Pivot - Antitrust gets real, Facebook purges QAnon, and a prediction about AWS

Episode Date: October 9, 2020

Kara and Scott talk about the House Judiciary Committee releasing their report after a 15-month antitrust investigation into the 'Big Four'. They also discuss Facebook (finally) purging QAnon accounts and pages from their platform. In listener mail, we get a question from Hawaii about children's privacy in distance learning apps. Scott's prediction is that AWS will spinoff in 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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hours of entertainment, delicious dining, and warm, welcoming service that's designed around you. Check out virginatlantic.com for your next trip to London and beyond and see for yourself how traveling for business can always be a pleasure. Hi, everyone. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Come on. I want to start a band, you and me, called Pink Eye and the Fly. What do you think? Pink Eye and the Fly. It was disturbing. It was hard to look away. I just can't tolerate it when you objectify and comment on the looks of a white man. I'm just sick of it.

Are you? We've had it. We're sick of being objectified. The fly was, you know, a fly landed on Hillary Clinton in one of the last debates, if you recall. I don't remember that. Yeah? I don't remember that. There was a fly.

It's really interesting. I mean, the debate was whatever. It was sort of— A 40-ton seal landed on her. Yeah, I know. The debate was whatever. You know, it's so interesting. What was interesting to me to watch the reaction today, one, that Trump then did an interview

that stomped all over any good news about the debate. I mean, he didn't, you know, he didn't like ruin himself in the way Trump does on stage. And then he, Trump managed to say 26 things, all of which are controversial and, and step all over it, which is what he does all the time, essentially. What did you think of the debate? I think it was fine. It was fine. You know what? I really liked it actually. I think, I mean, I watch CNN, so, and it does if, according to the post polls, that she won, especially among women. But I thought the vice president did a good job. I thought she did a good job.

But more than anything, it just made me feel like, okay, that's America. It was two people going at it. They were respectful of one another. I thought the moderator did a good job. I didn't think she got him to answer the questions. They kept not answering. I mean, that's typical debate, but I think someone should say, hey, that's not the question I asked. Please answer it.

But the problem is they should have said at the outset, you will have two minutes uninterrupted except by me if you don't answer the question. Right. Yeah, exactly. You know who I miss? Who was, I think, would have been the best moderator for something like this? Gwen Ifill. Sam Donaldson. Oh, yeah.

I remember him. He just didn't take that crap in debates. He'd be like, sir, please answer the question. I mean, you're not answering the question. That's all fine and good, but you're not answering the question. But I thought it was a good debate. I thought, and not only that, just Democrats. We went into this optimistically, which is sort of dangerous, so it was a good night for us instead of going in nervous. And I came out of the first debate with total PTSD. I

just thought it was so rattling. And this one was a good debate. So I felt good about Senator Harris. I felt good about Vice President Pence. And I felt good about America. What did you think? It was fine. I don't think it matters a scooch. You know what I mean? The fly was the most interesting part of the debate, essentially. And it was metaphoric in a bad way for the Republicans, like, you know, all that you saw, the tweets and stuff. But I think that hardly matters. I think it's just a sidelight. You know, they didn't answer the questions, which was frustrating. He was incredibly polite to her, which was interesting, interesting way to handle it. I think he knew he couldn't be sort of dismissive to a woman. And, and she knew she couldn't be too

prosecutorial, right? She couldn't be too offensive to men. I think that was kind of what was going on. The interrupting part, I don't know. She, he, that was the moderator's fault. And I thought, you know, he, he just kept talking and plowingowing through which i think is what you do in these there's like a he must have been taught like game issues the only thing i thought is he didn't um he wasn't he's so like he's such kind of weird countenance that i think he needs to understand he's being watched all the time you know you know what i mean, he didn't seem to be aware there was a TV aimed at him. And I didn't care about her making faces. I don't care.

He made faces, too. I don't care about that. I don't think that matters. A lot of this. I do think, though, I agree with you as it relates to this election. It's unimportant. But I do think that debate was somewhat historic. I felt it was historic.

And then I was sitting there watching Pence. Yeah. It really was. This election does come down to, you know, kind of the Republicans are, we are the white patriarchy and we are not perfect, but it's worked really well for a really long time. And you're losing the white heteronormative patriarchy. And the browning of America is a threat, both in terms of what's happening literally with immigrants and just metaphorically in terms of this political correctness and taking us away from American values. That's basically what the Republican Party is saying right now. Yeah. And he represents that.

Pence represents that. And then you have a woman of color who's the daughter of an immigrant who is, you know, a district, oversaw the largest Department of Justice of the second. And she is, it really felt like the baton, assuming that Biden and Harris win, the baton is being passed in America. This is, you know, it's kind of their moment. And this is where America officially says, all right, it's no longer about the white guy. So I do think we might look back on this and think that's when the baton was actually handed over, I think. Yeah, I think he was fine. I think it was about 2024.

