Front Burner - Money, misinformation and Facebook’s plans for the future

Episode Date: October 29, 2019

On Monday, Facebook employees wrote an open letter to the company’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, protesting the decision to let politicians run false claims on the platform. Reporter Adi Robertson on where the company goes from here.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. So you won't take down lies or you will take down lies? I think it's just a pretty simple yes or no. Congresswoman, I believe that people should be able to see for themselves what politicians that they may or may not vote for are saying.

So you won't take them down. That's their character for themselves. So it feels like Facebook has been on the defensive for years now. And they have all sorts of reasons to be. Like the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where a shady firm mined user data for political ads. The way the platform was used to manipulate the 2016 U.S. election. Or the daily horrors faced by its content moderators. Most recently, they've been

fighting off a growing political movement to break the company up. And throughout all of this, Facebook has issued piecemeal responses, admitted mistakes, and promised to do better. And I feel blessed to be in a position where we can make a difference in people's lives. But now, the Facebook founder has issued a kind of manifesto for the company's future, a big picture look at how he wants to operate going forward. And he's going toe-to-toe with American politicians who think Facebook has just gotten too big and too powerful. And are willing to step on or over anyone, including your competitors, women, people of color, your own users, and even our democracy. So where is Facebook heading?

We'll try and answer that with Addie Robertson from The Verge today. This is Frontburner. Addie, hello. Hi. Thanks for being here. Yeah, thank you. So news just broke about an hour ago, you and I are talking Monday afternoon, that a bunch of Facebook employees wrote this open letter to Mark Zuckerberg.

And they're saying that the platform shouldn't let politicians post false claims through ads. And they write it is a threat to what Facebook stands for. And so I want to unpack this with you throughout our conversations today. But just right off the top, what are your reactions to this letter? It certainly seems like it fits a pattern of growing semi-public employee activism. That's happened inside Facebook. It's happened in Google and Microsoft. Often over specific contracts that companies are signing.

often over specific contracts that companies are signing. But in this case, it's about a really big sweeping issue that Mark Zuckerberg has, like you said, delivered a manifesto about. So it's interesting to see this more limited, but still sort of manifesto-like dissent from inside the company. Yeah, 250 employees. I mean, I know there's 35,000 in Facebook, but that's not a small number. We can't tell whether or not it's representative of majority opinion inside Facebook, but it's certainly a group of people and a group of people who are taking a certain amount of risk. Right. So let's get to the backstory, what actually

informed this letter. You sort of hinted at it in your answer. This all stems from these U.S. congressional hearings last week, right? They were ostensibly about Facebook's proposed cryptocurrency, but they really ended up being about political ads. This hearing is entitled, An Examination of Facebook and its Impact on the Financial Services and Housing Sectors. I've come to the conclusion that it would be beneficial for all if Facebook concentrates on addressing its many existing deficiencies and failures before proceeding any further on the Libra project. Theoretically about cryptocurrency, but were about really anything anyone was worried about with Facebook. Yeah, yeah. Give me some highlights.

Yeah. So this is sort of an ongoing back and forth with Mark Zuckerberg and politicians that Donald Trump ran an ad that was repeating claims that are, as far as we know, false about Joe Biden and his son. Right, about the Ukraine. Yeah. Yes. And then Mark Zuckerberg decided that they weren't going to fact check ads. He sort of made that declaration. As a principle in a democracy, I believe that people should decide what is credible, not

tech companies. And then Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sort of then flipped that and said, look, if I put out an ad saying that a Republican politician supported the Green New Deal. I mean, if you're not fact checking political advertisements, I'm just trying to understand the bounds here. What's fair game? I don't know the answer to that off the top of my head. And he sort of dodged the question. His argument is just if you're going to lie to your constituents, then we should be able to show them that you're the kind of person who lies. Right.

