Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and How the
Speaker 1: Tech are you? If you've been listening to tech Stuff
Speaker 1: for a while, or if you keep up with tech
Speaker 1: news in general, the name Andy Stone might ring a
Speaker 1: bell now. Unlike a lot of the other folks that
Speaker 1: I talk about on the show, you know, like geniuses
Speaker 1: like Ada Lovelace or Nikola Tesla, or you know, company
Speaker 1: founders like Gordon Moore or Steve Wozniak, or even controversial
Speaker 1: corporate leaders like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, Andy Stone
Speaker 1: isn't that deeply rooted in the world of tech. In fact,
Speaker 1: until twenty fourteen, he spent his professional career working in
Speaker 1: government and campaign positions and stuff related to that. And now,
Speaker 1: according to reports, Russia's Interior Ministry has added Andy Stone's
Speaker 1: name to its wanted list. So I thought we could
Speaker 1: do a short episode about Stone, the job he's held
Speaker 1: since twenty fourteen, and what might have led him to
Speaker 1: be considered a criminal in Russia. Here in the States,
Speaker 1: there are people who certainly take issues with some of
Speaker 1: the things Stone has said, but I'm not sure anyone
Speaker 1: would go so far as to call him a criminal.
Speaker 1: Here in the US, Stone's forte is at least presumably
Speaker 1: in communications. He attended George Washington University, a prestigious college
Speaker 1: here in the US, and he studied political communication while
Speaker 1: he was there. That school happens to be located in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. There are a couple of other schools in
Speaker 1: that area where typically the students who are going to
Speaker 1: those schools often end up working with the government in
Speaker 1: some form or another. It's pretty common, like a lot
Speaker 1: of jobs are directly or indirectly connected to the US
Speaker 1: government or at least a government there. Because my partner
Speaker 1: attended Georgetown, which is in DC, and worked for the
Speaker 1: French embassy for a while, so again it's a place
Speaker 1: where you make connections. Stone worked for presidential candidate John
Speaker 1: Kerry's campaign in two thousand and three, and in late
Speaker 1: two thousand and four he joined M and R Strategic
Speaker 1: Services as a consultant. Now that's a company that primarily
Speaker 1: focuses on political communications, so not affiliated with any specific
Speaker 1: candidate or party, but is there to act as a
Speaker 1: consultant for the purposes of creating political communications, so again
Speaker 1: very much in line with what he had already been doing.
Speaker 1: He would then become the communications director for Congress in
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, and you kind of see where
Speaker 1: this is going. The nature of politics here in America
Speaker 1: means that any role you hold in government, like if
Speaker 1: you're actually connected to a governmental party, it's likely on
Speaker 1: borrowed time election cycles change up who's in charge on
Speaker 1: the rag. Now there are, of course, federal employees who
Speaker 1: typically hold positions from administration to administration, and they don't
Speaker 1: necessarily change each time there's a change in leadership, although
Speaker 1: there are efforts to make that be very different. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's getting into a whole different realm. But from two
Speaker 1: thousand and three to twenty fourteen, pretty much all of
Speaker 1: Andy Stone's work focused on political communications, either as part
Speaker 1: of a campaign or part of a governmental body or
Speaker 1: part of the private sector, but still catering to politics.
