Pivot - News flash: Facebook’s contractors are people

Episode Date: March 1, 2019

Kara brings on her former co-host, Wired senior staff writer and Gadget Lab co-host, Lauren Goode. They talk about the moderating content on Facebook -- and the working conditions of the people who are tasked with looking at the gruesome videos.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and reporting tools that get your marketing running seamlessly, all backed by their expert live customer support. It's time to get going and growing with Constant Contact today. Ready, set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. Scott's out again this week in some godforsaken country, but my former co-host and friend Lauren Good has suddenly been able to get in the building

despite all the security I put in place to keep her out. She's now a senior writer at Wired, and she's stepping in again, and I'm happy to have you back, sort of. Who's Scott? Who is this? What's his name again? You are so happy to have me back. Sort of. Who's Scott? Who is this? What's his name again? You are so happy to have me back.

You know what? You looked at your calendar. You had a calendar reminder that was set for, oh, it's been about six months since I've abused Lauren in the podcast studio. Well, that's true. Let me invite her back and it'll be fun for one of us. Yes, it'll be fun for one of us. I do miss insulting you.

Scott is easy to insult too. What's his name again? Scott Galloway. Okay. What does he do? He's you. he's not Lauren Good you guys had a cool podcast name it was too embarrassed

you had a hashtag too embarrassed and now you have literally adopted a word that is the epitome of Silicon Valley satire pivot it's also a friends episode I'm happy to be here

you know my policy on everyone don't let the door hit you on the way out that's true that's what i say to everybody and you mean it goodbye see you later anyway but lauren i am actually happy to have you here thank you and i should say also i also do know who scott is okay i enjoy his tweets okay skewering amazon yes he scares him all right before we start just so you know the reason i sound like brenda vaccaro who none of you have ever heard of, is because I have a really bad cold that I have acquired from traveling too much. So we're going to discuss a lot of things. You know how this works, the big story breakdown to start. We start every week by talking about some of the biggest stories of the week. So let's get started for the big news. I'm going to

start with my colleague casey newton who was also my tenant but he wrote it i didn't know over there he was ferreting away on a fantastic story i was shocked by it i was like he showed it to me i'm like this is good he goes really cara and i'm like oh sorry i mean of course it's good you're not snooping on his no i wasn't no well he's on my wi-fi network let me just my hero network he's investigating and amazon is snooping on all of us – investigating Facebook contractors that came out this week. They had to screen out content that violates Facebook's ethics code. I think it says a lot about Facebook and the toxic garbage that ends up on the internet, the human consequence of these things.

Here he is talking about it on the podcast Vergecast this week. There's literally a poster at Facebook headquarters that says contractors are people too. week. There's literally a poster at Facebook headquarters that says contractors are people too. And I think that that's the thing that makes the point that you are saying is Facebook is reminding itself that its contractors are also human beings. There is something so dark about that to me because obviously like the person who created that poster did so with good intentions. And I bet that whoever made that poster probably has thought more about the humanity of these contractors than maybe some other people at the company. But certainly the idea that you need a reminder, it is a great concern. There was a great story in

the Wall Street Journal a week or two ago about how many big companies now rely on outsourced labor and how it's just a seemingly never ending growing part of the US economy, right? So like a lot of companies rely on that labor. But I think we have to start asking ourselves about the kinds of jobs that we are asking this outsourced labor to do. And then what are the unintended consequences of having it be contracted? And like this story is essentially just like a litany of like some of the bad things that can happen when you let these things get out of your direct sight. So Lauren, what do you think of that story? I thought Casey did an excellent job with that story. I read it as soon as it went up. I thought

it was just really well done. And so Adrian Chen from Wired did this story a few years ago. And in fact, Casey cites that story in his report. Other people have reported on this too. So it's not necessarily a new news story, although Casey did a good job of it. I think what this underscores for me is that this kind of treatment of contractors is still going on. Right. It's getting worse. It's getting worse because as the economy becomes more of sort of a gig economy and people are, you know, picking up part-time work or contract work, they are effectively just losing protections. And this is one of these things where, I mean, this is, it's happening at a place like Facebook, which is supposed to be a mature company. And,

you know, you hear about these like Silicon Valley perks that go on at Silicon Valley companies. And these people are locked in rooms, locked in rooms, but they are closely monitored in rooms. This happens to be in Arizona. They have different colors around their necks, do you know that? I mean, they're, right, they're, like, they're treated differently, but also what they're dealing with, what they're actually working on is very traumatizing content, and in a lot of cases, they're not getting the support they need. Another thing that really stuck to me about Casey's story is that he effectively got the North Korea tour. They put up the motivational posters the day before and, you know, they paraded him in

front of a group of contractors who said, everything's great here. And sure, sometimes it's tough. But, you know, and then they actually, someone referenced Malala and said, well, when she went through something traumatizing, she won a Nobel Peace Prize. Oh, dear. And you're like, really? Is this all really relative? I mean, it just, yeah.

