- What's goin' on everybody?
Trevor Noah here, host of The Daily Show.
Coming to you from quarantine, how y'all doin'?
Gonna be chatting to Mr. Mosseri, Adam Mosseri
the head of Instagram.
Mr. Mosseri how you doin'?
- Good how you doing?
- I mean I could be better, I think everyone could
be better.
How are you?
- Hanging in there, I think is how I would put it.
- Yeah, is this what Instagram was made for?
Were you guys planning this from the beginning?
Is that one day we were all going to be trapped
indoors and all have to look at pictures of each
other while trying to stay sane?
- (laughs) Not exactly.
I do think we were, I think Instagram was made
to bring people together for sure,
but we certainly not thinking about this insane
situation that we find ourselves in today.
- Let me ask you a few questions just in and around
what's happening now.
This is one of the strangest times we've ever been in.
You know I'm reading some of the questions
people have in the comments here.
And one of the big thing Instagram has the power to do
is connect people with each other.
But it also has the ability to connect people
with information.
You know we see nurses on Instagram,
we see doctors on Instagram telling us what they need.
Some of the first videos about coronavirus
came out on Instagram.
You know whether it was doctors in China,
whether it was doctors in Italy.
They were showing us what was going on, on the ground.
What is Instagram doing to try and piece all this
information together so we can separate fact from fiction?
- At high level just generally related to COVID-19
and the crisis around the pandemic,
we're trying to keep people safe and bring people together
and most of keeping people safe is around getting
access to good information.
So we actually put a banner at the top of Instagram
for everyone worldwide, pointing them to different
local health organizations.
Like here in the U.S. the CDC, to get good accurate
information about the virus.
That's the kind of thing that we never actually do.
We're trying to raise awareness through
the stay at home sticker which people are using,
just encourage people to stay home
because that's one of the best pieces of advice
I think you can give.
And it's more meaningful coming from people you follow
than coming from a company like ours.
Actually it's been used for than 100 million times
so far which has been exciting to see.
And then trying to make that bad information,
any risky information that's misinformation,
off Instagram entirely.
- Have I lost you?
- I see you.
Am I back?
- Yeah, I lost you for a second you were talking
about misinformation.
- Also trying to make sure we remove any misinformation
related to COVID-19 that's dangerous.
You know you see these terrible pranks like drink bleach
and it'll cure you kind of stuff.
So getting that stuff off the platform entirely.
- Right, this is also a strange time
because like on the one hand you have people who are at home
people who are stressed out, afraid, etc.
And then it feels like this is one of those moments
where social media can be the best thing or the worst thing.
Some people are being crazy and angry online
and then other people are creating memes.
Like you said there's all these challenges.
The push-up challenge, people are singing at home.
Is Instagram working to amplify this content?
Are you trying to bring people together behind
these common causes or is it jut happening
organically and you're just letting it go?
- A lot of it has happening organically.
We're trying to figure out how we can help amplify it.
And how we can do things really quickly.
And normally if we have an idea,
like we're seeing all these amazing lives happen right now.
John Legend and Chrissy Tegan do a wedding
for their daughter's Luna's stuffed animals
over the weekend.
Like these things are amazing.
We're trying to figure out we can amplify that.
Normally we would try to build something inside
of Instagram, so you can go and sort of see
what's coming up.
But there's no time.
So we're using the add Instagram account in that case,
which has a lot of followers,
hundreds of millions of followers to push out information
about what we see coming up.
So in general we're just trying to figure out
how we can duct tape solutions together quickly
to try and amplify the good that's happening
on the platform.
As opposed to building things that might take weeks,
given that how pressing the need is to help out.
- Do you see a world where you would be doing that?
Are you guys working on something for the future,
because we don't know how long we're gonna be indoors.
Are you adding something that could be released
in a few months.
Is there a new type of Instagram if we just stuck
inside for a few months?
- Uh maybe, I mean we're seeing people are messaging way
more, they're video chatting way more,
they're going live way more.