Speaker 1: Now that changed in the spring of twenty fourteen, That
Speaker 1: is when Meta, then known as Facebook they had not
Speaker 1: changed their name yet, offered Stone a gig as a
Speaker 1: policy communications manager for Facebook. Now, by this time, Facebook
Speaker 1: had already sailed past the incredible milestone of having a
Speaker 1: billion active users per month. That had happened actually back
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve, so it was definitely already a huge
Speaker 1: company by twenty fourteen. They had also acquired Instagram. Also
Speaker 1: back in twenty twelve, and just before Stone would join
Speaker 1: the company, Facebook had announced it was acquiring Wattsapp. This
Speaker 1: was a truly huge acquisition deal in the billions of dollars,
Speaker 1: so a lot was going on. In fact, when Stone
Speaker 1: joined Facebook, that very same month, the company announced its
Speaker 1: intention to acquire Oculus VR, so a lot of the
Speaker 1: components that make up you know, various foundational elements of
Speaker 1: Meta today, those were all being acquired around the same
Speaker 1: time that Andy Stone joined the company. Now, on top
Speaker 1: of all that, the company was also launching some very
Speaker 1: progressive features. For example, one month before Stone joined Facebook,
Speaker 1: the company updated its platform to allow for different gender
Speaker 1: designations in support of the LGBTQ plus community, So you
Speaker 1: suddenly had a lot more pronouns that you could use
Speaker 1: when you were creating your profile and thus represent yourself
Speaker 1: more accurately. This was a pretty progressive approach, especially in
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, and Andy Stone had focused a lot of
Speaker 1: his career on how to communicate progressive policies to the public,
Speaker 1: because most of the time he was focusing on socially
Speaker 1: progressive democratic campaigns and policies, So this kind of was
Speaker 1: a type of synergy when he joined Facebook. I don't
Speaker 1: have very much background about Andy Stone beyond this. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's stuff that's out there. Right now, the news
Speaker 1: cycle is just flooded with this story about Russia putting
Speaker 1: him on a wanted list. But when I started trying
Speaker 1: to dig around and just learn a little bit more
Speaker 1: about him, I mean, I've seen his name dozens of times.
Speaker 1: When I tried to learn more about him, there really
Speaker 1: wasn't a whole lot to find. Again, I'm sure if
Speaker 1: I did a super deep dive, I could change that,
Speaker 1: But it is interesting to me that someone who has
Speaker 1: dedicated his career in public communications has also managed to
Speaker 1: maintain a pretty low profile. Stone's name pops up a
Speaker 1: lot since twenty fourteen. These days, according to LinkedIn anyway,
Speaker 1: his title is communications director, and that means that when
Speaker 1: you come across a story that includes something like Facebook
Speaker 1: says it's disappointed in the EU's decision or whatever, there's
Speaker 1: a darn good chance that Facebook was actually Andy Stone
Speaker 1: who said this. He's been the spokesperson for the cum
Speaker 1: in many of its trials and tribulations over the last
Speaker 1: several years. Stone's job is really to serve as the
Speaker 1: mouthpiece for the company and to craft communications on the
Speaker 1: company's behalf, and I imagine his job has grown a
Speaker 1: lot more challenging over recent years in the wake of
Speaker 1: a series of scandals and difficult events, such as the
Speaker 1: unraveling of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Now, if you don't
Speaker 1: remember the Cambridge Analytica story, good for you. But it
Speaker 1: refers to a political consulting company that leaned on an
Speaker 1: app that was used to scrape data from Facebook without
Speaker 1: first getting user permissions. And they were able to do
Speaker 1: this because for a while, Facebook really didn't provide adequate
Speaker 1: protections with its application programming interface. So essentially, before Facebook
Speaker 1: actually addressed this issue, a developer could create an app
Speaker 1: for Facebook that, when installed, could access way more information
Speaker 1: than what was actually needed for the app to work.
Speaker 1: For example, maybe you create a game, a very simple
Speaker 1: game that is within Facebook or just uses Facebook credentials
Speaker 1: in or for you to log into the game, but
Speaker 1: as part of that installation process, the app gets permissions
Speaker 1: from the user to access all kinds of data, like
Speaker 1: maybe everything that is personal information related to the user
Speaker 1: gets sent to the developer. Maybe it gives the developer
Speaker 1: access to view all of that user's friends and contacts
Speaker 1: on Facebook, and none of that is necessary for the
Speaker 1: game to work. But really, until the mid twenty tens,
Speaker 1: Facebook kind of let that go, like they just let
Speaker 1: developers get access to all sorts of information, whether it
Speaker 1: was necessary for the app to work or not. So
Speaker 1: in the case of Cambridge Analytica, the company was making
Speaker 1: use of a survey app, and this particular survey would
Speaker 1: actually offer a fee to users. It would pay people
Speaker 1: to take the survey. Folks like getting money, so that
Speaker 1: was a huge incentive. A lot of folks said sure,
Speaker 1: and they ended up installing this little app so they
Speaker 1: could take the survey. Now, what they may not have
Speaker 1: realized is that by installing the app, they were essentially
Speaker 1: opening up all of their connections to scrutiny, because now
Speaker 1: Cambridge Analytica, through this app, could view not just the
Speaker 1: survey taker's information, but all the people who that person
Speaker 1: was friends with. They could view those profiles as if
Speaker 1: they were the person who took the survey. So it
Speaker 1: suddenly opened up the opportunity to scrape data on a
Speaker 1: much larger scale. In fact, millions of accounts were affected
Speaker 1: by this, and so you didn't have to be the
Speaker 1: person who downloaded the survey. You just had to have
Speaker 1: a friend who did it. And if they did it,
Speaker 1: you were affected too. So Cambridge Analytica accesses millions of
Speaker 1: people's profiles without their permission, and Andy Stone had the
Speaker 1: un inviewable task of announcing findings to the media about
Speaker 1: that situation. So when Facebook did an investigation and estimated
Speaker 1: that around eighty seven million accounts were affected, this number
Speaker 1: would fluctuate quite a bit throughout the investigations, but this
Speaker 1: was an early one. Well, Andy Stone was the person
Speaker 1: who had to actually deliver that information to the media.