It was kind of disgusting. What do you think? I thought it was a great story. And I think he's just, you know, the continuing chronicling of how these people act a certain way versus what they say is really critical, I think, in terms of Silicon Valley. They still haven't gotten the message that maybe they suck. And I think the continued messaging around them sucking is important, even if all of them suck and not everyone is.

I mean, there's a lot of backlash to it, as you know. I mean, like I get it. Kara, we're not so bad. I'm like, I didn't say you're all so bad, but I want to aim at you so you understand what you're doing wrong. And you just think about it and stop. And they don't. They just don't want to.

They want to feel like they're victimized. There's such an extreme dichotomy. On the one hand, you've got beanbags and massages and dry cleaning and egg freezing and things like that. And then on the other hand, you're treating your contractors really poorly. Yeah. And that's the side of the Silicon Valley

giants that they don't want you to see. And that's how they make money. It's like Dobby's. Remember? You know the Harry Potter reference? Do you know that yet? Dobby. Who are you? Dobby, sir. Dobby the house elf.

Not to be rude or anything, but this isn't a great time for me to have a house elf in my bedroom. Nope. You don't watch Harry Potter? I mean, I've seen it. Oh, my God. Fine. Whatever.

Bring on the abuse, Carol. All right, all right. I just, Dobbyby you should know Dobby Dobby is the little elf with the sock anyway was that your nickname no I'm not Dobby at all

I'm Harry Potter in this story in any case another one Elon Musk getting in trouble the SEC again it's this sort of

carelessness this just generalized carelessness that you don't have to follow the rules what do you think about that Elon Musk Musk man this guy must love Twitter he must love it just generalized carelessness that you don't have to follow the rules. What do you think about that one? Elon Musk. Musk.

Man, this guy must love Twitter. He must love it. He saw Jack Dorsey said he's his favorite Twitterer. He did say that. I mean, because one of his earlier tweets already lost him the chairmanship of his company. After this most recent one, which he claims, by the way,

he meant to say something different. He meant to say that this tweet was referring to an annualized production rate of cars, not overall deliveries. And the SEC is holding him in contempt for something that they believe was material information that he should not be putting on Twitter. There's a lot of back and forth about, well, he already said that in an earnings report, so it doesn't really matter, and all that stuff. That said, there was still a sell-off of Tesla upon news of this happening.

And so when he's tweeting, it is sort of in direct conflict with what he is trying to accomplish with his company. So why do they hush up any of them? I think it's performative. So first of all, I do believe Twitter, in a lot of ways, provides a way for people to connect with an audience and have a direct connection with an audience and with even a customer base

that they don't necessarily get otherwise. And I can see that being really valuable. It's the same for us in media. A lot of times I feel like I get feedback from readers and tips and helpful information that I'm just not getting because they're not going to our website and leaving a comment.

And I find that really helpful. But there's no doubt that there's also a very performative ego-feeding element of Twitter that a lot of us, and I will say us, like it's not just about Elon Musk, like can't seem to let go of. Yeah, why is that? I don't know. Because it's addictive, Lauren. They designed it that way. I mean,

why are you still on Twitter? Because I love it. What if every time, what if not every time, but every so often, like every couple of months you tweeted and it was really to the detriment of recode, but then the majority of the time you were having a good old time on Twitter. Right. Yeah. I mean, you keep doing it, right? Yeah. I don't know. I like it. I find it amusing.

I find a lot of the memes amusing. Some of the people are very funny. I like the funnier parts of it, the less funny parts of it. But, you know, we'll talk about some of the loses of this week because a lot of them were on Twitter. A lot of them were really big messes that were made by people.

All right. What other news do you think is important this week, Lauren Good? Do you think that Elon should keep tweeting? I don't want to stop him from doing something, but he probably should control himself if he's a CEO of a big company, because shareholders depend on him, and so do the employees,

and it's not doing him well. Like you just said, it doesn't help. All the good he's trying to do, he negates by doing it. Yes, probably. How's he ever going to find a girlfriend? He has one. Who's his girlfriend now? Grimes, I think. Oh, right, Grimes. That's probably. How is he ever going to find a girlfriend? He has one. Who's his girlfriend now? Grimes, I think. Oh, right.

Grimes. Yeah, Grimes. That's right. I have no idea. I lose track. I don't know. I thought everybody was saying he needed a girlfriend.

I think most billionaires are able to find girlfriends. That's my opinion. That's very unscientific observation. That's my experience. I feel like that is spot on. Spot on. So what other news

do you think is important this week? This week? Well, there was Mobile World Congress happening in Spain. But you're not there. I am not there. I covered it via HoloLens. No, I'm just kidding.

I really didn't. But, you know, we're getting there in a lot of ways where you can just put on a headset and cover things remotely. Yeah.

