Pivot - Apple Wants to Diagnose Your Depression, Google Bets on New York City, and a Friend of Pivot on Facebook Marketplace

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

Facebook wants to push pro-Facebook material in News Feed. Also, Kara and Scott dive into Google's big bet on back-to-office, and Apple's plan to diagnose depression with iPhone data. Friend of Pivot Craig Silverman discusses his latest reporting on the problems with Facebook Marketplace. Plus, Scott gives us a dire prediction on Facebook's legal woes. You can find Craig on Twitter at @CraigSilverman. Send us your Listener Mail questions, via Yappa, at nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I just don't get it. Just wish someone could do the research on it. Can we figure this out? Hey, y'all. I'm John Blenhill, and I'm hosting a new podcast at Vox called Explain It To Me. Here's how it works. You call our hotline with questions you can't quite answer on your own. We'll investigate and call you back to tell you what we found. We'll bring you the answers you need every Wednesday starting September 18th. So follow Explain It To Me, presented by Klaviyo.

Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And my heart is full of love and joy today. I'll give you three guesses why my heart is full of love and joy today, Kara. Edibles. Three guesses. Edibles, edibles, edibles. Anderson Cooper was on my podcast. I know, I saw that. Anderson Cooper was on Prof G, not on Sway, not on Sway, not on Pivot. He is my revenge guest.

Let me just say, you never bring guests to Pivot. So why didn't you bring him here? Will you be able to bring him here? I'm just saying you give me such a hard time. Because Kara, as successful as he is, he wanted to be in a safe place. And I think he and I share a special bond of friendship. None of that is true. He was promoting his book. He's promoting his book about, you know, he's like, he literally is the descendant of the Jeff Bezos of that era, Cornelius Vanderbilt. Yes, he was. Who was richer than Bezos at the time. Yeah.

He's, I'm out of breath because I worked out. This guy, AC, do you know him? He's a very thoughtful, deep guy. Yeah, he is. There's a lot going on there. There's a lot going on. But anyways, he was on Prop G. I was going to mock you and sway, but you look like shit and you're sick.

This is not an Amazon warehouse. Go home and go to sleep. No, I did. I'm in San Francisco. I flew to San Francisco last night from D.C. So with my oldest son, Louie, who will be at Code. And I have to get there. So I'm here.

I'm going to rest the next several days. And then I will be in fighting spirit for code, which starts on Monday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And you're going to have to carry a lot if I don't feel well. But I'll feel fine by then. It's really interesting. I was working on my presentation last night. I am never nervous about presentations. I am nervous about this presentation. Why? Honestly, because I don't want to let you down. I know this is important. Yeah. It's not that important. Okay.

All right. Fine. Okay. Never mind. I'll just wing it. Yeah. Just wing it. I'll just wing it.

Just wing it. It'll be great. It'll be really good. We're going to have a great time in LA. And there's a lot of great speakers. And it's the first in-person thing. We're doing a lot of testing. We're doing, obviously, masking because of California.

And we're doing vaccination required. I'm expecting to get, what's really fascinating, I'm getting people that think it's not enough and people that think it's too much. And I want to say to all of them, we are trying our best, and it's fascinating to watch everyone being Dr. Google at me, of people who are wholly unqualified to do so. But we are- Well, once you get over a certain amount of wealth, it automatically bestows you an MD, is what I found.

It's crazy. What do you think? We want to get people sick. We're doing our best to keep everybody safe. We're doing all the safe things. The only thing that we could do to keep people completely safe is not to do it, obviously. But we are doing all we can. And our staff has been amazing to get it all together.

And we're hoping it'll be great. So I don't want a lot of lip from either side. But we are doing all we can. And so, and our staff has been amazing to get it all together. And we're hoping it'll be great. So, I don't want a lot of lip from either side. I would happily entertain good suggestions. But I don't want to argue about whether masks are useful or not because that's the law in California. And so, that's what we're going to follow. Well, to be honest, you sound offensive and you don't need to be. You're asking for proof of vaccinations.

Yeah. We're doing, or we, you're doing testing on site. Yep. We have distancing. We're complying with every California law. So at this point, people have, you know, basically one decision. Do they want to come to this given all the, as much as you can do right now and as they're expected to do, as possible you can do, or not come? That's kind of the decision.

Yeah. But heckling from the cheap seats at this point is just that, heckling from the cheap seats. Yeah. We have some very amazing experts on this issue, which they've been under siege, especially one of them was in particular siege at the beginning and was completely correct about what happened. So it should be interesting. I mean, I think everyone is tired in a lot of ways of talking about it. Yeah. You got Elon Musk coming. You got Satya Nadella. You got Mark Benioff. You got- Target Manual. Got a lot of people.

Marguerite Vestager. You continue to bring it. You can, and then obviously- But not Anderson Cooper, obviously. Well, yeah, but let's be honest. You got the dog. You got the dog. That's the draw.

We're very excited about your presentation. That's what you told Elon. You're like, okay, I don't want to drop names, but Prop G is going to be in the house. He's like, okay, I'll clear my calendar. Yeah, exactly. I'll clear my calendar. Anyway, there's a lot going on. We should move on to other things. We're going to have a lot to talk about next week. So, Google is betting big on office space. It's spending $2 billion to purchase the St. John's Terminal in New York City, which is really interesting because they already have lease space that is huge downtown.

I remember going when they were looking at the space with Tim Armstrong at the time. They'll have over 1 million square feet of office space in New York. The New York Times wants to fully reopen its office in the first quarter of 2022, which is very soon. What do you think this says? What do you think this says? I heard nothing you said after you said you were with Tim Armstrong, because all I imagined is Gulliver next to literally, I mean, you should never stand next to Tim Armstrong. I've stood next to him. He is so big and handsome. I'm like, Jesus, I should never stand next to this guy. Yeah, he's an handsome man. There's a lot here. A few things. One, the death of cities has been greatly exaggerated, and I don't care.

