WEBVTT - An Interview with Author Cory Doctorow 0:00:04.960 --> 0:00:07.560 Welcome to it could happen here. Um the show that 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:11.520 is normally introduced by me shouting a tonally, but today 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:15.360 I did like a professional. Um, because today myself and 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:18.600 my colleagues Garrison and Christopher are talking to someone. I'm 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:22.880 very excited to chat with Mr Corey. Doctor. Oh Corey, Well, 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:25.599 hello the show. Thank you very much. It is my 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:28.000 pleasure to be on it. It's great to meet you 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:31.040 all and to be talking to you today. Corey. You 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:34.120 do a lot of writing about kind of technology and 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:38.600 surveillance and cultural issues around those. You're also an author. 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:41.000 You've written some great fiction. I think today will probably 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:44.720 talk most around books like Attack Service and walk Away, 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:47.440 But you've written a lot of wonderful stuff. Um. And 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:49.520 you've also worked with the e f F for years 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.159 and years. UM. So you you you're coming at what 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:54.240 I love about I mean, we're gonna be talking today 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:57.360 broadly about surveillance and kind of the future of of 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:00.440 the Internet. Will probably talk about some Metaversey stuff. What 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:03.440 I love about the way in which you think and 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:05.399 write about the future is that you're kind of coming 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:07.760 about it from a number of angles, both as like 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:12.440 a tech industry journalist, as a fiction writer imagining the 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:15.080 future and as somebody who's kind of weighted in as 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:19.040 an activist to this, And UM, I'm kind of wondering, 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:23.759 where do you see like the greatest potential for actual 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:26.880 like change? Um? Is it? Is it in kind of 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:29.399 Is it in lobbying and engaging as an activist or 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:31.679 is it in sort of imagining as a as a 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:35.200 as a fiction writer? What might be? So I I 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:38.920 see them as adjuncts uh, you know, diversity of tactics 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:43.440 and all that stuff. Um. The thing is that tech 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:49.920 policy arguments are often very abstract, uh, and they are 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:55.160 only visceral for the people who would provide the kind 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.680 of political will to do something about them. Usually that 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.840 that comes when it's too late, right, people, people care 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:04.480 about tech monopolies once the web is turned into five 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:06.840 giant websites filled with scripted shots of text from the 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:10.760 other four, But not when Yahoo is on a buying 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:13.280 spree of tech companies and we're saying, oh, that's how 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:15.400 tech companies grow, and all tech companies will grow in 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:18.320 the future by buying all their nascent competitors and rolling 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:20.799 them up into a big vertically integrated monopoly, which is 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:22.480 kind of how we got Facebook and Google and the 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:25.519 rest of it. And um, you need to be able 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:28.720 to make policy arguments to policy people, but you also 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:31.760 need to be able to put uh, some some sinew 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:34.880 and muscle on the bone of that highly abstract kind 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.960 of argument. And and that's where fiction comes in. It's 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:42.639 kind of a like a fly through of like an 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:46.079 emotional architects rendering of what things might look like if 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:49.080 we get it wrong or if we change it. It 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:51.720 preserves the sense of possibility, you know. I think one 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:55.000 of the great enemies of change is the inevitable is 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:57.359 um of capitalist realism and the idea that there is 0:02:57.400 --> 0:02:59.560 no alternative. So if you can make people believe in 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:02.400 an alternative, than they might work for one. And certainly 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:04.880 the opposite is true. If people don't believe there is 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:08.160 any alternative possible, they won't work for one. Why why 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:12.560 would you? Uh? And so all of that together, I 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:16.000 think is part of how you mobilize people to care 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:20.799 about stuff. Yeah, I mean, that makes that makes total sense, 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:24.720 and it is. It's difficult, I think because I first 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:28.679 came into technology as a journalist, and it's very difficult 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:32.320 to get people to care about stuff. And I think 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:35.600 in particular privacy, which there was. It has been one 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:37.960 of the most interesting cases of like the kind of 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:41.920 thought leaders in in an industry freaking out over something 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:44.320 and people not really having an issue with it because 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:46.200 we kind of all agreed to hand over all of 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:49.120 our data to a number of big side not all, 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.080 but I don't know. I'm interested in your thoughts on that. 