Speaker 1: Not a whole lot of fun. Anyway, we're gonna come
Speaker 1: back to talk more about Andy Stone in just a moment.
Speaker 1: Before we can do that, let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: to thank our sponsors. So I was talking before the
Speaker 1: break about Andy Stone having to deliver rough news about
Speaker 1: the Cambridge Analytica to the media as this scandal was unfolding.
Speaker 1: But This was around the same time where Stone began
Speaker 1: to build a reputation for being let's call it assertive
Speaker 1: on platforms like Twitter and using that platform to refute
Speaker 1: or criticize Facebook's own critics, kind of like striking back
Speaker 1: at the critics. One of the journalists who covered the
Speaker 1: Cambridge Analytica story was Carol Cadwaller, So on top of
Speaker 1: being a journalist, Cadwaller became a member of the independent
Speaker 1: Oversight Board for Facebook. You might remember this board reviews
Speaker 1: Facebook's decisions to determine if the company is actually aligning
Speaker 1: with its own policies. You may also remember that the
Speaker 1: board can make recommendations to Facebook, but the company is
Speaker 1: under no obligation to actually adopt those recommendations, which obviously
Speaker 1: brings up the question how effective the board can actually be.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Cadwaller says that Stone attempted to discredit her
Speaker 1: by sharing quote deliberate deceptions regarding Cambridge Analytica and deliberately
Speaker 1: trolled me. It was just in no way appropriate for
Speaker 1: the corporate pr of a trillion dollar company to behave
Speaker 1: like that toward a journalist end quote. So this would
Speaker 1: not be the last time the journalists as well as
Speaker 1: others would complain of Andy Stone's approach, particularly on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Another high profile case was when former Facebook employee Francis
Speaker 1: Hogan came forward in late twenty twenty one with a
Speaker 1: whistleblower report on the company. She shared thousands of internal
Speaker 1: documents that didn't exactly put Facebook in a good light.
Speaker 1: In fact, we're still learning about stuff that was in
Speaker 1: those documents, and a lot of the stuff in there
Speaker 1: suggests that the people in Facebook now known as Meta
Speaker 1: were more aware of negative aspects that the company and
Speaker 1: its platforms had on certain users than had been previously disclosed. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Andy Stone frequently had to go to bat for the
Speaker 1: company and defend it, as report after report filed in
Speaker 1: about issues like the company's influence on young users in particular.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure that Stone's efforts were always effective
Speaker 1: when it came to deflecting her testimony in front of Congress,
Speaker 1: because again he took to Twitter to try and discredit
Speaker 1: her or to hang some doubt upon her and her point.
