Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen On Product, Competition, And Transparency

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2022-09-29

YouTube video id: B1gPnEt9Rxg

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1gPnEt9Rxg

all right everyone welcome to the big
technology podcast a show for
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podcast we'll put that now everybody boo
no I'm kidding we're here with Francis
Haugen uh you might know her as the
person behind the Facebook files the
Facebook papers
it's not quite know which which name to
use but they're the series of
Revelations
um that showed a lot of things about
Facebook's business
that really were not great and
um those Revelations happened a year ago
and they've sparked a series of
discussions and
um much more informed conversation about
the platform than I think we had
previously as a journalist I'm really
grateful uh to have been able to comb
through some of the material that you
put out there because it finally allowed
us to put some some data and some actual
internal research Behind these things
that people were trying to you know
shoot from the hip and say were
happening and we didn't really know
whether that was true or not so first of
all thank you for revealing all that
stuff
second let's just take a look at at
meta's uh stock price right now
um I took a look about September 13th is
when the beginning of the Facebook file
series of Articles came out in the Wall
Street Journal
um since that week meta stock it's now
Meta Meta stock is down 59 wow so uh I
only check it occasionally so I have one
Twitter follower who messaged me
messages me every time it goes up and
he's like oh no the stock is recovering
that I look at it again I'm like oh it's
actually down that yeah that's called
unnecessary paranoia yeah
um so I guess looking at the way the
stock has performed
um mission accomplished
um you know sometimes people ask me
questions like uh you know do you think
you won and and I feel like that really
um misses a large part of the criticism
I've given which is um I feel like I'm
fairly characteristic for whistleblowers
in that when you when you look at it
statistically overwhelmingly
whistleblowers are conscientious people
who actually care a lot about their
companies and I really believe that uh
Facebook has problems that the only way
it can successfully solve them is by
working on them collaboratively and so
my intention was never to have the stock
price go down my my My Hope was that
Facebook could get the support it needs
to be long-term successful and and
unfortunately the stock has gone down
because I think the public has looked at
how they responded like the biggest
thing they did fresh out of the gate was
they're like actually we're in a
metaverse company now and in general I
think investors get quite scared when
you say you have a giant problem and
they're like oh shiny
you know it's not not really a great uh
forward-looking indicator and this is
also coincided it was the top of of the
tech uh market cap era it's crashed
we've had there are other factors
involved we also have had the FED raise
rates in large Fallen substantially more
than the other social media companies
right do you attribute that to your
Revelations
um so in our SEC complaint we said um
Facebook's evaluation so I actually want
to look back at five years of Facebook
stock price so I'm a data scientist and
so I I view the world through data and I
looked at every time I want to actually
went and Google like specifically to
Target Googling for every time Facebook
stock price declined more than five
percent versus the NASDAQ over a
five-year period before I came out or
before the first article came out
and there's a very limited number of
times that happen and there's about 27
um and uh overwhelmingly the things that
happened when the stock price declined
more than the NASDAQ declined
um were Facebook had to decline users
Facebook had some kind of security
incident where they had to come out and
say we're gonna have to spend more on
safety
um or it was implied they were gonna
have to spend more in safety
um and it was something like on the
order of 65 of the time when you had
those deviations from the NASDAQ
um our SEC complaint has said the price
was overvaluated was over inflated
because users use the product who would
not have used it had they known the
truth advertisers advertised would not
have advertised had they known the truth
and Facebook underspent on safety more
than they would have than if they had
been transparent and since then we've
seen it to client users we've seen on
them having to increase the amount they
spent on safety by two to three times
which is huge compared to the Past times
they've increased safety and so we can
and we'll never be able to know exactly
what fraction of this is because of the
transparency but I think there's a good
chance that the the information did
cause the stock to correct back to
something closer to its natural
evaluation a skeptic would say that that
Apple's anti-tracking moves probably had
a larger impact what do you think about
that I think unquestionably they had an
impact as well I I
never want to assess
relative contribution because as
a quantitative people are naturally
um
I always try to be very precise in what
I say and I have no data to indicate
what the relative contribution is okay
it'll be interesting I know you can't
speak about the SEC uh or discussions
um Kara Swisher tried that a code didn't
get anywhere so
I won't try to press that I actually
just don't like that yeah like they've
talked to me once okay and apparently
that's fairly standard right
um they I usually try to not talk to
Witnesses too many times because if you
ever don't say exactly the same thing
that can actually make it harder for
them
um on and they usually go dark for long
periods of time while they're building
their case and so I I genuinely don't
know much about what's going on okay
so as Facebook struggles
um whether it's because his stock price
has declined due to these Revelations or
whether apple is kneecapping it or maybe
Apple's having more success because of
the revelations that you brought out
there's this other there's a counter
current to that and that's that
competitors get stronger
the one that really seems to be doing
quite well right now is Tick Tock and
you know a while ago people would say
okay well
um the fact that Chinese companies could
take the place of Facebook is just a big
Tech talking point that they're trying
to you know divert attention to their
own actions but now it really is
happening
and so what have you what do you make of
the fact you know is there any Credence
to the fact that as a company like
Facebook gets weaker a company like Tic
Tac can emerge and actually leave us in
a worse position than we were previously
so I think tick tock's emergence is a
great example so throughout you know I
think basically all of capitalist
history we have seen time and time again
that if consumers get to choose between
products that make them happy and
products that make them sad
as a general rule people choose products
that make them happy over products that
make them sad
and um I when I look at the things that
make Tick Tock sticky you know I think
there are are genuine questions we need
to ask right so part of the reason why
Tick Tock makes you happy is Tick Tock
emerge the the fact that the only
successful competitor to Facebook
emerged from the only place Facebook
wasn't allowed to play
right like Facebook went into all the
other corners of the world and sometimes
even bribed the locals to say let us
become your internet right they paid for
people's data to get people to converge
onto it
um the fact that it emerged from China
meant also the only competitor that
could emerge was one that met Chinese
goals
and China created a social media
platform that focused on Dancing on
