Should Facebook and Twitter Have Banned Donald Trump? A Conversation With Ryan Mac of BuzzFeed News

Over the past week, both Facebook and Twitter suspended President Donald Trump’s account. These companies don’t take such aggressive action lightly, and it took Trump sending a mob toward the U. S. Capitol, which they eventually breached, to force the issue. For years, BuzzFeed News senior reporter Ryan Mac and I have been watching these companies’ every move. Previously as colleagues at BuzzFeed. Ryan joined me this week on the Big Technology Podcast for a discussion on whether the social platforms’ moves were merited, where they go from here, and how he thinks about all the internal Facebook communication he’s obtained in his reporting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 0:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Akash is an open cloud that provides easy access, flexibility, and peace of mind. That's how companies like Razer were able to cut their inference cost by 15 times. Visit akash.network/alex for a free consultation. That's akash.network/alex for a free consultation.

• 1:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hey Ryan, how's it going? Hey man. Been quite a week, hasn't it? It's been a century, I feel like. Yeah, all right, well, we will get into it. I will just start the music and we'll get rolling.

• 1:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hello and welcome to the Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool-headed, nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. And ladies and gentlemen, we have a great show on the way for you. Joining us today is Ryan Mack. He is a senior reporter at BuzzFeed News, a former colleague of mine. And I would say the man who has the best access into Facebook's internal communications. It seems like he knows things that are going on inside Facebook before the Facebook employees know them. So, welcome to the show, Ryan. Thanks for having me. Nice to be back in touch. I miss our daily conversations, so hopefully we'll be able to do a lot of catching up. Our daily walks. Over the next hour. Big walks. You were a star in the BuzzFeed office.

• 2:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  You are famous for when we used to be in person microwaving salmon. So I just want to give you a opportunity to apologize.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  Oh, man, I thought we were gonna get like 30 minutes into the podcast before we started going to the fish.

• 2:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  No, we're gonna go, I mean, the, the, just for all the listeners out there.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  Oh, my.

• 2:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Ryan was responsible for making the entire office smell like microwave fish.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  That is.

• 2:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  Almost daily basis.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  That is.

• 2:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  And this is your opportunity to apologize for your sins. So I'm just gonna put it out there.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  That is defamation.

• 2:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  You should apologize. You should apologize to your coworkers and, and to anyone who even now has to process the thought of this.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  Does Substack cover the legal fees of your podcast? Because I'm gonna sue over that because for one.

• 2:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  First of all, yeah, this is not associated with Substack. This is just a big technology production. And I'm gonna countersue you.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 3:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  And, and I'm gonna win.

• 3:02Speaker 01

  Okay, let's do this. Let's throw our hands. So for one, there was a lot of leftovers in our office. So as, as someone who hates to see food go to waste, I mean, I'm a man of the people. I eat leftovers. So, uh, so, yeah, so if there was fish, that would go in the microwave. In my defense, it did not make the office smell that bad. I've asked many people.

• 3:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, I feel like this is gonna be one of many times you're asked to apologize for an obvious wrong during the show and you decline, which is fine, which is your prerogative, but it was a missed opportunity. Let's talk about how, how much access you have into the Facebook employees' communications, just to start off. You, you gotta, you gotta yell that on Twitter for how much stuff you tweet, so.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  I get yelled at all the time. I get yelled at for microwaving fish.

• 3:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  In the office.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Doing my job.

• 4:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. So what's, so how do you do it?

• 4:07Speaker 01

  How do I piss people off?

• 4:10Speaker 01

  No, I mean, with with the access to Facebook, it's really funny because I can literally see messages that happen about the access that I have on Workplace. Facebook users use this thing called, or Facebook employees use something called Workplace. It's kind of an internal social network, an internal Facebook for employees where they post, they talk about things, they chat, they flag things in groups for other people. And when they flag, like, for example, hey, Ryan Mack is, I can't believe I talked to myself in the third person, but Ryan Mack just is live tweeting our all hands meeting. Do we know about this? I think it's kind of funny and I see that stuff in real, almost in real time.

• 4:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  How do you make a decision what to share with the public and and what you think is worth, you know, keeping closer to the chest? Because, you know, do you go through a calculation each time you share something from internal Facebook communications? Does this, you know, benefit the public interest? Or is it sort of, you know, everything's fair game? Like, how do you make a decision about what you're going to put out? Because there's stuff, you know, I'll just say there's stuff that I read that is like, okay, that's important to get out there, you know, that whistleblowers are sharing. And then there's others that it's like, oh, kind of like, well, you know, this is something that I'm just going to share because I found I found it on, you know, from someone who sent me about what was going on inside Facebook.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  Well, I would think I would differentiate between what we put in stories versus what I tweet. And, I mean, tweeting, when you're tweeting in the moment, things can can go by really quickly. You kind of want to catch everything. And sometimes I do have a kind of tongue in cheek kind of tone to my tweets as well sometimes.

• 5:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's one way to put it.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  But I'm not going to put in a story. So we've had a lot of stories, my colleague and I, Craig, me and you, when you were here, and Charlie and Joe.

• 6:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  Charlie Warzel, now at the New York Times, Joe Bernstein, fellow Post-Feeder.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Shout out Joe and Charlie and Craig.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  I mean, we've gotten these internal memos and we look at, we read these things and we're like, holy shit, this is an incredible story. And we know right away, that's a story. When we got a memo from an employee, a data scientist named Sophie Zhang, where she writes, "I have blood on my hands. The decisions that I made at Facebook were life and death decisions in places where we didn't even pay attention, in places like Azerbaijan, or Central America, or in places we didn't action political interference." And you're kind of reading these things, you're like, this is an incredible story. This is newsworthy. This is immediately drop everything, start writing it. I mean, you kind of have that sense.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  But like, not everything rises to the level. I'm not gonna, not gonna like, compare like, everything to that. At the same time, we don't write a story about everything that we see internally. A lot of it makes it into tweets, a lot of it is on the cutting room floor, a lot of it I save for later. But yeah, there's always that kind of discussion of what's newsworthy and what's not.

• 7:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  Do you ever see something from like, an internal employee when they yell at you on Twitter? You know, maybe they say, I think there was one this week, accusing you of corporate espionage, corporate espionage, which I think was a little bit overboard. But I think the point was that they were trying to make was, you tweet everything that's said inside Facebook, even the stuff that's not important, and therefore there's less transparency inside the company. Do you ever worry about, about that effect?

• 7:48Speaker 01

  I think about it, I think, a lot. Yeah, I mean, more than people probably think I do. And I get their perspective. I mean, the perspective is, the more reporters write about our company and what's said internally, the less people are going to be willing to share it in the open if they know it's going to be written about. The less our executives are going to engage with us if they know that a reporter is watching. I understand those sentiments. At the same time, I don't think it's my responsibility to cater to those sentiments when there is a general population that are, of people that, I think, whose interests outweighs.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  I guess individual or internal corporate privacy, you know, internal corporate environments, I guess is probably the better word. But I get that. I mean, these people are, they're still working at Facebook, they're embattled. A lot of them are so proud to work there. You know, a lot of them still think they're making a difference. And it's annoying when a reporter is, is, is reporting out things that are said from their colleagues. On the flip side of that, I've seen internally at Facebook, a lot of people defending the reporting process, a lot of people understanding why things are leaked.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  I think things are leaked because there's a frustration that executives are not doing enough. They're not getting, they're not paying attention, they're not listening to what mid-level or low-level employees are saying about and what they're seeing on the ground. And you get that, we've, we've heard that sentiment multiple times, actually. Sophie Zhang's memo is one where she mentions that the company doesn't react to a task that's filed by a low-level employee. It's really when there's a PR crisis. And that's when, when there's a PR crisis, all hands are on deck. Yeah. And you're the PR crisis. And I, I am the valve of the PR crisis.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  People come to me to, I don't know, start a PR crisis, not, not like that's, that's not how I phrase it, but they know that. Things will get attention. Things will get attention. I'm a, I report, I hold companies accountable. And they know that that's the way Facebook acts, you know? Look at this week, you know? What did it take to suspend Donald Trump? A riot, you know? And a lot of coverage. So do you think that was the appropriate move to suspend the president?