Everyone talks about San Francisco. Okay, fine. That's situational. It's got expensive but bad. But two-thirds of economic growth over the next 30 years is going to come from 20 super cities. In addition, the ultimate business strategy in a crisis is that if you're in a position to get off your heels and onto your toes and play offense, you do that. And that is exactly what big tech did. Big tech looked at this crisis and said,

okay, we have a cash on our balance sheet to buy Boeing and Airbus, how do we play offense? What did they do? They started increasing hiring. Google has hired 5,000 people in New York in the last two and a half years. And they increased their office space expenditures. They've been leasing up while everyone is paralyzed

and canceling their leases. And what is so powerful about this, what is so powerful is the secret sauce of any high growth company, and this is kind of a secret, is a 24 year old double E from Dartmouth or someone you find from a good state school who you can pay $80,000 to $120,000 and they think they've died and gone to heaven.

They work their ass off. That is the secret sauce. That is the highest ROI investment of any company is attracting and retaining outstanding young people who haven't collected distractions like dogs and spouses. They work their ass off. They're surprisingly smart. And Google, and this broke my heart, at Section 4, we had this amazing young man. We've always been really good at attracting really talented young people. I thought he was loving it. I knew he was loving it. And he came

into my office and said, I'm going to work for Google. And I said, what? I was really floored. Usually you have an idea when people aren't happy. And I said, why are you going? I said, don't you love it? He's like, I love it here. He goes, I'm going for the Google cafeteria. I went there. It's fun.

It's a nice cafeteria. Friends. Quite frankly, he's at an age where he wants to find friends, mentors, and potential mates. One out of three people meet their spouse at work. And we're all working remote. We're all a small number of people. If you go to the Google cafeteria, it's the modern day Studio 54 for the information age. It's social. It's fun. It's curated. Everybody there is really fucking smart and ambitious and has their shit together. And so what are they doing? They're creating the corporate equivalent of Xanadu

at these headquarters. And the final lesson, I'll stop blathering. If you're young, if you're young, all the shit about remote work, oh no, boss, get into HQ. I think it's gonna be a hybrid for people who have children. It's a lot easier. That's exactly right. If the kids are in school

or if you have some sort of childcare. I think for others, it's great. I was in New York. Or caring for a parent or living way out in the suburbs so you can have kids. I get it. But if you're young and you don't have those things, get an office. I got to say, a lot of my friends who've moved to like Park City, they hate it there. They're like, it's like, you know, food bad, not interesting culturally.

New York was so exciting last weekend when I was there. New York's on fire, Cara. Fall in New York is out of control. It is absolutely on fire. And here's the thing about career trajectory, and they've done studies on this. The gal running Europe for a big multinational won't get promoted, and it's doing a better job,

and it's more profitable running Europe, won't get promoted as fast as the gal at HQ doing almost as good a job. Because typically speaking, two or three people are always qualified for a promotion. So the decision maker makes that decision based on relationships. And relationships are a function of proximity. While you can, put on a pantsuit, blow dry your hair, and get into HQ as often as possible. You know, I was trying on all my outfits for code, and I can't wear anything but sweats at this point. It's really weird. Honestly, I was like,

I was like, silk? No. It's kind of interesting. Yeah, we'll see. I never went at the office, so it doesn't really matter. Speaking of someone I work for in one of my many jobs, Donald Trump is suing the gray lady and also a real lady, his niece. That'll work. That'll work. Trump says the Times engaged in an insidious plot when they published parts of his finances in 2018. Mary Trump was the source for the story. So that'll work is your answer.

That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Come on. I mean, come on. Fundraising stunt. That's exactly right. Sorry.

Fundraising stunt. Let's not even give it any oxygen. Good luck with that. Have at it. All right. Sorry. Let's not even give it any oxygen. Good luck with that. Have at it. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, who is actually going to be coming to Code this next week, interviewed by Preet. He says thousands of cryptocurrencies are on their way out. We're excited to talk to him about this.

Let's run a clip. So I don't think there's a long-term viability for 5,000 or 6,000 private forms of money. History tells us otherwise. He compared cryptocurrencies to the wildcat banking era of American finance when banks issued their own currencies, which I did not know. Also, the Treasury Department sanctioned a Russia-based crypto exchange. The Treasury says the Suex exchange handles the funds of ransomware attackers. So here they come,

and they've just appointed someone to a key finance position who is sort of a cryptocurrency critic. So it's interesting what's happening here. What do you think? So last night, on Thursday nights, the mother of my children goes out with her friends,

and they party like rock stars. And she leaves me a list. I was doing a podcast last night, and she's like, okay, Nolan has algebra homework. Alec has a science test. They need to be fed, you know, X, Y, Z. Leah needs to go out and pee. You need to, she leaves me a list. And then I look up, and it's like, you know, late. And Alec is still working on his algebra. And I fucking panic. And I scream out reflexively, shit, mom's coming home. Mommy's coming home. Everybody get their act together.

Well, let me tell you, Coinbase and Tether, mommy's coming home. And this is, I think crypto is super exciting. I think some of these coins will endure. I think crypto is super exciting. I think some of these coins will endure. I think Bitcoin is a phenomena. I think the dispersion of trust and scarcity credibility that central banks have lost to crypto. I think young people creating their own volatile asset classes. Some will endure. A lot are about to have the hammer dropped on them.

And what they have done, which is really stupid, is what Facebook and Amazon and all the other innovators did is when they got insulted or lawmakers got aggressive with them, they would pretend to be thoughtful and concerned and want to work with them and say, we look forward to working with you. And instead, crypto has put on this arrogant mean girl's attitude as, oh, you don't get us. Oh, we're innovators.

We shouldn't be subject to your little minds of regulation. And guess what? That shit's not going to hunt. I think Gensler's going to come down on them. And you're going to see two-thirds of these shit coins actually go from chicken salad. Is that your technical name for them, shit coins? Well, that's what they are. They're going to go from chicken salad to chicken shit overnight. It's going to be leaving the egg salad out in the sun. I don't think they've handled it. I don't think it's an industry.

