0:00

Next Question with Katie Curic is a production of I

0:02

Heart Radio and Katie Kuric Media. Hi

0:05

everyone, I'm Katie Curic and welcome to Next

0:07

Question, where we try to understand the

0:09

complicated world we're living in and

0:11

the crazy things that are happening by

0:14

asking questions and by listening

0:16

to people who really know what they're talking about.

0:19

At times, it may lead to some pretty

0:21

uncomfortable conversations, but

0:23

stick with me, everyone, let's all learn

0:26

together. More

0:33

than two point one billion people

0:35

use Facebook or one of its services

0:37

like Instagram or What's App every

0:40

single day. That's nearly one

0:42

third of the entire world's population.

0:45

But recently the company has gone from

0:48

the brilliant brainchild of a Harvard dropout

0:50

named Mark Zuckerberg to one of the most

0:52

controversial companies on the planet.

0:55

He was recently grilled on Capitol hilld

0:57

by members of Congress concerned about the plat

1:00

forms, increasing footprint, and

1:02

almost every aspect of our lives.

1:05

Sure, Facebook can bring communities together,

1:08

help you share photos with your family, and

1:10

even start movements, but it can

1:12

also unfairly impact elections,

1:15

spread misinformation, create

1:17

a safe space for child pornographers,

1:19

and white supremacists, invade our

1:21

privacy, exploit our personal information,

1:24

and increase the deep divisions of our

1:26

already polarized nation. That's

1:29

quite a laundry list, isn't it, And with

1:31

the election fast approaching,

1:34

you may be wondering if it might be deja

1:36

vu all over again, and

1:38

worried that, to borrow a phrase from the nineteen

1:41

sixty six movie The Russians Are

1:43

Coming, The Russians are Coming, not to

1:45

mention China and other foreign

1:47

powers, and the company's recent

1:49

decision not to fact check political

1:52

ads lead to a heated debate on social

1:54

media between Zuckerberg and Democratic

1:56

presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren,

1:59

who set the platform had become a quote

2:01

disinformation for profit machine,

2:04

and she even placed an ad on Facebook

2:06

sayt Zuckerberg was supporting Trump for president

2:09

to test if it would be removed. It

2:12

wasn't. Meanwhile, more than two

2:14

hundred and fifty of its own employees

2:17

signed an open letter warning that

2:19

the ad policy is quote a

2:21

threat to what Facebook stands for.

2:24

So I was impressed that the company CEO,

2:27

Cheryl Sandberg was willing to sit down with

2:29

me recently at the Vanity Fair New

2:31

Establishment conference in Los Angeles.

2:34

She's been with the company since two thousand

2:36

eleven and has played a pivotal role

2:38

in shaping both its culture and its

2:40

business strategy, leading it to

2:42

more than twenty two billion dollars

2:45

in profits last year. She's

2:47

also an advocate for women in the workplace

2:50

with her two thousand thirteen book and organization

2:53

Lean In. And I got to know Cheryl

2:55

after her husband, Dave, died unexpectedly

2:58

in two thousand fifteen. She

3:00

reached out because I too had

3:02

lost my husband at an early age.

3:05

Cheryl wrote a book about her experience, called

3:07

Option B, and I interviewed her

3:09

for that back in two thousand seventeen.

3:12

If you're interested, you can find that interview

3:14

in my feed. Our recent conversation

3:17

at the Vanity Fair summit got a lot of

3:19

attention, and I thought it made sense

3:21

to share it with all of you on my podcast.

3:24

So my next question for Cheryl

3:26

Sandberg is Facebook doing

3:28

enough to protect it's more than two billion

3:31

users and our democracy?

3:34

Or is it time to unfriend Facebook?

3:38

Cheryl, thank you for being here. We

3:40

have a lot to talk about,

3:42

as you know, so let's get right to it.

3:44

We're just over a year from

3:47

the election. Three hundred and seventy

3:49

eight days to be exactly who's counting? Yeah,

3:51

But I think the way Facebook

3:54

addresses and fixes

3:56

the platform that was used in two

3:58

thousand and sixteen is seen is a major,

4:00

critically important test. I know

4:02

certain measures have in fact been implemented,

4:05

for example, thirty five thousand moderators

4:07

looking for fake accounts and suspicious patterns.

4:10

Mark Zuckerberg announced news safeguards

4:12

like labeling media outlets that are state controlled.

4:15

But do you believe that's enough? I mean, do you

4:18

really seriously believe that we won't

4:20

witness the kind of widespread interference

4:22

we saw in two thousand sixteen. Well,

4:25

we're gonna do everything we can to prevent it. Um.

4:27

I do think we're in a very different place. So

4:30

if you think back to we

4:32

had protections against state actors,

4:34

but when you thought about state actors going

4:37

against a technology platform, what

4:39

you thought of was hacking the Sony emails,

4:41

the DNC emails, stealing information.

4:44

And that's what our defenses were really set up

4:46

to prevent, and so were everyone Else's

4:48

what we totally missed, and

4:50

it is on us from missing it, and

4:53

everyone missed. This was not stealing

4:55

information, but going in and

4:57

writing fake stuff was a totally diff

5:00

threat and our systems weren't set up to deal with

5:02

it. So the question is as you're asking,

5:04

what are we doing going forward and how are we going

5:06

into the election? And how did we do

5:08

in and we're in a

5:11

totally different place. The FBI

5:13

has a task force on this. They didn't have anyone

5:15

working on it. Homeland Security is working

5:17

on it, all the tech companies are

5:19

working together, because when you try

5:21

to interfere on one platform, you try to interfere

5:24

on another. In Sten,

5:26

we didn't know what this threat was in We

5:29

did one takedown. In the last

5:32

year, we did fifty and I read a

5:34

shocking number. You took down more than

5:36

two point two billion fake

5:38

accounts in a three month.

5:41

That's right. We take down millions

5:43

every day. So thirty moderators

5:46

is that even enough? Given I

5:48

mean two point two billion is almost the number

5:51

of people who are on the platform. So

5:53

the moderators are looking for content. The

5:55

fake accounts are being found with engineering.

