WEBVTT - Thoughts on Zuckerberg's Congressional Testimony 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:08.039 Zuckerberg gets grilled. I'm Rich Demiro. This is Rich on 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:11.360 Tech Daily. Well, if you're watching the news at all, 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:15.360 you saw that Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg talked 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:19.599 to Congress yesterday and also today, and man was that 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:22.599 interesting to watch. If you watched any of it, well, 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:25.880 you realize several things. First off, well, I think our 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:29.920 lawmakers are a little bit in the dark about how 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:32.839 the internet works, how Facebook works, how they track us, 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:35.040 how they make money. But also I think it also 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:38.280 showed another side of things aside that what these tech 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:42.240 companies are doing is not always transparent to the average person. 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:45.839 And I can't knock these guys in Washington for not 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:49.040 knowing the inner workings of the Internet and how technology works, 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:52.040 because let's face it, most people don't when you think 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:54.440 about it. Back in the day, we had newspapers, they 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:57.040 were a trusted source. If something was published in the 0:00:57.080 --> 0:00:59.800 newspaper or a magazine, well you knew an editor went 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:03.080 through it. Now with Facebook, people post stories from all 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:05.440 kinds of sources. You don't really know where they're coming from. 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:07.360 We have to be the editor at the end of 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:09.120 the day. And that's a big job for a lot 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:11.280 of people. Most of us have a normal job. We're 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:14.080 sitting there working. We don't have time to fact check 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:17.680 every single article or story or posts that we see, 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:20.840 so we take it at face value, and as we've seen, 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:23.080 that has sort of backfired. Let me go through some 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:25.360 of the remarks that Zuckerberg made and I'll kind of 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.240 comment on some of them. First off, he said, Facebook 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:32.119 is an idealistic and optimistic company. From our existence, we've 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:36.200 been focused on all the good that connecting people can do. 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:40.080 As Facebook has grown, people everywhere have gotten a powerful 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:42.320 new tool for staying connected to the people they love, 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:46.240 making their voices heard, and building communities and businesses. All 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:49.600 of that is very true. So when you think about Facebook, 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:52.600 I mean, it really is connecting people in new ways, 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:55.720 connecting people in different ways, in ways that we never 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:59.720 really really thought of. But as they went down that line, 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:02.800 we've seen it's been a tough road because we think 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:04.720 about the ways that Facebook has always been trying to 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:07.480 connect people, but they've come under a lot of heat 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:09.520 for the ways that they do that. So these are 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:11.880 all things that they're learning from. Zuckerberg then goes on 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:13.480 to say, it's clear now we didn't do enough to 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:16.480 prevent these tools from being used for harm as well. 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:20.160 That goes for fake news, foreign interference and elections, hate speech, 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:23.160 as well as developers and data privacy. And right there 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:25.920 he's really talking about what happened with Cambridge Analytica. And 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:29.360 here's the thing. When you're something like Facebook, a large 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:33.200 organization that's building these tools, you don't necessarily know how 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:35.520 everyone's going to use them. Now, you might have an 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:38.160 idea how they're going to be used, but you can't 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:40.799 figure out every possibility in the world. And I think 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:43.840 that's what he's saying here. So now Facebook, and since 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:46.200 twenty fourteen or twenty fifteen, when they change a lot 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:48.600 of these things, they have done better, and I think 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:51.640 they will now with the spotlight being on them, continue 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:53.920 to do better. Zuckerberg goes on to say, it's not 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:55.760 just enough to connect people. We want to make sure 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:58.840 those connections are positive. So that's a big one too, 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:02.440 because this really deals with fake news. And here's the 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:05.919 thing when it comes to Facebook, they want to spread information. 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:08.800 It is an amazing place to spread information. If you 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:10.840 have an announcement, if you ever had a kid, you 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:12.840 put a birth announcement on there, or you say you're 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.520 going to the hospital. It's amazing all the people that 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:18.640 come out of the woodwork to offer you congratulations or 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:21.760 to give you some information, or if you're traveling somewhere, 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:23.640 you know how people can tell you, oh, I've been 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:26.520 to that place. You can't possibly pull every single one 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:29.400 of your friends and say, hey, have you been to France? 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:31.799 Tell me the best restaurants. But on Facebook you can 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:35.120 do that. And so again they're saying here that there 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:38.560 are tools that really do connect people, but you have 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:40.880 to make sure that they're not used to spread misinformation. 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:43.560 And that's a tough thing to do because Facebook can't 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:46.520 fact check everything that's posted to their site, but they 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:50.680 can create some tools that let them figure out what's 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:53.360 good and what's bad. Zuckerberg goes on to say, I 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:55.560 believe deeply in what we're doing, and I know that 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:58.080 when we address these challenges, we'll look back and view 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:00.680 helping people and connecting and giving people voice as a 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:03.400 positive force in the world. I remember when I first 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:06.600 got my access to Facebook. It was such an honor. 