This is worse than your sperm metaphors from last week. My feinty sperm? My feinty sperm? Yeah. No, but I think the industry, I actually think the industry would benefit from regulation because I think there's some really smart people and smart investments here who would like to see some guardrails and also put some of the crap out of business. Dogecoin is not good for Bitcoin because if one of these

or more of these things crashes and there's no there there, I think Tether could bring the whole fucking thing down. Tether is beginning to smell like frog. You know, it's very much like early internet. Early internet. This is exactly what happened. Same where you were there for that because you're much, much older than me. Yes, I am. And obviously smarter. There was a lot of shitty companies and a lot of bullshit. There was a lot of sort of hype and overdoing. Some of them were just good ideas too early.

Other stuff was just a fast buck kind of thing. And it was crazy. It was a crazy time. And I think it's really important to understand that a couple of companies emerged through that are the most important companies in the world right now. And I think this is the redo of finance is just like the redo of health or a couple of transportation are big, big, big money making areas right now. But you're right, this has to, the government has to come in and put some guardrails around it, as you said,

and create it so that it feels safe for everybody else to enter the pool. So I think that's correct. I think you are correct, Scott Galloway. Anyway, we'll see. We'll ask Gary Gensler that when he is at code next week. Preet and Gary Gensler,

that is a powerful cocktail. It is. I might even have to show up for that interview. I think you need to. You're going to show up for all of them. I have a special seat for you. Preet and Gary Gensler. That is a powerful cocktail. I might even have to show up for that interview. I think you need to. You're going to show up for all of them. I have a special seat for you. I have a special seat that you have to sit in. It's socially distanced, not just for COVID, for all other reasons for you. And you are going to sit there and learn some stuff. All right, Scott, time for our first big story. Apple wants to diagnose depression and cognitive decline in iPhone users.

The Journal reports on proposed research projects that would gather sensor data from the iPhone, including physical activity, sleep patterns, and typing behavior. Another project would use the iPhone's camera to diagnose autism in children. The programs might run on the iPhone without uploading data to Apple's servers. That's a move to address privacy concerns. Twitter is full of jokes about this with one user tweeting, losing out on mortgages because I haven't performed the required 72 daily smile units, which is a linear regression model, assures the lender means I'm a high-risk loan. And the other one, which I love, the ultimate plan to make a device that causes depression, then detect

depression. So, Scott, what do you think of this? I think this is a point on a line of a much bigger trend, and that is the biggest opportunity for disruption, shareholder value creation, I think, over the next decade is going to be the disruption and reconfiguration of healthcare. Arguably the largest consumer industry in the world is U.S. healthcare, 17% of a $22 trillion economy, so a $3 to $4 trillion business. And the ability to disperse the value of healthcare away from a doctor's office or a hospital and out to our devices and into our homes could potentially take healthcare from being a defensive disease-driven industry to an offensive health-driven industry. And I think this is wonderful because everything, I have a close friend, and I know you also have a close friend, who they found a spot on their lungs, and they found it early, and they went in and removed it, and by all standards or expectations, they're going to be fine. The key to all of this,

or one of the keys, is early discovery and intervention. And so, anything that pushes, and right now, that's not what happens in healthcare. Too many people end up in the emergency room way after they should be there, trying to figure out a rash before it becomes a full-blown infection or a mold before it becomes a melanoma. And the same is true of mental illness, and this has an added benefit, and that is mental illness is kind of where cancer was 20 or 30 years ago, and we're all just starting to acknowledge every family

probably at some point is touched by this. Let's be open, and let's talk about it, and let's destigmatize it. And I think this is another step in the right direction. I think it's wonderful, and I think it's a larger trend of something very exciting. Security issues. Come on. Go ahead. What are the...

These devices do cause depression. It gets us addicted and everything else, and now they're going to tell us. That's. Go ahead. What are the... These devices do cause depression. It gets us addicted and everything else, and now they're going to tell us. That's a different issue. Yeah, I agree. They're looking for some things around sleep, but it feels very open to problems. I just feel like they have all this... What are the problems? I ask that sincerely. What are the problems? Well, like anything, like the pictures

of you drunk on Facebook years later. It's the kind of thing where people can... Companies are trying to, of course, save money by getting people more physically active, eating better. Surveillance is the obvious problem here. But why does this need to go to surveillance? Couldn't it be just something you opt in for and your data's protected and you decide if you want to turn on something saying, do I need to modulate my behavior?

Fit people. Fit people do that, right? Everyone you know that uses all these devices are people that already aren't in trouble for, oh, my goodness, I'm obese. I had no idea. That kind of thing. I just feel like to work, it's got to be used all over the place. And to be used all over the place, you have people using it without knowing what they're using. I think it's fascinating that it could, you know, show lots of things. It's very clear that you're with your phone all the time or your watch or whatever device you happen to wear, but your phone especially.

And it will know everything about you, including where you go, what you do, who you talk to. Isn't that true already, Kara? It is. Isn't that gene already out of the bottle? I just feel like this insurance company is getting their hands on this stuff. But that's not a foregone conclusion. No. Why do insurance companies have to get this data?

They don't. It's sort of like these devices are controlling us in a lot of ways. And you know how much I love them. I had my device with me when I had my baby in the hospital. When you were down here in Florida, you had me staple into your arm. I would refuse to do it because I thought I was going to throw up and pass out. Yes, that was a continuous glucose monitor. But let me, it's just, I just, I think this stuff has to be, we may trust a company like Apple, and I do more than others.

But it's, it feels, like, look, people, there was an interesting interview the other day on Hannity, of all things, where this military guy was like, I'm not taking. You're watching Hannity? I do, I do. It wasn't taking the vaccine because I want to understand it because of freedom. And then Hannity's by accident got him to say that he takes 26 other things in the army. But this one is a bridge too far. This one I shall not. And this far and not farther.

It's crazy. But it does. Far and not farther. It's crazy. But it does, at some point we're going to have so much molecular scanning of us that we have to, I don't think the government is there to, they should get in front of this before the companies do. And the companies, once again, are making all the decisions. Okay, that's the end of my rant. Thank you. Well, but I think you're exactly right.

