The Vergecast - How Color of Change helped lead the Facebook boycott

Episode Date: July 14, 2020

Nilay Patel talks to Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change. Color of Change, an online racial justice organization, is one of the groups leading the ad boycott against Facebook and other social media companies in response to hate speech appearing on the platforms. In the interview, Robinson talks about how the boycott campaign came together; his history pushing Facebook on issues of hate speech and civil rights; and meeting with Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and fellow leaders of the boycott to discuss the Facebook civil rights audit and how the company can improve the platform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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covering the biggest names and stories in sports and mom. And this is Am Mom, a community for athletes, game changers, and moms of all kinds dropping May 14th tap in with us everybody it's nina life from the verge cast on this week's interview episode i talked to rashad robinson he's the president of color of change that's one of the organizations leading the boycott against facebook and other social media companies they've signed up verizon coca cola unilever you name it uh they're all pulling their ads from social media platforms particularly facebook in response to hate speech appearing on the platforms things like that rashad and i talked about how that campaign came together how long he's been

pushing Facebook. Facebook just released a civil rights audit. You can read about that on our site. Rashad took a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg, Cheryl Sandberg, a bunch of the other leaders of the boycott to discuss that audit. What comes next? We talked about what happened in that meeting. And we generally talked about how color change and other organizations are pushing Facebook to be better and the complexity of pushing for regulations around platform moderation, which is really hard. Super interesting conversation. Rashad is a powerful speaker on the stuff. He's very animated. I learned a lot. And I I hopefully pushed in a little bit to explain some of these positions. Check it out, Rashad Robinson, president of color of change.

Rashad Robinson, you're the president of color of change. Welcome to the Vergecast. Thanks for having me. So Color of Change has been in the news a lot recently around Facebook boycotts. You just had a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg. There's the civil rights audit that Facebook just released. You've been talking about that. But I want to start the very start for people. What is color of change? Color of Change is an organization that works to hold. hold government and corporations accountable. We are a force driven by nearly seven million black folks and allies of every race. And we were founded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when black

folks were literally on their roofs begging for the government to do something and they were left to die. And the thing about Katrina that I think animates so much of our theory of change is that it wasn't geographic segregation or generational poverty or the impacts of structural racism on climate and so many other things, it was that no one was nervous about disappointing black people, government, corporations, and media. So essentially, color of change is a strategic force that works to channel the energy, passions, and activism of everyday people to ensure that folks are nervous about disappointing black people. That's a really remarkable way of thinking about it.

What do you mean by nervous? I mean that when institutions are not nervous about disappointing you, it doesn't matter what kind of research report you have that illustrates. traits all the facts and figures. It doesn't matter what you do in the courts if you can't actually implement those changes. It doesn't matter if people from a public opinion perspective are with you, right? Power is the ability to change the rules. And far too often, I think we mistake presence, visibility, awareness for power. Presence is a black president. It doesn't mean presence is bad, right? A black president can be really great, right? And certainly we would go back to that error right now.

But to the extent that if you think that alone is the thing, then you mistake a black president for thinking you've ended structural racism or that you'll become post-racial. You think that a lot of black celebrities that America admires means that America loves black people as much as America loves black culture. And America can love black culture and celebrate black culture and monetize black culture and hate black people at the same time. And those two things don't always have to be in conflict. And so when we talk about ensuring that those in power are nervous about disappointing us, it means that when decisions are made, when policies are set, whether they're in the corporate boardroom or in Capitol Hills or in media bullpins, that folks recognize the power of our community and recognize that there will be rewards and there will be consequences. So right now, one of those consequences looks very much economic. You've organized a boycott of advertisers of major social media platforms. You have some alliance partners in doing that at the NAACP, Free Press, some others.

Talk about that a little bit. How did that come about? Is it working? Do you see it continuing? A lot of the advertisers have said we're pausing it for a month, right? Do you see that carrying on? So, you know, this is part of a five-year effort that we've been in back and forth with Facebook for years, trying to get them to make changes.

We were the ones who, along with a couple of other groups, called for the civil rights audit to begin with. And when the civil rights audit was initially called for, you know, there weren't a lot of groups that sort of were there. And then Facebook agreed to it, but not really. We got Senator Booker to, you know, ask some questions of Zuckerberg at Senate about the civil rights. He agreed to it. Then nothing. Then Facebook hires a PR firm to launch a tax on us. And we end up in a meeting with Cheryl Sandberg, where we get her to agree to release the audit publicly, which is the only reason why we're at a place where the audit is public. And so we've been round and round. And June 1st, I met with with Cheryl and Mark and a number of other folks on

that team, along with Vanita Gupta from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Cheryl and Eiffel from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. And towards the end of the meeting, as Mark was like explaining the Donald Trump post that he left up and trying to defend them, I was like, what are we doing here? Like, why are we even happening? Like, what's going on? I mean, it was actually like a very like surreal moment because like in the middle of COVID there's uprisings happening. I'm like been quarantine. I'm sitting in front of a computer for like it's the end of the day.