5:58

That's the only way to find those fake account Most

6:00

of those are found before anyone

6:03

ever sees them. And fake accounts are

6:05

a really important point here because everything

6:07

that was done by Russia in everything

6:11

was done under a fake account. So if you can find

6:13

the fake accounts, you often find

6:15

the root of the problem. And

6:17

so we are now taking down millions

6:19

every day, almost all of which no one

6:21

has seen. You talked about disrupting

6:24

fifty individual campaigns from multiple

6:26

nation states so far. But what about domestic

6:29

threats. Facebook's own former

6:31

security chief Alex Stamos has

6:33

said, quote, what I expect

6:35

is that the Russian playbook is going to

6:38

be executed inside of the US

6:40

by domestic groups, in which case some

6:42

of it, other than hacking, is not illegal.

6:45

My real fear, he says, is that

6:47

in it's going to be the battle

6:50

of the billionaires of secret

6:52

groups working for people aligned on both

6:54

sides who are trying to manipulate

6:56

us at scale online. So

6:59

what is face spook doing to defend the platform

7:02

against this kind of domestic threat. It's

7:04

a really good question, because things are against

7:06

our policies if they're fraudulent

7:09

or fake accounts, but people can also kind

7:11

of deceive. Again, if you look at where

7:13

we were and where we are, the

7:16

transparency is dramatically different.

7:18

So you look on every page on Facebook,

7:21

you can now see the origin of where the

7:23

person is. So if someone is has a

7:25

page that's called I don't know us whatever,

7:28

but they're from the Ukraine, it's clearly

7:30

marked that. If you look at our ad

7:32

library we didn't have this last

7:34

time, you can see any political ad

7:36

running actually anywhere in the country or in most

7:39

places of the world, even if they're not targeted

7:41

to you. So before, if they were

7:43

trying to reach you, you could see it, but you couldn't

7:45

see anything else. Now you can see everything.

7:48

And we rolled out on Presidential ad

7:50

Tracker so that you can see the presidential

7:52

campaigns much more holistically.

7:54

So with the transparency measures we have,

7:57

people should be able to be trying to get

7:59

rid of the accounts and the ones that are legitimate,

8:02

whether they run domestically or globally.

8:04

Make sure people understand who the people

8:06

are behind what they're seeing. But then why

8:09

did Facebook announced not to

8:12

fact check political ads last month?

8:14

I know the Rand Corporation

8:16

actually has a term for this, which is truth

8:18

decay. And Mark himself has

8:21

defended this decision even as he

8:23

expressed concern about the erosion

8:25

of truth online. So

8:28

what is the rationale for that?

8:31

And I know you're gonna say we're not a news organization.

8:33

We're a platform. I'm not going to say that, but

8:37

it's a really important question, and I'm really glad

8:39

to have a chance to take a beat and really think about

8:41

it and talk about it. So one

8:43

of the most controversial things out there right now

8:46

is what adds do we take? What

8:48

ads do others take? And do we fact check

8:50

political ads? And it is a hard conversation

8:53

and emotions are running very high on this. I

8:55

also sit here realizing it's however

8:57

many days you said before the election. So

9:00

the ads that are controversial now we have not

9:02

even seen the beginning of what we're going to see. There are

9:04

going to be a lot of controversial ads

9:07

and controversial speech. So why

9:09

are we doing this. It's not for the

9:11

money. Let's start there. This is a very

9:13

small part of our revenue five percent or something.

9:15

We don't release the numbers, but it's very small,

9:18

very small, and it is very controversial.

9:21

We're not doing this for the money. We take

9:23

political ads because we really believe

9:25

they are part of political discourse and

9:28

that taking political ads means

9:30

that people can speak. If you look at

9:32

this over time, the people who have most benefited

9:35

from being able to run ads are

9:37

people who are not covered by the media so

9:39

they can't get their message out otherwise, people

9:42

who are challenging and incumbent so

9:44

they are a challenger, and people

9:46

who have different points of view. That's

9:48

that's been true historically. And so we

9:51

also have this issue that if we let's say we took political

9:53

ads off the service, we would still have

9:55

all the issue ads. So I'm running

9:57

an AD on gender equality, I'm running an AD on

9:59

an other political issue. Those ads are

10:02

much much much bigger in terms of scope

10:04

than the political ads, so you would have every

10:06

voice in the debate except the politicians

10:09

themselves. So instead, what we're

10:11

doing is as much transparency

10:14

as possible. Every ad has to be marked by

10:16

who paid for it. We're doing verification

10:18

to make sure the people that say they're paid and

10:21

that adds library I started talking about

10:23

is really important because you can't hide.

10:25

You can't run one ad in one state, one

10:27

add and another, one add to one group, one add

10:30

to another. Anyone can go

10:32

into that library and see any ad

10:34

that any politician is running anywhere.

10:36

Well, this is what Nita Gupta wrote,

10:38

the former head of the dj Civil Rights

10:41

Division, and Politico simply

10:43

put she wrote, while major news organizations

10:46

are strengthening fact checking and accountability,

10:48

Facebook is saying, if you are a

10:50

politician who wishes to pedal in lies,

10:53

distortion, and not so subtle racial

10:56

appeals, welcome to our platform.

10:58

You will not be fact check you are

11:00

automatically newsworthy. You're automatically

11:03

exempt from scrutiny.

11:05

So I know of Anita, and I've had a chance to speak

11:07

to her since she since she posted

11:09

that, and I think the debate is really important.

11:12

I've had a chance to work with her on our civil rights

11:14

work. We've taken a lot of feedback from her and

11:16

already continue which she was writing

11:18

there was not only about ads, it was really

11:20

about content on the platform. So taking

11:23

a step back, here's what we do.

11:26

When you write something. We have a very

11:28

strong free expression bent. We think it's very

11:30

important that we judge as little

11:32

as possible and let people express themselves.

