So Kara Swisher is one of the leading voices in journalists in the US when it comes to
big tech and its connection with power and politics. She has covered Silicon Valley and
the major players that have made the industry as powerful as it is today, with big tech
becoming a major influence in today's political world. It's important to understand where
we are and where the industry is going. Now let's hear from Kara herself. Think of Kara
and welcome Villers writing it out, because I think all of always could say it. Very good.
Social media obviously played a big role in the preparation of storming the Capitol. Do
you agree? January six is kind of the 9/11 for social media.
Well, I don't know, I think it's a 9/11. You know, it's not I don't want to compare those
crisis's, you know, because that was the amount of the amount of deaths that that thing was
really quite amazing. But it was it is a moment to reflect on the impact of not just social
media, but media in general on on on getting people amplified and weaponized. And I think
that's really what it was in a lot of, you know, look, Donald Trump being down at the
down at the White House, yelling at them to do that was just as important as what had
prepared them to feel that way and act once. He said, you know, gave the go word, essentially.
And so what these people have been doing is they've been inhaling and and been flooded
with all kinds of misinformation, lies a lot by Donald Trump, but a lot everywhere. And
so they've been surrounded by lies. And therefore, when he said, go fix it, it was he had soften
them up. He and others had soften them up to do what they did. And I don't think people
I do think people have free will. But when you get into a mindset and you believe it
because you're surrounded by media, that's telling you that what's happening is being
taken to it's not as confusing to understand why they did what they did. You know, they
look like idiots, but are they or are they people that were just incredibly manipulated?
And that's something obviously Germans know about really well. And so this idea of constant
reaffirmation of things that are untrue created the situation that led to that for sure.
OK, so let's stick with the tech industry for a moment. You think they're all complicit
in allowing the storming to occur? Are you here? I think I lost you. A single
lost to. So here we are again, sorry for that. So we
had some some technical problems, obviously. So my question is, you get it. OK, let's maybe
we can go back. OK, go ahead. What do you want me to go back? I just wanted you to know.
So I wanted to go back to the big tech industry frozen again. And now it's so interesting
to people. Is the tech industry that all complicit in allowing the storming to occur? What's
your what's your take on that? Yeah, I think one thing that you have to separate
is two things. They may have done the right thing by by platforming Donald Trump at this
moment, but everything has led up to it has been because they haven't done anything and
they have allowed everything to go on, including all this misinformation, including the behavior
of Donald Trump and his minions. You know what I mean? It's it's an entire network where
misinformation bubbles up and bubbles back down. And so, yes, the way they built their
platforms has caused this situation to happen, giving them kudos for finally doing the right
thing. I'm not sure you got a kudos for doing the right thing, which is in this case, it's
the correct answer. But it also points the fact that how much power these companies have
and way too much power, that sometimes they make the right decision. But boy, do we not
like that. It took two companies to shut this down, just two people. And that's problematic
in this country. Do they have to rethink their whole model?
I mean, is there kind of also taking over all these conspiracy theories? And, you know,
would you say that and how? Well, you know, everyone's sort of like, how
could this happen? Everything was built this way. The way it is built is the way it is
behaving because it reflects humanity. And anytime humanity gets any kind of tool like
this, the abuse of it is usually right away. And so I think one of the things that's built
around advertising, it's built around engagement, it's not built around community, even though
they say it is. And so therefore, what has happened is what should happen, because this
is this is the kind of tools they build. And so the question is, is their engagement
oriented business plan a good business plan in this way, in this highly politicized age?
And also if engagement along with addiction of these platforms and things like that lead
to this enragement is not really a business we need to be in, and it leads to enragement
inevitably and not to the the better outcomes that they say they could lead to it, doesn't
it? There's so much proof of where this goes,
but it is their business model. So what how could they change that?
Well, you can imagine like I could think about, you know, TV has a business model of advertising
and you could have you know, you saw the movie network, you know, you could make it into
if it was the only thing people were getting and they were getting the individual messages
aligned to them, you could see how that could be because, well, we have we have government
entities that control the airwaves in some way. And there are there's there's there's
lawsuits that happen when you break a rule. And in this case, the Internet industry doesn't
have any laws governing them and therefore they can do whatever they want. Every other
major media, as much as we go on about freedom of speech here, every media has some strictures
on it. And we have to figure out what the strictures are for this media.
And it's going to have to come from government, not from them, because they can't sell self-regulation.
