Speaker 1: Get in text with technology with tech Stuff from hot
Speaker 1: stuff dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. Today we're going to have
Speaker 1: a little bit of a discussion with someone from Mozilla,
Speaker 1: Danielle Dixon Thayer. Dnell's being very kind to join the
Speaker 1: show and talk about concepts like privacy and security, particularly
Speaker 1: for students who are back in school, and the conversations
Speaker 1: that parents may want to have with students in order
Speaker 1: to try and make sure that you know, people are
Speaker 1: are following best practices when it comes to our Internet
Speaker 1: behaviors and protecting ourselves and just being good net citizens.
Speaker 1: And so I did an interview with Dnnell and you're
Speaker 1: going to hear that coming up right now with me today.
Speaker 1: I am so thrilled to have her on the show.
Speaker 1: I have Dnill Dixon Thayer, the chief legal and business
Speaker 1: officer over at Mozilla. Danelle, thank you for joining the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. Wonderful to be here, Jonathan, wonderful.
Speaker 1: I have a couple of questions for you as we
Speaker 1: before we really get into the meat of this. Now,
Speaker 1: you work with Mozilla for those listeners out there who
Speaker 1: may not be familiar with Mozilla. First of all, shame
Speaker 1: on them because they haven't listened to all of my episodes.
Speaker 1: I've definitely talked about them. Could you explain what Mozilla does? Yes? Great,
Speaker 1: thank you for giving me that opportunity. So at Mozilla,
Speaker 1: we have the Firefox Browser, which is our flagship product
Speaker 1: that we help users to um figure out their online
Speaker 1: life and how they want to be online and to
Speaker 1: use the browser to get there, focusing on privacy and
Speaker 1: security and choice and transparency. Mozilla very generally is also
Speaker 1: about ensuring that the the open Web is sustained and
Speaker 1: continues to grow. And we're a mission driven organization. We're
Speaker 1: a nonprofit. We're focused on user centric design, whether that
Speaker 1: be with respect to our products or the web itself
Speaker 1: and with respect to education. So we really were unique
Speaker 1: in terms of how we are and we're in tech.
Speaker 1: Obviously we have a product in the technology space, but
Speaker 1: we're unique in terms of our independence and how we
Speaker 1: focus on broader issues that don't just impact us. They
Speaker 1: impact the world and the web and users. And when
Speaker 1: I think of Mozilla, this is one of those those
Speaker 1: cases where I'm really thrilled to have a chance to
Speaker 1: speak with someone who works with the organization, because I
Speaker 1: often think Mozilla is an organization that that tries very
Speaker 1: hard to fulfill what a lot of the the people
Speaker 1: who worked on our BA net and the early Internet
Speaker 1: and the Web all had in mind when they were
Speaker 1: building out this amazing tool, this this piece of technology
Speaker 1: that dwarfs anything else that humans have managed to make
Speaker 1: so far. And a lot of them have this sort
Speaker 1: of idealistic kind of vision of what how we were
Speaker 1: supposed to use the Internet, And I feel like Mozilla
Speaker 1: is really about, well, how can we make that a
Speaker 1: reality and not just leave it to chance. Uh. Hopefully
Speaker 1: I'm not being too putting too many words in your
Speaker 1: mouth in that case, but that's always been sort of
Speaker 1: the implication I have I have felt from the efforts
Speaker 1: from Mozilla. Well, thank you for that. I think that's
Speaker 1: exactly right. I think it's it's sometimes hard because we're
Speaker 1: viewed as a company that's the text space, which we love, uh,
Speaker 1: and we have, you know, three million plus users, and
Speaker 1: so that's really crucial for us to be able to
Speaker 1: have that impact globally that we want, and it's not
Speaker 1: just impact through our product. You're absolutely right that we
Speaker 1: focus on the Internet and standardization and security, but again
Speaker 1: not related just to our browser. We use our browser
Speaker 1: to help us walk the walk, if you will. UM,
Speaker 1: we do a lot of talking the talk and trying
Speaker 1: to get the Internet to be the focus. We look
Speaker 1: at this the Internet as this amazing and largest globe
Speaker 1: public asset that we all need to continue to grow.
Speaker 1: And we have the luxury of having a shareholder that
Speaker 1: is the Mozilla Foundation, So we have were beholden to
Speaker 1: that foundation and the mission that that foundation set up.
Speaker 1: And so I view us as incredibly unique in the space,
Speaker 1: not just because of our structure, but because of the
Speaker 1: focus that every single one of our employees as well
Speaker 1: as our contributors and our community really want is this.