The whole thing was about 2024. And by the way, there's two things I don't forgive for Mike Pence. His ridiculous stance on gay people, which is just, he has so many ridiculous stances. I do think electroshock therapy is a viable treatment for homosexuality care. Come on. I'll never look at him and be able to engage with him. And I do think, yeah, you want to just make, go ahead. Shock therapy.

He's crazy about that. That'll fix it. All the gay people I know, that'll work. We don't need fixing, sweetheart. That'll work. And then the other issue is that he sort of stands by and lets Trump stomp all over him. And so many, he just seems to just take it. And it's just a weird thing.

The only thing I did think was offensive, and I think it does matter, is his wife get us on stage without a mask. You know what I mean? Like, can she just put on a frigging mask? Terrible. Like, what is, is that her little moment of freedom? Like, it's just like, find your freedom elsewhere, lady. You know, it was really,

I found that offensive. Anyway. What's offensive, though? Just about masking? My kids are- Just ask people to do it. Just do it. 15 minutes.

Just do it. Stop. I know, but here's the thing is, they're playing to a large segment of America because what I found out this week in my school, supposedly there's a, or my kids' class today, there's a petition going around.

We're blessed. We've been able to go back in person. They have a lot of resources. They've been very aggressive. They're doing rapid testing, a plexiglass, and we're blessed in that there's not a lot of density. And so far, knock on wood, everything's going fine. And there's now a petition, supposedly, for the kids not to have to wear masks. Oh, it's probably some cranky parents. There's always a cranky parent in every school about whatever it is. Yeah, I think there's more than one cranky parent. Whatever. It's just like, come on, you've been in the politics of kindergarten or sort of rather, like, I remember one about, I don't remember. It was something so dumb and I refused to even call back.

Like, come on. You're just above it. You're above this kindergarten politics. I am above this stuff. You're above it. Kindergarten politics. But listen, Trump continued to use Twitter to govern. He was crazy on the Twitter this week, really crazy on the Twitter. What do you mean this week?

Well, this week was, it's the steroids talking. I mean, he halted the COVID stimulus package, the markets didn't like it. Then he reneged the decision. And then he was obsessed with the FBI. He went on the insulting bar. It's just steroids are some drug. I'll tell you that. That's all I got to say. Yeah, I don't know.

Do you want steroids? I think, actually, I think that's the real Trump. No, I should be, though. I would like to. I'd like to be jacked. Oh, my God. I would like to be jacked. You want steroids with me.

I'd like to own the most valuable company in the world, be jacked, and be dating somebody. I'm in. I'm in. Now, you want steroids would be a nightmare for me. Do you know that? Do you understand? You think? Really? I could use a little pep. Have you ever taken steroids, to be honest with me? Have I ever taken steroids? No, I've never taken steroids. I've taken testosterone. I went to one of these Florida doctors. Is that a steroid? Yes. Other than, I started going a little. It's the biggest one. My balls shrank to the size of peas and I started getting hair on my eyeballs.

But other than that, I felt really good. I felt really good. Why did you take that? Why did you take that? Because I live in Florida and because I'm dying and I don't want to die and I'm having a midlife crisis that will end all midlife crises. That's the bad news. It's testosterone and steroid. The bad news is I'm in the midst of a full-blown midlife crisis.

The good news is I think I'm going to grow out of it in 30 or 40 years. Anyways, I did three of these testosterone shots in my ass. How did you feel? I felt jumpy. And I don't know. I just didn't. I thought. And then I went to my doctor in New York.

And I'm like, I'm on T-therapy. That's what they call it, T-therapy. And he's like, what the fuck are you on testosterone for? And I'm like, I don't know. I just didn't. I thought, and then I went to my doctor in New York and I'm like, I'm on T therapy. That's what they call it, T therapy. And he's like, what the fuck are you on testosterone for? And I'm like, I don't know. I want to feel young again. He's like, dude, you don't need testosterone. Get off it. Get off it. Anyways, I only did. Men lose their testosterone over time. Women get more. That's a news alert. Really? Yeah. That's a hot flash.

Speaking of hot flashes. Word is we do lose our testosterone. The T does decline. What do you know? Something bad happens as you get older. What a shocker. Yeah. But a lot of guys are on it. Anywho. I don't recommend it. I'm really looking forward to next week. Have you ever had shots of testosterone? No. Any steroids? No. I'm trying to think if there was any illness. Sometimes they use them for different illnesses, and I don't think so. Not that I remember. I would have remembered that. Sometimes steroids are used for real medical procedures,

but in this case, it's come down. It's going to be quite a crash. It's going to be something else, unless they just keep it on them, and that's really unhealthy for someone that age. Anyway, lastly, very quickly, an important scoop from Recode reporters Jason Del Rey and Shereen Ghaffari.