11:35

But we don't allow anything on the platform. If

11:37

something is hate, terrorism,

11:39

violence, bullying, you know, hate

11:42

against protective classes, it comes down

11:44

we take it off, voter suppression. If

11:46

something is false, misinformation,

11:49

fake news, we don't take it off.

11:51

We send it to third party fact checkers. If

11:54

they market as false. We market as false.

11:56

If you go to share it and it's marked as false,

11:58

we warn you with a pop up and we say, do you want to share

12:00

this it's been marked as false? We

12:03

dramatically decrease distribution,

12:05

so we decrease it to about and

12:08

we show related articles. How can you possibly

12:10

do that with two point seven billion

12:13

users? How can you possibly keep

12:17

up with all the content

12:19

that's being produced on Facebook

12:21

and distributed and shared, etcetera. We

12:24

can't fact check everything. We're not trying to fact check

12:26

everything or send everything to third party fact checkers

12:28

at all. We prioritize in terms

12:30

of what's going most quickly. So when something

12:33

is growing really quickly, it gets referred, it goes to

12:35

the top of the heap sending it to fact checkers.

12:37

And these are really news

12:39

links. You know, if you're a bad example

12:41

because you're a media journalist, but you

12:43

know, if my sister writes a post about

12:45

her kids and her dogs, which she does all the time,

12:48

that's not getting fact check. That said,

12:51

the challenges of scale here are really

12:53

important, and in a lot of the areas where

12:55

we are reluctant to weigh in,

12:58

it's because we know we can't do this well

13:00

at scale, so we have to rely

13:02

on other sources. I think one of the most

13:04

important things we're rolling out in the next year

13:06

is our Content Advisory Board. We

13:09

understand that there are real concerns with the amount

13:11

of power and control we have that right

13:13

now we are the ultimate arbiters of what stays

13:16

on our service, and so we're setting up a

13:18

content review board. The final charter has

13:20

just been released. We've consulted

13:22

with over a thousand experts around the world and

13:24

they're going to be forty people appointed and

13:27

by next year they're going to start hearing cases. They don't

13:29

report to me, they don't report to Mark. It

13:31

means that if you disagree and

13:34

something was pulled down and you think it should be up,

13:36

or if you disagree and we

13:38

are letting something run from someone else,

13:40

that you don't think, you have a place to go and

13:42

we're going to abide by their decisions. Since

13:44

two thirds of people get their news and information

13:47

now from social media, do you

13:49

have any responsibility in your

13:51

view to at least attempt to

13:54

make sure that the news on your platform

13:57

is factual? Because oftentimes

14:00

I've heard, well, we're a platform,

14:02

we're not a publisher, right, and

14:04

so we're basically the pipes. So

14:06

where do you see your responsibility in terms

14:09

of that? So we do think we have a responsibility

14:11

for fake news and misinformation? Would you say you're

14:13

not a publisher? Still, well,

14:16

what would you call it? So that is

14:18

a complicated thing and it means different things

14:20

to different people. Here's what we are. We

14:22

are a technology company. A lot of things

14:24

are published on us. But what I think when

14:26

people ask that question, they're wondering

14:28

if we take responsibility for what's on our

14:30

service. And my answer to you is is yes,

14:33

we're not a publisher in the traditional sense because

14:35

we don't have editors who are fact checking, but we

14:38

take responsibility and what we've done

14:40

on misinformation has decreased

14:42

people's interactions. Stanford just published a study

14:45

there down by more than half. Since it's

14:48

not perfect, we're not able to fact check

14:50

everything. But we had no policies

14:52

against this in the last election, and you fast

14:55

forward to today. I think we are in an

14:57

imperfect but a much stronger

14:59

position. Let's talk about the free speech

15:01

rationale at Georgetown. Mark used

15:04

Martin Luther King Jr's name and his defense

15:06

of free speech on Facebook, but King's

15:08

daughter, Bernice tweeted, I'd

15:11

like to help Facebook better understand the challenges

15:13

that MLK faced from

15:15

disinformation campaigns launched

15:18

by politicians. These campaigns

15:20

created an atmosphere for his assassination.

15:23

And then Sherylyn Eiffel, as you know, president

15:26

of the n double a CP Legal Defense Fund,

15:28

called his speech quote a profound

15:31

misreading of the civil rights movement in

15:33

America and a dangerous misunderstanding

15:36

of the political and digital landscape

15:38

we now inhabit. It

15:41

was a controversial speech, and I

15:43

think the civil rights concerns are very

15:46

real. Um. In terms of

15:48

Bernice King, you know her, her father's

15:51

legacy, I know her. I actually spoke to her

15:53

after that tweet, totally

15:55

scheduled separately. She's coming to Facebook tomorrow

15:58

and I'm going to be in your chair interviewing, and then I'm hoasting

16:00

her for dinner tomorrow night. And what

16:02

I told her is what I'll say to you, which is that

16:04

I was grateful she published. We would have liked her to

16:06

push on Facebook, not just tweet, but

16:09

we were grateful she spoke out because this is

16:11

the dialogue we want to have. And she actually tweeted

16:13

again this morning that she heard from Mark

16:15

and is looking forward to sitting down and talking with

16:17

him civil rights.

16:19

She's smooth, isn't she. I

16:23

mean, these are just facts, she tweeted.

16:25

You can check again to my friend

16:28

Vernice. We'd like you to post on our platform too.

16:30

But this is the dialogue, right, there's

16:33

a lot of disagreement. Civil

16:35

rights and protecting civil rights are hugely

16:37

important to Mark, hugely important to me. I'm

16:39

personally leading the civil rights work at Facebook

16:42

and we'll continue to do that. And while we don't agree with

16:44

everything, and there was certainly disagreement

16:46

over some of Mark's speech, there

16:48

were other things that we've done because we've

16:51

listened and learned to them over the last year, that

16:53

I think they feel really good about. We've taken much

16:56

stronger steps on hate, looked

16:58

at white nationalism and white separatism

17:00

because they informed us of it. We've

17:03

really come down on a very strong policy

17:05

on voter suppression. We are

17:07

taking down voter suppression as hate. If

17:09

you publish you know the polls are open

17:11

on Wednesday, not Tuesday. We're taking that down

17:14

because it's as important to us as hate. And

17:16

that's all based on work, And so why

17:18

is voter suppression more important than voter

17:20

misinformation. It's

17:23

not. It's not more important. It's just a question

17:25

of how we handle it when we have misinformation.