And I'm just like frustrated that I'm being explained why these things are not a thing. And at that point I was like, I knew that the folks on the team who had been thinking about a boycott that I was going to have to just lean on them, that that was going to have to move. And so I remember the next day being like, I think we've got to move on this boycott idea

because I don't think I can't keep going these meetings and sitting here. This is just not what we do. I don't like spend my time negotiating with corporations about my freedom and my dignity. I don't do that. And so part of this was like, they were not nervous about disappointing black people. And so we started to plan out a boycott. As we were planning it out and talking to partners and talking to potential donors, we found that other groups were also looking at a boycott. And we were like, okay. And then there were like a lot of different demand, some overlapping, some not. And I was like, okay. We cannot all be telling corporations five different things about what we want. And in some ways, many different groups have

for years been saying different things to Facebook. That's a little different. But to the corporations who are divested, we need them to be singing from a similar script when they're making demands to Facebook. Otherwise, the campaign wouldn't last. I have like never been in campaigns with Facebook, with, let's say, the ADL. But I have been in meetings with Facebook and the NAACP as an example and with free press. And so, like, to the extent that we got folks aligned around the demand, that's sort of how we've then sort of been able to move this conversation. And in many ways, I will say that what's really been empowering this is that corporations are

putting Black Lives Matter on a lot of things. And, you know, we as an organization have been really critical. but also very focused on ensuring that we make these corporations actually have to do something to live up to Black Lives Matter. It's not just responding to us and the public. In many ways, they're responding to their employees, black employees, allies of black folks who are all sort of speaking up about the sort of structures. And so this is one of those inflection point moments where we have to ask and demand for things that are more sort of structural. And it doesn't mean that this is the only thing, but it does mean that if you are a corporation that is saying Black Lives Matter, then your ad should not be sitting next to and sponsoring white nationalist content on Facebook's platform. So the list of advertisers you've convinced to hit pause, the terminology is all replaced, but I'll go with pause. Boycott. Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Starbucks, Target, E&Elever, Verizon. I mean, these are some of the biggest corporations in America.

I'm going to ask you directly if I was to be in my most cynical moment, I would say, well, the pandemic hit, all their marketing budgets got slashed, Black Lives Matter, the movement for racial justice is an all-time high. Some CMO was like, I can get victory from the jaws of defeat here. I can say I'm relaxing this budget and get a win over here and get a bunch of good press for it. Is that a part of it? Do you think it's not a part of it? Is that just opportunistic for you? Oh, sure. I'm absolutely. I mean, I'm not like a Pollyanna about corporate campaigns, nor do I have like any belief that corporations are sitting around waiting for the most altruistic thing to do in moments, right? Corporations are leveraging Black Lives Matter. And so I'm going to go in and say, okay, let's play. Yeah. What are you willing to do? And here are some things I need you to do. I need you to release your data on, you know, your leadership and your board. I need you to give us a sense of where you're investing your money. I need to. to know if, like, I have this campaign on Facebook. I'm going to give corporations things to do in this moment, and I am under no illusion that they wouldn't have done it a month ago or two months ago. So, like, to be clear, that's, I think, important. I think the other important thing is that we, I've been, like I said, I've been back and forth with Facebook for years.

This is the first time since they attacked us publicly and that got exposed, but I actually feel like they are concerned that the calls and the emails, the late night, like, chat. The wanting to be on the conversation, the trying to explain to us. The meeting we had with Mark this week was not a meeting that we requested. It was a meeting they requested. I wasn't requesting a meeting. They wanted to meet before the boycott started.

And Cheryl reached out and we were like, thanks for reaching out. We will meet, but Mark has to be in the meeting. And they followed up and they said, Mark will be in the meeting. And then we met because if you're running a boycott against someone and they asked to meet, then you have to like meet with them if you're asking corporations. to divest. But it wasn't like I was like sitting around waiting and we sent the demands to Facebook with the response and, you know, they went in and they said, well, we'd love to hear what you have to say. I was like, well, I'd love to hear what you have to say. Y'all have the demands.

Hear the demands. Talk to us about what you're going to do. You know, they've already now added a vice president for civil rights with a budget. This was like a long-term thing. We asked for C-suite. They gave us senior level. You know, I'm not sure how. powerful this position will be, but I do know that they've already reached out to ask me about candidates. I know they're like scrambling to try to be able to have some progress on this, probably before Mark goes to testify in front of Congress at the end of the month on antitrust. They are absolutely scrambling because we talk to the corporations and the corporations are getting talking points after talking points. We see the emails from their head of advertising, who is, you know,

one of the more powerful people in advertising because she, you know, sells space on the most powerful advertising platform the world has ever known. And, you know, she's sending out emails talking about the weeks of tears and how hard this has been on her personally. And I feel like really bad for her

as a black person living in America, that systemic racism is hurting her so hard that she's crying over the Facebook ads. But I've got to tell, I've got some stories for her about the impact that her platform has had on my community, and I hope that her tears aren't just about sort of like the challenges and her job over the sort of ways in which we are experiencing a platform that's

weaponized against us, both in elections and our day-to-day. It's interesting that you're talking about letters, you're talking about executives, feeling the personal hurt of this moment. We've also heard that Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg are saying, we're not going to fold the advertiser pressure. That's a bad way for us to make decisions. And the decisions are specifically talking about are moderation decisions, right? There's speech decisions.

I mean, I personally would, I don't know that I'm 100% excited about corporations leading to speech decisions in America. I have some mixed feelings about that. But what do you, how do you respond to Zuckerberg saying we're not going to fold the advertiser pressure? I mean, every corporation tells us they're not going to fold before they fold. Right. That's just like how this works, right? like, average, like, you know, Fox News wasn't going to fold and then Bill O'Reilly's gone. Fox News wasn't going to fold and then Glenn Beck was gone.

