Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney alongside
Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller. Every business day, we bring
Speaker 1: you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along
Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. Well, we do have
Speaker 1: this economy gradually reopening, and the discussion is shifting more
Speaker 1: and more about how people will come back to work.
Speaker 1: Will they come back to the office, is to what degree,
Speaker 1: under what schedule? Lots of different models out there being discussed.
Speaker 1: Erica Volini, Gloomal, Global Human Capital leader at Deloitte, joins
Speaker 1: us on the phone from Phoenix. Erica, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. I'd love to get your thoughts about
Speaker 1: what your clients are telling you about how they plan
Speaker 1: to bring their employees back to work as this economy
Speaker 1: gradually reopens. Thanks that. I think the keyword is flexibility.
Speaker 1: UM employers are thinking very carefully about how to set
Speaker 1: a flex way of working. We're seeing this across the board. UM.
Speaker 1: The question is the degree of flexibility that's going to
Speaker 1: be offered, whether it's a finite you can come back,
Speaker 1: you know you work from home X number of days
Speaker 1: a week, or whether it's going to be ultimate flexibility,
Speaker 1: do your job as you think it's best to do it.
Speaker 1: I think are the questions that are out there. But
Speaker 1: there is definitely a recognition that workers want more choice
Speaker 1: in terms of how they do their work, um, and
Speaker 1: where they do their work. I'd love to be in
Speaker 1: Phoenix to tell you the truth, Erica. Do you see
Speaker 1: so many people talked about at least a move to Florida,
Speaker 1: going down to Texas, to Arizona, to California. Do you
Speaker 1: see big business hubs actually spreading out a little bit?
Speaker 1: I think there's a recognition that geography, especially in a
Speaker 1: world of more remote work, becomes less critical. Right. Office
Speaker 1: proximity is not a defining factor in terms of whether
Speaker 1: you can get a job. I think we're seeing migration
Speaker 1: to other other areas, um for sure. But there are
Speaker 1: tax implications, UM. There are benefit implications right that employers
Speaker 1: have to work through, and I think we're gonna see
Speaker 1: that over the next few months lash years as employers
Speaker 1: try to figure out exactly how much flexibility they want
Speaker 1: to give. But the benefit is huge. Think about the
Speaker 1: ability to tap into labor markets that have historically not
Speaker 1: been available to these organizations. UH, fresh labor pools UM
Speaker 1: individuals who want to be reskilled and retrained and be
Speaker 1: able to enter into the to the workforce in different
Speaker 1: types of jobs. So I think we will see UM
Speaker 1: much more flexibility in organizations saying you don't have to
Speaker 1: be geographically close to where the office is. What are
Speaker 1: you hearing from employee ease erica? Are they going to
Speaker 1: revolt if they're told to come back into the office after,
Speaker 1: you know, twelve plus months of working from home. I
Speaker 1: think revolts is a strong word, and I don't think
Speaker 1: it's necessarily just about can I work from home or
Speaker 1: can't I. I think what workers are going to say
Speaker 1: is you need to be caring for me. You need
Speaker 1: to focus on my well being. You know, our global
Speaker 1: Human Capital Trends report at Deloitte is showing us that
Speaker 1: well being is the number one trend. UM. Workers are
Speaker 1: expressing they need their well being cared for. UM. They
Speaker 1: need to know they have flexibility to deal with what
Speaker 1: they have in their lives, and so what they're asking
Speaker 1: for from employers is understand my needs and give me
Speaker 1: the ability to flex as I need to to be
Speaker 1: able to make those meet those needs and also be
Speaker 1: productive at work. And I think what we've learned in
Speaker 1: the past year is that is possible. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: with the right um leadership, with the right programs and
Speaker 1: pray placed, the right policies, and frankly, with a degree
Speaker 1: of trust and empowerment for workers. And I think that's
Speaker 1: the main theme we're hearing from workers right now. What
Speaker 1: do you think we're gonna see in terms of female employees?
