Hot Mic Season 7 EP. 10

 Transcript:  “Zuckerverse” Episode 1

Prologue Kelcey Gibbons (host): Today, on the show, I have the pleasure of talking with Mark Zuckerberg 2.0 about his plan for Facebook Life. According to articles in the New York Times, The Washington Post, and some teaser trailers we have all seen on Facebook, Facebook Life will work with Google, Clearview, and Amazon to both make and connect smart cities in the US. Led by Zuckerberg, the goal is to revolutionize communication, strengthen community, and update the urban space. 

Overall there has been a positive response to his proposal. City officials from Philadelphia Pennsylvania to Houston Texas have fought for and won bids to have their archaic infrastructure updated by Zuckerberg’s futuristic vision. However, opponents of Facebook Life, FL for short, say that it is the first step into a dystopian “Zuckerverse,” and the hashtag FML is trending on Twitter. 

Next week Facebook Life will go before Congress, where they will decide if his utopian vision will revolutionize the world as we know it, or if it’s an overstep of corporate power. 

For those who are new to the show, our format is to let a tech innovator pitch his or her idea, then experts in the field respond by pulling out what is truly at stake for people in the high stakes world of technology and science. 

For today’s show, we have three experts who have spoken out against Facebook Life, expressing doubts and fears that have gained traction in resistance groups both on and offline. 

You probably know her from her book Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age or from her many appearances on CNN, BBC, and John Oliver. Joining us from MIT, we have Sherry Turkle. Welcome to the show! 

Turkle: Thank you! 

Gibbons: All you lovers of virtual reality have one man to thank for your fantasy families and friends, his most recent book is Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, we have the one and only Jaron Lanier!

Lanier: Glad to be here!

Gibbons: Last but not least, we have the author of the New York Times bestseller book Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe, I am honored to introduce Roger McNamee.

McNamee: Hello.

Interview 

Gibbons: Hello everyone, how are you, Mark? 

Zuckerberg: I am well, Kelcey. Thank you for having me, I am excited to share with the American people and our friends worldwide what Facebook Life is all about. Also, I love your show! 

Gibbons: [ smiles audibly] You are such a busy man, but you have time for podcasts, my podcast? I am honored! 

Gibbons: Mark, please, tell us about your vision. 

Zuckerberg: Well, Kelcey, we asked ourselves what if the online communities like Facebook groups and google hangouts were not limited by the cyberspace but could be easily integrated into the homes, churches, civic communities, and schools that are important to so many Americans? Kelcey, did you know that over a billion people worldwide are connected through personalized groups on Facebook? 

Gibbons: Ah! Well, I actually… 

Zuckerberg: Also, Several reports have come out, showing an overwhelming decline in the health of local communities. Infrastructure, both social and physical, is declining, leaving people feeling hopeless, lonely, and left out of the political process. But what if online communities and local communities were one and the same? What if there was not a perceptible difference or boundary from the online and the local - and talking to your senator, the people in your single mom's parenting support group, was as easy as walking into the next room and talking to your grandmother? 

 Facebook Life is fully funded by our partners and us. We promise to dismantle the clumsy disconnected systems that isolate individuals and support poverty, homelessness, and disease by taking the tools that billions of users already rely on and making them accessible to all people all the time. We will transform the urban landscape into a truly networked one where biometric, virtual reality technology, sensors, and drones will make all experiences personalized, accessible, and safe.  

Gibbons: Thank you for that inspired vision! I am not quite able to imagine how Facebook Life will work, can you explain the…

Zuckerberg: You have to trust us, we have the data that shows that this is what people want. We are making something that will be people focused and driven. With full immersion into Facebook Life, people will not only have stronger connections with the communities and people they want, but they will also have access to the information they need when they need it. This information could be as minor as location services for children, spouse, or friend in the physical city; as helpful as a nudge to join a new group that fits in with your interests; or as profound as reminding citizens to vote, get vaccines, or keep up with their civic duties. 

We will also work with local transportation and banking systems to move everything into one platform where your profile assists you in the real world. For example, in Philadelphia, we will use biometric technology to bypass the awkward card system for Septa, and if you pass a drug store, an advertisement for the product you need will appear in your field of vision. Meeting friends for drinks or going to an event after work? Facebook Life will organize your day so that you will get there in-time while keeping up with everything your friends locally and globally are doing. Worried about crime in a particular neighborhood? Our recent acquisition of Citizens App means that any crimes you see will be automatically reported, and you will be nudged away from crime hotspots. We have thought of everything, we know what users want, and it is our responsibility to provide what they need. 

Gibbons: Oh? 

Zuckerberg: As for how it will work in terms of the back-end software and installation within the physical infrastructure of American cities, that information is proprietary for your protection. 

Gibbons: [Laughs awkwardly] Thank you, wow... Um, Jaron, you have experience in tech, and in software development, perhaps you can shine some light on how this might work? 