Those corporations divesting from Alec weren't going to fold and then they did. You know, I'd be like literally get a press release from the companies before I'd go on TV saying that they wouldn't fold. And then on air, the host is saying that they're announcing that they're folding. Like this is like, this is like how this works. And so they may or may not fall, but they are looking for ways out. I do want to touch on the speech issue because I think that what Facebook is sort of engaged in is not free speech. They have algorithms and they have programs that incentivize certain type of speech to travel. This is not going on the street corner and being able to say what you want to say.

This is monetizing certain types of content and allowing it to travel. When we got Bill O'Reilly off the air, right, no one was arresting Bill O'Reilly and putting him in for what he said. What we were saying was that you're not, you don't have a right to like be on air with corporate sponsors standing next to you. And so in some ways, we're using our freedom of speech to say to corporations, you have a choice. Stand with us or stand with this type of content. And corporations have every right to stand with us. But, you know, I do think that sometimes we talk about these things as free speech. When free speech is about not being locked up for saying things. And we have so many different.

rules around how people not yelling fire in a crowded theater, not sort of advancing lies and liable in the space, not inciting violence. There's a whole set of things that sort of relate to the responsibility of speech in this country. And Facebook actually fundamentally believes they don't actually, they're not responsible the same way TV is. They're not responsible the same way radio is that they somehow because of the rules for the internet were written before the internet in a lot of ways, at least for the social media platforms, that they don't actually have to abide by them. And so I do know that I do hear a lot from people like are comfortable, like, are you censoring? And I'm like, well, none of us have a right to make money on, you know,

like broadcasting things. That's not the constitutional right that we can just go out and say whatever we want regardless of whether it's true or not, there's freedom of speech, but it's not freedom from the consequences of speech. Freedom of speech means that you're not going to get locked up and you're not going to get thrown in jail. It does not mean that you can incite violence against communities. It does not mean that white nationalists can stir up hate violence and target people and docs people.

Who gets to be free in that scenario? Does only the people with power and only people with voice get to be free? And so, you know, I regularly sort of am in these situations where I look at how these platforms are designed, and this is across Silicon Valley. And I see that choices were made in the beginning to incentivize certain types of information to travel and other information to not. Certain decisions were made and how the structures were set up. And so we are not in this sort of benign space where all things are equal. We are in a space where the rules have been set and privileges have been advanced. And as a result, winners have been baked in and losers have as well.

It's interesting that you talk about broadcasting radio. I really want to get to your meeting with Zuckerberg. I want to hear how that went. I'm very curious about that. But I just want to push on this a little bit. Broadcast and radio have a set of rules on them because they travel over the airwaves. Right. And the airwaves are a scarce public resource.

The FCC can be set up and say, okay, we're going to regulate. the scarce public resource of the airwaves, you broadcasters, you have some restrictions. Those restrictions wax and wane over time. The internet is not that. So the only, the government is really, they don't even have that rationale of the airwaves are a public resource that we have to treat carefully. It's just the internet. So the government can't do it. Who do you think should sort of impose a broad moderation regulation? I mean, the government, we did build the internet in this country. I mean, so like to the extent that it's, it's not a utility. And to the extent that, you know, the principles of net neutrality and the

principles of an open internet don't, shouldn't apply here, that that college kid at Harvard who wanted to like rate women had a structure to build this on and had infrastructure that was built by taxpayers and built by the country, we have to acknowledge that. And there, and if there were, if there were not those structures and was not that infrastructure, the kid at Harvard would have never been able to build Facebook because he wanted to like rate women on campus. And so like, I just think like, you know, when we think about these platforms and when we think about what they've built into, I do think that sometimes we tell ourselves a story that people who have gotten really far and built big institutions have done so just because they're brilliant and creative and they've done it

all on their own. And I think that that's a story that really sort of deprioritizes all the ways in which structural racism, misogyny, all of classism have allowed certain people to actually be prioritized to build things when other people were not even allowed to build things and grow platforms. And so, you know, I absolutely, as a person who says things that are controversial, as a person who pushes campaigns that I'm targeting powerful people, you know, absolutely believe that people should be able to make points that are controversial. They should be able to push and advance things. But when a platform is incentivizing content that leads to violence,

a content that like targets us, content from people who are calling for a second civil war, then who ends up being responsible? Like Facebook is making money off of it. It's not like they're just, it's just sitting on the internet. It's not like, I'm not saying the boogaloo boys don't get a website. I'm saying, does Facebook get them on their platform and get to put Verizon's logo next to it? And Verizon, if they're like sponsoring this with their logo, do I not get to call Verizon up and say, hey, what's the deal, y'all? And so I hear you on this, but I do think that some of these things are very different.