Amazon is investing in technology to track and counter the threat of worker unionization. Oh, Amazon. What do you think about that, Kara? I think it's what a surprise. And, you know, it's inevitable. Amazon will be unionized. I'm sorry, Amazon. You can fight and, you know, you're going to be unionized eventually.

Back to the testosterone. The thing about the testosterone was... Speaking of testosterone. When you take tea therapy, supposedly from that point, every time you orgasm, your voice gets deeper. And I turned into Barry White already. I was just Barry. I'm already Barry White. Oh, my God. That's good testosterone humor. Good to know the drugs are on. Next week on Monday, we'll discuss your use of other drugs. Anyway, I am drug free.

No, you're going to need a longer show. Yeah, exactly. We're going to need a longer show. It's so interesting because I like take no drugs, and you take a lot of drugs. It's just an interesting thing. Well, truth be told, when you joke as much as I do about taking drugs, it means you don't take a lot of drugs, Cara. I don't agree with you. No, I don't take a lot of drugs.

Anyway, all right. Why, are you holding? I'm down. You holding? You know what? You holding? That looks like there's a fly on your head. No, I don't take a lot of drugs. Anyway, all right. No judgment. Why, are you holding? I'm down. You holding? You know what? You holding? That looks like there's a fly on your head. No.

There you go. It's totally a fly. There you go. I'm sorry I got us off track. Jason Del Rey. Where would the fly land on your head? More original recode reporting. More original recode reporting.

What happened? It was great. It was a great point. What did dreamy Jason Del Rey find out? He found out that Amazon's tracking unionization. Of course. Of course they would. It's a threat to their business plan. It's a great story. You should read it. Okay,

we're going to go on to big stories. The House Judiciary Committee, no surprise, published their report from 15-month investigation into the big four's antitrust issues. As a reminder, the CEOs from Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon all testified in front of Congress. We discussed that on the show. Based on the report, the CEOs from Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon all testified in front of Congress. We discussed that on the show. Based on the report, the House Democrats proposed a massive overhaul of U.S. laws that can make it easier to break up giant tech companies and slow their growth. Probably all companies, not just tech companies. But according to the New York Times, there was disagreement among Democrats and Republicans on how to regulate the companies. The Republicans thought that was a nuclear option.

And over to the right, Jim Jordan was mad they didn't discuss conservative bias. But the others were more focused on the relief that was sought. While you were out in August, Stephanie Ruhle and I talked with Representative David Cicilline about that. He was all over the news talking about it. So what do you think that means? Did you look at the report? I certainly did. What did you think about it? Okay, I read the report. Okay, I thought the report was very simple and straightforward, that Facebook has a monopoly, that Amazon abuses its retail partners, that Google with a 93%, I mean, it just kind of stated the obvious.

Now, the question is, what actually happens? Did they use it as a framework to pass new laws? But it was simple. It was elegant. It was elegant. It was common sense. So good for them. Yeah.

So what do you think will happen? I don't know. Look, I've had my heart broken around this several times, but I do think there's a lot of momentum. It feels like something is going to happen. I think that these guys are so smart. I think other than Zuckerberg, who's really going to cling to this and go to war, I think the others are going to come to some sort of accommodation or they're going to prophylactically spin something because I think they realize they would rather decide how this happens and have it be done to them. This is my column this week in the New York Times. Yes, it should. They should go along with it, as you have said. And their stocks will go up. So, you know, if Bezos becomes the largest

shareholder in the most valuable company in the world, and that is a recently spun cloud company called AWS, that's not the worst thing in the world to happen to him. If all of a sudden, if YouTube trades on its own or Google Cloud trades on its own, that's not the worst thing to happen to Google. So, and I said last week, and you said that my prediction might, you didn't think it was going to happen because you thought it could all be undone. But I said I thought that actually they might come to some sort of agreements before the election such that Bill Barr and Donald Trump could waive some sort of October surprise victory. But I think it's coming. What will be interesting is whether it happens to them, whether this results in loss.

Supposedly there's all sorts of partisan squabbling already. We'll go bigger. But, yeah, this is going to happen. This is blown by any reasonable scrutiny, any reasonable benchmark of previous intervention around antitrust. What will be interesting is that there'll be regulation for the app store. Or an overhaul of the antitrust laws. I think that's really where the focus should be.

We're going to go Brandesian. We're going to go all Brandesian. Brandesian, okay. Well, we need an overhaul of the antitrust laws to really reflect today. And it's not just, by the way, it's not just tech. It's all a lot of stuff. You know, I was talking to someone at the Justice Department. They were saying there's all kinds of weird monopolies in strange places.