I don't think you can put the genie back in the bottle. I think what we need are really talented, thoughtful judges that enforce very strong privacy laws and don't let insurance companies discriminate. Yeah, we don't have any. We don't have any privacy laws. Oh, there's HIPAA. There's HIPAA. The government knows a lot about your health right now, but there's HIPAA compliance and privacy. There is.

You know, you can't. There's search and seizure laws. Bill Cosby was released from prison because the law decided that information was extracted from him illegally. So sure, there are laws. We need thoughtful judges. And I think we need privacy standards. I agree with you, but the genie's out of the bottle. And I think this, these, this type of data, if managed thoughtfully and carefully, and there are laws to enforce it. And also if Apple gets hacked and this data comes out and they say, this guy that lives in Delray Beach is angry and depressed, I can sue Apple

so that they have financial incentive to protect my angry, depressed data points. But the flip side of that is if Apple can tell me, all right, it appears maybe you're having a rough day, you haven't been exercising, just an alert that you are prone to feeling bad. I think that might be a very healthy thing. Well, perhaps. I think one thing that's interesting to me is the autism thing, because for many years ago, I visited a lot of companies. There are a lot of them in Berkeley,

interesting, where they use different computer things, not just to diagnose autism, but also to deal with it. There's a lot of things the computer does that helps kids that are on the spectrum, which was really interesting at the time. This was super nascent but also to deal with it. There's a lot of things the computer does that helps kids with, that are on the spectrum, which was really interesting at the time. This was super nascent at some of these labs at University of California. And-

Wait, hold on. The University of California, is that the institution that was ranked number one by Forbes that'll graduate more kids from low income households this year than the entire Ivy League or 27% of the students from Cal Grant's? Including Scott Galloway, right? Did you go there?

That's right, that's right. Go Bears. Go Bears, one of the finest institutions in the on Pell Grants. That's right. That's right. Go Bears. Go Bears. One of the finest institutions in the world. A gift. My brother went there. A gift to the citizens of California. Indeed. Go ahead.

I'm sorry. Anyway, there's a lot of really interesting, because these things are with us all the time. I just feel like, in this case, I would like the government to be leading this stuff versus, and it's interesting, because I did a really interesting interview, as I told you last week, with Ann Wojcicki from 23andMe. And the Chinese are way ahead on this genome stuff, all this tracking, developing pharmaceuticals, et cetera. It's a huge and lucrative area. And that's why it makes me nervous.

It's a huge and lucrative area. Yeah, but let me ask you, though. Should the government be leading or regulating? I'm not sure. Or is this scientific exploration? Or do we let – I don't know. Do they piggyback off the capital of private companies with a profit motive but they regulate it?

I just feel like in this case it's much more – the stakes are higher. I don't know. Okay. You're right. You're right, I guess. But I don't agree with you. Does that make sense? All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break.

When we come back, we'll talk about Facebook's crazy defense play and talk to a friend of Pivot about the issues around Facebook Marketplace. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore. That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion.

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of a program called Project Amplify. By the way, it's only gone out a tiny bit, just so you know. It's not all over the place. The Times reports that Facebook executives decided on the change earlier this year after concluding the public apologies weren't working. They never did. Facebook also cut down on how much data it shares in April. It disintegrated the team behind CrowdTangle, a data tool popular with researchers. Zuckerberg personally signed off on the changes, according to the Times.

Also this week, Facebook announced that its longtime CTO, Mike Schreffer, his name is Schrepp, people call him that, who oversaw the Artificial Intelligence Unit and a lot of other things, has been around a long time, very close to Mark Zuckerberg, and Sheryl Sandberg is stepping down. He'll be replaced, interestingly, by Andrew Bosworth, who leads Facebook's efforts in augmented and virtual reality, and the person who was tweeting about the journal's stories in a really ham-handed way.

So he's such a different person than Mike. I like Mike quite a bit. I think he's a very decent and thoughtful person. That said, this was, again, the same thing. They've decided now they're not going to study themselves. I'm sorry, a decent and thoughtful person that's a senior manager at Facebook. I know, but I have to pick one or two. So he's decided to prostitute himself so his grandkids can say,

we're rich, but granddad basically sold his soul. But he's a thoughtful guy. He was a thoughtful guy. All right, that's enough. Not everyone there is evil. In any case, Amplify has only been tested. The cigarette management teams were all good people. All right, now, I need to get into this.

Do they think that this has been tested in three cities? What do you think about this? You know, I want to flip this back to you because you wrote an article on it in the New York Times. What are your thoughts on it? I think they pretend this is a PR issue. It's not a PR issue. It's a product issue, you know. There's a very famous story about, I think, the guy, one of the guys, Burson Marcella,

or one of the guys, either Burson or Marcella, where he said, you know, where he had, it was on the, someone repeated it on Twitter this week, but it's a very famous story, where the head of PR for this king, when the vandals were sacking the city, went and did PR to get people to replenish the treasury. Everyone was happy to do it. It happened again. They were less happy to do it. The third time, they were not so happy to do it. It happened again. They were less happy to do it the third time. They were not so happy to do it and couldn't get anything done. And the head of

PR said, you know, maybe we should work on a moat, which is the whole thing is PR is such a big thing with these companies. And they think it's the answer that it's the PR, it's a product issue. This is a product issue. And I don't know if the product is able to be fixed. I think that's what the journal series showed, which has been built on the shoulders of so much reporting about this. And now they're not going to report on themselves or get anybody kind of access.

I just don't understand this. I don't understand it. Yeah, I always think about, because I work with students, and students are young people, talented people, are kind of at moments where like, what lane do I pick? Where do I really double down on a skill set? And I would argue for the last 20 years, it would be hard if you had any affinity or showed any skill around technology to understand technology or engineering. That was just a great rap, right? And whenever you pitched

a VC, they would say, who's the technologist here? And they'd want to know that technology person's chops. And sometimes people just back great technologists. And now I'm wondering, is it design? I think of Evan Spiegel. I think of Brian Chesky. I don't think of them great technologists. I think of them as great designers that understand the interface between technology and human behavior. But also, I think the competence, if you will, that you want to develop, because it's multidimensional, is storytelling. And that is the ability to take disparate data points and string it into a narrative. We, as a species, have a much easier time absorbing and believing information if it's told as a story as opposed to a bunch of instances or data points. and believing information if it's told as a story as opposed to a bunch of instances or data points.