Speaker 1: One message he posted to Twitter, of course, now known
Speaker 1: as x read quote just pointing out the fact that
Speaker 1: Francis Hogan did not work on child safety or Instagram
Speaker 1: or research these issues, and has no direct knowledge of
Speaker 1: the topic from her work at Facebook. End quote, which,
Speaker 1: if you were to ask me, that seems like a
Speaker 1: pretty darn weak defense. Because if someone dumped tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of actual corporate documents in my lap and then
Speaker 1: told me that this stuff comes from inside company so
Speaker 1: and so, and it says the company has knowingly engaged
Speaker 1: in some questionable stuff and continues to do so, even
Speaker 1: knowing the potential consequences for that, I wouldn't really be
Speaker 1: concerned about that person's expertise in whatever the field was. Right,
Speaker 1: assuming that I could determine that the documents are legitimate,
Speaker 1: that they in fact came from within the company that
Speaker 1: was claimed, then it doesn't matter the level of expertise
Speaker 1: of the person who brought them to me. I would
Speaker 1: be more concerned about the actual content of the documents,
Speaker 1: and the people who produce those documents presumably were experts
Speaker 1: in their field. It doesn't matter if the messenger is
Speaker 1: an expert. In fact, Andy Stone should know that quite
Speaker 1: well because he has been the messenger many times. He
Speaker 1: is not the person who creates the different message or
Speaker 1: the different policies. I should say, he creates the messages
Speaker 1: around them, So you should know that a person's expertise
Speaker 1: isn't really the matter of concern when you're talking about
Speaker 1: documents that have some pretty damning content in them. Now,
Speaker 1: Stone's posts on Twitter prompted some pretty interesting responses around
Speaker 1: the journalist field and beyond. So for example, Bob Pickard,
Speaker 1: who is the CEO of Signal Leadership Communication, This is
Speaker 1: a consulting group that helps executives create communications to the
Speaker 1: public so that they can do so in a way
Speaker 1: that is responsible and accountable, that's going to have the
Speaker 1: best impact, that's not going to run a foul of
Speaker 1: the law of that kind of stuff like this is
Speaker 1: high level communications we're talking about here. Well, Pickman said,
Speaker 1: quote Facebook's crisis comms on this issue are embarrassingly bad.
Speaker 1: Everyone is talking about Facebook's poor PR, which is often
Speaker 1: a proxy for other issues, but I think the comms
Speaker 1: themselves are in d crap end quote. Now, that wasn't
Speaker 1: just referring to Andy Stone, but certainly Stone was being
Speaker 1: lumped in with this criticism. Several PR professionals question why
Speaker 1: Stone was even posting on Twitter at all about this stuff,
Speaker 1: why he was taking this particular tactic. They said it
Speaker 1: was antithetical to the way you would typically try to
Speaker 1: build up a communications department within a company. They said that,
Speaker 1: you know, usually you want to build relationships with the
Speaker 1: press so that you can get more favorable coverage, and
Speaker 1: using Twitter to snipe at journalists who have posted stories
Speaker 1: that critique the company isn't really conducive toward doing that.
Speaker 1: They compared it more to his work in politics, and
Speaker 1: that in politics, often communications leads to a quote unquote
Speaker 1: zero sum game where there has to be a winner
Speaker 1: and a loser, and in those sort of of avenues,
Speaker 1: it was more common to see this kind of banter
Speaker 1: going back and forth between a PR person and the press.
Speaker 1: Less so when it comes to corporate communications now. Earlier
Speaker 1: this year, Stone served as the messenger for another sticky
Speaker 1: situation see Meta slash. Facebook has a strict policy against
Speaker 1: data scraping. The most valuable asset that Meta has is
Speaker 1: access to our information. We are the product. You've often
Speaker 1: probably heard that that if you go someplace and the
Speaker 1: thing is free, then it turns out you are the
Speaker 1: product that's for sale. That's definitely the case when it
Speaker 1: comes to Meta's platforms. All of our interactions, everything we
Speaker 1: post to the platform, everything we look at and engage
Speaker 1: with on those platforms. All of that is valuable, right,
Speaker 1: That's all data that's incredibly valuable because Meta can pack
Speaker 1: it this up and then sell it to advertisers. So
Speaker 1: the more you use Meta's products, the more valuable you become,
Speaker 1: and the more information you share about other people in
Speaker 1: your life, the more valuable you become. We are a
Speaker 1: gold mine for Meta, and Meta guards that gold mine jealously.