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Um, I do, I do. In that moment, yes.

• 10:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  So it's interesting that you put it the way that you did. You said that they waited till this moment to suspend the president. When would you have done it?

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Oh, man. I mean, I don't know if there is a day that I would be like, oh, this is the day I could point to where they would have done it. But as someone who's tracked the sentiment on what he said, I mean, and I think there's a difference between banning him completely and then like also banning like the algorithmic spread of his of his statements, you know, there's ways to like, keep him on the platform without allowing him to be reshared, or engaged with, or likes, or commented on, you know, there's like, I think there's like that level of gray area, or that granularity where it's not just up or down, you know. But in that moment, where there are literally people in the Capitol building, they're attacking

• 11:33Speaker 01

  police officers, they're storming offices, people are literally fearing for their lives, and you have someone posting on Facebook, I don't know what he, I don't even remember what he said.

• 11:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  I mean, he did say he had a mixed message. He said, I, you know, he said, I love you, you're special, which is astonishing, given the fact that they were trying to overthrow a democratic government. But he also said, go home.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  He eventually said, go home. He eventually said, go home.

• 11:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  That was not in-

• 11:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  In the same video. Yeah, anyone who's watching that might have gotten a message that I should still be in the Capitol.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Right. And the video, again, had that-

• 12:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  Actually, wait a second, I'm taking that back. They should have, they would have gotten a message, I should go home from the Capitol, but he probably doesn't care if I stick around too much, given what he's just said about me.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  On top of the fact that that video said, and we're talking about the video that was allowed on Facebook, that was then later taken down, it said the, it, the election was stolen. So feeding into that, the sentiment of why they were there, right? The reason why they were there is, oh, he's, he's saying it's still stolen, you know?

• 12:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  So would you have banned him like a week before, or, you know, a couple of months? Like when he, because he's been saying since he got in office that the election results, even in 2016, weren't legitimate. So, you know, it's, it's kind of, and, yeah, I just like to talk to you about this a little bit, because it is easy for, for people on the outside to say.

• 12:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  You know, the why did they wait until now or they should ban him? Um, but it's also it's a pretty difficult call to make to ban the president of the United States.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Well, I'm glad I don't.

• 13:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  From your platform.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  I'm glad I don't make the millions of dollars or whatever the billions of dollars in stock.

• 13:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  I mean, you get, yeah, they get rewarded.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  To make these calls, right?

• 13:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  But. No doubt, but putting the money aside.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 13:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  What's the, what's the line in the sand for you?

• 13:22Speaker 01

  It's got to be the incitement of violence. Um, when you're, and you can go back to that May looting and shooting tweet.

• 13:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  You know, not tweet, tweet, I mean, it was a tweet, but it was also a Facebook post, you know?

• 13:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  And that, that just, I'm looking, I just remember how that the sentiment that caused internally at Facebook. I wasn't even like paying attention internally at Facebook that much, you know? I was, I had other stories I was covering. I was, I don't cover Facebook. It's not my mandate to cover Facebook on a day to day basis. Um, I, I cover other companies. I read about Tesla, Twitter, Google. Um, it's more of like a corporate accountability thing, but like when that happened in May, everything just kind of switched. And you're like, holy shit, like these employees are pissed. They are very mad and they were so mad that they, they did a virtual walkout, which in retrospect is like kind of silly. You know, like they didn't show up for work one day.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  Um, they changed their avatars to, um, a black and white fist, but like that has never been done before at Facebook. You know, these people are like, we're pretty happy for the most part for the last, I don't know how many years.

• 14:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I mean, forever. I totally agree. I mean, speaking with Facebook employees, this is unlike any other time that I've ever spoken with them. Uh, it, it did seem there was definitely like a, a real Kool, Kool-Aid drinking and still, still exists where, you know, Facebook is the best thing in the world. But I think something did switch when you saw that tweet, uh, where Trump, I mean, sorry that, that we keep calling it a tweet. Um, it shows where our brains are at.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  But you saw that Facebook post where, where, uh, Trump was like, when the looting begins, the shooting begins in the middle of the Black Lives Matter.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  The looting starts, the shooting starts. Yeah. I mean.

• 15:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right, right.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Um, it has great historical context.

• 15:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. And so that's when things really shifted inside the company.

• 15:09Speaker 01

  And that's when we, I actually started to pull the threads of the company. We got these, um, these poll surveys.

• 15:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  Facebook kept that post up?

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Facebook kept that post up and Zuckerberg defended it and, uh, He said, there's, it's not clear what he meant. It could be interpreted this way.

• 15:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it's amazing, right?

• 15:29Speaker 01

  We hear people are hurt. Yeah, I mean, there was a whole, I remember, there was, I think there was like multiple posts that he made about it.

• 15:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  No doubt, like right as the, the ban went into effect on Trump after the storming of the Capitol. I went back and read the blog post about Zuckerberg's, we stand for free expression. You know, stand at the Georgetown speech and it was like, well, it worked out differently. Or, you know, you might've tried to stick with this as long as you could, but at a certain point, they did draw that line.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  The funny thing about that Georgetown meeting is that same trip, he had dinner with Trump at the White House. So.

• 16:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, well, I mean, I feel like everybody who saw this, saw the election coming. Not everyone, but a good number of people, I certainly have felt over the years that, you know, if Trump lost, there was going to be a situation like this. And, and it did sort of put Zuckerberg in this losing position after his previous statements.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  One of the things I wanted to talk about also was like, I mean, at Facebook, there is this idea to like assume good intent. Like there's always this, I don't know if you've ever seen this or had anyone that ever talk about it with you. But it all comes up every now and then on the forums or on workplace, assume good intent from the people, never assume like the worst, you know? And with Trump, they just continue to assume good intent, assume good intent. And like, at some point, like, how many times is that, is that person going to buy you, you know, like that comes back to buy you multiple times? Maybe that presumption is just wrong, you know, or maybe you shouldn't, you shouldn't start with that operating principle.

• 17:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, yeah, it is, it's been an issue for the company. They have been notoriously techno optimistic for a long time. And I did cover this a little bit in, in my book. Where they actually brought in people who did start from a standpoint of maybe you don't assume good intent. But the question is like, you know, having those, those inputs in your feedback system.

• 17:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  Uh, you know, they're important, but they only really count for something if you listen to them.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  And I remember, I mean, I'm so for people listening, I mean, Alex and I reported on this memo that was written by a vice president of Facebook named Andrew Bosworth. You think he's like the number three or four person in terms of rank at Facebook. And that memo was called the ugly, right? And it detailed this idea of like connecting the world makes it a better place, no matter what happens. And the examples he used were like, if we connect people and terrorist attack happen on our platform. And um, what was the other shit he said? Um, or in suicides are broadcasted on our platform. Connecting, it effectively said, it doesn't matter. Connecting the world makes it a better place.

• 18:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, yeah, he said, we believe connecting is de facto good.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  De facto good, right, right. And then, but then, and then after we, we, so that was from a 2016. We found that in 2018, we published it. He said to us, oh, I was, I was just saying that in jest. I was, it was, uh, it was meant to be controversial and spark debate.

