in terms of
Speaker 1: Facebook's attitude about all this, I read another thing that
Speaker 1: I found sort of outrageous. This long time Facebook executive
Speaker 1: and now new Chief Technology officer ct O Andrew Bosworth
Speaker 1: came right out and said that he blames users for
Speaker 1: the choices that they make on the platform. He said
Speaker 1: a bunch of that's insane. Yeah, he said a bunch
Speaker 1: of crazy things. He said, rather than social media people
Speaker 1: are to blame for the proliferation of misinformation online, He
Speaker 1: said the owners should be on the individual and any
Speaker 1: meaningful democracy. He called Facebook a fundamentally democratic technology, despite
Speaker 1: the recent revelation that the platform allowed high profile users
Speaker 1: to break its policies. Asked whether vaccine hesitancy would be
Speaker 1: the same with or without social media, he said that
Speaker 1: individuals choose what sources to trust. That's their choice. They're
Speaker 1: allowed to do that. If you have an issue with
Speaker 1: those people, you don't have an issue with Facebook. You
Speaker 1: can't put that on me. I just that attitude seems
Speaker 1: I don't know, anti human in a way like it
Speaker 1: just seems wrong. It's uninformed also right, in addition to
Speaker 1: being just being untrue, it's uninformed. And sometimes these are
Speaker 1: these are perspectives you hear from people like who are
Speaker 1: just so ensnared within the kind of tech bubble they
Speaker 1: somehow think that what they're creating is an open portal
Speaker 1: to the world. How is that possible? If what I
Speaker 1: see on Facebook is determined computationally and algorithmically by Facebook,
Speaker 1: can they tell me how I can experience my Facebook
Speaker 1: feed in a in a way that is more open
Speaker 1: or is more self directed by my own choices, my
Speaker 1: own values. Of course not. Yes, indeed, so just spending
Speaker 1: another minute outside the US. As you pointed out, the
Speaker 1: vast majority of users are outside the US, and one
Speaker 1: aspect is that the US is where most of their
Speaker 1: modern ration happens. In other words, they pay much more
Speaker 1: attention to the US platform than they do outside the US,
Speaker 1: which means that most of their users are looking at
Speaker 1: a completely unmoderated platform in terms of hateful content, and
Speaker 1: so I just wondered if you could talk about the
Speaker 1: impact in places like the global South, India for example,
Speaker 1: and you know what the effects are on democracy worldwide? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean Facebook. You know, the company understands that the
Speaker 1: most you know, kind of crop that they're going to
Speaker 1: get or will have to kind of deal with is
Speaker 1: in the US, right, So in other countries, you know,
Speaker 1: this approach to where just getting people content that rolls
Speaker 1: them up, that outreaches them, that drives them a little
Speaker 1: crazy is the norm. Right. So we've seen how that
Speaker 1: manifests in genocides in myyan Mar with the Rohinga community.
Speaker 1: We've seen how it's actually manifested in the more recent
Speaker 1: attack on Burmese people by the state government. We're seeing
Speaker 1: it right now in the Two Grayan region of Ethiopia.
Speaker 1: We've seen this in Sri Lanka. We've seen it right
Speaker 1: here at home in January six. We see it all
Speaker 1: around the world. And we can also see how despots
Speaker 1: and authoritarians, people like Rodrico de Terite in the Philippines,
Speaker 1: Jayur Bolsonaro in Brazil have been able to use social
Speaker 1: media to divide and conquer to polarized people. And our
Speaker 1: former president was a master at being a central node
Speaker 1: of digital activity on many different platforms. He put out
Speaker 1: content messaging that worked perfectly well for these dystopic forms
Speaker 1: of virality and visibility that I'm speaking about. Ramatous take
Speaker 1: on Mark zuckerberg obstacles to regulation and Facebook's revised BS
Speaker 1: score right after this, back with Roma Srinivasan, author of
Speaker 1: Beyond the Valley, how innovators around the world are overcoming
Speaker 1: inequality and creating the technologies of tomorrow. So just different topics,
Speaker 1: but but relevant, I think is and and some of
Speaker 1: our listeners may not understand this. I didn't for a
Speaker 1: long time that Mark Zuckerberg is an unusual CEO and
Speaker 1: that he holds absolute power at Facebook because he owns
Speaker 1: the majority of the voting shares and so unlike most
Speaker 1: normal companies, he doesn't report to the board as most
Speaker 1: CEOs do, so the board doesn't decide Mark does on everything.