Speaker 1: I mean, um, I've heard so many stories about bankers,
Speaker 1: women who are paid a lot, and they were forced
Speaker 1: to decide between childcare and going into work. They chose
Speaker 1: childcare and gave up those big paychecks. I myself just
Speaker 1: had a baby. My wife took a year off to
Speaker 1: take care of the kid. I took a month um
Speaker 1: because I'm lazy. Her job is so much harder than mine. Um,
Speaker 1: are we gonna see big changes there? We just saw
Speaker 1: Volvo USA, for example, getting twenty four weeks two men
Speaker 1: or women when they have a baby. I think so.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have a two and a half year old,
Speaker 1: so I completely understand being a working woman. Listen, I think, um,
Speaker 1: you know, Kamala Harris called it a crisis, the number
Speaker 1: of women that are leaving the economy. I think it
Speaker 1: is organizations recognize that having a diverse workforce is critical
Speaker 1: to innovation and creativity. So I think employers are gonna
Speaker 1: lean in. I think it's going to be in the
Speaker 1: form of, you know, we're going to take a closer
Speaker 1: look at childcare, at benefits, giving that level of flexibility.
Speaker 1: I also think we're going to see and have seen
Speaker 1: deliberate efforts by organizations to hire women UM and to
Speaker 1: create programs to hire women into positions to make sure
Speaker 1: UM that we are getting that kind of equity in
Speaker 1: the workplace. So that's absolutely going to be UM an
Speaker 1: uptick in what we're seeing. What we have to realize
Speaker 1: is it's not just about hiring though, it's also about
Speaker 1: reskilling and retraining. You know, UM, the majority of employers
Speaker 1: are staying their biggest issue is having the right workers
Speaker 1: with the right set of skills and capabilities to be
Speaker 1: able to do the jobs of the future. And we're
Speaker 1: going to need to see massive investments in reskilling and
Speaker 1: retraining to be able to make all of this happen.
Speaker 1: And I think that can't be lost. As I look
Speaker 1: at the you know, Biden's latest plan, I see a
Speaker 1: hundred billion dollars for worker training. Is that enough? Um?
Speaker 1: You know, do we need to invest more? What's the
Speaker 1: role of organizations playing? And that? I think those are
Speaker 1: all big questions that need to be answered. So it's interesting, Erica.
Speaker 1: You know, in the beginning of this pandemic, we heard
Speaker 1: from some of the technology companies that said, okay, folks,
Speaker 1: if you want to leave Silicon Valley and work remotely
Speaker 1: and you know, from Boise, Idaho or something, we're gonna
Speaker 1: have to adjust your compensation for the different costs of living.
Speaker 1: What are we seeing from corporate America as they think
Speaker 1: about a remote workforce. Absolutely, I mean geographic pay differentials
Speaker 1: I think are a hot topic right now. I think
Speaker 1: we will, on the whole start to see adjustments. If
Speaker 1: people are living in lower cost locations, their pay will
Speaker 1: be adjusted accordingly to reflect costs of living. And I
Speaker 1: wouldn't accept that, Erica, You know what, because no, you
Speaker 1: you gotta pay me what I'm worth. Don't worry about
Speaker 1: where I live. If I'm del ever ring, then I
Speaker 1: want the money. You know, it doesn't matter if I
Speaker 1: am in Sun Valley or in Silicon Valley. UM, I've
Speaker 1: been hearing this for a while, and I hope they
Speaker 1: I hope they pushed back a little. I think this
Speaker 1: is gonna be This is going to be the debate
Speaker 1: UM that's to be had, and you know, we're seeing
Speaker 1: organizations on both sides of defense around this. Again. I
Speaker 1: think it comes down to UM. You know, the ability
Speaker 1: to tap into talent UM. I think it's going to
Speaker 1: come down to UM, how critical it is for that
Speaker 1: employee to be able to come in and collaborate with
Speaker 1: their teammates, and how that's going to be done to
Speaker 1: drive the work that they're doing. UM. And then to
Speaker 1: your point, it's going to come down to fairness and
Speaker 1: and how to help employees get the best out of
Speaker 1: their lives right. And these are all factors that are
Speaker 1: going to go into this debate. I don't think there
Speaker 1: is an easy answer to any of this. I think
Speaker 1: this is a debate that's being had at every C
Speaker 1: suite and every board level right now. Erica, do you
Speaker 1: have any have you seen any companies that just said
Speaker 1: screw it, we're going back of the way it was.