17:28

What we believe is that

17:30

unless it's hate, are going to lead to real world

17:32

violence, we need to let the debate continue.

17:35

We dial massively down the distribution

17:37

to As I said, we don't want things to go

17:39

viral. We mark them as false, but then we

17:42

publish related articles. Here's

17:44

the other side of the story. We think

17:46

that's how people get informed that it's the

17:48

discourse about the discourse. It is market

17:51

giving a speech and Bernice King disagreeing

17:54

with it publicly, and that dialogue that matters.

17:57

Whereas if it's hate or if someone's really going

17:59

to show up to the polls the wrong day, we

18:02

just want to take it off our service. And this

18:04

is really hard because one

18:07

person will think something is clearly

18:09

just they really disagree

18:11

with it, and we do too, but

18:13

they think it's someone else's free expression,

18:16

and so these lines are going to continue

18:18

to be really hard to draw. Do you

18:20

really think that people use Facebook as

18:22

an opportunity to look at both sides

18:24

and to see something when it's corrected,

18:26

or don't you think that people are getting

18:28

stuff in their feed that is

18:31

really affirmation that information.

18:33

And I'm so glad you asked this because there's actually really

18:35

strong data here and no one understands this.

18:38

So when you think about your contacts

18:40

in the world, psychologists,

18:43

you have what's called um your

18:45

tight circle of contacts and then

18:47

your broader circle of contact. So you

18:49

basically can keep in touch with five to seven

18:51

people. That's your mom, your daughter's,

18:54

your husband, John, the people who you know where they

18:56

are. What Facebook enables

18:58

you to do is keep in top with many more people.

19:01

Without Facebook, without social media, without Instagram,

19:03

Twitter, you won't hear from your college friends

19:05

or the people you grew up with that often. So

19:09

if you compare people who do not use social

19:11

media for people who do, the people

19:13

who use social media see much more

19:16

broad points of view because

19:18

if you don't use social media, you go to

19:20

maybe one or two news outlets. They have one

19:22

particular point of view. You read one or two newspapers,

19:24

and that's it. On Facebook, you

19:27

will see, on average of

19:29

the stuff you see a news will be from another

19:31

point of view, which means it's not half

19:33

and half, but it is broadening of your views.

19:36

And that's something that I don't think we've we've

19:38

been able to explain to other people really understand.

19:41

And the reason for that is if you go to your news feed,

19:43

you don't see like half blue and half read.

19:46

You just see about more

19:48

from the other side than you otherwise

19:51

would. So it is unequivocally true

19:53

that Facebook usage and usage of social

19:55

media shows you broader points

19:57

of view, not narrower points of view than you would see

20:00

otherwise. And that's something no one understands. When

20:02

we come back, we take a deep dive

20:04

into the rise of deep fakes,

20:07

Facebook's role in the increasing polarization

20:10

of our country and what the consequences

20:12

should be if the company doesn't

20:15

put the proper safeguards in place

20:17

for presidential election.

20:23

Let's talk about the free speech argument, which

20:25

came under attack earlier this year

20:28

when Facebook decided not to take down

20:30

that doctored video of how speaker Nancy

20:32

Pelosi. Her speech was slowed

20:34

down, it made her appear to be slurring

20:37

her words, that people thought she

20:39

was drunk. You defended the decision by

20:41

saying, we think the only way to fight bad

20:43

information is with good information, and

20:45

you said it had been marked as false

20:48

but at that point, Cheryl, it had been viewed

20:50

two point five million times. So isn't

20:53

the damage already done

20:55

at that point, like when you do a correction in the

20:57

newspaper two days later in tiny

21:00

on page two. And studies

21:02

have shown if you see the

21:04

false story enough and the

21:06

correction fewer times, than the false

21:08

story actually stays in your head. Not

21:11

to mention, another study by m

21:13

I t that fake news spreads seventy

21:15

times faster than real news

21:17

on Twitter. So I guess, isn't

21:20

the current standard operating procedure on

21:22

videos like this a case of too little,

21:24

too late? I think what the Plosi video

21:27

it was, and we have said that publicly our fact

21:29

checkers moved way to the process

21:31

and not the fact checkers. The process for getting

21:33

it to them and getting it back moved way too slowly,

21:36

and we've made a change in how we do that to

21:38

prioritize things that are moving quickly and

21:40

massively cut down the review time. In

21:42

that case, we should have caught it way earlier. We

21:45

think you're right, and we want our systems to work more

21:47

because now the technology allows people

21:49

to appear that they're doing something and are saying

21:51

something other than what they're actually

21:53

saying. I mean, how do you keep up with all

21:56

of those things? Well, deep fakes is

21:58

what you're talking about. It is a new and emerging and that's

22:00

when I'm met deep. Yeah. And it's a new and emerging

22:02

area, and it is definitely one that we don't

22:04

believe we know everything about

22:06

because we don't even know what they're gonna look like. Here's what

22:08

we know. We know we're gonna need to move way,

22:10

way, way faster. We know we're going to need

22:13

very sophisticated engineering to

22:15

detect them in the first place. We also

22:17

know that the policies themselves are hard to set

22:20

right, and so we this is an area where

22:22

we know we moved too slowly with the Pelosi video.

22:25

We are trying to move faster. But we're also setting

22:28

up working groups and AI working groups to try

22:30

to develop the technology that will

22:32

help us identify these in the first place. I

22:34

wanted to ask you about Joe Biden because

22:36

I know he's cut down substantially on

22:39

his Facebook ad spending because he wasn't

22:41

seeing very good return. Some strategists

22:43

have speculated that his message

22:46

is to centrists and lacking

22:48

in the inflammatory red meat content

22:51

that does so well on platforms

22:53

like Facebook. Are you concerned that you are

22:55

creating an environment where the most

22:57

aggressive, inflammatory, each

23:00

bribal content is what sells.