You see this, it varies from country to country
but those are pretty consistent trends.
But we're also just trying to figure out
what can we do in a matter of weeks,
not just days, given that challenge is gonna be.
They're gonna be great and they're gonna take time.
Even if we come out shelter in place, the lockdown,
the economic impacts are significant.
So one of the things we're looking at right now
are what can we do for creators on Instagram
but also small businesses like retailers
and service providers.
Like your local hair cutting place or your local
restaurant, can we provide any relief there?
Can we do anything for creators who make a living
on Instagram?
Can we do anything around donations?
So, these things would take weeks and not days to do
but we are spending a bunch of time there.
But also trying to figure out on the mental health side.
Because there's a physical health risk here.
There's a huge economic risk,
but this is really taxing for a lot of people
in a really significant way.
And so is there anything we can do in that space as well?
Given that we're not mental health experts,
is another area. So we'll see, we'll see how the next couple
of weeks evolve.
- Is there like a thing you can do online
to just get rid of all negative information?
Is there like a filter we could tag on Instagram,
where we say, hey, we don't want to see or hear
anything negative is that a possibility?
- That's not quite there.
But you can block certain comments, certain words
in your comments, which is pretty valuable
for certain people.
But no, that's not nearly as ambitious as what
you're talking about.
We're thinking more along the lines of getting people
emotional support.
Making sure they can have a network to lean on
if they're in times of crisis.
- What does that mean when you say that?
Because one thing that I've always talked a lot about
is I've heard stories depression.
I've talked about how hard it can be to cope
with anxiety or depression.
How, during times like this one of the hardest things
is to not maintain contact with the people you normally do.
What is Instagram doing to help with that?
Because on the one hand with Instagram,
as you guys have always said, you have to balance
the world of making people go crazy because
they're spending too much time on Instagram
but now people have to spend more time on these platforms
to connect with people.
So how are you helping people maintain their mental health?
- Well, a few different things.
I think the most important thing is just helping people
connect with their loved ones that they really care about.
If you're separated, I mean my brother lives in L.A.,
my sister lives in Berlin.
I'm really close to both of them.
I use Instagram to stay in touch with them.
But beyond that, we're seeing other things happen.
We're seeing mental health experts like therapists
and psychologist use Instagram to connect with their
patients.
Lizzo's done a bunch of meditations with the flute
and the whole crazy thing, going live on Instagram.
So we're seeing a lot of this happen organically
which is great.
So we just want to know when possible can we amplify
that kind of thing.
- Right, are you doing anything?
'Cause I feel like everyone asks the head of companies
what their companies are doing.
Are you okay at home, what are you doing?
Are you doing any of the challenges?
You doing a push-up challenge?
- I should do the push up challenge.
I haven't done that yet.
I think someone challenged me recently.
I got two little boys and another on the way.
So for me personally it's been mostly about
how do I take care of them?
- How old are they?
- Four, Nico's four and Blaze's is two
and then the other one is, is it April yet?
It's almost April so May.
So it's gonna be born in the middle of all of this.
- How do you explain to your four-year-old
why you can't leave the house and live your normal life?
- It's tough, I've tried.
I explained that there is,
he doesn't understand the word disease.
So there's like a sickness that's spreading around
and it happens, you know usually when people sneeze
and that sort of thing.
And so we want to stay clear just to be safe for a while.
He's got a lot of energy though,
so he's just gonna explode pretty soon.
But I think there's a lot of parents out there
particularly if you're working right now
and you have little kids and you don't have any childcare.
You're moonlighting your job, you're trying
to call into meetings during the day
and you're trying to be a parent and homeschool.
It's just wild.
And also if you're single and you live in a tiny little
apartment in New York, where things are pretty rough
right now and you're incredibly isolated.
That's also really brutal.
So everyone's dealing with their own challenges.
- I've got some questions from the community
that are really interesting
and remember guys this is Trevor Noah here host
of the Daily Show.