Speaker 1: Everybody in the office I mean, certainly we've seen a
Speaker 1: couple of CEOs from the major banks that come out
Speaker 1: and say, we think you need to come back to
Speaker 1: the office. But I think that's going to be the exception,
Speaker 1: not the rule. UM. I think most employers are saying,
Speaker 1: we've seen flexibility work. UM, we know we need to
Speaker 1: focus on well being. I go back to that point
Speaker 1: because I think it can't be understated, and I think
Speaker 1: they know this is what workers are asking for. But
Speaker 1: we have to keep in mind also that it's going
Speaker 1: to be hybrid. You know, seventy percent of employers that
Speaker 1: we surveyed said they're going to go back to some
Speaker 1: type of hybrid model. I don't think the majority of
Speaker 1: employers are going to be all in on site or
Speaker 1: all remote, right. Those extremes don't work because that's not
Speaker 1: what we've learned during pandemic. What we've learned is we
Speaker 1: need flexibility and choice, we need trust and empowerment. That
Speaker 1: we don't need managers looking at a worker every single
Speaker 1: minute of every single day to make sure they're producing.
Speaker 1: That productivity can still be gained in a remote work environment.
Speaker 1: That's what we've learned. And so the question is how
Speaker 1: do we start to embrace that flexibility and craft policies
Speaker 1: that allow for that level of flexibility and empowerment for
Speaker 1: the worker. I think that's where we're talking about the revolt, right.
Speaker 1: It's are you going to force me to do things
Speaker 1: in this one way or are you going to trust
Speaker 1: that I have the ability to still produce the output
Speaker 1: without being managed every minute of every day. And I
Speaker 1: think that's the major shift that we're seeing right now.
Speaker 1: Just quickly, Bob Prince said he thinks the US is
Speaker 1: in a new environment of state capitalism. I live in Berlin.
Speaker 1: We have thirteen months of parental leave, we have seven
Speaker 1: six weeks, seven weeks of vacation. This is all enforced
Speaker 1: by the state. Do you think the state is gonna
Speaker 1: bring new regulations to how we work in the US?
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know. Um, I'm not sure it's
Speaker 1: the case. I think um. I think we will see
Speaker 1: um different entities, communities, organizations, possibly at the state level
Speaker 1: trying to do what they need to do to attract
Speaker 1: people to where they live. I think that's going to
Speaker 1: be the big factor, right. I mean, these states want
Speaker 1: people to move there, they want the talent to be there,
Speaker 1: and so it's not unreasonable to think that they'll start
Speaker 1: putting in policies to be able to attract workers, and
Speaker 1: hopefully that's going to start to influence the government at
Speaker 1: a federal level. I mean, that's that's ultimately I think
Speaker 1: would be beneficial to everyone. Erica, really important to get
Speaker 1: your perspective. Really appreciate you joining us today. Erika Volini
Speaker 1: is the global human capital leader at Deloitte. Let's take
Speaker 1: a look at the global oil market. Brent crude is
Speaker 1: up about seven tenths of one percent todays of barrel
Speaker 1: sixty three dollars nineteen cents a barrel. Here, that says
Speaker 1: OPEC plus is meeting today, and the headlines coming out
Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg terminal leading with pet plus agrees to
Speaker 1: gradually increase output over the next three months. Let's get
Speaker 1: a sense of what that means for these energy markets.
Speaker 1: We turn to our expert, and that its Dr ellen Wald,
Speaker 1: president of Transversal Consulting and also a Bloomberg Opinion contributor.
Speaker 1: Ellen thanks so much for joining us here. What are
Speaker 1: some of the highlights that takeaways from what you're hearing
Speaker 1: coming out of the OPEQUE plus meeting today. Yeah, This
Speaker 1: is UH kind of an interesting plot twist, you could say,
Speaker 1: because going into the meeting, it seemed like everyone UH
Speaker 1: and including even UH from the Saudi Oil Minister, seemed
Speaker 1: to be focused on rolling over the current production rates
Speaker 1: UH and not really UM having much guidance. But it's
Speaker 1: emerged that it seems that the group is interested in
Speaker 1: doing a gradual increase of production. They're looking at increasing
Speaker 1: total production UH three hundred and fifty thousand barrels a
Speaker 1: day in May and then again in June, and then
Speaker 1: an even larger jump in July. But what's even more
Speaker 1: interesting is that Saudi Arabia is also indicating that UH
Speaker 1: it is it's it's currently holding an extra million barrels
Speaker 1: a day off the market, that it's going to start
Speaker 1: putting that back on the market at the same time,
Speaker 1: also in a gradual sense, so we're really actually looking
Speaker 1: at it not an insignificant amount of oil coming back
Speaker 1: online in May, June and July. I think what's really
Speaker 1: notable though, is that OPEC is actually giving a guidance
Speaker 1: for for the next three months of what it plans
Speaker 1: to do, and recently they're really only be making decisions
Speaker 1: on a month by month basis. I think this will
Speaker 1: be very helpful also for U S. Crewde producers which
Speaker 1: have kind of been left in the dark as to
Speaker 1: what's going on in terms of the big national producers
Speaker 1: have the US, Well, first of all, why aren't we
Speaker 1: seeing prices fall? Well, I think it's not all that
Speaker 1: much oil that they're they're putting back on the market
Speaker 1: to UH and they kind of telegraphed this a little bit.