Speaker 1: Everybody comes to us for different reasons, but the big
Speaker 1: picture goal of sustaining this global asset is the most
Speaker 1: important thing to all of us. Excellent and and today
Speaker 1: we're really going to focus on something that I know
Speaker 1: is of great concern to a lot of my listeners
Speaker 1: out there, whether you are a student, whether your parents
Speaker 1: of a student. We're going to talk about the issues
Speaker 1: around privacy, around security, around protecting yourself or in the
Speaker 1: case of a parent, making sure that your student is
Speaker 1: well informed to protect him or herself a against the
Speaker 1: pitfalls that we could encounter. And things are so different
Speaker 1: from when I went to school. I'm old enough not
Speaker 1: to go into the man when I was your age,
Speaker 1: But I'm old enough that when I was going to school,
Speaker 1: the Internet was not publicly accessible. It was something that
Speaker 1: some research facilities were using, and really in the early
Speaker 1: days it was our banet. Uh. Some research facilities and
Speaker 1: some government facilities, some universities, they had access to this
Speaker 1: kind of network of networks, but the general public did not.
Speaker 1: The closest I got was dialing into a bulletin board
Speaker 1: system on a dial up modem, and that gave me
Speaker 1: a hint of what the Internet could potentially be, like
Speaker 1: the tiniest of hints. It wasn't until I was in
Speaker 1: college when the Internet became sort of this publicly accessible
Speaker 1: entity that I really dove in. And back in those
Speaker 1: days it was the wild West. No one was really
Speaker 1: sure what the implications of this tool we're going to be.
Speaker 1: Everyone set was going to change the world, but no
Speaker 1: one was really sure how that was going to happen. Uh,
Speaker 1: And there was a limit to the amount of stuff
Speaker 1: you could do on the Internet things that you could access.
Speaker 1: Since then, it has changed so dramatically it is a
Speaker 1: completely different world. I wouldn't have a job if the
Speaker 1: Internet didn't exist the way it does now. It's a robust, thriving,
Speaker 1: evolving infrastructure. And that last word, evolving, I think is
Speaker 1: perhaps the most important one, because even for the younger
Speaker 1: parents out there who grew up using the Internet, things
Speaker 1: change so quickly that it requires kind of a constant
Speaker 1: updates for you to understand what the implications are. And
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people just in general are
Speaker 1: either unaware or they're only semi aware of issues like privacy,
Speaker 1: like how hard it can be to protect your privacy
Speaker 1: if you aren't being cognizant of the various dangers that
Speaker 1: are out there. In fact, let's talk about that. That
Speaker 1: is a huge challenge maintaining at least some level of
Speaker 1: privacy just because of the way that the various things
Speaker 1: work with the Internet, including the Web. That would be obviously,
Speaker 1: I would argue, probably the most uh frequent interface with
Speaker 1: the Web that people are familiar with, maybe email, or
Speaker 1: maybe some apps for smartphones, but the Web, I think
Speaker 1: still is is the king of that and it's tough, right,
Speaker 1: it is. It is a challenge to use the web
Speaker 1: in a way where you are also maintaining a relative
Speaker 1: sense of privacy because you have to be aware of
Speaker 1: how the web works and what's going on in the background.
Speaker 1: Can you speak a little bit to that. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: just I think it's really interesting in terms of just
Speaker 1: to hear your story about your your engagement with the internet,
Speaker 1: and then of course the web today and the fact
Speaker 1: that you said you wouldn't have a job. Many of
Speaker 1: us wouldn't have a job if the web didn't exist
Speaker 1: in terms of the way it does today and if
Speaker 1: the Internet was were built. Uh. And I think that
Speaker 1: many folks don't understand even in the offline world, the
Speaker 1: connection we used to call it brick and mortar back
Speaker 1: in the early days, the connection between the brick and
Speaker 1: mortar world and uh, the Internet and the web today
Speaker 1: is so so um so close. And so the way
Speaker 1: that the Web has opened up just the kinds of
Speaker 1: jobs and the types of jobs that are out there
Speaker 1: is so crucial and important for us to remember. And
Speaker 1: I like to think about the fact that and this
Speaker 1: is I don't know the numbers. I'm sitting here and
Speaker 1: I wish I did. But the Web is nothing more
Speaker 1: than maybe ten thousand days old, and if you think
Speaker 1: about it from that standpoint, it's really in its infancy.
Speaker 1: And so you said wild wild West, and I say,
Speaker 1: it's still kind of is the wild wild West, and
Speaker 1: it's so subject to grooming and to protecting and to
Speaker 1: figuring out how to get there. Privacy is one of
Speaker 1: the things that I think is um so crucial to
Speaker 1: some folks. And depending on where you sit, I personally
Speaker 1: and not someone who hyper focuses on my own privacy.
