Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works, and I heart radio and I love
Speaker 1: all things tech. And today we're going to dive into
Speaker 1: a recent story. On March sixth, two thousand nineteen, Facebook
Speaker 1: co founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a very long
Speaker 1: essay titled a Privacy Focused Vision for Social Networking on Facebook.
Speaker 1: Of course, the post has prompted a lot of discussion
Speaker 1: in the tech space as well as the political space,
Speaker 1: over what Zuckerberg actually means, both for Facebook users and
Speaker 1: for the company itself, and it raises some interesting questions.
Speaker 1: So today I thought I dedicate an episode to Facebook
Speaker 1: and the concept of privacy, because the two things have
Speaker 1: long been at odds with one another. You wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 1: associate Facebook with privacy, and that's part of the problem. Now,
Speaker 1: before I dive into the essay, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: quote the essay quite a bit, but don't worry, I'm
Speaker 1: not reading out the whole three thousand, six hundred word thing.
Speaker 1: But let me set the stage a little bit. We're
Speaker 1: gonna dial back the clock to January twenty ten. Facebook
Speaker 1: had been around for several years and Michael Arrington of
Speaker 1: tech Crunch interviewed Mark Zuckerberg in January to talk all
Speaker 1: about Facebook. And this is what Zuckerberg had to say
Speaker 1: about the concept of privacy back then. So this is
Speaker 1: nine years ago. People have gotten really comfortable not only
Speaker 1: sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and
Speaker 1: with more people. That social norm is just something that's
Speaker 1: evolved over time. We view it as a role in
Speaker 1: the system to constantly be innovating and be updating. Water
Speaker 1: system is to reflect what the current social norms are.
Speaker 1: So essentially, Zuckerberg was saying that things have changed culture,
Speaker 1: you know, values had changed, where things that might have
Speaker 1: been considered private in the past now we're public. People
Speaker 1: were eagerly sharing private thoughts on social media platforms, and
Speaker 1: they were sharing more and more with more people, people
Speaker 1: who might not be close friends, they might be further
Speaker 1: out in that person's social network, they might even be strangers.
Speaker 1: So in that discussion, Zuckerberg was essentially making the claim
Speaker 1: that Facebook's policies and operations were a reaction to the
Speaker 1: changing values of the culture at large that this was happening,
Speaker 1: so Facebook was changing to cater to that. Now, not
Speaker 1: everyone agreed with that particular assertion, including yours, truly, I
Speaker 1: also didn't think that this was a totally genuine response.
Speaker 1: I would argue instead that Facebook is dependent upon people
Speaker 1: issuing privacy and that the company has done a great
Speaker 1: deal to encourage this kind of oversharing behavior. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that Facebook is fully responsible for it, merely that
Speaker 1: the company has greatly encouraged it. I mean, that's what
Speaker 1: the company is based around. So rather than react to
Speaker 1: a cultural shift, I would argue Facebook has done a
Speaker 1: lot to boost or push for that shift. So again,
Speaker 1: not fully responsible. I wouldn't say that Facebook is the
Speaker 1: culture king, that's the kingmaker of culture, but rather they
Speaker 1: saw the opportunity and they pushed really hard for that
Speaker 1: to become the social norm. And the reason for doing
Speaker 1: that is really really simple, because it's cash, cash money, y'all.
Speaker 1: Facebook provides a service to users, right, It's a social
Speaker 1: media platform we can use, but the way the company
Speaker 1: makes money is largely through advertising. So you can think
Speaker 1: of Facebook's product as being your data, assuming that you
Speaker 1: use Facebook, of course, and your data might include specific
Speaker 1: facts about your identity, like your home address, your phone number,
Speaker 1: your name, your age, your occupation, the schools you attended.
Speaker 1: It might also include information about people you know and
Speaker 1: your relation to those people. So it might have the
Speaker 1: identity of your spouse or family members, and it may
Speaker 1: even identify them as such because you can, you know,
Speaker 1: designate people as having a specific relationship to you. That's
Speaker 1: valuable to you to have these particular circle is like
Speaker 1: if you want to message just people who are in
Speaker 1: your family, that's valuable to you, but it's also valuable
Speaker 1: to Facebook to have that information. So Facebook also has
Speaker 1: a record of all your activities on the platform and
Speaker 1: the posts you tend to interact with. So as you
Speaker 1: use Facebook, you generate information. You provide a more complete
Speaker 1: picture of who you are, what you like, what you
Speaker 1: value and more and what Facebook doesn't outright no from
Speaker 1: your input and behavior, it might be able to guess
Speaker 1: at based upon similar behaviors they've seen, so essentially pattern recognition.