Speaker 1: We did see Brent kind of go up and down
Speaker 1: a bit as the meeting was going on and weeks
Speaker 1: were coming out. UM, but I think that in general,
Speaker 1: some of the global economic news is more positive these days,
Speaker 1: and so we're not seeing Brent react so much to
Speaker 1: the Opeque meeting. So in terms of the U. S.
Speaker 1: Shale producers, have they been disciplined and what does the
Speaker 1: what does the output look like? From them? Well, that's
Speaker 1: really interesting because production is really stabilized in the US
Speaker 1: around the ten point nine to eleven million barrel per
Speaker 1: day rate, and that's down from last year where they
Speaker 1: were producing thirty million barrels a day, and a lot
Speaker 1: of producers it's interesting. They responded to a survey from
Speaker 1: the Dallas Fed saying that they are very hesitant to
Speaker 1: put out to increase production, to drill more wells, even
Speaker 1: though at at w t I right now is around
Speaker 1: sixty dollars barrel, they could very profitably do so, but
Speaker 1: they're very hesitant. Both the constant kind of going back
Speaker 1: and forth from OPEC is giving the pause, but also
Speaker 1: there's a lot of concern about the Biden administration where
Speaker 1: they're going with these regulations on federal leasing and and
Speaker 1: so forth, and that that's really causing a lot of
Speaker 1: hesitancy among them and not really wanting to band production
Speaker 1: even though they could profitably do so. So I'm just
Speaker 1: looking at Brent crude. You know, recently I got up
Speaker 1: to around seventy two barrel, we've now pulled back to
Speaker 1: sixty three. Is that a function of maybe European reopening,
Speaker 1: you know, slower than maybe the market initially anticipated. Gives
Speaker 1: a sense of kind of what's driving the market right now, Well,
Speaker 1: the market has recently really been kind of fluctuating, going
Speaker 1: up and down a lot, and I do think that, um,
Speaker 1: there was a pullback. I think Brent kind of overdid
Speaker 1: itself and so there was a pullback in positioning h
Speaker 1: and so really the sixty three range stars barrel is
Speaker 1: probably a better place for it than into the mid seventies.
Speaker 1: But absolutely the information from Europe about further lockdowns and
Speaker 1: travel restrictions is definitely having a damper on prices, though
Speaker 1: there is a positive information coming out from the United
Speaker 1: States in terms of travel, uh that really should offset this.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you. You wrote a book Saudi inc.
Speaker 1: And you studied UM Middle East, Middle East Energy, and
Speaker 1: Middle East History, Prince, and you taught Middle East UM
Speaker 1: history as well at Jacksonville. What do you think about
Speaker 1: the Biden administration's approach to the kingdom. Will it change? Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's very interesting because they're calling it a reset,
Speaker 1: but really, if you look at what they're doing, it's
Speaker 1: not all that different from what the previous administration did.
Speaker 1: It's not all that different from from Trump's approach. They
Speaker 1: aren't taking a particularly different approach with Saudi Arabia. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, both Trump and the Biden administrations have been
Speaker 1: very specific about wanting to say, deal with the King
Speaker 1: of Saudi Arabia as opposed to the Crown Prince of
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, which definitely, UM, you know that that's that's
Speaker 1: very similar. I don't really see a whole lot of difference,
Speaker 1: other than very specifically in terms of the weaponry that
Speaker 1: was being sold that was being used in the Yemen
Speaker 1: more so so, I think there are some minor differences,
Speaker 1: but in general, they really do seem to be staying
Speaker 1: the course. But they won't will they speak with the
Speaker 1: king instead of MBS. I think that was intimated well.