• 18:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, I think he, what he was trying to say, and correct me if I'm wrong about this, was that he was putting that meant, that memo out there as a caricature of some of the belief that he saw on Facebook in order for people to reckon with the fact that, you know, if this is the extreme of where our beliefs can go, that connecting people is de facto good, no matter the consequences, then perhaps that's something we should reckon with. So whether he believed it or not.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  After the fact, yeah.

• 19:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  But the, the point is whether he believed it himself or whether he saw it was painting this as a caricature. It pointed to a very serious problem inside the company, which is that that belief was there.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I've talked to employees who said that they built products under that belief, you know? Like even if it's like, if you throw something out there as a, let's say, let's, let's, let's assume good faith here. Let's assume good intent that he threw that out as a joke or as like a devil's advocate kind of post. It doesn't matter because people ended up believing that anyways, you know? People on the chain of, in, under his chain of command or within Facebook who joined, who maybe read that later, believed it. And I, I, we reported that in 2018 and I remember Zuckerberg giving us like a statement that's, that was like a condemnation of that post. And then soon after that, you kind of saw his tone change around connecting the world. Um, and then I, I followed his public statements, but he's like,

• 20:07Speaker 01

  He's he's kind of acknowledged that connecting the world is not always a good thing. Like, there's there's bad things that happen in connecting the world. And and treating it as this like kind of plus minus column or like a weighing the scale of as long as there's more good, we're we're fine here because it's a net good. The world just doesn't work like that. And I think they've started to recognize that that's just not a position they can take. It's not one that's kind of.

• 20:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, I mean, it's it's weird because it is their business model to connect people, but they are trying to. I guess they have to figure out they have to put safeguards. And I want to get your take on why you think Zuckerberg finally did ban Trump. Was it the employees? Was it pressure from outsiders? Was it his own conscience after watching it happen?

• 20:57Speaker 01

  I think it was a combination of all the above and also seeing other companies react. You can never underestimate how how the the role of other companies' decisions play into.

• 21:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  Sure. I mean. I mean, Twitter did suspend Trump for sure. Twitch banned him, but, you know, nothing with this. I mean, Facebook had stood by Trump's ability to post for a long time. And then goes out and takes, you know, the strongest action of any of the major platforms, saying, you can't access your accounts or you're blocked from posting for at least two weeks till the new administration comes in and then and then maybe longer. So it is definitely a break from, I mean, even, you know, Twitter, which is like the ultimate copycat network, you know, waited for Facebook and Apple to take action until they banned Alex Jones. They didn't even follow suit. Apparently, this is too extreme, you know, for them.

• 21:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  And honestly, I think it merits a discussion of whether this was the right move or not to ban for that long. But he did. He definitely did, you know, take, sorry, didn't mean to try to rebut you, but.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  I don't even know if I got an answer.

• 22:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  This is some serious action.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead. I'm gonna let you talk more.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  I talked to Alex Stamos this week about that. Alex Stamos, Chief Security, former Chief Security Officer at Facebook, who's now at Stanford, teaching. And we talked about this and we were like, okay, why now? Like, why, what, what happened here? What changed Mark's mind, Mark Zuckerberg's mind? And for Stamos, it was the realization that like, okay, well, the reason why we, we, we have these principles of standing for free expression here. We want, we want to, we want to kind of hem to, as closely to standing for free expression as possible, is, is to uphold liberal democracy, basically.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  And the principles of liberal democracy. But if you, if you're, if you're upholding that principle for someone who is going to undermine liberal democracy with his statements, then it kind of just falls apart, right? If you're, if you're holding up this kind of free expression ideal and the person that uses that free expression ideal is going to say, well, we should just tear this whole thing down and we should delegitimize the vote. We should doubt everything about this process. Then you're kind of at, you're nowhere, right? You're, you're, you're at, you're at square one, I guess.

• 23:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, sort of doesn't make sense to preserve. Well, I guess what, yeah, there's an argument that doesn't make sense to preserve free expression if the result of that is going to be the loss of free expression.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. That's, that's a really good way of putting it. And I was like, that makes sense. Like, that's a good, that's where you arrive at that. I don't know, I don't know where you make the decision on that. Like, like I've kind of like danced around the idea of when I would have banned him. But like, that assessment probably should have been made. Or at least for Facebook, should have been discussed out in the open. They have this oversight board, right? That, that was supposed to go into place. I mean, it is going into place, but we kind of have heard very little from it.

• 24:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, they've been incredibly ineffectual, very disappointing.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  It's kind of third party board that's supposed to be Facebook Supreme Court in terms of decision making. They could have, they could have had a public debate about this. They could have argued this in public. They could have gamed this out. They could have really been out in the open with this and discussed. Okay, if this happens and this happens, if if this happens and this, you know, like, there's this, they play out these scenarios, you know, these people that work at Facebook are supposed to be the, some of the smartest people in the world. They're hired from top universities around the world, you know. Why can't they think about this? There's fifty thousand people that work there, you know. And so when it comes to a decision like that, when it actually happens in the moment, it just looks so reactive. And so

• 24:59Speaker 01

  even if they have Kevin Ruas at the New York Times had a great tweet about this, but like, they had the, even if they had the scaffolding in place, like, they were preparing for this, like, it still felt extremely reactive in the moment, and that's all people are gonna remember, right? They're not gonna care about the processes that got them there.

• 25:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, no doubt. I mean, it is, you know, I feel like it will always feel a little like, you're gonna have in the rulebook, if you encourage, you know, the overthrow of a democratic government, then you cannot have Facebook. Like, it's kinda crazy to put that in the rulebook. But, well, I, I'm kinda curious what you think about this, too. Another theory has been, you know, the Senate was surprisingly won by the Democrats that morning when Ossoff took the second seat in Atlanta, and then Zuckerberg is looking at the fact that you're gonna have a Democratic White House, a Democratic Senate, a Democratic

• 25:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  House. And he just makes this decision, what's best for Facebook right now, and then takes this action. Do you think there's any merit to that?

• 26:06Speaker 01

  Oh, man. I don't know if I should speculate on that one. That one's, I've, I've seen that a lot. I've seen people talk about that a lot.

• 26:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  I mean, I will, I will speculate. I think that is definitely the case.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 26:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  That that played into his decision making. It's, you know, it's, I mean, you, Ryan, you've done all this reporting about how he is conservative, he's courted conservative power over the past four years. So it doesn't seem like out of the realm of possibility that that was on his mind when he made the choice.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  That never made, I was like, I was like, for me, the, the moment where I came to that realization was like, we reported the story out where he like made a secret phone call to Trump. Like right after Trump had won the election, like he was, he had stayed away. Remember that Trump Tower meeting? They sent, they sent Sheryl Sandberg instead. They're like, oh, Mark's busy. But like, like Jeff Bezos went, Larry Page went.

• 26:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I mean, it is the President of the United States. Like, what's he doing reviewing the latest iteration of Messenger?

• 26:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they all went up the golden elevators in Trump Tower in New York. And Zuckerberg was like the main person who didn't go. And like, it was like, oh shit, like, he's, he's taking a stand, you know? But then we like, found out he like, placed a phone call to him to congratulate him, you know? And we reported that out. And I was like, dude, like, he's like a savvy political actor, like.

• 27:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, well, this was his top user and a good, I mean, it seems like conservative content performs really well on Facebook, so.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then you get the stories about him like texting with Ben Shapiro and having dinner with, you know, and hosting grievance meetings with the Glenn Beck's of the world, you know?

• 27:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  But shouldn't he, he should be hearing from both sides of the political spectrum.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  But he doesn't hear from the other. You don't, I mean, you, I, you're not.