So this is a big annual mobile conference that happens in Barcelona. It involves all of the big handset makers except for Apple, usually. Apple never shows up at anything. Yeah, Apple and Google does its own hardware event now as well. And the wireless carriers and now increasingly AR and VR companies are there too,

people who make those headsets. And, yeah, it's kind of like the time of year, aside from Apple, Google, Samsung launches, when everything's really exciting and frothy around the mobile phone market. So is there anything frothy going on? Folding phones. We're going to talk about that and the wins and fails. Should we do some wins and fails?

Okay. No, we will in a minute. No, but so mobile changes. What other news do you think is important? What other news this week? Michael Cohen. Well, we'll get to him. I mean, what else is there?

There is. It's true. It was an astonishing array of testimony, and there's all things around it. YouTube, content moderation. Yeah. I'm going to introduce Susan Wojcicki tomorrow. It will already have happened by the time this appears, or it's just about to happen. What do you think about that?

What should I ask her? You know, Ina Fried. Explain content. Okay, content moderation. Okay. Sounds really freaking boring. Yeah. But content moderation is something that impacts what you see or what you don't want to see, rather, on social platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and everywhere else.

And basically, it's how people, how these platforms are monitoring their content. So if there's something that's harmful, abusive, dangerous, or in some cases just false or misleading, the company has a responsibility to take care of that in some way or another. Most of the big tech companies are using a combination of humans and algorithmic tools to try to moderate this content. YouTube has an interesting problem because one of the more recent things that's come up is how pedophiles are using the platform either to sort of code to one another or link to one another or bury code and videos or connect with one another via comments and things like that and it's become

very insidious right and what happens is like young kids end up clicking on this video they think it's innocent they don't think anything's going on they end up down this wormhole of pedophilia which is which is like really terrible thing and so youtube has to figure out how to counter that. One of the more recent news reports I saw is that they actually disabled comments on some children's videos. You know, what's unfortunate about this is a lot of times it seems like the companies don't take action until advertisers pull out. It's like that's what gets their attention. You know, oh, Disney is no longer advertising.

So like we should probably pay attention now. But YouTube also has a problem because in some ways the same algorithms that are promoting the content that you do want to see, that know who you are, Kara Swisher, what you want to watch, what's going to be interesting to you, and what's actually maybe entertaining or fun to you, the same kind of algorithms are going to end up potentially bubbling up the bad content. And they need to figure out a way to fix it. Why do you think they don't want to do anything about it? Well, I mean, there's like a really cynical, simple answer, which is the more views that any platform gets. It's like I say this about Twitter all the time. The more people argue on Twitter, the better it is for Jack Dorsey. So why would he take somebody off even if that person is completely vitriolic if they're causing arguments and causing a lot of conversation?

And so on YouTube, there's like a version of that conversation. It all comes down to how much they're making in advertising but I do think some of them have very real challenges. Like it's hard to say,

well, we're just going to slap some algorithms against this and fix it. I think they built something they can't handle. Do you think it's just too big? I think it's too big. I think they didn't think about it

in advance and they didn't put in and now it's a flood that is just an endless flood that is impossible to manage. I think it's too big. I think they didn't think about it in advance, and they didn't put in, and now it's a flood that is just an endless flood that is impossible to manage. I don't know. They should shut it down sometimes, I feel like. Have you asked Zimajitzky about this?

I'm going to tomorrow because, you know, I'll tell you why. Here's why. My son, he's listening to Ben Shapiro, then he goes to this, then he gets, like, seven clicks later, he's in neo-Nazi land. It was, like like astonishing to look

at his how it went i was so it went from someone who's clearly on the right to very extreme yes very quickly and i was like no i didn't like the first one but you know he's a kid he can listen to me he's 13 he's going to be 14 i'm not going to bar him from some parents might i didn't and but then it was very too quick for him to get to really stuff that was not stuff I would want him to use. And then you have to have an argument about what you can listen to and what you don't. Then I'm involved in an argument with a very smart 14-year-old about the right to listen to stuff, which I'm not. He's a pretty good arguer too. So it's really kind of – it's an astonishing experience to watch your children get pulled into this.

And then worry about what kind of information he's giving away. Like TikTok just got slammed for that. I don't want to let them off the hook by saying they don't know what they're doing, but they don't know what they're doing. And ultimately, that's willfully malevolent in a lot of ways. Who do you think is ultimately responsible? I was thinking about this a lot this morning because this morning I was just seeing, I think it was a Wall Street Journal article, and I'll admit I didn't read the whole thing yet, but about how more people are getting

hit by cars, pedestrians now, and smartphones, right, are, and we, you've talked about this in the podcast before, you used to say all the time, I go up to people and I shout at them when they're on their phone. Yeah, I do. Kara Swisher, saving the world, everybody. I do not walk around the streets with my phone. You probably save so many pedestrian lives. I have. I do not walk around. The people would think I do, but I don't. But in that case, who's to blame? Is it the humans or is it the technology? I think the technology is built to be so addictive that you can't help yourself. I think, yes, it's like sugar. It's like cigarettes. It's addictive. So you're sort of responsible, but some of it you can't resist. Both. But definitely the companies.