I forget there was one that they were talking about. But, you know, the idea of what is consumer harm, that it should be rewritten, is all an important thing. And one thing people don't realize is the slowness of this. You and I always complain about the slowness, but these are steps that they need to take. They need to do the investigation. They've got to look like they're legislating, which this is, which is to take time to do investigations. And then it's just essentially a strong arm back and forth over negotiations, over how it's going to go down. I do think these companies understand,

except for your right, Facebook, that they do understand this is going to happen to them, and they need to sort of be in the right place to get either the least amount happen to them or what they would prefer of the inevitable. Yeah, I think that's right. It's, you know, whenever you want to cop a playwright, the best deal they're going to have is the one they shape. Right. And they're in a position to do that. So we'll see, but we're starting to hear, Mark, Senator Warner is starting to take a more active role or be more vocal. And I think, I like him.

I think he's a very reasoned, thoughtful voice. He has a background in technology. So he's sort of well-versed or well-suited to be a spokesperson for this. It'll just be, but to your point, does antitrust go more Brandeisian, where consumer harm's not the test, it's market power? What are we going to do around? I think the really interesting, tricky one is going to be Apple. I think the other one, anyways, we'll see. Yeah, I agree. It was interesting, though, that Amazon did put out like, this is not consumer harm. They're arguing a thing from the past. I think that was, I was looking at their statements. Everybody

loves using Amazon. That's not the point here. And I think that's, I was looking at their statements. Everybody loves using Amazon. That's not the point here. And I think that's, they're sort of arguing for 20 years ago, essentially. And so they really all should get fast forward on this and right away. And right away, why not? You can control your fate in this kind of stuff. And they will have a lot of, you know, I don't think, I don't think given all the other problems we have, politicians want to fight this one as much. And if they let the politicians do it, it's going to be done with an ugly looking knife, you know, a dull knife that's going to cut in the wrong way. And so I think we have to have the companies part of this, consumer groups, politicians, and citizens to start to do this right.

And I think it would be a really interesting thing if they could not do it this old way. What's interesting is this upcoming DOJ lawsuit still isn't coming. It was supposed to be last week. It was supposed to be announced. There was some pushback by prosecutors. I think they're going to release it the same day they release their health care plan. Oh, yeah, right. We're waiting for that.

And infrastructure week, probably taking place during infrastructure week. I mean, I think the problem is that Trump keeps stepping all over this stuff, you know, as there's no way to govern when it was screamy. You know, he's screaming in the lawn. This has been such an, I mean, it's, this has been the worst 30 days. I'm trying to think. I don't think there's been a worse 30 days for a president. I don't. I'm not understanding it.

It's not, I don't know. He must have some, like, young guy there and he just yells at him to do things and then they do them. That's my. I think it's falling apart. I really do. I think when you keep when you keep, you know, Maureen Dowd sort of summarized it perfectly after Walter Reed, after that ridiculous press conference and basically the erosion and the credibility that Walter Reed has spent decades building through outstanding service of thousands of talented people. And basically, Donald Trump manages to totally screw up their brand by forcing this doctor to go out and lie.

And Maureen Todd summarizes, like, is there anything he can't ruin? Or is there anything he doesn't ruin? And when you think about the number of people that, we're dealing not only with the B team, they're out to lunch. There's no one there. I think if you look at the operations of the government, if you look at the communications, if you look at the inconsistency, you think, oh, it seems like it's run by an old man who is sick. And what do you know? That's what's going on right now. It's just, I think it's, I think it's, chaos is the wrong word. It's just flat, irrational.

Think about everything that's happened the last four weeks. It has been a total meltdown. You know what story you didn't bring up that we were talking about last week? Did you see that your buddy has announced that he's a large shareholder in Disney? Who is my buddy? Dan Loeb. Oh, is he? Dan Loeb wrote a letter to Disney announcing he owns, I think about... Oh, see?

You knew that was happening. He must have called you. One percent over a billion dollars in shares, and this is what's interesting. He's urging the company, unlike traditional activists, he's urging the company to cancel the dividend and to massively invest in original content such that they can go

toe-to-toe better with Netflix. So Dan Loeb is kind of, you know, he was sort of, he built his reputation with sort of a poison pen, and the pen has gotten, I would argue, a little bit more elegant. It's a Mont Blanc pen now. It's a Mont Blanc. All right. But he's saying that Disney needs to cancel the dividend, and that's unusual. Activists are typically like, do whatever financial engineering gets my stock up right now. Return more money to shareholders. But he's saying that Disney needs to increase their budget. I shall look upon it.

Yes. So Disney now has an activist and a vocal shareholder. He can turn on them in a minute. Disney is starting. He's a tough customer. Turning on the mouse. Yeah, turning on the mouse. All right.