So, Carol, we often talk about we need more regulation on these big, big, overpowerful
companies that were actually allowed to become so big in the past. Like maybe we can focus
or talk a little bit about the mistakes which are happening now. You know, maybe you can
give us a couple of examples of where governments need to be taking action right now that we
don't kind of run into the same situation. Well, the European Union has, you know, Margaret
Vestager and others have tried on lots of different things, not just not just around
speech, but actually around power. And that's what this is about. Like, let's just be it's
like not about speech. Every all the right wing goes on or about speech and they never
shut up. That's a fascinating kind of development, is that they talk about being censored and
you can't stop listening. You can't they never stop broadcasting. So I think it's an issue
of that. There's not been any regulation and the regulation should be around market concentration,
market power, because with innovation and the ability to have more companies, you have
more voices. It solves the problem. If you don't have two companies in charge, one company
in charge of social media, one company in charge of search, one company in charge of
commerce, you're going to inevitably lead to abuses. And then the lack of innovation
means the lack of voices. And so we need regulation, you know, around privacy. We need regulation
around liability for some of these companies, et cetera, et cetera. And so there's there
aren't any rules. That's like in 20 years there's there's one rule that helps them.
And so I don't mean to say we should get rid of Section 230, which is that is the one that's
always controversial. But we need to reform it because it was it was done at a time when
these are international laws. Explain to our international audience what
that is. Section 230 is a law that was part of another
act that largely was declared unconstitutional, but not this part of it, which gives broad
immunity to Internet platforms for third party material on there. You know, so they're not
liable for everything everybody says on Facebook that would just put it out of business instantly.
Facebook was not in existence when this happened, by the way. It was way before any of these
companies. And so it was because if these companies were not really media, but they
weren't really platforms. And so how do you how do you protect them from being sued out
of business? Well, now they've used that to grow to great proportions and not had enough
responsibility around what's on their platforms. And so it suggests you don't have responsibility.
And so now we have to sort of move the responsibly back to these very wealthy companies, because
each of these companies is now the biggest companies in the world. Now, they're not nascent.
They are powerful. They are the most powerful, the richest. Their owners are the richest
people in the world. And therefore, the rule has to be rewritten for the reality of the
situation today. But there are so powerful. Do you think this
will really happen? Well, John D. Rockefeller was powerful. Somehow
they got him in, you know what I mean? They ran. Everybody in government is the only solution
in this case because, you know, consumer pressure is important. Media pressure is important.
Grassroots activists efforts is important. But the only thing that's going to rein these
people in is the government. And you know what? We got rid of AT&T. We had Microsoft,
we got John D. Rockefeller, Big Oil. It's the trains. This is something that's, you
know, Teddy Roosevelt was a trustbuster. And therefore, there is a way to to do this. And
there's a history in this government, this company country, of doing that. So two people
say they're too powerful. Well, you know, so are a lot of people.
You just mentioned Margaret Vestager, you you, commissioner, she's probably the most
powerful woman in the world when it comes to her. If you would be in her shoes for one
day, which executive order? Now, what what would you do?
Like doing all the things? I think sometimes she goes a little far, but that's OK. You
know, I think Europe has a very different idea about privacy in the U.S. does, I think
First Amendment issues. You can't do a lot of things in the U.S. that she's allowed to
do. The First Amendment does get in the way with government. You know, it's very clear
government she'll make you know, Congress shall make no law governing freedom of speech.
So among other things. And so you have to work within those boundaries here. But in
her case, she has power in Europe and the areas she's regulating. She doesn't have power
in the U.S. And these companies are largely U.S. based companies. And so it has to be
the U.S. government, not the state governments. California has been trying to do has done
a privacy bill. California is the one leading a lot of this legislation around all the Internet
companies, whether it's Uber or anybody else. So it has to come from the, ah, the U.S. federal
government to govern U.S. companies. And even though we're in a global society and these
are global companies, are U.S. companies, and so it has to come from here. So I don't
know what else she can do except continue when they move over into her area to regulate
them and then maybe set the tone like GDP did for the rest of the world.
What do you expect from the incoming Biden administration regarding these topics we're
just talking about? I think it's going to be bipartisan. There's
a lot of people knowing that this is a problem. I think there'll be more action. Although,
you know, it's interesting, I was waiting for lawsuits. The Justice Department antitrust
lawsuit suing the Obama administration never happened. Trump is Trump's bill. Barr is the
one who started the who initiated the Google. The FTC in this era is moving against Facebook.