So what do they have to do then? What has to happen? I don't know. Open your iPhone, it's on grayscale to start with. Lots of things. There's tons and tons of little things because it's by nature addictive. But there's all kinds of things they can do that they don't want to do because they want to make it a pleasurable, sugar high experience. And one of the worrying things, to tie it back to Casey's story that we started with,

is Casey mentioned how some of the moderators in his story, the Facebook contractors, Facebook moderators, how some of them started to believe conspiracy theories after seeing terrible content for such a long period of time. So if you're thinking this is a working adult, what is it doing to 14-year-olds? I agree.

I can tell you what it's doing. I believe conspiracy theories. Anyway, we're going to take a quick break now. When we get back, we're going to talk about wins and fails. And Lauren is going to make predictions. Lauren, are you ready for a prediction? I predict Kara's going to ask me back soon to abuse me. Not at all. Anyway, we'll be back soon.

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I don't know, where is Scott, Eric? Who is this Scott person? Who is this guy? Clearly you must like him. You don't even know where he is. I don't know where he is. He's in Dubai.

I think he's in some awful country that abuses its citizens. Anyway, we're going to do wins and fails now, Lauren. Wins and fails and pivot. We call out the people

who are making fools of themselves and talking about people doing good in the world and we try to be fair. Pivot. Pivot, exactly. They are making fools of themselves and talking about people doing good in the world. We try to be fair. Pivot. Pivot, exactly. They can do pivots and stuff like that. What is your, what of the many fails this week are your fails?

And then I would like to know your wins. Oh, we have a whole list here. We do here, but I want to, you don't have to pick these. We just brought these up. The first one is obviously Matt, however the hell you pronounce his name, Gates. Gates, I think. Oh, yeah, the Republican congressman from Florida. I call him that asshole.

He threatened Cohen on Twitter. Yeah, I just call him that asshole, but go ahead. Well, I tweet at you like that all the time. I know that you do. I don't get in trouble for it. So go ahead. Oh, I mean, the whole Cohen thing was just, did you watch it yesterday? I did.

I watched it piecemeal because really I had to be somewhat productive. That's how you watch it. That's the best way to watch it. It was highly interesting. Yeah, bits and pieces. mail because really I had to be somewhat productive. That's how you watch it. That's the best way to watch it. Bits and pieces. I guess, you know, Republican Matt Gaetz tweeted this beforehand threatening Cohen. About an affair.

Right, right. Threatening. He says what the threat is and then says you better be careful. It's like, wait, you just let us know what the threat was. You're supposed to say, oh, something's coming out secret. It was just like,

you're an idiot and a bully and a mobster. Bad one. Like, on a bad episode of The Sopranos. But what, did you think that was a fail? I did, certainly.

Fail. I would have kicked him off a tour. That was a fail. That was jacked. That's really all I have to say about that. Okay, all right. What did you think about the Michael Cohen testimony?

Well, I'd like to know what you thought of it, but I will say I thought he was compelling. I thought it was interesting. I thought I was surprised the Republicans didn't try to defend Trump more. But how could you, given what Michael Cohen was saying? I think, you know, them trying to impute him that he's a liar only serves to hurt Trump because he employed him for 10 years. So if he's such a liar, what was he doing as the head of the deputy chairman of the RNC only a few years ago? So I thought he came off well. I thought some of the stuff that he was alleging is disturbing, as usual, and sort of bears out a lot of the reporting that's been going on for years now by major institutions.

reporting that's been going on uh for years now by major institutions and and i i say when is all these media companies new york times washington post buzzfeed all these others who've been reporting on this stuff and doing a great job uh and then i thought that uh that most of them most of the people were a little bit uh most of the congress people were very uh trying to make grandstanding a little bit on both sides i think except for alizandra ocasio who i thought did a great job she was she's the total one of the week is that again she's proven that she's not just really good on twitter but she's substantive and she did a substantive non-showy it was showy but not showy it was really fascinating she's really quite the politician on on and got real information out of him that was critical around taxes,

which is where the rubber hits the road. So I thought she was great. Someone on Twitter asked her if she had gone to law school, and she replied that, no, she hadn't gone to law school because she couldn't afford it, but she's learning on the job. And, of course, it immediately got 277,000 likes or something absurd like that. I don't know.

She's just so dynamic. She said talking in a bar helped her know people. That's right. Working in a bar as a waitress. Working as a bartender. Which I think is good. It's very appealing from a working class. I think you're right in that there was a lot of grandstanding.

You knew immediately which way some of the questions were going to go based on whether someone was effectively Republican or Democrat. Right. And I think, I forget actually who it was that asked now. I think someone brought up a great point to Cohen, which is, well, if Donald Trump was so terrible, then why did you work for him for 10 years? Which I think is an excellent question. I mean, that's why I left you after. But I think I never I never made you pay off a porn star. Let's be clear. No, just one time. Hold on. There was how many I did work for like seven years.