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:54.600 I understand the idea that like fiction is um is 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:56.240 a much better way to try to get people to 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:59.040 care about these things because it makes them feel as 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:01.560 opposed to kind of boarding on. I think people can 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:03.880 get kind of lost in the weeds of acquisitions and 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:07.480 like uh pivots and you know, tech companies acquiring each 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:11.600 other and whatnot. Well, look, I think that the part 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:15.440 of the problem with privacy, the reason that we were 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:17.960 late to wake up and do something about it, is 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:20.920 because it was obfuscated. You know, if you've ever seen 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:23.720 the maps of like how an ad tech stack works, 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:27.760 the flow diagrams, and there are some things that are 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:31.600 complicated because um, there are some things that are hard 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:33.760 to understand because they're complicated. And then there are some 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:36.800 things that are made complicated so they will be hard 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:40.320 to understand. And I think in the case of the 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:45.479 surveillance industry, the latter is true. And it wasn't just 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:47.480 that they were trying to play us for suckers, they 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.640 were also playing their customers for suckers. Right. One of 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:52.839 the reasons that the ad tech stack is such a 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.640 snarled hair ball is so that the people who buy 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.080 ads and the publishers who run ads can't tell how 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:01.919 badly they're being RiPP off by their intermediaries. But this 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:04.080 also has the side effect of making it very hard 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:07.080 for us to know as the as the kind of 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:11.560 inputs to that system, how our own dignity and private 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:15.040 lives and safety and integrity are being put to risk 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:20.320 by these systems as well. Um. And you know, it 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:22.720 may be that people, if they had been well informed 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.400 about what was going on, they might have been indifferent 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:27.880 as well. But I think that when most people were 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:30.440 very poorly informed, right when all there was was this 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:34.880 kind of that privacy discourse was just like stuff as 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:39.120 being your personal information is being siphoned up, but no 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:42.360 kind of specifics on how that was being used and 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:44.560 how that was being done and how it might bring 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:48.320 you to harm. Um, it's not clear that that you 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:50.920 can say that that the reason they were indifferent is 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:54.240 because they were fully informed and inn care if you 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:56.479 know that they weren't fully informed, if you know that 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:59.760 they were barely informed. M h, I mean yeah, I 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.800 think are absolutely right. Because when the Cambridge analytic a 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:04.720 scandal broke, which was I think one of the first 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:08.039 times that there was a really huge international story that 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.960 made it clear some of the consequences of all this, like, 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:13.320 it did provoke a lot of a lot of anger. 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:17.000 Um I I do you worry at all that, Like 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:21.640 there's a degree to which because it because people got 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:23.560 tricked or wherever you want to frame it, and it's 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:29.719 gone the the kind of um financialization of people's private data, 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:32.760 of people's like personal information, because that has gone so far, 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:35.400 there's a risk that people are just kind of inured 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:39.080 to it. Um yeah, well, well, I mean that kind 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:41.240 of gets to my theory change here, which is that 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:45.560 there is always gonna be uh a point of um 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:50.080 maximum and difference peak in difference. You know, Um, if 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:55.440 you think about something like being a smoker, the likelihood 0:06:55.520 --> 0:07:00.120 that you care about cancer goes up the long or 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:04.039 you smoke, and the more health effects you feel. And 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:07.279 certainly there will come a point in your life when 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:09.880 you will only ever grow more worried about the effects 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:12.760 of smoking on your life. But there's also a point 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:15.240 of no return. Right. If the point at which you 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:19.640 you're you're concern reaches the point where you're actually going 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.640 to do something about smoking is the day you get 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:27.119 diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, then that um denialism 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:31.720 can slide into nihilism. You can say, why bother, right, 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.640 it's too late. It's like if if we spend years 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:39.080 arguing about the crashing population of rhinos and then finally 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:41.760 there's only one left, and you say you're right, there 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:45.000 was a problem, you might as well say, like, why 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:46.680 don't we eat him and find out what he tastes like? 