I think lying is bad. And I think if you were to run an ad that had a lie, that would be bad. That's different from it being, in our position, the right thing to do to prevent your constituents or people in an election from seeing that you had lied. Right. Maxine Waters pushed back on this quite hard. Democrat Maxine Waters.

She's saying the reason that they're leaving the ads up isn't because, you know, you want to show political speech. That gives politicians a license to lie so you can earn more money off this division, I suppose. Yeah, which he's sort of pushed back on in his speech earlier. He's argued this is like a really tiny part of Facebook's business, that it would be in a lot of ways easier to ban this stuff altogether. The controversy certainly is not worth the very small part of our business that they make up. And I think that might be accurate in a micro sense.

It's not necessarily that Facebook makes a ton of money from political ads specifically, but it would signal a pretty big limitation if they banned them. And it would probably also make a fair number of people angry. Right. And tell me a little bit more about that. Like the idea that Zuckerberg is kind of leaning in here to this new manifesto, this free speech manifesto that he has. There seems to be that if we're going to have limits on speech, it's very dangerous for a massive company that has sort of a stranglehold on speech to be putting limitations on that speech. And while I certainly worry about an erosion of truth, I don't think most people want to live in a world where you can only post things that tech companies judge to be

100% true. Or that if politicians want to tell their constituents things that are bad, then the constituents should have the right to be able to hear them speak and to be able to make their own judgments. And that if you have these fact-checking campaigns, then often they can get weaponized against people who are marginalized and they'll end up supporting incumbent players. Political ads can be an important part of voice, especially for local candidates and up and coming challengers and advocacy groups and the media might not otherwise cover.

So that way they can get their voice into the debate. Right. Tell me more about that. How could a fact checking campaign get weaponized against people who are marginalized, for example? So there's been an argument in the 2020 American campaign that there are fact checkers from major papers that will try to pick holes in arguments that they essentially just don't agree with and that they'll treat them with much harsher scrutiny. that they essentially just don't agree with and that they'll treat them with much harsher scrutiny. This has been an issue with Bernie Sanders' campaign. There's always a certain amount of ideology when you're checking facts. And it is entirely plausible that, say, a bunch of trolls could try to report every single campaign ad from a small candidate with a new political platform,

and that then they could just weigh down all of those ads and fact checking. Right. And, you know, just talking about fact checking for a second, much has been made of fact checking in Facebook over the last, you know, several months. What are we talking about here? He's saying he's not going to fact check political ads, but they are fact checking other content on the site, right? How is that working? To some extent, we don't know how it works because a lot of this seems to be made up on the fly. I find it all very confusing. But based on what we understand, there are fact checkers that belong to a variety of organizations. They check general posts, but they do not check politicians' posts. We don't do this to help politicians, but because

we think people should be able to see for themselves what politicians are saying. We don't do this to help politicians, but because we think people should be able to see for themselves what politicians are saying. And for the same reason, if content is newsworthy, we also won't take it down even if it would otherwise conflict with some of our standards. This carries on over into paid advertisements, as far as we know, that then they will not fact check things that politicians say. But based on events that have happened this weekend, they do seem to fact check really egregious lies from groups that are not politicians making claims about politicians. So earlier, after Facebook talked about how it wouldn't take down or fact check claims, it actually did take down an advertisement from a third party group that was claiming that Lindsey Graham, who's a Republican,

supported the Democratic Green New Deal. And Facebook justified this by saying that, well, it wasn't an ad from a politician. It was just an ad from another group about a politician. Got it. It is very confusing. And also, I also find it confusing, like how many resources are being thrown at this and how it's's even possible to fact-check all of this stuff. It's moving at such a fast clip. Right, and Facebook adding to that has, it draws a distinction between speech that is false and speech that is, quote, inauthentic. And that's how it got around the Russian election meddling issue.

Focusing on the authenticity of the speaker rather than trying to judge the content itself. Much of the content that those Russian accounts shared was distasteful, but it would have been considered permissible political discourse if it had been shared by real American citizens. But because you're doing it under false pretenses, that's inauthentic, and that's a different category entirely. Got it.

