WEBVTT - Facebook's Accountability Problem 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.840 stuff works dot com. Hey therein Welcome to Tech Stuff. 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.919 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer and 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:21.000 I love all things tech and this is one of 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:25.880 those topics where things are pretty complicated and are unfolding 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:28.560 as I sit down to record this episode, but I 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:31.479 thought it was important enough to actually address it. On 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:35.080 November two thousand eighteen, The New York Times ran a 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:39.120 story written by five reporters and it was six thousand 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:42.640 words long. The focus of the story was about Facebook 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:45.960 and how executives at the social media company have tried 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:49.760 to respond after a series of scandals and accusations and 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:55.240 muddied Facebook's public image. And it was a pretty eye 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:59.440 opening report and it's ended up causing a lot of 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.000 people to yell at each other, or at least it 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:06.080 has given a lot of ammunition in the yelling arguments 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:08.880 that are happening in Washington, d C. And Silicon Valley. 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:13.160 So the scandals in question are uh some of the 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:15.600 things we've talked about in previous episodes of Tech Stuff 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:19.560 this year, like the signs that Russian agents and hackers 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:23.680 were creating numerous accounts in order to steal information and 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:28.759 spread propaganda and misinformation, and to generally undermine the democratic 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:32.120 process in the United States. It also included the Cambridge 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:35.040 Analytica scandal, which is a separate thing. I covered that 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.039 in an earlier episode. In that mess, the public discovered 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:41.520 that an enormous amount of personal data had been mined 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:45.960 by this political analystic company, Cambridge Analytica, often without the 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:50.640 user's consent. Then there's the ongoing problem of hate groups 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:53.840 and hate speech proliferating on the social network. So this 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.320 New York Times piece was really an investigative look into 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:01.680 how Facebook top brass have bonded to these problems, and 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:06.840 spoiler alert, it ain't great. The piece goes through the 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:11.080 process of Facebook becoming aware of Russian hacker activity on 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:14.760 the platform. Alex Stamos, who was then the head of 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:18.840 security over at Facebook, initiated an internal team to look 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:25.160 into suspicious activity. In December, Mark Zuckerberg sort of dismissed 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.680 the idea that fake news on Facebook was having some 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:32.880 sort of effect on uh political process and had in 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:38.040 fact played any role in the election. Stamos was worried 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:41.720 that this wasn't exactly true and so he ended up 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:45.639 meeting with Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg, who is the chief 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:49.200 operating officer over at Facebook now. According to the New 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:54.280 York Times article, Sandberg was furious with Stamos and said 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:57.480 that his investigation had opened up the possibility that Facebook 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:00.880 could be held accountable or liable for this stuff. But 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:05.680 ultimately the company chose to expand this investigation in an 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:09.840 internal project that was called Project P. The P stood 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:14.040 for propaganda. I should also point out that Sandberg responded 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:17.120 to the New York Times piece after it ran in 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:20.000 a blog post, and she denied the suggestion that she 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:24.680 wanted to avoid or slow down any internal investigations into 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:29.360 Russian interference. She specifically wrote, quote, Mark and I have 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.560 said many times we were too slow, But to suggest 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.840 that we weren't interested in knowing the truth, or we 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:39.920 wanted to hide what we knew, or that we tried 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:45.800 to prevent investigations is simply untrue. End quote. So that's 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:50.400 going on. But in April, Facebook would publish a paper 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:54.360 about the subject. However, in this paper, the word Russia 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:59.200 was mysteriously absent from it. It was about interference, but 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:04.880 the company did not name Russian hackers as the perpetrators. 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:09.160 Joel Kaplan, who is Facebook's vice president of Global Policy. 