23:02

I know you address that briefly in saying

23:04

that people get different points of view,

23:07

but certainly these people

23:09

seem to gravitate towards that kind of content.

23:12

I mean, I think that's true across political discourse.

23:14

I think it's a problem we face. I think you see it

23:16

in rallies. I think you see it in the debates. I

23:18

think the problem of people

23:21

making more inflammatory statements and people

23:23

rallying to those, particularly as things get

23:25

more polarized, is a real problem.

23:27

I don't think it's unique to us. But do you think you've contributed

23:30

to the polarization in the country. Um,

23:33

I think everything has contributed.

23:35

I do think Facebook is I

23:37

think held accountable for that well. I think

23:39

we have a responsibility to help make

23:41

sure people get real information, to

23:44

help participate in the debate, and make sure

23:46

that people can see other other points of

23:48

view. So I think, but are they getting real information?

23:50

If they're if they are getting the most

23:52

aggressive inflammatory, in other words,

23:54

sort of more moderate points of view, they're

23:57

not as provocative. They don't

23:59

stoke out rage as much as some of this

24:01

other content. Look, I think that's true. I think

24:03

you see it in rallies too. I think you see it on social

24:05

media. I think you see it in rallies when does

24:07

the crowd cheer. You think you've see it in the

24:09

debates. But I think here's what matters. What

24:12

matters is that we want people to be able to communicate,

24:14

express themselves. We want people to

24:16

register to vote and stay in the political

24:18

process. What I will most worry about is

24:21

if people start opting out. So one

24:23

of the things I'm proud of that Facebook has done

24:25

is we registered over two million people

24:27

to vote, and on

24:30

Facebook, when you turn eighteen, we

24:33

basically say happy birthday, and you should register

24:35

to vote. We have a really easy tool

24:37

that lets you find your local representative. Most

24:39

people don't know who their local representative is.

24:41

So yes, I worry about all that, but we

24:43

also worry about core engagement to

24:46

making sure that people don't just opt out, but

24:48

stay engaged, that they vote, that they

24:50

know who their representatives are, they know who they're

24:52

voting, and they participate in the debate.

24:55

Mark said recently in a leaked audio

24:57

from an internal Facebook meeting that if Eliza

25:00

with Warren becomes president and

25:02

tries to break up the company, it would be an

25:04

existential threat and Facebook

25:06

would go to the mat. What does

25:08

that mean exactly, go to the mat? We'll

25:11

have to see. But what this is about is whether

25:15

I mean what we'll have to see is

25:17

what this is. This is about whether or not Facebook

25:20

should be broken up. And that's a really important

25:23

question. I think we're facing it. I think all the tech

25:25

companies are facing it um

25:27

And it's interesting. What do you think about the fear

25:29

about that? Well, I

25:31

don't know if it's if it's the biggest fear. I just think

25:34

it's it would it would you be okay if it was

25:36

broken up? Well, we don't want Facebook to be broken

25:38

up because we think we're able to provide great

25:40

services across the board. We

25:42

think we're able to invest in security across

25:45

the board. So we invest enough and security

25:47

across the board, we invest

25:49

a lot. We're investing much much, much

25:51

more. We have hired an extra thirty

25:53

five thousand people, We've put tremendous

25:56

engineering resources, and we're doing

25:58

things like red teams, asking what do we

26:00

think the bad guys would do and how would we do it.

26:02

So we're never going to fully

26:04

be ahead of everything. But if you want to understand

26:06

what companies care about, you look at where they invest

26:08

their resources. And if you look back three

26:11

to five years and you look at today, we've

26:13

totally changed when we invest our resources. And

26:15

my job has changed too. If I

26:17

look at I've been at Facebook eleven and a half years. For

26:20

the first eight or so, I

26:23

spent most of my time growing the company and sometime

26:26

protecting the community. We always did some protection,

26:28

but now that's definitely flipped. My job is

26:30

a majority building the systems

26:33

that protect and minority grow. And so

26:35

we're definitely changing as a company. We're

26:37

in a different place across the board on all of these

26:40

things. Do you think you're changing enough fast enough?

26:43

I hope. So we're trying. We're definitely

26:45

trying. I mean, I think it's about not just

26:48

the current threats, but the next threat. The question

26:50

we ask ourselves every day is, Okay, we

26:52

know what happened in and

26:55

now we're going to work to prevent it. What is the

26:57

next thing someone is going to do? And that's

26:59

going to take a lot of thought and

27:01

a lot of cooperation across the board. Do you

27:03

see breaking up Facebook as the existential

27:06

threat? Mark Zuckerberg described,

27:08

And how are you feeling about Elizabeth Warren these

27:10

days? So

27:13

I know Elizabeth Warren, and would

27:15

you support her? She's a Democratic nominee.

27:18

I mean, I'm a Democrat. I have supported

27:21

Democrat nominees in the past. I imagine

27:23

I will support a Democrat nominee

27:25

if it's Elizabeth Warren. I

27:27

mean, I'm

27:30

not in the primary right now. I think

27:32

that's a good place for us to be, and so

27:34

I'm not going to let you drag me into the primary. But

27:36

I am a very well understood

27:38

Democrat. I was a supporter of Hillary Clinton.

27:41

I have spoken for many years about my desire

27:43

for my daughter and yours to see

27:46

a woman as president. And so I'd like that

27:48

sounds like a yes, I'd like that. Not just here,

27:51

I'd like that all over the world. I have this really funny

27:53

story from a friend of mine in Germany whose son

27:55

I love. This said to his mother

27:57

he was five, I can't be chance

28:00

where and she said why

28:02

not? He said, well, I'm not a girl because

28:05

of Angelo Merkel. Because the only person

28:07

he has ever known was Angelo Merkels. That's pretty

28:09

good. You've said yourself that you have to get

28:12

right. What should be the consequences if

28:14

Facebook doesn't. I

28:18

mean, I think we have to earn back trust. Trust

28:21

is very easily broken. It is hard

28:23

to earn back. I think we have to

28:25

earn back trust. I think we need

28:28

deeper cooperation across the board. We

28:30

are arguing for regulation in some of these

28:32

areas, including things that would impact

28:34

foreign interference, and I think

28:36

the consequences to us will be grave if if

28:39

we don't, what is it? What does that mean? Consequences

28:41

will be I think I think it would further a road trust.