It's one thing for someone to create a website that I find objectionable. hateful and there's a lot of things out there. And I'm not calling for those websites to come down. I am, though, saying that on a platform like Facebook where it's a corporate structure, they are making money, they have shareholders, they are trying to operate inside of the economy, that there should be rules for that. And if they want to monetize and make money and become rich off of hate speech and then they want to create algorithms and rules that allow it to actually travel, then they should be responsible for that. And they should be held accountable. for that. And at the very least, they should defend it. If they tell me that they are pulling down

89% of the content through their AI, then they need to be transparent and show me how that actually works, how that actually makes sense and how like the stuff still shows up on my page when I'm about as progressive as they come. And that should be rooted out. Like, how does that stuff really show up? And I think, and here's the thing, if you go on Facebook now and you start looking up white nationalist of stuff. By the end of the day, you will start being served other white nationalist content. You will be indoctrinated into more and more and more and more of it because that's how the algorithms work. And that's because they want to show you more and more because they're monetizing it through ads and the more you click. And so this is also sort of advancing the sort

of rabbit hole that people are going down. And a rabbit hole that is just very dangerous. So that rabbit hole is connected to the civil rights audit, which you pushed for, which is now released publicly. It's very long. I scanned it as fast as I could before this conversation. There are some things to jump out at me, right? One is the audit gives a lot of credit to Facebook for supporting it, for having a dedicated team for Shail Sandberg, you know, being a part of the process. The audit also calls some moderation decisions heartbreaking and vexing. Yeah. So it seems like it's one step forward, two steps back, or two steps forward, one step back. What was your reaction to the audit? I mean, there was nothing in the audit that surprised me.

been part of the process. I've been interviewed in the audit multiple times. I've talked to the auditors. I've been back and forth with Cheryl. I never called their decisions heartbreaking. So, because I, you know, it wasn't my heart that was sort of like, you know, focused here. But, but, you know, I, I can totally see if that if you're working on a two-year audit that, and you've put a bunch of rules in place. So the first two phases of the audit put rules in place. And we all worked on those rules. And then Donald Trump puts the looters and shooters post up. And then he puts up posts that clearly suppressed the vote. They violated the four corners of the policies that Facebook had announced that we, while they

weren't perfect, were saying that they were a great step forward. I said they were a step forward. I gave them credit for it. And the auditors felt like they were moving in the right direction. And then looters and shooters post comes up. And this is actually a point in point back to this free speech thing. So the looters and shooters post comes up. anybody else posts that, like that comes down.

So Mark calls Donald Trump to have a conversation with him about the post and says, like, talks to him about like, hey, you're putting me in a bad place here and doesn't take down the post, right? I know how this works. I've been blacked my whole life. I know how this works because, you know, this is what happens when the, like, police chief's son breaks the law. And the police chief tells his son, you know, you're putting me in a bad situation here, right? it's privilege, right? It's because Facebook at the incentive level, right, has an incentive problem. The same way the police chief has a center of problem when his son is breaking the law and he doesn't do anything to him the same way he would do something to the black kid down the street.

What ends up happening here is that these decisions go through their political and policy department. The department that actually is responsible for maintaining relationships with the administration. The department that actually is fighting to make sure that they are not regulated. And so these things are all through a political prism. And that's why this is not some like free speech thing about like, oh, we're all just free. This is actually about people picking winners and losers, people picking who gets voice and who gets unfettered voice and who doesn't. And so like what ends up happening right so they don't pull it down. I'm in the meeting with Mark. I'm like trying to explain to Mark for the second time. June 1st, I explain the first time. Now I'm back again. Like Mark. This is this week. This week. This is a problem. Why this ad? And they're like, once again, trying to explain to me that they have this carve out. You know, Nick Clegg, their head of global policy, who is not from the United States. And this is the problem when global platforms talk about human rights, but don't think about civil rights. It means that they have, they don't understand the unique nuances.

of individual countries, the sort of inside of a country, maybe the sort of historical impacts of attacks on certain religious minorities, or the unique attacks on racial minorities, or the fights maybe that women have had around gender equality that relate to sort of the civil nature of a country that makes nuances around voice and conversation, not benign, that there's not just a kind of like baseline for everything. And so he was trying to explain to me, Mark, was basically like, this is about a head of state saying that there might be violence. And I mean, if, you know, looters were happening, that we might use state authority to quash it. And, you know, this is what happens when a single person gets to control a platform that has 2.6 billion users, more followers than Christianity.

A single person gets to control a platform that he's chairman and CEO. and has 60% of the shares, what ends up happening is that there are all these blind spots, right? And so he can say this to me. And I'm like, well, if you really understood civil rights and the histories of civil rights in this country, you would know that that's dog whistling. You would know that Donald Trump, who has done this throughout his time is dog whistling to white nationalist, giving permission. I mean, he, just in the month, that month span, white nationalists are showing up to capitals with guns demanding black and brown people go back to work, basically. And so he's channeling this to them. And that was incredibly dangerous. And they left that post up. Donald Trump puts up a post about vote by mail being illegal. And like saying that California and Michigan were sending ballots to every single person that lived in the state. So it's voter suppression on a number of cases, right?

What if you actually are expecting now an absentee ballot and you don't get one because the president has said that you're getting one? Because California, Michigan, we're not sending absentee ballots. They were sending applications for absentee ballots to registered voters. And so it's a very, very different thing. He called it illegal, right? And they left those up because they are afraid of Donald Trump because the people who make that decisions are also the people who day to day have to relate to the White House or have to rate to the government.

So that actually is the exact opposite of free speech, that people with a lot of power, that people in government positions get a different kind of voice, a different things that they can say. And the rest of us actually get penalized in ways that are sort of more challenging. So you're in the meeting with Mark and Nick Clegg and Cheryl this week. The audit's out. Well, the audit wasn't out yet. The audit didn't come out to the next day. They moved up the audit to like the day after our meeting and then slow released it out to journalists while we were in the meeting to.