comedy on lighthearted things because
those things are often not the same as
politics
right
um and at the same time they've created
a product that makes people feel good
and so if you have a situation like that
someone was eventually going to come
along with a product or even be real
feel real makes people feel better than
Facebook does
um and so I I think that's the the real
thing you looked at a lot of Facebook
research some of that research said uh
that people feel worse if they scroll
and don't participate just passive
consumption makes people feel worse
if that was the internal Facebook
research how do you think it is that
Tick Tock a app that literally has
people scroll passively uh that is
making people feel good but they but
they actually don't like like you you
have to you have to choose to move on
with Tick Tock if you if you are truly
passive like you're not engaging at all
if you're not choosing to do a next
gesture it just replays the video right
and and I think it's also a thing of um
a tick tocks algorithms because it is
like I think I keep trying to flag for
people this Tick Tock is a very
manipulative experience algorithmically
right they bias towards happiness they
bias towards humor like they don't want
you talking about sad topics because
political topics often are sad topics
right and um and so you know funny
dances
if you can be passively you can be not
really engaging not having a
conversation and watching funny things
and you're going to feel laughter
laughter makes you feel better is that
what your Tick Tock feed is mostly funny
dances you know I get a lot of um home
restoration
um
really like cake decor I don't know why
I can't have gluten who knows
um they really think I really like cake
decorating and they really think I like
renovating homes so that's like a large
fraction of my feed I don't know what
this says about me but mine is all like
couples finding their partner cheating
really yeah they are great videos you
know you know uh you could you could
thumbs down some stuff and I like them
oh well you know
so well go with God my friend indeed I
will
um so let's get back to that question
though about whether we're worse off
with with Tick Tock Dominic I mean yeah
okay it's making us happier the other
side of it is feel happier yeah I don't
know if it like existentially that's
true yeah we could we could go back I
think sucking our time in we'd probably
be happier gardening but you know that's
true yeah
um so so but speaking about that
um okay let's say feel happier
um but it's doing keystroke logging or
it's at least alleged to do that in its
in-app browser yeah and which is a
pretty big deal and also we don't fully
know the extent of the oversight that
the Chinese government may or may not
have yeah over that app so if American I
know we're going to get into Global
stuff well let's talk about U.S if
American social media users
you know what let's just go Global if
global social media users are in an app
that has these major liabilities
isn't that worse than than being inside
Facebook inside Facebook well I think
it's this question of um you know like
what we I think we need to have a
I I think we should have Facebook of
2008 like if what I was gonna if we're
going to do any kind of magical
hypotheticals you know social media that
is about our family our friends our
communities contact connecting with
people is better than anything where you
have hyper virality
um the things that are are good about
Tick Tock are Tick Tock acknowledges
they have power
and Facebook really doesn't want to
acknowledge they have power right they
like to be like oh no we can't do
anything like we have no ability to we
have no ability to do anything
um the secondary thing is
um you know if we had to choose between
you know an app that has had two
genocides so you know we have 200 000
people dead in Myanmar this is not my
opinion the UN has a multi hundred page
report detailing what Facebook did those
negligent if we see the same thing
happen again in Ethiopia
um with lots of warning if we see this
happen over again I think there's this
question of at some point we have to
decide
when do we have to hold Facebook
responsible for being an app that seems
to have a pattern of causing genocides
because I have not seen any Tech talk
genocides yet
um
there have been genocides before
Facebook it's
right so do we do we now in the age of
Facebook where do we now put the blame
for all genocides on Facebook or no I
think there's I think there's ways of
acting responsibly in a space so for
example
you know uh in 2002 excuse me 20 2020
2020 2020. in April 2020. in preparation
for the U.S election uh they held an
internal working group it's like 60
people I was one of the people on it
um who were tasked with coming up with
quote soft interventions to prepare for
the election
right so a soft intervention is
something like uh you um instead of
taking down account taking out a post
you say hey maybe you should pop up a
thing saying hey you know you didn't
click on a link you didn't actually
click through on this link you want to
click on it first because like putting a
little moment of intentionality before
someone re-shares something actually
substantially decreases misinformation
you haven't censored anyone it's like a
soft intervention and one of the things
that was flagged was
um there was a single parameter in
meaningful social interactions so in
back in 2018 Facebook switched from just
seeing how long they could keep you on
Facebook to seeing could they drive you
to do interaction
and they called it meaningful social
interactions so stuff that got more
interactions was considered better
content even though six months after
they did this change they pulled people
and said hey is your home feed more
meaningful and people said no it's not
it's actually less meaningful
um I there was a single parameter in we
had noticed for at least at that point
18 months when when this report came out
um that a single parameter which was if
you don't just give content credit for
generating interactions like let's say
I'm trying to decide should I show this
to you you know my little virtual model
view says How likely are you to click
How likely are you to reshare How likely
are you to you know put a comment
but you know if you were to re-share
that all your friends might click on it
all your friends might re-share it all
your friends might comment we should
give it credit for for that we should
have a downstream credit the only
problem was they knew that people didn't
like reshares that they've done these
beautiful studies like one of my
favorite graphs from Facebook shows that
you like original content from your 20
closest friends and and Facebook has a
ranking of all your friends they know
which ones are your favorite friends at
least on Facebook
um you like original content from your
20 closest friends but you only like
original reshares from your five closest
friends because people don't agree
shares so content that can actually get
someone to engage after a reshare has to
get over the bias of not liking
researchers and so it turned out to be a
scoring parameter that overwhelmingly
rewarded only really extreme content
and the study came in and said we've
known this for a year and a half
we know that if you take this factor out
you get way less hate speech whales like
literally violence violent content
bloody content violence and citing
content maybe in places that are
considered at-risk countries we should
not include the scoring parameter it
doesn't decrease how long you stay on
the site it doesn't increase decrease in
recessions it doesn't decrease ad
dollars but it will hit our core metric
of meaningful social interactions
which people's bonuses are tied to by
the way and literally in the notes from
Market says with regard to going broad
with taking out the scoring parameter
that we know increases violent content