28:44

I think people will have less faith in the platform

28:46

and our services. People are continuing to use our services.

28:49

That's trust. We need to earn back, not just with what

28:51

we say, but what we do. And it is

28:53

about finding those syndicates and taking them

28:55

down. It is showing that we can cooperate

28:58

across the board, on both sides of the AI, in Congress

29:00

and around the world to find the things that

29:02

threaten our democracy. What can other

29:05

people do to help Facebook solve

29:07

some of these problems? Well,

29:10

thank you for the question. I mean, I think there's a lot of things.

29:12

So one of the things that makes us very different

29:14

than where we were years ago is I think pretty

29:16

radical transparency. So, for example,

29:18

our community standards are completely public.

29:21

We go public every week or so I think

29:23

every two weeks with here's

29:26

some of the decisions we're making, and we take feedback.

29:28

We're publishing a transparency report

29:31

by next year. We're gonna do it every quarter, just

29:33

like earnings, because it's just as important to us

29:35

as earnings, which has Here's

29:37

all the stuff we took down, So

29:39

here's how many billions of accounts that where that number

29:41

comes from. Here's how much terrorism content,

29:44

Here's how much hate speech, and then

29:46

how much of it did we find before it was reported

29:48

to us? So what that report

29:50

shows is iss n L KADA content of

29:53

what we take down, we find it

29:55

before it's reported hate speech.

29:57

We're in the mid sixty percentages now that's

30:00

more than double where we were a year and a half ago,

30:02

but it still means that thirty percent of the hate

30:05

speech we take down has to be reported

30:07

to us, which means someone has seen it, and

30:09

so we are whack a mole in a way, though, Cheryl

30:12

that everything you take down, something pops

30:14

up. In its place. How can you ever get

30:17

really get control over this. Well,

30:19

it is like whackable, right we take something down. I

30:21

mean, right now, as you and I have spoken on this

30:23

stage, someone many people have posted things.

30:26

Our job is to build technology

30:28

that takes that down as quickly as

30:30

possible, and have enough human staff that they

30:32

can take down the rest really quickly. It

30:35

is whack a mole, but it is the price of

30:37

free speech. We have a service that two

30:39

points seven billion people are using our services.

30:43

That means that there's going to be, you know, all

30:45

the beauty and all the ugliness of humanity.

30:47

And our job, and it is whack a mole, is

30:50

to get as much of the bad off as quickly as

30:52

possible and let the good continue.

30:55

And the only way to get rid of all of it is to shut down

30:57

all of these services. And I don't think anyone's really for

30:59

that. What about temporarily

31:01

shutting them down so you can fix the problems?

31:03

Would you ever do anything like that? I

31:06

don't think the temporary shutdown would

31:08

fix the problems because we have to be in the

31:10

game to see what people are doing to build the

31:12

systems to shut down. But the point

31:15

is people have speech. Now, Like, if you think about

31:17

my childhood, right, I grew up in Miami.

31:19

I went to public school. If I wanted to say something

31:21

to the world, I had no no opportunity to do it. Couldn't

31:23

get on your show. No one

31:26

was no. Seriously, you weren't going to take me as a guest.

31:28

No, I wasn't young enough for me that. But hypothetically

31:31

I couldn't get on the person. Before I could

31:33

write a not ed to the local paper, they weren't going to take

31:35

it. People did not have voice full stop.

31:38

Now, that was a world that people

31:40

felt actually pretty comfortable, and you could fact

31:42

check everything. You could fast

31:44

forward to today, whatever services

31:46

get shut down, you can post somewhere, which

31:49

means that everyone has voice, which means that things are not

31:51

fact checked. Now that doesn't mean

31:53

we don't have responsibility. We do, but

31:56

we are in a fundamentally different

31:58

place where people around the world have

32:00

voice. And as hard as this

32:02

is and as challenging as it is, I

32:05

so deeply believe in that world, so

32:07

deeply I am. As

32:10

a friend of mine behind the stage who went to my high school,

32:12

our high school teacher found a

32:14

kidney donor on Facebook because

32:18

she could publish, and she could reach people in a

32:20

way she never could. We just announced

32:22

that two billion dollars have been raised by

32:24

people on Facebook for their for

32:27

their for their birthdays, and their personal fundraisers.

32:29

Does that mean everything on Facebook is good? Of course

32:31

not. But you can't shut this down without

32:34

shutting down a lot of good. And I

32:36

don't think that's an unacceptable answer. And so

32:38

we're going to fight to get the bad

32:40

off and let the good keep happening.

32:42

And I think there is a lot of good out there.

32:46

When we come back a look at the alarming

32:48

psychological effects of social media

32:50

on our kids, whether it's time

32:52

to take a second look at lean in in light

32:55

of the me too movement, and I'll

32:57

ask Cheryl about her legacy.

33:05

Let's talk about kids in social media.

33:07

This isn't so good. The addictive

33:10

nature the

33:12

the the addictive nature of social

33:14

media is just one concern. But as

33:16

you know, I know you have two kids twelve

33:19

and fourteen. Now, depression

33:21

is up dramatically among young

33:23

people, and the suicide rate of adolescent

33:26

girls is up one hundred and

33:28

seventy after two decades

33:30

of decline. And as you know, the leading explanation

33:33

is the arrival of smartphones and social

33:36

media. So, as a parent and someone

33:38

who has been a powerful voice for

33:40

women, how do you respond

33:43

to that terrifying statistic and

33:45

the bigger question, what can be done

33:47

about it? We take this really

33:50

seriously. I take it seriously as a Facebook execut

33:52

I take it seriously as a mom. So

33:54

it turns out that all uses of

33:57

phones, all uses of social media, are not

33:59

equal. There are some that are actually quite

34:01

good for well being, and there are some that are not

34:03

as good. So when you are actively

34:05

consuming, when you are sharing, when you are

34:07

messaging, when you are posting, liking, you're

34:10

interacting with people, that's fairly

34:12

positive. When you are more passively

34:14

consuming, that is more negative.