Speaker 1: I understand and how the internet works. I understand how
Speaker 1: the web connects to that. I understand that there's a
Speaker 1: lot of use of my data. So and I have
Speaker 1: a basic knowledge and maybe more than basic of digital literacy,
Speaker 1: so I get it. Um So for me, I am
Speaker 1: willing to do that value exchange and to allow my
Speaker 1: data to be used to be able to provide me
Speaker 1: services that I think are very interesting and important. When
Speaker 1: it comes to my kids, though, I'm much more protective
Speaker 1: about that data and how that data flows, and so
Speaker 1: I do take a more active role when it comes
Speaker 1: to them. And you're right, it is hard. It shouldn't
Speaker 1: be quite as hard as it is. Uh, and this
Speaker 1: is one of the things that we're trying to do
Speaker 1: Mozilla from the standpoint of focusing on education, not just
Speaker 1: educating users by the way, which I think is crucial
Speaker 1: for us to continue to try to do just as
Speaker 1: technology companies, even though it's hard because some users I
Speaker 1: don't want to take the time. The web is a
Speaker 1: very simple thing to be able to utilize, and so
Speaker 1: they don't want to necessarily take the time to do that,
Speaker 1: which is fine and they're right, um, but what we
Speaker 1: need to do as technology companies is make it easier,
Speaker 1: more transparent in context for users to understand what's happening
Speaker 1: with their data so that they're not confused when they
Speaker 1: subsequently get a notice excuse me, or an ad um
Speaker 1: or something that they make them you know, kind of
Speaker 1: raise our eyebrows and say, well, why am I getting
Speaker 1: this when I looked at this yesterday and I'm on
Speaker 1: a completely different website today. These are the kinds of
Speaker 1: things that we need to figure out how to do
Speaker 1: in a very innovative and aggressive way to provide in
Speaker 1: context notifications to to folks about what's happening. There obviously
Speaker 1: are really good tools out there you know, if you
Speaker 1: want to, for example, just use take Firefox. There's private
Speaker 1: browsing that the folks can use to be able to
Speaker 1: really protect the flow of their data to third parties
Speaker 1: and to really know what's happening with that. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of other add ons that you can attach to
Speaker 1: our Fox and figure out how you you know, whether
Speaker 1: it's you're trying to block certain types of content or
Speaker 1: you really are focused on understanding who's collecting your data,
Speaker 1: you can do that better. So there are lots of
Speaker 1: tools available, but sometimes users feel inundated by tools um
Speaker 1: and not and not really understanding how to utilize them.
Speaker 1: And so we as technology companies need to really focus
Speaker 1: on our ability to provide that in context help for
Speaker 1: users so that they don't have to spend the time
Speaker 1: doing that if they don't choose to. So it's hard,
Speaker 1: it should be easier. I think we're working towards a
Speaker 1: world where it's going to have to be easier because
Speaker 1: users are demanding that. And so I hope that the
Speaker 1: web we see in the years to come is a
Speaker 1: more transparent web that offers users the choice and the
Speaker 1: opportunity to be able to educate themselves and to figure
Speaker 1: out how they want to approach things. Now, you you
Speaker 1: touched on so many things that I feel exactly the
Speaker 1: same way, very strongly about uh. I As as someone
Speaker 1: who has a somewhat public facing profile, I came to
Speaker 1: the conclusion that uh that you know, I'm alright trading
Speaker 1: off some of this sense of privacy in order to
Speaker 1: receive not just the benefits that that people would have
Speaker 1: when browsing the web, you know, getting things like those
Speaker 1: contextual ads, the ads that are replying to things like
Speaker 1: they know about my browsers search. I mean, the easy
Speaker 1: example we give tends to be Amazon. If you're on
Speaker 1: Amazon and it just keeps track of what you've been
Speaker 1: shopping for, so it starts giving you suggestions based upon
Speaker 1: what other shoppers have purchased. But that, of course is
Speaker 1: just a tiny little example of something that stretches far
Speaker 1: beyond just Amazon and across multiple pages, not just a
Speaker 1: single one. If you've ever browsed a website and you
Speaker 1: thought this is really weird because I'm looking at ads
Speaker 1: for other stuff that I watch. But I don't know
Speaker 1: why these two companies would have any association with each other.
Speaker 1: It's because of stuff that's going on in the background,
Speaker 1: and when you're aware of it, and if you are,
Speaker 1: if you are comfortable with it, it's not such a
Speaker 1: big deal. But another thing you kind of touched on
Speaker 1: is with privacy being being kind of challenging it it
Speaker 1: is super challenging in an era where more companies are
Speaker 1: receiving more information about us that's not directly tied to
Speaker 1: who we are as human beings, but it's tied to
Speaker 1: our behaviors, and those behaviors become very indicative of specific
Speaker 1: types of individuals. And I have often argued that for
Speaker 1: some companies, at least what your name is isn't really important.