Speaker 1: And so when you look at his actions personally, well,
Speaker 1: I guess professionally, they're hard to peel apart, Like, what
Speaker 1: do you think it tells us about his goals for
Speaker 1: the future. So the way Zuckerberg is able to get
Speaker 1: away with this is through what's called dual class share
Speaker 1: of structures. That basically means that Zuckerberg actually owns, you know,
Speaker 1: a different class, a different what's called class of equity.
Speaker 1: This is an equity that can't be overcome by other
Speaker 1: people on the board's decisions. Facebook basically has a strategy
Speaker 1: from this example to other ones, including their you know,
Speaker 1: so called independent you know, advisory board. They basically say like, hey,
Speaker 1: we're down with regulation, We're down with your opinions, your voices.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, these are just
Speaker 1: little advisory groups or the board that actually doesn't have
Speaker 1: any power. You know, why would the board actually even
Speaker 1: care to change the status quo unless they have more
Speaker 1: humanist or humanitarian sensibilities given that they're making more money
Speaker 1: than ever. So what you actually see is again abate
Speaker 1: and switch. They say they're innovative, but actually they're really
Speaker 1: anti innovation in the sense that they're not resourceful at all.
Speaker 1: They say they're you know, supporting democracy. Really what they're
Speaker 1: doing is figuring out a masterful model of a triumph
Speaker 1: of a kind of oligarchic capitalism over democracy. So this
Speaker 1: is kind of like when we talk about the governance
Speaker 1: of these technology companies, you know, you can't expect them
Speaker 1: to do any sort of self regulation at all, because
Speaker 1: it's it's actually just you know, like little fake sort
Speaker 1: of agreements to the public like hey, okay, next time
Speaker 1: we'll have better AI. Okay, next time we're you know,
Speaker 1: we're part of this consortium with the a c l U.
Speaker 1: None of those things ultimately change the decisions that are
Speaker 1: made on a business or technological level by the company itself. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that you don't agree with this, but but
Speaker 1: obviously you'll correct me. So let me take a run
Speaker 1: at this. Mark has absolute power, and he doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to care whether Facebook is good for people or good
Speaker 1: for the world at all. In fact, we know that
Speaker 1: he is now knowingly pursuing revenue growth at the expense
Speaker 1: of people's mental health, young people, childre don. In some cases,
Speaker 1: he knowingly lies in public occasionally to Congress about his
Speaker 1: intentions to change. And so I look at that behavior
Speaker 1: and it begs the question is Mark a sociopath? Like
Speaker 1: does he have some kind of clinical condition? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: mean you were right to say that. My I would
Speaker 1: answer no to that. Yeah, I heard that you disagreed
Speaker 1: with this, and I just I just wanted to hear
Speaker 1: you talk more about why I think the system is sociopathic, right,
Speaker 1: I think the system is just deeply inhumane. Actually, And
Speaker 1: as far as Mark Zuckerbrook's concerned himself, I've actually met
Speaker 1: him a little over a decade ago. I mean, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't call him shiny happy people, but you know, I
Speaker 1: I thought he was just kind of in that way
Speaker 1: that a lot of engineers can be. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a long time ago, just kind of just sort
Speaker 1: of wants data and evidence and analysis, and it is
Speaker 1: sort of like, you know, interested in the growth of
Speaker 1: his platform. Right. So it's so it's sort of like
Speaker 1: we have created such a system where growth, no matter
Speaker 1: what is what is valued. And you know, some of
Speaker 1: these people are so kind of just almost you know,
Speaker 1: this is a very humane guess that they're just so
Speaker 1: overwhelmed with not just them growing the platform, but all
Speaker 1: the like hysteria and criticism at all. It just feels
Speaker 1: like they're they're not They're not the people we should
Speaker 1: rely on to do much of anything. They have to
Speaker 1: be forced to be accountable to a public that they monetize.