34:16

And so we made a very big change to the Facebook

34:19

algorithms in January.

34:21

And what about Instagram as well? Yeah,

34:24

and Instagram we're working on as well. But we dramatically

34:26

dialed up the friends and family sharing and

34:28

dramatically dialed down on

34:31

self harm. Our policies are very

34:33

strict. We do not allow any glorification

34:36

of it. We don't allow any We don't

34:38

allow any glorification of self harm. We don't allow

34:40

any encouragement. We do allow people

34:42

to post about their experiences, and that has

34:44

been very important. We've worked

34:47

really hard to develop automated tools,

34:49

so if you post something that looks

34:51

like you might be about to self harm,

34:53

we will automatically flag UM

34:56

phone numbers and helplines. We've had a tremendous

34:59

response from this, and if we think there's

35:01

imminent danger, we refer it to local law

35:03

enforcement, and many people have actually been

35:05

saved by this. The other thing where

35:07

well, that's sort of not addressing the problem

35:10

of addiction, of you know, comparison

35:13

being the thief of joy. Let me finish

35:15

some of the other things we're doing, because these are all really important,

35:17

and I'm conscious that this clock is beeping

35:19

at us UM, so they're

35:21

gonna give me a little extra so they are okay, then

35:24

I can slow down. So

35:29

so one of the other things that happens is, you know, social

35:31

media can considered by some to

35:34

be a place where you know, you're supposed to have the

35:36

perfect the perfect life, the perfect body,

35:38

a real issue for teenage girls. You and I have

35:40

talked about. We're really trying to go against

35:42

that. We ran a campaign that's very popular

35:45

UM on Instagram with real men and

35:47

women with real body types talking

35:50

about that. We've worked with the National Suicide

35:52

Awareness Lines on this, We're working with the w

35:54

h O on mental health. We're

35:57

also I think the answer is almost always

35:59

technology. So one of the things I think is

36:01

great. We have a comment warning now that

36:03

we've been rolling out, where our automatic

36:06

filters detect that you might be posting something

36:08

that's not nice. We will do a pop

36:10

up and say do you really want to post that? And

36:13

again we're seeing a tremendous response.

36:15

We also have abilities to restrict people to

36:17

prevent bullying, so that you know, if

36:19

someone were bullying you, you can restrict

36:22

them. They won't know you're restricting them, and

36:24

if they comment on your post, no one can see them.

36:26

And so these issues are real and we

36:29

have to work hard on building the technology

36:31

and that technology and the answers. There's

36:33

so many huge challenges and

36:35

how difficult is it CHERYLD truly

36:38

to address any of these when solving

36:41

them in some ways works against

36:43

your business model. You know, one critic

36:45

said Facebook has priced itself

36:47

out a morality, and I'm

36:49

just curious if implementing

36:52

some of these changes is bad for business.

36:55

So on this, I'm really pretty proud of

36:57

our track record if you look a

36:59

number of years ago and you listen to

37:01

our earnings calls. So earnings calls are exactly

37:03

what people are worried about. They're directed at investors.

37:05

It's our quarterly report. If you actually watch us and

37:08

earning calls, we are spending as

37:10

much time talking about the measures we take

37:12

on safety and security as we are about

37:14

our business growth. Easily. We

37:16

actually said many quarters ago, this

37:19

is so important to us that we are going to make massive

37:21

investments and change the profitability

37:23

of our company by making real resource

37:26

investments. And we have to the tune of billions

37:28

and billions of dollars, and we will keep doing it. We've

37:31

taken action after action after action

37:33

that is better for protecting the community

37:36

than it is for our growth, and we're going to continue

37:38

to do that. Mark has said it over and over again. I

37:40

have said it over and over again. Let me ask you about

37:43

Mark testifying before the House Financial

37:45

Services committing and a hearing focused on Facebook's

37:48

plans to launch a new digital currency called

37:50

Libra. Given the massive reach and

37:52

trust the public has experience with Facebook

37:55

selling personal information through

37:57

third parties, is it realistic to expect

38:00

the world to embrace cryptocurrency

38:03

an initiative like libra given

38:05

that protecting personal financial

38:07

data really is next level

38:09

in terms of the need for

38:11

security. And I understand

38:14

you were supposed to testify, but you had kind

38:16

of a testy exchange with Maxine

38:18

Waters when you were up on Capitol Hill or

38:20

somewhere. Can you tell us what happened. We

38:22

have a lot of respect for Maxine Waters for the work

38:24

we've done, and we worked really closely with her committee.

38:27

It was her choice to have Mark testify, and that's

38:29

obviously something we respect. But what

38:31

happened between you just

38:33

answer the question, you don't mind on libra Um,

38:37

what we have said is that we are

38:39

working on a digital currency. I think it's

38:41

really important to think about how many people in

38:43

the world are not financially included

38:46

in the banking system. By the way, not a shock.

38:48

Most of those are women. Women

38:51

pay huge frommittance fees. If you go to

38:53

work as a domestic worker in another home

38:55

in another country, you're sending

38:57

back money and you're paying larger fees if

38:59

you're a one. And there are people who are unbanked. They

39:02

work in the fields and their

39:04

money can be stolen by anyone, and women are

39:06

the most vulnerable. So I think there are really

39:08

good reasons for a digital currency to exist,

39:11

and I think they will be good for a lot

39:13

of people. That said, we've been

39:15

very clear that we're not launching

39:17

this until we have regulatory approval.