Now, these things take a while to do, but I do see people like David Cicilline and some
others on the Hill being really active in terms of figuring out what to do here. And
I don't think the bottom is I think my decision is, is as much as they get called socialist,
they're very centrist. They're very accommodating to the middle. And so I don't expect to see
enormous amounts. I think the antitrust lawsuits will go on. They'll be more they'll be fines,
there'll be regulations, etc. And that's where you're going to see. I think Trump tried to
do it in weird ways, but like attack tactic talk. But he didn't really because he was
so superficial. He just like to type out executive orders that were badly written and had no
had no force, no force of law. And so I think it has to be a bipartisan effort by a lot
of people to just the way all the other regulations of big companies were. And then that's and
to remove the politics out of it and talk about the body politic of this country and
how badly they're hurt by this power. And if we if we do it in terms of power and not
partisanship, everybody gets that. There's not a Republican or Democrat to understand
too much power in the hands of too few people leads to abuses, no matter how nice those
people are, you know, and usually they're not so nice.
Some of them aren't so nice. Why was Chancellor Angela Merkel wrong about
banning Trump on Twitter? You know, I think she I was surprised by that.
I'm not sure it was really odd because I. I was like, you know, he he lies almost incessantly,
he's using a forum, not a public forum, a private forum. I'm not sure that was, you
know, look, Twitter and Facebook are private companies that can do whatever they want.
For some reason. I think she thinks the public square and they're not their private money
making institution and companies and and I and they can do whatever they please. I think
what she was talking about was that that newsworthy figures deserve to be heard all the time.
But you know what I always said about Donald Trump, I'm like, it's not like he lived in
a house. You know, we're downstairs. There was a podium that reached every media outlet
in the world. This guy had plenty of chances to do that. And in this case, he just violated
the rules of a several different companies, one too many times. I don't think it's more
complex than that. Why did you say that?
I don't know, you ask her, I was I want to ask her. I didn't even understand it. I don't
think she was. I think she thinks so. The public square. And that's what she was talking
about. Don't shut down the public square. I'm like, sure. Don't it's not shut down.
The public square is not shut down. Donald Trump is shut down on Twitter and Facebook
at a time of crisis because he was fomenting sedition and inciting violence. Very bright
red line. I wonder which he said if he had said something about pornography, child pornography
or something like, oh, no, let's leave that up to like they they he violated rules of
their platform multiple times. And then he did it at the very wrong time again. And they
had had it they had given him huge amounts of space to make mistakes.
And he continued to abuse that privilege card to challenge you a little bit in that regard.
So on the one hand, you say there are far too powerful to say, but they still should
have the power to regulate and ban I'm talking about.
So shouldn't I think there should be more of them? There should be more of them. So
people have options, right? That's what I'm talking. Do you have to separate out the two?
There's there's if they made the right decision the moment based on the fact they're private
companies, this guy violated at the time. They don't want to have terrorism on their
hands. Right. They don't want to have facilitated terrorism. And that's what this was. And so
they can make that business decision in the moment. I don't I think they have that. But
the fact that it was two people that stopped it and that's the only two people we could
go to is the problem. And so you have to separate in the in the in the anger of the moment,
you have to separate out what the problem is. The problem ultimately is power, too much
power in the hands of too few. That said, they did the right thing. You know
what I mean? It's hard to like. I don't know. But they're the only people we could go to.
If there were dozens of places, it wouldn't have had the impact. But it was one place.
Right. And so that's the problem is one or two people, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey
had the on this case. It was someone else that Twitter had the power to shut something
down. That's scary to anybody who thinks about power.
Thank you, lost kind of a question. I mean, do you are journalist yourself and to know
that you've experienced that yourself? I'm sure this country here is like people are
living really in two worlds. I mean, I've never seen this country being not only so
divided, but I mean, when I talk to two people, they have totally different information and
takes. Yeah. What does all that mean for democracies? I think you think we were together before.
We weren't. I don't think we were. I think that people talk about that a lot. I'm it's
just what's happened is a lot of people have that information, Diet Sprite, and that's
used to have three networks. And that was what everybody consumed. Right. By the way,
those three networks were run by 16 men on the Upper East Side of New York, all of whom
are white and rich. So I'm not so sure that was great. Right. In this case, it's bad information
diets is what's happening. And just like our obesity crisis, people are eating bad food.
They're fat and they're dying of hypertension or whatever, their diabetes or this and that.
So I do think you think we were more together than you were than we were? I don't think
we were at all. I think we just weren't hearing from those people. I think they were down
somewhere else where they weren't able to communicate with each other. And now they
share information, a lot of which is dangerous and bad. And that's the problem, I think,
really. But I think this idea that the US was always one big happy country is not a
country I lived in for a long time. And so I think it's just you can see it now. You
can see it because it's all people Instagram, the revolution that the revolution called
revolution, the insurrection, the coup, the people of broadcasting the coup. But they
thought that before and they did have distrust for government. And Donald Trump just scratched
an itch that was already there. But I was down there at the mall on January
six, you know, and so many people are just convinced that the elections were stolen,
that they're all that because of. And then I asked them, so where do you get your information
from? Oh, you know, the Internet from my Facebook. Oops. Yeah, that's new, right?