Speaker 1: They don't care. But the fact that you're you, you
Speaker 1: represent a collection of behaviors that they can market to,
Speaker 1: means that the information surrounding you is incredibly valuable. And
Speaker 1: the flip side of this is it does not take
Speaker 1: too many points of data for someone who is determined
Speaker 1: to figure out the identity of a person to actually
Speaker 1: do that. We've seen studies where just with maybe four
Speaker 1: or five points of data, you could identify eight percent
Speaker 1: of the people within a specific zip code, and that
Speaker 1: can be a real eye opener to people who aren't
Speaker 1: aware that it doesn't take much for for you to
Speaker 1: have your privacy become a thing of the past, and
Speaker 1: you weren't weren't even aware of it. You you were
Speaker 1: unconscious of the whole thing. So clearly, for for parents
Speaker 1: who are concerned about their their kids who are going
Speaker 1: into school, there are a lot of different issues. What
Speaker 1: are some of the solutions apart from the plugins, like
Speaker 1: what what are things? Were some conversations that should be
Speaker 1: happening between parents and students just to make sure that
Speaker 1: there's kind of a common understanding of what to expect
Speaker 1: and and sort of kind of the best practices of
Speaker 1: responsible web citizenship. So that's a great question and one
Speaker 1: that I have to admit that I asked myself often.
Speaker 1: I have three boys. I have a fifteen year old,
Speaker 1: a twelve year old U thirteen actually can just turned thirteen,
Speaker 1: and a seven year old, and I am constantly dealing
Speaker 1: with the issue of how they can get access to
Speaker 1: this this asset that I think is so amazing, but
Speaker 1: also understand it so that they understand how they're engaging
Speaker 1: with it. And you know, part of it for me
Speaker 1: is coming from a lot of what I've learned here
Speaker 1: working with Mozilla and just being a part of this
Speaker 1: awesome community is so much of it stems from trust,
Speaker 1: and it's the trust about trusting the web and us
Speaker 1: being that pillar of you know, making sure that we're
Speaker 1: doing right by our users so that the users can
Speaker 1: trust us. I frankly think that that has to be
Speaker 1: the same way that you try to get your children
Speaker 1: to engage with the web and frankly with you, um.
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is so much of
Speaker 1: what kids can do on the web you can't stop
Speaker 1: them from doing because they're not only going to have
Speaker 1: access to the computer at your home, they're going to
Speaker 1: have access at school, They're going to have access to
Speaker 1: their friends, and also, frankly, most of them have phones
Speaker 1: that have access um to the web. And so what
Speaker 1: I've tried to do with respect to to my kids,
Speaker 1: which I can't say is that is the right way,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to say it's the right way for us,
Speaker 1: is to establish that relationship of trust that they understand
Speaker 1: that I'm going to try to help them to navigate
Speaker 1: this world that I mostly understand in terms of the
Speaker 1: Web in a way that I think is safe for them,
Speaker 1: because it's actually just about giving them knowledge. UM so
Speaker 1: not my kids aren't really big into social media, but
Speaker 1: my thirteen year old really really wanted to have um
Speaker 1: an account, a Snapchat account, which I think it's a
Speaker 1: really interesting product, and I knew of the service myself.
Speaker 1: But the way that I did this with them with
Speaker 1: him when he was really focused on it is I said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I want you to go and read the top five
Speaker 1: articles about things that have happened with respect to Snapchat
Speaker 1: for UM for kids in terms of how they've used
Speaker 1: it and what are the you know, what kinds of
Speaker 1: contents have gotten people into trouble. And then I also
Speaker 1: want you to pull down the privacy policy. I want
Speaker 1: you to print it out, and I want us to
Speaker 1: talk about what these things mean. And so I engaged
Speaker 1: with him on that level of trying to create that
Speaker 1: basic web literacy and that understanding about sharing information publicly,
Speaker 1: sometimes in a public profile, or even privately amongst your
Speaker 1: social circle, so that you could understand what happens later,
Speaker 1: What happens if you receive a photo that's technically that
Speaker 1: maybe has you know, too much skin in it and
Speaker 1: could actually be something that violates laws in certain regions. UM,
Speaker 1: what happens, What happens if you say that photo and
Speaker 1: you have it on your on your phone. These are
Speaker 1: things that kids don't think about. And this is what
Speaker 1: the web offers to us, good and bad, right, And
Speaker 1: I think so much of it is trying to establish
Speaker 1: that relationship of having them understand basic information about the
Speaker 1: web and also giving them the tools to be able
Speaker 1: to figure this stuff out for them later. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so that's how I've engaged with them in terms of
Speaker 1: this technology debate, and it's been a really good discussion
Speaker 1: about it. You know, we took what we learned in
Speaker 1: the offline world about advertising and we put it in
Speaker 1: the online world in the very early days without a
Speaker 1: lot of knowledge or or understanding about where the web
Speaker 1: was going to go. And and now we are to
Speaker 1: a place where lots of companies have lots of information
Speaker 1: about you that you may not know. And certainly my
Speaker 1: children had no insight or visibility into that. And it's
Speaker 1: not like a super easy system to understand. And so
Speaker 1: that's been one of the things that I've also tried
Speaker 1: to explain to them about how the web works and
Speaker 1: the web economy. You know, it's really important to understand
Speaker 1: that in order for folks like you and others to
Speaker 1: be able to get content out on the web that's
Speaker 1: incredibly valuable, we need to be able to, you know,
Speaker 1: understand that we might be giving a little bit of
Speaker 1: ourselves to be able to do that. And that means
Speaker 1: that it could mean that you're just the fact that
Speaker 1: you're looking at advertising, or the fact that you know
Speaker 1: they're getting day to about your browser number too and
Speaker 1: what that browser number has looked at in various different forms.