I'm chatting to Adam Mosseri here
who is the head of Instagram.
So if you have any questions for any of us,
just send them through and I'll ask them.
I've got a few that I've pulled up here
from the people.
Does Instagram connect users to local opportunities
if they want to volunteer or donate?
Is Instagram, is here any part of the platform
that helps you find these opportunities?
- There are some and we're trying to build more.
So right now you can raise money for non profits
through the donation sticker and stories.
We have a, as of last week, a section dedicated
to COVID-19-related health organizations.
And we're actually matching up to $10 million
for the United Nations Foundation
at the World Health Organization and the CDC.
But what we are interested in is what more can we do?
How can we help connect the community that uses Instagram
to the small businesses that are gonna be suffering
in such an intense way.
Or to the creators that they love on the platform
or to their local shops or restaurants.
And so that's one of the things we're actively
currently exploring.
'Cause look at the end of the day the government
can help at a scale that no private company can
and I think they're moving to try to do so.
But provisioning a bunch of capital is one thing,
distributing it is another.
And so we're hoping that we can help if we can bridge
a little bit because it's gonna be really tough
on all the local businesses that all of us know and love.
- Here's a big question that's coming through
from a lot of people in the community and it's around
false information that would be in Instagram.
It's really hard because on the one hand
you have some people who are joking and clearly
joking about ways to cure coronavirus.
Or they're talking about, like creating a meme
or they're messing around.
And then you have other people who are purposefully
trying to misinform the public about what they can do
about coronavirus.
How is Instagram figuring out, first of all,
which of the comments are detrimental
and what are you doing about this?
- So with figuring out what issues or what claims
are or what comments are detrimental,
we're working with organizations like the World Health
Organization to identify dangerous false claims
and then we use people but also technology to try
and go and fan out and find all the examples
of those claims but we rely heavily on experts.
I think the piece of context though that's worth
flagging real quick is that generally we tend
to be very worried about
putting a chilling effect on speech.
We try to be a place where people can express themselves
and tell their stories.
So we've taken a lot of criticism over the years
for being too lenient.
When it comes to COVID-19 and misinformation
that's specifically creates health risks,
we are being actually the opposite.
We're being quite conservative.
We're taking it off Instagram entirely.
So want to be clear that we care a lot about expression,
we care about speech in general.
But these are extenuating circumstances
and under which we're gonna act differently
because I think the world needs it.
- All right I got a question here for both of us
and that is from IgniteStringTheory.
Hey Trevor and Adam how do you think our world
will look after the coronavirus has passed?
- Do you go first, you want me to go first?
- You can go first, I wanna hear your answer.
- I think you're gonna see a number of broad shifts
that have already started accelerate.
So you're seeing people move more and more shopping
online.
You see people video chat and do this type of thing
more and more.
I think you're gonna see three years of these sort
of shifts happen in three months.
And some of it will snap back but it will not snap back
all of the way.
But I also think it's gonna be a while.
Like even after all these, each local lockdown
or shelter in place opens up,
I don't think people are gonna immediately go out
and party.
I think people are going to be careful about large
gatherings for a period of time.
One interesting question is, if it goes on for a really
long time, do people still shake hands?
Like I don't know there's all sorts of crazy ideas
you can imagine.
But I think that's like the psychological impact
is gonna be significant.
My great grandmother lived through the Great Depression,
I'm not comparing this recession to the Great Depression,
that was much longer.
But she was 96 when she passed
and she still couldn't spend money.
So you could imagine certain effects,
but concerns about health or concerns about economics
or money might last a long time depending
on how long this lasts, I don't know.
- Yeah, I feel like whenever someone asks me
what do I think the world will be like after coronoavirus?
I think the question I first posed back to them
is how long do you think coronavirus will last?
I think if we went back to our normal lives in a week
I don't think the world would change.
We would all come out of it like it was a forced
mini vacation weird moment in time.
And I think people would be more brazen than ever.