They're very clever. Oh, yeah. Of course. I mean, like, yeah. I mean, like, you know, of course. They've, like, they've built this really powerful vehicle. Like, you know, they're, yeah. I mean, if there's one thing they're very smart at, it's distributing information.

Anyway. Yes. So the context of it is the audit, but you're in the meeting. You've got this cast of characters. What is that meeting like? You know, part of what I really wanted to focus on, I'm in the meeting, is getting Mark to talk through these challenges, having him go through what. he was working on and what the issues were. And they wanted us to go through each of the thing.

You know, I had heard from a former Facebook staffer years ago that they have these like trainings on running meetings at Facebook where they know how to run down the clock. I don't know if that's totally true, but they know how to run down the clock. At every meeting, I'm coming in trying to think about how do I make sure that they don't run down the clock on me because they will like talk a lot. Then they'll try to get me to explain things that they, We're in the pre-readings that have been in the media that we've already talked about. And here's the challenge sometimes these meetings that I feel like I'm starting back before the last meeting. I'm like having to re-explain things that I thought we already covered and that I thought we already engaged.

And that's sort of the case once again. You know, I do think that they worked really hard in the meeting to try to make the case that they're doing much better than all the other platforms. In fact, they said that. They're catching things at a level that the other platforms aren't, that their systems are working much better. And, you know, I remember at one point in the meeting, someone said, oh, so you guys have no problems. Is that what you're saying?

Like, oh, we're all good. Like, what I'm hearing? And they're like, no, no, that's not what we're saying? I'm like, well, then what are you saying? Like, you know, and so they are very good at trying to sell a story that they are not having me problems. As we've talked to a lot of corporations, we consistently hear that the corporations have raised a lot of these concerns to them over the years,

have pushed them on these concerns over the years. We were able to show many of these companies, their ads showing up right next to like the Boo-a-Loo Boys and other stuff. And, you know, I will say that, you know, when we had this back and forth, all I could think of was like, wow. So social justice organizations are like standing hand in hand with major corporations, many of whom I've run campaigns against, who are not social justice warriors. And we're all saying the same thing. Investors are saying similar things out there.

And the corporation is saying, we don't have to do anything. And it was just another reminder to me about the sort of inadequate power of the rules that we currently have and why we have rules of the road for corporations. Facebook has over 70% of the messenger market. They have cornered the market in such a powerful way that they do believe that they are not, that they don't have to make these decisions. At the same time, they asked for the meeting. They wanted to sit down.

They have started to agree to certain things. They have followed up with me since the meeting and tried to be sort of in more conversation. And they are calling advertisers nonstop to try. try to convince them to come back and making hard presses on them about everything that they're doing last night they sent out a list, a list of what they're doing on each one of our demands. If we weren't having an impact, they wouldn't be doing any of that. So that list of demands is interesting. I want to talk about it. It's 10, I think, is a total number. My colleague Casey Newton, he writes a newsletter, his characterization of the demands

is they're actually quite narrow, right? It's the executive for civil rights that you talked about should be have a C-suite title rather than vice president, that if advertisers see their ads next to hate speech, they should get a refund, there should be more audits. And then the big one is obviously you got to fact-check political ads. Why is it was that intentionally narrow? Like, here's some stuff you can accomplish as opposed to the big stuff of stop election interference. Well, I just don't know if Facebook can stop election interference. And I don't trust them to tell me that they will. I mean, I trust that they'll tell me that. I guess I just, don't trust the answer. Some of these things are why we have a government in this country and why we have

to actually hold different people accountable for different things. And so, yeah, we've fought them on election, on election interference. And we've gotten them to, like, commit that they're not going, that they've fixed it. I mean, they've said that they're fixed it. But do I believe that? No, but I also don't know if putting that in a demand gets me any closer to, like, getting that. I think without independent oversight that I can't trust Facebook to lead, that doesn't actually happen. And so, you know, one of the things that we actually wanted to do with these demands was also create an entree to see if Facebook was going to be in this. If Facebook wanted to be part of the story of making change or Facebook wanted to sit on the outside. I've been very honest with

Facebook and everyone in public that I am at the table because I have to do. be at the table because we don't have the political and regulatory levers to actually do everything that we need. And, you know, that may, and, you know, sometimes people say, like, don't say that, Rashad, because then they may not want to talk to you. And I'm like, well, I represent a real constituency in the world. And also, like, I don't, I don't want to be a person that is thinking that we can actually shift the power structures by the corporations simply telling us that they're going to do better. And yes, there are things corporations can do better, but I know civil rights. And civil rights is actually about ensuring that we have rules and protections. This is not about the good nature, heartfelt sort of feelings of corporations to treat black people okay. If that was the case, then we would like, then, then, you know, we would be in a worse place than we currently are. And so, you know, I am using the pressure of average. the pressure of power to get as much done as possible. I feel very focused and determined around

the election and determined around what does it mean to ensure that a lot of the interference that we saw that was foreign in 16 by a lot of sort of intel looks like it's coming home. And a lot of the sort of farms that are developing that are sort of putting out content that is meant to suppress or create disinformation or misinformation is much more domestic than it is foreign. And that needs to happen. But, you know, if you look at the sort of the rules around election fact-checking, right, that by nature deals with foreign, right? You know, if like, if you're fact-checking, then you know that if someone paid for something with rubles, it's not, you shouldn't go up. Like, if you're actually checking, then you know, then that falls into the sort of situation.