• 27:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  He hurts, he hears from it from his employees, for sure.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  I know, I think it's one thing to like, meet with Glenn Beck and have Ben Shapiro over for dinner and

• 27:57Speaker 01

  get yelled at by like, Color for Change, for example, which is an activist group.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  You know, one is like, I think those are just two different settings, you know?

• 28:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. You don't think Zuckerberg meets with any left-leaning personalities or?

• 28:13Speaker 01

  I don't know if he's in those meetings. I know the, the person they usually send out for those is Sheryl. Sheryl does those meetings. I'm sure he takes a couple when there's like, an extremely bad moment for the company, like after the George Floyd stuff and like during the, what is that, that Facebook ad boycott, you know? I'm not even sure where he, where he was in those moments, but he, I mean, it's weird because he used to hate that stuff. I mean, the reason why he hired Sheryl was to deal with that stuff, you know? And hired like, a whole political arm in DC, so he didn't have to touch it. Now, he, he transformed into a political actor for the last four years. And his first main task as a political actor, one of, it was to,

• 29:00Speaker 01

  was to court. The right. Um, I mean, I guess the other example, of course, is China when he was like, he became like diplomat, the diplomat for the company and like went to China and learned Mandarin and spoke at universities there, trying to get, I mean, he's a savvy political actor when he needs to be.

• 29:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I was gonna ask you if you think he's good at it.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  Is he good at it? He's, I don't, he shows up. I don't know, learning Mandarin is pretty fucking great, like to.

• 29:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  But Facebook's not in China?

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that didn't work, right?

• 29:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  It just seems like an impossible position to be in, to be at the helm of one of these companies. I mean, not to comment on his performance, you know, or even Dorsey's performance in particular and at the head of Facebook and Twitter, but one of the things that I found amazing was, you know, after sharing the news of Facebook blocking Trump, it was my, my mentions just became a stream of people calling him a fascist and a Nazi. And I was like struck by the fact that like.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Who was, that Trump was or that?

• 30:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  No, just, just people were calling Zuckerberg a fascist and a Nazi from the right. And I was like, wow, Democrats and Republicans both call Zuckerberg a fascist and a Nazi. And it doesn't seem like any of the decisions that he's made have made anybody unhappy at all.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  He's kind of fallen into this like awful middle, right? Where he is a bogeyman on the right, he is a bogeyman on the left. And yeah, it's, where did I see this? But it was like internally at Facebook, someone wrote like, this must be a good thing. We're hated by both sides. We must be just, we're pissing off both sides. We must be doing something, right? I'm like, I don't know if that's like how you wanna, cool, but cool, like that, sure. If that, if that's how you wanna play your cards, but like, I thought that was just very funny.

• 30:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Do you, I mean, that's, that's, you know, I, I once wrote a story that, that made everybody mad. And I was like, oh, I'm doing something right. And Ben Smith told me, or you're a troll. And I was like, okay, maybe that's not an outcome I should go for anymore. I really did. I don't remember. It was like five, five years ago at this point. It was the very early days at BuzzFeed. And then I very quickly realized like, that shouldn't be a goal.

• 31:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  You got news to break? All right, it seems like Ryan has something going on. So why don't we just go to break and then we'll return right when he gets back. This episode is brought to you by Avpoint. Everyone's racing to roll out AI right now. Co-pilots, chatbots, agents doing real work. But here's the part nobody loves talking about. All that AI runs on your data and most teams have no single way to see it, secure it, and prove it's under control. That's exactly what Avpoint does. For 25 years, they've been the trusted layer beneath the world's most demanding data, now extended across your entire AI estate. Your data, your cloud, and the agents acting on your behalf.

• 32:06Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 33:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, we are back here on the second half of the Big Technology Podcast. We had to go to break. You might have heard some typing and Ryan feeling exasperated because as we were recording this on Friday, January 8th, in the middle of this recording, Twitter just banned Donald Trump from its service. We were saying in the first half that it sounded weird that Twitter wouldn't follow, or it was surprising that Twitter wouldn't follow, and low and behold, Twitter followed. So we're going to get back into the discussion of Facebook, but Ryan, just we'd have to let you talk about this. What's your thought about it?

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, we're like the oracles.

• 34:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's pretty amazing timing. Okay, but go ahead.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  I think my stream like blacked out and like could sense a disturbance in the forest and then had to check Twitter.

• 34:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  There was.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  And there was 75 million followers silenced, but no, I'm joking.

• 34:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  Talking about yours or his?

• 34:30Speaker 01

  His or 80, I don't know.

• 34:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  Wow. That was not, I mean, I guess it was expected. I mean, you know, Friday, Friday, Friday night.

• 34:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  I thought they would follow soon after Facebook. I mean, it's just the pattern with these companies that they go one right after the other.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Again, it's going to be the indecisiveness that people talk about, right? Suspended him for 12 hours, let him back on, he put a video up yesterday, went kind of quiet, tweeted a couple of times again, and then got knocked out again. So, yeah.

• 35:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's the end of an era. Well, look, we're going to play this a couple of days afterwards, but it does sort of tie into what we were just talking to, which is that Zuckerberg, obviously hated by both sides, Jack Dorsey will certainly be in that camp after this move. So I guess like the question I was about to get to before we went to break is, does it, does this, does the fact that these companies are hated by so many people, does that mean they're just making all the wrong decisions? Or is it that being in charge of a platform with hundreds of millions or a couple billion people is just an impossible job? And there's no right way to go about it?

• 35:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  Because we all like to play armchair quarterbacks, so.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Armchair billionaire CEO. I think that's kind of the wrong way to look at it, to be honest with you. Like liked, liked, and unliked, I think is like, is not the kind of... Y axis that I think we should be grading these X axis, Y axis. I'm never even good at math.

• 36:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  Access. Let's just go to access.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  Or the spectrum that you should be grading the CEOs on. I mean, you want them to be principled. You want them to have firm principles that they stand for and that they adhere to in spite of essentially public pressure, or whether or not they're going to be perceived as liked or not liked. You know, you're always going to piss off someone, at least if you adhere to your rules or your standards that are clear and

• 36:39Speaker 01

  open, then hopefully you'll garner some respect. And I think the problem with these companies is that their rules change on a weekly, monthly, weekly basis, right? There's this kind of moving the goalposts here, shifting that there, you know, and it's never clear. Like, I report on Facebook for a living. I couldn't tell you what their rules are around political actors, you know? Like, there seems to be some kind of new wrinkle every week, and it's just frustrating, you know?

• 37:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, but it's interesting that you say they shouldn't be responsive to public pressure because in the first half, you talked about how you are the public pressure. So do you want them just to not listen to you and kind of?

• 37:29Speaker 01

  I'm not saying they listen to me, but the reason why they listen to me is because, I mean, employees have realized that the only thing that these CEOs listen to is, seems to be public shaming, right? Bad stories in the press.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  But like, if they adhered to those principles and like stuck to their guns more, you know, maybe there would be less of that, you know?

• 37:56Speaker 01

  I don't know. It's like a kind of like a chicken and the egg problem, but.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. Maybe, yeah, maybe if Zuckerberg just stopped listening to me, you know, that that's sounds so

• 38:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  I'm stuck up, but like, or just like, stop,

• 38:12Speaker 01

  you know, and just led based on the principles set out by his company.

• 38:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  And I'm certainly not going to make any excuses for either of these CEOs. But I also wonder if it just points, pushes home about how like, you know, there, there's kind of no, no easy decisions on this stuff. And, um, you know, you try to set principles, but, um, you're, you're challenged in directions that, um, in many ways, uh, you may, you might not have anticipated. So, um, you know, I, I wonder if the act of even setting the rules is impossible, but you seem to think that, that there is a way to do it. And I, I mean, this is something that I'm still trying to figure out.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  I mean, Twitter, Twitter's approach is like, our rules are a living, breathing document. I think they'd use that.

