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It's time to Geek Out. [upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to Geek Out with Matt Navara with me, Matt Navara. And me, Martin SFP Bryant.
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Now, you've heard about the Facebook Oversight Board, but what about the real Facebook Oversight Board? No, not the actual Facebook Oversight Board, the other one.
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Yes, it can be confusing, but Carole Cadwalladr and Professor David Carroll are both well-known voices against what they see as Facebook's wrongdoing.
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They were two founding members of a group called the Real Facebook Oversight Board, which was launched just three weeks before Facebook's official oversight board started work last year.
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Since then, they've used the media to get their message out about everything from Facebook's handling of the US election to the problem of vaccine misinformation on the company's platforms.
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Outside the real Facebook Oversight Board, Carole is a well-known journalist who broke the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and David Carroll was seen in the d- Netflix documentary, The Great Hack, trying to get his data back from Cambridge Analytica.
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This was a really interesting conversation. So here's what happened when we talked to Carole Cadwalladr and Professor David Carroll.
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Maybe, um, David, you could just introduce yourself a little bit and, and a bit about the, the board, which is what people know you, uh, uh, as part of the reason why people know you as well. Sure.
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So, um, I'm perhaps well-known for being the American who challenged Cambridge Analytica in UK law for its mass data abuse in the 2016 elections.
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Um, and that story was one of the stories in the Netflix documentary, The Great Hack, and Carole was another one of the subjects of that.
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And C- Carole and I, um, got to know each other during that because, um, she reached out to me when I began my campaign and, um, you know, became o- one of the many sources that she, um, relied on to try and tell, um, such a difficult and complicated story that I think is still reverberating today in many different ways.
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And I see it now as, as a, a kind of parable that we are still learning from.
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Um, and with regards to the real Facebook Oversight Board, this was a group that formed, I think, of concerned citizens, uh, activists, academics who realize that without forming together as a group, we would just be individual c- critics, uh, would not be able to pool our voices together.
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And I would say my opinion of what it serves, it serves as an acknowledgement that public relations is the only force that we have to pressure the company because governments and regulators struggle to find ways to effectively, you know, c- control and limit the practices of the company.
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And so the Facebook Oversight Board as was established for the company by the company, uh, to create a, a seemingly independent, um,
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um, f- way to, you know, uh, in, to, to, to provide some ways to, to, to o- offshoot decisions out of the corporate office into ano- another body.
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Um, we don't want to rely on that entirely too, because its independence is, you know, somewhat superficial. And so the more [laughs]
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I am.
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I'm here. Hi. How are you doing? Thank you very much.
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I, I guess we've, we've sort of jumped into it really, and I guess maybe just intro to yourself and, and your kind of part to play in, in terms of the real Facebook Oversight Board and any sort of just opening sentiments you wanted to add to what, um, what David had just said really.
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Ah, well, it's m- uh, David's much more- [laughs]... articulate than, on this than I am.
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[laughs] Um, so, so my background is, um, I'm a journalist with The Guardian and Observer, um, in the UK, and essentially starting in sort of literally the week that Trump took office, I started investigating, uh,
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y- what had happened essentially around the election and with fake news and the use of social media platforms.
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And that led me to this company called Cambridge Analytica, which, um, led me to its involvement with Facebook. And essentially I sort of published, um, it s- feels like a long time ago probably now for most people.
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2018, I published a sort of big expose around Cambridge Analytica and Facebook data, and, um, the sort of consequences of that are still ongoing in so many ways. There's still so much we don't know about it.
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But one of the sort of, one of m- my sort of experience of doing that journalism really led me to this place of really kind of deeply understanding just that there is no accountability, um, anymore.
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Um, and with regards to, so it, it, she's true of, it's true of our governments and it's also very much true of big, big tech.
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So, you know, I sort of witnessed the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica story with Facebook, you know, direct consequence was that Facebook got fined $5 billion by the FTC, you know, which made huge headlines, the biggest fine it had ever imposed.
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And there was absolutely [laughs] zero consequences for it as a company.
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And there were no changes as a result of it, no mana- no, uh, none of the executives were held to account, and it all just went on, business as normal.
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And I think in the run-up to the US election, just sort of witnessing the way that, uh, Donald Trump was very blatantly and openly using and saying he was going to use Facebook to subvert the election, and Facebook was absolutely ignoring it and, and realizing that there was sort of, there was absolutely no mechanism to hold it to account.
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The Real Facebook Oversight Board was literally the kind of a sort of last-ditch effort, essentially, ahead of the election to pull together, um, all these different very, very diverse voices to come together with a sort of set of demands to Facebook so that,
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you know, there was some source of, of counterweight to it and what it was doing, what it was refusing to do.
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Um, that w- was these sort of voices of experts like David Carroll a- and leading academics, you know, like Sh- Shoshana Zuboff, and then the, the civil rights organizations like the NAACP and the ADL and Color of Change, and really bring them together and get them to agree on these sort of set of simple demands to Facebook.
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Facebook. So that was... That's- Mm-hmm... the origin story.
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[laughs] Well, uh, in terms of we've, we've got lots of bits there that touches on a lot of the questions that me and Martin were gonna ask and, but one of them that I'll kind of jump ahead slightly, um, of what we've got written down here, is about the, the, the Facebook have got their own oversight board, as you kind of mentioned briefly and, and that's been running its course and there's been s- very lots of, there's lots of skepticism about it, and there's other people that say, "Well, actually, you know, they haven't done quite as bad as maybe we thought," or, "They have achieved more than what we thought."
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Others would say, "Complete rubbish." Where, where, how do you see it at the moment in terms of the real bo- the Real Real Facebook? It's gonna get very confusing. [laughs] I think, I think you mean...
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So yeah, it's funny, isn't it? I mean, it was very deliberate, the act of, of calling ourselves the real one. [laughs] Because I mean, the, I mean, the, I mean, essentially the problem...
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Well, I mean, there are so many problems with it, but it's, it, it is this sort of, um, theatrical display of accountability in the sense that the, the board was set up by Facebook. It selected everybody who's on it.
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It set the terms of reference of what it could do, and it's being allowed to play within those parameters.
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And so within those parameters, you can sort of say, "Well, yeah, you know, these are, these are v- very upstanding, um, you know, very intelligent individuals who are doing their best, and, and within those parameters, you know, are maybe having a small amount of impact."
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But the, it's just, it's just set up so incorrectly. This cannot be how we do regulation.
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And to take this seriously as a step towards it is, um, I think, dangerous and, um, and it has been very effective, I think, in capturing press and attention, and being treated with a seriousness which I would argue it does not deserve.
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Martin. Yeah. Um, I think it's fair to say that Facebook didn't take your launch in good humor. Uh, but they've not sued you out of existence yet.
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Uh, so I just wondered, um, if, uh, maybe having an antagonistic relationship with the people that you want to change, uh, does that ever feel counterproductive?
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Do you feel like if you were a bit more kind of, um, not pro-Facebook, but a bit more kind of, I don't know, friendly to them or something, you know, you, you might get more out of them?
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Because one thing I think we've picked up on, Matt and I, is that, uh, the- they're definitely, um, you rub them up the wrong way and, uh, they're, they're not particularly- [laughs]...
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um, happy about your existence, let's say, certain people within Facebook. Um, so if you want to change them, um, is this kind of more kind of outspoken approach the best approach, or should you be more collaborative?
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Well, I, I mean, I'll let, I'll let David come in a bit, but I mean, I, it, it's a, it's, there are lots of organizations which do sort of behind the scenes lobbying of Facebook and, you know, use that sort of approach and good luck to them.
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Right.
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And, um, you know, I'm a journalist and very much the, I come from that tradition [laughs] of, um, that we put all of our stuff out into the open and, um, and, uh, uh, uh, so that, that sort of, you know, behind the scenes approach is, does not feel at all appropriate.
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And I, I just sort of, uh, you know, I, as I say, I come from this background after all of, of being, being, you know, ha- ha- being faced with this brick wall from Facebook.
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So, you know, it was 18 months that I was investigating, um, the Cambridge Analytica data stuff before we published, um, Christopher Wylie's, um, revelations about, uh, about what had happened there.
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And during that time, it just utterly stonewalled me and, you know, it was later found, so in the, there is the, the report by the SEC about what had happened.
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And in that, it states very directly that Facebook lied to journalists during that period about what happened with the Facebook data, and I was one of those journalists who it lied to.
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And, um, you know, I, uh, there is a, there is a, there is a, a, a pattern of behavior by Facebook to stop the truth coming out about what, um, it has done, and we saw it then.
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We saw it when it threatened to sue The Observer- 24 hours before we went to press with, uh, Christopher Wylie's allegations.
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Um, you know, we saw it again with the launch of the Real Facebook Oversight Board when our website was taken off the internet following a complaint from Facebook to the ISP.
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It rang up our funders. So we got funding. The Citizens, which is the organization behind the Real Facebook Oversight Board, we get funding from a philanthropic foundation called Luminate.