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:49.240 It's not like the rhinos are ever going to come back, right, 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:53.600 And so for me, so much of the work is 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:57.360 about shifting the point of peak indifference to the left 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:00.680 of the point of no return on the timeline, so 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:05.080 that people actually start to care earlier, because it's it's 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:08.360 if you haven't a genuine problem, right, like the overcollection 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:10.880 of our private data, the mishandling of it, the abuse 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:15.679 of it, that genuine problem will eventually produce tangible effects 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:19.080 that are undeniable, right that that the our ability to 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:22.000 ignore it just goes monotonically down. It's the thing about 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:26.200 the climate emergency. You know, even if Shell had not 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:29.600 our Exon had not hidden the data it had on 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:32.400 the role that it's products were playing in climate change 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:34.920 in the seventies, it would have been hard to muster 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:37.679 a sense of urgency in the seventies, right because the 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.400 story is that in fifty years something bad's going to happen. 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:43.000 But here we are, fifty years on something bad is 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:45.920 really happening, and a lot of people are caring about it. 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:48.600 They still don't seem to care about it enough, or 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.280 maybe they've slid into nihilism. There's certainly, i think on 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:54.440 the part of the elites, a kind of nihilistic sense 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:57.880 that maybe they can all retreat to like mountaintops and 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:02.200 build fortresses and breathe their children by Harrier jet you know, 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:07.040 and and and you know that nihilism, I think is 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:10.240 is what you get when the point of no return 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:15.880 is passed before peak denial. Uh and the privacy um 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:19.720 catastrophe that is looming in our future that we haven't 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:22.000 quite reached yet. I mean, we've just had the first 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:26.440 kind of trickles of the dam breaking that's in our future. 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:30.680 It hasn't been enough yet to shift people away from it, 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:32.760 but but we might be getting there right. We might 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:36.160 we might eventually be able to do something about it. 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:38.560 And one of the things that will hasten that moment 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:44.600 is um restoring competition to those industries. That one of 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:48.079 the reasons that uh, the industry that spies on us 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:53.520 is able to foster denial and indifference is because it 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:56.960 is a monopolized industry. To companies control eighty percent of 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:02.640 the ad market, Google and Facebook, and as as monopolists, 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:05.319 they're able to extract huge monopoly rents. They're among the 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:08.200 most profitable companies in the history of the world. And 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:11.000 some of those monopoly rents, rather than being returned to shareholders, 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.199 can be mobilized to distort policy, to to make us 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:16.720 think that there's nothing wrong with the way that they 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:21.080 collect data and use it to forestall regulation, to pay 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:24.480 Nick Clegg four million a year to go around Europe 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:26.800 and the world and say, as the former Deputy Prime 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:29.080 Minister of the United Kingdom, I'm here to tell you 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:31.840 that Facebook is the friend of the democratic regimes of 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:36.680 the world. And and you know, if if the anti 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:39.800 monopoly movement, which is a thing I've become very involved with, 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:43.920 is able to go from strength to strength, it's surging now, 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:47.920 then one of the things that we might do is 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:51.720 is destroy the ammunition that's being used by these large 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:55.240 monopolistic firms to distort our policy and harm us in 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:58.679 these ways with impunity. And and then maybe we can 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:03.800 actually take the the nascent and natural alarm that people 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:08.880 do feel about the invasions of their privacy and and 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:13.520 actually turn that into privacy policy that is meaningful in 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:17.320 respect of these big companies that actually reigns them in. Yeah, 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:20.360 and I think I like that you frame it as 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:23.280 a privacy catastrophe because I think, I mean, what I 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:27.000 just exhibited earlier in this episode, is this this tendency 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:28.920 that I certainly see in myself and I see in 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:31.000 other people to get kind of beaten down by the 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:34.640 continued um excesses of this industry and the continued kind 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.080 of failure of anything to be done to curb it. 