>> In an interview with Axios, Mark Zuckerberg says he hopes that his app Facebook doesn't
destroy society. >> As you think about history, how worried
are you that history will record Facebook as an accelerant of social destruction.
>> I have a little more confidence in democracy than that, then I hope my confidence isn't
misplaced.
But what we do and I think a lot of what the Internet does overall is gives individuals
more power. It gives individuals more voice to share their experiences.
>> Yeah, Mark Zuckerberg basically saying, yes, I am a carbon-based life form, fellow
other carbon based life form sometimes engage in something called democracy in which they
are empowered.
Yeah, it's awkward. But Zuch doesn't have to hope his confidence is misplaced when he's
in the position to end the problems associated with the platform. He's not just allowing
people to spread misinformation, he enables it. Here's Facebook reneging on its own misinformation
policies. Facebook has relaxed its rules so that conservative pages including those run
by Breitbart, former Fox News personalities, Diamond and Silk, the nonprofit media outlet
PragerU, and the pundit Charlie Kirk were not penalized for violations of the company's
misinformation policies.
Zuck also lies about Facebook not being a right wing echo chamber.
>> Facebook, the reality is, is a real right wing echo chamber. If you look at some of
the loudest voices on Facebook, it's your Breitbart, and it's Sarah Palin, and it's
Franklin Graham. And that part of the spectrum has figured out Facebook in this moment.
Your liberal friends must hate it. >> Well, look, I think your characterization
frankly is just wrong. I don't think that the service is just a right wing echo chamber
to use your words. >> I mean, Zuck haircut, what is that haircut,
man? You're like a bajillionaire, you got more money than God, get a real haircut, Jesus.
But yeah, the reality is that the right wing narrative does dominate on Facebook. Just
look at some of the screen caps of the top 10 performing links on Facebook today.
>> My God. >> You can see just Fox News, Donald Trump,
Ben Shapiro, Blue Lives Matter, blah, blah, blah.
But that Twitter feed is amazing, it does the top 10 every single day. And if you go
into a different day say yesterday, what's that? It's the following. It's looks very
similar, Fox News, Franklin Graham, Donald Trump 2020, blah, blah, blah. Although number
seven John Claude Van Damme, I'm curious what that what's going on there.
Maybe he's a huge Trump fan, I wouldn't put it past him. Yeah, I mean, and that's it's
like that every single day. Every once in a while Robert Reich will sneak into the top
10 or like one of these kind of Democrat leaning pages will sneak into top 10.
But nine times out of ten. It's ten out of ten, just like insane right wing posts. So
yeah, on vaccines, Zuck said he wouldn't remove anti-vax posts because people should be able
to express their opinion. But this isn't just a harmless sharing of opinion, misinformation
about vaccines has spread rapidly on big tech platforms for years, and has been linked to
outbreaks of once-vanquished diseases like the measles.
And Facebook, of course, has a massive audience as of 2019, 70% of American adults used Facebook
and 43% of Americans got news on the platform according to Pew Research Center. So yeah,
Anna, are you a big Facebooker? >> I'm not a big Facebooker. I actually got
very close to deleting my Facebook page.
But I have a fan page that I did not start. Someone else started it. But I slowly but
surely gained control of it. And I can't control it unless I have a personal Facebook page,
but I actually despise Facebook. >> Yeah.
>> I will say this though, I was listening to a recent episode of TrueAnon, that's a
podcast that I'd recommend, it's really very good.
And they were interviewing these two researchers who have been looking into QAnon, and and
how QAnon has really expanded its reach. And it was one of the most terrifying podcast
episodes I've listened to because it actually decoded some stuff that I've been seeing on
Facebook posted by people close to me.
I'm talking about family members. And you know the hashtag Save the Children has been
like totally co opted by QAnon conspiracy theorists. And this is what Facebook unfortunately
gets used for by bad actors, right? It is an incredibly powerful ppropaganda tool, and
people will get radicalized without realizing that they're getting radicalized.
And he knows. There was actually an internal study done at Facebook where the researchers
found that the way the algorithm works is particularly divisive. It drives division
within the country, it leads to extremism, like all these terrible findings. And the
allegation is that Mark Zuckerberg took that report and he's like, yeah, but this content
increases engagement-
>> Yeah. >> And that means business.
>> I mean that's at the end of the bottom line. I don't think that Mark Zuckerberg is
like some secret right winger and is kind of tooling the algorithm to promote right
wing. I just think that's the thing that makes the most sense from a business standpoint.
Facebook traffics for the most part like that plenty of study shows that the things that
get shared the most are things that provoke outrage. And what are right wingers experts
at that is provoking outrage, right? Like drumming up insane fantasies about whatever,
aunt Tifa or like the secretly marxist cabinet that Joe Biden is gonna appoint if only.
So and there's a conversation to be had in this country about the news, and the media,
and what that means. And from the tech point of view, it's just this neutral thing that
you just create the platform and let kind of the people decide what goes on it.
And again there should be the opposite thing where you just have like four corporations
controlling the news narrative is also not the right way to do it. So there has to be
sort of a more robust and nuanced discussion as to what the media is, and who should control
it, who should own it.
And what What regulations should exist to make sure that insane things like these don't
just become the norm. But that's when you kind of leave it to be unfiltered, just how
you see QAnon and the anti-vax stuff and the rest.
>> Yeah, I mean I've been thinking about that a lot.
And when it comes to the sources that I trust in terms of a robust discussion or debate
on current events and issues that we all care about right now. I've been relying more and
more on independently funded podcasts. And someone is gonna come in and screw it up.
I know it, it's gonna happen. >> Yeah.
>> It's just like what happened with Digital Media. And I'm just doing my best to enjoy
it, well, I enjoy the wonderful aspects of independently funded podcasts before it gets
screwed up. But I saw last week that there were conservatives who were angry because
they alleged, and I'm gonna be fair, I didn't look into this.
So they might be full of crap and maybe they totally misinterpreted things. But Joe Rogan
moved to Spotify. And they're alleging that Spotify refused to post some of Joe Rogan's
more controversial episodes. I think that people have a right in being upset about that.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah, it is gonna
>> Yeah, when you're talking about with podcasts and how you like them so much right now, it's
because they're kind of on this very open, relatively open ecosystem mostly funded by
viewers.
As soon as you kind of get into the giant tech platform of walling it in the way Spotify
is moving towards with podcasts. You get the same thing, which is what Facebook and Google,
essentially those two corporations did with the Internet where they basically wall in
these kind of public space.
So yeah, the same thing is gonna happen with podcasts and Joe Rogan's move to Spotify was
kind of the in my opinion like the big harbinger of the big trend. In which everything is gonna
go walled into either Spotify or Spotifying someone else, like that's just gonna be the
only game in town.