Speaker 1: The Trump administration had the same the same line actually
Speaker 1: almost to the exact same uh wording that they that
Speaker 1: Trump would say, you know, I spoke to the king,
Speaker 1: to to King Salmon. I think, um, you know, they
Speaker 1: will have to deal with NBS at some point, but
Speaker 1: I do think there's a very strong desire to deal
Speaker 1: with the guy on top. All right, Ellen, I'm excited
Speaker 1: to dig into your book. So it was great that
Speaker 1: we had you on as well. Ellen wald Um, she
Speaker 1: wrote Saudi Inc. And she's a senior fellow at the
Speaker 1: Atlantic Council, President of Transversal Consulting. Now, let's bring in
Speaker 1: Timothy fire as the chairman of the Manufacturing Business Survey
Speaker 1: at the Institute for Supply Management and tim the US
Speaker 1: manufact xturing expansion was the fastest we've seen since three
Speaker 1: um was this expected, this kind of rebound, Well, you know,
Speaker 1: what a fantastic report. I don't think I expected anything
Speaker 1: this strong. I mean, the last time we saw p
Speaker 1: my number this strong, I was just starting my career
Speaker 1: forty years ago. So a really good number. Had seven
Speaker 1: or seven of the ten sub indectis all set modern
Speaker 1: day records, if not all time records. So I really
Speaker 1: led by the demand side new orders records. Since June
Speaker 1: four we had customer inventories that we're all time records,
Speaker 1: the lowest level ever, empty shells everywhere we had, and
Speaker 1: we ended up with the backlog at record lows at
Speaker 1: the sixty seven point five. So demand is kind of
Speaker 1: leading the way here, and manufacturing is leading the country
Speaker 1: out of this, you know, this bad situation. You know
Speaker 1: it's all systems go. We ended the quarter really well, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is extraordinary. I like your comment him about manufacturing
Speaker 1: leading the way. We that's certainly been the case here.
Speaker 1: Is this a case of um our economy gearing up
Speaker 1: for what is expected to be a real reopening as
Speaker 1: we progress that the year, is this kind of priming
Speaker 1: the pump for expected demand? Well, you know we talked
Speaker 1: last year in the April May time from about a
Speaker 1: v Shape recovery. Manufacturing absolutely saw the shape recovery. We
Speaker 1: shut down in in April May, and we bounced back
Speaker 1: in July and we're fully running by August. So and
Speaker 1: we've continued to climb out since then. And it's it's pure,
Speaker 1: it's demand driven. We're still constrained by labor, not only
Speaker 1: had our paneless companies, but out their suppliers. We've got
Speaker 1: transportation constraints because of all the confusion and the expected
Speaker 1: phrase that has to occur to keep factories running. But
Speaker 1: I think we're into a pure demand driven expansion here
Speaker 1: where I don't really see any end in sight. And
Speaker 1: even when the new order levels start to ease, we've
Speaker 1: got to refill all this inventory. I mean, we have
Speaker 1: customer inventories way low, our own inventories are way low,
Speaker 1: and we got a bunch of backplot we have to
Speaker 1: burn off. So Q two looks really good. Two three,
Speaker 1: I would say this time, how difficult is it can be?
Speaker 1: Too catch up? I saw that um Ford has been
Speaker 1: idling some plants that make the F one fifty. My
Speaker 1: heart kind of skipped to beat there. Um They have
Speaker 1: a chip shortage that we all know about. But I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a product that people depend on. How much
Speaker 1: of a problem is it. Well, I think you're really
Speaker 1: gotta take your hats off with the manufacting people across
Speaker 1: the country. They're really struggling. They're working very hard. This
Speaker 1: is not an easy job, is blocking intact? When every
Speaker 1: minute of the day new things keep popping up, it's
Speaker 1: like whack them all. You to show up the next morning,
Speaker 1: you fix the problem. The next day, there's another problem
Speaker 1: that's going to continue for probably another four to six months.