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:10.280 I mean, I remember I used my alumni email address 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:12.640 to get access to the website, because you had to 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:15.960 have an edu email address to get access to Facebook 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:17.880 back in the day, and when I did that, it 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:20.120 was like a whole new world had been unlocked to me, 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:22.920 and a lot of people thought that way, and we've 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:25.279 gotten away from that. Now we take Facebook for granted, 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:27.960 but the reality is it has done a lot of 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.240 good for people. But at the same time, it has 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:34.000 become a huge force in our lives, and Facebook needs 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.120 to know that. They need to be cognizant of the 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:40.160 strength that they have and of the power that they have. 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:44.000 And that's part of this learning situation. By the way, 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:46.640 So what's the point about all this tracking? Why do 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.440 these companies want to track us so badly? It all 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:52.720 comes down to one thing money. I've said this before. 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.279 They want to sell us stuff, whether it's Facebook selling ads, 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:59.480 whether it's Google selling ads, whether it's Target getting us 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:02.279 into their store to buy stuff. The more that they 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:05.320 know about us, the easier it is to sell us stuff. 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:07.839 And the more that companies know about us, the better 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:10.360 it is for advertisers who want to target us. And 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:12.240 that's really what's going on here. So when you think 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:14.640 about Facebook, what they're doing is they're trying to collect 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.640 as much data on us as possible because that way 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:20.920 marketers can sell us stuff in an easy way. If 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:23.120 you're on Facebook back in the early days, you would 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:25.000 see a bunch of ads in your news feed, and 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:27.960 the biggest complaint about those ads on the side was 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:30.520 that they meant nothing to you. They'd be for products 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:33.600 that you just didn't care about. Well, now, obviously Facebook 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:36.120 has gotten really good at targeting us, so a lot 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:38.479 of the ads you see are for products that a 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:40.200 lot of people say, Oh, I was just thinking about 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:42.680 that product, or I search for that product. Same thing 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:45.480 with Instagram, same thing with pretty much any website that 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:50.240 uses Google Ads or any sort of online major online 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:52.839 ad provider. In reality, this is kind of a good 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:55.039 thing for us because think about it, it's bad for 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:57.039 your wallet because you're probably going to spend more money, 0:05:57.040 --> 0:05:59.560 but it's a good thing because you're interested in the 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:01.760 products that you see, or you could be interested in 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:03.839 the products you see back in the day. Let's just 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:08.080 use the hypothetical of watching a national telecast, right, so 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:11.039 millions of people would be watching that show. You'd probably 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:14.720 see an ad for a really broad product like Colgate toothpaste. 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.560 Millions of people would see that ad. It would build 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:20.680 brand awareness. Yes, maybe a percentage of those people would 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:24.160 purchase it. Now we're getting highly targeted ads for products 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:26.560 that we may like, that we may be interested in 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.440 for the time period in our lives. And this is 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.239 really nothing new. It just happens to be on the Internet. 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:35.200 So it's much more optimized. Think about when you went 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:37.640 to the mall. You saw that big shiny car in 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:39.839 the center of the mall that you can win. Well, 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:42.560 guess what it wasn't just hey, let's just pick someone 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.040 out of a raffle, No, it was fill out this 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:48.560 card that asked you everything, where you live, how much 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:50.800 you make, what your email address is, what your cell 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:53.080 phone number is. Well, they're given away that car that 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.919 might cost thirty thousand dollars, but they're gathering thousands of 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:00.560 dollars worth of data on the individuals that enter the raffle. 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:02.679 I Guess what happens to that information? It's all sold 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:05.599 and resold to marketers, and that's what it's all about. 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:07.680 So this has been going on from the beginning of time. 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:11.360 It's just that companies like Facebook and Google have gotten 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:15.480 extremely good at it. Overall, putting all this stuff on 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:18.440 TV and having this all come to light is a 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:20.840 good thing for all of us, because tech companies in 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:24.160 general are now going to realize that they can't get 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:26.400 away with all the crazy stuff that they might have 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:28.400 been able to get away with in the past. There 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:31.240 you have it. Thanks so much for listening, rich Demiro 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.160 rich on tech dot TV. Tell me what you think. 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:37.800 You can tweet me on Twitter or on Facebook as well. 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:40.840 I know you're still on there because I am so 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:42.960 Thanks so much for listening. I'll talk to you real soon.