Lanier: Kelcey, I would love to, and thank you for having me on the show. Not to go into too much detail but, back in the 60s and 80s, my computer compatriots Ted Nelson and David Gelernter had truly inspirational visions for using digital technology to build ideal communities but, as inspiring as their visions were, the devil is in the details. It is the process of design, application, and use where dreams and heroic ideas can get weird and wrong. 

Mark, in the past, your dream of making good people-focused communities has, and you have admitted to this, hurt the global community you are trying so hard to build and maintain - no one can forget the disaster of the 2016 election. 

Zuckerberg: In the past 10 years, we have done all we can to ensure that misinformation will not flood our platform and that users are exposed to multiple views. 

Lanier: Maybe, but we, you, and I, Mark, have a responsibility to make sure the systems we design do not filter out reality. Your problem-solving algorithm and the community standards filtered discourse online…

McNamee: (cough) … and had an active role in shaping discourse, views, and virtual “communities.” Your algorithm created social validation feedback loops that fed off of the very things that make us human… 

Lanier: (leans forward) …yes that had an influence on what reality was for billions of people worldwide. Your intention may be good, but in practice and in implementation in the real world, it has unexpected implications politically and socially. 

If I understand you, your scheme to meld the real and digital world into a single sensory experience - where local "real" connections are conflated with virtual ones, and facebook's data gathering methods are entrenched in physical infrastructure for a "personalized experience" - will not help humanity but reduce people into inaccurate bits of disembodied data! 

Zuckerberg: Well, once we have… 

Gibbons: Sorry to cut you off Mark, but let's give the other guests a chance to respond to all that you have said. 

Turkle: (Laughs) Kelcey, I'd like to add something if I may. I'd like to comment on this idea of health. Mark, you mentioned that in recent years we have seen a decline in healthy communities where loneliness and unhappiness are side effects. I do agree with that observation; however, I see social media and digital information technologies as being partly responsible for the decline of local communities and the side effects.  

Healthy communities and healthy people need in-person, real, and messy conversation. Instead of using technology to manage themselves and their relationships with others, sound, silence, observation, and discomfort bring people together by revealing authentic selves. Your increasingly invasive technology has demanded time and attention, decreasing the time spent in reality - in conversation, with ourselves, and each other. Your technology has increased the time spent managing and filtering who we are and what about us matters disconnecting us from our humanity. So, of course, people are unhappy! We are isolated, experiencing a filtered reality via platform or gadget. 

McNamee: Exactly Sherry! Mark’s platform also uses tools that filter what people see and what information they can access based on who their data says they are. The groups he says are "diverse" actually tend to be echo chambers where, unlike the real world, people can block people and ideas that do not appeal to them.

Turkle: (Nods head solemnly) Yes, that is true. Mark, your proposal to thoroughly integrate reality with the digital for the community will amplify the emotional distress felt by so many young people today: it will exponentially increase unhealthy management of the individual where life is not truly experienced but is processed or blocked. 

Additionally, it will also compromise user identity as your ability to gather data will be limitless. Your dream city and network of cities can quickly turn into a surveillance state where individuals are, as Jaron said, reduced to bits of data. Conversation and humanity are at risk if your "dream" is not stopped.  

Zuckerberg: BUT young people love our platform - engagement has gone up! How can something that brings people together and pulls them into diverse communities actually isolate them? We KNOW what people want and give them what they and the world needs. Our data gathering, not just Facebook but also our partners, is for a more personalized experience, and for the past decades, billions of users have agreed to our user agreements without really any protest. 

Turkle: (clicks pen) But what you describe as knowing is not true knowing and your communities are not… 

McNamee: Sorry to interrupt Sherry, but I have to jump in here. Mark, do they like it, or are they unable to escape it? For years, my partner Tristan Harris and I have tried to make transparent the tools companies like Facebook use to manipulate the minds of users. Seemingly simple features like the never-ending news feed, nudges, videos that autoplay and notifications are tools designed to keep the attention of users - if you can even call them that. Mark, the addicts you created are trapped, unable to see the forest from the woods as you encapsulate them in a digital world designed not to help them. They are not the end-user, they are the product. Their emotions, energy, and attention are what you are selling. Not this ridiculous “healthy communities” bullarky that you are advertising. 

Jeez, Mark, even the shade of red and blue your platform uses are designed - picked as the optimal colors for pulling in people and getting them to waste their time. Your platform takes advantage of and hacks the very humanity, the need for conversation and connection, that you say it serves.

Zuckerberg: Our methods are not hurting anyone. And like I said, there is evidence that our tools that ludlites like you vilify actually... 

McNamee: Something many listeners might not know is how far back Mark and I go. I mentored Mark in the early days of Facebook, and I've witnessed the evolution of Facebook and its CEO. Far from being a Luddite, I have advised and invested in tech companies like yours. When I say that the methods you use to hurt people - causing anxiety and depression by targeting their fight or flight instincts so that they have rage and fearful reactions that you use to improve your algorithm and sell your services to whomever - I am speaking frankly. I am speaking frankly because I know you, Mark, and I am troubled by your ethics or lack thereof.

Gibbons: Now, for a word from our sponsors.