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It seems like there is just a lot of focus on how this election will operate and how the platforms will play a role in it. We are seeing rapidly platforms. ban things like hate speech. We're seeing Reddit ban the Donald. You can argue about whether they did it in time. But we are seeing the platforms actively take measures. Do you think Facebook is part of that trend? Are they standing aside from it? Personally, it seems like Twitter is the most active here, labeling posts, taking things down, identifying networks, talking about it. And Facebook is sort of the least. But is that your view of it, too? It's hard to tell because

of the lack of transparency. And so while we see some of the big stuff, what I constantly remind folks is that there's so many, there's, you know, thousands of elected officials around the country. And so we are, you know, and so at scale, we need more transparency around all the stuff. But yeah, I mean, the reason why we're with Facebook is because not only got it the biggest, but they've proven over the years to actually be the place where that has actually been the worst when it comes to this stuff. But, you know, I think that, I think that sort of long-term, all of these platforms are going to need real sort of rules around how they can engage in the elections. And this is like, you know, no different than TV. There are like rules for ads

and all sorts of content political ads on television. And we will hear about ads being rejected from TV. It doesn't mean that there's not ads up that are like, make us mad. And, or feel like they've taken a stretch with opinion or whatever. But it means that there's like certain things that just don't, that you just can't run and put money behind, you know, in this context. And it's not just a sort of a free for all. And that I think is important. And that's why we have an FEC even if they're toothless. So that was a lead up to something you've brought up several times, which is Facebook is really big.

There's an antitrust hearing. They've got a big, right? like one solution to this is to convince and I think this is what you're doing you're this is sort of like the market solution you're taking money away from facebook so they change right you're convincing advertisers spend your dollars somewhere else don't spend them here facebook might change as a result but facebook is really big you said it's the most powerful advertising platform ever made it's true they also own instagram they own WhatsApp do you think that the the right answer is sort of that advertising regulation you're talking about, the FEC saying stuff, is moderation regulation,

or is the answer there actually needs to be much more competition in this market so that if they screw up, the money can go somewhere else? Yeah, this is such a great question. And it's something that I sort of wrestle with and feel like I read a lot of different things about it. I think about it. I think about this in the context of Amazon, too. I think about this in the context of our fights around net neutrality and sort of what

the difference between a utility is and something that can be a corporation. And so, you know, I'm recognizing sort of the complications in the next phase of what we do. And I do think that, and so I have a couple of like principles that I sort of think about around this. I think that, you know, in some ways, you know, I hear people talk about breakup, Facebook and, you know, maybe that works. I also think Facebook is a utility closer to like, because they've, allowed themselves to become so big and they own everything. So closer to like, you know, Amtrak or something. And that's, you know,

the notoriously well run extremely well-funded Amtrak. I mean, well, yeah, I mean, well, when Facebook tells you that they're catching 89% of whatever and then they're like, and then they can't tell you how, you do sort of think about like the Acela and when it arrives and doesn't arrive in terms of the juice and what can happen when you have sort of something that is not, you know, conscious of the. demands of the market and it's of its users and the needs of its users. I do think that when it comes to the targeted ads, when it comes to the sort of micro-targeting of the ads, there does need

to be some regulation. And, you know, this sort of free-for-all that they currently have around it, you know, I think sort of in some ways violates some of the sort of theories around this sort of open internet, the internet that sort of reaches a lot of people, reaches a lot of folks, and the ways in which some of these rules allowed for these platforms to, for people to find stuff that they couldn't find, right? And for people to be connected. You know, the idea that everything is like sliced and diced and micro-targeted to search a level where you can create predatory situations on people from, you know, bail ads and ads around predatory marketing to so many other things, things that we've had to actually fight back on. You know, when we got in the early

phases of the audit, we were fighting Facebook to stop, you know, the fact that you could go on and market jobs to just certain people. So you would see folks just marketing jobs and only wanting men to see the ads. We would see housing, only marketing housing to white people. And like, absolutely like on its face, transparently like doing that. And that and that has been disrupted but there was a lawsuit from the ACLU, and Facebook was in court, like, fighting it while we're, like, doing a civil rights audit. And I remember being like, y'all need to settle this lawsuit. Like, and other people were saying, you all need to settle this lawsuit. Like, how are you saying you're working on civil rights and you're, like, defending that you don't actually, you aren't accountable to the, sort of, to these civil rights protections. But Facebook is not actually accountable to civil rights law in the same way.

technically, or at least that's where we're at right now. Right? And so I think the question for all of us is, why are all these other corporations and businesses? Why are media outlets? Why is everyone else accountable to these laws? And this huge platform is not. I think like that is what I want hopefully people to sort of wrestle with is that what we have is a situation whereas our technology has outpaced our rules. And because the technology has outpaced the rules, we have a situation where Facebook then gets to dictate how they're going to solve problems that should be solved by others. It's like having a neighborhood and the people in that one little coli-sac can determine the speed limit and people are getting

hit by cars and no one steps in and they're just like, we're not going to change it, but you know, you'll be fine. Facebook has created a hurricane outside, like a hurricane. And then they like give us umbrellas and they're like okay we fixed it um be okay let me push back on that i look at the moment that we're in there is a massive movement potentially the biggest movement in the history of the country for racial justice happening there is more awareness of police brutality that is all enabled by social media right that is 100% the flip side of what you're saying yeah they could lay claim to this moment is created by the average citizen having a voice i know i know he does that I don't know that he does it very convincingly, so I say they could like Clinton.