Speaker 1: The fact that people don't flip out. More over, how
Speaker 1: their personal information is exploited for the benefit of a
Speaker 1: truly massive corporation amazes me. I guess, I guess not
Speaker 1: everyone fully understands it, and the people who do understand
Speaker 1: it ultimately think, ah, it's not that big a deal.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just some personal information. But it's really not.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really a big deal. It's really not
Speaker 1: something you should just dismiss. It's important, and the point
Speaker 1: where it can become important for you specifically as opposed
Speaker 1: to just in the general, then it's too late. But
Speaker 1: this is a potentially fragile arrangement. Meta records that Meta
Speaker 1: recognizes that if people wake up to the fact that
Speaker 1: they really need to protect their personal information in a
Speaker 1: more aggressive way. And if you start to see governments
Speaker 1: around the world pass laws to help actually achieve this goal,
Speaker 1: Meta's revenue is in danger. So Meta is very very
Speaker 1: careful to not really bring too much attention to this
Speaker 1: part of its business, at least not in a way
Speaker 1: that is obvious to users. But it also means Meta
Speaker 1: is very jealous of this information. If some other company
Speaker 1: swoops in and starts to crawl Meta's platforms in order
Speaker 1: to build out databases, that can threaten Meta's own business model,
Speaker 1: because if we notice that this other company is doing it,
Speaker 1: and we're worried about this other company, we might start
Speaker 1: asking questions about Meta itself. So take Clearview AI for example.
Speaker 1: This company created a huge facial recognition database. But in
Speaker 1: order to do that, you first have to grab a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of pictures of people. Now that's obvious, right,
Speaker 1: Like you have to get the pictures in order to
Speaker 1: actually have a database of facial recognition photos. But where
Speaker 1: do you get the pictures from? Right? You know, you're
Speaker 1: not just going door to door and snapping photos of people. No,
Speaker 1: what clearview AI did and the CEO admitted as much.
Speaker 1: The company scraped various social network platforms, including Facebook to
Speaker 1: build out its database of thirty billion photographs, and clearview
Speaker 1: AI's customers included authoritarian organizations you know we're talking about
Speaker 1: like law enforcement agencies, that kind of thing that would
Speaker 1: use clearview AI's databases to try and do things like
Speaker 1: like identify suspects that sort of stuff. So it kind
Speaker 1: of ties into issues like a surveillance state. So obviously
Speaker 1: this kind of story can have a negative impact on
Speaker 1: companies like Meta, and Meta has made it clear that
Speaker 1: it is against its terms of service for other companies
Speaker 1: to scrape Meta's platforms, you know, like Facebook or Instagram
Speaker 1: or to get data. But what if journalists discover that
Speaker 1: Meta is also engaged in data scraping from other websites.
Speaker 1: And this brings us to the curious case of Meta
Speaker 1: and a data collection company called Bright Data. So Meta
Speaker 1: recently sued Bright Data in January of this year, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, and accused the company of scraping data from
Speaker 1: Meta platforms. However, it has also come to light that
Speaker 1: Bright Data and Meta have been engaged in a subcontractor
Speaker 1: relationship that Bright Data has worked for Meta and has
Speaker 1: pulled data from other websites so that Meta could do
Speaker 1: stuff like build out brand profiles and reportedly do things
Speaker 1: like identify potential bad actors out there. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: Bright Data was pulling data or scraping data off of
Speaker 1: other sites in order to supply that information to Meta.
Speaker 1: So Stone was pulled into action to comment on this,
Speaker 1: and he said, quote, the collection of data from websites
Speaker 1: can serve legitimate integrity and commercial purposes if done lawfully
Speaker 1: and in accordance with those websites terms end quote. This
Speaker 1: was a really awkward situation because he had to defend
Speaker 1: Meta's work with a data collection company, while Meta is
Speaker 1: famous for going after companies that were data scraping its
Speaker 1: own platforms. So, in other words, Meta saying, it's not
Speaker 1: cool for you to do that to us, but it's
Speaker 1: totally cool if we do that to other websites. You
Speaker 1: know that's fine. So do as we say, now as
Speaker 1: we do. Okay, we're gonna take another quick break. When
Speaker 1: we come back, we'll talk more about the actual lead
Speaker 1: into Andy Stone being named a wanted individual by Russia's government.
Speaker 1: The first a word from our sponsors. Okay, why was
Speaker 1: Andy Stone, a communications director for Meta, put on a
Speaker 1: wanted list. In fact, some outlets call it a most
Speaker 1: wanted list for Russia. Well, it relates to Russia's invasion
Speaker 1: of Ukraine and potentially to some temporary changes to Meta's
Speaker 1: policies regarding violent content on Facebook or calls for violence
Speaker 1: to be more specific on Facebook, and so in that regard.