• 39:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, you're not into that because that basically means they can do whatever they want.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  I mean,

• 39:07Speaker 01

  I guess is a living, breathing document like, I don't, yeah, I'm like, I'm like open to changes. But when every, when it, and these things seem, these things seem to change every week, you know, or there seems to be no standard. For example,

• 39:22Speaker 01

  we reported earlier this year at Facebook that, okay, there's these conservative pages. Prager, PragerU, which is, puts these videos together and often have misinformation. Charlie Kirk, the, the head of Turning Points USA. Um, these pages can be fact checked by third party fact checkers. And in, in certain instances, they did share misinformation that was fact checked by third party fact checkers. And under, under those strikes that get assessed after those fact checks, after a certain amount of strikes, um, you get penalties assessed to your page. You, you get demotion in terms of your reach. You can't, you're not read as widely as many people, your algorithm, the algorithm doesn't serve you up to as, to as many users as, as normal.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  And sometimes you get prevented from running ads. What we reported is, um, those strikes were being assessed. They, they, they were actually sharing misinformation, some about climate change. Forgot what some of the others were, but then these Facebook executives who were on the policy team went in and advocated that the strike should be removed. Not clear why, but there's just kind of this tweaking of the rules there. I mean, and that allowed these pages to kind of continue to persist and act as if nothing had happened. And that's, I think that's a prime example of Facebook not sticking to its guns. Their statement to us in that, in that story was insane, by the way.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  It was like, yes, yes, fact checkers have the ability to, to deem things as misinformation and to label them, but only we can assess the penalties. We decide the penalties, which means that their whole third-party fact-checking process is kind of a sham.

• 41:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's a farce.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. And I was just gonna ask, like, why is it important to have standards? Because, because maybe you do want some judgment and maybe you want to have the ability for a platform to stand back and say, okay, well, we don't have a rule for this, but, you know, certainly this is, but, but I think what you just said, though, is a pretty good counterpoint to the argument of.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  And that's like.

• 41:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  Maybe lean on judgment. Because people tend to get, you know, caught up on, on rules and stuff like that. And, you know, I guess like that, you know, rules for rules sake, to me, sometimes seems a little ridiculous when you're talking about how social media companies enforce their platforms. Sometimes I think case by case makes more sense, but what you're talking about here is a really serious issue I don't think many people pay attention to.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  And they come full circle on that. I mean, the reason why we reported that story is because someone, people internally were pissed about that, you know? They were mad. They came to us, you know?

• 42:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  To illustrate your point of governing by PR crisis, you know?

• 42:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, which has always, it's always been the case for Facebook. And it's interesting because at the beginning of this year, Zuckerberg very explicitly said, I'd rather be understood than liked.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  I don't think he's either.

• 42:20Alex Kantrowitz?

  And, uh, and yeah, strike, strike on both counts. So, uh, uh, the second order, let's talk about these bans for a second. Because they're going to be a huge issue the week this comes out. Second order effect of these bans is that people can end up, I mean, it's pretty clear to me that there's going to be a large segment of, you know, MAGA Twitter that's going to move over to Parler, Gab, and, you know, maybe a, a third yet to be named platform that's going to come up in place because that audience, you know, they don't just, you know, when Donald Trump's account goes away, they don't just leave the internet, they go somewhere. So, um, you know, these platforms can be, I just wrote about this in Big Technology this week, they can become echo chambers and,

• 43:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  you might end up having people, you know, uh, being even less able to see, you know, people they disagree with as people versus, versus memes and caricatures. So, so what is your take on that?

• 43:17Speaker 01

  See, I, I, I don't know, but like, uh, yeah, and the funny thing is right before we started recording this, we just published a story about Parler.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  We got, Apple sent Parler a letter to essentially start moderating content, but or stop preventing violence from being incited on Parler or face expulsion from the App Store. So I don't know how Parler is going to be in the App Store.

• 43:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  People can leave. Well, it's going to be up to Apple whether Donald Trump can have a account on that, which is an interesting kind of out of left field content moderation decision we didn't expect.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  But like you're asking, are people going to moderate to these places and are these places going to exist? And how are they going to act and how is it going to interact with Twitter?

• 44:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, yeah.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  Is it going to be like some kind of upside down Twitter?

• 44:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  What are the second order effects going to be? Which is important to discuss. I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be, it's, it's going to be, uh, you know, not making a value judgment on it. I'm just saying we need to think about.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  I don't know what Trump looks like on, not on Twitter. If Trump goes to Parler and starts like going crazy on there, because so much of his Twitter is about owning libs.

• 44:25Alex Kantrowitz?

  Owning the libs.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  You know? Owning the libs, you know, that's, that's like his, that's the brand. That's the brand of a lot of people on Twitter. And when they get banned, you don't have that same like, I tweeted something bad. I'm now gonna let the, let the engagement roll in, which then creates an anger wave cycle thing. And then like, we go around again, you know? So like.

• 44:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  But there's more, there's gotta be more to it than that. I mean, some of the, you know, this, these.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  Is there platforms?

• 44:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yes, I would definitely say so. I mean, you know, I don't think Donald, Donald Trump's account is, you know, is used to communicate with his supporters, for sure. You know, which I think you pointed out, talking about how he rallied them

• 45:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  over the past couple of months. So that's definitely another use case. And then there's of course, you know, the major factor of losing access is is not having that, you know, immediate key into any, you know, newsroom who would just drop a tweet in Slack and then start to, you know, build a segment.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  But there's also the other effect of him no longer being president, right? Like, the reason why we paid attention to his Twitter is because he could start war with North Korea with the tweet. But if he, he no longer has that power anymore, and he's on Parler, you know, like,

• 45:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  No doubt.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Do I, do I care? Like, do I, do I, if he's like, end section 230, we, we will destroy the, you know, and he's, he's doing it on Parler, but he no longer has the power anymore. Do I?

• 45:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  Look, the thing I think that we should be thinking about is the fact that there's lots of supporters. You know, we saw many of them march into the Capitol over, over the past week. And they will be listening.

• 46:09Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 46:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  And what happens when it becomes, you know, an echo chamber? And it is all like-minded folks. You know, we've talked over the past couple of years about how that we don't have a shared sense of reality anymore. And that was when, when everybody was on Facebook and Twitter. So now, now we certainly are gonna have that problem. And, and, you know, in multiples, given what's going on right now. Or it's possible that the Republican Party just, and conservatives just move beyond Trump. And we all get back together and can live in the same world again.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  Wow, that's very.

• 46:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  Optimistic. I said it's possible. I didn't say it's gonna happen.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Assume good. Assume good intent.

• 46:51Alex Kantrowitz?

  There was no assumption there. Come on, look, the fact that I'm even throwing that out.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  I'm just playing devil's advocate, yeah.

• 46:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, just asking questions.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm just asking.

• 47:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  But, but no, I'd like to, don't you think this is an important thing to discuss, though? Like, I'd like to get your thought on it.

• 47:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that, that is a concern, that a place like Parler or Gab can be like a breeding ground for, I think, we're all thinking about that, that's already starting to happen in private places like Telegram that aren't relegated or regulated or monitored as much as, as a place like Facebook would be, a Facebook group, you know, things like Discord.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  Do I think, like, Donald Trump is gonna start a Discord channel and 70 million people are gonna be in that? I don't know.

• 47:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  No, it definitely won't be the same amount.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  30 million people, 20 million people.

• 47:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's a sizable amount of people, so.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  Look, man, I didn't, I didn't anticipate people storming the Capitol this week, and I can't tell you what's gonna happen next week.

• 47:50Alex Kantrowitz?

  Really? That was surprising to you?