Speaker 1: It might notice that lots of people who happen to
Speaker 1: like certain types of posts also like other posts, and
Speaker 1: maybe you haven't liked this other post yet, but because
Speaker 1: you fall into the first category, chances are you'd also
Speaker 1: fall into the second one. Now let's shift our attention
Speaker 1: to advertisers. Advertisers want to get the most for their money,
Speaker 1: which is I mean, that's just easy business, right. Everyone
Speaker 1: wants that, and this doesn't make advertisers bad people. But
Speaker 1: they want to get the most bang for their buck.
Speaker 1: They need to get the word out about products or services,
Speaker 1: and they want to focus on people who are most
Speaker 1: likely to respond to those advertisements and make a purchase.
Speaker 1: It doesn't do you any good to send ads to
Speaker 1: somebody and those ads have nothing in common with that person.
Speaker 1: If the person is never going to buy your product
Speaker 1: or service just because of who they are, it's a
Speaker 1: waste of time and resources to send that add to them.
Speaker 1: So the more information advertisers have about a potential target
Speaker 1: or customer, the better campaigns could even be tailored for
Speaker 1: specific types of people. You could have a really good
Speaker 1: advertising company craft different ads, all meant for the same
Speaker 1: product or service, but intended to target different types of people.
Speaker 1: So you might see one version of an ad for
Speaker 1: a product and your buddy sees a totally different version
Speaker 1: of an ad for that same product, but the two
Speaker 1: different versions of the ads were selected because of differences
Speaker 1: between you and your buddy. Maybe you really like hiking
Speaker 1: and your buddy really likes the beach, and this is
Speaker 1: an outdoor sporting event type company. Maybe it's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a sports equipment type company, And so they send one
Speaker 1: ad to you that is geared more towards hiking, camping
Speaker 1: and that kind of thing, and one to your buddy
Speaker 1: that's more about beach life kind of stuff. It's both
Speaker 1: for the same company or service, but the ad has
Speaker 1: been selected specifically because of differences in your preferences that
Speaker 1: Facebook is able to keep track of. If that means
Speaker 1: that either of you are more likely to make a purchase,
Speaker 1: then that's a valuable expense for the advertiser. So you
Speaker 1: start to see how all these little pieces of data
Speaker 1: start to add up to become incredibly valuable. And then
Speaker 1: you think about Facebook being a data broker with all
Speaker 1: this information about you and all these potential advertisers to
Speaker 1: work with, and you really see how the money rolls in.
Speaker 1: So Facebook has a vested interest and people sharing information publicly.
Speaker 1: The more people share about themselves, the more data Facebook
Speaker 1: has about them. So from posts to about you know,
Speaker 1: pets too, pictures of meals, invitations to parties, requests for
Speaker 1: help to seek out a job. Facebook's paying attention to
Speaker 1: all of this, and it has on occasion gone even
Speaker 1: further than that, such as when the site launched the
Speaker 1: Beacon program back in around two thousand eight. I believe
Speaker 1: it was that's what allowed companies that were partnering with
Speaker 1: Facebook they could share activities that Facebook users were doing
Speaker 1: on their sites. So let's say that you are a
Speaker 1: ticket broker company. You you sell tickets to live events,
Speaker 1: and you have this Facebook Beacon partnership, and then I,
Speaker 1: a Facebook user, go to that site and I purchased
Speaker 1: a ticket, then the site could have published that activity
Speaker 1: to my Facebook feed, whether I wanted it or not,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people felt like this was a
Speaker 1: terrible violation of privacy. So maybe you just happened to
Speaker 1: go and buy tickets to go see my little pony
Speaker 1: on Ice, and maybe you don't need all your friends
Speaker 1: on Facebook to know that and then to use that
Speaker 1: information as a way to make fun of you for
Speaker 1: the next decade, for example. But then Beacon goes and
Speaker 1: posts your purchase for all to see on your profile.
Speaker 1: Not that this has happened to anyone I know, and
Speaker 1: it definitely did not happen to me, but you get
Speaker 1: the idea. So Facebook is in the information business, the
Speaker 1: same as Google and lots of other companies that we
Speaker 1: tend to associate with some other type of business. Right,
Speaker 1: most of us think of Facebook as a social network platform.
Speaker 1: We tend to think of Google as a search engine,
Speaker 1: and then increasingly other stuff remotely related to search engines.