And what big tech has done a great job of doing is investing in massive story creation and telling that creates a narrative that is beneficial to them. And the way they take data and even when and turn it into a what I'll call fiction, and these stories are fiction, they're not even stories, they're fiction, right, is really extraordinary. And their ability, what's so insidious also about Facebook is that if the New York Times started publishing articles saying, we're awesome, and this is why we're so good for the world, you'd immediately recognize it. I mean, we do it in ads. We do it in ads that are obviously ads. Yeah, but it's, DeMarc, that's what's so insidious about Facebook is it shows up in

your feed as something your mother forwarded you, and you don't realize it's sponsored by Facebook. They're doing that, too. Like, I'm having an issue with them buying Sway and buying, I think they bought Pivot. They're all over the place buying podcasts. I'm like, the more they do it, the more I say terrible things and write terrible things about them. It's just really, you know, I don't mind the advertising. They can do the advertising. And I get a lot of complaints from users and stuff, but like, that's at least advertising. It's obvious, right? That's what they're trying to do.

This is, you know, we're promoting your content, Amazon and Netflix promote their content on their site. So what? It's so obvious what they're doing. This is just so strange. I'd love to be in that meeting and have nobody say, what the fuck, Mark? Right? I just, I don't know. It's not different than anything else they're doing. Right now, they promote content that gets people upset, and also content that makes people joyous because that results in more comments and more forwarding. So, the fact that they would go to let's promote content or have the algorithms promote content that's benign or positive towards Facebook,

it's not surprising. It's just more of the same. Yeah, I agree. By the way, there was a guy, I was on the water today working out, and this guy came by in an electric foil, a hydrofoil, and it's literally ruined that for me. Every time I see one of those guys,

all I can think about is I fucking hate Facebook. And it's ruined hydrofoils for me. Every time I see one of those guys, all I can think about is, I fucking hate Facebook. And it's ruined hydrofoils for me. They're everywhere down here. They're everywhere down here. Their problem is their product. Your problem is your product. And it may not be fixable. That's one of the issues.

But it certainly isn't PR. And it certainly isn't reporters out to get you. That meme, and it's so deep within Facebook. Trust me, it is. And they're so petty about it. And I agree, some reporters can be too, like, not do the work. These reporters have done the work. And it shows a real problem of a product. And if they think it's a PR problem, we have a real problem with Facebook. And by the way, my greatest worry is it's going to work, with Facebook, they think, and by the way, my greatest worry is it's gonna work, right?

It'll work. They create confusion. They create, well, it's nature. There's a reason they have a 900 person communications department. There's a reason, some of the smartest people I know, I know this guy named John Panette, who like you said, I would describe him the way you described Mike.

I think he's a thoughtful, lovely man. And he decided to go to work for Facebook. And I don't begrudge anybody for wanting to make a living in a challenging, interesting organization. But it just kind of frightens the shit out of everyone. You know how everyone got freaked out that the most talented people were going to work for hedge funds? Like, oh, no, they're not going into science or STEM. They're going to work for hedge funds. All our astrophysicists and geophysicists are going to work for Bridgewater.

I feel that times 10. for going to work for Bridgewater. I feel that times 10, some of those talented people I know are basically going to work for these, in my opinion, mendacious companies that are bad for the Commonwealth, and their entire job is to spin the story, which is really powerful.

And by the way, they can overwhelm media. Again, I just go to one thing, Senators Klobuchar, Senators Bennett, Attorney Generals. Yep. It's time. It's time. We have, we're not going to win this. No, but they, you know, they're doing less research.

I think that's one of the things. One of the things that Casey Newton wrote this week, which I thought was smart. When Facebook moved this week to make it harder for people to volunteer their own news feed data to an external research program, it signaled that's the way it was heading, which was to just stop giving information. But what if it did the reverse? What if it invested dramatically more in research and publicly pressured its peers to join it? What if Facebook routinely published its findings and allowed its data to be audited? What if the company made it dramatically easier for qualified researchers to study the platform independently? It would be unprecedented in the history of American business, but Facebook is unprecedented thing in the world.

The company can't rebuild trust with the larger world through blog posts and tweet storms, but it could start by helping us understand its effects on human behavior, politics, and society. I think that's the way to go is radical transparency here, but they won't do it. They won't do it. In fact, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook shareholders claim the company paid billions of dollars to the FTC to get Zuckerberg out of a deposition of the Cambridge. Well, that's the issue here. And you said this, like there's only two changes that really need to happen here. The first is Mark Zuckerberg. The second is Sheryl Sandberg. If the two of them decided to step down, and they're only going to step down under the threat, I think, of the wolf

circling around criminal prosecution, I think the company has the potential. I know a lot of good people that work there. You know a lot of good people that work there. Supposedly, there's starting to be a real uprising internally where people are going, Jesus Christ, I am not comfortable with this shit. This is everyone throwing the documents over the edge. That's what's happened here. People are dropping a dime on them. That's your difference. You want to see change? There's two things that'll, there's really only a couple things that can happen. One, Mark and Cheryl need to go. You declare victory and leave. Or two, someone needs to do a perp walk. But this, all this like, oh, smart. Oh, I disagree.

I think that might happen. Stock's never been higher. They can sit it out. They can wait it out. I just. There's too many AGs that see a path to the governor's mansion by filing criminal charges against this organization. I think you're. Smoking something again?