Well, that's interesting. All right. In terms of getting back to the story about these antitrust, I think what's interesting about Trump is that he, like, look, where did TikTok go? Where did any of this go? So none of it matters until after the election. Let's just be clear. Yeah, it's. There's nothing going to happen on TikTok.

Nothing going to happen on this. Nobody. No. And then we'll see, essentially. I think that's where we are. But let's go to a quick break to talk about Facebook making moves to take down QAnon and also deal with election issues and a listener mail question from Hawaii. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see?

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late, too little. On Tuesday, the company said it would remove any group, page, or account that identified as QAnon, a sprawling right-wing conspiracy group that believes the world is being run by a cult of pedophiles who are out to get Donald Trump. This is a major, there's a lot more that goes on with those people, but that's basically what they believe. This is a major hardening of Facebook's ban on QAnon that they announced in August. The company's faced a lot of criticism that those efforts were not enough. Of course, they were not enough. They're sort of trying to clean up a toxic waste spill that'll sit there for the longest time. So why now? Why is he doing this? Why will this work now versus August? Talk to me about this, Scott. Well, this is clearly a function of that fantastic fiduciary oversight board they put together. I know.

We haven't met yet. And supposedly the alternative oversight board that people put together has been taken down or Facebook is trying to get it taken, wiped off the internet. Thank you, Facebook. No, I just moderated some of them. They were very smart. It was a really august group of people, I have to say. They pulled together a nice group. An august group of people.

I think you're even wider than Pence. A very august group. Here, I have to say. They pulled together a nice group. An august group of people. I think you're even whiter than Pence. A very august group. Here's a good lady. No, no. It's the winter of our white miscontent. It's quite diverse, actually. Actually, it was a little too American is what it was. Anyway, in any case, any insights about this? I mean, QAnon, it would seem like it's a layup that you look good banning those people, but Facebook took its sweet time.

Look, as a general rule, you want to always, the last five minutes of any interaction you have are the most important five minutes. And I always tell the kids in my class that when you're leaving a meeting, when you're leaving a social event, when you've had dinner with someone, whatever it is, even if you're an introvert like me, try and turn it on the last five minutes. Try and be not you. Try and be friendly. If you're at a meeting or if you're wherever it is and you do something, think about leaving on a good note because that's what, it's almost important. And also there's a lesson here. When you leave a company, how you leave, are you gracious? Are you thoughtful? It's as important to your reputation as the 10 years you spent at the company. So, leaving is really important. I think Facebook is trying to go into, I think, quite frankly, all of this is because of Biden-Harris. I think, okay, a new administration is coming to town.

We don't have the benefit of our unholy alliance with Trump. The oligarch strategy isn't going to work if the source of power gets kicked out of office. So let's try and go into the election with the impression that we're trying really hard. I think it's calculated. I think it is too little, too late. The mother of all too little, too late. But I think they're trying to say, okay. And there's already evidence that there's bad actors on the platform. So I think they're trying to say, okay, Biden-Harris is coming. What can we do? Let's try and pretty up a little bit because this shit has been such a dumpster fire. But here's the problem, Facebook. We have memories.

We have memories of you, Facebook. We're going to take out some photos of just what a menace to society. We have you on tape lying over and over and over. So I don't think it's going to work. The slow roll of this company is what I really am fascinated with for since the beginning. It's such a slow roll company that it really does that. You love that term, slow roll. So it's, you know, that's what Pence does. That's Pence's argument. Like he slows things down to the point of boredom. And I think, you know, she didn't bite on that one.

But that's what they've done since Beacon, since everything. It's just they're constantly like get to it eventually. Like they did it with Alex Jones. And they did it with, you know, they just wait until it's at a crisis boiling point. And then they step in. And it's just like I want to be in a lot of these meetings around Trump right now. Like, who's next to him taking these votes? Like, I want to see.

I want to physically see what's happening. I would love to be in these meetings where they discuss this, where it's not like, I want to know who the screamy person in the room is like, what are we doing or not doing? Or what happens? What's the dynamics of these meetings? And it's just amazing. They also just widened the ban on political ads after the election. They're banning indefinitely after the polls closed political ads on November 3rd. That's not enough, though.