Speaker 1: But both companies actually depend heavily on leveraging data about
Speaker 1: their users to entice advertisers. They really are advertising companies
Speaker 1: or companies that host advertising. So it was completely in
Speaker 1: the interests of Facebook for Zuckerberg to declare that the
Speaker 1: notion of privacy was no longer a cultural norm back
Speaker 1: in twenty Whether that was true or not as a
Speaker 1: matter of debate. And certainly, some people appear to have
Speaker 1: little concern for their privacy, and I'm not passing judgment
Speaker 1: on them either, but I suspect there are a lot
Speaker 1: of folks out there who feel otherwise, that privacy still
Speaker 1: is important and still should play a part in our
Speaker 1: interactions online and otherwise, And some pretty high profile incidents
Speaker 1: have brought the topic into sharp focus. If you've been
Speaker 1: listening to my show for a while, you probably heard
Speaker 1: the episodes about Cambridge Analytica and how the data analytics
Speaker 1: company relied upon information and that was pulled from an
Speaker 1: app that left many feeling that they had had their
Speaker 1: privacy violated. The app was a survey that would pay
Speaker 1: users a small fee for completing the survey, and part
Speaker 1: of the process involved granting the survey app access to
Speaker 1: the survey takers Facebook page, so the app could pull
Speaker 1: down information about the person taking the survey. But so far,
Speaker 1: so good, right, I mean, the person taking the survey
Speaker 1: is presumably aware of this process and is getting compensated
Speaker 1: to boot. But then we go a step further. It
Speaker 1: turned out the app was also pulling down information about
Speaker 1: the friends connected to the survey takers, so not just
Speaker 1: the taker him or herself, but that person's friends. The
Speaker 1: app's permission allowed the administrator of the app to view
Speaker 1: the survey taker's friends profiles as if the app were
Speaker 1: a friend of those people itself. So let's say you
Speaker 1: and I are friends on Facebook. Sometimes you make a
Speaker 1: public post on Facebook and anyone in your feed can
Speaker 1: read that public post. Anybody, No problem there? Right? That
Speaker 1: That makes perfect sense. But sometimes let's say that you
Speaker 1: post so that only your friends can see those status updates.
Speaker 1: The general public never sees them. However, I'm your friend,
Speaker 1: so I can see those posts. Then I decide I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go take this survey, and I agree to the
Speaker 1: apps terms, not knowing what all is entailed with that,
Speaker 1: And now the app can see your profile as if
Speaker 1: the app were me, meaning it can get access to
Speaker 1: all those status updates you made using the friends only option,
Speaker 1: and you never agreed to that. You're you are an
Speaker 1: unknowing party. You never gave permission to the app or
Speaker 1: to me, You just had all that information accessed. Facebook
Speaker 1: would address that problem after people brought it to the
Speaker 1: company's attention, and this was actually years before the Cambridge
Speaker 1: Analytica scandal really broke out in public knowledge, but the
Speaker 1: damage was already done. And once the scandal did break
Speaker 1: many people were rightfully upset at Facebook. But that's just
Speaker 1: one example of how Facebook has been less than perfect
Speaker 1: when it comes to protecting users safety. Another recent example
Speaker 1: came to light in late two thousand eighteen, Gizmoto published
Speaker 1: a report that revealed Facebook had done something fairly shady,
Speaker 1: pretty shady I would say with users who had opted
Speaker 1: into two factor authentication with the service. Now see the
Speaker 1: purpose of two factor authentication is to make online profiles
Speaker 1: more secure. That's the whole reason for it, and the
Speaker 1: ideas that you require users to submit proof of identity
Speaker 1: from two categories or factors. The factors we typically look
Speaker 1: at our things you know, things you own, and things
Speaker 1: you are. Facebook was looking at the first two factors.
Speaker 1: The thing you know would be your password. You know
Speaker 1: your password, so you put it in when you log in.
Speaker 1: The thing you own would be a cell phone, a
Speaker 1: cell phone that you have registered with your account. So
Speaker 1: when you enabled two factor authentication, logging into Facebook on
Speaker 1: a new machine would prompt you to provide your password,
Speaker 1: and then Facebook would send you a one time code
Speaker 1: to your phone, which you would then enter into Facebook's site.