I think you're smoking something, as usual. Yeah. Anyway, speaking of which, let's bring in our friend of Pivot, Craig Silverman. something as usual. Anyway, speaking of which, let's bring in our friend of Pivot, Craig Silverman. Craig is a reporter at ProPublica and has spent years covering social media and fake news. His most recent article looks at Facebook's marketplace's fraud problem, which is a problem that other marketplaces have had. Welcome, Craig Silverman. How are you doing? Hey, I'm good. Thank you. So, what's the problem with Facebook Marketplace? If you could just give us a pithy answer. I know

this is a very long and important investigation, but give people an idea of why you focused on this. Well, Marketplace has a billion active users a month. And so, as anything with Facebook, once they hit scale, what's happening is the question. And, you know, we found that they've got these automated systems, which are really bad at spotting obvious scam listings and posts. They've got a few hundred low paid contractors, very typical Facebook approach. They say they're not really stopping people from getting scammed. And in fact, Facebook allowed them for a while to access people's entire messenger inbox to read all their messages uh and there really weren't a lot of guidelines on preventing

them from doing things like snooping on romantic partners and things like that we also found that during the pandemic when marketplace has been booming there's also been a surge in a lot of violent crime on there and uh and also facebook has not taken some steps that other platforms even craigslist which has a huge scam problem they've not taken some steps that other platforms, even Craigslist, which has a huge scam problem, they've not done some of the same things as Craigslist and eBay to rein this stuff in. Right. And not just eBay and Craigslist had that for years, obviously, when it started at the beginning. I remember it happening at the time, very small outfit. But this is a big company doing this. Explain what, give me an idea of violence. Explain to people why violence

would break out. Yeah, I mean, at the core, most of what happens on Marketplace is a person-to-person transaction. Somebody posts something, somebody else wants to buy it, they connect locally. And so, of course, you know, on Craigslist and other places, there are times where people are, you know, posting things, saying they're selling something, somebody shows up with cash, they rob them. And sometimes that goes really awry and it leads to murder. I'm sorry, can you pause there? I had People are posting things, saying they're selling something. Somebody shows up with cash and they rob them. And sometimes that goes really awry and it leads to murder. I'm sorry. Can you pause there?

I had no fucking idea. So people are on advertising products on Marketplace and then people who express an interest, they're tracking that and then criminals are showing up and robbing and murdering them? Come again? that and then criminals are showing up and robbing and murdering them? Come again? It's the criminals who are often using a fake account and they're luring people to an area. Person shows up with cash, criminal robs them at gunpoint, robs them at knife point. And in some cases, they're killing them. There was one example of a guy who showed up with more than $5,000 in cash to buy like a four-wheeler. And this is how he was making his living, was buying and selling stuff on Marketplace. And he was murdered by, allegedly, by a group of people who've been robbing people using Marketplace going back weeks, according to the local sheriff who told us.

So they often get organized and the crimes can escalate over time because they're not getting caught. Okay. And my follow-up question is. Can I just say, this has happened unclassified before. Well, that's my question. Is this happening in greater... Is this over-indexing on this marketplace versus other areas of transaction where there's crime? Yeah. I mean, the bottom line here is just how big marketplace is. And so, what we heard from law enforcement is that Marketplace has become the place that, you know, it's got lots of people on it. So that's where the scammers are

going. That's where the thieves and the criminals are going. And so the issue is with Facebook, again, it's, you know, it's scale. It's in more than 150 countries. There's a billion people using it every month. And as Craigslist is declining, we talked to an analyst who said Craigslist revenue is probably half of what it was even just three or four years ago. Marketplace is the spot. And so Facebook, you know, we asked them, what have you guys done to deal with increase in violent crime? What have you done as it's scaled up and become huge over the pandemic? And they didn't really have any specific stuff that they've done to point to. So they're using their standard playbook. And we're seeing the consequences of that. So talk about what user protections could be in place.

Because anyone who's used Craigslist had had this happen to them. I tried to sell something and had all sorts of, not violent, but crazy people, right? People who are making sexual remarks and things like that. This is not a new and fresh thing. But talk about user protections that could go in place, especially because they're so big. And as usual, Facebook is sloppy. Sloppy is like Facebook's management style, I think, in many ways. Yeah. I mean, they launch stuff, they got tons of users, they can scale things quickly, and then it's sort of like, oh, right, we've got to now address the specific problems we've created.

And so it's true. I mean, as you said, even going back to newspaper classifieds, there's been problems with this stuff. It's endemic to it. In Facebook's case, you know, they are doing a good thing, which is scanning every listing before it goes live. Well, that's a good thing. The problem is, you know, we see obvious patterns of scam listings that are all over it. So really, what is this scanning doing? And we talked to workers who say it misses obvious red flags. So they need to actually put in the effort and dedicate the resources to make this scanning effective. I mean, I found literally 1000s, probably 10s of 1000s of posts that that were created by fake accounts, that were violating multiple Facebook rules. And Facebook still to this day, I'm getting the same things in my marketplace recommendation. So one is invest in the systems. And two, they have a few hundred people, low paid contractors looking at this stuff. They're not empowered to actually, you know, be scanning and looking for listings and helping remove them. They're just sort of coming in after the fact after people have been ripped off. So where is the proactive detection, you probably need more people than a few hundred when you got a billion users. And then also,

you know, Craigslist, one of the things that did, used vehicle scams are massive. They started requiring people to pay to post a used vehicle app. And what we've been told is that that led a huge amount of these cyber criminals, many of whom are based in Eastern Europe or parts of Africa, to actually move to Marketplace because Marketplace loves cars, wants you to post used vehicles. And so they haven't put up barriers that Craigslist has. And also eBay, if you're buying a used car over eBay, eBay's got some purchase protection there as well. So there's a few things that they could and should be doing, just scaling up the security and safety as the product has grown.