Speaker 1: And they do a great job at it, so product
Speaker 1: continues to flow. I mean, we've gotten that customer inventory
Speaker 1: down way too low, But the manufacturing people are out
Speaker 1: there trying to get you what you need and they're
Speaker 1: pretty good at it. So just be a little patient, absolutely, Tim,
Speaker 1: and talk to us about the uh the transportation we've
Speaker 1: we've we've seen lots of stories about ports, backs up,
Speaker 1: backup at ports, rail traffic kind of sitting idle, uh,
Speaker 1: containers going back empty. Gives just give us a sense
Speaker 1: of kind of the transportation infrastructure and how that's impacting
Speaker 1: manufactured leaving canals aside. Yes, yeah right, yeah, I'll leave
Speaker 1: this so that's the European problem pripparently not a US problem,
Speaker 1: but generally, when the manufacturing economy starts to heat up,
Speaker 1: you see it first in transportation, and the reason is
Speaker 1: the factories need need product, but they can't wait a
Speaker 1: week for the product to show up in a full truck,
Speaker 1: so they tell the transporter go and pick up a
Speaker 1: half a truck. Well, that really means need to trucks
Speaker 1: for one delivery, and then it's just kind of compounds
Speaker 1: from there. Since the month of November, we've had increasing
Speaker 1: comments about transportation difficulties. We're now running somewhere around my
Speaker 1: general comments are transportation related, and they're up from last month,
Speaker 1: so we definitely have not peaked yet. It's going to
Speaker 1: continue into April, probably into May. The indications on the
Speaker 1: port issue. Initially we're around May or June. Now it's
Speaker 1: looking like maybe Midsummer. But that's all good. It's all
Speaker 1: it's all means that we have supply chain constraints because
Speaker 1: we have an abnormal amount of demand. That's all positive.
Speaker 1: What kind of pricing comments are you getting inflation? Well,
Speaker 1: we only had half a percent of our entire panel
Speaker 1: that said prices were down half, so that's that's like
Speaker 1: zero and this is like the third month of that,
Speaker 1: so we you know, we have some of them are
Speaker 1: reporting same. The steel prices continue to grow. The plastics,
Speaker 1: all the petro chemical and plastics areas really impacted by
Speaker 1: the weather that hit the Gulf coast back in February
Speaker 1: March about eighteen or some of my general comments were
Speaker 1: weather related back to that event, because it was so
Speaker 1: severe on the equipment of machinery that, uh, it takes
Speaker 1: a little while to repair. So prices are gonna continue
Speaker 1: to go up. Aluminiums skyrocketing, copper, brass, name things. As
Speaker 1: long as there's demand continuing, you're gonna see ramatul imput
Speaker 1: prices go up. To Hey, Tim, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining us. Really interesting report this month showing just extraordinary
Speaker 1: strength coming out of the United States manufacturing sector, continuing
Speaker 1: to strength that we've seen them belows of last year.
Speaker 1: Timp Fury, chairman of the Manufacturing Business Survey for the
Speaker 1: Institute for Supply Management based in Miami, Florida, and matt
Speaker 1: It really is amazing how how resilient, uh, the United
Speaker 1: States manufacturing base has been. Now let's get out to
Speaker 1: Sarah Fryer She's a Bloomberg technology reporter who has been
Speaker 1: doing a deep dive into the misinformation spreading across social media,
Speaker 1: specifically Facebook in regards to vaccine. Sarah you Um have interviewed,
Speaker 1: for example, one woman who doesn't believe in vaccine induced
Speaker 1: her immunity. Does she get this from Facebook? She gets
Speaker 1: this from from Instagram, which is of course owned by Facebook.
Speaker 1: What happens here is people fall into the personalization that
Speaker 1: Facebook and Instagram provide them. If you start looking into this.
Speaker 1: Woman started out looking into holistic medicine alternative treatment. She
Speaker 1: felt um bullied by her doctors during a cancer treatment
Speaker 1: and was looking for another way to stay healthy. Suddenly
Speaker 1: she's getting this information about vaccines that's not really information
Speaker 1: at all. It's it's fearing her wrong. And a lot
Speaker 1: of the people who are telling her, oh, you just
Speaker 1: need to take this, you know, holistic healing method or
Speaker 1: detox in this method, or um you try these techniques.
Speaker 1: They're selling supplements, they're selling essential oils, they're selling um,
Speaker 1: you know, wellness retreats, and so she's she's not really
Speaker 1: getting vinemit information from doctors, and we're seeing that happen
Speaker 1: a lot on Facebook. It's more about the fear um.
