Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Mazer and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. One story. We wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure we talked about today because we were thinking about it.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the weekend and certainly is
Speaker 1: the day began, Carol. The headlines just keep coming for Facebook.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk to Tom Giles in a second,
Speaker 1: but first let's hear a little bit of sound from
Speaker 1: Nick Clegg. He is Facebook's VP for Global Affairs and Communications,
Speaker 1: talking about the issues facing the company. I think it's
Speaker 1: quite right that civil rights organizations should pressure us to
Speaker 1: always do do better. I think that's totally fair. We
Speaker 1: have three billion people or thereabouts on our platform around
Speaker 1: the world. Thankfully, hate speeches are a tiny minority of
Speaker 1: the total amount of content on our on our platforms
Speaker 1: around the hundred and fifteen billion messages are sent on
Speaker 1: our platforms on on every you know, on an average day,
Speaker 1: and only a tiny fraction of that is hate speech.
Speaker 1: But because it's a tiny fraction, it might be harder
Speaker 1: to identify fine remove. But we should, of course always
Speaker 1: try to do as well as we possibly can well
Speaker 1: trying to do their best, says Nick clegg over at Facebook.
Speaker 1: Let's break it down with Tom Giles, so excited to
Speaker 1: have him on the show, Executive editor for Global Technology
Speaker 1: joining us on the phone from San Francisco. So this
Speaker 1: is quite a moment for Facebook. It feels like Tom,
Speaker 1: help us understand how important it is. Absolutely well, it's
Speaker 1: great to be on the show. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Right now. Facebook is under attack from a couple of
Speaker 1: different areas. One, there's civil rights groups who were really
Speaker 1: set up with what they consider to be ineffective efforts
Speaker 1: at policing hate speech, as Nick was as Nick mcleg
Speaker 1: was just discussing disinformation. There's a long litany of gripes
Speaker 1: against many of them deserve um. The fact of the
Speaker 1: matter is Facebook hasn't done a good job of keeping
Speaker 1: harmful content off its site, whether you define that as
Speaker 1: hate speech, glorification of violence, disinformation around elections, etcetera. The
Speaker 1: list goes on and on. Now, in fairness, Facebook has
Speaker 1: taken several steps, as Nick clad pointed out Mark Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: last Friday outline some some changes that they're making. Civil
Speaker 1: rights groups are not a peace and now you have brands,
Speaker 1: global brands Board, Microsoft, Core Rox. The list goes on
Speaker 1: and on and on of people saying we're either we're
Speaker 1: gonna pause spending on either Facebook in particular or social
Speaker 1: media more generally. We're concerned about harmful content, and we're
Speaker 1: concerned about our ads appearing alongside content that is what
Speaker 1: we consider to be inappropriate. So but really trying to
Speaker 1: hit Facebook where it hurts the most and that's its
Speaker 1: bottom line. God, I have so many questions for you,
Speaker 1: tom Um. I feel like, why did it take so
Speaker 1: long for companies to react? Why did it take so
Speaker 1: long for Facebook to react? You know? And if we
Speaker 1: weren't in this situation where we've all been locked down,
Speaker 1: and I feel like we're all experiencing, you know, the
Speaker 1: inequalities that are being unearthed again in our society altogether.
Speaker 1: And if George Floyd, you know, hadn't been killed in Minneapolis,
Speaker 1: would we be having this conversation and what would everybody
Speaker 1: and the social media platforms kind of just be going
Speaker 1: about their business. Well, I think that we we are
Speaker 1: at a moment right now as a society, and George
Speaker 1: Floyd's killing had a lot to do with it. The
Speaker 1: discussion around race, the discussion around violence against people of color,
Speaker 1: police brutality. Those conversations have been brought to the four
Speaker 1: as a result of George Floyd, and you've seen corporate
Speaker 1: America really take a stronger stand than they've taken before.