That Facebook can draw out. It's kind of like a game of Calvin ball. There's an argument to be made that they just make up a new rule whenever they need to do something and then they retroactively justify it. And look, what do we know about the algorithms? Because I get this free speech argument that Zuckerberg is putting forward, but I always find it a bit confusing that people aren't talking about the second part of this argument, which is the amplification of that speech, right? Like, maybe you have a right to say all sorts of things, but do you necessarily have a right

for this information to be amplified and delivered to people through news feeds, through ads, you know, this kind of stuff? Right. And that's part of what the letter was about today. Their statement being that there's a difference between speech and paid speech that we boost to everybody. So that's ads. And then the problem is that Facebook is just designed in a way where everything is sort of a zero sum content game. There's so much content posted that to some extent, Facebook is always going to be deciding what to prioritize to people who use Facebook. And so it's really difficult to come up with the sort of neutral quote unquote algorithm. So there's always going to be some level of value judgment. Right. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem.

Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. You know, this speech that he gave before the congressional hearings, this free speech speech. Why do you think he gave it then? Is it because he was waiting for the hearings? Is it because he knew that this was coming? Why are we hearing all of this from Mark Zuckerberg? Now it feels like a more coherent approach than we have in the past. I don't know if you think that that's fair, but. like a more coherent approach than we have in the past.

I don't know if you think that that's fair, but. I think it's coming because it came on the heels of a lot of debate over checking politicians' speech and debating what politicians should be able to say online on web platforms. And so they're stepping into this minefield of the 2020 election. We're stepping into this minefield of the 2020 election. And at this point, like this is actually a fairly good time for Facebook to try to put forward a unified theory of speech, which I don't know if this necessarily was all the time. But it's something that they're now taking very seriously, it seems like. We're seeing people across the spectrum try to define more speech as dangerous because it may lead to political outcomes that they see as unacceptable. Some hold the view that since the stakes are now so high, they can no longer trust their fellow citizens with the power to communicate and to decide what to believe for themselves.

I personally believe that this is more dangerous for democracy over the long term than almost any speech. You heard him talk a lot in the speech of American values, this American company with American values. And where do you think that's coming from? The Chinese company ByteDance, which makes the app TikTok, has been incredibly successful. And it's been one of the first sort of Chinese apps to really break into the social space internationally.

It's now a feasible competitor to a lot of these American platforms. And there's been an ongoing debate about whether it's ties to the Chinese government or it's being subject to censorship poses problems, like whether it's censoring content from the Hong Kong protests, or whether there is speculation about whether, say, it's information on it is secure. Mm hmm. You have a growing number of U.S. lawmakers, including Tom Cotton and Chuck Schumer, arguing that this growing popularity creates some national security risks.

There are 110 million Americans who have information with TikTok and the Chinese government could be grabbing every one of them. We don't know a lot about this. There have been old documents that suggest it had a pretty intense censorship system for a while, that they say they've retired. But it's created this thing that Facebook can now position itself against. While our services like WhatsApp are used by protesters and activists everywhere due to strong encryption and privacy protections.

On TikTok, the mentions of these same protests are censored, even here in the U.S. It's interesting seeing Facebook's response here because, you know, it's certainly not the same as Apple's, right? Right. And Apple is constantly taking other tech companies to task for not protecting people's privacy. other tech companies to task for not protecting people's privacy. And this is an area where Facebook, because it genuinely doesn't operate very much in China, it was being kicked out essentially in 2009, that it actually has a leg to stand on here that Apple does a lot of business in China. It is compromised a lot with storing information and with pulling apps off the app store. And Facebook can pretty credibly say we're not doing that. Do you think, you know, there's a political move here in comparing this company to like TikTok and what's happening with TikTok right now, which I think are very valid