And they just haven't done them at the same rate. You know, one of the things I found interesting is Craigslist is declining. Craigslist was a really important company when it started. It changed everything. I actually am working on a book about my time in the internet. And I remember when Craigslist came in and started to hurt newspapers. In the 60s? Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. I'm sorry. What has happened to Craigslist then? You said Facebook has just decided this is a lucrative market and is sort of just trying to upset that particular apple cart, whether it's eBay or Craigslist. Yeah, they've really harmed Craigslist, particularly when we talk about places like the U.S. and Canada

where Craigslist has been really big. Europe, it's a little bit different because there's a lot of regional classified sites that are actually quite successful there. But in the US, a lot of people are moving to Facebook because obviously one of the things that should be good about Facebook is, oh, you can see the profile of someone posting the listing. Whereas on Craigslist, you know, as right at the start, it's an anonymized kind of posting. So, that should be good, except Facebook has a big problem with hacked and fake accounts. And so something that should be a signal of trust gets turned on its head and is actually

luring people in. With Craigslist, the pandemic really hurt them as opposed to Marketplace, which was helped because Craigslist got a lot of its revenue from help wanted and job ads and job posts. Those started to decline during the pandemic, so that hit them pretty hard. They did not have a mobile app until about 2019, whereas Marketplace launched in the existing Facebook app in 2016 was super easy, super user-friendly. And so they've just been eating Craigslist lunch. And the analysts I talked to who've tracked Craigslist for a long time they they believe that about four years ago craigslist revenue had gone from a billion down to about half of that they think it's recovered a little bit but i i think craigslist

has a really big battle on its hands against marketplace which in a lot of ways is frankly a better product yeah it is a better product my My question is, so a marketplace, any marketplace will have externalities. I remember hearing about in the Hamptons that some very innovative criminals were posting a summer rental with pictures and giving you very credible reasons to believe this person had a summer rental, wire the money here, sign this contract. rental, wire the money here, sign this contract. And then people would show up to their summer house and watermelon, knock on the door and they'd be like, who are you? And they'd realize this was a total fraud. And there'd be usually some sort of redress or what can you, what legal liability does the platform have? And is Facebook less liable because of 230? What are the means of redress here? And are they any less or greater at Facebook in terms of the law or Facebook's demeanor and approach around this? As far as I understand it, I mean, they're pretty similar with Craigslist in that sense that, you know, they're telling people,

listen, unless you are buying through an e-commerce shop on Marketplace, which is something that they've integrated, unless you are buying there, you are on your own. on Marketplace, which is something that they've integrated. Unless you are buying there, you are on your own. It's you and it's the other person. Seller beware. Yeah. Yeah. Both.

And so that's certainly the thing. I mean, one of the things that's kind of interesting about Marketplace is Facebook has represented on its website and other places that, listen, you can know who you're dealing with. And I think that's a representation that is really misleading for people because they are not doing a good job of educating people about fake accounts, about hacked accounts. Like in your example, real estate agents are getting hacked like crazy on Facebook because then people post apartments for rent or houses for rent and they scam people exactly as you just described. So it's like it's a post from a real real estate agent. And Facebook does not have good guidance for people on how to avoid scams.

We, in fact, wrote our own guide because of that. So I think their education stuff is doing poorly. Two things. How did Facebook react to this to you? And then what can users do to protect themselves? You know, their response was kind of the standard Facebook response in terms of their quote says, listen, you know, we take safety and security seriously. We invest in it. And you know, nobody's perfect. And these kinds of platforms, there's always scams and fraud. And it's like, it's pretty much a cookie cutter comment to the

stuff that I've gotten over the years. And, and, you know, the one thing that they were very sensitive about was, you know, that they really try hard to engage with law enforcement. And so, you know, when law enforcement asks for records or whatever, they try to service them. And they were also very sensitive about the fact that, you know, they had given this wide-ranging access to these low-paid analysts to go and look in people's messenger inboxes. And they said that they reined that in, and I was told by a source that was about six to eight months ago. So, you know, that's sort of their response on it, which is the standard Facebook thing you see. And maybe in the coming months, they'll roll out some new features as a result.

All right. What can people do to protect themselves? Because it's obviously Facebook's not interested in doing that, necessarily. Yes. So, I mean, one of the big things is that if somebody, if you are buying or selling, and the person buying or selling from you is not willing to meet you in person, then that is a huge red flag and you should not be sending your money to them unless you have seen the item and inspected it yourself. It seems very obvious, but this is where a lot of people get roped in. Second, when you are meeting someone, it is recommended to meet in person and to meet in person at a police station parking lot where there is surveillance.

Oh, God. Yeah. Come on. That's what police stations need. They need a flea market every day in their parking lot. Some police stations have created what they call safe exchange zones, and they've actually painted parking spots in their parking lot saying, come. Because for law enforcement, this is a nightmare.

They are getting so many complaints from people and they can't investigate all of them. And we saw so many notices from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the U S you know, of law enforcement really having to throw up their hands and warn people so many warnings put out. So there's, there's that part of it. You know, the other thing is when you look at a profile, you should look at someone's seller profile and a really big red flag there is if they're posting the same item in multiple states that are nowhere near each other, because that's just a scammer trying to get as many victims as possible. And again, Facebook systems should stop this, but they don't. It's also considered a warning sign if

they're trying to take you off platform. Like some people may want to, you know, just text rather than use messenger. But a lot of times scammers want you and direct you to an email and they'll say, oh, I'm selling this on behalf of my aunt. And there's a suspiciously low price on it. And they're trying to get you to send the money really quickly. Those are all really big red flags. Won't this ultimately or shouldn't this? I would think that Facebook has a vested interest in not having the core associations in their

marketplace be fraud and violence. And similar to eBay or Amazon, won't there be certain certifications, you know, PowerSeller at some point? Whenever I was on eBay or Amazon, I did look for that company-wide certification that these guys deliver, not for even fraud, but for better customer service. Is there some sort of evolving badging mechanism here? So, they have reviews. You can see a seller's profile. But again, beware, because if it's a hack profile, the hackers will often target people with a good reputation. And then the second part of it is that at one point, Marketplace actually had verified sellers, and then they kind of got rid of that. And Facebook wouldn't really tell me why they got

rid of it, except to say, well, we test different things. So the short answer is no, there's really no certified kind of piece happening here. And so people really need to treat this as the Wild West, they really need to guard themselves, whether they're selling or buying, and to follow the best practices that are out there. All right, so what's going to happen? They're just going to get bigger? Is there any other marketplace that is problematic, eBay or others? What will happen? They'll just eat up the business of Craigslist and eBay, and then we're at their mercy? Yeah. I mean, I think we had a guy in a story whose account was hacked and used to sell cell phones and vehicles that never arrived. And one of the things he said to me, he's like, you know, everybody's on Marketplace now. The only things that will be left in this world are Marketplace and Amazon.