Speaker 1: And also remember all of these companies live on in
Speaker 1: Internet that was paid for you know, I know it
Speaker 1: was a long time ago in nineteen sixty nine by
Speaker 1: US taxpayers. They're exploiting the public on on multiple levels,
Speaker 1: both in terms of investments that they've monetized for their
Speaker 1: own private benefit, just like you know, Visor, which seems
Speaker 1: to be like the state corporation right now, and and
Speaker 1: and Maderna. I'm all for vaccination, but but I don't
Speaker 1: like this. I don't like that we are having a
Speaker 1: privatized aation of public life on every single level. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree that the system is sociopathic. I guess given
Speaker 1: the amount of power and wealth that he has accumulated,
Speaker 1: how do we begin to think about protecting ourselves from
Speaker 1: Mark and other people like him. It's time for actual
Speaker 1: decision making power to rest in the hands of third
Speaker 1: parties that represent people, and there needs to be more
Speaker 1: of a relationship between private technology companies that have created
Speaker 1: certain types of spaces and technologies that they should certainly
Speaker 1: benefit from on an economic level and the rest of us.
Speaker 1: You know, And you can't expect this to occur within
Speaker 1: the bubble of a tech company within the bubble of
Speaker 1: this sort of hyper growth oriented, just valuation oriented, toxic
Speaker 1: business model. So you know, I think I think we're
Speaker 1: just going to have to try our best. I mean,
Speaker 1: I tend to be someone who really deeply admires uh
Speaker 1: Cornell West. Actually he's like my hero. He just calls
Speaker 1: everyone my brother. So let's let's try to say, hey, Mark,
Speaker 1: you're my brother. But you know, we're gonna call We're
Speaker 1: gonna call stuff out, We're gonna keep it real, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to ensure that you that this kind
Speaker 1: of you know, egregious offense I think upon people around
Speaker 1: the world, especially the people who are most vulnerable, working
Speaker 1: class people. So one of the other levers that I've
Speaker 1: been thinking about, just as I've been circling this problem
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out how do we how do
Speaker 1: we begin to get out of this One of the
Speaker 1: other lovers is the employees. I mean, Francis Hogan is
Speaker 1: one of a handful of employees which now include also
Speaker 1: a co founder, Chris Hughes, who have spoken out, which
Speaker 1: is incredibly courageous, particularly for her. I assume that Facebook,
Speaker 1: like most companies, is full of good people. How do
Speaker 1: we encourage more of them to either you know, whistleblow
Speaker 1: if they can, or just vote with their feet and
Speaker 1: go do something else. I think that some of the
Speaker 1: greatest activism in terms of actually raising our awareness as
Speaker 1: a public around these issues are from employees within these companies.
Speaker 1: So I have so much appreciation for people who work
Speaker 1: in these companies. You know, a lot of engineers are
Speaker 1: very good people, where they just aren't just like I
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily trained in all these other issues, but that
Speaker 1: may not necessarily be their job. The problem is someone
Speaker 1: needs to have that awareness, that kind of more holistic, interdisciplinary,
Speaker 1: you know, humanist kind of sensibility, and they need to
Speaker 1: have you know, FIAT decision making power. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's that that's the issue here. But I think when
Speaker 1: I look towards the future, believe it or not, I
Speaker 1: have a lot of I don't know if it's optimism
Speaker 1: as much as determination that we can move things on
Speaker 1: a much better direction, in a much more human direction.
Speaker 1: I wanted to spend a little bit more time talking
Speaker 1: about regulation sation. One of the things that you've said
Speaker 1: is that we need legislation that to quote you, set
Speaker 1: the right balance between free speech and algorithms that make
Speaker 1: hate speech and blatantly false information from unreputable sources go viral,
Speaker 1: And obviously I totally agree with that. What do you
Speaker 1: see as the major challenges to regulation? What? What a
Speaker 1: great question, you know. I think in this particular case,
Speaker 1: in a sort of strange way, I do have a
Speaker 1: lot of hope because progressives, people in the center, and
Speaker 1: Republicans kind of all are pretty miffed by the status
Speaker 1: quo when it comes to where big tech companies are
Speaker 1: a lot of Republicans like to claim that the tech
Speaker 1: companies are biased against conservatives and conservative interests and that
Speaker 1: they actually don't support free speech. A lot of people
Speaker 1: on the more progressive side of the of the political
Speaker 1: spectrum are pretty outspoken about how sort of these oligopolic
Speaker 1: tendencies have not kind of monopolistic tendencies can hijack an
Speaker 1: economy and hijack equality. So you know, whether it's equality
Speaker 1: or whether it's like you guys are biased against us
Speaker 1: kind of thing, everyone's got a problem. So I think
Speaker 1: that there are certain things we can do, and I've
Speaker 1: been calling for what I call a digital Bill of Rights.