Speaker 1: I mean, clearly, police violence against people of color is
Speaker 1: not new. What's different is this time corporate America seems
Speaker 1: to be getting the message in a stronger way. You've
Speaker 1: seen changes in brands, You've seen changes in logos, You've
Speaker 1: seen changes in you know, some of the products that
Speaker 1: we've all grown up with. That's just one indication that
Speaker 1: corporate America recognizes that business as usual is no longer
Speaker 1: gonna work here um, and that they need to be
Speaker 1: involved and they need to take the stand now. When
Speaker 1: it comes to Facebook, there's a couple other things that
Speaker 1: work here. Not only is there this cultural discussion, this
Speaker 1: dialogue much needed, there's also the global pandemic that has
Speaker 1: brought economic activity around the world, particularly in the US
Speaker 1: in many sectors to a standstill or slowed them considerable. Right.
Speaker 1: So when that happens, global brands decide, right now is
Speaker 1: a good time for me to tap the brakes on
Speaker 1: marketing spending. We saw that happening starting around March when
Speaker 1: the when the quarantines began. It continued throughout the second quarter,
Speaker 1: and it was its experience largely expected to continue probably
Speaker 1: a bit a little bit in the third quarter in
Speaker 1: the fourth quarter, but brands were already raining in spending.
Speaker 1: There's little economic activity, little there's little reason if you're
Speaker 1: if you're choosing between whether the fireworkers or rain in
Speaker 1: your marketing budget, you're going to cut your marketing budget.
Speaker 1: So this is a way for companies to get in
Speaker 1: there and say we're doing something about race, and we're
Speaker 1: also you know, justifying why we're cutting back on spending
Speaker 1: on marketing. So Tom, I have to ask you. We
Speaker 1: were talking about this a little bit before we came
Speaker 1: into this segment, you know, looking at what's going on
Speaker 1: um with Reddit especially and some of the moves that
Speaker 1: they are are making and twitches making around their content.
Speaker 1: I do wonder as you look back on it, and
Speaker 1: obviously this is sort of instant history, but I mean,
Speaker 1: was Jack Dorsey's moment a few months ago? I guess
Speaker 1: it was about a month ago or so, what was
Speaker 1: that as important as we think it was in terms
Speaker 1: of maybe setting a new tone for what social media
Speaker 1: cannon should be doing. When it comes to speech. I
Speaker 1: think he put his foot down. He said that we
Speaker 1: as social media can push back. We can say enough
Speaker 1: is enough, and we don't have to be pushed around
Speaker 1: by any group. Um. In this case, there are some
Speaker 1: things that Trump has said and done in recent months.
Speaker 1: I mean this is not new, right there has made
Speaker 1: controversial statements and tweets for a very long time. But
Speaker 1: when you combine that with the global pandemic and the
Speaker 1: misinformation that has come from certain people close to Trump,
Speaker 1: it's not Trump himself. Um, when you look at that,
Speaker 1: When you look at the things that he has said
Speaker 1: that that have condoned or glorified or otherwise kind of
Speaker 1: rallied people around violent or violence or violent imagery, this
Speaker 1: is where this is where, this is where Twitter, Jack
Speaker 1: Doors in particular, said, We're going to start to annotate.
Speaker 1: We're going to start to put some disclaimers, some warnings
Speaker 1: around Trump's tweets when we think that they are inappropriate,
Speaker 1: violat our policies, or or glorify violence or spread disinformation.
Speaker 1: Why that wasn't happening? I mean basically, Twitter's critics, just
Speaker 1: like Facebook's critics, would say, it's all long overdue they're
Speaker 1: also going to say, well, we're glad it's finally happening, right,
Speaker 1: and the stakes are really high. We're in a global pandemic,
Speaker 1: we've got we've got race as a matter of national
Speaker 1: debate and discussion, and we've got the election in four
Speaker 1: or five months. Yeah, there's a lot going on, and
Speaker 1: you're right, never never more important than now to be
Speaker 1: having these discussions. What a treat to up with, Toms.
Speaker 1: What of our favorites for having me? It's great. It's again, yes, done, done, done,
Speaker 1: done and done. Tom Giles, executive editor for glovel Technology,
Speaker 1: joining us from servances Scout one of Bloomberg's best full
Speaker 1: out so small stop and I gotta just say, Facebook
Speaker 1: shares they ended up more than two percent. They were
Speaker 1: down nine percent earlier in our session. They were down
Speaker 1: eight percent Friday. But it's interesting, despite you know, big
Speaker 1: time investors pulling back the stock, you know, continue to
Speaker 1: rally off of that low. So yeah, that's you know,
Speaker 1: money talks in a lot of different ways.