So, you you know so someone could question me why not just seven months if she was that way but anyway uh i mean i mean there yeah cohen himself has a really spotty track record people like that kind of stuff they like being close to the like the hot i could see why he would stay there he's like this guy from it's exciting yeah and he's and he he's, as he said multiple times, he is going to prison, effectively saying, I have nothing more to lose. So let's put it all out there.

Now, I guess the big question is whether there's any real fallout from this. Well, it looks like they just subpoenaed the children of Trump from it. And the secretary, the woman who does scheduling for all kinds of people. Another magnificent day on Twitter is coming. Yes, exactly.

And so that should be interesting. I mean, you know, my whole thing is how many really like, I thought the best tweet of the whole thing was, now I know this entire thing is, it's like an episode of The Godfather except everybody is Fredo. It's Fredo. I love that. That was really funny.

That's why I love Twitter. That's why I stay there. I thought it was really compelling. I thought That was really funny. See, that's why I love Twitter. That's why I stay there. I thought it was really compelling. I thought it was really compelling. I thought reporters did a great job of it. I don't think they overdid it. Right. Another win of the week is that Jacob Wall got Reikerman Conspiracy Theorist,

who everybody knows has been abusing Twitter, finally got kicked off. Kicked off. Finally. Gone. But he's been doing it forever and bragging about it. Goodbye. Goodbye.

I mean, what the heck? I would love to know what shadow accounts he immediately created after that just to lurk and see how people were reacting. Exactly. I thought that was a win, but I thought it was a late win. I would have done it a long time ago. Of course, they don't ever want to do that. So I thought that was a win.

Another one for you? Microsoft released the new HoloLens headset. All right. Explain that to me. No, I know, Cara, that you're not exactly— You like products. You're not super excited to run out and get a new HoloLens yourself. I'm sure I'll have one because I've got two children. Which is good. No, it's not for consumers, so your kids might not

even get it. All right. So Microsoft has this mixed reality headset. Started working on it several years ago. There was a first version. They just released a second version at Mobile World Congress. I went to Microsoft last week. I got the hands-on. Do you call it a hands-on or a heads-on? Heads-on. Heads-on. Did the deep dive, talked to the people who were making it. And I will say that from a mixed reality headset perspective, as nerdy as it sounds, they made some pretty significant technological advancements.

Did you like it? It's designed better. It's lighter. It's more comfortable. The optics are using this new patented image technology. It's really nerdy stuff. I won't get into it. Of course, ever since Satya Nadella

took over at the helm of Microsoft, they have to talk about the edge in the cloud in Azure. I mean, it's just completely brainwashed. Microsoft employees, it's totally a part of their vernacular now. They say it all the time. So this thing connects to Azure and all that. That said, it's a pretty advanced mixed reality headset. I guess if there was a fail,

you could say that Microsoft employees are not particularly happy about HoloLens this week. Well, explain why. Or not HoloLens necessarily, but Microsoft's military contract with, well, with the government, with the military for HoloLens. So it was reported, I believe, last November that Microsoft had a contract with the military for HoloLens. It was, I mean, it's hundreds of millions of dollars worth. And the military is using this for training purposes. And this is sort of, we've entered an era of digital warfare officially. And so it's interesting seeing the different tech companies take different tacks with this.

Google, of course, encountered its own resistance from employees around Project Dragonfly. But Jeff Bezos of Amazon has come out and just said explicitly, like, I'm paraphrasing, but you want the military using the best tech. And if you don't want the U.S. Department of Defense or the military using the best tech, like, what do you want them using?

Shitty tech? Like, I do think about this a lot. It is kind of a conundrum. But there are employees who feel very strongly that they have signed on to build a product for a specific need and that need didn't necessarily include warfare. That's what they should do. Separate companies.

Is that what you think? Yeah. And if you want to work for the military company, work for the military. It's just separate. Just pull them out. And then you can make your choices. Like, I feel like working for the cigarette company,

I'm going to do it. Like, whatever. That's interesting. I don't know. That solves it. Then everybody can, like, it makes its money or it doesn't, and then that's that.

Microsoft has encountered this before, too, with ICE. Yeah, yeah. With ICE, they're going to do it. With Salesforce, every company is going to encounter this. And they do want the business. If you want the business, create a separate company

that is unaffiliated with the company and that you make, your products aren't being made or brought over there. And you can't prevent the military from buying some of the products, can't prevent military from using Google or from using cell phones or from using, that is just impossible if you go down that road. Oh, and I mean, they, you know, they have representatives who show up at CES every year and they're walking the floor and they're scouring for new tech. That's what they're doing. But, you know, I saw Ash Carter

this week, who is the former defense secretary, who has some really very sophisticated thoughts on this. I mean, you've got to allow these companies to, not these companies, these employees, to voice these problems and then figure out what to do because there's got to be, you know, more humanity into it and thinking about it. And you shouldn't, if you don't want to make drones that kill people, you shouldn't have to make drones

that kill people just because you work for, you know, Google or Microsoft or whatever. I don't know. It's very difficult. It's a difficult question. I don't think Apple does make stuff for the military, do they? Not that we're aware of. Not that we're aware of.