But I know they do it. They say it to us. How do you wrestle with that, which is if you're going to give that set of people a voice as powerful as it is, you might necessarily have to give the white nationalists a voice. You might necessarily have to give white supremacy a voice because the platform is, because otherwise you might have some gatekeepers who are like, that's too dangerous, that's too dangerous. yelling at the cops is too dangerous. And that seems just as threatening to me to a civil society. Yeah. So I hear you on, I do think there's a difference between inciting violence and saying that you don't like someone or that you want a new law or that you're pushing for something new.

But I think about the sort of history of civil rights and racial justice in this country. I think about the ways in which television was such a critical vehicle to. the activist in the 60s, of giving those stories transported around the country and in some ways around the world about what was happening, the lunch counter sittings, the marches. It doesn't mean that we don't hold television accountable. It doesn't mean that we don't push television to do better, even though it was a tool in a vehicle. Earlier in my career, I had the privilege of spending time with Julian Bond, the late Julian Bond, who was one of the leaders of the student nonviolent coordinating committee

and, you know, towards the end of his career, the chairman of the NAACP. Julian was, Professor Bond was such an incredible leader, but he told me the story of the Watts line. And the Watts line was the precursor to the 1-800 number. It was the sort of thing that you actually use when you want to call long distance and do it cheaply because before that, during that time,

if you called long distance, they'd tranche you from operator to operator to operator. And when they transferred operator operator, particularly in the South at the time, the white citizens council controlled a lot of those operators. And so they installed the Watts line at their Shaw University office,

which was like, I guess, the main hub where Ella Baker and other folks were there, people sort of are like students of civil rights history. And so if you were calling from like Shaw University to Tuskegee or to Howard or to Spellman or something, your calls could be intercepted. but they installed Watts so they could have direct calls. And Watts was incredibly important, and it allowed them to supercharge their work.

It does not mean that we don't try to, like, break up my belt. It didn't mean that we, like, defend, like, that we think, like, the phone companies don't deserve oversight, and there's no corporate accountability because we use this tool to, like, advance sort of more progress. And so, you know, there is the history of trust. tools that folks have had to use to express their will for a better future. And that is absolutely part of like a functioning and vibrant democracy, but it's also part of a functioning and vibrant democracy and a free market that has rules is one that actually has accountability over powerful

corporations and doesn't allow them to set the terms of engagement and also doesn't allow them to do things that put their people in harm's way. And so, you know, all of those things, I think, are part of how we have to, as a society, you know, set up structures and systems that allow us to actually participate. That's like the fourth time you've brought up breaking up a company as a solution. Is that subtext for you or is that a goal? You know, that's such that's so great. You know, I mean, are you like trying to like be.

I'm just asking. No, it's like, no. My listeners know, I've talked about all the time. but you brought it up without me feeding it like four times. Look, I mean, I think that we're in a place where corporate consolidation has not benefited. Our country has not benefited like black people. And we have widening income inequality in this country. And we have huge sort of consolidation of wealth and power.

And that is creating all sorts of problems across so many different sectors. And so, yeah, I mean, I guess the reason why. I'm not saying break up Facebook is because I do think that we haven't yet had the real debate to get to all the potential solutions for dealing with it. And unfortunately, we haven't even scratched the surface on even the sort of most minor level oversight. And so, yes, there's like the big things we could do, but I'm like, we haven't even tried the little things yet. And so, you know, part of it is not that I'm not, I'm not against it. I am also like very close. that I don't want to start and stop the conversation at breaking up Facebook when I want to welcome

as many people into a conversation about a platform that has become too big and is hurting far too many people and has become a necessity for so many industries and gets to then dictate the terms of it. And so, you know, I will never argue against corporate accountability. At the same time, there are a lot of things that can be done and should be done, even as we're working to get to the place where we can make all these things work, sort of at a maximum potential. All right. I've waited until the very end, but you've brought up corporate accountability and Facebook not being accountable too much. So I got to open the door. Section 230, it's elephant in the room. It's right there. We talk about it a lot on the show. We cover it a lot on the site.

I know that's got to be in your mind is a mechanism by which you. you can enforce greater accountability for what happens on Facebook. Is there a part of your platform, your position, your advocacy that is related to 230 reform? Yeah. I mean, you know, it's always tricky about when we talk about this and how we talk about it, given the levers of power that we have right now and what we want to open up and the unintended consequences, right? It's like, yeah, do we want to open up the Voting Rights Act right now? And like, who's committee in the Senate will that go through?

You know, like, do we want to open up? You know, I think about even these conversations around, like, Donald Trump talking about, like, police accountability. And I'm like, oh, he's framing police accountability. So, yes, there are levers that exist and that we should be thinking about how to use them. And we should think about particularly the ways that targeted marketing relates to that and how the FCC sort of relates to that as well. And I think that there are, I often call them smarter people than me on this. And oftentimes. And then I'll like roll my eyes.