There would be certain hubris because everyone
would be like, oh we survived it wasn't a thing.
I think if it goes for a really long time
and we start to see the effects economically
and physically.
If you start seeing huge numbers of people dying,
if you start seeing a ton of people not being able
to afford food.
I think we're gonna reach a tipping point where society
then decides what's more important staying indoors
or going out and getting food?
Working or not working, etc.
And it's gonna be interesting to see how governments
manage that period and then I think after that,
whatever they've done in that period determines
what we live like afterwards.
I've already seen, just from surveys and polls
that have been conducted, people's perspectives on certain
issues are changing.
For instance, now people care more about medicine
and what access they have to healthcare.
Now people are thinking differently about their
healthcare premiums and universal healthcare.
It's a completely different conversation right now.
Even just job security.
You know there are countries around the world
where people have protection.
The government says, if you are unemployed,
we'll find a way to keep you eating and living
until you get another job.
A lot of countries don't have that.
And so I think to what you're saying
as much as business is gonna change,
I think politics is gonna change depending
on how long this coronavirus threat goes for.
Because if it goes for long enough
people are just gonna wanna make sure that we're
never in the same situation every again.
Because you see countries like the U.K. where they
said they'll pay a percentage of people's salaries
for the duration of this crisis
and they understand the economies' gonna take a knock.
But they gonna figure it out.
So the question is how long does it last,
determines how much it will change the world
is what I think.
- Makes sense.
And I think you're gonna see, I mean unemployment
is spiking in a huge way in any country
that's been affected so far.
And I think if that's if people stay unemployed
for a long period of time that will also change
a lot of how people think.
We're seeing record levels here in the U.S. already
and you know we're already a couple weeks into taking
it seriously.
So, it's gonna be, look, we're gonna remember this year
and we're gonna talk about it for a long time.
- Right and I got two interesting questions.
First quick one that just came up was why are you
in a closet?
- I'm in my garage.
I'm lucky and privileged enough to have a garage
so I can go, when I'm working and hide from my children.
- (laughs) We want see the kids running in the background.
That's what you need.
- You joke, that happened last week.
I was doing a live, we were doing an Instagram Live
to the Instagram team giving them an update,
because we're trying to take care of them too.
And Monica had the garage, my wife,
and the kids just ran in and they got in a fight
because it was two boys.
So I had to try and play referee.
You don't want to see it, you don't want to see it.
- And then the other question was really interesting
if I just scroll back to it,
it was what are your opinions on the fact that this
is actually good for the planet?
That we as a society are taking a break from polluting,
from whether it be our cars, our emissions
from factories, etc.
What are your opinions on that idea?
- I don't know I haven't thought about that enough
to have a good opinion on it.
I will say, I think climate change is one of the most,
if not the most important long-term challenge we face.
So it's an area that I care a lot about.
But I have not thought about how specific
could this pandemic will affect our work there.
I think that could cut either way honestly, we'll see.
Actually depending on how long it lasts.
The longer it lasts, the longer the economy's hurt.
Maybe people care about climate less
or maybe they care more about health
and they care about climate more.
You could see that one going either way.
- Right, let me ask you a crazy question.
Could Instagram create like a feature where people
who are gathered together who shouldn't be together,
like their accounts get blocked?
Like if they're not social distancing, could
you guys do that?
- I don't know if we can know who's supposed to be
together or not be together but yeah, theoretically
you could try and do something.
- Right now right we're not supposed to be in the same
place unless you live with people or those are the people
you've been incubated with.
- Right exactly.
- So my question is, can Instagram shut down people's
accounts until they separate, is that a thing you can do?
- Technically we could try.
I don't think for a bunch of detail reasons
that aren't that interesting.
I don't think we'd be that good at it.
So we'd do it to people who didn't deserve it
and not do it to people who did probably too often.
- Like people who live in the same apartment building
their phones might just get cut off.
- Yeah, like if you're in a city
and you're all in the same building.