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And as they can see from Facebook, rang up our funders. Remember, so we, you know, we're, we're a nascent, tiny journalistic starter, and it rang up our funders and essentially put the thumb screws on them funding us.
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Um- I guess, I just... Can, can I bring David in on, on this point? This is a p- question we- Yes. Do. Take it away, David [laughs] No.
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Because it's, uh, one of the questions I wanted to, wanted to ask David was about, you know, there's the most kind of topical thing at the moment with Facebook in this space, I guess you could argue, is this stuff to do with the, the university research.
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And the things that have been going on with kind of the, this, you know, basically blocking the researchers from getting the data they want and the, and debates as to whether they're saying they've got the permission and then, and Facebook's saying you didn't, and all of this.
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Facebook is in this position where it's being told on one side they've got to protect the users' data, and then on the other side they've got people saying, "You need to be more transparent and release more."
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There obviously is a big, big void in the middle. Where do you come in on this in terms of what do you think about that, that as a, as a part of the problem, but also what they've done in this latest incident?
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Which I'm guessing is your, you know, you're not particularly impressed by. Sure. Yeah.
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As a academic, I have sort of three ways to respond to the question, 'cause as an academic, there are three avenues to influence Facebook.
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So the first one is sort of the most obvious one, is as a teacher of students who are then often employed at the tech companies and work in the product teams, the, we have a way to influence from within, and I'm proud to say that many of my alumni do work at the big tech companies and do report back to me on things that they're trying to do from within.
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But of course, there are limits to that. But we certainly do what we can. The second area is in academic research, in which how can research be done independently of Facebook versus dependently on Facebook.
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Dependent on funding, dependent on access to data. And there are academics who are willing to have a cozy relationship with Facebook via money and data to produce scholarship.
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However, scholarship that's produced independently of funding and data is a kind of, a different kind of research.
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It's potentially more valid because it's independent, but it's also potentially more invalid because it does not have access to the appropriate da- data set.
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So academia is struggling to find the right way to study Facebook.
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And the most recent, um, instance that you referred to, sort of the third area that I would say, is where academic teams are developing tools to study Facebook and developing tools that are arguably very responsible and very privacy protecting.
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And let's remember that Cambridge Analytica is an academic scandal in its origins.
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It is in its o- origins reckless behavior by, um, researchers and scientists at Cambridge University who partnered with a military contractor to do, uh, p- p- p- political work for money.
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Um, and the lapses in ethical behavior at the academic level and the close, tidy, I would say unethical relationships with f- the company like Facebook kind of created the conditions that caused the ultimate scandal.
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This is why Facebook really likes to use the Cambridge Analytica scandal as a fig leaf [laughs] to, um, hide its original sin and prevent the kind of accountability research that is indeed necessary.
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So in the case of the NYU Ad Observatory team led by, um, Professor Edelson, uh, sh- her team, you know, created a very important tool set and a very important research methodology.
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And what Facebook objected to on a technical basis was that the information about advertisers was being collected, and Facebook considers the privacy of advertisers,
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um, to be, uh [laughs], the most important privacy it needs to protect, because advertisers are the real customers.
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And so, um, we, we see that, that when we really want to study the business model, when we really want to study the data and its effects on behavior, Facebook is glad to be the arbiter of truth about itself. Absolutely.
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And that's the problem that we have. Um, Martyn. Yeah.
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Um, David, you were in, uh, The Great Hack, as we mentioned before, and, uh, you were shown trying to get your, uh, Cambridge Analytica data back, uh, the data that they held about you.
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Uh, Channel 4 News, uh, got it and gave it back to you last year. But do you think anything meaningful has improved in terms of data protection since then?
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Obviously we've got GDPR in Europe, and California has stronger data protection.
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But is it having any real effect, uh, uh, in a, on a meaningful level when, you know, these kind of data sets like your data set, uh, must still be floating around out there? Yeah. Yeah.
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In, to, uh, for, for those who, um, didn't see it, um, in the lead up to the 2020 election, Channel 4 was leaked the Trump 2016 d- data set.
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And not only did they show up at my doorstep to show me my actual data set- But they actually visited voters in Wisconsin and Florida and showed them their data sets.
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And it was a really, I think, effective mechanism of showing people the importance of voter profile transparency.
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And, um, what it also revealed is that, uh, despite the best efforts perhaps of the UK's data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office, who exerted unprecedented regulatory actions against the company,
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I, I'm afraid to say perhaps failed in its mandate to fully enforce the UK data protection law and achieve full disclosure.
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So the UK ICO was not able to give me the amount of data that journalists were. And so we still need journalists to hold regulators accountable who are trying to hold companies accountable.
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And it is very unfortunate that these databases are clearly leaking all over the place. And while I really appreciate the fact that some guilty feeling person
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gave the data to a journalist so that we could reveal the truth, it shows that we have so much work to do in terms of equipping regulators with the muscles they need and the technical ability and technical resources to perform just really complicated forensic analysis.
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Until we get there, we still will be reliant on leakers and sources and accountability journalism.
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And Carole, and, and where me and you have, on the very few occasions we kind of come a- across each other's paths, it tends to be these, um, s- these hearings.
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And the last one was, like I remember when you were there, was when it was the international hearing in, in Dublin.
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And, um, there's been a lot of talk about regulation, and I know you've been part of a lot of these, sort of some of these hearings certainly in the UK, and also the development of this Online Harms Bill.
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And as well in the US there's a whole raft of, like hearings and challenges.
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Some of it's to do with mono- you know, it's mo- monopoly, or if it has or has not got one, and also to do with it, some of the things that, um, its behaviors in general.
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But back here in the UK, the Online Harms Bill is, is not that far off now.
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What is your take on, on, on regulation as it's, as it looks right now and how it could look in the next few years, and how, how effective do, can you see that being?
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So I, um, I'm no expert at all on the Online Harm Bill, so I'll park that one for the moment.
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But I mean, one of, one of the issues, which I'm just sort of thinking about this, is that one of the issues is that we actually do have laws at the moment. It's, but they're just not enforced.
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So, um, you know, the whole, the whole, the whole thing about GDPR is that after all is that we now have that law, but are we seeing that being enforced?
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Um, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, um, smoke, there's not much fire. And I, I was just sort of pondering, sorry this is- Not at all...
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slightly off topic, but it was, I was reported, we rep- I, I reported, um, um, some, um, abuse. This is actually Twitter, not Facebook, um, last week.
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Um, some really abu- some, some abusive harassing accounts of, um, uh, well-known figures harassing a child.
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And, um, you know, we have, I think there, you know, I still think we have this perception, don't we, that the sort of the internet is the Wild West and it's beyond the laws.
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But actually we do already have laws which can be used in circumstances like this. But, you know, I've had zero... I've reported it to the police and h- you know, have heard absolutely nothing back.
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And that I think is, you know, one of the, one of the, the, the sort of the, the, the great problems is it isn't just about the laws, it is about the enforcement of them.
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But you know, I think on, on the big issues it really is y- you know, I really do see, and this is one of the reasons why the real Facebook Oversight Board is very sort of focused on America because, um,
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this is where the companies are, and this is where the sort of the bigger action can be taken, particularly around things like antitrust and so on.
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And, you know, we've, we've all seen these sort of very promising signs in the last, um, six months that things are, you know, there is an appetite, there are legislators looking to, um, to do things, but there's only a s- there's only a very finite amount of time to actually,
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to actually sort of d- sorry, to actually bring this to fruition, I think.
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And I think the sort of mood music from the States at the moment is actually, um, n- not looking very optimistic, but perhaps David can talk about that- But-... 'cause he's much more in tune than I'd be.
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Are you two, um, both good for times? We've got quite a, a couple of questions we wanna rattle through. We, and we were gonna aim to work towards- Sure... the, the quarter to the hour, so about 20 more minutes.
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Would that work for you guys? Sure. Yeah, that's fine. Great. Okay, David, yeah, carry on, 'cause I think Martin, there's a question that follows into that.
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But Martin, uh, David, if you wanna finish off what you were gonna say from Carole's point. Sure.
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Um, yeah, I, I was told by, you know, people in the room in Sacramento when the California Consumer Privacy Act was passed by intense pressure from a ballot measure.
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Um, so in, in, in C- California there was a, a, uh, r- like a referendum ballot m- measure which proposed a very, very powerful data protection law.
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It was watered down in Sacramento, but still much stronger than it would've been if it hadn't originated from a ballot measure.
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And people in the room, you know, who were lobbying against the in- in- industry, um, were able to just utter the words Cambridge Analytica, and it was like kryptonite- [laughs]...
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against the industry's- Um, opposition to the legislation.
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And, um, so I think in many ways it contributed toward the passage of that state law, which then is influencing other states to look at laws, and then the way the industry is very adept at w- watering down.
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The US badly needs a national privacy law, a d- data protection law, to be more equivalent to the European mo- model and other n- n- states.