• 47:51Speaker 01

  I mean, I should rephrase that. I mean, we saw, yeah, I mean, as someone who, like, saw these groups, I mean, it was on, it was on the car, like, it was in the realm of possibility. Did I think they would actually do it? And it's, as opposed to, like, LARP, you know, and like, like, walk around in camo and, um, carry don't tread on me flags, you know, and actually, like, break through the windows?

• 48:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right, well, they did it in Michigan, in the middle of these anti-lockdown protests.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  They did it in Michigan, but they didn't actually, like, yeah, I mean, and they did it with guns, actually, which is more terrifying, but like, yeah, I mean, the scenes this week were just, let me put it this way, even if you're, even if you, even if you're monitoring it, we're just shocking, you know?

• 48:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  Totally. Yeah, I mean, that was how I felt, shocked, but not surprised, but shocked.

• 48:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's weird, cuz, yeah, you're like, thinking about it, you're like, this, could this happen? It could. That's why we're monitoring it. Will it happen? I don't know. Hopefully not. And it did.

• 48:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  I mean, at the end of the day, just a building, but it is also the democratic process. And had they gotten hold of those electoral votes and burned them, which is not out of the realm of possibility, that could have been an issue. That could have been a real big issue because those are the actual votes. Like the ceremony would have had to kind of been paused and delayed. We have an inauguration week, so.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  It's so sad. Just so sad.

• 49:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it is. It's sad. It's a dark moment in the country's history. I mean, this is definitely one that they're going to have in the history books and we'll look back on. And you and I will have to explain to our kids one day. And they'll be like, but did that really happen? Sure did.

• 49:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  So, yeah. In terms of taking action, the

• 49:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  the counterpoint to these platforms taking action, we talked a little bit about the second order effects of where people are going to go.

• 49:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  You know, there's some people who also would say they shouldn't do these bans because what's going to happen now is that, you know, after they set that precedent, they're just going to be subject to pressure campaigns you know, from their employees and from the outside of people who have seen them, you know, take this action and try to get them to do it again to their, you know, political opponents in the future. So what do you think about that?

• 50:16Speaker 01

  I think that's a worry. Yeah. I think there is now a precedent that's set not just for the US. You got to think of like other places around the world. What happens to Duterte's account, you know, like what happens to Modi?

• 50:32Speaker 01

  And I'm just thankful I'm not in the position to make those decisions, right? Like there's, there's going to be very difficult decisions on the line. And this is not going to be the last time we see something like this happen.

• 50:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it is. Sorry, go ahead.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  No, but I just was going to say like, they kind of dug this hole for themselves, you know?

• 50:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm going to agree. Like it's also like, it's pretty remarkable that a large percentage of the world's speech has migrated to two websites, essentially two websites and apps.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  And I would say, I mean, Facebook more so than Twitter, but yeah.

• 51:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Facebook, the Facebook universe.

• 51:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. So let's, let's end the show. I mean, it's, uh, yeah, we've covered a lot of ground. Um, let's end the show with a little bit of a discussion of what happens next to Facebook. I mean, I was writing up some notes to send over to CNBC today. Wrote that Democrats hate Facebook, Republicans hate Facebook, the FTC is suing Facebook and looking for a breakup and 48 state attorney generals are doing the same. And I said, oh, and also the Democrat Congress may pass new antitrust laws that take aim directly at Facebook's business. So for years I'd been confident that Facebook could weather any storm. And now I'm not so sure. So what do you think happens here?

• 51:59Speaker 01

  I don't know. And you, I don't know, like, uh, you have a, a president who went into the election saying he doesn't like Mark Zuckerberg. He's on record saying that. Um, at the same time, the administration is hiring former Facebookers left and right. People that have worked at the, in various capacities at the company.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  I think these antitrust lawsuits mean a lot. I also paying attention to the Google antitrust lawsuits that are led by the Texas Attorney General, because that has a lot of Facebook stuff in there as well, which is awful PR for the company.

• 52:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 52:35Speaker 01

  The, uh, the collusion on ads allegation.

• 52:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. Cooperation alleging that Facebook and Google made a secret deal that Facebook would win a set number of ad auctions, which if is proven out in court is very bad for both companies.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  I mean, beyond the legal challenges, this is just going to be an awful PR year for Facebook. Like if, if.

• 52:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, why is that?

• 52:57Speaker 01

  Because, I mean, they're going to be constantly in the news with these, with these legal challenges with.

• 53:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, the antitrust.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, 2020 was bad for them. 2018 was bad for them with Cambridge, the Cambridge Lincoln cycle. 2019 was kind of a respite and then was back into it with the election in 2020. And like, it just seems to be never ending for them. So. Uh, yeah, I mean, I have, I'm sure they have a plan or like some kind of process in place to how to deal with this stuff. But, uh, I mean, yeah, I mean, we reported, for example, they, they went through and, and, um, did this training course for all employees to, um, like how to handle anti-just discussions and like not to put stuff in writing. There was actually a training course at the

• 53:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  No way.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  Like they did like a, like an online training, like thing that everyone had to complete. Um, like how to deal with antitrust issues. Um, which I thought was very funny and just like a side of

• 53:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  the times. Don't do crimes.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  Don't do crimes. Step one, don't do crimes. Step two, repeat step one. Yeah.

• 54:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  Step two.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  But it was literally like, don't put stuff in writing. When you can get on the phone, if you need to put stuff in writing, have a lawyer on it. It was just like, I was like, what? Like,

• 54:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 54:17Speaker 01

  Like.

• 54:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  How to evade accountability?

• 54:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then like Zuckerberg has said multiple times on workplace and so a bunch of other execs, do not talk about antitrust stuff like on workplace. You will be, it will be removed. Like, cause I mean, they're, they're just terrified of discovery on all this stuff. I mean, they've created a platform where employees post their every thought, you know, and, and argue

• 54:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  Employees.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  And argue every point, you know? And now they're telling him to shut up and it's just like kind of antithetical to their ethos.

• 54:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  How do you think the, the antitrust stuff plays out? Do you think they get broken up? Or is it just a ceremonial fine from the FTC?

• 55:01Speaker 01

  I think there'll probably be some settlement. It feels like there always is some settlement.

• 55:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  A meaningful settlement or another one that they can shrug off?

• 55:10Speaker 01

  Oh, you mean, oh, like, like does Instagram get split off or is it just like?

• 55:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  No, like obviously, yeah, yeah. Actually, I'd like to hear your answer on that one.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't know what the government has. I wish I did. Man, I'm definitely gonna try and find out. You know, I don't know what they have in from discovery.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  And honestly, I the the stuff that has come out in the Google stuff, like those Googles, that Google stuff has been a lot juicier than what has been revealed in the Facebook antitrust suits.

• 55:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  In Texas.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  In Texas, yeah.

• 55:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, that to me was the most surprising. No one had ever heard of that.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  Not only, not only that, it right now, it must be said, it's it's an allegation within the lawsuit. But the it came after Cambridge Analytica. I think the timing was like, it was like late 2018, right? So it's like in the middle of all these scandals and they know the FTC's like they they knew they're getting examined by the by government regulators. They still did it, you know?

• 56:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, this is sort of where I go with this is that it's not just the FTC. It's and it's not just the DOJ and Google's case. It's all these state attorney generals. And it's a lot of stuff. And it's easy to maybe settle with one federal agency, but when you're looking at all these state agencies as well, it's like or the state state attorney generals, it's like that. That's pretty overwhelming. And that's where I was sort of looking at my perspective in the past about how these companies were basically gonna weather whatever it took and started to think, maybe not. So, yeah.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  Maybe Facebook just becomes like, like its innovation is to become a conglomeration of law firms this year, you know, like.

• 56:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  Is that your your 2021?