Let's get on that story. Let's get on that story. I think they tend to fight the government with encryption and things like that, which is interesting. All right. Another fail. Any other fails this week that you have? Any other wins? $2,600 smartphones.

Oh, what? How about that? So I mentioned Mobile World Congress earlier. Yes, you did. You said a folding phone? Like a Motorola. Folding phone. So I would actually say that folding phones are a win.

And I'm going to tell you why. One, because the smartphone market is really boring right now. We've all got the same rectangular glass slabs. The innovation is incremental at this point. Some people would say it's a mature market at this point.

Bring me a new toy. Sales have slowed. Folding phones, we've seen as concepts for years, but now a couple of companies, actually three companies, maybe if Motorola rumors are true,

are going to be shipping consumer-ready folding phones this year. What does it mean, folding? Is that like my flip phone? It literally means, no, it's not like your flip phone, which has a hinge. I mean, there is a hinge, but it means the display, like that shiny display that you're looking at right now because you never pay attention to me. You could just fold it at the display point.

What do you mean, fold it? Like you could take this, and it would actually be larger. It would probably be closer to a 7-inch tablet size, so a big thing. And then there would be a hinge here and you would actually fold it backwards. And then you would use it like a – so they do it different ways. Samsung's folds in. Huawei's folds out. And then we don't know if Motorola's thing, which may or may not come like this here.

And so what's the idea behind folding? The idea is that you would carry both a tablet and a phone at once. Is it fat? Some of them are, yeah. Some of them, you know what they look like to me? You like those fat devices. You're always carrying those things on your wrist. You're always wearing it.

You're like, look, doesn't this look pretty? I'm not wearing wrist stuff anymore. I know. What's going on? It's gone. I don't know. I just like... You've got a hair tie on there.

I got a hair tie. Wow. Huh. Interesting. But why not? Why aren't you wearing... You tend to like those things and think they're okay. I never do.

I don't know. They're not too fat? I don't want to... tend to like those things and think they're okay. I never do. I don't know. They're not too fat? I don't want to find a fat phone. Wait, the phones or the wearables? The wearables are fat. You like fat wearables. Okay, so the phones are like, you know, when you walk into maybe like a not nice hotel and they've pushed two twin beds together to make a queen.

Yeah, yeah. And you can kind of see the seam in between the two. And if you lift up the blanket, you're like, it's two beds pushed together. It's kind of like that with these phones. If you look really closely, you're like, it's two phones smushed together. But what's interesting in the innovation side is the display. The sentence you wrote, it's two phones smushed together. Smushed.

It's my very eloquent review of these things. So you can't fold glass, right? You can't fold like Gorilla Glass or something like that. So these companies are using a polymer. And I don't know it's like we've seen concepts you like the idea i like the idea why because i don't agree with you as someone who travels a lot and commutes a lot i like the idea of of having the same device one device and folding it open and then saying okay now i have something that's a Kindle size or something that's a tablet size if I need to see something.

You can't just have two devices, Lauren. I mean, just pull one out. I carry around a lot of stuff. It's a pain in the butt. Two devices. This is a first world problem. I have so many gadgets. Is that how you say it?

Yeah, so many gadgets. I want to have an extra charger. I have seven gadgets with me. I need to charge. I don't know. But the fail is that they're really expensive. Yeah. $2,600.

Jesus. $2,000 to $2,600. She's a cracker, as I like to say. That is a lot of money. Who's going to buy that? You're going to get one. You. You are super going to get one.

I'm not getting any folding anything. I bet the next time you invite me back on this show, you're going to have a folding phone. No. I'm still recovering from a lot of things, but I still like my AirPods. Everything littler. I want it littler. I don't want it bigger. I want it to be tiny,

and then it comes in front of me in a way like on the desk. There's no device there. Like no device, folding or non-folding. Are you still using your AirPods? I love my AirPods. How many pairs have you gone through now? Seven. Ten.

Okay, 50. That was a Michael Cohen reference because he's like, how many times have you threatened people? I don't recall. Was it 50? No, was it 50? Bigger. Right. Was it 100? More.

Was it 200? More. Was it 500? Yeah, 500. How many times did you consult by phone? I don't recall. Approximately how many times did you consult by phone? I don't recall. How many times did you take a meeting? Six.

Okay, cool. Got it. But I have lost a lot of airpods but i love them i love them i would say several thousand dollars worth of airpods i have i'm going to do one more win which is the serena williams uh dream crazy yes yes i mean i love her it's yes that ad is great it's great because women don't get to cry and then the cover of rolling stone had all the the ladies of Congress on it again. It was Ocasio. It was Pelosi.