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:39.000 And I think you're right, it has to be viewed 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:43.160 as um as a calamity. And I and nothing I 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:46.199 think makes that clearer than some of watching some of 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:48.600 the stuff Facebook in particular has put out about their 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:51.320 plans for the metaverse, and kind of thinking back from 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:53.480 all of these sensors they want to store in your house, 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:54.880 all of the ways in which they want to map 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:58.559 everything around you. Um, they never you know, they they 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:00.480 kind of advertise as like you'll be able to play 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.000 basketball with somebody who's in a different state. But really 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:06.480 what it is is you're giving Facebook access to every 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:09.120 measurement of your body and you know, the pulse of 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:11.200 the beat of your heart and all this this stuff 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:14.520 that like maybe we don't quite know what it would 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:19.239 be useful for from a financialization standpoint, but it's unsettling 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:21.040 to think that they'll have to find a way because 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:23.120 they'll have it. You know, I don't know. I don't 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:25.040 know what is to be done about that, other than, 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:27.959 as you say, kind of breaking up these monopolies. Well, 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:30.320 and and I mean breaking up is like one of 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:32.440 the things we can do to monopolies, and and it 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:35.360 takes a long time, you know, Um A T and T. 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:40.040 The first enforcement action against it happened sixty nine years 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:42.800 before it was broken up in N two. I don't 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:44.600 think we can wait that long. But there's a lot 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:47.439 of intermediate steps, right, Like we can force them to 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:52.679 do interoperability, we can block them from from predatory acquisitions. 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:55.640 We can force them to divest of companies and engage 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:58.600 in structural separation. We can do all kinds of things. 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:00.280 It actually looks like the United King it was going 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:03.680 to stop them from buying Giffey, which might seem trivial 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:07.360 after all, it's just like animated jifts, but um, what 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:11.960 it actually is surveillance beacons in every social media application, 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:16.800 right because if you're hosting a Jeff from Giffey in 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:22.439 your message to someone else, Facebook has telemetry about that message. Um. 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:26.000 And so the the the not the i c O, 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:29.960 the Competition Competition and Markets Authority in the UK was like, yeah, 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:31.880 this is just gonna strengthen your market power. That's why 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:34.959 you're buying this company. You have too much market power already. 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:38.080 We're not gonna let you do it. Um. It was 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:41.080 almost the case that the Fitbit merger was blocked. Google's 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:43.559 Fitbit merger. I think it's still not too late to 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:46.240 roll it back. And Lena Cohn, who's the new fire 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:49.199 breathing dragon in charge of the FTC, who is an 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:52.840 astonishing person who was a law student three years ago. 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:56.600 Uh she has said, oh yeah, this this like one 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.360 point three trillion dollars worth of mergers and acquisitions that 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:01.480 you're doing right now to get in under the wire 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:04.720 before we start enforcing. Guess what, We're going to unwind 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:07.560 those fucking mergers if it looks like they were anti competitive. 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:09.480 And not only are you going to lose all the 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:11.400 money you spent on the M and A due diligence 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:13.680 and the paperwork and the corporate stuff, but all that 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:16.040 integration you're going to do between now and then, you're 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:18.959 gonna have to de integrate those companies when we tell 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:21.800 you that you don't have uh, you don't have merger 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:26.080 approval and you're on notice. You can't come and complain later, right, Like, 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:28.400 you can either get in line and wait for us 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:31.080 to tell you whether or not your merger is legal, 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:33.240 or you can roll the dice. But I tell you 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:36.200 what if you come up sneake, guys, you are fucked. 