Speaker 1: And by proving you had both the password and the phone,
Speaker 1: you're essentially proving you are who you claim to be.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to cut down on the chance that someone
Speaker 1: else might have access your account just by guessing or
Speaker 1: otherwise getting access to your password. If they don't have
Speaker 1: your phone, they can't complete the two factor authentication and
Speaker 1: they're locked out of your account. But Gizmodo found out
Speaker 1: Facebook was also using this process to do something else,
Speaker 1: something not so awesome. The company was using the data
Speaker 1: from these two factor authentication phones to target those users
Speaker 1: with more specific ads. So the system, which was supposed
Speaker 1: to be about providing users with a sense of confidence
Speaker 1: that their accounts were secure, was simultaneously being used to
Speaker 1: generate revenue you for Facebook with targeted advertising. And Facebook
Speaker 1: was doing this by collecting contact information from users phones
Speaker 1: to further fill out the links between social contacts who
Speaker 1: were on Facebook. The Gizmoto report gave a pretty interesting
Speaker 1: account of this. Cashmir Hill, who wrote the piece, did
Speaker 1: an experiment by paying for an ad on Facebook that
Speaker 1: would target a specific phone number, and that phone number
Speaker 1: belonged to the landline for a computer science professor named
Speaker 1: Alan Mislove, and this was with miss Love's consent. He
Speaker 1: was in on this, so miss Love had never provided
Speaker 1: this particular phone number to Facebook. Hill suspected that Facebook
Speaker 1: had made the association between the phone number and Mislove
Speaker 1: by combing through the contact information on phones being used
Speaker 1: for two factor authentication purposes, because after she placed this ad,
Speaker 1: within a couple of hours, miss Love saw it, and again,
Speaker 1: miss Love had never put this particular phone number into
Speaker 1: his profile on Facebook, and yet within two hours of
Speaker 1: the ad being placed, it popped up on his Facebook feed,
Speaker 1: So that meant the company had to get that phone
Speaker 1: number from somewhere, So that sets the stage for this
Speaker 1: privacy concern. Next, we'll take a look at what Mark
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg said about privacy in that essay, and then we'll
Speaker 1: look into some analysis and criticism of that essay. But
Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break. Now you can find
Speaker 1: the full essay that Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook, but I'd
Speaker 1: like to pull some segments to talk about specifically, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna start with the first two paragraphs after the introduction. Now,
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, I'm not going to read out
Speaker 1: the whole thing that would take up nearly an entire
Speaker 1: episode just by itself. But once Zuckerberg is done with
Speaker 1: his introduct and paragraph, he has this to say. Quote.
Speaker 1: Over the last fifteen years, Facebook and Instagram have helped
Speaker 1: people connect with friends, communities, and interests in the digital
Speaker 1: equivalent of a town square. But people increasingly also want
Speaker 1: to connect privately in the digital equivalent of the living room.
Speaker 1: As I think about the future of the Internet. I
Speaker 1: believe a privacy focused communications platform will become even more
Speaker 1: important than today's open platforms. Privacy gives people the freedom
Speaker 1: to be themselves and connect more naturally, which is why
Speaker 1: we build social networks today. We already see that private messaging,
Speaker 1: ephemeral stories, and small groups are by far the fastest
Speaker 1: growing areas of online communication. There are a number of
Speaker 1: reasons for this. Many people prefer the intimacy of communicating
Speaker 1: one on one with just a few friends. People are
Speaker 1: more cautious of having a permanent record of what they've shared,
Speaker 1: and we all expect to be able to do things
Speaker 1: like payments privately and securely. End quote. All right, so far,
Speaker 1: so good. These are not super deep insights, of course,
Speaker 1: they're mostly common sense, But this is Zuckerberg laying down
Speaker 1: the foundation for his position moving forward. There's a growing
Speaker 1: interest in separating out our personal interactions from the public space,
Speaker 1: and there's not really a point here in which Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: addresses targeted advertising, which I would argue is one of
Speaker 1: the big reasons people are interested in moving off of
Speaker 1: public online communications channels. But then I would have been
Speaker 1: surprised to see so candid a statement from him on
Speaker 1: that subject. The statement also seems to ignore the fact
Speaker 1: that Facebook may have played a part in making people
Speaker 1: feel like they need to move to a more private,
Speaker 1: secure platform. So, in other words, Zuckerberry saying, I'm noticing
Speaker 1: this trend, but he's not saying we're responsible for kind
Speaker 1: of creating this desire um, just as he wasn't saying
Speaker 1: that they were responsible for promoting the concept of oversharing
Speaker 1: in the first place. Zuckerberg goes on to assert that
Speaker 1: social networking platforms will remain important moving forward and argues
Speaker 1: that their value and how they connect people together can't
Speaker 1: be understated, that they provide a service that is valuable,
Speaker 1: and therefore they will continue to survive. And he says, quote,
Speaker 1: I understand that many people don't think Facebook can or
Speaker 1: would even want to build this kind of privacy focused
Speaker 1: platform because frankly, we don't currently have a strong reputation
Speaker 1: for building privacy protective services, and we've historically focused on
Speaker 1: tools for more open sharing end quote. Now there's an
Speaker 1: illusion both to the company's privacy related woes and a
Speaker 1: sort of tangential nod to its business model without explicitly
Speaker 1: calling it out. He goes on to say he see
Speaker 1: communications shifting to private and encrypted services, and he says,
Speaker 1: we plan to build this the way we've developed WhatsApp.
Speaker 1: Focus on the most fundamental and private use case, messaging,
Speaker 1: and make it as secure as possible, and then build
Speaker 1: more ways for people to interact on top of that,
Speaker 1: including calls, video chats, groups, stories, businesses, payments, commerce, and
Speaker 1: ultimately a platform for many other kinds of private services.
Speaker 1: End quote, and he lists six principles that he says
Speaker 1: will be important for this new focus to come true. First,
Speaker 1: that people should be able to have private interactions with
Speaker 1: clear controls for who can access those interactions. Next, that
Speaker 1: these methods should incorporate end to end encryption to protect
Speaker 1: the communication from prying eyes. Third is reducing permanence uh,
Speaker 1: something made famous by Snapchat. This is the idea that
Speaker 1: communications would have sort of an effective self destruct mechanism
Speaker 1: after a particular amount of time, presumably enough time for
Speaker 1: the other party to have seen the message, no permanent record.