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And I am s- you know, I flop between optimistic and pessimistic about whether that could happen during, uh, the, the, the current ad- administration and Congress. Um, but it would be, um, a very important step.
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And to Carole's comment about antitrust, uh, the Biden administration has put into place new leadership that is like-minded in the sense of understanding the relationship between the problems of content and the way that the data business yields harmful content, and there is a relationship between sort of data abuse and, and, and harmful c- content.
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And so I'm hopeful that the separation between those ideas can be further unified.
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And so instead of treating the symptoms of, like, this, this, this disease with sort of content moderation and removing harmful content and trying to, like, solve misinformation with fact-checking,
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that we could really get to the root of the disease, which is the business model, which is the attention merchandising, which is the asymmetrical abuse of pe- people and their own information that yields the harmful content because it performs best to the business model.
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So I think that attacking the business model is the better solution, rather than trying to, like, find ways to prune- Hmm... harmful content like a garden. Yeah, yeah.
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Uh, actually, um, if we look at that question of the business model, a lot of the problems people have with Facebook is because it's an advertising company primarily- Yeah...
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which happens to advertise through the social products it offers. But the problem is that those products are critical social infrastructure, really, for a lot of people.
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People rely on it, whether we're talking about Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp. You know, it's used massively around the world, this company's products.
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So is there a way of having an advertising business model and social media that, uh, works in a way that you would be happy with, or do we have to set aside the advertising entirely and find a new way of doing it?
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What does social media look like, if not Facebook? We have created a very harmful advertising technical infrastructure.
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The plumbing of the internet is inherently flawed and broken, and there is so much fraud and malfeasance and cheating and wasted money in the entire digital advertising industry.
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It's, you know, it's 20 years old now, and it needs to be r- redone. You know, the pipes are rusty and rotten.
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And, um, so I think that the ad tech business model is what's the, the fueling the fires of disinformation because it makes it profitable. It is, you know, degrading journalism because it is just,
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it's just throwing money away.
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And so ultimately, reform of the entire digital ad ecosystem would be necessary to kind of get at these underlying dynamics of, of incentives and market misalignments that's creating this information pollution landscape that, that we can feel viscerally and is causing, like, locatable harm.
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And, um, uh, that's why I think that...
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And in a, in, in an unconventional way, stricter data protection enforcement and rules and limiting what can be done in digital advertising will have very positive downstream effects on society.
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Business people will complain, but they've been, they haven't been paying the costs to society- Um-... and it's time to.
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Y- Facebook, the real Facebook Oversight Board, is that always gonna be limited to Facebook, or are you gonna extend the, the stick that you can hit them with a bit with, to TikTok and to some of the others?
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Uh, I'm intrigued to know, like, Carole, from your side of things, you know, this, a lot of these problems are revolved around Cambridge Analytica and seeded from there, and, and since there's been lots of other things they've been accused of or often found to be doing.
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But the other platforms have, have not gone without, you know, without being hit as well with different things that they're doing.
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And also the, the general picture of social media and social networks and, and how damaging they are. I just wonder what your view is on, on the other platforms- Hmm...
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and how you feel about social media in, in a broader sense, 'cause you use it professionally, of course, as well. [laughs] Oh, I don't know about... I use it amateurishly- [laughs]... I think would be more accurate.
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But, um, yeah, I mean, uh, you're, you're totally right.
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I mean, in fact, when I started, when I started off on this investigation in December 2016, end of November 2016, the, um, uh, y- I was really shocked by YouTube, and I had all sorts of sort of things that I wanted to...
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You know, it was, it in many respects was a, a worse sewer for disinformation and for, you know, Holocaust denial and everything else than Facebook was.
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And I really had this, like, right, as soon as I [laughs] as soon as I've finished with this Ca- damn Cambridge Analytica story, I'm gonna get back to YouTube. And I'm still waiting for that moment to arrive.
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And, um, and it, it, it was, it... I think the, the whole thing is, is that sort of wi- with this whole thing is that there's never been some great strategy behind it.
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It's just been reacting to, like, what's happening in the moment and what feels most urgent.
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And ahead of the US election, it really felt that Facebook was the sort of locus of this, you know, absolute tsunami of disinformation, and that it was gonna be where the election was, you know, fought One or overturned.
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So that was why the real Facebook oversight board, you know, set up specifically to address that. And the, the thing is, is that you're, you know, I, I... you're right.
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These, these are problems across the board with all of these social media companies and tech companies more generally. And but we just can't do everything. No. And actually, there has been an argument.
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I mean, I, I mean, it's, it's, it's with- it's... I'm very, we're very agnostic with, you know, what to do next.
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But I think at the moment, this sort of targeted approach with a particularly problematic company, with a partic- particularly problematic, um, power structure, um, absolutely impervious to everything apart from, as David said, um, public pressure, um- But they do s- they do seem to get pushed into doing some things though.
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Like, for example, the, you know, at the moment there's some stuff that's going through in the UK which is gonna be implemented, which has led to this sudden rush from all of the platforms to have lots of these child-friendly, teen-friendly protections in them because of law that will be passed that will require them to do so to be able to operate with teens using their products in, in this country and Europe, will ne- they think they all need to abide by them.
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So they, th- there it can be seen that regulation can work, and if the incentives and disincentives are right, then it, it, it's successful. But it, it does feel like it's slow.
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Is it the progress that's the problem, do you think? Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I mean, it's the, it's, it's... I think, I think it's pressure from whatever area, um, can and does work, like you say.
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And I, I just do think, you know, these, um, many of these things are not insurmountable problems. Some of them are just money.
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It's that if Facebook [laughs], you know, if Facebook took a tiny fraction less profit and used that money to better fund content moderation teams, if it actually paid those people properly as employees and not as contractors, and treated them well, and just had more of them, you know, that would go a long way to mitigating some of the worst harms that we're seeing at the moment.
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That is just money. It is just corporate greed. And that, you know, that is where I think that public pressure can come into play right now. And, um, and you know, I think we see it in all sorts of areas.
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I mean, I'm very interested to see what Facebook will do in this case of the fact that it booted these academic researchers, as David was talking about, NYU off. Um- What do you make of, um, Apple at the moment?
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You know- So just to, sort of to touch on that point, but there was another question- Sure...
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that was gonna lead into that was around, for me, around, like Apple is making a big play at the moment of it, privacy being at the core of it.
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And at the same time, having a quite, a fun, for me anyway, battle with Facebook quite publicly around its, you know, the ad tracking stuff.
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And do you, do you view Apple, out of curiosity, as being any more, uh, trustworthy and, uh, okay with the way that it, it, it kind of manages data or the things that you've read about through your, you know, world of journalism?
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You know, what's your take on all of that?
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I d- I think it's just, I think the, the, the r- the reason why it seems less pernicious to me, I think, and that's, this is a very subjective view, is just that I think the, the, the, the sort of just the networked aspects of social media, um, just this sort of this, e- you know, uh, it, the fact that it, we've kind of all wired our brains together across the world simultaneously and the, the, the, you know, the power and the enormity and the influence of that, I think is the thing that sort of terrifies me and makes me feel that, you know, we're in the middle of some
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mass experiment, [laughs] um, you know, which is going on in real time. So, so I d- I do think there is a, there is a sort of extra level of perniciousness which, um, Apple is exempt from.
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But, um, but maybe David's got some view on that from a sort of product design perspective.
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I think also Mark, we've got like five or seven, seven, eight minutes left, and Martin, I'm just gonna tie in a question I think with David on some of this stuff, um, that might fit in. But so Martin, have you got that?
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Bring that up and, uh, yeah, that'd be great to hear what David thinks of all this as well. Yeah. Yeah.
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Well, uh, yeah, c- if we look at, um, uh, w- another Netflix, uh, production, uh, around this whole topic was, uh, The Social Dilemma, which, uh, seemed to cut through to the public, uh, in a way a lot of discussions about social media don't.
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But, um, I know David, you, um, uh, agree with Nick Clegg, uh, that it was a, a cartoonish and simplified version of, uh, the story of, uh, the problems of social media.
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Um, so, uh, w- what do you make about the way the public views all of this? 'Cause, uh, one observation a lot of people make is that, yes, this is all important, but if the public doesn't care,
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and they only pay attention if it's really dumbed down and simplified like it was in, i- in The Social Dilemma, then, you know, that's a problem.
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And maybe if people don't care so much, then it's, it's no surprise that it is not really getting the attention it should. Sure.
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Well, um, I mean, obviously I'm biased because I think the movie, the Netflix movie that I was in is better. [laughs] But, [laughs]
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but, um, the reaction to these films, especially among young people, um, students on ca- campuses around the world, I think was very, very heartening and inspiring.
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Um, that the, the sort of upcoming generation is getting it in ways that, for example, G- G- G- G- Generation X, that I'm a p- part of, doesn't really get and...
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You know, so I think there's a generational realization that these films and o- other things are helping.
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Um, and the things that young people are saying to me in response to the film, um, you know, really g- gives me hope that, that these, that these understandings are possible.