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:40.240 And that is amazing, right, that is a powerful change 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:44.760 in American industrial policy that really makes a difference. Yeah, 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:47.040 I mean, and that is a beautiful thing to think 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:50.360 of being in place and actually hitting as hard as 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:53.680 it could. Obviously, the concern is that like who will 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:56.200 be you know, picking the head of the FTC in 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:59.080 three years in change, and like how how how much 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:02.960 influence is Peter You're going to have their in the like, um, yeah, well, 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:05.840 and Peter Tiel of course love's monopolies. He says, competition 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:09.680 is for losers. So you're right, I mean, obviously, elections 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:13.160 have consequences, but you know, one of the ways that 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:16.720 you win elections is by making material differences in people's lives, 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:21.880 and so you know, if people are policy, then uh. 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:24.480 One of the most important policies Biden has set so 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:28.120 far is hiring Lena Khan and her colleagues Canter at 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:31.200 the d J and Tim Wu and the White House. Yeah, 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:33.880 I mean, I would I would love nothing more than 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:37.520 to see particularly like Facebook reigned in at this point 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:40.240 because I'm one of the casualties of the of the 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.960 of the the ad market, like crash of started in 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:48.080 like two sixteen seventeen. It feels like the odds of 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:51.440 them being able to like, I don't know, We've got 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:56.960 three years where we know, you know, theoretically these policies 0:15:57.000 --> 0:15:59.800 will be in place, and and I don't know, I'm 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:02.000 well like when I when I because the Republicans are 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:04.760 talking a lot about regulating social media too, about even 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:07.200 breaking up these companies, but they often tend to be 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:09.080 talking about it in a very different way and with 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.760 a very different kind of end goal in mind. Um 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:15.840 And I guess you know obviously they know that, right Facebook, 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:18.560 they are well aware that like this might be a 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:20.760 weight out the clock situation for them, and they have 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:23.640 some arrows in that quiver. I mean that may be so, 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:26.960 but also remember that Facebook's users are outside of the US, 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:31.320 and that even a change in administration here won't won't 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:35.400 um put Margaret vest Dagger, who's the Competition commissioner in 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:39.040 the EU, back in the bottle. And she's another fire breather, right, 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:42.360 She's another amazing person, And so you know I wouldn't 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:44.479 be too quick to write that off. I mean Facebook 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:48.000 needs its foreign markets, Yes, It's U S customers are 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:49.800 worth more to anyone else because we have the most 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:52.960 primitive privacy frameworks, so it can extract a lot more 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:54.960 data for like we're the we're the richest people with 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:58.760 a worse privacy, so that's that's um. You know, it's 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.200 a real home court advantage for Facebook, but it needs 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:03.600 that other eight percent of its users. It wouldn't be 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:05.960 what it is without them, and that makes it subject 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:08.160 to their jurisdiction. And you know, one of the things 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:12.440 about ad driven firms like Facebook, UM is that they 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:16.840 really need sales offices in country. Uh. So you know, 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:20.200 even before we we had the proliferation national firewalls, which 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:23.440 don't get me wrong, I don't think it's a good thing. Um. 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:29.720 These large global firms that operated UM sales offices in country, 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:33.159 in every territory they worked in, were vulnerable to regulation 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:36.679 because if you have staff in a country, then you 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:40.720 have someone that can be arrested, right, And so it's 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:43.880 not like they can just be like I don't know, 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:47.359 like the Tour Project, which just you know, it has people, 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:51.160 um who who sit in hack on tour who are 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:53.480 close to lawyers who can defend people who sit on 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.440 hack and on tour. Uh. You know, if the Tour 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:00.320 Project had to have staff full time in Turkey and 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:04.840 China and Russia and Syria in order to operate, it 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:08.520 would be a very different project. But you know, Facebook 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:11.000 and Twitter and Google they all have staff in those 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:14.880 countries and it makes them vulnerable to regulation. And so, 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:19.280 you know, China is really interesting because because um she 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.439 Jin Ping, for his own reasons which are not my 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:26.280 reasons and distinct from the Democrats and the Republicans reasons, 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:29.040 is doing stuff to rein in big tech in China. 