Speaker 1: In other words, though I should point out that some
Speaker 1: of the services famous for providing this kind of experience weren't,
Speaker 1: you know, actually deleting the content right away. So while
Speaker 1: it sounds like it would be this kind of one
Speaker 1: time only thing, and then the data has gone forever.
Speaker 1: There's a chance the data is not really gone forever. Next,
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg stresses the system will have to be safe and
Speaker 1: that people will entrust Facebook with their data. Then he
Speaker 1: calls for an interoperable approach, pointing out that lots of
Speaker 1: people rely on different services to connect with one another.
Speaker 1: So you might be a whiz on Facebook Messenger, but
Speaker 1: maybe your best buddy prefers using WhatsApp, and then another
Speaker 1: friend of yours, a friend in common is really only
Speaker 1: using Instagram, and all three of those, by the way,
Speaker 1: belong to Facebook. Zuckerberg wants a method that could work
Speaker 1: across apps, as long as they are Facebook's apps. More
Speaker 1: on that point in just a bit. The last principle
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg mentions is secure data storage, which ties back into safety.
Speaker 1: Though perhaps Zuckerberg was actually differentiating a person's physical safety
Speaker 1: and the security of their data, or maybe the physical
Speaker 1: safety of data centers. It's not entirely clear in that part.
Speaker 1: He does later go into data centers in particular, so
Speaker 1: maybe that's where really what he meant. Then Zuckerberg goes
Speaker 1: on to flesh out these points a little more, and
Speaker 1: I'm not going to dwell on all of them, because
Speaker 1: again it would just take too long, but I do
Speaker 1: want to focus on a few. So under encryption and safety,
Speaker 1: he has this to say, quote, there is a growing
Speaker 1: awareness that the more entities that have access to your data,
Speaker 1: the more vulnerabilities there are for someone to misuse it,
Speaker 1: for a cyber attack to expose it. There is also
Speaker 1: a growing concern among some um that technology may be
Speaker 1: centralizing power in the hands of governments and companies like ours,
Speaker 1: and some people worry that our services could access their
Speaker 1: messages and use them for advertising or in other ways
Speaker 1: they don't expect. End to end encryption is an important
Speaker 1: tool in developing a privacy focused social network. Encryption is decentralizing.
Speaker 1: It limits services like ours from seeing the content flowing
Speaker 1: through them and makes it much harder for anyone else
Speaker 1: to access your information. End quote. So here we have
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg pointing out that using data for the purposes of
Speaker 1: advertising is a concern for some users, and he's also
Speaker 1: explaining that end to end encryption would mean Facebook would
Speaker 1: be unable to see the content of the messages themselves,
Speaker 1: making that content awful limits for monetization, at least directly,
Speaker 1: And that sounds pretty good to me on the surface
Speaker 1: of it. I like the idea of a means of
Speaker 1: communication that keeps things truly private between parties and isn't
Speaker 1: used as currency between Facebook and advertisers, So kudos to
Speaker 1: that idea. But then he turns around and points out
Speaker 1: that end to end encryption also creates opportunities for people
Speaker 1: to use the communication tools to do bad or harmful things,
Speaker 1: such as planning a terrorist attack, and he states, quote,
Speaker 1: we have a responsibility to work with law enforcement and
Speaker 1: to help prevent these wherever we can end quote. So
Speaker 1: this opens up a question that people have asked for ages,
Speaker 1: how do you balance individual privacy with collective security. Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: says that Facebook would use other means to detect possible
Speaker 1: harmful use, including looking for usage patterns among people communicating
Speaker 1: through this private, end to end encrypted service. This is
Speaker 1: a good reminder that sometimes a spy doesn't even have
Speaker 1: to be able to read or hear a message to
Speaker 1: draw some pretty accurate conclusions about what is being said
Speaker 1: between different parties. Just ask the n S A. Actually,
Speaker 1: you don't have to ask the n S a they're
Speaker 1: already listening. Zuckerberg then moves on to talk about interoperability
Speaker 1: and talks about how, in his vision, users will be
Speaker 1: able to communicate across Facebook apps through an opt in feature,
Speaker 1: eventually even including SMS along with Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram. Now,
Speaker 1: I feel this is a pretty risky move. The more
Speaker 1: points of connection you have between services, the more potential
Speaker 1: vulnerabilities that will be in the overall system, and the
Speaker 1: more chances you've given hackers to find ways to exploit
Speaker 1: those vulnerabilities. Zuckerberg does acknowledge that interoperability will create challenges
Speaker 1: that will need to be solved before it can be
Speaker 1: rolled out. So I don't want to suggest that he's
Speaker 1: oblivious to this, but it's a concern I have that
Speaker 1: I think needs further attention. Zuckerberg concludes with a section
Speaker 1: on data security, pointing out that Facebook doesn't build data
Speaker 1: centers and countries that a history of ignoring or violating
Speaker 1: human rights like privacy and freedom of expression, and he
Speaker 1: gives a rather broad series of next steps that the
Speaker 1: company will take to achieve this vision. Now, I've already
Speaker 1: talked a little bit about some of the concerns I
Speaker 1: have about this essay, But when we come back, we're
Speaker 1: going to explore some other takes on it that apply
Speaker 1: critical thinking to the whole proposal and to see what