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:12.400 He's also a former deputy chief of staff for Republican 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:16.640 US President George W. Bush, had argued behind the scenes 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:21.240 against Facebook taking a more firm and definitive stance. He 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:23.839 said it would open the company up to accusations that 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:27.880 it was anti Republican and biased towards Democrats, and so 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.520 he said, in order to do that, let's not just 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:33.760 let's not lay out that it's Russian hackers that were 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:39.080 attempting to sway elections specifically in favor of Donald Trump. 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:43.680 So how did things get so bad so fast for 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:47.680 the company. While the piece maintains that Mark Zuckerberg, you know, 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:51.760 founder and CEO, and Cheryl Sandberg had focused on personal 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:56.360 projects rather than critical operations at Facebook, and they had 0:04:56.400 --> 0:05:01.720 handed off those important responsibilities to subordinates, the New York 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:06.520 Times journalists cite numerous current and former executives who indicated 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:09.240 that there was a lot of delegating going on and 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:13.040 not enough oversight. So there were a lot of people 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:16.680 who were given a great deal of leeway to do 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:20.200 their jobs, and as a result, people probably stepped a 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:25.320 little further out than what Zuckerberg or Sandbrick would have preferred. Now, 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:28.080 when the various scandals all rose to a certain level 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:31.960 and public opinion was really beginning to shift against Facebook, 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:37.040 someone over at Facebook and it's not clear who yet 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:40.320 as of the recording of this podcast, made the decision 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:43.920 to go on the offensive and hire an opposition research 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:49.920 firm called Definer's Public Affairs. Opposition research is a really 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:53.840 nice way to describe the technique of researching an opponent, 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:57.280 typically a political opponent, in an effort to dig up 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:01.680 dirt or compromising information so that that information can be 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.359 used against that opponent. This information can be used to 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:09.680 discredit or weaken the person. And this technique is not new. 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:14.080 It's actually ancient. Was used in ancient Rome in their 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:17.960 republic more than two thousand years ago, so this has 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:21.279 been around for quite some time. The term opposition research 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:25.359 is a bit more modern, but the underlying principles are ancient. 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:28.320 And just to be clear here, this is a tactic 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:32.160 that's been used by politicians from all political parties. This 0:06:32.240 --> 0:06:35.760 is not something that's someone should say, oh, only Republicans 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:39.600 do that. No, No, all political parties, at some point 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:44.120 or another engage opposition research at some level, and the 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:48.440 question is when does it go from being a legitimate 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:52.559 political strategy to an unethical one. And it's a pretty 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:56.960 gray line. It's uh ugly as well. Politics tend to 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:00.440 be pretty ugly, and in this case, they Facebook was 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:04.919 starting to employ a tactic that had been used in 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:09.200 politics and now was going to be used in business. 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:13.560 So the reason Facebook hired definers in the first place 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:17.600 was to help monitor news stories about Facebook so that 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:20.960 the executives would be aware of the general public opinion 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:26.800 about the company. In October, Facebook would expand this to 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:31.400 direct definers to specifically focus on the story about Russian 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:35.600 hackers on Facebook and how it relates to the manipulating 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:37.920 of the American public and the lead up to the 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:41.400 twenty sixteen election. They said, forget all the other stories, 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:44.480 really focus on these and see where that narrative is going. 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:49.080 The more the Facebook security team investigated the Russian hacker issue, 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:51.800 the bigger and more impactful it was turning out to be. 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:55.440 So it was sort of an attempt to Facebook trying 0:07:55.440 --> 0:08:00.760 to stay ahead of what the public narrative was about 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:03.080 this whole thing and to get a better grip on 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:07.600 exactly what had happened before someone else found out and 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:11.040 then put Facebook on the defensive. So Facebook was really 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:16.080 concerned that this increased focus on the company would possibly 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:20.200 lead to government intervention in the form of regulations. Now, 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:25.280 generally speaking, big companies are not huge fans of regulations. 