Speaker 1: Senator Cloba Charge just introduced a Privacy Bill. It has
Speaker 1: some aspects of what I've been calling for, which I
Speaker 1: would think I think is more progressive, you know, representative
Speaker 1: real Kanda and who I think is really intelligent um
Speaker 1: and or really brilliant on these issues, just released a
Speaker 1: book on these issues. Has been an interesting figure in
Speaker 1: these discussions. Here's a fertile ground for us to do
Speaker 1: something about the status quo. M that's good news. So
Speaker 1: another thing I wanted to talk about is just the
Speaker 1: frame of reference I guess that we bring to regulation
Speaker 1: because for some reason, when we view tech companies, it's
Speaker 1: viewed as a big deal to regulate them. But we
Speaker 1: regulate for the common good all the time. Certain drugs
Speaker 1: are illegal, or their age limits to things like drinking
Speaker 1: or driving a car, flying an airplane. Why do you
Speaker 1: think we don't automatically view Facebook or other big technology
Speaker 1: companies through that same lens. I think it's because a
Speaker 1: couple of things. I mean, first of all, it seems
Speaker 1: different than a car. We use the car in very specific,
Speaker 1: defined kinds of actions and activities, and so in those
Speaker 1: activities were like, yeah, there should be seatbelts in the
Speaker 1: in the car, right, But our digital lives are our
Speaker 1: lives increasing for better or worse. It's sort of saying like,
Speaker 1: our lives should be regulated, and I don't think people
Speaker 1: have an easy time wrapping their head around that. That's
Speaker 1: why we need actual regulators. And remember regulation is not
Speaker 1: the enemy of business. Regulation actually allows businesses to maintain
Speaker 1: their competitive edge. If you look at, for example, the
Speaker 1: last time a major company was broken up in the
Speaker 1: United States, that was a T and T. Last time
Speaker 1: I checked, a T and T is doing pretty well
Speaker 1: right now, right, So it forced the company to actually compete.
Speaker 1: And that is what regulation, at least in that particular case,
Speaker 1: antitrust action is about. In a way, it's about asking
Speaker 1: the company to maintain integrity and actually innovative innovation in
Speaker 1: this case isn't just creating a new iPhone that's going
Speaker 1: to die in three years so we all have to
Speaker 1: buy another one. So I want to spend the last
Speaker 1: few minutes that we have trying to light a few
Speaker 1: candles here, because obviously this is a tough problem, and
Speaker 1: we really believe in the power of action to create change,
Speaker 1: both inside companies and outside them. In the book, you
Speaker 1: talk about a future where technology becomes stakeholder centered instead
Speaker 1: of shareholder centered to get there, though you point out
Speaker 1: that people should have a hand in designing their own technology,
Speaker 1: how do we get there from here? It's such a
Speaker 1: good question. So I think what we can do is
Speaker 1: actually I think not like we we like we started
Speaker 1: with our conversation tie and not sort of have this
Speaker 1: be about technology, but about what kind of world we
Speaker 1: wish to live in. And I think that that question
Speaker 1: is the most important question that should drive all our
Speaker 1: discussions about many things, not only technology or Facebook. So
Speaker 1: when I think about that world, it would be a
Speaker 1: world where there is dignity and respect for all people's
Speaker 1: right It would be where our individual rights would be
Speaker 1: respects as sovereign human beings. You know, we wouldn't be
Speaker 1: sources of manipulation and engines that fuel our depression and
Speaker 1: anxiety and trauma and divisiveness. So I think that's one
Speaker 1: second is when we talk about stakeholders, we need to
Speaker 1: understand what are the populations within the country, around the
Speaker 1: world that are affected by decisions made about a large
Speaker 1: scale technology platform or platforms that are owned by Facebook
Speaker 1: right in that three point five or so billion users.