Speaker 1: might really be at the heart of this message. But first,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. I think it's pretty clear
Speaker 1: that I have some concerns about what Zuckerberg has said,
Speaker 1: but I am not the only person to express skepticism
Speaker 1: about this new vision for Facebook. Some people, like Jeff Chester,
Speaker 1: doubt the sincerity of the mess as well. Chester is
Speaker 1: executive director for a nonprofit organization focused on privacy. It's
Speaker 1: called Center for Digital Democracy. The Washington Post quoted Chester's
Speaker 1: response to Zuckerberg's essay. He said, quote, why does it
Speaker 1: always sound like we are witnessing a digital version of
Speaker 1: Groundhog Day? When Facebook yet again promises when it's in
Speaker 1: a crisis that it will do better, will it actually
Speaker 1: bring a change to how Facebook continually gathers data on
Speaker 1: its users in order to drive big profits. That same
Speaker 1: Washington Post article, which by the way, has the title
Speaker 1: Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg says he'll reorient the company toward encryption
Speaker 1: and privacy. It's a great read. It's a long title
Speaker 1: cited surveys that indicated people's trust, and Facebook has taken
Speaker 1: a bit of a nose dive over the last couple
Speaker 1: of years, So it sounds like Chester isn't alone in
Speaker 1: this skepticism, and his question about whether or not Facebook
Speaker 1: will actually change its ways is a valid one. Facebook's
Speaker 1: operating margin has been pretty darn high for the last
Speaker 1: few years, and for those not inclined toward business speak,
Speaker 1: a company's operating margin is the ratio of operating income
Speaker 1: to net sales, So it gives you a measurement of
Speaker 1: what proportion of a company's revenue as in the money
Speaker 1: it's bringing in from doing business before some other indirect
Speaker 1: costs like taxes are taken out, are compared to operating costs,
Speaker 1: so you want the percentage to be high. You want
Speaker 1: to the higher it is, the more money you are
Speaker 1: keeping from what you earn. So Facebook's has been between
Speaker 1: forty three and forty seven, which is pretty darn good.
Speaker 1: It means that so for every dollar Facebook makes between
Speaker 1: forty three to forty seven, cents of that dollar is
Speaker 1: an operating earnings, so that's profit before taxes. The rest
Speaker 1: would go to covering the costs of doing business and
Speaker 1: it's pretty clear in business. This is from a non
Speaker 1: business e sort of person, and I think this is
Speaker 1: a fair thing to say that making more money and
Speaker 1: being able to keep more of the money you make
Speaker 1: is considered a good thing. I'm pretty sure about that one.
Speaker 1: A company could spend more to make more But if
Speaker 1: the operating margin gets more narrow over time, if that
Speaker 1: percentage begins to drop, you could end up in a
Speaker 1: situation in which your actual profits, your your take home
Speaker 1: profits after all costs are lower than they used to
Speaker 1: be because your costs have grown so much. So in
Speaker 1: the end of the day, you could say, yeah, we
Speaker 1: made more money than we did last year. Like last
Speaker 1: year we made fifty million, this year we made a
Speaker 1: hundred million. But then last year our costs were ten million,
Speaker 1: and this year our costs were ninety million. Well, that
Speaker 1: means your your take home profits from the year before
Speaker 1: we're forty million dollars. Your take home profits from this
Speaker 1: year are ten million dollars. So yeah, you made more money,
Speaker 1: but you weren't able to keep all of it. Right,
Speaker 1: So that operating margin is a very important thing, especially
Speaker 1: for investors. So some critics question Zuckerbert's commitment because what's
Speaker 1: CEO of a publicly traded company is going to come
Speaker 1: forward and say, I'm gonna pivot here and focus on
Speaker 1: a new approach that we can't monetize the way we
Speaker 1: could with our old model because I would cost Facebook
Speaker 1: money and it would be expensive to make this change
Speaker 1: to the platform. And if there's not a substantial way
Speaker 1: to generate revenue, then what you're looking at is the
Speaker 1: operating margin getting smaller and investors getting angry. So this
Speaker 1: is really the the critics pointing out. Facebook isn't saying
Speaker 1: they're not going to make money off your data. That's
Speaker 1: not what Zuckerberg was saying at all. That that by
Speaker 1: definition will have to continue because otherwise Facebook won't be
Speaker 1: a business anymore. It won't be making money. So keep
Speaker 1: that in mind when you're hearing these messages now. Other
Speaker 1: critics say that pushing this new approach for Facebook would
Speaker 1: play right into the hands of people who use Facebook
Speaker 1: to spread misinformation. That's something the company has been struggling
Speaker 1: with for a while now. Charges that bad actors have
Speaker 1: been using Facebook to spread lies and propaganda all around
Speaker 1: the world. We're really familiar with it here in the
Speaker 1: United States, but the same thing is happening in other
Speaker 1: countries around the world. So these critics are interestingly arguing
Speaker 1: against Facebook for making things more private. They're they're not
Speaker 1: saying Facebook is still going to be making money off
Speaker 1: of you. What they're saying is this particular approach to
Speaker 1: communication is more dangerous. They say that the threat to
Speaker 1: security is too great. And I find that really interesting
Speaker 1: because you've got privacy advocates on one side that's say
Speaker 1: that these approaches aren't really addressing privacy problems, and then
Speaker 1: you have security people on the other side that think
Speaker 1: that this is pushing toward a more insecure future for
Speaker 1: online communication and that encrypted private messaging is a dangerous strategy.