hate speech all these things if it hits
core MSI we're not going to do it
should they be responsible for that
yeah I think they should yeah
yeah okay then there's the question of
of how much do they contribute to the
genocide but I think you've been
contributing a little bit to a genocide
is something you want to stay away from
or to do it that shamelessly like you
really want a company where you get said
you're not gonna lose any money you're
not losing sessions all the metrics that
are seen externally they're not going to
go down and you know there's going to
say speechless violence less violence
inciting content it's a separate
category you know all those things but
you might have to like figure out a
different way to compensate people and
your CEO doesn't even entertain can we
figure out a way to do it yeah and this
is by the way something I've I've been
reporting on and speaking about for a
while which is the harmfulness of the
share
share it I I think and I'd love to hear
your perspective on this because we're
talking about what I think is the Deep
reshare who your shares have reached oh
no this is just single single single
research okay oh yeah well we don't I
feel strongly about okay yeah we can go
we can go shallow reshares and debris
shares but I always felt that the
ability to share something on impulse
um that's news never leads to good uh
information distribution because it goes
from takes people from being thoughtful
hey I've read this story I think you
should
you know check it out to seeing in your
feed that your political opponent is you
know a space alien Nazi child
killer eater and being like Oh yeah
they're also a blizzard personally
blizzard person yeah and you hit share
yeah and never if you have to put this
under your own identity and copy and
paste that link it can be much more
reticent to do that than to you know
just hit the share button and have
somebody else's you know Avatar show up
in your friend's feed and be like aha I
just did my part for the cause my
parents are both life scientists so my
my mother's a cell biologist my father
is um a pathologist but he studies
viruses and um my mother you know you
can see the the wisdom of my childhood
my mother used to always say be careful
what you select for because you'll get
it or like that's the story of cell
cultures you have to be very careful
about keeping things clean because like
whatever you slept for that's what
you're gonna get
you know when we started talking about
freedom of speech like when the
Constitution was written if you want to
distribute an idea it cost money you
know you had to buy paper you took a lot
of time it took a lot of effort there
was a natural filter
that if you wanted to say something you
had to invest in saying it
um I think asking people to have a
moment of intentionality like a copy and
a paste is not a huge it's not a huge
amount of cost but it adds some costs
you see you don't get
um unintentional sharing yeah everything
yeah and every social network seems to
know this clearly Facebook knows this
the research that you shared showed it
Twitter knew it inherently that's why it
before the 2020 election added the speed
bump that you had to you know do you
want to quote tweet this tweet do you
want to click the link before you
re-share yet they're so addicted to the
virality why I think it's a secondary
thing um so so one of the so I'm finding
a non-profit called be on the screen
because right now we are limited to what
we see on our screens and we need to see
beyond them if we want reform
um you know I think this question of
like why did Twitter do it and Facebook
didn't it's such an interesting question
because it's like a really cheap way to
get like 10 or 15 less misinformation
I think the reason why Twitter did it in
Facebook didn't was Facebook's average
user is substantially less literate than
Facebook than Twitter says I know it
might not seem like that
um but like given the global
distribution
um you know there's
huge numbers of Facebook users that are
literally becoming literate to use
Facebook it is the internet where they
live you know 80 or 90 of all the
content in in the majority of languages
in the world is only on Facebook and
when you look at the outlier countries
there's a really some really good graphs
in there that show you know that there
are countries where 35 percent of
everything that's in the news feed every
impression is a reshare
and so when you have such a large
fraction of your content is just
reshares any friction you add any moment
for pause or intentionality
substantially decreases the content in
the system which decreases consumption
yeah it's a money thing and by the way
if you pull the reshare back or put this
speed bump that causes less resharing
you don't need to engage in these messy
content moderations exactly are you
accused of censors that's my whole point
yeah that's my point since my first
Senate testimony contrary to the
conspiracy theories
I mean it's so obvious yeah
you spend a lot of time thinking about
this so it's obvious it's obvious to you
but it's not necessarily because we
don't we don't study these things in
school it's not really obvious no it's
good to be talking about it in public
inside the companies yeah I mean the
person that that built and I'll get off
my soapbox on this in a moment but I'm
enjoying it so much okay well I'm gonna
keep going then
um the person that that built the
retweet inside Twitter I spoke with him
and he said look it's like I handed a
machine gun to four-year-olds wow
sort of like what it feels like anyway I
I that's my hope is is eventually
because of Revelations like yours and
because of I don't know maybe
conversations like this that have people
inside the company listening we start to
revisit this but you know we may it it
we may end up having product Evolution
before we even need to get there I mean
we were moving to these short form
videos and by the way I'm curious what
you make of this we just had Brandon
Silverman on the show who was the
founder of crowdtangle
um which is this great software tool
that let you see what was moving inside
Facebook public links in particular and
he made a great point that Facebook
actually is de-prioritizing news within
its news feed and you know now we don't
see as many news links
I'm curious what you think isn't is that
something to be spotted uh so part of
part of what frustrates me so much about
um about that is so like the reason why
they're deep deep prioritizing news is
because they're scared rightly they're
getting all this criticism about things
like you know ethnic violence and
they're like they're kind of you know
taking a car from Tick Tock where
they're like you know Tick Tock if
you're not a funny dance you're not like
humorous if you don't like aren't like
like you're not going to get distributed
um and the the thing that's so sad for
me is it really illustrates
you know you can either choose to design
for human scale human modeled
communities
right so I always say like is it a
dinner party is it a cocktail party is
it a church parish is it a conference is
a university you know we have we have
models on how people can exchange ideas
they've lasted for thousands of years
um uh or you end up with AI censorship
and the problem is if you must insist on
content moderation I think you should
have to be transparent about it and that
means things like you should have to put
out samples of the output of your
scoring systems so we can see what's
getting labeled as any of these
categories and what the consequences of
that is because when we take down when
we don't let news get distributed that's
news by the definition of Facebook's AI
we don't know what doesn't get through
or what does get through and when I talk
to activists around the world that work
on issues like
um women like violence against women gay
rights they say across the board our