You're doing good because you're on floor 10,
I'm only floor 20, but we're like, nope, you're now
blocked.
We might be kinda rough.
- Okay, okay, there's some fun questions
that are coming through from people online.
And they're saying, oh, yeah, I guess this is a question
that I can ask you, Instagram, etc.
Is can you help people find toilet paper?
Is there a way that Instagram can help with this?
- If there was I would I wish (laughs) I could get it
for myself.
My wife is really anxious about the amount of toilet
paper we have in our house.
No, we're seeing other things happen, not like toilet
paper finding.
But one of the restaurants in my neighborhood
is posting pictures of what they're having for take-out
everyday and then you can call and you can go pick it up
without going in to the space.
So we're seeing all sort of really interesting use cases
bubble up.
But toilet paper isn't one I've found yet.
But look, if you got connection just comment here.
- I think this is one of those moments
where you could create something amazing here.
You create a feature on Instagram where we can all
tag toilet paper for each other.
- Just a tab dedicated to toilet paper.
- We just need a toilet paper tab on Instagram.
- You can imagine the icon, just a nice little outline
it's gonna be perfect.
- Just a little thing.
Someone had a good comment,
they said we can just use water.
If you have a bidet, I mean this is not a problem
in your world.
(Adam laughs)
So that makes a lot of sense.
Adam I mean everybody is out there,
well in there, I should say, trapped in doors
living their lives as a human being,
two questions.
How has this affected you the most as a human being
before business and also what do you miss most
about normal life?
- As a human being, I don't know if this is,
I don't know if I can distill it down to one thing.
I mean the thing that I'm most trying to figure out
is how do I support my family and do my job well
given that my job has gotten much more intense
as you can imagine.
And my family situation with my wife
who's like eightish months pregnant, maybe
seven and a half is intense.
So that's weighing both of those things
at the same time is a lot.
But I don't know how it's affected me yet.
I think I'll know once we get through it.
Right now it's about adrenaline and working
and being smart and spending time.
I just do two things, I'm here in the garage working
and I'm in the house with the family.
- Right.
- So I don't know yet.
And what do I miss most.
I just miss seeing people I care about and love in person.
It's just, I don't know, I'm a hugger.
And you can't hug right now.
And so I miss whether it's really close family
or friends, I miss that a lot.
What do you miss the most?
- What do I miss the most?
I'd be lying to you if I said I missed anything.
I mean I don't like the tension in the world.
I don't like how many people are being affected
by this physically and emotionally,
but for me personally I'll never lie to you
and say that my life has changed even in the slightest.
I stay home, I don't like hugging people.
(Adam laughs)
I don't like to shake hands.
I don't like getting close to people physically.
Like I've always been this person.
Even when they were showing people
how to wash their hands.
I was like, wait, how were people washing their hands?
(Adam laughs)
But yeah, there were people like you left out your thumbs.
I was like, how do you wash your hands without
doing your thumbs, I don't know, I don't know.
All I know is for me personally I won't lie
and say my life has changed all too dramatically.
I stay at home the way I always did.
I'm online.
I make my show from home.
- Which is amazing by the way. - Play video games.
And now I have an excuse to not go out and see people.
'Cause people always stress me out,
they'd always be like, why don't you come outside,
it's so sunny, it's such a beautiful day.
You're wasting the day.
Now, I'm like coronavirus, baby.
I can't go anywhere.
- You got your go-to excuse.
- Yeah, it's just become my life.
So I feel like there's a lot of introverts
who are enjoying just that aspect of coronavirus.
So I wish we could have this without any of the negative
economic effects or anybody's health being affected.
In fact, after coronavirus, I'm gonna stay indoors
and I'll tell people I'm doing it in case of coronavirus
forever going forward in the future.
- Yeah, yeah, you're just careful.
Just really careful there.
There could be another one,
You don't really know.
- All right well Adam, I know that's all the time
you got man, thank you so much for joining me.
- Thanks for having me.
(upbeat music)