The others in the squad. It was just – then they were looking great. And they just – it was – I just loved it. Yes. And that Serena Williams, please watch this video. It's a Nike video even though you're getting sold sneakers. It's all the women crying and they're not allowed to do this. And you're thought of as crazy or you're too big.

And she, you know, she gets a lot of attacks because she's big or she had a baby and then came back. And so like, and it's all about, it's sort of playing off of the job thing, like think different kind of thing. But it was, it was dream crazy. So if they want to call you crazy, fine. Show them what crazy can do do it was all about expressing emotion

right and i think the unspoken uh part of that commercial is that men express those same things they throw rackets and chairs and they yell at refs and the whole thing and suffer minimal consequences and women do it you know mean, as a former athlete, I can tell you I've got at least a few technicals saying things like, you've got to be kidding me. You know, and that's like the kind of thing that, this is my younger years, that like, you know. It comes as no surprise, but go ahead.

Oh, you would have wanted me on your team, Swisher. I guess. I didn't do many sports. I did some. So it was great. It was a really great thing to talk about that. And in that vein, you know, next week at South by Southwest, you are not going? You are not going. I'm not going. I'm going.

I'm interviewing a lot of ladies there. And one of them is Amy Klobuchar, who I have to deal with the comb issue, which I don't want to do. I don't want to talk about the comb. Well, it's not just the comb issue. I know it's about bad bosses. Of all people, Brad Stevens wrote an excellent article in the New York Times this week about that. It's bad bosses. It's being a bad boss and saying sorry for being a bad boss.

So it's, I'm not relishing, I'd like to talk about actual policy but I do have to, I have to walk through the valley of comb before I get there. How would you put that? And water bottles. Oh, whatever. Like, what should I do? What should I, how should I do that? How should you ask her about this? You know, I'm going to say, listen, the comb thing, that is fucked up, Amy. Like, what should I do? What should I, how should I do that? How should you ask her about this?

You know, I'm going to say, listen, the comb thing, that is fucked up, Amy. Like, what's the deal? Like, stop it. Like, why did you eat with a comb? That is fucked up. I'm just going to say that is fucked up. Is it fucked up that she ate with a comb or that she then demanded that her staffers clean the comb? The whole incident.

The eating with a comb, the whole thing. Is she going to be eating with her fingers? Could have been with your hands. Yeah. Yeah. Could have done it. The whole thing was just like, I'm going to just flat out say it. This is just icky. And then the comb, the whole thing. You should be eating with your fingers. You should be eating with your hands. Yeah. The whole thing was just like, I'm going to just flat out say it. This is just icky.

And then the throwing, it's not cool. It's not cool, lady. And then I'm going to say, look, it is a little sexist too because I know a lot of men. I had a guy who used to try to make toast for him and then he'd line us up by height, John McLaughlin, and then we would have to get dust balls. And so like lots of crazy. Oh, yeah, you talked about this guy. Yeah, it's crazy stuff. On that article. So, yeah.

And so I'm aware of bad bosses, like that kind of stuff, that level. There's tough bosses and bad bosses. There's two different things or people who are doing crazy things. So I want to talk about that because I don't think that's sexist. But I do think men get a pass on that kind of behavior.

Like Bill Clinton had his purple rage. You know, they all get pass. Jennifer Palmieri wrote a very good story about that who worked for Clinton and is very close to Amy Klobuchar. behavior like bill clinton had his purple rage uh you know they all get past jennifer palmieri wrote a very good story about that who worked for clinton and is very close to amy klobuchar so i think there's that part of it there is a sexism it just still doesn't matter shitty shitty behavior like that is should be chastised i also don't think it should only be viewed through the lens of gender yeah because. Because even comparing to Bill Clinton maybe isn't so much relevant anymore because that was more than 20 years ago.

Right. You know, his heyday as a politician. So I think it's also, yeah, you have to consider the state of the workplace now and what is considered appropriate

and how we've evolved as professionals and also how, you know, the public image of politicians has evolved. I never have. I mean, God, no. Like mean, God, no.

Like, what would... No. Like, have I thrown anything? No. I'm like, I didn't even throw a pencil at Nilay Patel. Like, I mean... He deserves a pencil or two thrown at his direct... Thrown adjacent to him. No, and like, you've never thrown anything, have you?

I don't recall it yelling. I don't... Maybe I have, but I don't recall it. There was one incident of a red pen that I shall not go into. But Lisa Dickey can tell you that story. I was very under stress when I was writing my book and Lisa was helping me write my book, Lisa Dickey. And she got me the wrong red pen and hijinks ensued.

I was like, what is this red pen? I think I was just overwrought. And then I apologized. But it just was the wrong red pen. I can't explain it. I feel badly about what is this red pen? I think I was just overwrought. And then I apologized. But it just was the wrong red pen. I can't explain it. I feel badly about it to this day. It's 25 years later or whatever. And I'm still like, I can't believe I did that.