And he may be right. eBay is still very strong, but I think Craigslist is in huge trouble. And as for Marketplace, you know, as I said, they're in more than 150 countries and territories, and they continue to roll out. Last month, they announced that they were launching Marketplace in 37 sub-Saharan African countries. An interesting note on that is one of those countries was Benin. But we found from internal documents that Benin, for months and potentially years, had already been labeled a high-risk country because scammers there were using hacked and fake accounts to scam people. So they rolled out officially in a country where they already knew there's a huge problem and they haven't put any new guardrails on that.

Jesus, they can't. There's nothing they don't want to eat, is there? There isn't. There just isn't. It's amazing. All right, Craig, this has been great. Everybody, we recommend you read his piece. It's a really important thing. Everybody, there's been so much Facebook news. How do you feel about that, Craig? There's been so much over here, over there. But this is a really important thing everybody there's been so much facebook news how do you feel about that uh craig there's been so much over here over there um but this is a really important area um because it really does affect people physically in a way that i think people don't realize which i think is critically important and their and their money and stuff like that um thank you so much for coming on yeah thank you for having me. All right, Scott, as usual.

That was interesting, wasn't it? It's a great piece. It's a really interesting area because it's an area that Facebook's not as people tend to focus on Amazon or in commerce or other companies. Anyway, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere? Thank you. 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. Get started at HubSpot.com slash marketers. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere and you're making content that no one sees and it takes forever to build a campaign. Well, that's why we built HubSpot.

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Okay, Scott, give us this week's predictions besides the fact that code is going to be lit in a good way. Code is going to be lit. I'm so excited about it. I know.

I don't know how, can you interact with people? Because I can't. I thought you were asking, like, are you so fucked up in the head that you cannot interact with people? No, but I did this. I'm actually, I'm an introvert, so I don't like people, but I don't. I did this. I thought you were asking, like, are you so fucked up in the head that you cannot interact with people? No, but I did this. I'm an introvert, so I don't like people, but I don't know.

I'll do my best. I'll represent. I will represent. I want you to do that because I did a live event with Sam Bee on Little Island in New York this week, which was great. And both she and I were like, this is the first live event I've done in a long time. This was outdoors at that beautiful thing that Barry Diller had worked on. It's really amazing. It's beautiful.

And both of us were like, what are you people doing here? It was weird to be able to... Interacting in person is very hard, I find. It's interesting. Anyway. That's called getting old. Inauguraphobic. The mental illness is finally here.

I think people are... It's setting in, Kara. Oh, hi. Oh, anyway, it's going to be, agoraphobic. The mental illness is finally here. I think people are- It's setting in, Kara. Oh, hi. Oh, like, anyway, it's going to be interesting. I'm excited. It's been two years, and I'm very excited, or more than two years since the last- So I track my presentations pretty meticulously. I've given, since the outbreak of COVID, 170 presentations to approximately 84,732 people, 11 universities, 27 of the Fortune 100.

And I've only done two in person, and this will be the second one. Well, we're excited for it. Scott's going to do a whole presentation of where things are going. I'm sure he'll piss off a sponsor, which he does every time, and they come yelling at him. No, I'm going to piss off more than that, my sister. All right. Well, great, because then I have to deal with them. One sponsor, I'm not going to say who it was, came running yelling at me. Oh, I'm going to piss off more than that, my sister. All right. Well, great. I'm going to piss off more than that. Because then I have to deal with them. One sponsor, I'm not going to say who it was, came running up to me and said, I can't believe

you did that and we're sponsoring your show. And I was like, hello. Amazon. Hello, Amazon. I was like, you know what? I don't know what to tell you. You shouldn't have done it. You shouldn't have sponsored us.

And they thought I was going to say, oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't at all. I was like, that's the way it goes. I don't know what to say. You can take the dog out of the pound, but you can't take the pound out of the dog. You know what? I just made that up. Boom!

That's good. Anyways, my prediction, and I was reticent to make this prediction because something that really bothered me was when Bill Ackman said about Herbalife, the arrests are coming. I thought that was a reckless thing to say. But my prediction is around Facebook. I think that there are building, mounting political motivation to criminalize or start criminal investigations. I think either the case, the antitrust case in Texas, which has criminal remedies, is going to be federalized. I think some of the stuff around QAnon, I think it's becoming too tempting for an AG, even if they feel like they're standing on fairly tenuous legal ground, I think it's going to be too tempting for somebody not to say, enough is enough. I'm the sheriff in

town. The buck stops with me. I'm going to file criminal charges against this company. I think in the next 90 to 180 days, we're going to see criminal charges filed against someone or the corporation of Facebook. It's becoming too tempting. I think a lot of this stuff is political. And I think there's too many people with teenage girls, too many people who see what's happened to our voting. Too many people who think, okay, this is an organization that has been subject to a fraction of the scrutiny of other firms that have done a fraction of the damage. And I think someone's going to decide I'm willing to take this on because, quite frankly, I see personal interest in doing this. So I don't want to say arrest. I'd have no idea if there will ever be an arrest. But I think somebody, an AG, an estate, or the federal, or the feds are going to decide. It's time.

All right. Oh, that's a big one. Okay. All right, Sheriff. What do you think? You don't think that's going to happen? I do not. I think they're just going to keep on keeping on.

That's what they do. Anyway, we'll see. At some point, you know, at some point, at some point, they'll get it. But not today. Anyway, thank you. That's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday for more from Los Angeles. Anyway, we didn't get to a listener question this week.

We've received some really great questions on our site. We've noticed some listeners talking to each other on Yapa, which we love to see. Keep it coming. Go to nymag.com slash pivot and join the conversation. Scott, read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Thanks also to Drew Burrows.

Ernie Andretat engineered this episode. 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. Thank you for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

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