Speaker 1: And so it's not that different from the offline world
Speaker 1: of years ago, when I lived in a very small
Speaker 1: town and I would go to the local store and
Speaker 1: I would buy something, and then they would be able
Speaker 1: to call my mom and tell my mom that, you know,
Speaker 1: Danelle came here and she purchased two lollipops, and I
Speaker 1: just want you to know that's what she's doing on
Speaker 1: her way home from school. That actually happened in my
Speaker 1: small town. And so it's not that different. It's just
Speaker 1: on a more massive scale. So that's how I try
Speaker 1: to have that conversation with them and to give them
Speaker 1: the tools to understand the system a little bit better.
Speaker 1: And I think I think it's also important to remember
Speaker 1: especially for people in my generation. So you know, I
Speaker 1: grew up before the Internet was really accessible, so it
Speaker 1: wasn't an issue for kids. We didn't have to that
Speaker 1: wasn't something that the parents need to be concerned about
Speaker 1: because it was a non factor, And it wasn't until
Speaker 1: after I was in college when I started getting access
Speaker 1: to this. There. I think there was a bit of
Speaker 1: an idea around people about my generation, maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit younger than I was, that the folks who grow
Speaker 1: up using the tools because they've existed ever since the
Speaker 1: kid was born, will somehow have a magical affinity and
Speaker 1: understand all the ins and outs. Now, the truth of
Speaker 1: the matter is that a lot of kids can pick
Speaker 1: up how to use the Internet pretty effectively, maybe in
Speaker 1: a very narrow way. Actually turns out that you you
Speaker 1: do need to give guidance to children in order for
Speaker 1: them to understand really how to use the internet in
Speaker 1: in uh productive ways. We've seen so many studies that
Speaker 1: showed kids who had had access to the internet uh
Speaker 1: since they were born still aren't the best at doing
Speaker 1: an Internet search, for example, And that's just one simple
Speaker 1: example of that. So I think it's very important for
Speaker 1: people to remember that just because something has been around
Speaker 1: for a person's entire life does not magically mean that
Speaker 1: person has a deep understanding of how it works and
Speaker 1: the implications of the way it works. So don't take
Speaker 1: it for granted that someone like even if they seem
Speaker 1: to be wizards on the web, if you feel like
Speaker 1: they have completely outpaced you, it does not necessarily mean
Speaker 1: that they have that understanding, and it is really valuable.
Speaker 1: I agree. I think trust is incredibly important. I say
Speaker 1: that as someone who does not have children, so this
Speaker 1: is a bit of me just kind of armchair parenting,
Speaker 1: which I apologize for to all the actual parents out there,
Speaker 1: but I say that, you know, trust is a big issue,
Speaker 1: and also just the idea of instilling the value of
Speaker 1: compassion uh in kids as well, because one of the
Speaker 1: issues that has been a problem throughout history but has
Speaker 1: been exacerbated in the age of the Internet obviously, is
Speaker 1: the problem of bullying, especially since I think there's certain
Speaker 1: aspects to internet culture that distant bully from the effects
Speaker 1: of the bullies actions on a person, and in that
Speaker 1: so there's some desensitizing going on, there's some there's some distancing,
Speaker 1: and the actual effects can be devastating. So when it
Speaker 1: comes to the concepts of bullying and protecting yourself against
Speaker 1: bullies or making certain that you yourself don't engage in
Speaker 1: those behaviors, do you have any words of advice on
Speaker 1: that subject? Well, yeah, I think that. And that's it's
Speaker 1: so funny when you think about um back in the
Speaker 1: day when instant message was new and you found yourself
Speaker 1: saying things an instant message that you wouldn't necessarily say
Speaker 1: on a phone call. It's very similar. Right. We suffer
Speaker 1: from it too as adults, so it's not the same.