accounts all get taken down
because these systems that are meant to
keep us safe because they're not done in
a very high quality way counter speech
looks like violating speech and and so I
I 100 am against badly done content
moderation and I think we need to have
some pretty large societal conversations
around like you know if we must insist
on doing content moderation we need to
be doing it in a different way than
we're doing it today
yeah and as many I I feel like as many
system changes we can make before we get
to that decision totally stay up or yeah
that's probably better
so let's talk about another I love how
we're going into product
um I always like I wanted to talk to you
about product for a long time so I'm
glad we're doing it
um another thing that we should talk
about is
um algorithms algorithms on the news
feed and
um just a little interesting history
um I was reading the documents that you
made available to reporters and there is
one internal study that said they
removed the ranking algorithm from the
news feed so and it made it worse made
it worse and he wrote about this he said
I got it wrong yeah I didn't say you got
it wrong yeah yeah did I say you got it
wrong you said that she she didn't see
this documentary she didn't like blah
blah I don't think I said that but I
could be wrong okay anyway we're here to
heal yeah we're here to heal good I'm
all about I'm all about Truth and
Reconciliation so I'm down I appreciate
you sitting down with me and and I I
think that at the time I heard from you
saying that like look um
you're not looking at this explicitly
yeah yeah not yeah you didn't say I was
wrong just you said hey there's some
context you might want to take a look at
and and just so set the set the um the
story straight it it was a study about
what happens when you put the ranking
out where the on the feed which means
that Facebook's algorithm is making a
decision of what you see first as
opposed to the algorithm showing you
um what's happening in a reverse reverse
chronological order and just showing you
the most recently first actually let's
like make that look more concrete for
people who who there's a lot of big
words in there
um so when we open our email
uh the thing that we see first is our
most recent email unless we have some
kind of fancy AI email inbox
um we could have a social network where
we got content from you know things we
chose to get and it showed up you know
in Reverse time ordering just like our
email
um uh and or I say I have a time working
for email but same same kind of thing
like there's different ways we could be
doing this
um and and one of the things that's true
there's a document in the disclosures
that say hey we tried getting rid of the
ranking like the algorithmic ranking you
know where we try to decide what's going
to be better for you and guess what it
has we see more bad things we see more
violating content we see more hate
speech and I think one of the most
important things for people to
understand is that back in 2008 when we
had chronological ranking you know you
saw things in the order they came in it
was kind of like your inbox or reverse
reverse of your inbox so
um when you knew you run out of new
things to see
um we had no big groups
right there were no million person
groups on Facebook Facebook had not been
pushing you for years into groups that
you know you may not have been that
interested in or those groups were
intentionally selected because they were
groups that got a lot of interactions
for contracts like in 2016 they found
out that 65 of people who joined
Neo-Nazi groups in Germany where they
are illegal like you can't have a
Neo-Nazi Facebook group in Germany join
them because Facebook suggested that
group to people
over time though Facebook needs you to
stay on the platform for longer and
longer and your friends and family let
them down they didn't make enough
content for you to get longer and longer
sessions you could click on more and
more ads
we cannot have million person groups
that are basically just like fire hoses
without having algorithms
because that group makes a thousand
posts a day and you flood your feed and
what the article found was if you get
rid of the algorithmic ranking people's
feeds their fees get flooded by these
high frequency groups you no longer see
your friends and family
and so you can't really think about the
idea of taking the current product that
has all these baked in assumptions and
just removing the algorithm you have to
really design design for safety
holistically
and so your point is that if if we were
to go to the most recent first as
opposed to the algorithmically selected
stories that the company would have to
redesign its product it wouldn't be you
wouldn't run that experiment on the
current process exactly you would
rebuild yeah the product which I found
interesting and uh you'd have I think
that's good good context you'd have
groups that were like Discord servers so
you can have a Discord server that has a
hundred thousand people in it and when
the conversation gets too loud you break
off into little subgroups you can
imagine a world where maybe your group's
content never got inserted into your
feed you had to navigate to your group
so you can still have your cancer
support group you just wouldn't have it
insert all the content into your feet
and you're not worried that that the
feed would be overrun by spammers who
just like
post every five minutes and try to get
stuff in front of people so I like to
call the my favorite ranking no no one
else calls it this but I I got to Brand
it because I mean I made it up I call it
algorithm I call it um chronological
plus plus
so in in computer science the way you
add add one if you don't want to write
like n Plus or n equals n plus one is
used to n plus plus
um is uh imagine if you had a little bit
of demotion by frequency so it's largely
chronological
but it if you send 20 posts in a day you
know each Progressive thing demotes you
down a little bit so it's Loosely
chronological and I think the better way
to describe like what I would want is
describable ranking right that right now
we have we have unintelligible ranking
we have a black box neural network and
we don't know what the model really is
optimizing for
you could imagine having a publishable
algorithm like you said it's basically
time based we try to stay as close to
time based as possible but if you post
five times a day if you post three times
a day you know we might move you down a
little bit you'll be less likely to get
seen and that's that's the description
and but there are people who are saying
we should remove protections from these
platforms that use ranking algorithms to
show feed to show you content and even
using cron what did you call it reverse
chronological plus plus it's just a
chronological plus plus yeah you are
ranking in some way but I'm doing an
intelligible way a way that we can have
a conversation on it yeah we can because
right now we never get to have a
conversation yeah on how it's
prioritized yeah I understand yeah and
then but but because that's still going
to be ranking it would still fall under
these Customs reliable so so but my
complaint on on the current way we rank
right is right now we have these ranking
algorithms that are optimized for
business objectives
and you could imagine a world where you
said it's gonna be chronological or it's
me or it's chronological or you have to
give us a defendable reason why improves
safety
right you can't you can't tell us you
made more money on it like that's why
you did it you have to like show us a
thing and show us like what was the
safety objective and you have to do it
publicly and show us consequences so we
can have a conversation on it like
that's a very different world than one
where
um you know they they uh one of the
problems that's outlined the documents
is that safety teams would work for
months and months and months to figure
out a way to make the product safer but
not hurt ads
and because the model was unintelligible
people are just like throwing new
factors at the model and it would often
undo changes that have been made because
you could represent the thing that had
been pulled from the model or the fix
that had been done by lunging together
four or five other features because
people just didn't understand how they
interacted yeah and I like this proposal
yeah so but does that does that then
mean
um companies should should still not be
held liable this what do you think about
this meme because this whole idea of go
completely reverse crime pure reverse
cron without any filtering at all even
explained or not and otherwise you're
liable for what you suggest like another
counter counter offer yeah yeah so let's
imagine instead of like demoting people
who post too frequently imagine if you
posted more than three times a day or
maybe even twice a day your post got
collapsed down to a single line that
said Francis Haugen posted two times
already today do you want to read the
post okay because then it's like a
little shame we're still doing
chronological but you're like hey you
kind of talk a lot I thought about
listening a little you know I was trying
really hard to to have you say that this
um making making platforms liable for
going pure reverse Crown is an
unworkable idea but we got we got pretty
close I think but I like I I think the
way we should talk about liability is
the way we talk about it with cars okay
right where is this question around you
know
um people should have to demonstrate
that they are actively pushing towards
safety and you know if you uh have a
hundred chances at bat
and when we look at you know like one of
the things I've suggested is right now
every time they run an experiment there
are these dashboards and the dashboards
have hundreds of metrics that can be
sliced in a ton of different ways
imagine if they had to publish the
dashboards they don't have to tell us
what the experiment is they don't have
to give up the IP you know they don't
have to tell us about their magic secret
sauce but they have to show us every
single time they run an experiment and
release the data so that we can analyze
whether or not there's a trend where you
know consistently they had chances to
make us safer and they chose not to do
them and they had a whole bunch of
chances they made it more dangerous for
us but it made them more money and they
shipped those like show us what
experiments you run and show us what you
ship or don't ship now if we see a
pattern of behavior
we should hold you responsible for those
consequences I I think that's that's
much better I'm all on team transparency
um and and for context
um I appreciate you unpacking this
um I will link this podcast underneath
that story oh thank you so whenever
someone reads it they'll get you can
read it you can even do it at the top of
the article so they'll actually see it
consider it done
all right uh let's take a break uh we're
here with Francis Haugen she's the
founder of beyond the screen and uh the
person behind all these big Facebook
Revelations that we're speaking about
we'll be back right after this by the
way that was a fake break so um uh we're
going to just insert these dynamically
and take this audio out but if anybody
over here wants to take a 30 seconds or
45 without breaking the leg and get a
seat why don't we just do that and then
we'll pick back up in the second half
and if you have to leave I won't hold it
against you it's late on a Friday yeah
questions
my pleasure I I you've never asked me
too hard a question and I will never
feel attacked okay awesome I I really
believe
um the way the world changes is one
conversation at a time yeah and I
guarantee there are Skeptics out there
and you know the way we change Hearts is
the Skeptics get to ask questions and so
I appreciate hard questions awesome well
thanks for rolling with it
all right everyone it's okay if there's
a little background noise I'll just keep
going but don't feel bad about uh making
you don't you don't change the world by
converting your your fans you change the
world by converting your Skeptics yeah
I hear you yeah okay
and we're back here for the second half
of big technology podcast we're here
with Francis Haugen at unfinished live
by some miracle or actually probably the
draw of what Francis has to say our
second half audience is actually larger
than our first half audience
substantially larger much bigger this
has never happened uh for a podcast that
I've done before live so
um anyway let's hear it from you guys
thanks for for showing up because it's
got to be loud
thanks everyone for being here
um all right let's let's get into the
second half
uh one interesting thing you said in the
first half
um that that caught me by surprise was
that Tick Tock acknowledges its power
and Facebook Facebook doesn't
really yeah I mean like Tick Tock is
designed to be censored right like we've
had lots of scandals around this right
so
um how many people remember uh I don't
know it was a couple years ago there's
like a makeup tutorial where she's like
this is how you do a smokey eye and like
blah blah oh and by the way the uyghurs
are being killed does anyone remember
that I do yeah we're good
um so so the reason why she did the
smokey eye for like 15 seconds and then
started you know spilling the tea on you
know they're killing a million people
you know or they have a million people
in concentration camps is um they were
tick tocks manually sensors all their
highly popular content and
um you know I don't agree with any
system where they take down lots of
content and they don't tell us why or
how or they don't show us the biases and
what they take down or don't take down I
highly don't support that but they
acknowledge the idea that social media
has power and the social media has
social implications
and
um I
and and I think the fact like they've
publicly talked about the idea that they
watch for people who fall into rabbit
holes and they try to pull them away
from those do they actually or not I
don't know they're not transparent
either
um but they understand the idea that
they have an impact in society and so
um are they rooting for our team I don't
know
but acknowledging power I think is
better than than pretending you know the
World is Flat and you know everyone's
the same and you're just a mirror and
everything bad has always been bad and
like now you can see it and that's why
you're mad if you rather have a platform
acknowledge power but
um actually like work to to do things
that undermine our society or one that
doesn't acknowledge its power but
undermines our society he's trying I
don't know I I I would I would be um I
would be highly hesitant to say that
Facebook is trying right like like
Facebook
um if Facebook earnestly was trying
you know when when they got asked please
share the research with us that you have
internally on whether or not kids are
killing themselves because of your
product
they would not have given back a
three-page letter saying what research
yeah they would turn over their research
they lied to the oversight board also
yeah like blatantly blatantly so for
context for people
um uh when they they asked the oversight
board hey like you know you know was
taking Trump down the right thing can we
have a conversation about it
um the oversight board came back with
um like 15 or 16 questions and and they
were on a variety of things and Facebook
wrote back with answers and um one of
them was uh they asked like hey this
this uh crash check program this idea
that VIPs get a special pass like you
say you treat everyone the same but then
you also say like the reason why Trump
hasn't gone touch is because like he's
in crosscheck he has more context on
that and they said oh we've already
explained what Crosstrek is and they
linked to a blog post from 2018.
and that blog post said things like this
is not a two-tiered system this is just
like getting a little extra double check
to make sure our policies are accurately
being reinforced
and in reality
because they weren't willing to spend a
very small amount of budget
they didn't actually put that second
check in for for most Safety Systems so
for most Safety Systems people got white
listed so if you were in Cross check
those safety systems no longer applied
to you
and even for the ones where I did apply
because they were they were willing to
allocate so little budget to this this
VIP program uh it would take like three
days before a human would look at your
content and so people would get about 75
of all the distribution they would have
gone anyhow because of that on your
funding
okay what do you think of the oversight
board I mean the the meme about the
oversight board among Facebook critics
is that it's a
public relations stunt that's a shield
that you know will make it look like
Facebook actually cares what the public
has to say but it doesn't do you
subscribe to that I
deeply deeply deeply manipulative so so
if we were to ask like what does the
Facebook oversight board do you know if
you believed in the theory of what's in
what what's on the labels in the can
you'd be like oh I mean they they do
oversight you know they they look after
Facebook as a whole it really should be
called the content moderation appeals
board
because that is the entire scope of what
they can do they can't ask about the
performance of the content moderation
systems they can't even ask like what
language are the content moderation
systems in they can't ask about how
systemic or like how some are there
other examples of the ones that get
appealed to them they can't do anything
they can't ask about the algorithms in
general
um and so I my heart really goes out to
the oversight board because it is full
of a number of very conscientious people
who I think genuinely try very hard but
because they are
um so limited by what Facebook allows
them to do
um uh they they get put in a very hard
position what do you think about the
metaverse I
all the murderers
um so the metaverse will will make
certain problems easier and some
problems harder right so on the side of
um reducing risk
um you know we talked about before your
friends and your family are not the
problem on Facebook
hyper virality million person groups
five million person groups in a lot of
African countries the single largest
news source in the country or maybe the
the only really Mass news source will be
like a five million person Facebook
group
um
that's the problem with misinformation
that we have a a selective fire
megaphone where a thousand posts come in
but only two get delivered to you and
they're the most extreme too right
that's the problem in the metaverse it's
much more about one-on-one interactions
or small group interactions and so
you're going to see probably less things
less things like misinformation problems
the big problems with the metaverse are
things like um you know studies out of
China have shown it's more addictive or
more habit for me
um like substantially more so than
phones because it's immersive I think
there's gonna be a bunch of
psychological things that we're going to
be unpacking over the next few years
things like you have a socially isolated
child who
um you know maybe they are of a lower
socioeconomic tier they can't afford
after school activities maybe they have
a single parent
um they they don't really like their
life and they come home and they put on
their headset and they have a way cooler
apartment their friends are more
beautiful have cooler clothes they do
these fun things but at the end of the
night they take their headset off and
they look in the mirror and they no
longer let they don't like the person
they see
right the idea that you would the only
person you liked being was a virtual
Avatar I think is just it's it's
heartbreaking to me
um and I worry that the metaverse is
going to become the stop gap for us
where we say instead of like making sure
our old people are our our elders are
like integrated into our communities and
have adequate resources we can like plug
them into the metaverse and leave them
alone or instead of building community
centers and after school activities we
can you know leave our kids to to go
into their and so I worry a lot about
these kind of systemic problems and we
we know we know that they haven't
invested in safety again so when it
comes to things like hate speech
we're creating these spaces where you
know if you can hear 40 people speak but
you can't you know pause the tape and
roll back two minutes and realize the
person who's been shouting racial
epithets at you is that one you
basically can silence the ability of
minorities or women to be in these
spaces because they just get yelled at
and they get pushed out and so I think
there there should be upfront investment
in safety and shared systems across the
games because it is very clear that the
reason why Facebook wants to go to the
metaverse is they want when someone
comes to them and complains about
getting groped or complains about
getting you know harassed that that they
can say I'm so sorry that's that's
really tragic but but we didn't write
that out we just made the hardware
so you think it sounds like you think
the metaverse is going to happen because
that's still an open question
I am a a follower of Moore's Law so I
think the headsets are going to get
cheaper I think they're gonna get faster
lighter they're a higher resolution
um I I I I have trouble imagining that
10 years from now we won't spend more
time than we currently do in the Bible
verse do I think Mark's vision of
spending 12 hours a day in the metaverse
will come true no I think Mark does that
Mark thinks that because Mark lives that
but not all of us have to avoid cafes
because people glare at us when we walk
in
so so you know we have different
incentives
another reason why Facebook wants to go
to the metaverse okay maybe there's the
you know we don't need to be responsible
but the real reason is that they are an
app on Apple's phone app on Google's
phone they want to own the phone they
want the operating system no doubt about
that
um
an interesting thing has happened where
Apple has asked its users if they want
to cut off Facebook's ability to track
them off the app and people have
overwhelmingly said yes yep now an
interesting thing has happened after
that where apple is in the middle of
doubling its ad sales team or its
advertising team not sales the team that
builds ad products there
I gotta ask you about this if the
business model drives
the problems that we're seeing and apple
is kneecapping Facebook's business and
in some ways emulating it
don't they put themselves at risk of
falling into some of the same problems
that we see Facebook facing today
such a great question
um I do think that they are playing with
fire like I think it's always hard when
you when you have an economic incentive
that is not so right now Facebook's or
Apple's economic incentive is safety
right they make their money selling new
devices so if you get more privacy and
having more privacy it makes you want to
buy their phone more they can make more
from your phone
um I think they are uh they're they're
mixing their incentives and and I have
not sat down and like fully wargamed out
that but I I I
so I would want to be cautious to speak
with too much confidence but I can
totally imagine that might become a
problem in the future I think it's a
major problem for them and we're just
scratching the surface there yeah it's
definitely worth talking about yeah
um let's talk a little bit about your
your non-profit
um I want to ask this question
beforehand I read this interesting quote
from you that said like
um your greatest hope is that you're
you're not relevant I won't be needed
anymore not needed anymore but at the
same time you're working on a book you
sign with CAA which is a big
Hollywood agency so
how do you square those that your hope
and the action well I I right now I
don't see very many people who are on
the stage who are proposing and pushing
for things like you know let's solve the
product not the content
um uh at the same time I'm someone who's
almost died right like I spent two
months in the hospital when I was 29.