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:29.760 By definition, regulations limit what a company can do, and 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:33.240 since from a very high level perspective, the purpose of 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:37.800 a publicly traded company is ultimately to make money for shareholders, 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:42.560 limitations are generally viewed as a bad thing. They tend 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:46.600 to also require that a company invest money in various 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:50.880 processes and procedures, which means there's less money to go 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:56.040 toward profit. So again, the more costs you have, the 0:08:56.120 --> 0:09:00.199 less attractive you tend to be towards shareholders. So all 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:03.240 of this requires a bit of mental gymnastics to separate 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:06.360 out what would typically be considered ethical, as in, what 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:09.560 is the right thing to do and what is considered 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:15.960 good business practices. Those two questions often arrive at very 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:19.840 different answers. A lot of a lot of businesses try 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:24.079 to go and UH and a moral route not immoral. 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:28.880 They're not trying to do something that is UH antithetical 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:33.880 to morals, but rather remove morals from the the question 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:39.040 entirely as much as you can. Uh, that isn't every business, 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:42.400 and certainly I don't think there are very many businesses 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:46.320 that do it to the fullest extent. But you see 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:51.239 a lot of companies try to ignore certain ethical questions 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:55.959 if those ethical questions are inconvenient in the pursuit of profit. Now, 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:59.920 to be fair to Facebook, the situation is incredibly complic 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.360 had it. I don't wish to say that there was 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:06.840 a very simple choice to be made and Facebook went 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:10.640 the wrong way. That is far too simplistic for what 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:15.800 was going on. Facebook executives have understandably, I think, argued 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:19.520 that Facebook is a platform, not a publisher. There is 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:24.040 a difference. As a platform, the company is not responsible 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:28.040 for the type of stuff people will post to that platform. 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:32.800 The ideas that the company is agnostic and disinterested. They 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:36.120 provide the venue, they do not provide the script. In 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.920 other words, so that guess Facebook a bit of protection 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:43.160 if someone were to post something really awful on that platform, 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:46.240 the company can enjoy a bit of protection. It's related 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:49.280 to a concept it's called safe harbor. The idea that 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:53.160 if you provide a place for people to put stuff. 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:58.160 You actually are not liable if someone puts something illegal there. 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.760 You you were fighting a service in the sense of 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:05.480 a place for people to go and do things. The 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:07.880 other person who put the illegal thing, they're they're the 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:10.160 ones who broke the rules. They should be held liable, 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:14.480 not you as the service provider. But then the problem 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:19.199 is Facebook doesn't take a completely hands off approach when 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:22.720 it comes to people posting stuff on the platform. For 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:26.679 one thing, the company has designed algorithms so that users 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:30.760 see some content, but they might not see other content 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:33.960 from their friends. And I'm sure if you've used Facebook 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:37.280 you've had this experience. Maybe you missed out on a 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:39.720 post that a lot of other people are talking about, 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:42.440 and it's not that you were excluded, it's just that 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:45.880 Facebook's algorithm didn't share that post with you, so you 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:49.440 didn't see it. Or maybe you posted something and you 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:52.240 were surprised that more of your friends didn't respond to it. 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:55.440 And again, it may very well be that Facebook just 0:11:55.559 --> 0:12:00.760 didn't display your post in people's feeds. So Facebook algorithms 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:04.600 in part determine what you see. Generally speaking, posts that 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:08.079 get more interaction or engagement tend to be seen by 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:11.839 more people. Facebook's algorithm tends to favor those. So if 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:13.640 a post gets a lot of likes, if it gets 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:15.679 a lot of shares, if it gets a lot of comments, 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.360 it tends to raise the visibility of that post, and 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:23.480 it tends to show up in more people's news feeds. Well. 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:27.520 News flash posts that get a lot of engagement tend 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:32.319 to be very emotionally charged and controversial because they tend 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:35.880 to invite people to either chime in and say, yeah, 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.559 you're totally right for that controversial perspective you've posted, or 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:41.920 you are way off base and you are a jerk 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:44.320 face for putting such a controversial post up on your 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:48.840 news feed. All of that engagement just drives the visibility 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:52.480 of that post and makes it even more visible, which 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:56.679 invites more people to participate, which again boosts the visibility, 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.120 and so you start to get these sort of toxic 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:04.000 posts rising to the top. Then there are promoted posts. 