Speaker 1: It's not any different from children. So I feel like
Speaker 1: one of the things that I think is crucial, and
Speaker 1: I've tried to really really instill this in my boys,
Speaker 1: is the fact that the web and what you put
Speaker 1: out there remains out there. And and I use examples
Speaker 1: of and I have these conversations with them, and I
Speaker 1: want to say, like at the outset of this that
Speaker 1: this stuff is hard because it's hard to keep up
Speaker 1: with the technology. So you kind of have to go
Speaker 1: to principles because I have to say that I don't
Speaker 1: know every single service that's out there, and I learned
Speaker 1: about them every day from you know, just being in
Speaker 1: the tech sector. But I also can't go deep on them.
Speaker 1: But my kids have a different sense because their friends
Speaker 1: are the ones who are talking about these different things.
Speaker 1: And so I don't want to scare parents into thinking
Speaker 1: that they need to know all of the technology that exists.
Speaker 1: I think starting at that base level principle of okay,
Speaker 1: the web is different than you know. You can write
Speaker 1: something down on a piece of paper, and when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, you wrote that note to one friend,
Speaker 1: and that note might have circulated around to other friends,
Speaker 1: but there's a limit to the number of people that
Speaker 1: it would get to because there's only so many people
Speaker 1: that are in your social circle. And eventually you can
Speaker 1: throw that note away. But that's not what happens on
Speaker 1: the internet and on the web, And I think that's
Speaker 1: a really important thing to from a principal standpoint, to
Speaker 1: tell your children. And I use the idea of going
Speaker 1: in for a job interview, and one of the things
Speaker 1: that I do is I and when when folks are
Speaker 1: going to come an interview for positions on my team,
Speaker 1: is I do a web search and I see, like
Speaker 1: what's out there about them? And you know, there's sometimes
Speaker 1: good and bad and they're sometimes ugly, and you have
Speaker 1: to understand that that all exists out there. It's about
Speaker 1: there out there, about all of us, and it's what
Speaker 1: we put out is it remains. And so I like
Speaker 1: my kids to understand that. And I've used, you know,
Speaker 1: examples like that, so they get that part of it.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I've done and this isn't gonna
Speaker 1: last forever, and so I understand this too. But about
Speaker 1: the bullying thing with my kids is I mostly for them.
Speaker 1: They only one of them is using social media and
Speaker 1: the others. Um my little one doesn't do any of this,
Speaker 1: but my my older two they do a lot of texting.
Speaker 1: And so when you take photos of friends that are
Speaker 1: funny or whatever, I make sure that part of the
Speaker 1: role of trust that we have about their use of
Speaker 1: technology is they aren't allowed to share that photo with
Speaker 1: anyone other than the friend that they took the picture of. Um.
Speaker 1: It's one of the things that we've just established as
Speaker 1: this is a core component of your use of this technology.
Speaker 1: And it's mostly it protects my children as much as
Speaker 1: it protects their friends. And it's part of that respect
Speaker 1: and that trust of the technology and respect of the
Speaker 1: social circles that you're in. And again, I recognize that
Speaker 1: there's going to be a limit to that. We have
Speaker 1: a policy in our home that the phones get checked
Speaker 1: in at night in my room, and um, the kids
Speaker 1: know that there could be you know, there are many
Speaker 1: times when I'm going to take a look at what
Speaker 1: they've done. I'm not going to talk to them about
Speaker 1: it unless it's problematic. I'm going to stay out of
Speaker 1: their social stuff, and as much as you know they
Speaker 1: want me to, I'm not going to share it with
Speaker 1: their the parents of their friends or anything like that.
Speaker 1: But if I see something I don't like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to have a conversation with them. It's only had to
Speaker 1: happen once in the time that my kids have had
Speaker 1: their their devices. But I think establishing those principles of
Speaker 1: hurting others actually comes back to harm you. It's very simple, uh,
Speaker 1: And and that's how you can approach all your technology
Speaker 1: discussions so that you don't need to know everything about technology.
Speaker 1: What you need to do is just establish the base
Speaker 1: level pieces of those The web exists forever, and what
Speaker 1: you put out their stays, and that you need to
Speaker 1: be respectful and have trust and if you want to
Speaker 1: be trusted and respected. You need to have that same
Speaker 1: thing with respect to your friends. It's a great point
Speaker 1: you make about how it's important to to not have
Speaker 1: to worry about knowing everything about everything. I mean, it
Speaker 1: is my job to research and communicate, and there's just
Speaker 1: no way I could stay up to date on every
Speaker 1: single thing. That's never going to happen. We live in
Speaker 1: a world where more than a hundred hours of video
Speaker 1: are uploaded to YouTube every single minute. That's one example
Speaker 1: of how quickly, uh, this this world evolves. And and
Speaker 1: that's that's similar to all the different apps and services
Speaker 1: and products that are coming out all the time, all
Speaker 1: of which are interacting using the internet in various ways. Uh.