But they're like lawyers. And there are people who like, who will like, who will do all the decision tree of like, if this and that. And then I will like look at multiple decision trees and try to figure out like how does this square. But I think that there are those things. And people are sending them. And they're in those conversations. And, you know, what I think. is exciting about this moment is that we've opened up a much bigger conversation about the

dangers of this platform. And as a result, I think part of narrative change when you change the narrative is that you raise the floor on what's acceptable and you push up the ceiling on what's possible. And that space between what's acceptable and what's possible gives you all new opportunities to make change. And so, you know, I've struggled over the years to like fully invest myself in all of the advocacy in D.C. the last couple of years around this, outside of just socializing ideas with folks on the left, because recognizing that we did not have the levers to actually do the things that we wanted to do. But I do think that this, like, narrative change and the potential for political change that could come along with it creates an

opportunity. And I think that those will be some of the things that color of change will be looking at, along with a coalition that we co-founded called Change the Terms, along with a group of, you know, very progressive organizations that sort of are like a mix of civil rights and media justice organizations that have been working for our years on ensuring that these platforms have the sort of right rules and policies and regulations. So we've only a few minutes left. What happens next? If you're the sort of average Facebook user, you're looking at Instagram, you're trying to pass time at home, you're hearing crazy stuff like the Trump administration is going to ban TikTok, right?

Like there's a swirl of stuff. There's a boycott. There's a, like, what happens next? What's the next thing people should be looking for? Well, if you're a regular person, you're probably not going to be paying attention to Mark Zuckerberg's testimony in July 27th. We're going to try. We're going to make it.

That's our Super Bowl. Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm going to be paying attention to it. But, you know, I'm like, you said regular person and I have to be, like, reminded that, like, my interests are not. regular people's interest all the time. And so, you know, I'm going to be watching that, and we're going to be trying to translate that for people, trying to translate what does it mean to really fully sort of understand that.

We're also going to be trying to work to ensure that there's real conversations and real questions and real debate there. So that's one thing. Two, you know, this month, there's going to be more, there's going to be more and more moments that we see the failures of Facebook to moderate their platform. And here's the thing, whether or not you fully agree with all the demands, Facebook is trying to say that they're doing a lot of the things that we're asking for. And then they're not, actually.

And so this is the other thing that when you have the company that constantly gaslight you that says, we're doing all of this. We're pulling this stuff down. This is not happening. And then you're like, we let you know about the boogaloo boys like months and months ago. Like the other day, it was like a day or two ago, they're like, oh, we're pulling down Roger Stone. It's Paige. I'm like, now?

Right? Like, if you were really doing this, it's not like Roger Stone is someone that's voided the spotlight. You're like, oh, he just slipped under the radar. No one knew who he was. Like, he was not a well-known figure. And so the fact of the matter is they're saying they're doing stuff that they're not. And that should also make us concerned because they're. They are powerful enough to control the narrative.

I remember when the New York Times called us, and they said that Facebook had hired a PR firm and that they were running, that they were running a campaign against us. Definers. It's the name of the front of the fire. The Definers. And I was in the back of a car in D.C. I was like, I hate going to D.C. It's like not my favorite thing.

I'm a New Yorker. And so, like, I do these things where D.C. where I, like, go on the 6 o'clock and try to get out on the last train. I'm like, yeah, I'm like, really. I'm like focused and organized. So I was like focused and organized trying to get out of D.C. And like my staff was texting me and they're like, we need to talk. There's a New York Times article. Can you check it out?

A reporter wants to talk to you. And then New York Times published the story. Then they called us because they didn't want to like get scooped or let us know. And then we said something. So they published it. And I remember like missing my train. And because I'm like now on the phone trying to like stand in the like lobby of union station. and thinking about these sort of implications of a company that had previously said back,

and this is back in 18, that our campaigns didn't matter, that we weren't being listened to, that we weren't making a dent, that we weren't raising real issues. Like, this is what they would say. And then they, like, hired a PR firm, right, to, like, go after us. And then I, so I know that this company is going to do everything in their power to maintain their power. They're going to play so many tricks. They're going to use so many tools. They are already trying to divide and conquer organizations.

They are doing a whole set of things that will, you know, in essence, create a situation where they can continue to maintain the power that they have. And so I think for the people who are also watching this campaign is that we have to recognize that regardless of what you hear about the campaign, Facebook hasn't changed. Facebook hasn't changed. And so Facebook is continuing to do what Facebook is doing. And so I hope people keep their eyes on the prize and keep their eyes on all the ways in which Facebook continues to put us in harm's way. Well, Rashad, thank you so much for all this time. It was a great conversation. I suspect we're going to want to talk again after this hearing. I mean, yeah. I mean, yeah. I know that this is a long road. So, all right, man. We'll talk to you. you. Thanks. I appreciate you. Thank you.

All right. My thanks to Rashad Robinson, President of Color of Change. We're going to have to have him back. Probably after this antitrust hearing. I think he's going to have a lot to say. We've got a lot going on this week on the Virtuechast feed tomorrow, Wednesday. We've got a special pandemic quarantine episode

of Why'd you push that button. It's back. Ashley and Caitlin. Caitlin is at the Atlantic now. She came back and did a little renegade button episode with us about dating in quarantine. It's super interesting. Check that out. coming at tomorrow and then on Friday we've got the chat show we're just going to keep going with interviews please tweet at me I'm at reckless would love to hear who you want me to talk to

what you want me to dig into there's just a lot going on so your suggestions are really helpful as I try to think about focusing we'll see you on Friday