Berggruen Institute Future of Democracy fellow and former Facebook head of election integrity Yael Eisenstat speaks with Emily Chang about the social media giant’s decision to change its name to Meta and whether that will be enough to fix its past controversies.
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Mark Zuckerberg new vision for the metaverse. Are you a believer
or not.
I mean I’m not one of those people who’s going to get all
breathless and excited over a change in the name. I mean the
metaverse is a whole nother question. But starting with the
point in the changing the name that does not actually absolve
the company of all of the things that we have been learning in
the past few weeks months and years about some of the really
detrimental things happening within Facebook and Instagram and
other I guess parts of the media companies. Now as far as being
a believer in the metaverse I this is not my world. That sounds
interesting but I’m not sure that I would trust Mark Zuckerberg
after everything we’ve learned to be the person who gets to now
control that version of the Internet as well. And that is
actually I think the biggest concern to me now from what we can
tell. Mark Zuckerberg isn’t going anywhere. There was a thought
that perhaps if if the company was making this big name change
maybe he would move out of the CEO role and stay on solely in
that chairman role. But it looks like he’s not going anywhere.
You know if Mark Zuckerberg stays at the company and in his
current position with the amount of power that he has what are
your biggest concerns about Facebook today and this new future
world they are building.
So that’s actually a pretty key point right. I think we don’t
talk enough about how Facebook is structured and now Meta is
structured to have what should be a CEO and normally a CEO is
accountable to shareholders. A CEO is accountable to laws to
regulation to all these things. That Mark Zuckerberg is not due
to the dual class structure and the way it is set up. So
unfortunately right now there is zero accountability mechanisms
built in for how Mark Zuckerberg operates and runs this company.
And so that is going to remain my number one concern is as long
as there’s still no accountability why would we believe that he
wouldn’t import some of the worst practices in whether it’s in
the ways that companies abuse our data and the way the company
that’s allowed really harmful content to go viral of whether
it’s election misinformation whether it’s Covid misinformation
whether it’s hate groups actually planning violent activity like
we saw on January 6.
They have done nothing to demonstrate to us that they care
enough to protect us from what is happening on the Facebook
platform. So why should we be comfortable with the idea that
they’re going to do so in the virtual world which again not
totally my expertise but many say is even more problematic in
the way people might monetize different things in the in the
virtual world. It’s shocking to me that we would allow that much
power to reside in this one human being’s hands.
Now Facebook has pushed back hard or I should say metal on this
idea presented in the Facebook files pushed back hard against
multiple narratives that the Facebook files quote unquote have
advanced. I spoke to Nicola Mendelsohn who runs global ads at
Facebook last week.
Take a listen to what she had to say about that.
What we’re seeing right now is a coordinated effort to
selectively use leaked documents to paint a false picture of
outcomes. And it really doesn’t in any way reflect the company
that I know and that I’m passionate about and that I love
working about.
Yeah. What’s your reaction to that given the many concerns that
you’ve already expressed. 4. So I think part of what’s at the
core of that argument is this idea that there’s fat people
Facebook and they’re doing good things and all that is true.
Even I for the three years that I’ve been speaking since leaving
the company I’ve always talked about how much good the company
can do and how many passionate people work there. But it
completely glosses over all of the actual harmful things which
is something we need to grapple with and government needs to
handle. And so I understand her point about saying that might
not be what she recognizes. But at the end of the day there is
now I mean there’s been research and journalists and academics
and former employees like myself speaking for years. But now we
have receipts. We have documents proving I mean any number of
things whether it’s how they’ve allowed in authentic use in
India to completely lead to violence and and political
consequences on their platform or whether it’s the way they did
not handle the growing mistrust in our election and the ensuing
violence that happened largely organized on their platform on
January 6th. And so I understand when Facebook says that you
know we do good stuff as well. They don’t do good stuff as well.
But that does not excuse any of these things we’re talking
about. And now with all of the documents from the whistleblower
we have evidence of how many times internal employees tried to
fix things. And Mark Zuckerberg over wrote it and wouldn’t
wouldn’t say yes if it harmed whether it’s his growth whether
it’s profit or whether it’s his political influence with
incumbent parties in whichever country Facebook is operating in.
So at this moment and as you’ve explained the problems that you
see certainly are many. What is the single biggest threat you
believe faces democracy faces global populations because of
Facebook now. Marta.
Short. So as many of us have said all of these things exist
outside of Facebook right. Political polarization whether for
good or for bad and all of these other things. The problem is
you have a platform that is really based on engaging the most
viral content. And as these documents from the whistleblower
prove the most extreme and often harmful and misinformation
written documents. Sorry. Content is what wins based on how
these algorithms are trained to maximize our attention. And so
it’s not about whether Facebook individually is the biggest
cause of many of the issues we’re seeing in our in our
democratic decay. And it is decaying but it’s whether Facebook
is throwing fuel on the fire and actually hoping and huge part
of the population. You know if I give you one example there was
this Carol’s journey to CU Anon on this with one of the
documents that has been reported on by a few different outlets
where they did internal experiments of a user. They made a fake
woman user in North Carolina I believe and she followed some
sort of middle of the road a little bit of conservative content
but nothing violent or harmful. And within two days she was
being recommended conspiracy theories in under five days she was
being steered and ticks you a non content. Those are the things
that are incredibly harmful to our democracy and those are the
things that Facebook is just not fixing well enough.