• 56:56Speaker 01

  I will that that sounds pretty good to me, you know, they're gonna employ like half the fricking law firms.

• 57:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  Half of DC's antitrust defenses.

• 57:05Speaker 01

  I mean, because that's that's the biggest threat where like Facebook reacts to threats, right? Like they buy threats, they kill them, they out compete with them, they copy their functions. And now the threat is the government, right? And so they're gonna throw everything they have at this. I mean.

• 57:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and they have a lot. I mean, they have much more. The FTC's annual budget is like 350 million a year.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  Facebook made 3 billion last quarter.

• 57:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, I think they make more than.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  And and profit, but yeah.

• 57:34Alex Kantrowitz?

  And profit, revenue, they do 16 billion or something.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  They're gonna do 80 billion this year, yeah.

• 57:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  In a year versus 330 million, which is, I mean, of course, they'll have expenses and stuff like that, but. Tough fight.

• 57:46Speaker 01

  It's gonna be a good time to be a lawyer in DC right now.

• 57:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, seriously. Now, in terms of the product, we don't talk about that often, but they have been losing teenage users. TikTok is ascendant. And I mean, I spent a good chunk of time on TikTok over break. And it's extremely addictive. And I'm gonna delete it, but I had to know it.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  I deleted mine.

• 58:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  Because of security fears or because?

• 58:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got creeped out by the key logging. And then I just couldn't, I couldn't do another platform. Like, I like it when people post TikToks on Twitter. Like, I think it's, and like, ironically, to Instagram, I think they're funny. But like, I don't want to go seek them out anymore. I'll see the good ones I get posted, like.

• 58:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah. I mean, there's gonna be people that are gonna be wary of it, but the bottom line is that it's picking up momentum and a real challenge to Facebook. So, you know, what do you think's gonna happen with that business? I mean, I'm trying to find stuff that could be exciting about Facebook, maybe what they're doing in virtual reality from like, you know, a standpoint of something that could catch on with people.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  We reported.

• 58:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  But I'm curious what you think about this stuff.

• 59:01Speaker 01

  I reported out their year-end meeting in December, where they had this like product roadmap for everything.

• 59:09Speaker 01

  And they really talked up virtual reality, Oculus, they've had a lot of success with Portal. They are.

• 59:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Which is run by your friend Baz, who we mentioned before.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  My homie.

• 59:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  He's with that division, you know, say what you will about his perspective on the world, but that division has thrived.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  Oh, Portal is, I mean, I mean, in part because of the pandemic, but according to Katie Natapolos, like, my colleague and your former colleague, it's a lovely product. It's a great product. I think she might be the number one fan of Portal.

• 59:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  She's definitely the number one.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  I'm gonna get this.

• 59:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  Fan of Portal. I don't even think it's a discussion on that.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  We're gonna get this podcast a Facebook Portal sponsorship, but.

• 59:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  I don't take ads from Facebook, so unfortunately, Ryan, that's another dream I'll have to flesh out in the toilet.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  After the discussion that we've had on this podcast, I doubt they'll ever want to fund anything with this, but. Uh.

• 1:00:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  I think we've been fair.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, go ahead.

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  But, um, no, they're, they're, they like VR. They're, they're talking about AR. They've, they've made acquisitions of Control Labs, um, that, uh, augmented reality startup. Um, they've talked about their innovations in AI. Um, I don't know if you saw this, but I reported out that they had this tool that they were gonna like deploy to like summarize newspaper or long.

• 1:00:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  Of course I saw it.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  Stories, yeah.

• 1:00:36Alex Kantrowitz?

  Ryan, you should know I read all your stories.

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  I appreciate that.

• 1:00:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  No worries about that.

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  Sometimes I don't even know if my mom does because there's so many of them, but.

• 1:00:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I appreciate that. Um, yeah, I don't know. I think they'll continue to keep chugging along as, as they can, but like, yeah, they're, the, the blue app is dying. Instagram is.

• 1:00:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  I wouldn't say dying. I mean, it's growing across, but it's less, it has less luster than it had in the past.

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:01:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  Jordan is losing.

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  I mean, there's the numbers, but don't you get like those notifications that are like, oh, such and such did this on Facebook three days ago. And like you're, you get these email, like whenever I start to see email notifications from them.

• 1:01:18Alex Kantrowitz?

  You know, they're desperate.

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  I'm like, yeah, I'm like Jimmy just posted a three minute song that he recorded. You know, it's like, it's just like, I don't need to see this shit like you're getting, you're just getting desperate. This is this.

• 1:01:31Alex Kantrowitz?

  Wow. Did you know Jimmy made a song just for you? And, uh, and here in the, in front of the thousands of listeners.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  Just slaying Jimmy.

• 1:01:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  Sold it down the river.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  Jimmy, your songs suck, man, sorry.

• 1:01:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  Wow, brutal, brutal. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  Not getting a sponsorship from Jimmy either.

• 1:01:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  Jimmy's, Jimmy's band is out. No sponsorship from them. Okay, yeah, it is, it'll be, it'll be, I, I see what you're saying though. The, the, the, the flagship apps are, are definitely losing.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  WhatsApp, they're, they're leaning in on WhatsApp. We didn't talk about WhatsApp at all, but they're starting to business, doing the business stuff on there, starting to enroll payments, especially in India.

• 1:02:15Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, I mean, I'm reticent to declare I'm dead from the product standpoint because

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  I mean, it's

• 1:02:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  they have reinvented themselves and they have, yeah, you're right. Yeah, they have scale.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  They have scale. They have two billion users, right? And I think you get to a point where you protect that scale by copying, killing and legaling. And they're going to have to focus probably more on the legaling front this year.

• 1:02:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, no doubt they're going to have to spend more energy on the legal stuff than ever before.

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:47Alex Kantrowitz?

  I always say last question. I'm not sure if this is, but let's like make an attempt at it.

• 1:02:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  Do you, what do you think about Facebook? Do you think it's good for the world? What's your perspective? Like if it went away tomorrow, how would you feel?

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  I would have nothing to report on. It would be so boring.

• 1:03:07Alex Kantrowitz?

  You'd be out of work. No, most people would figure out a way.

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  I'd be out of work.

• 1:03:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  I know Matt Honan and John Pachkowski would find something to assign you to.

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  I'd be just twiddling my thumbs, tweeting dumb shit all day, microwave and fish.

• 1:03:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, this is, you're talking about your day to day to day anyway, so.

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  Um, what would happen if, I would think something probably replaces it, right? People have been conditioned to spend a lot of their time online now, for better or worse. Their activity will probably go elsewhere if it's in that same form. I mean, that's a given, right? Like

• 1:03:41Alex Kantrowitz?

  But what I'm getting at though is, is how would you feel?

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  How would I feel?

• 1:03:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  I'd really like, yeah, why don't you weigh in on like whether it's good or bad?

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  I don't use Facebook that much.

• 1:03:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Facebook. Okay, I know from your personal perspective, but like talk about the way that it impacts the world and sort of your belief on that.

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  I think it has different impacts in different places.

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  And, and, and at different times. I mean, that seems like a dumb answer, but like, I mean, we remember how like, and this is the example everyone uses, but Arab Spring, you know, like how good everyone felt about like showing everyone democracy and like posting about it, you know? And that was like a great time for the social networks. And then like fast forward a couple of years later and you have genocide in Myanmar, right? And that felt pretty shitty, you know? It was awful.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  I don't know if I answered that question. I don't know. Like, how would I feel?

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  Fine.

• 1:04:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hmm.

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  Um. I guess it's hard to say. I just don't know where people would would focus their time, where their energies. Like, what would what would they throw themselves into next? It's gonna, if they're gonna throw themselves into something. Is it TikTok? Are we just, we're just gonna all start watching TikTok videos and then like start just.