um I am fully sensitive to the idea that
like life is fleeting and precious and
the way we solve real problems in ways
that have the highest chances of of um
of working is you cannot be reliant on
individuals right we have a hit by the
bus problem right now like we should be
wary of like Facebook employees driving
buses around New York right like you can
imagine nothing that would be more
convenient for them
we need a hundred thousand people who
can speak as detailedly about the
choices we have with regard to social
media as I can
right a world where there's only one
person talking this way is not a safe
world
and I I think anything I I had a lot of
people pushing me really hard when I
first came out to be like give us the
five-point plan how do we fix Facebook
um and I I have said repeatedly any
world where you know I am the solution
is just as autocratic as the world we
live in right now with Facebook and and
I really believe that the process
process of democracy is about having a
lot of different people with different
interests and different stakeholder
groups
having to hash out something that
they're they're willing to feel
comfortable with together and right now
the people who get to sit at that table
are very very small number of people
like there are hundreds of people in the
world right now who understand these
systems at the level of detail that I do
right the interaction between the
algorithms and the product features and
how all these things feed back on each
other how they differentially impact
different kinds of people and when
um and that is terrifying to me
and so we need a world where there is
not and when you think about a Continuum
of expertise like we need peop we need
um right now it's not just that the only
security people get trained inside the
companies right it's as if SpaceX was
dependent on training as aeronautical
Engineers in-house
if SpaceX was training its aeronautical
Engineers in-house we would not be going
to Mars
period
the reason why Twitter can't afford
safety people
is because there's so few of them and
Twitter can't pay high enough
all of us are endangered by the fact
that we are reliant on these companies
to train the experts but if we look on
the policy side it gets even more scary
because just like those security people
are trained in-house
the only place where you begin to become
fluent in these policy issues around
social media is like working on these
issues on the hill you're a legislative
Aid your Congress person really cares
about it you start learning more about
it you get more fluent and as soon as
you start to be a little effective you
get poached off by Facebook you get
poached off by Twitter you poached off
by another tech company
and in the the couple weeks before my
Senate testimony we met with an aide
from blumenthal's office and one from
Blackburn's office and shared with them
we'd given them the SEC filings and all
the files associated with it and we
asked them like hey like you know um
this is a really good conversation is
there anyone else on the committee that
would benefit from having these
documents
and I don't remember which eight it was
but one of them was like yeah you know I
that I I get why that would make sense
and I want to say yes
and I would say yes if we could go more
than two weeks without having a staffer
from the committee leave for Facebook
two weeks
right and that's a huge problem did you
see it this just happened but there it's
a revolving door problem across
government they've hired people from the
FTC there was a banker that was uh no a
banker Bankers were testifying before
Congress and um one of the members
thanked the bank for hiring one of their
staffers oh the bank was like her father
already works here it's amazing
it's a it's a problem the revolving
doors is a problem no problem
um when it comes to Banks like you know
you can you can get a finance policy
degree like if you want to go get your
PhD and specialize in like how should we
regulate Banks you can go and and get
probably a free degree in public policy
and that's in the subject you can
probably get grants for it
um you cannot take a single class
single class where you really understand
here's the spectrum of choices we have
you know here's the very wide eclectic
palette of colors we could paint with to
build social networks and here's the
consequences of these choices you cannot
take a class if you're a policy person
or even a CS person anywhere in the
United States right now anywhere in the
world
and that's unacceptable
and I've heard you talk about the fact
that you want to build a simulated
social network so people can train on it
you also want to train lawyers to who
are interested in bringing action on the
ins and outs of these networks so they
sound smart about it is this what beyond
the screen is going to be all about so
beyond screen is two core products or
two core things we're working on one is
a project that we got seed funding for
and we announced yesterday so the
McCourt Institute is graciously giving
us our first seed funding for something
around duty of care so when we come when
it comes to any other physical product
any food you eat any drug you take we
have certain expectations about what the
floor is for safety like what are the
what are the questions you should ask
like you should have done a certain
amount to like make sure this was a safe
thing we don't have an expectation
around that we don't have a consensus
around what that would be yet when it
comes to social platforms and I say
social platforms because I would also
include things like games or Discord or
things like that in there and um so
we're doing a project that's around uh I
think Jonathan height has done a really
good work around helping us begin to
have a public conversation about the
harms around kids Mental Health
we want to mirror that process across a
wider set of harms let's talk about
human trafficking let's talk about
cartels in addition to kids let's talk
about Elder issues you know let's do a
much broader set and reproduce that
process let's kind of do the Truth and
Reconciliation phase
and and because I'm a product manager
like the way we make solve problems is
we get really clear about articulating
what the problem is and then let's talk
about levers that would prevent or
mitigate that problem
because often right now we confuse a
lever for strategy for pulling that
lever I'll give you a concrete example a
lot of the harms for kids a common lever
is let's keep under 13 year olds or
let's keep under 16 year olds off those
off the platforms
um right now because people who
understand social problems often don't
understand Tech
they reconverge on list check IDs
and I don't think checking IDs works
like you can go like we can have a
conversation on it I also think there's
huge Collateral Damage I don't think any
of you really want to have to have your
ID checked there's like a variety of
issues with it but if you had asked a
technologist hey I have a problem I need
to find under 13 year olds how could I
do that they would come back and say
Here's 10 or 15 ways to find it under 13
year old we don't have to check IDs if
we could all look at the same list and
say hey here's the menu of what's
possible Right now the platforms are
only doing one or two things they're
like asking you how old you are and if
you say you're 13 you're like cool
you know I'm not saying if you all 15
things like I don't want to be
prescriptive but I do want us to sit
down and say hey maybe there's six or
seven things that we all feel
comfortable about that we think are the
expectation and if you're not willing to
do that amount of work then you're
negligent so that's the goal of Duty of
care and then because a lot of the logic
and duty of care is actually dependent
on having an intuition on the physics of
social networks instead of saying just
trust me you know like we talked about
deep researchers versus shallow reshares
or like how long should you have to wait
before you re-share all these things
imagine if we had you know we spent
hundreds of millions of dollars every
year on flight simulators to train jet
Pilots to keep us safe for the Air Force
or keep our Jets safe at you know for
Delta Airlines
um we spend zero dollars on flight
simulators for social networks we have
to train all of our safety people
in-house because we don't have a lab
bench for training them in Academia
and so those are the two things that we
want to work on over the next few years
sounds great I read that you're trying
to raise or you were trying to raise
five million dollars for this
um I have a couple questions about that