Speaker 1: If that's all true, this very much becomes a shoot
Speaker 1: the Messenger kind of story. I should point out apparently
Speaker 1: Stone's name has actually been on this wanted list since
Speaker 1: February twenty twenty two. We only learned about it this
Speaker 1: week when a media outlet that keeps an eye on
Speaker 1: such things posted a story about it and it went
Speaker 1: in viral from there. But to be clear, the actual
Speaker 1: charges against Stone remain undisclosed. The media reports simply that
Speaker 1: Stone is quote wanted under an article of the Criminal
Speaker 1: Code of the Russian Federation end quote. That's not helpful.
Speaker 1: It's not descriptive at all. We don't know what code,
Speaker 1: what article he's wanted under, right, we don't know what
Speaker 1: law he supposedly broke under the Russian Federation law. But
Speaker 1: let's look back at the early days of Russia's invasion
Speaker 1: of Ukraine to kind of at least get a working
Speaker 1: hypothesis here. There had been aggressive actions between Russia and
Speaker 1: Ukraine dating back since at least twenty fourteen, but the
Speaker 1: actual invasion began on February twenty fourth, twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: On March tenth, Meta made a really big change. And traditionally,
Speaker 1: posts on Meta's platforms that include calls for violence against
Speaker 1: people are a huge violation of Meta's rules that Meta
Speaker 1: would take such things down immediately or at least investigate them,
Speaker 1: assuming that someone had flagged the post. That's at least
Speaker 1: according to the policy. Whether or not that's actually how
Speaker 1: it plays out depends on the situation, but often it
Speaker 1: means that that Meta ends up sending the flag to
Speaker 1: someone like a subcontractor to review the incident and determine
Speaker 1: whether or not it was actually against Meta's policies and
Speaker 1: then figure out where to go from There. Doesn't mean
Speaker 1: removing the post or banning the person for a given
Speaker 1: amount of time. It all just depends on the situation.
Speaker 1: But on March tenth, Meta announced it would allow users,
Speaker 1: at least in certain countries to post calls for violence
Speaker 1: against Russians and specifically Russian soldiers, and this was all
Speaker 1: within the context of the Ukraine invasion. Reuters reported that
Speaker 1: internal messages within Meta even indicated that posts that would
Speaker 1: call for the deaths of Russia's president Vladimir Putin or
Speaker 1: the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashinko were fair game. Again,
Speaker 1: this is something that typically is very much against Meta's policies,
Speaker 1: and Reuters reported that, well, they didn't name the Meta spokesperson,
Speaker 1: but later it was revealed to be Andy Stone. They
Speaker 1: revealed a spokesperson release the statement quote as a result
Speaker 1: of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have temporarily made
Speaker 1: allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate
Speaker 1: our rules, like violent speech such as death to the
Speaker 1: Russian invaders. We still won't allow credible calls for violence
Speaker 1: against Russian civilians end quote. A couple of weeks later,
Speaker 1: a Russian court declared that Meta qualifies as an extremist organization. Effectively,
Speaker 1: this banned Meta's platforms inside Russia, with the exclusion of
Speaker 1: Watsapp because that's not a public platform. Facebook and Instagram
Speaker 1: both banned, and Watsapp still was allowed to operate within
Speaker 1: the country. Interestingly, Again, by that time, Andy Stone had
Speaker 1: already been on the wanted list according to this independent
Speaker 1: website it's called media Zona. By the way, media Zona
Speaker 1: monitors the Russian prison system, among other things. And again
Speaker 1: they had said that he had been on the list
Speaker 1: since February twenty twenty two, even before Metta had made
Speaker 1: the announced change to the policies, and right around the
Speaker 1: time when Russia was actually invading Ukraine. So while that
Speaker 1: was the precipitating factor that would see Russia slap at
Speaker 1: terrorist label on the company, according to media Zona, Stone
Speaker 1: had already been in Russia's crosshairs. It's just that no
Speaker 1: one in Russia actually announced this, so it never made
Speaker 1: the news. So, in other words, they had put his
Speaker 1: name on the list, but they didn't announce the fact
Speaker 1: that he was on the list. Also, interestingly, Mark Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: himself wouldn't be singled out by Russia till April twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, that's when Russia formally banned with Zuckerberg from
Speaker 1: entering the country. So what the heck got Stone on
Speaker 1: that list so early? Well, first, there's a chance that
Speaker 1: the report is wrong and that Stone's name maybe joined
Speaker 1: this list after the announced changes in Meta's policy. That's
Speaker 1: my best guess that Russian officials, in an effort to
Speaker 1: push back against the company, named Andy Stone as a
Speaker 1: wanted individual, not keeping in mind that he's really just
Speaker 1: a mouthpiece for Meta, because again, Andy Stone doesn't create
Speaker 1: the policies, he communicates them. He's not the one responsible
Speaker 1: for determining that Meta's going to allow this to happen.