I mean, yes. Yes. They just were they were passing it. Yes. Because now it looks like
it's on a screen and therefore it's more believable. Right. Instead of just hearing among your
friends and this and that. Yeah. They've gotten they're overwhelmed with misinformation and
disinformation both. And that's the and malevolent players trying to manipulate them. But again.
People propaganda hasn't changed in hundreds of years, this is propaganda on steroids is
what it is, and that's what you're seeing. And again, look, you know, Mussolini didn't
need the Internet to do what he did. Hitler didn't need the Internet to do what he did.
But this imagine if they had that. Imagine if any autocratic leader back in the day had
that ability not just to use force, physical force, but to use mental force in a way that
is turbocharged. Boy, that would have. That would have been
something terrible, you have been talking about the future of this country.
I mean, how how should go to can Joe Biden or whoever is in charge bring kind of people
together, at least on a common ground where they talk about facts and the reality if they
just live in totally parallel worlds? Again, I think they've already been doing
that because, you know, there's a lot of people who don't believe the moon landing happened.
Right. Or they believe in Sasquatch or whatever. This is just a more malevolent strain. It's
like a virus, right? It's the same, but it's not different. I don't know. I think there
are some commonalities that people do have about I think this this insurrectionist who
has made everybody go, wait a minute, no. Like, maybe I should rethink. And I think
there's certain people you're just never going to reach. There's a 20 percent of our country
who is just uneducated but ill informed and will not believe no matter what you do. There's
just we just don't think that was there. I know it was there. I'm relatives with some
of them. So, you know, they were they were as dumb as a box of hammers before this. And
they now they have like I have I get sent stuff and I'm like, this is from Russia. This
is from here. And so I think when confirmation bias is really important among these people.
And so if they're all saying it together, they all believe it. There was a friend of
mine who had who had you leave you with this example who lived in a small town in Indiana,
moved to D.C. and but there's a Facebook group for this town. And during the and the Black
Lives Matter protests, there was a whole thread on this Facebook group of the Townsing. You
know, Antifa is coming here in buses to this town. No one wants to go to this town like
we're going to come here and they're going to run downtown. We need to board up downtown.
This is going to happen. And she was on there. She's like, why would anyone want to come
to our shitty little town? Right. You know what I mean? They were convinced they were
going to do the same thing with the caravans or whatever. And and and it didn't happen,
of course, because what the hell? Why would they want it? Nobody literally taken this
Indiana town was in nobody's interest to do. And after it happened, she's like, look, they
didn't happen. Like and they were like, well, yeah, because we warned everybody. Like, they
just can't. They cannot. If you're so wrong, you can't admit you're wrong. That's where
the danger is. Like there's always somewhere there's going to be a confirmation bias somewhere
in the in the ecosystem. And now you can click on a button and get that confirmation bias.
And that's the problem is you can always find proof of your lunacy just recently. Now, now.
So Criminon was wrong about Donald Trump winning and I was wrong about this. You know, they
keep being wrong and that's they have to explain their wrongness. So they've got to come up
with a new plot. The new one, which is crazy, which I just heard of, is that that if if
Joe Biden is put in place, I hate to repeating this, but this is what they're saying. If
Joe Biden is inaugurated, it's actually Trump because they switched faces. That's the only
thing they switch faces. Like, I'm like, that was a movie with Nicholas
Cage and John Travolta. It's got a face off, you frigging idiots. Like that's where they
go. They have to they can't be wrong. And so they come up with more and more outlandish
plots and less and less people will believe that as time goes on as wrong and wrong and
wrong. They were. And I think the violence you can see the polls, people are like, no,
we're not. This isn't us. And there is a there is a factor of that in
in the in the American you know, we have a virus. We handled it badly. We're going to
get better at some point and maybe reflect on what we did wrong.
So hopefully that'll work out. We'll see. Who knows? Who knows. Carol, will
Trump start his own kind of media outlets? I think he's lazy and fat. I don't know what
else to say. I mean that as a as a mental state, also a physical state. But I think
he's lazy, old and that and good luck. It's a lot of work to start a media company, you
know what I mean? Like, he can talk about it. He's one of those people, like every one
of his executive orders were had no force of law, nothing. Tick tock. Still going like
two thirty. Still go. And there's no wall to speak of. There is. Mexico didn't pay for
it. He can talk all he wants. It's really hard to start a media company and buy insurance.
I say good luck, sir. He doesn't speak French, but, you know, good luck.
Good luck. I just I'll believe it when I see it. How's that?
Kara Swisher, thank you so very much for your time and Mr..