a I'm curious if you've raised it b
um if you have where's it come from and
I would say most importantly there are
there's a I think a plague in this world
a big Tech advocacy where there's so
much dark money that gets spent all over
the place and no one ever discloses
where that money is coming from and so
we don't know where the agendas lie so
can you I don't know if you have or not
but are you going to commit to share the
list of your funders moving forward when
it comes to running this non-profit you
know I I I am totally willing to
entertain that idea I want to put a
quick caveat which is I would like to
check in so we've only taken we've only
taken two checks ever likely McCord is
we're in the process of getting the
check from them but they made a public
announcement of it yesterday I would
want to check with those two other
funders on whether or not they would
want their names publicly but for
context prior to my court we'd only
raised
um on a very low
um six figures
um like I've I've gone by on a
shockingly small amount of money and
part of my book Advance is all that has
funded me since I came out
um the people who tell me oh it's easy
they'll just give you a check for 300
000 I I don't know how that actually
works because it has never happened for
me
um not gonna complain though
um but I I like that idea and I can I
want to double check first but we've
been public about our funding at least
in the last
uh are after those first two checks I
feel like you should make it a
prerequisite and maybe that's the
question that I kept going forward I can
talk to them and be like hey like we
need to have your name out of the open
So eventually fine with that um oh we're
running out of time
do you want what 10 more minutes or are
they going to get angry at you we're the
last ones so are you guys mad
they're mad
um let's do five more and then and then
we can be Shameless we'll make them get
pull us off the stage yeah sounds good
um but this is just a curiosity of mine
um in the 60 Minutes interview you did
after you revealed uh who you were
um maybe it was there maybe it was the
journal you you mentioned that
um you you had basically been living off
of Bitcoin winnings or something like
that I don't know correct the record if
I'm wrong I don't think there's anything
in 60 minutes oh okay but was is that
true because you were I heard you were
living in Puerto Rico no I think people
could sleep yeah yes yeah they complete
the two so I I do hold some crypto it is
not a life-changing amounts of crypto
okay um it is part of a diversified
portfolio all right
um uh but I live in San Francisco so
like I have lots of people who talk
about crypto all the time
um uh I moved to Puerto Rico um because
I I uh when I I was so ill that I was
paralyzed beneath my knees so I I went
into hospital because my leg turned
purple because I had a foot long clot
that had been in my leg for chain 18
months in two years they don't know how
long and when I went to the doctor and
complained about it
um I'd be like I'm in a lot of pain I'm
really exhausted they'd be like oh it
sounds like you have depression you know
there's nothing gendered about women's
pain
clearly but it turned out that I was
also starving to death so I had celiacs
and I was
um even though I gained weight
I was so malnourished my protein
synthesis had stopped so I showed up in
the hospital and and for context my
father-in-law died last week and he had
been suffering from cancer for a long
time maybe seven months and he went
through a period of time where he didn't
really eat anything for four months he
had very very little and he lost 75
pounds or something insane and and
my father was reassuring me as he was
looking through his lab results he's
like these look real bad but to be fair
your numbers looked worse
um and uh so I was really malnourished
and I was I got paralyzed beneath my
knees
um Alex my nerves my nerves died and I'm
much better now I can walk on my toes I
hide for hours but I have constant pain
I have constant very severe pain
um to the point where in addition to my
neuropathy drugs I have to numb my feet
like that level of pain because I can't
take more because my heart beats too
slow for context and um uh I was really
unhappy in San Francisco during covet
because if you've ever been you know how
balmy and warm San Francisco is
um I used to live there yeah yeah and
and the buildings aren't insulated so
like I couldn't even keep my inside warm
um and I I was really unhappy and a
bunch of people were like we're all
gonna move to Puerto Rico and I was like
well we have to only socialize Outdoors
because it's covered
you know I I have nothing to lose and I
went down there for like a three week
vacation and I was like wow
I've been complaining about being cold
for years why did I live in San
Francisco
um and I it's just been a game changer
it's I I actually credit Puerto Rico
with my ability to have been as
successful as I was with the whistleblow
because I had so much more energy after
I moved there right I was able to lower
my pain meds a bunch
um and it it made it um
it just it gave me many more hours a day
where I was effective okay so we get to
the bottom of the crypto narrative we're
out of time do you have like 60 seconds
is there anything you're optimistic oh
sure can I can I so I can can I do my
soapbox now yeah but they're gonna make
us rap but yeah definitely so bucks away
I'll hold the floor okay um Okay so
we talked about some heavy stuff today
right so like genocide like you know
business incentives that are dystopian
kill democracy whatever
um the reality is every single time we
have invented a new communication
technology it has been really really
disruptive like people like to say the
printing press was disruptive the
printing press was not disruptive
because no one could read right it's
like 60 years between the invention the
printing press and the printing press
causing harm the real thing that caused
harm was Martin Luther was like the
Catholic church has been lying to you
you're not going to hell just go be nice
to people love each other let's teach
everyone to read so they can read the
New Testament too and it turned out when
you taught people to read it went from
being three percent litter in Germany
being 30 litter in 20 years and people
started publishing pamphlets on things
like you know how do you know if your
neighbor's a witch
you know I hate to tell you you might
have to burn them it's gonna be hard but
you can do it
um we invented cheap printing presses
those are newspapers and we literally
had Wars over misinformation
um uh historians have looked at the
telegram Telegraph Telegraph the
telegraph did not cause the Civil War
but they believed that the telegraph
influenced when the Civil War was
because For the First Time people could
could actually see that the opinions in
DC the opinions in other parts of the
country were very different than the
ones at home because the news all
converged into real time
uh radio we've had whole genocides over
radio things like Rwanda or like World
War II for the first time people had
personal relationships with their
leaders and and and literally Hitler was
the best person in the world at Radio
what we are experiencing right now is
not novel
but the reason we feel overwhelmed why
this feels different why is this so
scary
is because it's actually our problem to
solve
right like we feel overwhelmed because
we can see that we're in the driver's
seat that we have to figure out the way
forward
and I want to be honest it might get a
lot worse before it gets better
but the reality is is we have figured
out how to do this every single time
before and I have a hundred percent
confidence
that if we do bring a hundred thousand
if we bring a million more people to the
table we are going to figure out a path
forward where we get to live with social
media where we get to feel good about it
and it's good for us so I'm excited
about the future Francis Haugen everyone
thank you
thank you Francis for the chat thank you
what an amazing audience you guys are
amazing
um this is gonna be on big technology
podcast feed so if you go on your phone
subscribe to Big technology podcast it's
available on all podcasts app would love
to have you we do these every single
Wednesday uh We've interviewed francis's
lawyer
um or lessig oh Lawrence yeah yeah he's
wonderful and uh and a bunch of other
people that agree and disagree with her
so thanks again thank you to unfinished
live uh for having uh me here having
this conversation with Francis
um it's been awesome and uh well we hope
to see you again on the internet
thank you