It's not. It's content. 100%. You've been making this point. You know, this new step to limit misinformation, this and that. They just haven't been doing their jobs. It's really just sloppiness. Shouldn't Twitter and Facebook take down all candidates' accounts

saying this is, we can't have election insecurity, we can't have someone... They won't do that. They won't do that. Well, I don't think they will, but shouldn't they? Shouldn't Twitter do it? I don't know. What I think they should do is they took forever to move that Trump was cured, this whole cure thing he's doing now. He sounds like the guy

who sells things late at night in CNN. Like, if you take this, you will have a larger penis. Yeah, but all of a sudden, this is how sad it is. These companies are all of a sudden reaching down and finding their testicles. Because why? Because they realize he's about to lose. Yeah, yeah. I guess. Totally politically, it has nothing to do with doing the right thing. It has nothing to do with what's happening or not. The ball is going, okay, he's going to lose, so we're not going to get the knee pads out, and we are going to actually start acting like pretend we're fiduciaries such that when Biden and Harris show up on our doorstep,

we can say, see what we did? Right. So what do you think? Who are they going to regulate next? Probably white supremacists. They've been trying badly. You know, the Proud Boys got dinged themselves by a bunch of very proud gay guys, boys. Who, what groups should, will they regulate? It took them forever to do Alex Jones. This QAnon thing took forever. White supremacists take them forever. Is there any, like, do you see anything happening? Well, I think in 20, I think in 22 days, in 22 days, we all have the opportunity to regulate the white moronacy movement that has infected our country. See what I did there? See what I did there? I don't know. I think it, I wouldn't be surprised if the pendulum really swings. And they over-regulate. Yeah. I don't

know. Yeah. Because there is something to the notion that, okay, offensive stuff is allowed And they over-regulate. There's a group at most major media companies that says, okay, we're not going to traffic in this type of content. We're not going to bring any oxygen to this. We'll see. What do you think? You're in this business. I'm not. I think they have no internal ability to do this. I don't think they don't think.

You think they think like journalists. There's definitely. We were talking about someone I was going to have on the podcast. And we're like, do we want to give oxygen to that? There's constant discussions about that within media companies. Should we focus on this by giving this group oxygen? And some people argue, oh, you know what? We got to really show people this. Others are like, why? You know, it's a really, it's constant debate in journalism. And it tends to go down the middle. It depends. You know what I mean? And then they ultimately end up covering

it. But it's a lot of thoughtfulness goes into what to cover. I don't think there's a bit of thoughtfulness here. I think they just see fires and then they wait for them to burn. And then they, when everything's ruined, they go over and say, throw water on it. I think that's, you know, kind of like a little, a glass of water. And so I think they have no mentality. I've always told this to people that are talking about years ago when Facebook was putting content, was working with media companies where they actually had a studio that Randy Zuckerberg did interviews with people at because I did one 109 years ago. So they were dabbling in media. And I was like, these people don't care. There's no difference between squirrel videos and your videos and news. They just don't have a differentiation between any of it. Nor do

they care. And it's not out of malevolence. It's just out of the way they are. They don't have any idea of what's damaging or what's not, and they don't want to be the ones making the decision. And so they tend to wrap themselves in this bullshit First Amendment stuff that they don't understand correctly, and then call it a day.'s really i just i don't understand what else that they do but they will i think now of course that we've been complaining about this their tendency will be to over overdo it which has never been the point it's talking about hate groups it's talking about things like conspiracy groups and and things like that and that is very different from marco rub posting something stupid, which he does on a daily basis. I have added Marco Rubio, essentially.

There's feigning ignorance here. It doesn't work. There are things they could do. They have absolutely the ability to take the temperature of the volume of content relative to what I'll call the number of people who engage in that issue or the discourse around that issue. They have lots of signals is what you're saying. Well, basically say when the white, the Proud Boys movement is getting X amount of, 5X amount of content relative to what some proxy around, what is the real discourse or the real interest or the number of people who find engaged in this conversation? Because these aren't legitimate conversations. As soon as you start talking about them, trolls and bad actors who want to see America tear at the seams

start showing up and trying to pour fuel on it. And so this is a national defense issue. The Russians have laid out in very stark, meticulous, clear detail in the 80s what they plan to do, and that is find divisions within our society and then pour fuel on it and let us tear ourselves apart. They don't have the ability to tear us apart from the outside, so they'll tear it apart from the inside. And when people, it happens, I think it happens every day on my Twitter account. I think people show up and start, they start trying to start fights. And so it just

wouldn't be that hard to go, okay, QAnon is a topic we could figure out a way, get a bunch of academics to figure out a way. How big an issue is this in our society? And it's X percent of people are interested in a discourse around this. It's getting 40X because bots run by people who are bad actors are showing up trying to make it a bigger and bigger and bigger conversation. Yeah, they certainly get enough signals here. They should be able to regulate these things. And again, they do want claps when they do something right. And I'm giving them a tiny little tiny claps, but it's really like, if they had read Kevin Roos over the past two years, they could have noticed there was a problem. You know what I mean?

Or it is the journalists actually pointing and civic groups pointing this stuff out when they have plenty of money to do it themselves. Anyway, thanks, Facebook. Thanks, thanks, thanks. Let's just say thanks to them and keep it up. But they really do have to focus on more important issues. All right, listener mail. Scott, we have a listener mail question from Hawaii. You've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. Aloha, Kara, Scott, and crew. This is Ruth from Puna on the big island of Hawaii.