Speaker 1: The kind of messages that spread on Facebook are the
Speaker 1: ones that that make people comments and share. That's what
Speaker 1: tells the New Street algorithm that it's a serious post
Speaker 1: that more people should see. And so these lies about
Speaker 1: the vaccine, particularly lies that are targeting women, which we
Speaker 1: can talk about in a second, are are just unable
Speaker 1: to be chanced down by the company. Yeah, that's kind
Speaker 1: of where I wanted to ghost Sarah. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just kind of what we're hearing from Facebook here. But first,
Speaker 1: let's why are women being targeted here? Well, it just
Speaker 1: goes to a history of the anti vaccination movement. It
Speaker 1: has always been about scaring women out of giving shots
Speaker 1: on time or at all, to their their newborns and
Speaker 1: their young children. So this is this is a demographic
Speaker 1: that is already the subject to information from anti vactors,
Speaker 1: and with the COVID nineteen vaccination movement, it's strategic on
Speaker 1: their part. They see that as an adjacent, vulnerable, vulnerable
Speaker 1: group and they are telling women that the shot will
Speaker 1: affect their fertility um that there's there's some psych protein
Speaker 1: in the fider Madorna vaccines that connects to the same
Speaker 1: kind of protein that creates a human placenta, and therefore
Speaker 1: they were to take it their bodies and becomes confusing,
Speaker 1: and that is just not true. And in many doctors,
Speaker 1: including five or even itself has put out a statement.
Speaker 1: But that scientific explanation of why that's not true. Um,
Speaker 1: you filled with with explanations of and we know acid change.
Speaker 1: That just simply doesn't go viral on Facebook the way
Speaker 1: that that fear does. So much easier to share a
Speaker 1: personal story of fear than to share something that's based
Speaker 1: in real science. So the concern is one of First
Speaker 1: Amendment rights. I guess from Mark Zuckerberg's perspective, right, people
Speaker 1: should be able to say what they want, and I
Speaker 1: guess whether it's true or not. Um. But then if
Speaker 1: you have an algorithm aiming lies at people who are susceptible,
Speaker 1: that becomes something that the government should worry about. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, let's looks clear up, there is no
Speaker 1: such thing as the First amountment on Facebook face because
Speaker 1: not a government as diusy, they don't have any any
Speaker 1: guarantee for you in terms of the First Amenment of
Speaker 1: free speech. Second of all, well, but but Zuckerberg seems
Speaker 1: to want to stick to the principles of the constitution.
Speaker 1: He wants to. But but that's also convenient for Facebook
Speaker 1: because that means they don't have to do as much
Speaker 1: leading as content and they don't have to take as
Speaker 1: much responsibility for for it. Um. What happens on Facebook
Speaker 1: is is that this this content, it's not treated neutral
Speaker 1: e by the algorithm. You know, it hands off approach
Speaker 1: to what happens on Facebook needs the algorithm is in charge,
Speaker 1: and the algorithm is always going to spread that which
Speaker 1: generates more engagement, more shares, the things that Facebook needs
Speaker 1: for its own future. They want more revenue, they want
Speaker 1: more engagement, and so so that is the natural, unblenished
Speaker 1: version of Facebook. And the rest is enforcements beyond that,
Speaker 1: like who should be a banned where should we put
Speaker 1: labels about what might be fault um. But the core
Speaker 1: of the product that designs the product is really what
Speaker 1: is that an issue here? And if you we talked
Speaker 1: to doctors who are trying to become more social media friendly,
Speaker 1: using Instagram, using Facebook, um, even using Twitter and TikTok
Speaker 1: to try to spread information that's a little bit more palatable,
Speaker 1: a little bit more shareable. UM. More buzzy, but it
Speaker 1: simply isn't reaching the communities that have already built this personalization.
Speaker 1: Facebook has automatically built personalization for them around what kinds
Speaker 1: of people they listened to, so they're not really getting
Speaker 1: these these good abouts of information into that into that
Speaker 1: normal experience. So it's really a tough situation. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: very difficult. This is something that Facebook and its users
Speaker 1: have been dealing with for a long time about many topics,
Speaker 1: but this one is very very uh interesting, potentially dangerous.
Speaker 1: Sarah Fryer, thank you so much for joining us. Sarah's
Speaker 1: technology reporter for Bloomberg, Um, you know, covering Facebook and
Speaker 1: as she wrote a great book on Instagram, I recommend that.
Speaker 1: So she's really really in deep with all things that's
Speaker 1: going on at Facebook. And again, as we try to
Speaker 1: get these vaccine out there, one of the concerns that
Speaker 1: we've heard from many experts from the Johns Hopkins University
Speaker 1: in other places is vaccine hesitancy uh is going to
Speaker 1: become more and more of an issue, and social media
Speaker 1: certain playing a role there. Thanks for listening to the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews
Speaker 1: with Apple podcasts, or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm
Speaker 1: Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller. Pet On
Speaker 1: Ball Sweeney, I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney. Before the podcast,
Speaker 1: you can always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio