Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher - Ep 304 | How Big Tech is Conquering Countries | Guest: Alexis Wichowski

Episode Date: February 15, 2020

In this timely and provocative book about our new tech-based reality, political insider and tech expert Alexis Wichowski considers the unchecked rise of tech giants like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Tesla—what she calls “net states”—in a new light: personal, social, and geopolitical forces that rival nation states in power and capital. As these tech giants act more and more like countries, they are transforming the way the world works, putting our rights up for grabs, from personal privacy to national security.  Written for the tech-savvy and tech-phobic alike—and featuring original reporting and insights drawn from more than 100 interviews with technology and government insiders, explores what happens when we give up our personal freedom and individual autonomy in exchange for an easy, plugged-in existence—and shows what we can do to control our relationship with net states before they irreversibly alter our future. Wichowski urges us to remember that as tech users we have power over our technologies and the companies behind them; we are in control of the relationship. Alexis Wichowski is associate commissioner for communications at the Department of Veteran Services, and an adjunct professor of technology, media and communications at Columbia University. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, TechCrunch, Foreign Affairs, and WIRED, which published her viral piece, “Net States Rule the World: Ignore Them At Your Peril.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joining us in the break room today on Chewing the Fat is Alexis Wichowski, the author of The Information Trade, How Big Tech Conquers Countries Countries, Challenges Our Rights, and Transforms Our World. And for those of you that have listened to this podcast for any time, you know that this is something that some of this just drives me insane. And first of all, Alexis, welcome to Chewing the Fat. Thanks for coming on today. Thank you so much. So some fascinating stuff in the book. And before I get to some of the thoughts that I have to question you specifically on,

I kind of wanted to go through. You've got eight chapters in the book. And the last one I really kind of want to delve into separately. But the first seven, I kind of want to give you a, I'll just call it first thought. And I'll give you the title of the chapter. And you give me your first thought from each chapter, okay? Sounds good. Rise of the citizen user, first thought.

How people transform from being audiences to individual users of technology. NetStates, IRL, Chapter 2. How tech companies are transforming from providing digital services to interjecting themselves into our physical landscape. Chapter 3, privacy allies and adversaries. how we are losing our sense of privacy as we've known it as we contribute more of our data online and I will man I want to get into a little bit of that too chapter four information age war fighters the way that tech companies are opening defense and counterterrorism units to fight alongside or even in front of our military right and I want to get into that too holy cow chapter five the great

a great wall of watchers. This is how the Chinese are setting up what's called a social credit system using user behavior online to approve or disapprove activities in real life. And I feel, I'll stop because all of these are just something I would love to delve into. We may be here all day, Alexis. I'm just, chapter six, the all-knowing Internet of Things. the way that technology is starting to insert itself into our landscape in terms of sensors and other technologies that are in the background that we might not necessarily see.

And chapter seven, the mind immersed. How all of these technologies affect the way that we think and pay attention or more appropriately are unable to pay attention like we used to. And chapter eight, of course, and this is another one that I opened up with, I want to delve into a declaration of citizen user rights. We'll get into that for sure. Let's just start with, for me, Net States and what you think of, you know, first of all, what are Net States? Sure. NetStates are the major tech companies that have evolved beyond their core product and services and are doing things that countries used to do solely, like defense, diplomacy, public infrastructure, citizen services,

I'm talking about companies like Microsoft and Apple and Amazon, Facebook, and even Tesla in all of its related activities. They're no longer just collecting user profiles and doing search engine stuff. They are engaging in things that used to be the sole provenance of countries. Now, some of these companies, you know, are, you know, when you say outside their core business, I mean, all these companies have purchased smaller companies. know, just soak them into what they're doing, whether they were going to use the product or decide that, hey, you know what, that's pretty good, but we don't want them trying to try to get into any of our business. So we'll just buy it and be done with it. I mean, that's not even

a part of that, right? I mean, that's just, that's not even close to their core. Not even close. So, I mean, think about this. One way to think about this is to compare it to other major transnational companies like McDonald's or Coca-Cola. Can you imagine, McDonald's or Coca-Cola having a counterterrorism team, but Facebook has a counterterrorism team. They have a 300-person counterterrorism team, which is larger than the State Department's counterterrorism team. And it's not even considered that strange. Yeah, no, not in today's world. It's not, right? I mean, our net states are these companies that are, I mean, they're really ahead of most governments on a lot of things. And I don't know that I blame them,

but it's pretty hard to wrap your head around. I'll tell you that. Yeah, it sure is. Now, when you talk about, and I just take, these are some of the notes that I took as I was reading the book, Net States was actually the top of the list. Next was war. I mean, how is this going to, you know, what war are we talking about? Are we talking about Internet wars? Are we talking about, you know, war globally between countries and or net states? Well, the nature of warfare has changed.

You know, we are not, even though we are still fighting physical wars in other countries where we're deployed troops, there's also more and more happening online with cyber attacks, with information warfare. And so the nature of conflict is changing both between countries and between non-state actors and countries. So one of the things that these companies who operate in digital spaces have to do is figure out how do they protect not only their core business, but the users that are on their, platforms. They don't necessarily want to expose people who are trying to connect with friends to ISIS recruiting videos. So it's in their best interest to make sure they clean up that environment. So, I mean, we had reports even today of, you know, Chinese companies breaking into, you know, our websites. I saw some numbers. I don't know. I've missed the page. But you talked about attacks coming into the U.S.

United States, just within the last couple of years, the FBI says there's thousands a day, right? Is that, do I remember that right? Yeah, yeah. No, it's something that I think is beyond the scope of anything that we have seen in previous years because it's, you know, with physical attacks, there's only so much you can do because you have limited resources. But with digital attacks, you can amplify your offense exponentially because you can have

one person sort of on the front of a dozen or hundreds of attacks. And so we're starting to see one of the most troubling things of attacks on city agencies, on law enforcement, not just on private businesses. So we're talking to Alexis Wachowski, and she is the author of The Information Trade. And it's kind of a scary read, too. Alexis, I know you're the associate commissioner for communications at the Department of Veterans. Services, professor of technology, media, and communications at Columbia University. You know, you're doing nothing with your life. So I just thought I figured I'd talk to you about

your book a little bit. The next thing that you taught, that fascinated me that I wrote down in my notes as I was going through is tech ambassadors. I love this. I truly do. I think that that's something that probably needs to happen more. Right now, we have how many actual tech ambassadors in the world. So there are four that we're aware of. There's Denmark. They were the first, right? Denmark was the first. Right. Okay. Okay. Estonia, Australia, and France. We don't even have one here in the U.S. We do not have one in the U.S. So we really need one. Incredible that we don't have one. So what is, you know, a tech ambassador? So they are in the same way that an ambassador from a nation to a country is deployed to that country to manage foreign affairs, be sort of a representation of

that country in another space. A tech ambassador goes to Silicon Valley, goes to other places where the tech sector is really active and tries to interact with these big tech companies to work together. So, for instance, in my interview with the tech ambassador from Denmark, he said that he spent a lot of his time in Silicon Valley trying to have meetings with Facebook and Microsoft and Amazon and Apple and all those guys. How did that go? So he said it was a mixed bag. Some of the companies, I'm not even kidding.

He said some of the companies would send their CEO, which is appropriate for someone like an ambassador. He said some of the companies would send the equivalent of an intern. Wow. I mean, that's how much we don't really care about you. Yes, it sends quite a message. Yes, it does. That's incredible.

So do you feel like tech ambassadors? are going to be actually something that is used and we're going to see more of in the future? Or is it something that they're only meeting with interns. Let them go. No, I think we're absolutely going to see more tech ambassadors from nation states. But what's also interesting is that that same guy, Casper Kling, just got hired by Microsoft to open an office at the UN, to be an ambassador to the UN for Microsoft. Okay. Microsoft is now opening a representation office. It's just like countries open offices at the UN.

So it's going to go both ways. I mean, that's your net states right there. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I think that it's high time that the U.S. adopted this kind of ambassador itself. Not all of these companies, but most of them are based here. And I think it would be really helpful. Are you in touch with anyone that in our government that, you know, you've said, hey, what are we doing?

Why don't we do this? So I have talked with a number of different government officials. For the most part, the idea is that they're not quite on board yet with the idea that tech companies are something different than just big, big companies. And this is something that I'm arguing in the book needs to change. We need to change the way we think about them. They're not just like a big bank or a big retail store. They're in all these different sectors that have a lot of different inroads in our lives. and infrastructure that used to be owned by the public.

And I think that government needs to approach them very differently than they've approached traditional companies. So that brings me to my next note as I was going through the book. Privacy. And I wrote, in my notes, I wrote, privacy, new definition. I mean, we really kind of do have a new definition of privacy, right? We feel, using myself as an example. I mean, I kind of feel like, you know, I just want to take the picture.

Yeah, I click on the Terms of Service and we'll get to the Terms of Service, which I find fascinating. I mean, there's some great stats in here about those, about the Terms of Service. But, you know, as far as privacy goes, I know, I just don't share my information, whatever. I just want to take the picture. Okay, fine. I just want to take it. I just want to be able to, I want to be able to share the picture I took. Okay, fine.

I mean, we have a, the privacy is a whole new thing now, really, because it's not so much we care about privacy. I mean, we do, but we don't. I don't know. That's a long way to get to. There's a new definition of privacy, isn't there? Yeah, absolutely. And I think the way that you feel about it is the way most of us feel about it is that we want to use the tools. We invited them into our lives because they do something for us.

because they're things with their friends and our family and other people. But at the same time, it kind of irks us that we don't feel like the information is being stored in a private fashion. But at the same time, it's out of sight. It's kind of out of mind unless we hear headlines about it. So it's really easy to forget that it's happening. Now, that brings me to, you know, in terms of service here, I mean, it was fascinating to me that, and I don't think people realize, okay, So you have the terms of service for, let's say, Samsung.

You know, I have a, you know, I'm a Samsung user, so I have my terms of service for Samsung. But everything else that I use inside of Samsung has their own terms of service. That's right. So, I mean, where, when do we, do we use the tech ambassadors to lose some of that and make it all just kind of one thing? or what do you feel as the plan for that? So this is where I think that we have to differentiate between terms of service, which are really not for us. They're to protect companies.

They're sort of their, you know, make sure that they're all covered legally so that they can do what they're going to do. That's the kind of contract that terms of service are. I think we need some sort of other kind of understanding that we engage with as citizens with the tech companies that help protect our rights. Because as you said, it's not just the terms of service of the device you're using. It's every other app and company that is present on that device.

And then all the companies that they're partnering with and sharing data with that we may not even know about. Well, I find it, you know, I found it fascinating. And it may have been, it might have been your book or another one I was reading that talks about if I, you know, I may say no to a company sharing my information. information outside of them, but when I use another app in conjunction with them and I have their app open, then that information can be shared because it's all just fluid throughout both apps at the time, right?

Right, and not just the apps, but the ISP, the internet service provider, acts like this kind of net that takes, it's not only captures the data that goes through it, it's allowed to sell it. Incredible. Incredible. Okay, so when do I get? I know you went into the Declaration of Citizen User Rights. And we can talk a little bit about those, but when do I get to own me? When do I get to own me? I want to say yes and no to what I do. And I mean, that's never going to happen is it? I mean, really, we're way beyond that. But I mean, I really want to just say, look, I own me. And you ask if you want to use me. So this is the thing. In Europe, where they have the GDPR, the data protection rules, they treat people as data subjects. The way it works

there is that the person and their data are all one unit. But here in the States, data is treated as it's like some separate entity from the person that it came from. Like with HIPAA laws and personally identifying information laws, the data is not really attached to the person. So I could call my doctor and say, please transfer my medical data to this other hospital. And they can't do it because of the HIPAA law because it's like it's no longer attached to me. I don't have control over it. So I think we're past the point where we're going to be able to own ourselves and our data in the current structures that we have. I think we need some sort of massive change.

Okay, so your declaration of citizen user rights are what? If the tech ambassadors said, Alexis, we're leaving it up to you. It's up to you. You write it down and we'll do what you do. What would you have us do? So, well, the first thing I would make sure that we do is that we have some sort of enforcement body where we have not only rights, but that we can enforce our rights somewhere. So this, for instance, I'm not suggesting that we create another UN, but I'm saying, wouldn't it

be better if we had some sort of entity where our rights could be established and then enforced if they weren't taken seriously? So that's number one. There needs to be some enforcement. Now, the argument there here in the States would be, I mean, you have the court of law, right? I mean, that's, we have, we have the, you know, we have the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and we have the laws that we can follow us. Exactly. So, and I know that, right, I know there's a big but there. I get it because, you know, we have, you know, our social media companies want it both ways.

They want to be able to say we're, we're not a platform. We just provide, you know, people can do what they want. But on the other hand, they want to be able to edit. what we say too. That's a, it's not supposed to be that way. Yeah, I honestly think that the companies are in a real bind here because on the one hand, they don't want to take responsibility for the content that's on their platforms. But on the other hand, they don't want to have it polluted either with a lot of stuff that's really negative. But oh well, it's, that's really, that's me, I know, that's me talking. I'm sorry. Yeah, no, no, no, I hear you. I hear you. I think

it's a really tough place to be. But I think that one of the, the things that we need to think about in this kind of new paradigm we're in is that we should be able to be me with our data. We should be able to own our data and decide if somebody wants to use that data, what it's worth to us. So, and then I see you have, how many citizen rights do you have? Three, three, four, is that right? Just a few. And the idea behind this was that this would be sort of a starting point. That there should be some fundamental basics that

everybody should be permitted when it comes to their data and their rights and that it doesn't need to be complicated. We don't need like another 50 page terms of service for citizens. Nobody's going to use that or it's not going to be read. But the idea is that if we had

some sort of basic understanding of okay, this data that's associated with the person is theirs, they own it. They can sell it if they want they can keep it to themselves if they want. But the problem is all of these platforms that we're talking about that use our data, their entire business models have been designed around monetizing that data. So one of the things that I'm suggesting is that instead of us giving it away as a default,

that there would be some sort of financial transaction where we have a say in what we can charge for our data and what the data is worth. I'm all about that. Right now, right now it's just we don't really have any control other than not to use these platforms, which in 2020 is pretty hard. Right. I mean, that's the whole, I mean, at least in the, you know, it used to be I could say no to something and, you know, I could still use the app.

And if I say no to one thing, then I can't use the app. And again, I just want to take the picture. Exactly. And also, these big tech companies, they're not. They own so many other companies that even if you avoid somehow the big ones, there's a very good chance that you're going to be using one of the ancillary companies they own and not be aware of it. Remember when Facebook got in trouble with Cambridge Analytica? Yeah.

All these people flocked to Instagram. Instagram is owned by Facebook. No, they didn't realize it. So it was silly. And I say it's silly. It's not silly. People are trying to, you know, be private. And you just aren't.

You just can't. which just gets back to me where, you know, it's a new definition of privacy, really. And I don't know that, I mean, we, we're never going to be private anymore. Those days, I think, are gone. I realize you can be off the grid and you can live in, you know, in the middle of New Mexico and, you know, pretend to be off the grid. But I talked to a guy, a couple years ago, I talked to a guy who, you know, hey, I was proud about being off the grid.

but he said, you know, yeah, but I don't know, I've got my, I got my dish just so I can catch NASCAR on the weekends. I think, well, then you're not off the grid, man. What are you talking about? You're just not. Yeah, no, unless you want to really go, like, live in a cave somewhere, it's very difficult to have a sense of privacy. And it'll be interesting to see what happens in places like California where they're trying to enact these stricter privacy laws. But the ironic thing is to make sure that, so in California, if you want to say, to a company, I want to see what data you have on me.

You have to, in some cases, upload things like your driver's license so they can verify that you are who you say you are, but it means you're giving up more of data to be able to access your data. So it seems like there's got to be another way. And I mean, you're, you know, you're far more into it than I am. I don't see that other way. I don't know what it is. I mean, I've thought about it and thought about it.

And I certainly, you know, am not as smart as Alexis Wichowski. and I don't see it. I was hoping that, you know, that you'd have that for me. Alexis, give it to me. Tell me. What's the way? What's the way? I want the answer.

Yeah, I want the answer too. And the thing is, that'll be the next book, because this book is really just kind of identifying that it's a problem. Because I think a lot of people aren't even aware of how big a problem it is. And you definitely share how big a problem it is. There's no question about that. So what are you worried about? What are you worried about?

What worries me is how much of the technology that is going to be used in the next 10 years will be in our physical environment that we don't even see. So, for instance, a lot of people have video surveillance cameras like ring. And that you can see. It's a camera. But we're moving into these kind of smart cities, where there are going to be sensors that are able to communicate data that kind of blend into the background. And they're already existing, they already exist in certain ways, but they're not collecting personal information.

They collect things like environmental temperature, condition, and things like that. But sensors will become smarter. They will collect more data. And they're not necessarily something that you're going to notice. So even when you keep your phone off or disqualify, I'm not going to go on Instagram today. It doesn't mean that there's no data being collected about you. Is your phone ever off?

That's another good question. I'd like to think that there's still a way to turn it off, but maybe I'm being naive. Right. And look, and again, the only way, you know, sure, I can decide not to have a phone. And I can decide no problem not to have a phone. But then I get even in my in my old VW bug, that I'm driving. You know, I have, you know, I have a GM that I have shut off.

But, you know, there's still, the information data still can be run on it. It's just, you know, you're not away from it. And so, and that's exactly what you said, right? That information is in our face. And what's scary is, it's not in our face and yet it's still there. Yeah. And there was a really interesting experiment done where someone talked about in the book converted her home into as much of a smart home as possible,

with internet enabled everything, including like the coffee maker and our toothbrush and all that. And the thing she said was it was very quickly invisible. It's very quickly you just didn't notice it anymore. And I think that's where we're heading. Well, I mean, that's, and that isn't even getting us into AI, right? I mean, that's not even getting us into having a robot bring me my soda.

Right. I mean, that's a whole other world. And so, you know, I'm all for it. I'm all for Rosie bringing me my soda. But I kind of want to know it's rosy and not someone that looks like a human that isn't a human. But I know that's a whole other.

You can use that for your third book, Alexa, no problem. Yeah, that would be, I had a whole collection out of this conversation. It's great. Alexis Wachowski, the author of the information trade. How Big Tech Conquers Countries Countries, challenges our rights and transforms our world. Fascinating read. Well worth your time.

I enjoyed it. And I enjoyed talking to you. Thank you so much, Alexis. Thank you. The book is available. They can get it anywhere. It's a world. It's so they can get it online.

You can find it anywhere. You can find it on your phone. Find it online. And of course, you want people to use the Internet of Things to get the the book, the information trade. I mean, that's the trade-off. I'm old-fashioned. I still like hard covers, but, you know, I do also read e-books, so anywhere you want to get it is available.

E-books are tough for me. I really, I mean it. I love, you know, as much as I read, it's unavoidable to me, but I do like a real book in my hands. I do. Yeah. I'm with you on that. So Alexis Waussey, thank you so much for talking to us today.

I appreciate it. and we will look forward to, we will look forward to the success of this book and your next one. You know, well, you're doing nothing with your life. Just write another book tomorrow and be done with it. Sounds good, right? Thank you so much.

Thank you. Talk to you later.