I have two boys distance learning this year. And with this new experience, there is a lot of communication apps and learning programs like math diagnostic testing. My question is, who is watching out for our children's privacy? Will my children's Google Classroom account follow them for the rest of their lives? Do we know if the data collected by these companies is sold or shared? Are there any structures in place to protect our kids' privacy in this landscape of online schooling? Mahalo for taking the question. I'm looking forward to your answers. Ohuiho. Oh, I love Hawaii. Wasn't that awesome? Oh, I love Hawaii.

Ruth from Puna. That was awesome. I love Hawaii so much. Yeah, you ready? Well, let me just tell you, Ruth, I don't know. I think one of the issues is I think very few people have been ready for this much long-distance learning, whether it's on Zoom or on Google, the Google Chats or anywhere else. And most of these schools just grabbed whatever stuff was on the shelf and started using them. So there are things you can put in place in the features area to protect things and everything else, but I think it's a big, we don't know what they're using. Presumably, these companies are aware when they're being used by schools and have put structures in place to protect the privacy. But I don't, I think this has just

been foisted upon us and everybody has been scrambling. So good question. And I will ask Google, but I suspect that no, there aren't any structures in place to protect them unless there are features that you click on these things where you can put in, there's all kinds of, there's all kinds of dashboards you can put in here, but it's, these are not company, these are not stuff that was designed for privacy. And so one would assume some of it might've been, it's been used for enterprise. But in general, this stuff just started being used without a whole lot of vetting. Scott? I think one of the real tragedies of the novel coronavirus that we'll look back on and think that really registered permanent damage in our society is that one of the wonderful things about public schools K through six is that loosely,

roughly speaking, kids from different economic and ethnic groups pace at a similar pace until they get into junior high and high school and rich kids get access to the kind of college industrial complex. But loosely speaking, K through six on math scores, kids melt or they melt. And with distance learning, we've seen 50% of low-income kids immediately fall behind in math. A bigger problem than even privacy, I agree. And it's really tragic. And distinct of even the moral argument,

that means we're just 50% less likely to find vaccines. We're 50% likely to come up with wonderful therapies. We're 50% likely to solve economic crises because we are letting a generation of kids fall behind. And anyone who has kids knows your kid comes off the tracks for a year or two years, it can kind of haunt them the rest of their lives. It's a competitive economy

and your kids do need to keep tracking. The issue it goes to, and I talked to Professor Sinan Aral last week from MIT, who's a big colleague at NYU and is a total gangster, and he was a good guy. And by the way, just a quick plug, he just is coming out with a book called The Hype Machine about Facebook. So, the issue of data interoperability is a really big one. And that is at one point, you weren't allowed, if you wanted to go from AT&T to Verizon, you couldn't take your phone number with you. And so what did they do? Congress said, that's stupid.

You're putting up artificial barriers. You're reducing choice. You're reducing competition. Prices are going up. And so they made it such that you had to be able to, phone companies had to let you port your data, specifically your phone number. And the same thing has to happen here. And it's not only across our – I don't like Facebook the way – I'm not down with the way Facebook's behaving.

I want to take my contacts, my data, my network to another platform. And the same thing is here. Whatever data is happening, all the content that's being generated online from online learning, it has to be interoperable. It has to be something that could ideally be ported back to the school system, be ported to another platform, be ported to another software company that wants to provide remote learning. But data interoperability, I think, is a bigger issue than privacy here. Yeah, I think, well, no, because there are huge privacy issues in New York City public

school system on Zoom last year. I think, Scott, you're absolutely right. Even my kids are suffering and they have everything. Like you could just see them struggling. You know what I mean? Not just with just staring at a screen all day and then doing homework on a screen all day. It's just, it's not, we have to really, people who have means are struggling. And these kids who do not have means, even worse, not just because of how badly these lessons are structured, but also that they're on public networks, that they're on, like that they struggle to, some kids, if you see these pictures of them sitting outside of a Taco Bell doing things, that's a public network privacy issue. These are private companies, essentially, they're using the tools they're using.

Who knows what structures are in place? I don't even think these companies know who's using them because sometimes it's a book club, sometimes it's a school, sometimes it's this. So we really do need to invest in long-distance education in remote means in a significant way that makes it private. It makes it exciting. It makes it easy to use. It's a real area that everybody talked about working out really well, but really hasn't been. It's just sort of been a, you know, bubble gum and bailing wire situation, including in privacy. So I would be very concerned and make sure you have all your privacy settings, which may not allow you to use

some of this stuff. That's one of the other issues. And it's super complex. I was doing it on my computer this week and I just was lost. And I am good at technology, you know, figuring out what to click and what not to click. And I got all these different privacy things, you know, doing scans of my computer because I was worried about some hacking. And it just is, it's totally complex and you shouldn't have to do this on top of having your kids at home. So we do not have good answers for you, Ruth, but you do live in Hawaii, which is a beautiful place. Ruth from Puna. Puna. We really like that.