Speaker 1: He just has to tell the world that that's what's happening. Now.
Speaker 1: He sometimes does communicate in a way that's combative and insulting,
Speaker 1: so perhaps this has contributed to the issue. But Stone,
Speaker 1: again is not responsible for whether or not Meta allows
Speaker 1: for calls of violence against Russian invaders. It really is
Speaker 1: a shoot the messenger kind of situation here, if in
Speaker 1: fact that's why he was put on the list. But
Speaker 1: maybe there's some other reason for Russia to name Stone
Speaker 1: as a wanted individual. That's possible, but based off what
Speaker 1: we know, it seems to me that this is mostly
Speaker 1: a symbolic gesture made by a country that's in a
Speaker 1: position that's very difficult to defend in a global court
Speaker 1: of public opinion. Russia's government has long struggled to control
Speaker 1: media in an effort to push propaganda and Putin's narrative.
Speaker 1: In particular, platforms like Facebook and Instagram threatened that strategy
Speaker 1: because Russia has no direct control over those platforms, so
Speaker 1: they are legitimate threats to authoritarian control. It almost became
Speaker 1: necessary for Russia to label Meta as an extremist organization
Speaker 1: just to prevent a place where opposing opinions could potentially
Speaker 1: take hold in Russia. Anyway, my best guess is that
Speaker 1: this will have little to no real impact on Andy
Speaker 1: Stone's life. I mean, assuming he wasn't planning on vacationing
Speaker 1: in Saint Petersburg or something. If he had plans to
Speaker 1: travel to Russia, I imagine those are no longer on
Speaker 1: his calendar. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure this is just going
Speaker 1: to be a little intrigue into his professional career, a
Speaker 1: little interesting bit of trivia. I also expect he will
Speaker 1: continue to speak for Meta at least as long as
Speaker 1: he is employed there after that, who knows. It'd be
Speaker 1: really interesting to talk with him post his career at
Speaker 1: Meta to find out, like, did he really believe in
Speaker 1: the cause that he was championing, And maybe he does,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know Andy Stone. I feel
Speaker 1: like he's employing a skill set for an employer, whether
Speaker 1: he believes in that employer's actual choices. I do know.
Speaker 1: I couldn't say. Maybe he does it, just it seems
Speaker 1: odd to me considering his previous employers. But who knows.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I don't know everything that's going on
Speaker 1: inside Meta either. I'm just basing this off things like
Speaker 1: the whistleblower report and that sort of thing. Anyway, that
Speaker 1: is the interesting and currently unfolding story of Andy Stone
Speaker 1: being wanted by Russia's Interior Ministry. We're gonna keep an
Speaker 1: eye on this. If I see updates, I will definitely
Speaker 1: follow up with it. I don't expect there to be
Speaker 1: many updates. I think this is just a really kind
Speaker 1: of intriguing story that breaks on a Monday after a holiday.
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think it's going to lead to anything
Speaker 1: else that's particularly newsworthy, but we'll see you never know.
Speaker 1: I hope you are all well. I hope those of
Speaker 1: you who celebrated Thanksgiving in the US had a wonderful time.
Speaker 1: I hope everybody had a great week last week. As
Speaker 1: a remind this week we're back to normal, although tomorrow
Speaker 1: we'll have a Smart Talks with IBM episode published, and
Speaker 1: then next week I'm on vacation, so you're likely to
Speaker 1: hear some reruns next week. I'll see if I can
Speaker 1: record some new stuff for next week in advance, but
Speaker 1: it's a pretty packed week for me right now, so
Speaker 1: we'll see. I'll do my best anyway. I wish you
Speaker 1: all well, and I'll talk to you again really soon.
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