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Um- And yes, there is a feeling of hopelessness because of the asymmetry of power. What, what would we expect people to be able to do when they can barely comprehend the intricate system at play here?
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Um, so I think it's, it's similar to a kind of climate change problem that, you know, individuals recycling more is not gonna save the planet, and individuals
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q- q- q- quitting Facebook is not gonna save the issue, and that putting the responsibility on individuals is really what they want. Um, and, uh, and so we, we have to work collectively together.
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We, you know, it's an act of... It'll take an act of democracy to solve these problems, not individual consumer choices.
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Because remember, the main difference between Apple and Facebook is you pay for Apple products with, with, with actual currency. Uh, you are a customer to Apple.
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You are not a customer to Facebook until you open up an advertising account and give them money to buy access to other users based on their personal data.
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So the c- the companies couldn't be more different, and it's pr- a big reason why we don't know how to deal with Facebook and Google and, uh, YouTube as, as antitrust problems because the c- we're n- we...
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It sounds so silly, but we are not the customers, and so we are paying with other costs, and we are paying with the cost to our society. Hmm. So, um, I think we have to address that fundamental.
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Um, we've got enough time for, like, two more questions that we've got here.
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So I'll pitch you one that I wanted to kind of get your take on, both of you, and Carole as well, and then, um, we'll wrap up with something that, that Martin's got, uh, and hopefully tie into the...
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We've got five or so minutes to chat.
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Um, so David and Carole, you know, the, the next stage of social media, certainly if you believe in the vision of, of Mark Zuckerberg, is, is along the lines of a metaverse, which, you know, it, it means that potentially someone like a Facebook wouldn't have such a significant role in social media as much as being a big part of it, and hopefully, or not hopefully, depending on your viewpoint, influence what this new next stage on from social media is.
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Does it fill you with hope or dread that, that Mark Zuckerberg's vision is for a metaverse and, and that Facebook is, um, rightly, in its business mind, trying to set the scene of, of how that new world will look?
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I mean, if we are worried about invasions of privacy and data collection and intimate access into our lives, um, the virtual reality format is even worse in terms of what it can sense from people.
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And, um, you know, it can, you know, see what you're looking at. You know, the, the, the da- the data point of your gaze becomes a primary f- force of monetization.
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So if we don't address the underlying fundamentals, the metaverse is just gonna amplify them into even more horrifying and complicated ways. What do you think, Carole? The metaverse. Mark Zuckerberg's vision.
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Are you gonna build a home there? You know what? I have to say, I'm g- You know what? I wanna throw this back to you, actually- Oh, okay... what you think about it. I, I just, I refuse to read about it.
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I was at, I've been in a kind of the, the, it was, it's, I, I, I think I've just sort of, I, I hit my own kind of, like, brick wall with Facebook, essentially.
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And, and I think I just saw the headline Metaverse versus Facebook, and I thought, I just, I don't even want to know.
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Have you met, have you had to come face to face and had conversations with any of the executive team at Facebook?
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Uh, what, what's been that interaction between yourself at any time during the last, you know, five years of what's been going on? Yeah.
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Well, I have had a couple of kind of, like, quite fascinating encounters actually, which is the, um, I, I, I [laughs] met Nick Clegg at an event, and in which he was, uh, I got to ask him a good question from the u- from the audience, and, um, he was very, very exercised with me is what I would say.
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[laughs] I would've been terrified.
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And he's very, very [laughs] exercised because he's trapped in this sort of complete cognitive dissonance that, um, you know, he was a very, very passionate pro-European, married of course to a Spanish woman, and very, very profoundly anti-Brexit.
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And he, the, the question about how Facebook was used in the referendum and, um, what Great Britain actually saw and how people, voters in Britain were targeted is still s- absolutely opaque and invisible to us.
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You know, the, or the evidence around what happened and how much money with, or everything- Hmm... is on Facebook's servers, and we don't have access to it.
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And this, for me, is the thing which s- kind of like s- it's, it's one of the things which most profoundly disturbs me actually in, in all of this mess, which is that, you know, this absolutely pivotal election, um, which, you know, has changed Britain's constitution and, you know, our history henceforth, was just, it was, you know, it was, it was this thing of it was conducted in complete darkness, and there is no accountability and no scrutiny.
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There's no research. The academics can't come to look at it. This entire period of history is lost to us.
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And, um, and, and poor Nick Clegg, he's kind of trapped in the middle of this because he could hand that data over to, um, the British Parliament.
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You know, Facebook's executives could have come, Mark Zuckerberg could have come to answer Parliament's questions on this, and he, you know, he re- he absolutely refused.
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And Nick Clegg is the person who has to stand up and defend this.
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And the way that Nick Clegg stands up and defends it is to kind of wrap it up in this- Um, this language about s- some sort of like this, it, that, that question is somehow a Cambridge Analytica conspiracy theory.
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And, um, and he, he, he was sort of very intemperate ab- a- around it without, without, without responding at all to Facebook's re- leave Cambridge Analytica out of it.
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Facebook played a central role in the I find with- So sorry, that was a really long-winded answer No, no.
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I would say I- But it is the thing which, but it still continues to bug me to this day I, uh, I call Nick Clegg is kind of their chief essay writer normally.
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It feels just like lots of very articulate, well-articulated long reads from, from Sir Nick Clegg whenever there's a big important moment that needs to be discussed by somebody. Uh, that's how I see Nick anyway.
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But no, it's, um- Mm-hmm... really nice. Appreciate you sharing the, the story.
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But I, there's loads that we wanted to chat about, but rather than, uh, cut you off at the last second, I think we'll just wrap things up, if that's okay, with one, uh, more broad question, which, uh, Martin, I think that's, uh, was your question.
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Yeah. Yeah, a question for you both then.
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Um, what reasonable practical thing could Facebook do today, or, you know, we're, if we're generous, give them a year, but no more than that, um, kind of immediate steps could Facebook take that would make you happy, um, other than just shut down?
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Um, Carol, what, what would be top of your wishlist? Well, that, since I've just mentioned it. Yeah. I just, the, uh, the, this, like, what happens in elections, like, needs to be on the public record.
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It needs to be researchers, academics, civil society need to have access to that. So that's, that's kind of one of the first things.
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I think I said one of the other ones before, which is that I just wish they'd give, like, you know, they, they, they, they, they are making money hand over fist. There is no excuse for this lack of content moderation.
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It's just the easiest thing. Just pay people properly. Employ them. Give them proper jobs and training, and that, that's just, like, such a simple and easy fix.
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And then [laughs] thirdly, I would just like Mark Zuckerberg take a look in the mirror and, uh, take a look in the mirror and ask yourself, are you doing more harm than good at the moment?
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[laughs] And, um, if, like, um, if, like, m- um, you know, most of the people who look critically at this, you think you're doing more harm than good, then just step down.
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Step down, and no, no one person should have this amount of power in this, in a single company over, you know, this much influence across the world. It's, it's, it's, it's just unhealthy.
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Well, I can certainly get behind that. Uh, you know, that is a huge concern to a lot of people and, and me as well.
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And, uh, David, um, for your last thoughts on it, what, what, you know, what could Facebook do right now and in the next year or so that would make you feel that there is a meaningful effort being made or a significant change being made that would, you know, bring about the change that you would want?
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Well, I mean, I first would, you know, I, I, I, I don't think we should expect Facebook to do anything. It's not up to Facebook. It's up to us.
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Its, its job is to make money, and our job is to make it harder for it to make m- money. [laughs] Um, so I, I, but if it could do anything, it, it could, you know,
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you know, may- maybe strongly advocate for a G- GDPR for the USA. Um, but, you know, that, that's about it. I, I don't, I think we shouldn't put the o- onus on them because we can't trust them to do the r- right thing.
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They've d- demonstrated that over and over.
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My last c- comment would just be as we close up and we, you know, go back to s- to scrolling the d- d- d- doomscape about what's happening in Afgh- ganistan, to remember that the Cambridge Analytica scandal is actually an outgrowth of what happened 20 years ago on 9/11 and the war on hearts and minds and the idea that the military industrial complex could be expanded, uh, beyond the ba- ba- ba- ba- b- battlefield, and it came back to haunt us in our own elections.
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And so what we are seeing today is just the folly of the mindset of 20 years ago. Thanks to Carol and David for taking the time to talk with us. That was a really good conversation.
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We've got shows lined up soon talking with Katie Carroll, head of LinkedIn News, and Stan Chudnovsky, head of Messenger at Facebook.
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In the meantime, don't forget that you can join the Geekout community by searching for the social media Geekout group on Facebook.
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And why not subscribe to my Geekout newsletter with all the week's social media news and discussion in your inbox for free every Friday.
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Or my newsletter, Tech Revolution, which brings you the most important tech news from the week that you need to understand if you want to understand the future.
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I make sense of the biggest, most impactful stories to help you understand what's coming next. Links to all of these are in the show notes for this episode, and we'll be back soon. But for now, goodbye, geeks.
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[upbeat music]
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It's time to Geek Out. [upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to Geek Out with Matt Navara with me, Matt Navara. And me, Martin SFP Bryant.
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Now, you've heard about the Facebook Oversight Board, but what about the real Facebook Oversight Board? No, not the actual Facebook Oversight Board, the other one.
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Yes, it can be confusing, but Carole Cadwalladr and Professor David Carroll are both well-known voices against what they see as Facebook's wrongdoing.
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They were two founding members of a group called the Real Facebook Oversight Board, which was launched just three weeks before Facebook's official oversight board started work last year.
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Since then, they've used the media to get their message out about everything from Facebook's handling of the US election to the problem of vaccine misinformation on the company's platforms.
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Outside the real Facebook Oversight Board, Carole is a well-known journalist who broke the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and David Carroll was seen in the d- Netflix documentary, The Great Hack, trying to get his data back from Cambridge Analytica.
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This was a really interesting conversation. So here's what happened when we talked to Carole Cadwalladr and Professor David Carroll.
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Maybe, um, David, you could just introduce yourself a little bit and, and a bit about the, the board, which is what people know you, uh, uh, as part of the reason why people know you as well. Sure.
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So, um, I'm perhaps well-known for being the American who challenged Cambridge Analytica in UK law for its mass data abuse in the 2016 elections.
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Um, and that story was one of the stories in the Netflix documentary, The Great Hack, and Carole was another one of the subjects of that.
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And C- Carole and I, um, got to know each other during that because, um, she reached out to me when I began my campaign and, um, you know, became o- one of the many sources that she, um, relied on to try and tell, um, such a difficult and complicated story that I think is still reverberating today in many different ways.
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And I see it now as, as a, a kind of parable that we are still learning from.
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Um, and with regards to the real Facebook Oversight Board, this was a group that formed, I think, of concerned citizens, uh, activists, academics who realize that without forming together as a group, we would just be individual c- critics, uh, would not be able to pool our voices together.
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And I would say my opinion of what it serves, it serves as an acknowledgement that public relations is the only force that we have to pressure the company because governments and regulators struggle to find ways to effectively, you know, c- control and limit the practices of the company.
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And so the Facebook Oversight Board as was established for the company by the company, uh, to create a, a seemingly independent, um,
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um, f- way to, you know, uh, in, to, to, to provide some ways to, to, to o- offshoot decisions out of the corporate office into ano- another body.
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Um, we don't want to rely on that entirely too, because its independence is, you know, somewhat superficial. And so the more [laughs]
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I am.
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I'm here. Hi. How are you doing? Thank you very much.
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I, I guess we've, we've sort of jumped into it really, and I guess maybe just intro to yourself and, and your kind of part to play in, in terms of the real Facebook Oversight Board and any sort of just opening sentiments you wanted to add to what, um, what David had just said really.
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Ah, well, it's m- uh, David's much more- [laughs]... articulate than, on this than I am.
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[laughs] Um, so, so my background is, um, I'm a journalist with The Guardian and Observer, um, in the UK, and essentially starting in sort of literally the week that Trump took office, I started investigating, uh,
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y- what had happened essentially around the election and with fake news and the use of social media platforms.
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And that led me to this company called Cambridge Analytica, which, um, led me to its involvement with Facebook. And essentially I sort of published, um, it s- feels like a long time ago probably now for most people.
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2018, I published a sort of big expose around Cambridge Analytica and Facebook data, and, um, the sort of consequences of that are still ongoing in so many ways. There's still so much we don't know about it.
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But one of the sort of, one of m- my sort of experience of doing that journalism really led me to this place of really kind of deeply understanding just that there is no accountability, um, anymore.
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Um, and with regards to, so it, it, she's true of, it's true of our governments and it's also very much true of big, big tech.
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So, you know, I sort of witnessed the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica story with Facebook, you know, direct consequence was that Facebook got fined $5 billion by the FTC, you know, which made huge headlines, the biggest fine it had ever imposed.
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And there was absolutely [laughs] zero consequences for it as a company.
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And there were no changes as a result of it, no mana- no, uh, none of the executives were held to account, and it all just went on, business as normal.
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And I think in the run-up to the US election, just sort of witnessing the way that, uh, Donald Trump was very blatantly and openly using and saying he was going to use Facebook to subvert the election, and Facebook was absolutely ignoring it and, and realizing that there was sort of, there was absolutely no mechanism to hold it to account.
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The Real Facebook Oversight Board was literally the kind of a sort of last-ditch effort, essentially, ahead of the election to pull together, um, all these different very, very diverse voices to come together with a sort of set of demands to Facebook so that,
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you know, there was some source of, of counterweight to it and what it was doing, what it was refusing to do.
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Um, that w- was these sort of voices of experts like David Carroll a- and leading academics, you know, like Sh- Shoshana Zuboff, and then the, the civil rights organizations like the NAACP and the ADL and Color of Change, and really bring them together and get them to agree on these sort of set of simple demands to Facebook.
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Facebook. So that was... That's- Mm-hmm... the origin story.
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[laughs] Well, uh, in terms of we've, we've got lots of bits there that touches on a lot of the questions that me and Martin were gonna ask and, but one of them that I'll kind of jump ahead slightly, um, of what we've got written down here, is about the, the, the Facebook have got their own oversight board, as you kind of mentioned briefly and, and that's been running its course and there's been s- very lots of, there's lots of skepticism about it, and there's other people that say, "Well, actually, you know, they haven't done quite as bad as maybe we thought," or, "They have achieved more than what we thought."
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Others would say, "Complete rubbish." Where, where, how do you see it at the moment in terms of the real bo- the Real Real Facebook? It's gonna get very confusing. [laughs] I think, I think you mean...
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So yeah, it's funny, isn't it? I mean, it was very deliberate, the act of, of calling ourselves the real one. [laughs] Because I mean, the, I mean, the, I mean, essentially the problem...
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Well, I mean, there are so many problems with it, but it's, it, it is this sort of, um, theatrical display of accountability in the sense that the, the board was set up by Facebook. It selected everybody who's on it.
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It set the terms of reference of what it could do, and it's being allowed to play within those parameters.
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And so within those parameters, you can sort of say, "Well, yeah, you know, these are, these are v- very upstanding, um, you know, very intelligent individuals who are doing their best, and, and within those parameters, you know, are maybe having a small amount of impact."
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But the, it's just, it's just set up so incorrectly. This cannot be how we do regulation.
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And to take this seriously as a step towards it is, um, I think, dangerous and, um, and it has been very effective, I think, in capturing press and attention, and being treated with a seriousness which I would argue it does not deserve.
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Martin. Yeah. Um, I think it's fair to say that Facebook didn't take your launch in good humor. Uh, but they've not sued you out of existence yet.
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Uh, so I just wondered, um, if, uh, maybe having an antagonistic relationship with the people that you want to change, uh, does that ever feel counterproductive?
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Do you feel like if you were a bit more kind of, um, not pro-Facebook, but a bit more kind of, I don't know, friendly to them or something, you know, you, you might get more out of them?
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Because one thing I think we've picked up on, Matt and I, is that, uh, the- they're definitely, um, you rub them up the wrong way and, uh, they're, they're not particularly- [laughs]...
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um, happy about your existence, let's say, certain people within Facebook. Um, so if you want to change them, um, is this kind of more kind of outspoken approach the best approach, or should you be more collaborative?
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Well, I, I mean, I'll let, I'll let David come in a bit, but I mean, I, it, it's a, it's, there are lots of organizations which do sort of behind the scenes lobbying of Facebook and, you know, use that sort of approach and good luck to them.
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Right.
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And, um, you know, I'm a journalist and very much the, I come from that tradition [laughs] of, um, that we put all of our stuff out into the open and, um, and, uh, uh, uh, so that, that sort of, you know, behind the scenes approach is, does not feel at all appropriate.
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And I, I just sort of, uh, you know, I, as I say, I come from this background after all of, of being, being, you know, ha- ha- being faced with this brick wall from Facebook.
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So, you know, it was 18 months that I was investigating, um, the Cambridge Analytica data stuff before we published, um, Christopher Wylie's, um, revelations about, uh, about what had happened there.
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And during that time, it just utterly stonewalled me and, you know, it was later found, so in the, there is the, the report by the SEC about what had happened.
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And in that, it states very directly that Facebook lied to journalists during that period about what happened with the Facebook data, and I was one of those journalists who it lied to.
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And, um, you know, I, uh, there is a, there is a, there is a, a, a pattern of behavior by Facebook to stop the truth coming out about what, um, it has done, and we saw it then.
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We saw it when it threatened to sue The Observer- 24 hours before we went to press with, uh, Christopher Wylie's allegations.
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Um, you know, we saw it again with the launch of the Real Facebook Oversight Board when our website was taken off the internet following a complaint from Facebook to the ISP.
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It rang up our funders. So we got funding. The Citizens, which is the organization behind the Real Facebook Oversight Board, we get funding from a philanthropic foundation called Luminate.
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And as they can see from Facebook, rang up our funders. Remember, so we, you know, we're, we're a nascent, tiny journalistic starter, and it rang up our funders and essentially put the thumb screws on them funding us.
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Um- I guess, I just... Can, can I bring David in on, on this point? This is a p- question we- Yes. Do. Take it away, David [laughs] No.
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Because it's, uh, one of the questions I wanted to, wanted to ask David was about, you know, there's the most kind of topical thing at the moment with Facebook in this space, I guess you could argue, is this stuff to do with the, the university research.
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And the things that have been going on with kind of the, this, you know, basically blocking the researchers from getting the data they want and the, and debates as to whether they're saying they've got the permission and then, and Facebook's saying you didn't, and all of this.
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Facebook is in this position where it's being told on one side they've got to protect the users' data, and then on the other side they've got people saying, "You need to be more transparent and release more."
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There obviously is a big, big void in the middle. Where do you come in on this in terms of what do you think about that, that as a, as a part of the problem, but also what they've done in this latest incident?
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Which I'm guessing is your, you know, you're not particularly impressed by. Sure. Yeah.
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As a academic, I have sort of three ways to respond to the question, 'cause as an academic, there are three avenues to influence Facebook.
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So the first one is sort of the most obvious one, is as a teacher of students who are then often employed at the tech companies and work in the product teams, the, we have a way to influence from within, and I'm proud to say that many of my alumni do work at the big tech companies and do report back to me on things that they're trying to do from within.
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But of course, there are limits to that. But we certainly do what we can. The second area is in academic research, in which how can research be done independently of Facebook versus dependently on Facebook.
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Dependent on funding, dependent on access to data. And there are academics who are willing to have a cozy relationship with Facebook via money and data to produce scholarship.
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However, scholarship that's produced independently of funding and data is a kind of, a different kind of research.
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It's potentially more valid because it's independent, but it's also potentially more invalid because it does not have access to the appropriate da- data set.
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So academia is struggling to find the right way to study Facebook.
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And the most recent, um, instance that you referred to, sort of the third area that I would say, is where academic teams are developing tools to study Facebook and developing tools that are arguably very responsible and very privacy protecting.
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And let's remember that Cambridge Analytica is an academic scandal in its origins.
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It is in its o- origins reckless behavior by, um, researchers and scientists at Cambridge University who partnered with a military contractor to do, uh, p- p- p- political work for money.
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Um, and the lapses in ethical behavior at the academic level and the close, tidy, I would say unethical relationships with f- the company like Facebook kind of created the conditions that caused the ultimate scandal.
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This is why Facebook really likes to use the Cambridge Analytica scandal as a fig leaf [laughs] to, um, hide its original sin and prevent the kind of accountability research that is indeed necessary.
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So in the case of the NYU Ad Observatory team led by, um, Professor Edelson, uh, sh- her team, you know, created a very important tool set and a very important research methodology.
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And what Facebook objected to on a technical basis was that the information about advertisers was being collected, and Facebook considers the privacy of advertisers,
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um, to be, uh [laughs], the most important privacy it needs to protect, because advertisers are the real customers.
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And so, um, we, we see that, that when we really want to study the business model, when we really want to study the data and its effects on behavior, Facebook is glad to be the arbiter of truth about itself. Absolutely.
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And that's the problem that we have. Um, Martyn. Yeah.
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Um, David, you were in, uh, The Great Hack, as we mentioned before, and, uh, you were shown trying to get your, uh, Cambridge Analytica data back, uh, the data that they held about you.
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Uh, Channel 4 News, uh, got it and gave it back to you last year. But do you think anything meaningful has improved in terms of data protection since then?
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Obviously we've got GDPR in Europe, and California has stronger data protection.
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But is it having any real effect, uh, uh, in a, on a meaningful level when, you know, these kind of data sets like your data set, uh, must still be floating around out there? Yeah. Yeah.
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In, to, uh, for, for those who, um, didn't see it, um, in the lead up to the 2020 election, Channel 4 was leaked the Trump 2016 d- data set.
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And not only did they show up at my doorstep to show me my actual data set- But they actually visited voters in Wisconsin and Florida and showed them their data sets.
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And it was a really, I think, effective mechanism of showing people the importance of voter profile transparency.
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And, um, what it also revealed is that, uh, despite the best efforts perhaps of the UK's data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office, who exerted unprecedented regulatory actions against the company,
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I, I'm afraid to say perhaps failed in its mandate to fully enforce the UK data protection law and achieve full disclosure.
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So the UK ICO was not able to give me the amount of data that journalists were. And so we still need journalists to hold regulators accountable who are trying to hold companies accountable.
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And it is very unfortunate that these databases are clearly leaking all over the place. And while I really appreciate the fact that some guilty feeling person
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gave the data to a journalist so that we could reveal the truth, it shows that we have so much work to do in terms of equipping regulators with the muscles they need and the technical ability and technical resources to perform just really complicated forensic analysis.
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Until we get there, we still will be reliant on leakers and sources and accountability journalism.
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And Carole, and, and where me and you have, on the very few occasions we kind of come a- across each other's paths, it tends to be these, um, s- these hearings.
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And the last one was, like I remember when you were there, was when it was the international hearing in, in Dublin.
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And, um, there's been a lot of talk about regulation, and I know you've been part of a lot of these, sort of some of these hearings certainly in the UK, and also the development of this Online Harms Bill.
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And as well in the US there's a whole raft of, like hearings and challenges.
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Some of it's to do with mono- you know, it's mo- monopoly, or if it has or has not got one, and also to do with it, some of the things that, um, its behaviors in general.
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But back here in the UK, the Online Harms Bill is, is not that far off now.
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What is your take on, on, on regulation as it's, as it looks right now and how it could look in the next few years, and how, how effective do, can you see that being?
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So I, um, I'm no expert at all on the Online Harm Bill, so I'll park that one for the moment.
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But I mean, one of, one of the issues, which I'm just sort of thinking about this, is that one of the issues is that we actually do have laws at the moment. It's, but they're just not enforced.
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So, um, you know, the whole, the whole, the whole thing about GDPR is that after all is that we now have that law, but are we seeing that being enforced?
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Um, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, um, smoke, there's not much fire. And I, I was just sort of pondering, sorry this is- Not at all...
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slightly off topic, but it was, I was reported, we rep- I, I reported, um, um, some, um, abuse. This is actually Twitter, not Facebook, um, last week.
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Um, some really abu- some, some abusive harassing accounts of, um, uh, well-known figures harassing a child.
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And, um, you know, we have, I think there, you know, I still think we have this perception, don't we, that the sort of the internet is the Wild West and it's beyond the laws.
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But actually we do already have laws which can be used in circumstances like this. But, you know, I've had zero... I've reported it to the police and h- you know, have heard absolutely nothing back.
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And that I think is, you know, one of the, one of the, the, the sort of the, the, the great problems is it isn't just about the laws, it is about the enforcement of them.
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But you know, I think on, on the big issues it really is y- you know, I really do see, and this is one of the reasons why the real Facebook Oversight Board is very sort of focused on America because, um,
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this is where the companies are, and this is where the sort of the bigger action can be taken, particularly around things like antitrust and so on.
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And, you know, we've, we've all seen these sort of very promising signs in the last, um, six months that things are, you know, there is an appetite, there are legislators looking to, um, to do things, but there's only a s- there's only a very finite amount of time to actually,
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to actually sort of d- sorry, to actually bring this to fruition, I think.
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And I think the sort of mood music from the States at the moment is actually, um, n- not looking very optimistic, but perhaps David can talk about that- But-... 'cause he's much more in tune than I'd be.
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Are you two, um, both good for times? We've got quite a, a couple of questions we wanna rattle through. We, and we were gonna aim to work towards- Sure... the, the quarter to the hour, so about 20 more minutes.
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Would that work for you guys? Sure. Yeah, that's fine. Great. Okay, David, yeah, carry on, 'cause I think Martin, there's a question that follows into that.
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But Martin, uh, David, if you wanna finish off what you were gonna say from Carole's point. Sure.
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Um, yeah, I, I was told by, you know, people in the room in Sacramento when the California Consumer Privacy Act was passed by intense pressure from a ballot measure.
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Um, so in, in, in C- California there was a, a, uh, r- like a referendum ballot m- measure which proposed a very, very powerful data protection law.
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It was watered down in Sacramento, but still much stronger than it would've been if it hadn't originated from a ballot measure.
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And people in the room, you know, who were lobbying against the in- in- industry, um, were able to just utter the words Cambridge Analytica, and it was like kryptonite- [laughs]...
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against the industry's- Um, opposition to the legislation.
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And, um, so I think in many ways it contributed toward the passage of that state law, which then is influencing other states to look at laws, and then the way the industry is very adept at w- watering down.
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The US badly needs a national privacy law, a d- data protection law, to be more equivalent to the European mo- model and other n- n- states.