Speaker 1: We're at the dawn of the Internet of Things, which
Speaker 1: is also poised to change our world in ways that
Speaker 1: we can't completely anticipate right now. It would be crazy
Speaker 1: to tell any any parent, Hey, you need to uh
Speaker 1: you need to take courses in everything that's on the
Speaker 1: internet right now so that you're aware that it's an
Speaker 1: unrealistic expectation on any person. So I agree entirely the
Speaker 1: approaching this from a principal standpoint, where you build that
Speaker 1: foundation of values and behaviors is far more uh far
Speaker 1: more rewarding, far more effective than trying to go the
Speaker 1: technical route of Okay, well, this set of services, you
Speaker 1: can use these because of the various controls that I
Speaker 1: know are in place here, and these you can't use,
Speaker 1: and these others I have to research. But for our
Speaker 1: we can talk about them. That's that's gonna be a
Speaker 1: a cascade effect for the rest of your life if
Speaker 1: you try to go down that road. So don't do that.
Speaker 1: Uh So what else can you tell me about Mozilla?
Speaker 1: You know? And they're there. They're various projects two that
Speaker 1: are in place or are under development to help people, parents, students,
Speaker 1: people in general, even companies go forward in a responsible
Speaker 1: way and tackle some of these problems. Because, like we've said,
Speaker 1: you know, these are it's it's not just a simple
Speaker 1: solution of saying to a person, hey, if you do
Speaker 1: these five things, you're gonna be safe forever. It's actually,
Speaker 1: uh an approach that has lots of different avenues to it,
Speaker 1: where we have to address lots of issues with lots
Speaker 1: of different players in the space. Right. That's awesome question,
Speaker 1: and I think part of it from our standpoint is
Speaker 1: so we have if you go to our website learning
Speaker 1: dot Mozilla dot org, we have teaching kids there if
Speaker 1: you go to the I think teaching activities section there,
Speaker 1: So we have teaching kids for just general web literacy,
Speaker 1: understanding how the web works, UM, getting a sense for
Speaker 1: what what kinds of things you're going to encounter. There.
Speaker 1: We also have things that we create in my policy group.
Speaker 1: They're called smart ons UM, so that you can have
Speaker 1: smart on privacy or smart on encryption, those kinds of things.
Speaker 1: I find that the more that we get into I
Speaker 1: actually just had, as a little bit of a side note,
Speaker 1: I had a couple of months ago a bunch of
Speaker 1: middle school kids here that I was introducing to web technology,
Speaker 1: and I asked them about encryption, and I said, what
Speaker 1: do you guys think about it? What do you know
Speaker 1: about it? And they said that they thought it was
Speaker 1: a bad thing because they see that in James Bond
Speaker 1: movies all the time, and so it must be something
Speaker 1: that's not good because the bad guys are using it.
Speaker 1: So it was really interesting to be able to to
Speaker 1: use these tools that we've created that are pretty they're
Speaker 1: good learning tools, are kind of fun. We try to
Speaker 1: make them so that UM you can actually, you know,
Speaker 1: look at them and get that kind of thing done
Speaker 1: in a really short period of time and get just
Speaker 1: base level knowledge. I encourage everyone to do that because
Speaker 1: it doesn't take much time and it just gives you
Speaker 1: some sense of the areas of strength that you could
Speaker 1: build with respective technology. So from a user standpoint, from
Speaker 1: a parent standpoint, from just someone who wants to generally
Speaker 1: understand the Web, I think that's a great place to start.
Speaker 1: We're not the only ones who do this. So obviously
Speaker 1: web searches are going to pull up other interesting tools
Speaker 1: out there that you can use to to learn more
Speaker 1: about it, and I encourage that too from our standpoint.
Speaker 1: The other thing that we try to do is help
Speaker 1: to create rules of the road, if you will, for startups,
Speaker 1: so that startups have some good kind of indications of
Speaker 1: things that they can do to really start think about
Speaker 1: thinking about early on in their um in the career
Speaker 1: of their their company. And the data privacy principles are
Speaker 1: things we have developed. We've developed this idea of like,
Speaker 1: these are practices that you can implement to be able
Speaker 1: to you know, really be transparent. We start kind of
Speaker 1: at the core, collect only what you need in the beginning,
Speaker 1: you can always expand that, keep it really transparent and
Speaker 1: clear for your users about what you're doing, anonymize as
Speaker 1: much data as you can quickly so that you're actually
Speaker 1: not creating a liability for yourself and you're still assuming
Speaker 1: that trust with your users. We like to think of
Speaker 1: trust as being the most important currency on the web.