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:08.199 So by paying money people, organizations, companies, they can boost 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:12.120 the visibility of a post. They pay Facebook and Facebook 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:14.400 make sure that that post will show up on more 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:19.240 news feeds. So that muddies the waters too, because Facebook, 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.760 as it turns out, isn't just an empty stage where 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:26.520 anyone can get up and say anything they want and 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:28.960 be heard by all the people who happen to be 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:32.000 in the room at that time. It's not an even 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:37.400 playing ground, and it tends to favor inflammatory, controversial posts 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:42.199 and people who have money to spend. And again, understandably, 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:46.439 Facebook didn't want to take on the mantle of publisher 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:49.679 at that time. They didn't want to accept that as 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.880 their responsibility because that would mean the company would need 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:57.800 to monitor posts and potentially step into sensor problematic users 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:01.480 and accounts. They would where a lot of investment on 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:04.840 the part of Facebook, and this would be an ongoing expense. 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:08.400 They would have to keep on policing their service. And 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:11.720 it's a big service, so that's a huge job. And 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:15.240 since again the purpose of business is to make as 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:19.480 much money for the owners or shareholders as possible, additional 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:24.280 expenses are generally undesirable. I've got a lot more to 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:28.120 say about this whole subject, but first let's take our 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:30.960 own quick break to thank our sponsor so we can 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:43.200 pay our expenses. In addition to monitoring the news about Facebook, 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:48.320 definers began to dedicate resources to deflecting some of the 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:52.479 blame for Russian involvement by trying to steer the conversation 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:57.400 to target some of Facebook's rival tech companies, namely Google 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:01.960 and Twitter definers, along with two other companies that it 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:05.840 shares space with. Those two companies being America Rising, which 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:09.840 is a political action committee, and in t K Network, 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.440 which is a news network with a right wing slant 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:18.480 on news items. We're all collectively using the same office space, 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:21.680 some of the same staff, and so that brings some 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:25.080 questions in there. In t K Network would publish stories 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:30.840 that were pro Facebook and anti Facebook competitor during this time, 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:34.960 so they were trying to steer public opinion to try 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:38.000 and take some of the heat off of Facebook itself 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:41.360 and put it on some of its competitors. Well before 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:44.240 the problems that would lead to Zuckerberg having to sit 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:48.720 in front of Congress, activists had been accusing Facebook of 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:52.680 allowing various oppressive governments around the world to co op 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:56.400 the platform in order to spread propaganda or to identify 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.400 people that those governments considered a threat in order to 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:03.440 sign lence them or eliminate them. When Facebook was responding 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:08.640 to mounting criticisms, including that famous session in which Mark 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:11.800 Zuckerberg Berg would appear in front of Congress to provide 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:16.000 answers or explanations regarding Facebook user data, Russian interference, and more. 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:21.040 There was a simultaneous problem of people protesting the company 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:23.640 and its practices. So this is going on around the 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:27.840 same time. Activists were calling for oversight or regulations, which 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:30.040 Facebook definitely did not want to have to deal with, 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:33.360 and so definers got the directive to go do some 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:37.880 digging on the activists in an effort to discredit them. Now, 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:40.760 one particular group that was becoming a thorn in the 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:44.720 side of Facebook was called Freedom from Facebook. Now, this 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:49.200 included an attempt to link those activists to a billionaire 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:53.360 financier named George Soros. You probably heard that name if 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:55.800 you've been paying attention to the political news in the 0:16:55.920 --> 0:17:01.200 United States. George Soros has backed a lot of different causes. 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:05.280 A lot of them are democratic causes for countries in Europe. 