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And I am s- you know, I flop between optimistic and pessimistic about whether that could happen during, uh, the, the, the current ad- administration and Congress. Um, but it would be, um, a very important step.
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And to Carole's comment about antitrust, uh, the Biden administration has put into place new leadership that is like-minded in the sense of understanding the relationship between the problems of content and the way that the data business yields harmful content, and there is a relationship between sort of data abuse and, and, and harmful c- content.
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And so I'm hopeful that the separation between those ideas can be further unified.
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And so instead of treating the symptoms of, like, this, this, this disease with sort of content moderation and removing harmful content and trying to, like, solve misinformation with fact-checking,
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that we could really get to the root of the disease, which is the business model, which is the attention merchandising, which is the asymmetrical abuse of pe- people and their own information that yields the harmful content because it performs best to the business model.
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So I think that attacking the business model is the better solution, rather than trying to, like, find ways to prune- Hmm... harmful content like a garden. Yeah, yeah.
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Uh, actually, um, if we look at that question of the business model, a lot of the problems people have with Facebook is because it's an advertising company primarily- Yeah...
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which happens to advertise through the social products it offers. But the problem is that those products are critical social infrastructure, really, for a lot of people.
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People rely on it, whether we're talking about Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp. You know, it's used massively around the world, this company's products.
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So is there a way of having an advertising business model and social media that, uh, works in a way that you would be happy with, or do we have to set aside the advertising entirely and find a new way of doing it?
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What does social media look like, if not Facebook? We have created a very harmful advertising technical infrastructure.
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The plumbing of the internet is inherently flawed and broken, and there is so much fraud and malfeasance and cheating and wasted money in the entire digital advertising industry.
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It's, you know, it's 20 years old now, and it needs to be r- redone. You know, the pipes are rusty and rotten.
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And, um, so I think that the ad tech business model is what's the, the fueling the fires of disinformation because it makes it profitable. It is, you know, degrading journalism because it is just,
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it's just throwing money away.
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And so ultimately, reform of the entire digital ad ecosystem would be necessary to kind of get at these underlying dynamics of, of incentives and market misalignments that's creating this information pollution landscape that, that we can feel viscerally and is causing, like, locatable harm.
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And, um, uh, that's why I think that...
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And in a, in, in an unconventional way, stricter data protection enforcement and rules and limiting what can be done in digital advertising will have very positive downstream effects on society.
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Business people will complain, but they've been, they haven't been paying the costs to society- Um-... and it's time to.
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Y- Facebook, the real Facebook Oversight Board, is that always gonna be limited to Facebook, or are you gonna extend the, the stick that you can hit them with a bit with, to TikTok and to some of the others?
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Uh, I'm intrigued to know, like, Carole, from your side of things, you know, this, a lot of these problems are revolved around Cambridge Analytica and seeded from there, and, and since there's been lots of other things they've been accused of or often found to be doing.
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But the other platforms have, have not gone without, you know, without being hit as well with different things that they're doing.
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And also the, the general picture of social media and social networks and, and how damaging they are. I just wonder what your view is on, on the other platforms- Hmm...
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and how you feel about social media in, in a broader sense, 'cause you use it professionally, of course, as well. [laughs] Oh, I don't know about... I use it amateurishly- [laughs]... I think would be more accurate.
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But, um, yeah, I mean, uh, you're, you're totally right.
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I mean, in fact, when I started, when I started off on this investigation in December 2016, end of November 2016, the, um, uh, y- I was really shocked by YouTube, and I had all sorts of sort of things that I wanted to...
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You know, it was, it in many respects was a, a worse sewer for disinformation and for, you know, Holocaust denial and everything else than Facebook was.
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And I really had this, like, right, as soon as I [laughs] as soon as I've finished with this Ca- damn Cambridge Analytica story, I'm gonna get back to YouTube. And I'm still waiting for that moment to arrive.
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And, um, and it, it, it was, it... I think the, the whole thing is, is that sort of wi- with this whole thing is that there's never been some great strategy behind it.
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It's just been reacting to, like, what's happening in the moment and what feels most urgent.
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And ahead of the US election, it really felt that Facebook was the sort of locus of this, you know, absolute tsunami of disinformation, and that it was gonna be where the election was, you know, fought One or overturned.
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So that was why the real Facebook oversight board, you know, set up specifically to address that. And the, the thing is, is that you're, you know, I, I... you're right.
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These, these are problems across the board with all of these social media companies and tech companies more generally. And but we just can't do everything. No. And actually, there has been an argument.
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I mean, I, I mean, it's, it's, it's with- it's... I'm very, we're very agnostic with, you know, what to do next.
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But I think at the moment, this sort of targeted approach with a particularly problematic company, with a partic- particularly problematic, um, power structure, um, absolutely impervious to everything apart from, as David said, um, public pressure, um- But they do s- they do seem to get pushed into doing some things though.
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Like, for example, the, you know, at the moment there's some stuff that's going through in the UK which is gonna be implemented, which has led to this sudden rush from all of the platforms to have lots of these child-friendly, teen-friendly protections in them because of law that will be passed that will require them to do so to be able to operate with teens using their products in, in this country and Europe, will ne- they think they all need to abide by them.
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So they, th- there it can be seen that regulation can work, and if the incentives and disincentives are right, then it, it, it's successful. But it, it does feel like it's slow.
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Is it the progress that's the problem, do you think? Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I mean, it's the, it's, it's... I think, I think it's pressure from whatever area, um, can and does work, like you say.
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And I, I just do think, you know, these, um, many of these things are not insurmountable problems. Some of them are just money.
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It's that if Facebook [laughs], you know, if Facebook took a tiny fraction less profit and used that money to better fund content moderation teams, if it actually paid those people properly as employees and not as contractors, and treated them well, and just had more of them, you know, that would go a long way to mitigating some of the worst harms that we're seeing at the moment.
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That is just money. It is just corporate greed. And that, you know, that is where I think that public pressure can come into play right now. And, um, and you know, I think we see it in all sorts of areas.
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I mean, I'm very interested to see what Facebook will do in this case of the fact that it booted these academic researchers, as David was talking about, NYU off. Um- What do you make of, um, Apple at the moment?
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You know- So just to, sort of to touch on that point, but there was another question- Sure...
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that was gonna lead into that was around, for me, around, like Apple is making a big play at the moment of it, privacy being at the core of it.
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And at the same time, having a quite, a fun, for me anyway, battle with Facebook quite publicly around its, you know, the ad tracking stuff.
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And do you, do you view Apple, out of curiosity, as being any more, uh, trustworthy and, uh, okay with the way that it, it, it kind of manages data or the things that you've read about through your, you know, world of journalism?
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You know, what's your take on all of that?
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I d- I think it's just, I think the, the, the r- the reason why it seems less pernicious to me, I think, and that's, this is a very subjective view, is just that I think the, the, the, the sort of just the networked aspects of social media, um, just this sort of this, e- you know, uh, it, the fact that it, we've kind of all wired our brains together across the world simultaneously and the, the, the, you know, the power and the enormity and the influence of that, I think is the thing that sort of terrifies me and makes me feel that, you know, we're in the middle of some
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mass experiment, [laughs] um, you know, which is going on in real time. So, so I d- I do think there is a, there is a sort of extra level of perniciousness which, um, Apple is exempt from.
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But, um, but maybe David's got some view on that from a sort of product design perspective.
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I think also Mark, we've got like five or seven, seven, eight minutes left, and Martin, I'm just gonna tie in a question I think with David on some of this stuff, um, that might fit in. But so Martin, have you got that?
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Bring that up and, uh, yeah, that'd be great to hear what David thinks of all this as well. Yeah. Yeah.
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Well, uh, yeah, c- if we look at, um, uh, w- another Netflix, uh, production, uh, around this whole topic was, uh, The Social Dilemma, which, uh, seemed to cut through to the public, uh, in a way a lot of discussions about social media don't.
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But, um, I know David, you, um, uh, agree with Nick Clegg, uh, that it was a, a cartoonish and simplified version of, uh, the story of, uh, the problems of social media.
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Um, so, uh, w- what do you make about the way the public views all of this? 'Cause, uh, one observation a lot of people make is that, yes, this is all important, but if the public doesn't care,
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and they only pay attention if it's really dumbed down and simplified like it was in, i- in The Social Dilemma, then, you know, that's a problem.
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And maybe if people don't care so much, then it's, it's no surprise that it is not really getting the attention it should. Sure.
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Well, um, I mean, obviously I'm biased because I think the movie, the Netflix movie that I was in is better. [laughs] But, [laughs]
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but, um, the reaction to these films, especially among young people, um, students on ca- campuses around the world, I think was very, very heartening and inspiring.
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Um, that the, the sort of upcoming generation is getting it in ways that, for example, G- G- G- G- Generation X, that I'm a p- part of, doesn't really get and...
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You know, so I think there's a generational realization that these films and o- other things are helping.
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Um, and the things that young people are saying to me in response to the film, um, you know, really g- gives me hope that, that these, that these understandings are possible.