Speaker 1: So two different perspectives, both of which are saying that
Speaker 1: Facebook is maybe not so uh so wise to pursue
Speaker 1: this particular approach. But one of the best critical examinations
Speaker 1: of Zuckerberg's essay I have seen was written by Molly Wood,
Speaker 1: and it was published by Wired. And in the interest
Speaker 1: of full disclosure, I've known Molly Wood's work since before
Speaker 1: I was recording text stuff, and she and I have
Speaker 1: chatted several times, so we do know each other. But
Speaker 1: the funny thing was I was reading her piece, and
Speaker 1: I was making notes, and I had fully intended on
Speaker 1: incorporating those notes into this episode before I had even
Speaker 1: really noticed that she was the one who wrote the piece.
Speaker 1: I was reading the article based on the headline, and
Speaker 1: it was only after I had started making notes that
Speaker 1: I went to see who wrote it, and then I thought, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. It was Molly Wood. Anyway. Her article
Speaker 1: is titled Zuckerberg's Privacy Manifesto is actually about messaging end quote,
Speaker 1: and she makes the case that what Zuckerberg was really
Speaker 1: doing was laying out a product development plan to address
Speaker 1: some pressing issues for the company. Not issues about user
Speaker 1: privacy or misinformation campaigns or anything like that, but rather
Speaker 1: issues with growth and usage and retention of customers. She
Speaker 1: points out that Edison Research found Facebook had around fifteen
Speaker 1: million fewer users in the United States in two thousand
Speaker 1: eighteen as compared to two thousand seventeen. That keep in mind,
Speaker 1: that's an overall loss of fifteen million users even after
Speaker 1: new members have joined the service. So you've got new
Speaker 1: people coming on to Facebook. That the people leaving Facebook
Speaker 1: means that you have an overall decline in users. That's
Speaker 1: an ugly warning sign that people are leaving your platform
Speaker 1: in droves. Moreover, it was the second year in a
Speaker 1: row that Edison Research measured a drop in users year
Speaker 1: over year, and the United States is while it's while
Speaker 1: it's small in population compared to other countries, it's large
Speaker 1: as far as a revenue generator for Facebook. So seeing
Speaker 1: declining numbers in your prime market is really bad business.