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Sir Derty ✓
November 2, 2021 at 3:58 pm
Facebook head of election integrity? I have a nice playlist for simpletons like her who avoid the reality of hacks.
Sir Derty ✓
November 2, 2021 at 3:58 pm
I have a playlist compiled of voting hackers, for you…. Yael… grow up a bit
Sir Derty ✓
November 2, 2021 at 3:59 pm
Why are you not approving legit comments, Bloomberg? Scared of the truth being revealed? I see 4 comments hidden to sort-new page (meaning you are hiding facts at youtube)
Sir Derty ✓
November 2, 2021 at 4:03 pm
This lady is using her political bias, to control people who prove her side is cheating.
Literally, right here in your face she is doing it (and I am 3rd party, she clearly has a bias to censorship one side, go figure its the side proving she cheated)
Mike
November 2, 2021 at 4:17 pm
Too much estrogen
Magnetic Pajama
November 3, 2021 at 3:34 am
Yeah they should tone down their estrogen levels
F
November 2, 2021 at 4:27 pm
bla bla. failure at the company talks trash after being kicked.
missy
November 3, 2021 at 5:55 pm
Bla bla bla. Acting brave with a fake account “F”.
Batman
November 2, 2021 at 4:52 pm
Delete Facebook
Robert S
November 2, 2021 at 6:03 pm
Who defines “misinformation” Karen?
WE WILL PREVAIL
November 2, 2021 at 6:13 pm
Never trusted zuck
Rowan Gontier
November 2, 2021 at 7:56 pm
Regular Liberal. Has a list of buzzword slander, doesn’t make anything.
K YV
November 3, 2021 at 5:11 pm
Regular Conservative. Makes eveything about politics. Get a life
nparviz82
November 2, 2021 at 8:09 pm
Yup
Serhad Yıldız
November 2, 2021 at 8:09 pm
Please upload full episodes of Bloomberg Technology to your youtube chanel…
nparviz82
November 2, 2021 at 8:11 pm
Delete FB
Boateng Gaming Solutions - Director of Gaming
November 2, 2021 at 8:48 pm
Online speech in the metaverse will be harmful
Boateng Gaming Solutions - Director of Gaming
November 2, 2021 at 8:53 pm
Facebook’s behaviour won’t change in the virtual world…the metaverse will create negative online behaviour
Relative Vie
November 2, 2021 at 9:56 pm
Looks like Zukenberg enemy is the mainstream and government powers.
starburst
November 2, 2021 at 10:14 pm
What does it mean by dual class structure and that’s why mark has no accountability? Can someone help to explain this in more detail?
dollaz
November 3, 2021 at 6:39 am
I don’t know in depth but these companies use policies and different constitutional laws to get there way, that meaning talking and speaking in manipulative dialogue to make people think one thing but it’s really something entirely different then what they portrayed because majority of people don’t read between the lines better yet listen. Knowing this you should understand free will and choice as they use that against you because you chose to do what they said when in reality they aren’t telling you to do anything but they speak in manipulative ways to make it seem that way. Idk if this was what you were looking for but I hope it was. He has no accountability because down to the tea, the main thing is choice, just like the adverse reactions in vaccines, hospitals can’t take accountability nor the companies, this goes for all businesses if they choose to do this which is most likely
Nick V
November 2, 2021 at 10:47 pm
Wake up Neo
Banana Republic
November 3, 2021 at 4:57 am
Meta is Facebook 2.0, evil evolved. The fact that they appropriated the word Meta, a public good, says it all. #boycottfacebook #boycottmeta
CDE
November 3, 2021 at 6:03 am
Yael is malicious paid agent by the leftist to shut free speech. Disgusting
Cosmin Cosma
November 3, 2021 at 6:14 am
So what they really want is more censorship! Why are you afraid of free speech? If something is false, prove it false, do not apply communist style censorship!
bruh69
November 3, 2021 at 9:09 am
If you seriously believe that you can play truth police you’re a moron and don’t understand the concept of free speech.
Be more humble Yael.
Alan De Oliveira
November 3, 2021 at 1:38 pm
0:49 props to camera man
Old School Jams
November 3, 2021 at 4:47 pm
Why not talk about people’s hacked account who bank/credit debt card information are getting stolen and Facebook not helping nobody in that situation 🤔
Javi Duarte
November 3, 2021 at 8:38 pm
we cannot let zuckerberg control the metaverse. it’s up to us.