And, you know, we'll see. I think this is another thing our legislators need to look into and the companies. There's a real opportunity here for a great business, I think. Anyway, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. That's why we built HubSpot. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which leads are worth knowing, and makes writing blogs, creating videos, and posting on social a breeze. So now, it's easier than ever to be a marketer.

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Not the fly. A prediction. And not testosterone. There's the fly, a prediction. Yeah. And not testosterone. There's no testosterone in this prediction. The most exciting IPO or the most exciting, I don't even call it a public offering, of 2021 is going to be Amazon spinning AWS. I do think that antitrust has a lot of momentum. Jeff Bezos always just sort of feels to me like two, three steps ahead of all of us. I think he's probably the smartest or, I don't know, most adroit business mind in history.

And I think he's going to say, well, why wouldn't we spin it? Why wouldn't we? And I'll still control it, but it's going to be a distinct company. So I think he'll get out ahead of the curve here. I think most exciting... I would agree. I just said, I think 2021. And by the way, my timing's usually off on this stuff. I usually, time goes faster. I've suffered from the same flaw our species suffers from, and that is time goes a lot faster than I perceive it's going to go. But I would say next year, he's going to say,

okay, I don't need this bullshit. I want everyone focused on work. I'll spend. And not only that, when he spends it, it's kind of like title inflation. And that is a bunch of people are going to, you know, somebody's going to get to be the CEO. Someone's going to get to be the president. Someone's going to, so it'll be, and it'll expand their market because companies like Walmart will consider working with AWS if it's not owned by Amazon. Yeah, and then they do deals with each other. That's right. It was interesting. I was on a panel with John Hennessey on the board of Google, you know, and obviously that... The Stanford

president? Yeah, he's the chairman of the board of Google too. And he said some things I didn't love, including that people don't vote because they're lazy. But anyway, what he did talk about, and you could see him, is that this idea, I proposed this idea to him that we, that they break up on their own. And he started with the, oh, it's complex. And then I'm like, well, is it? And he's like, well, actually, and then he started to like, puzzle it out. And, you know, you know, they've been puzzling it out of how to do it. And so he didn't say, he didn't say absolutely not. The first move is no, but then it's not absolutely not, which was interesting.

So I think that's a very good prediction. So you think it's going to be Amazon first? Or unless someone steps in and does a deal behind the scenes with them and says you can do this to yourself or we're going to do it to you. Yeah. But I think, look, I just think AWS, I've said one of my predictions is 2025, the most valuable company in the world is AWS. Yeah, all right.

And he's very shareholder driven. He has 200 billion, but he wakes up every morning and he looks in the mirror and he says, hello, man, we're 300 billion. Yeah. I think he's very focused on his own shareholder value. I think he probably does that. I think they're all obsessed with making $1 more. And not only that, everything

they do supports that notion. A lot of testosterone, in other words. Back to steroids. I'm back to Barry White. Back to Barry, oh my God. Hello, ladies. Hello, ladies. You know, I have dated people with deeper voices than you, sir. Really? What's your name? None of your beeswax. Anyway, listen to me.

I have such a face for podcasting. That is a great prediction. I think it will come true. I think that one is for sure. You think AWS does get spun? I think they're all going to be like, do we want to spend the next couple of years in a- Fighting this out. Fighting this.

And we want to get richer. And we're going to get, it's coming. The train is coming. So let's get on it and let's run the train. And that's how they think. And so they will because they are pumped up on testosterone and they know that this is the inevitability. Okay, Scott, that's the show. Next week, guess who?

On Monday, we'll be talking to Fareed Zakaria. I know you're excited. Are you excited? He's got a big brain. I'm going to faint. I love that guy. Don't faint. I want you to lead that discussion.

I'm kind of intimidated by him. Well, think up some questions. You have a whole weekend to think up questions for Fareed Zakaria, okay? There's a lot going on, especially across the world. We'll talk about China. We'll talk about lots of stuff. He's quite an erudite person. Anyway, in the meantime, email us with your questions about companies and trends at pivot at voxmedia.com. We appreciate

Rose's question from Hawaii today. Mahalo. Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Fernanda Finite engineered this episode. Erica Anderson is Pivot's executive producer. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. Or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you liked our show, please recommend it to a friend. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back next week for a breakdown of all things tech and business. This little tee shot for the dog. Support for this podcast comes from Klaviyo.

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