criticisms. But, you know, there is this big movement right now to break up Facebook. And it does seem like Zuckerberg is trying to position himself in a way to say, look, like we need to compete with these Chinese companies like TikTok and we need to be Facebook in its entirety to do that. But I also hope that we get a chance to talk about the risks of not innovating. Because while we debate these issues, the rest of the world isn't waiting. Yeah, exactly. His argument is, if you break us up, we won't be powerful enough to fight companies like ByteDance and other really big Chinese tech companies. Right. And what do you make of that argument? And of course, for people listening, this argument to break up Facebook, it essentially is to break it up into

smaller pieces. So maybe Messenger would be its own separate company. Maybe Instagram would be its own separate company, all owned by Facebook. And they have to compete with each other. And in that competition, you hope that some sort of equilibrium develops, like maybe you would just pay a fee and then nobody would sell you any ads to be on one of these platforms. But what do you make of the argument that Zuckerberg's making essentially that this is geopolitical fight and that Facebook has to come out on top? Do you buy that? I think that if you're taking antitrust action against Facebook to mean we should burn Facebook to the ground and salt the earth, then that's definitely an argument you can make. The counter argument to this is that antitrust is meant to create a healthy environment for companies to compete. That if you end up having just a couple of giant companies that buy up anyone who's doing something new, then you're creating a situation in the U.S. where tech companies just aren't as healthy as they could be if you had meaningful competition. And where do you think this conversation around breaking up Facebook might go? This was sort of a fringe idea like two years ago. So it's really fascinating to me that now you see presidential candidates basically campaigning on this.

Elizabeth Warren, she talks about this a lot. It's about all those little businesses and startup businesses and entrepreneurs who want to put their products on Amazon or on Google and who are at an enormous competitive disadvantage because Amazon or Google, if they like the money they see that you're making because they get all the information, they decide to go into competition with you and put their product on page one. Facebook is already under investigation under the current administration for antitrust issues. There, it seems sort of like a political move to some extent,

like that this is a way to keep Facebook in line potentially. But people like Elizabeth Warren, as Mark Zuckerberg has noted, are really gung-ho about this. And this is a huge part of their platform, breaking up lots of tech companies, not just Facebook. And it definitely seems like something that's considered feasible now in a way that it would not necessarily have been before. With all of these pressures

and all of these political conversations happening, and this is such a complicated issue, where do you think Facebook will be five years from now? election, then it's going to be very awkward if Facebook does nothing. And there's going to be a very strong push for Facebook to do something like spin off Instagram or WhatsApp. I think there's also a world in which, say, if Trump is reelected, Facebook just kind of keeps its head low and muddles along for a while until people forget about it. Right. Or forget that they hate it. And do you think in some ways that the company is trying to bank on that right now? I know they've been having meetings lately with prominent conservatives. This speech about free speech, it certainly struck a chord with conservatives. The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Laudermilk.

I hope that you take this in the complimentary way that I mean it. But there's another gentleman in this town that I think you and he share a lot together, and that's President Trump. You're both very successful businessmen. You're both capitalists. You're both billionaires. You've done very well. And Facebook has weathered a lot less criticism than Google and Amazon from Trump and sort of Trump supporters. Yeah. So yeah, there's an argument that this is working. Okay. Addie Robertson, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. So obviously, lots of people have been weighing in on Zuckerberg's recent news. But before we go today, I want to play you a clip of a former senior executive at Facebook, Chamath Palihapitiya.

He's commenting on CNBC yesterday. And that other guy chiming in there is Virgin's Richard Branson. If you follow your morals and ethics, you may make changes to the business that literally suppress the value of the business. The other alternative is just to say, you know what, let's just take a here no evil, see no evil approach and we're going to maximize business value. They should do the right thing. So far, their choices have been the latter,

but I agree with Richard, they should do the right thing. Okay, that is all for today. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner and see you tomorrow.