I mean, I can tell you in the workplace. No, but I remember, like I remember when, you remember when people around you have that freak out. Right. Like I remember one person i worked with at an old job who was doing a lot of heads down work like picture audio video editing where you have your headphones on all the time and you really have to focus on what you're doing in a noisy part of the newsroom and like one day just kind of lost his shit but like it was forgivable

it wasn't he was like throwing things i think that's normal i think that's plus in this day and age with internet and video you can't you just can't do it I mean you can imagine if that comb incident had been caught on a video we all game over for her

as a president like that she'd carry around the comb video the whole time think about that yeah you know

that's my advice to you is not just to look at it fairly and squarely through the lens of gender but also the era in which we are currently living.

The Valley of Calm. Okay. I do want to talk to you. I want to hear this. She has a lot of stuff to talk about tech policy and regulation of tech. She's a very smart person. She does. She's tough on tech. She is tough, so I want to talk about that. I want to get to that. I'm going to move through the Valley of Calm, go past the water bottle, central, and whatever else she's done, and then

move on to that. All right. Last thing before we go, prediction time. In this segment, we talk about what we think is coming in the pipeline. We've talked about subscription bundling, which Scott is calling the rundle. Sometimes we get into things wrong, but we often get them right. I was right about Amazon pulling out of New York. Do you have a prediction this week? I have a prediction.

It's somewhat of a hope. Okay. Maybe not so much of a hope. My prediction is that the big tech platforms are going to start to embrace their roles as content moderators, meaning that they are going to, on the upside, you have companies like Twitter that I think will actually start kicking more vitriolic, hateful, terrible, abusive people off its platform. All right. That's my hope, anyway.

Okay, I think you could not be more wrong, but go ahead. Okay, we should talk about this. I just had the ridiculous cat rodeo with Jack Dorsey, and he still didn't take responsibility for the thing. And then decided Elon Musk was the best tweeter around. Elon Musk is doing things that is

harmful to Tesla on Twitter. Right. He does some cool tweets. All I'm saying is he didn't show a lot of like, I'd like to know where his health of the conversation thing is. That's what I'd like to know. Yes. Like, where is it? I don't see any health.

I mean, I judiciously use Twitter, but because I curate it well, but I think you're wrong. Okay. Why do you think they're going to do it legitimately? What's going to happen? Well, I think the Jacob Wolfe thing was the first step. All right. I think that there's probably going to be a lot of attention paid to the reaction and the fallout from that. They should not care.

Fuck it. No, they shouldn't. They should not care. But that's the thing. Maybe we are getting to the point where Twitter won't care because these companies are, yes, they're publicly traded companies, but they're in the private sector. They can make the rules on their own platforms. They can decide what kind of content they want on there. This is not a matter of free speech. It's not government censorship.

It is a matter of what these private companies decide works or does not work for their platform. You think curation. This is their new thing. But on the downside of curation, now this is like very meta media here, but there have been reports that Apple is going to be launching a curated new subscription service next month. And so that is going to be, and that they're offering deals with publishers that are not necessarily favorable to some of the publishers. And so I think that's going to be

potentially a downside of a big tech company coming in and saying, here's this curated content experience. I had Sam Altman on stage. He's like, do you want Mark Zuckerberg deciding on everything? And I'm like, you know what? I want someone to decide on stage. He's like, do you want Mark Zuckerberg deciding on everything? And I'm like, you know what? I want someone to decide on it.

I don't care how they do it. They have a, they're thinking of an outside council at Facebook, all kinds of stuff. They have to curate it. They just can't have this platform, an editorial platform without editorial controls. They just can't do it. It's a purge every frigging day of the week. Yeah, and I also tend to believe that these creations of bodies outside of the platform, it's exactly what the gaming industry did years ago when the gaming industry was coming under a lot of fire for violent content.

They created, like, there was this outside body that was launched saying, like, well, we're going to moderate the content and we're going to make judgment on that. And, like, ultimately, I mean, I think video games are still pretty violent. They are. We've all kind of assimilated, right? Right. So, yeah, i don't know so anyway i think there's going to be my prediction is that in the short term there's going to be

more of an embrace of curated content from the big tech platforms completely wrong okay let's see just crap all right i'm kidding you might be right i just think they don't care i think they still don't they still push back they just don't want to take responsibility they want all the benefits and very few of the responsibilities i just i just don't get a I think they still don't. They still push back. They just don't want to take responsibility. They want all the benefits and very few of the responsibilities. I just don't get a sense that they've gotten it and they're hoping it will all go away. That's my feeling. It's not going to, though. I like your hopes and dreams.

You just crushed them. What's your prediction? I predict you will be wrong. Anyway, time to get out of here. Thank you so much for coming to Pivot, Lauren. I'll be back next week. And so will Scott. Anyway, Rebecca Sinanis produces the show.

Nishat Kerouac is the executive producer. Thanks as always to Eric Johnson. And thank you again to Lauren Good. Thanks again for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week with more of a breakdown on all things tech and business. If you like what you've heard, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. 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. It's an AI-powered customer platform that builds

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