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Um- And yes, there is a feeling of hopelessness because of the asymmetry of power. What, what would we expect people to be able to do when they can barely comprehend the intricate system at play here?
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Um, so I think it's, it's similar to a kind of climate change problem that, you know, individuals recycling more is not gonna save the planet, and individuals
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q- q- q- quitting Facebook is not gonna save the issue, and that putting the responsibility on individuals is really what they want. Um, and, uh, and so we, we have to work collectively together.
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We, you know, it's an act of... It'll take an act of democracy to solve these problems, not individual consumer choices.
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Because remember, the main difference between Apple and Facebook is you pay for Apple products with, with, with actual currency. Uh, you are a customer to Apple.
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You are not a customer to Facebook until you open up an advertising account and give them money to buy access to other users based on their personal data.
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So the c- the companies couldn't be more different, and it's pr- a big reason why we don't know how to deal with Facebook and Google and, uh, YouTube as, as antitrust problems because the c- we're n- we...
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It sounds so silly, but we are not the customers, and so we are paying with other costs, and we are paying with the cost to our society. Hmm. So, um, I think we have to address that fundamental.
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Um, we've got enough time for, like, two more questions that we've got here.
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So I'll pitch you one that I wanted to kind of get your take on, both of you, and Carole as well, and then, um, we'll wrap up with something that, that Martin's got, uh, and hopefully tie into the...
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We've got five or so minutes to chat.
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Um, so David and Carole, you know, the, the next stage of social media, certainly if you believe in the vision of, of Mark Zuckerberg, is, is along the lines of a metaverse, which, you know, it, it means that potentially someone like a Facebook wouldn't have such a significant role in social media as much as being a big part of it, and hopefully, or not hopefully, depending on your viewpoint, influence what this new next stage on from social media is.
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Does it fill you with hope or dread that, that Mark Zuckerberg's vision is for a metaverse and, and that Facebook is, um, rightly, in its business mind, trying to set the scene of, of how that new world will look?
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I mean, if we are worried about invasions of privacy and data collection and intimate access into our lives, um, the virtual reality format is even worse in terms of what it can sense from people.
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And, um, you know, it can, you know, see what you're looking at. You know, the, the, the da- the data point of your gaze becomes a primary f- force of monetization.
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So if we don't address the underlying fundamentals, the metaverse is just gonna amplify them into even more horrifying and complicated ways. What do you think, Carole? The metaverse. Mark Zuckerberg's vision.
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Are you gonna build a home there? You know what? I have to say, I'm g- You know what? I wanna throw this back to you, actually- Oh, okay... what you think about it. I, I just, I refuse to read about it.
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I was at, I've been in a kind of the, the, it was, it's, I, I, I think I've just sort of, I, I hit my own kind of, like, brick wall with Facebook, essentially.
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And, and I think I just saw the headline Metaverse versus Facebook, and I thought, I just, I don't even want to know.
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Have you met, have you had to come face to face and had conversations with any of the executive team at Facebook?
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Uh, what, what's been that interaction between yourself at any time during the last, you know, five years of what's been going on? Yeah.
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Well, I have had a couple of kind of, like, quite fascinating encounters actually, which is the, um, I, I, I [laughs] met Nick Clegg at an event, and in which he was, uh, I got to ask him a good question from the u- from the audience, and, um, he was very, very exercised with me is what I would say.
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[laughs] I would've been terrified.
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And he's very, very [laughs] exercised because he's trapped in this sort of complete cognitive dissonance that, um, you know, he was a very, very passionate pro-European, married of course to a Spanish woman, and very, very profoundly anti-Brexit.
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And he, the, the question about how Facebook was used in the referendum and, um, what Great Britain actually saw and how people, voters in Britain were targeted is still s- absolutely opaque and invisible to us.
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You know, the, or the evidence around what happened and how much money with, or everything- Hmm... is on Facebook's servers, and we don't have access to it.
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And this, for me, is the thing which s- kind of like s- it's, it's one of the things which most profoundly disturbs me actually in, in all of this mess, which is that, you know, this absolutely pivotal election, um, which, you know, has changed Britain's constitution and, you know, our history henceforth, was just, it was, you know, it was, it was this thing of it was conducted in complete darkness, and there is no accountability and no scrutiny.
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There's no research. The academics can't come to look at it. This entire period of history is lost to us.
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And, um, and, and poor Nick Clegg, he's kind of trapped in the middle of this because he could hand that data over to, um, the British Parliament.
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You know, Facebook's executives could have come, Mark Zuckerberg could have come to answer Parliament's questions on this, and he, you know, he re- he absolutely refused.
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And Nick Clegg is the person who has to stand up and defend this.
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And the way that Nick Clegg stands up and defends it is to kind of wrap it up in this- Um, this language about s- some sort of like this, it, that, that question is somehow a Cambridge Analytica conspiracy theory.
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And, um, and he, he, he was sort of very intemperate ab- a- around it without, without, without responding at all to Facebook's re- leave Cambridge Analytica out of it.
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Facebook played a central role in the I find with- So sorry, that was a really long-winded answer No, no.
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I would say I- But it is the thing which, but it still continues to bug me to this day I, uh, I call Nick Clegg is kind of their chief essay writer normally.
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It feels just like lots of very articulate, well-articulated long reads from, from Sir Nick Clegg whenever there's a big important moment that needs to be discussed by somebody. Uh, that's how I see Nick anyway.
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But no, it's, um- Mm-hmm... really nice. Appreciate you sharing the, the story.
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But I, there's loads that we wanted to chat about, but rather than, uh, cut you off at the last second, I think we'll just wrap things up, if that's okay, with one, uh, more broad question, which, uh, Martin, I think that's, uh, was your question.
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Yeah. Yeah, a question for you both then.
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Um, what reasonable practical thing could Facebook do today, or, you know, we're, if we're generous, give them a year, but no more than that, um, kind of immediate steps could Facebook take that would make you happy, um, other than just shut down?
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Um, Carol, what, what would be top of your wishlist? Well, that, since I've just mentioned it. Yeah. I just, the, uh, the, this, like, what happens in elections, like, needs to be on the public record.
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It needs to be researchers, academics, civil society need to have access to that. So that's, that's kind of one of the first things.
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I think I said one of the other ones before, which is that I just wish they'd give, like, you know, they, they, they, they, they are making money hand over fist. There is no excuse for this lack of content moderation.
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It's just the easiest thing. Just pay people properly. Employ them. Give them proper jobs and training, and that, that's just, like, such a simple and easy fix.
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And then [laughs] thirdly, I would just like Mark Zuckerberg take a look in the mirror and, uh, take a look in the mirror and ask yourself, are you doing more harm than good at the moment?
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[laughs] And, um, if, like, um, if, like, m- um, you know, most of the people who look critically at this, you think you're doing more harm than good, then just step down.
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Step down, and no, no one person should have this amount of power in this, in a single company over, you know, this much influence across the world. It's, it's, it's, it's just unhealthy.
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Well, I can certainly get behind that. Uh, you know, that is a huge concern to a lot of people and, and me as well.
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And, uh, David, um, for your last thoughts on it, what, what, you know, what could Facebook do right now and in the next year or so that would make you feel that there is a meaningful effort being made or a significant change being made that would, you know, bring about the change that you would want?
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Well, I mean, I first would, you know, I, I, I, I don't think we should expect Facebook to do anything. It's not up to Facebook. It's up to us.
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Its, its job is to make money, and our job is to make it harder for it to make m- money. [laughs] Um, so I, I, but if it could do anything, it, it could, you know,
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you know, may- maybe strongly advocate for a G- GDPR for the USA. Um, but, you know, that, that's about it. I, I don't, I think we shouldn't put the o- onus on them because we can't trust them to do the r- right thing.
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They've d- demonstrated that over and over.
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My last c- comment would just be as we close up and we, you know, go back to s- to scrolling the d- d- d- doomscape about what's happening in Afgh- ganistan, to remember that the Cambridge Analytica scandal is actually an outgrowth of what happened 20 years ago on 9/11 and the war on hearts and minds and the idea that the military industrial complex could be expanded, uh, beyond the ba- ba- ba- ba- b- battlefield, and it came back to haunt us in our own elections.
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And so what we are seeing today is just the folly of the mindset of 20 years ago. Thanks to Carol and David for taking the time to talk with us. That was a really good conversation.
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We've got shows lined up soon talking with Katie Carroll, head of LinkedIn News, and Stan Chudnovsky, head of Messenger at Facebook.
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In the meantime, don't forget that you can join the Geekout community by searching for the social media Geekout group on Facebook.
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And why not subscribe to my Geekout newsletter with all the week's social media news and discussion in your inbox for free every Friday.
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Or my newsletter, Tech Revolution, which brings you the most important tech news from the week that you need to understand if you want to understand the future.
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I make sense of the biggest, most impactful stories to help you understand what's coming next. Links to all of these are in the show notes for this episode, and we'll be back soon. But for now, goodbye, geeks.
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