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:10.400 He's backed a lot of philanthropythropic causes in the United States, 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:14.680 but hasn't put as much money in direct democratic races 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:18.280 here in the US as he has in Europe. Soros 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:21.159 would actually create a philanthropic agency. It was called the 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:26.320 It is called the Open Society Foundations, and Soros funded 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:30.520 this organization with eighteen billion dollars of his own money. 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:35.840 According to Bloomberg, Soros is currently worth about eight billion dollars. So. 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.879 Soros was born in Budapest in nineteen thirty and he 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:43.080 comes from a Jewish family. His family wasn't really religious, 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:47.080 they were non observant Jews. But growing up in Budapest 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:50.120 in the nineteen thirties, you know, World War two write 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:54.800 on the horizon. It was a stressful time and uh. 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:59.639 He then would move throughout of Hungary. He moved to 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:02.760 the UK and then moved to the United States, and 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:06.679 he built his wealth. His enormous amount of wealth and 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:09.760 his support of various liberal causes, not just in the 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:13.720 United States but elsewhere, particularly in Europe, has evolved to 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:19.320 the point that some conservatives, not all, Some conservatives tend 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:23.320 to accuse Soros of trying to manipulate government policies around 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:27.680 the world through his wealth, and those accusations often come 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:32.399 from the more extreme fringes of the conservative movement, and 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:36.840 those accusations sometimes carry with them anti Semitic messaging. This 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:43.520 notion of wealthy Jewish people trying to control world events 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:48.080 and it's a frequent anti semitic message that has been 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:53.360 repeated numerous times. Uh, and it is a an insidious 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:58.080 and dangerous message to send out there. It feels a 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:02.280 lot of hate groups. So at the same time that 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:07.560 the Definers were starting to link George Soros to this 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:11.360 activist group, Freedom from Facebook, the Freedom from Facebook group 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:16.640 went and did something pretty bone headed and wrong. They 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:21.240 attended a House Judiciary committee meeting where a Facebook executive 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:26.200 was testifying about corporate policies, and the activist group held 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:29.639 up a sign and that sign showed Mark Zuckerberg and 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:33.760 Cheryl Sandberg as a two headed octopus with its tentacles 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:38.080 encircling the globe. And that's more than a little problematic. 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:42.440 Both Zuckerberg and Sandberg are also Jewish, and the depiction 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:45.840 of an octopus grasping the globe has been used as 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:50.400 an anti semitic messaging method before, and so this particular 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:54.520 sign could legitimately be viewed as being anti semitic, as 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:59.280 being uh bigoted against Jewish people. Now, whether or not 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:02.800 the activist group intended to express anti Semitic views or 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:06.639 not is up for debate, but either way, Definers was 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:10.440 able to take that protest and leverage it against them. 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:14.359 They contact the Anti Defamation League and they said, this 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:17.639 is a terrible thing. This should not stand. The group 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:21.320 needs to apologize taking some of the attention away from 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:27.160 Facebook and putting it onto Facebook's critics. And again I'm 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:30.680 not defending Facebook. Freedom from Facebook for doing that sign. 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:33.840 It was a dumb thing to do, and at best 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:38.240 it was dumb. At worst, it was racist. So Definers 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:42.560 takes that protest and leverages it against them. Simultaneously, Definers 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:46.080 is trying to link George Soros and his money to 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:50.200 that activist group, which is doubly weird right, and on 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.600 one part the group, this Definers group is reaching out 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.280 to the Anti Defamation League and saying, look at this 0:20:56.440 --> 0:21:00.280 anti semitic messaging that this activist group is sending out 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:05.159 that is unconscionable. At the same time, this same group 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:10.640 is trying to link George Soros, who has been frequently 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:19.320 uh accused of engaging in various anti conservative causes and 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:23.720 has been linked anti semitic messaging, has been linked to 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:27.240 those claims, like there's been a lot of of anti 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:32.600 semitic messages that specifically target George Soros. So they're playing 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:35.359 both sides at the same time, essentially is what I'm saying. 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:40.360 They're They're saying, how dare this activist group send out 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:45.400 this anti Jewish message while meanwhile they're fanning the flames 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:49.920 of anti Jewish sentiment by linking Soros to that group. 