Speaker 1: If we don't have trust with our users, we won't
Speaker 1: have a user base. And trust is something that you
Speaker 1: can gain pretty easily, but loose, I mean, it takes
Speaker 1: a long time to gain, but you can lose it
Speaker 1: in a second. UM As a company, So these are
Speaker 1: ideas and and things we try to push out there
Speaker 1: to the startup community UM. And then of course we
Speaker 1: actually try to do these things, like I said, walk
Speaker 1: the walk in our own products. UM. So we try
Speaker 1: to demonstrate how you can create that transparency and choice
Speaker 1: for users in our own products, whether that be in
Speaker 1: Firefox or our other adjacent products that we have. So
Speaker 1: I encourage everyone to start it just the basics and
Speaker 1: to and to go from there, whether you're actually in
Speaker 1: technology and a startup or whether you're just a user
Speaker 1: of those tools. Well, thank you Dennell so much for
Speaker 1: joining the show and talking to us about these subjects.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a series of topics that I have
Speaker 1: touched on several times in the past, and I think
Speaker 1: that it's one of those conversations that you can't just
Speaker 1: have the one time and then let it go. You
Speaker 1: do have to bring this up occasionally, because, as we've said,
Speaker 1: the Internet is constantly evolving. Our role within it changes,
Speaker 1: the way our behaviors affected changes. We have to be
Speaker 1: aware of this sort of stuff. And I really appreciate
Speaker 1: organizations like Mozilla that are trying very hard to to
Speaker 1: decrease the burden of responsibility on the individual user, because
Speaker 1: as a tool gets really easy to use, it gets
Speaker 1: harder and harder to convince someone, hey, you need to
Speaker 1: put in a little extra work to make sure that
Speaker 1: you're using this in a way that's not going to
Speaker 1: impact you in a negative way down the line. Um,
Speaker 1: when that convenience gets to a certain level, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a difficult sell to tell someone, hey, just you
Speaker 1: need to change these few settings, or you need to
Speaker 1: think about this before you start browsing, or whatever it
Speaker 1: may be. That it's it's tough. Um, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's very easy to kind of shut your mind off
Speaker 1: and not worry about the consequences that can happen and
Speaker 1: instead just concentrate on the reward you get using these
Speaker 1: various tools. Uh, and so seeing the work that's being
Speaker 1: done in order to try and address that in a
Speaker 1: way that places less of a responsibility on the individual user,
Speaker 1: not not saying that they're not accountable, but rather saying,
Speaker 1: let's find a way to improve the experience for everybody. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's something I greatly appreciate because frankly, it means that
Speaker 1: further down the road, I won't have to do as
Speaker 1: many podcasts where I chastise people for bad web behavior. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm really appreciative of the fact that you actually do
Speaker 1: talk about this over and over. That's a really important thing.
Speaker 1: It's a lot like driving. I'm actually my oldest son
Speaker 1: is learning how to drive, and so I think as
Speaker 1: drivers we sort of forget that there are rules that
Speaker 1: we learned at one point that we need to relearn
Speaker 1: and re educate ourselves on as we're teaching our children
Speaker 1: this stuff. So it's a lot like driving, and the
Speaker 1: fact that you know there there are hazards around us
Speaker 1: all the time, and we need to pay attention to them.
Speaker 1: So it's a nice reminder and I think it's great,
Speaker 1: and we're going to continue doing what we're doing, and
Speaker 1: I hope you continue doing what you're doing, and it's
Speaker 1: just going to make the web a better place for
Speaker 1: all of us. I want to thank Danelle again. I
Speaker 1: know I just thank her in the interview, but I
Speaker 1: wish to thank her again for taking time to come
Speaker 1: on the show and have a conversation about these topics.
Speaker 1: You have heard me say on previous episodes of Tech
Speaker 1: Stuff that these ideas are very important and that we
Speaker 1: should make sure that we do have these conversations and
Speaker 1: remind ourselves of you know, what's actually out there and
Speaker 1: what are we comfortable with? What level of revealing of
Speaker 1: of our privacy are we comfortable doing when we go
Speaker 1: out there and interact on the web. Some of us
Speaker 1: have very different thresholds than others. And while I might
Speaker 1: be fairly cavalier because I have come to that conclusion,
Speaker 1: at least I'm doing so from an educated standpoint, and
Speaker 1: I think that's important for all of us. Thank you,
Speaker 1: guys for listening to the show. I hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: If you have any suggestions for future topics, or anyone
Speaker 1: you think I should interview on the show, or perhaps
Speaker 1: a guest host you would like for me to have
Speaker 1: on the show or have come back to the show.
Speaker 1: Let me know. Send me a message. My email is
Speaker 1: text stuff at how stuff works dot com, or drop
Speaker 1: me a line on Facebook for Twitter, the handle at
Speaker 1: both of those is text stuff hs W and I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon from are on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. M