• 1:05:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  Talk about who controls that. Yeah.

• 1:05:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, or and then we're just gonna start duetting with people and shit and like.

• 1:05:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  You say duetting like it's the worst thing in the world.

• 1:05:15Speaker 01

  Actually, it's pretty great. Okay.

• 1:05:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  How could someone ever?

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Someone sent me duets of this, like, they're singing this Irish song and they're just adding like layers of like. You seen this?

• 1:05:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's. I don't know. They all blend together.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  Someone got in some corner of TikTok and then that this is what happened. This is how I absorb TikToks. People send them to me. And it's like someone, they're just like adding like layers of harmonies and and stuff to the song. It's like so funny. But yeah, maybe that maybe that's the end of the world, like the the next iteration, we just start singing over each other's songs.

• 1:05:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, you're just gonna say end of the world. And duetting and then. You hate duetting. Duetting is the end of the world.

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  I think it's, I think like, I think it's better than like organizing a genocide or like storming the Capitol on.

• 1:06:02Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, beats both of those things.

• 1:06:04Speaker 01

  Who we say, we say that and then once like in in twenty years, there's gonna be like.

• 1:06:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  The duet rebellion.

• 1:06:09Speaker 01

  The duet, yeah, exactly.

• 1:06:11Alex Kantrowitz?

  Uh, do you? So I I obviously was wrong on the last question because it sparks a new one. Um, do you? So a lot of a lot of time I think about, uh, given like, look, think about the sad state of affairs, uh, in our world today and wonder how much of that is actually social media's responsibility. And then I, of course, go to go back and think, well, this isn't the first time in in world history that, uh, something like this, that bad things have happened, uh, that people have killed people and people have, uh, you know, given power democratically to evil folks. So how much of that do you think about and? I mean, yeah, your story was, you know, talking about how like the social media was

• 1:06:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  you President Trump use social media to orchestrate a coup. And yeah, I'm just kind of curious, do you think that that a lot of the negative stuff that we see in the world today is a direct result of social media? Or where do you fall on that one?

• 1:07:08Speaker 01

  Some of it is. Definitely. Some of it is. I think we fall into this trap of like, having to gauge social media again on this, like, the totality of it all. Or like, like, is if we add this thing to the positive side and and take this thing to the negative side, like, where does this, where does the balance lie, you know? And like, is it a net good? Or is it a net bad? And I think that's, that's like, as a reporter, it's it's hard to look at, like, the totality of it. But you can report on individual instances where, I mean, things are good. For example, those are the things Facebook puts out press

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  releases for. A woman in India started a business and connected to local merch, like, local buyers and built a business and is now out of her village and into the, like, made a living for herself. You hear those stories on Facebook all the time.

• 1:08:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it sounded a lot like a Sheryl Sandberg.

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I think I probably borrowed it from her. I think I heard it from her at Davos or something. But like, but as a

• 1:08:16Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's such a flex. I heard this story from Sheryl Sandberg.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  I kind of just made it as a joke. But I did actually

• 1:08:22Alex Kantrowitz?

  No, I'm kidding.

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  I actually did see her at Davos. Davos is awful, by the way. I'll never get invited back, I don't think. But

• 1:08:29Alex Kantrowitz?

  He's right. Jimmy and Davos. Okay, sorry.

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  I'm just lighting up sponsor after sponsor. World Economic Forum, later, dude.

• 1:08:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  There we go.

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  You're never sponsored.

• 1:08:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  They will not be in favor of the big technology podcast mid roll.

• 1:08:43Speaker 01

  We should go for the after next, like Coca-Cola, Gatorade.

• 1:08:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Geez, Ryan, I got a business to run here. Okay, I'm not

• 1:08:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  You know, I know BuzzFeed's plus was cash and just acquired the Huffington Post, but come on, this is a one-person business.

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  Tell me.

• 1:09:00Alex Kantrowitz?

  I gotta have some sponsors.

• 1:09:01Speaker 01

  Tell me if you want to light up, I'll light them up.

• 1:09:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay.

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  But.

• 1:09:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  Get to your point.

• 1:09:07Speaker 01

  To my point, but like as a reporter, you can always find instances where something terrible happens on these social networks. A village in India lynches people because they believe that these people are child molesters because they heard a rumor on WhatsApp. We've written that story, you know.

• 1:09:28Speaker 01

  Buddhists in Myanmar, Buddhist mob chases Muslims out of their country because they're riled up because their leaders on Facebook Messenger spread rumors that Muslims are dogs.

• 1:09:44Speaker 01

  Been written about it at length, you know, like. So I, to my point is like, it's hard to like, be like, oh, like this way here and this way here. Facebook is good and Facebook is bad, but like, I don't think that should be my role. I think my role should be to hold the platforms accountable in these instances where there are negative externalities. And in writing about those, hopefully they can improve

• 1:10:14Speaker 01

  and prevent that from ever happening again or repeating. Is the ideal world, but in the ideal world, but it just seems like it's a broken record at this point and things keep repeating over and over.

• 1:10:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, and of course that shouldn't be your role, but it's also sort of, the podcast is a great place for us to hear a little bit more about your mindset, your mentality and how you tackle these things because, yeah, where the way that you come in to it matters too. But I will say, I have, I've been reporting on Facebook for years and years and years, and I have learned a ton about the company through your stories.

• 1:10:48Speaker 01

  Thanks, Ryan.

• 1:10:49Alex Kantrowitz?

  And it's been a pleasure collaborating with you on those stories back in the day at BuzzFeed, not too long ago.

• 1:10:56Speaker 01

  Back in the day.

• 1:10:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  And I'm continuing to enjoy them as a reader.

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:11:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  Thank you, Ryan, for, for the, really for the work you do. You know, it's.

• 1:11:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's valuable to the public that we learn how these networks work and appreciate you coming on and talking a little bit more about your feelings about the company, your thoughts about where things are going to go. And again, letting us into your mindset to provide a little context for people that are reading out there. So thanks for joining. Thanks for having me, man. Everyone can find you on Twitter, I'm sure, unless your account has been revoked. Yeah, maybe I'm going to sign off here and then just be like, oh, along with Donald Trump, real Donald Trump, Armack 18 has been suspended. Out. Has been permanently banned from the platform. I'm just going to go change. There would be, yeah, there would be people happy about that.

• 1:11:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, yeah, no doubt. As someone who's personally been dunked on by you on the platform. Have I? You know, there were moments, dude, come on, basically throughout all BuzzFeed. You know, there were moments where I wanted Dorsey to ban you, but I think that you've shaped up in that regard, which I appreciate. Okay, but it's Armack 18. Yeah, it is Armack 18. On Twitter. And then your BuzzFeed stories, people can find them where? At BuzzFeed slash Ryan dash Mac, I believe. BuzzFeed.com slash Ryan dash Mac, or just Google me. Okay, good. I was waiting so you'd actually give the URL. Just Google me. And we'll end with one last flex. Well, anyway, Ryan, thank you so much for joining and thanks

• 1:12:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  everybody for listening. We drop these interviews every single Wednesday. So we will be back here with another show next week. I'm pretty sure I'm going to play an interview that I recorded with one of Ryan's favorite journalists. I don't know if I can say that, Glenn Greenwald, who I had just interviewed for a story that you're going to see on 1.0. So that show will be on next week. So stick around for that. If you're new to the show, please subscribe. If you are a longtime listener and can rate us, that would be great. Ryan, once again, thank you for joining the show. You know, I hope you're enjoying microwaving fish at home. Everybody else appreciates that. All right, everybody, that'll do it for us. We will see you next week.

• 1:13:33Speaker 02

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