Speaker 1: So in that case, we have a huge opportunity to
Speaker 1: resolve some of the problems with the digital economy. Instead
Speaker 1: of hiring a few exploited, traumatized content moderators in in
Speaker 1: in the Philippines, what if Facebook partnered with independent journalists
Speaker 1: in every single country where it operated, so that those
Speaker 1: journalists could actually have power over mediating, you know, auditing, tweaking,
Speaker 1: working with Facebook technologies so that they could reach people
Speaker 1: in those countries in ways that are more fair I
Speaker 1: mean by part is it hearing. So that's a huge idea, right,
Speaker 1: this could be a huge way in which Facebook, which
Speaker 1: is a trillion plus dollar valuated company. Right, we haven't
Speaker 1: even talked about meta. Next time, I guess, I guess
Speaker 1: next time, I'll be back. So when we say stakeholders,
Speaker 1: we need to think about those. We have to identify
Speaker 1: groups of populations. We have to identify the groups whose
Speaker 1: voices should be empowered. That can be done with this
Speaker 1: great advice is a reboard in relation to Facebook, and
Speaker 1: then real steps need to be taken to arm those
Speaker 1: different groups with greater power. That means that we moved
Speaker 1: from disorientation to real collaboration. That's what I'm proposing. And
Speaker 1: in the meantime, in our schools and our universities. We
Speaker 1: need our STEM curriculate to not just be stem, but
Speaker 1: to also be steam, including the arts and the humanities.
Speaker 1: I think more than ever, people need to really study
Speaker 1: the humanities and the social sciences so they can understand
Speaker 1: the question what kind of human being do I want
Speaker 1: to be? What kind of world do I want to
Speaker 1: live in? Those are not questions, quite honestly, that are
Speaker 1: usually asked in engineering classes. Yep, No, that's such a
Speaker 1: great point. Okay, roomation. Last question on this show. We
Speaker 1: have something called the BS scale, So it goes from
Speaker 1: zero to one hundred, zero being the best zero BS
Speaker 1: and being the worst BS. So Facebook says that their
Speaker 1: purpose is to empower all of us to build community
Speaker 1: and bring the world closer together. Where do we think
Speaker 1: Facebook falls on that scale in terms of actually living
Speaker 1: that purpose? Right now? I'll give them an a D
Speaker 1: and be nice that way, because I do have hope,
Speaker 1: because there are good people who work at Facebook. You
Speaker 1: know them, I know them. I am willing to always
Speaker 1: sort of hope for and and not in this moment
Speaker 1: where people are so quickly calling one another out. I
Speaker 1: try to follow a practice of compassion. I think that
Speaker 1: there's a huge opportunity here where it could be at
Speaker 1: an inflection point for real transformative change that is great
Speaker 1: for businesses but great for everyone else to write. And
Speaker 1: that is what I want us to get to. And
Speaker 1: I'm I'm determined. That's that's why I'm here with you.
Speaker 1: I'm determined to do everything I can to take us
Speaker 1: there because I'm a veteran of this world. We can
Speaker 1: do a lot about this. We can do a lot
Speaker 1: about this, but we need to start with real dialogue
Speaker 1: and giving up some power and trusting one another, real collaboration.
Speaker 1: I love that vision. Based on that, what's the one
Speaker 1: thing that you would tell Mark to do two to
Speaker 1: actually enact that, which would of course lower that score.
Speaker 1: Sit down with the right kinds of scholars and journalists.
Speaker 1: Let's all get together. Let's agree to some real actions
Speaker 1: that you can take based on what our conversation are.
Speaker 1: Agree and actually enact those actions. And here's another thing.
Speaker 1: Let's do some A B testing. If you are to
Speaker 1: implement some of these changes, Let's see how much that actually,
Speaker 1: if at all, detracts from your you know what they
Speaker 1: call engagement, so you know, attention is their currency. As
Speaker 1: you alluded to earlier, so like, is that really the case?
Speaker 1: You know, if I were exposed to interesting content that's
Speaker 1: not just crazy trauma hype machine content, and it was
Speaker 1: just sort of like maybe interesting in other ways. Uh,
Speaker 1: I don't because human beings we only like to look
Speaker 1: at burning cars. I really don't. I think human beings
Speaker 1: are more complex than that, and I think human beings
Speaker 1: are also activated by things that activate their interests and
Speaker 1: expand their imagination. And call me a hopeful optimist about humanity,
Speaker 1: but you know what, we gotta fight for what we
Speaker 1: mean by humanity here moving forward. That's right, Dent. It
Speaker 1: just reminds me of one of the ideas that someone
Speaker 1: put forward in the first episode was instead of a
Speaker 1: like button, let's try different kinds of buttons like maybe
Speaker 1: made me think button right. Things that encourage you to
Speaker 1: think critically about what it is that you're looking at.