Speaker 1: In addition, Molly sites and article in the Information dot
Speaker 1: Com that pointed out another big problem with Facebook, which
Speaker 1: is a decline in original sharing. So the people who
Speaker 1: haven't left Facebook are sharing less about themselves. They might
Speaker 1: share links to articles or post cartoons or memes or
Speaker 1: videos or or whatever, but they're not sharing information about
Speaker 1: themselves as much. And since we've already covered how Facebook
Speaker 1: bases its revenue off of user data, that's a problem
Speaker 1: for the company. I mean, you can draw some con
Speaker 1: inclusions about what a person likes based on the stuff
Speaker 1: they share on Facebook, but it's not the same as
Speaker 1: information about the actual people behind those accounts. So Facebook
Speaker 1: is facing what could be in the long run, an
Speaker 1: existential crisis for the company. And messaging is where there's
Speaker 1: a glimmer of hope Molly points out that in China,
Speaker 1: a popular service called we Chat brings together messaging, phone calls, apps,
Speaker 1: and it's a product where the average user is spending
Speaker 1: an hour a day on it, and she says, quote,
Speaker 1: this is almost exactly what Zuckerberg describes wanting to build
Speaker 1: over the next few years. End quote. And if you
Speaker 1: remember when I quoted Zuckerberg earlier in this episode, that
Speaker 1: was pretty much what he was saying. And she goes
Speaker 1: on to argue that a Facebook can make a super app,
Speaker 1: one that can accommodate advertising and commerce transactions, with Facebook
Speaker 1: getting a cut of each transaction. Since it's facilitating those deals,
Speaker 1: it could shift its dependence from a social networking site
Speaker 1: that seems to have passed its peak and move on
Speaker 1: to a messaging service more in line with the way
Speaker 1: younger people in particular are communicating with one another. She
Speaker 1: also Kennely points out that the commitment to encryption doesn't
Speaker 1: mean the company will stop targeted advertising or profiting off
Speaker 1: of users. Quote. The fact that your individual messages might
Speaker 1: be encrypted in transit does not in any way prevent
Speaker 1: Facebook the entity from knowing who your friends are, where
Speaker 1: you go, what links you click, what apps you use,
Speaker 1: what you buy, what you pay for and where, what
Speaker 1: businesses you communicate with, what games you play, and whatever
Speaker 1: information you might have given to Facebook or Instagram in
Speaker 1: the past. End quote that actually touches on another point
Speaker 1: that I didn't mention before, the one about location services.
Speaker 1: If you have Facebook installed on a phone and you
Speaker 1: haven't opted out of location data being, incorporate it into
Speaker 1: the service. Or even if you have, as some studies
Speaker 1: have shown, you've got yourself an app that's keeping tabs
Speaker 1: on you wherever you're going and how long you are
Speaker 1: spending at every location you go to, and potentially who
Speaker 1: you are there with, because if they also have the
Speaker 1: Facebook app installed, Facebook is able to to core operate
Speaker 1: all that information. You can bet that would still be
Speaker 1: a part of the messaging service in the future that
Speaker 1: Facebook and visions. It's a gold mine of valuable data.
Speaker 1: Molly Wood concludes with quote. In fact, nowhere in the
Speaker 1: more than three thousand words that Zuckerberg published on Wednesday
Speaker 1: does he say that users will ultimately control their own
Speaker 1: data or have the option to reduce the amount of
Speaker 1: data they share with Facebook, or delete their information, or
Speaker 1: operate anonymously, or pay a subscription fee to reduce or
Speaker 1: eliminate ad tracking, anything that would represent an actual commitment
Speaker 1: to privacy other than secure messaging. End quote. Now, I
Speaker 1: urge you to read her whole piece on Wired, because
Speaker 1: while I've given some sizeable excerpts, it's best if you
Speaker 1: read it from start to finish. It's a really good piece,
Speaker 1: and I pretty much agree with her not Now, this
Speaker 1: doesn't mean I think Zuckerberg is some sort of evil
Speaker 1: data tyrant, but he is the CEO of a multibillion
Speaker 1: dollar global company that's in the business of leveraging user data.
Speaker 1: The business pressures are enormous, and he's likely making decisions
Speaker 1: to ensure the health of his company, including how to
Speaker 1: make users interested into companies products before too many people
Speaker 1: migrate away from Facebook entirely. And again, I think this
Speaker 1: whole story brings up the necessity for us to employ
Speaker 1: critical thinking when we come across various pieces of news,
Speaker 1: to really put it through some difficult questions, ask ourselves,
Speaker 1: what are the actual motivators here? What are the benefits
Speaker 1: of the approach that is suggested in this piece? You know,
Speaker 1: answering those questions can lead you to some conclusions that
Speaker 1: might be different than whatever the surface level happens to
Speaker 1: be of that communication. Uh Now, it could very well
Speaker 1: be that maybe Zuckerberg is being extremely sincere, maybe there's
Speaker 1: no old terrier motive there, But I feel pretty confident
Speaker 1: that the critics are onto something here. I'm curious what
Speaker 1: you guys think. Are you guys still using Facebook out?
Speaker 1: That's another thing, Just in the interest of full disclosure. Again,
Speaker 1: I actually planned to step away from Facebook this year
Speaker 1: after June. I think right now I'm in a production
Speaker 1: that is using Facebook to communicate things like schedules and
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, So I actually need to use
Speaker 1: the service right now just so that I can continue
Speaker 1: to do my job with this production. However, once that's concluded,
Speaker 1: I plan on sort of taking a break, not deactivating
Speaker 1: my account entirely, but not visiting frequently, not really relying
Speaker 1: upon it, and hoping that my friends will go through
Speaker 1: the effort of reaching out to me through other means
Speaker 1: and not just assume that I've disappeared off the face
Speaker 1: of the earth. I'll report back after that's gone on
Speaker 1: for a while. But I'm curious what you guys think
Speaker 1: and if you have any suggestions for future episodes of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff. If you do send me a message, the
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Speaker 1: or you can drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter.
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