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:31.800 And it's actually quite interesting because you know the argument 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:33.920 that Nick Klegg makes when he says why we shouldn't 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:37.119 break up Facebook, as he says, uh, you know, China 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:40.679 is coming for your UM, for your I P and 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:45.159 for your industrial competitiveness with its big tech giants that 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:48.439 it treats as national champions that projects soft power around 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:52.000 the world. Meanwhile, China is like these tech giants. We 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:55.040 hate these tech giants. They present a countervailing force to 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:57.439 the hedgemony of the the Communist Party and the and 0:18:57.480 --> 0:18:59.879 the executive branch that she should bring sets at the 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:02.440 off of we're gonna neuter them and we're gonna we're 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:07.280 gonna disappear their founders like Jack Montt fucking googlogs right like, 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:11.080 they're like, we don't want national champions because the nation 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.080 that you know, we bow and Ali Baba is the 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:17.399 champion four is we Bow and Ali Baba and tense 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:20.280 that they're not They're not champions for China by any 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:23.440 stretch of the imagination. They don't give a shit about China. 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:26.480 And so you know, they're all of these companies are 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:30.800 going to face regulatory pressure, anti monopoly regulatory pressure all 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:36.160 over the world, and you're you're so much more um optimistic. 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:38.840 I guess about about the potential for that to bite 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:40.840 than a lot of people I talked to, and I 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:43.200 think more knowledgeable as well. And I kind of wonder 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:46.639 because there's this very strong, obviously influenced by decades of 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:50.080 cyberpunk attitude that like, we're in this age of mega 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:54.040 corporations whose power is you know, there's nothing that can 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:56.439 stop Amazon from doing what Amazon wants to do, right, 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:58.720 Facebook is going to keep doing whatever they want to 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:01.320 do forever. You clear really don't believe that, and I 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:05.600 you know, you clearly know your stuff. I'm wondering why 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:09.919 you think that that image is still persist, so persistent 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:14.200 that like attitude in our heads of these these these 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:17.320 are kind of monolithic forces in our society that um 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:20.720 just have to be endured. So I think it's a 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:24.080 belief in the great forces of history, right, um, and 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.600 the great man theory. You know that the the these 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:34.960 um Uh you know that these rich people are driving history. Yeah, 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:37.879 these these these powerful figures are driving history. They're in 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:39.840 charge there in the driver's seat. I mean, that's kind 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:42.359 of what's behind Trump arrangement syndrome, right, the idea that 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:47.800 Trump is uniquely powerful and talented demagogue as opposed to 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:51.159 just like a demagogue shaped puzzle piece that fit in 0:20:51.200 --> 0:20:54.280 the demagogue shaped hold that was left by the collapse 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:57.400 of credibility of capitalism. Uh. And you know, a man 0:20:57.440 --> 0:20:59.639 who is clearly too stupid to be a cause of 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:02.479 any thing and will only ever be the effect of something. 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:08.000 And uh, you know the for me, the theory of 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:12.880 history and how it goes was really transformed by an 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:16.159 exercise that my friend Ada Palmer does. So. Aida is 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:19.359 a science fiction novelist. She's she's just published the fourth 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:22.239 book of her Terra Ignota series, her debut series. It's 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:25.480 in an incredible series of books. But she's a real 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:27.879 like kind of multi talented, multi threat. So she's a 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:31.919 librettiston singer who has produced album length operas based on 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:36.960 the Norse mythos. She's also a tenured history of um 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:40.000 a tenured professor of Renaissance history in Florence at the 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:46.359 University of Chicago, where she studies heterodox information, pornography, homosexuality, witchcraft, 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:49.479 and so on. During the Inquisitions and every year with 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:54.160 her undergrads, she reenacts through a four week long live 0:21:54.200 --> 0:21:57.000 action role playing game, the Election of the Medici's Pope, 0:21:57.600 --> 0:21:59.879