Speaker 1: Things that encourage you to engage in healthier behaviors and
Speaker 1: with healthier content. This was so great. I so appreciate
Speaker 1: your being here with us today and thank you. Oh
Speaker 1: it's my pleasure. This was a great conversation, and thank
Speaker 1: you for having this podcast. I had no idea when
Speaker 1: I started looking at Facebook that they would turn out
Speaker 1: to be such a complicated story, or that their score
Speaker 1: would be so high. But the b S score just
Speaker 1: goes way up when you know about the BS and
Speaker 1: decide to look the other way, and it goes up
Speaker 1: even further if you decide to try to hide it
Speaker 1: to me. The tragedy here is that Facebook has so
Speaker 1: much potential to do good, the ability to support and
Speaker 1: promote great causes at scale, a way to share important
Speaker 1: information about a pandemic, for instance, at scale connectivity in
Speaker 1: all parts of the world. That's what I want from
Speaker 1: my social media. The really big line is that they
Speaker 1: have to pursue this antiquated and dying form of capitalism
Speaker 1: that puts short term profitability over humanity. I am convinced
Speaker 1: that it's ultimately bad for business, and that the mark
Speaker 1: will prove this out over the long term. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to raise Facebook's BS score. Remember the scale is
Speaker 1: from zero to one, zero being the best zero BS,
Speaker 1: a hundred being the worst total BS. In episode one,
Speaker 1: we gave them a seventy two. We're raising it twenty
Speaker 1: points to two. Some might say even that is too low,
Speaker 1: but we're going to spare them those eight points because,
Speaker 1: like Cromace, I believe the company has a bunch of
Speaker 1: good people working inside to try to change it, so
Speaker 1: there's always hope. And if you're running a purpose led
Speaker 1: business or thinking of beginning the journey of transformation to
Speaker 1: become one, here are three things you should take away
Speaker 1: from today's episode. Today, I'm going to switch it up
Speaker 1: and do these in the form of predictions. One, with
Speaker 1: a b S score of ninety two, I predict that
Speaker 1: Facebook is going to lose the war for talent. Young
Speaker 1: people today want to work in organizations that align with
Speaker 1: their values. The very best people won't be interested in
Speaker 1: joining Facebook, and those already there will leave. If you're
Speaker 1: running a purpose led business, keeping your BS score as
Speaker 1: low as you can is a competitive advantage too. Being
Speaker 1: an ultra high BS company attracts regulators. I predict that
Speaker 1: at the very least, the days of Facebook's anti competitive
Speaker 1: behavior of just acquiring or copying competitors is over. If
Speaker 1: you're lucky enough to be running a purpose led business
Speaker 1: that gets big, a low BS score keeps congress away.
Speaker 1: And three, being an ultra high BS company destroys shareholder value.
Speaker 1: I predict that Facebook investors who in the short term
Speaker 1: have benefited from all this bad behavior will start to suffer.
Speaker 1: There is a massive shift taking place in capital is
Speaker 1: um right now. We're seeing the largest intergenerational transfer of
Speaker 1: wealth in history, as boomers age out and transfer their
Speaker 1: money to the next generations. Those generations want to invest
Speaker 1: that money in ways that align with their values. So
Speaker 1: if you're starting or leading a purpose led business, low
Speaker 1: bs will improve your ability to access capital to grow
Speaker 1: that business privately or in the public markets. Usually at
Speaker 1: this point in the show, I would extend an invitation
Speaker 1: to Mark Zuckerberg if he ever wants to join us
Speaker 1: to chat. That door will always be open, Mark, But
Speaker 1: I'd also like to extend an invitation to Facebook employees
Speaker 1: who continue to fight the good fight. If any of
Speaker 1: you ever want to come on our show, you have
Speaker 1: an open invitation. Thanks to our guest today, Ramas Srinivasa.
Speaker 1: You can find out more about him on our website
Speaker 1: Calling Ship podcast dot com. If you have ideas for
Speaker 1: companies or organizations we should consider for future episodes, you
Speaker 1: can submit them on the site too, And I highly
Speaker 1: recommend you check out Romation's book Beyond the Valley. Subscribe
Speaker 1: to the Calling Bullshit podcast on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, and thanks
Speaker 1: to our production team Hannah Beal, Jess Fenton, Amanda Ginsburgh,
Speaker 1: Andy Kim, D s Moss, Mikaela Reid, Basil Soaper and
Speaker 1: me John Zulu. Calling Bullshit was created by co Collective
Speaker 1: and is hosted by me Time Montague. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: Ye