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:54.040 By the way, Soros is philanthropic organization would later say 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:57.680 it had not provided any financial support to Freedom from Facebook, 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:00.959 So the claims were, uh, we're burious to begin with, 0:22:01.040 --> 0:22:04.760 they weren't even true. The New York Times piece also 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:09.080 goes into detail about Facebook executives and their relationships with 0:22:09.200 --> 0:22:13.080 various politicians, and there are many executives at Facebook who 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:16.720 have worked on political campaigns or held government jobs and 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:20.879 specific administrations over the years. Several of them, Sandberg included, 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:24.640 are very close friends with top lawmakers and have leveraged 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:29.280 those relationships throughout the whole affair. Sandberg would testify in 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:32.199 front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and leading up to 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:36.919 her appearance, the Facebook team lobbied the committee chairman, Richard 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:40.800 Burr to stick to the topic of election interference and 0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:45.520 not to press Cheryl Sandberg on other issues related to Facebook, 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:51.000 like user privacy or the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and Burr 0:22:51.040 --> 0:22:53.360 agreed to that. He said, we should really focus just 0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:56.920 on the election interference side, so that took some pressure 0:22:56.960 --> 0:23:01.520 off of Facebook. Facebook also lobbied to include competitors in 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:04.920 this same hearing. They said, well, we're going to come forward, 0:23:04.960 --> 0:23:07.720 but you should also really get someone from Google and 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:11.240 someone from Twitter. And since we're sending Sandberg our chief 0:23:11.280 --> 0:23:14.920 operating officer, the people those companies should send should also 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:18.359 be very high ranking executives. Burr agreed to that too, 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:21.840 and he invited both of those companies to send in 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:26.120 comparable executives to appear before the committee. Twitter's Jack Dorsey 0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:29.680 did so, he showed up. Google did not send anyone, 0:23:30.640 --> 0:23:34.199 So Google's absence became a topic of scorn among the 0:23:34.200 --> 0:23:36.719 committee members. People were saying, well, you know this, this 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:39.000 is this looks really bad for Google not to be here. 0:23:39.280 --> 0:23:42.399 And that also helped take some of the heat off 0:23:42.440 --> 0:23:46.760 of Facebook and also Twitter because they were there, so 0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:49.199 they were able to come out of it looking a 0:23:49.240 --> 0:23:52.840 little bit better because Google didn't show up. Oh and 0:23:52.840 --> 0:23:56.560 and definers got involved in this part too. According to 0:23:56.600 --> 0:24:00.880 that New York Times article, definers gathered information about all 0:24:00.960 --> 0:24:05.200 the senators on this committee and then sent that information 0:24:05.320 --> 0:24:10.080 to various journalists That included information about how much each 0:24:10.160 --> 0:24:15.160 senator had spent on Facebook ads during various campaigns, as 0:24:15.200 --> 0:24:19.679 well as which tracking tools the various senators websites used 0:24:20.119 --> 0:24:23.359 on the visitors to those websites. The message was pretty 0:24:23.359 --> 0:24:27.760 clear if those senators were to really go after Facebook, 0:24:28.200 --> 0:24:31.960 the journalists had information that could lead to questions from 0:24:32.000 --> 0:24:34.639 the senators. They could they could ask the senators, you know, 0:24:34.720 --> 0:24:37.919 you really chased Facebook down and you argued about privacy, 0:24:38.000 --> 0:24:41.880 but it turns out you're using a tracker on your 0:24:41.920 --> 0:24:44.840 website to track information about people who visit your website. 0:24:44.840 --> 0:24:47.280 So how can how can you accuse them of being 0:24:47.320 --> 0:24:51.640 bad about privacy when you are gathering data or you're 0:24:51.760 --> 0:24:55.000 arguing about Facebook, but at the same time you've spent 0:24:55.160 --> 0:24:58.440 a huge amount of money on Facebook to advertise your campaign. 0:24:58.440 --> 0:25:01.720 How can you be so critical of that company. It 0:25:01.840 --> 0:25:04.399 was all meant to kind of add pressure to the senators, 0:25:05.240 --> 0:25:08.560 and it's all it's essentially saying something like, sure, right now, 0:25:08.600 --> 0:25:13.160 it's politically advantageous to go after Facebook because the public, 0:25:13.440 --> 0:25:16.600 their opinion is turning against this social media site. But 0:25:16.680 --> 0:25:19.040 let's talk about all the ways you've leveraged Facebook to 0:25:19.040 --> 0:25:22.040 get where you are, and as I said before, politics 0:25:22.040 --> 0:25:25.440 gets real ugly. Shortly after The New York Times published 0:25:25.440 --> 0:25:29.399 its article about Facebook strategies to manage those crises, Zuckerberg 0:25:29.400 --> 0:25:34.000 announced that his company had severed ties with Definers. He 0:25:34.080 --> 0:25:38.080 and Sandberg both said that they were unaware that Definers 0:25:38.119 --> 0:25:41.520 had been retained on behalf of Facebook. Sandberg said she 0:25:41.560 --> 0:25:43.879 should have been aware of it, but she wasn't until 0:25:44.119 --> 0:25:47.240 this article came out, and they said it was probably 0:25:47.320 --> 0:25:51.239 someone in the communications department who had hired Definers, and 0:25:51.280 --> 0:25:54.840 they just didn't realize it. That they being Zuckerberg and Sandberg, 0:25:54.880 --> 0:25:58.440 they didn't realize that had happened. According to tech Crunch, 0:25:58.840 --> 0:26:02.760 a number of face boks communications staff have ties to 0:26:02.920 --> 0:26:07.240 Matt Rhodes. Matt Rhodes is the founder of Definers, and 0:26:07.280 --> 0:26:11.160 he had previously run the election campaign for Mitt Romney. 0:26:11.160 --> 0:26:15.119 So Andrea Saul, who serves Facebook as the director of 0:26:15.160 --> 0:26:18.680 Policy Communications, also worked for Rhodes in two thousand eleven. 0:26:18.720 --> 0:26:24.240 Two thousand twelve, Facebook spokesperson Jackie Rooney likewise had worked 0:26:24.240 --> 0:26:27.520 on the Romney campaign as chief of staff. Another member 0:26:27.560 --> 0:26:31.560 of the corporate communications team named Carolyn Glanville also worked 0:26:31.600 --> 0:26:35.239 on the Romney campaign as the deputy communications director, and 0:26:35.280 --> 0:26:38.480