39:20

It's not a Facebook project. The currency

39:22

itself is an international nonprofit

39:25

set up that we are part of. I know that we

39:27

wanted to have a moment to talk about

39:30

lean In and some of the research that you

39:32

have found about the discomfort men

39:35

feel mentoring and spending time

39:37

alone with women. This is something that

39:39

greatly concerns you. And

39:41

what can we do about the increasing

39:44

unwillingness of men to mentor

39:46

their female colleagues and tell us a little

39:48

more about that research. Well, it's really

39:50

important because look, the METO

39:52

movement you and I have had chance to talk about it

39:54

is so important because women have faced

39:56

too much harassment for too long and I

39:59

think we're in a better place, but we're certainly not protecting

40:01

everyone we should. That said,

40:04

we have to worry about the unintended consequences.

40:06

So what our research shows, this is lean In and

40:08

survey Monkey, is that six

40:11

of male managers in the United states

40:14

are not willing right now, are nervous

40:17

about having a one on one interaction

40:19

with a woman, including a meeting. We do

40:21

a show of hands in the audience. Who's promoted

40:23

someone you've never met with, just

40:28

in case you can't see there are no hands. If

40:30

you cannot get a meeting, you cannot get a

40:32

promotion. A senior man in

40:34

the world today is nine times more likely to

40:36

hesitate to travel with the junior woman and

40:39

six times more likely to hesitate to travel

40:41

to have dinner with the junior woman

40:43

and a man. So who's getting the travel the men,

40:46

who's getting the dinners the men? And who's gonna get promoted

40:48

the men? Which is what was happening before,

40:50

and talks a lot about that. It's

40:53

absolutely the case you promote the people

40:55

you know better now. I think everyone

40:57

should be able to do all of these things with everyone.

41:00

You should be able to have a meeting, keep the door up, and if

41:02

you want to travel does not mean a hotel

41:04

room. Travel means a public airport. Dinner

41:07

does not mean you're flat, dinner means a

41:09

restaurant. We have to be able to do all of

41:11

this. But what we really want men to understand is

41:13

that if you're not going to have dinner with women, don't

41:15

have dinner with men, group lunches

41:17

for everyone, make access

41:20

equal, because if we don't make access equal,

41:22

we're never going to move these numbers at the top, and women

41:24

today have seven percent seven

41:27

percent of the CEO jobs Before before,

41:30

we guys want to talk to you because we talked about

41:32

lean in prior to Me Too, and

41:35

given the systemic failures of so many

41:37

organizations that we've seen that have tolerated

41:40

sexual misconduct and harassment

41:42

silence women through n d as, do you think,

41:45

in retrospect, given the very real

41:47

revelations that have surfaced

41:49

as a result of the Me Too movement, lean

41:51

in might have put too much of the onus

41:53

on women to change instead of getting

41:56

a lot of these screwed up companies to change.

41:59

Well, we've always done. One of the problems

42:01

with the word lean in is you can really oversimplify

42:04

without actually reading the book and ourself. But if you read

42:06

actually what we've written and the work my foundation

42:08

is done. What we've always said is

42:10

that we wanted to be okay for women to be ambitious,

42:13

and we want companies to change

42:15

and fix and it has to be both. It's

42:18

actually pretty interesting if you save the sentence

42:20

he's ambitious, it's pretty

42:22

neutral or positive. He's going to get the job done.

42:25

She's ambitious. That's a negative.

42:27

And that is still true today.

42:29

If you look at the use of the word bossy.

42:32

You know, go to the playground anywhere, I

42:35

promise, l A or anywhere this weekend and

42:37

you see a little girl. You won't see a little girl get

42:39

called bossy. And you walk up to

42:41

her parents and you say that little girl's

42:43

not bossy. Her parents probably did it, big smile

42:45

on your face. That little girl has executive

42:48

leadership skills. No

42:50

one says that. No one

42:52

says that because we

42:55

don't expect leadership from girls, and

42:57

so we have to fix that problem.

42:59

And that means companies have to change, culture

43:01

has to change, and women have to feel

43:03

free. Now they're really well. I

43:06

have one question at I

43:09

might discussion, but time to wrap. Thank

43:11

you, Graham. Was that that my

43:13

final question? Getting back getting

43:15

back to all the controversies,

43:18

I mean Facebook, My

43:20

last question is I'm gonna gaun

43:22

us, but no, I'm curious because I

43:24

just wanted to end this conversation, Cheryl,

43:27

given all the controversy Facebook

43:29

is facing clearly in the crosshairs.

43:32

I mean, the company people

43:34

love to hate. Since you

43:36

are so associated with Facebook,

43:39

how worried are you about your

43:41

personal legacy as a

43:43

result of your association with this company.

43:47

I think I have a really big responsibility here

43:49

for a company I love and believe in that.

43:52

I really believe in what I said about

43:54

people having voice. I really know

43:56

that when I was growing up, I had no ability

43:59

to reach anyone, and most people

44:01

in the world didn't, and social media has changed

44:03

that. There are a lot of problems

44:05

to fix, and we did a great job in this audience

44:08

talking about a lot of them in this interview. They're

44:10

real and I have a real responsibility

44:13

to do it. But I feel more committed

44:15

and energized than ever because

44:17

I want to fight to preserve the good. Because

44:20

I met a woman not so long ago

44:22

who for her birthday raised

44:24

four thousand dollars for a domestic violence

44:26

shelter that she volunteers at, and

44:29

crying, she told me I saved two women

44:31

from domestic abuse. I never could

44:33

have done that before Facebook, and so

44:36

there are really big issues to fix, but

44:38

I am so committed to

44:40

giving people voice and giving people away

44:42

to react that I just want to keep doing the work

44:45

and committed. They feel honored to do it and committed

44:47

to fix problem. I want to fix

44:49

them all right, Well, they're definitely

44:51

gonna kill me if I don't stop now. Definite,

44:54

Lamberg. Thank thank you, thank you. After

44:59

we were done, Cheryl and I later exchanged

45:02

emails. She told me this was the toughest interview

45:04

she had ever done, but complimented

45:06

me on being so well prepared.

45:09

She was incredibly gracious about

45:11

the whole thing. Meanwhile, about a week

45:14

after our conversation, Twitter CEO

45:16

Jack Dorsey announced it was banning

45:18

all paid political ads globally.

45:21

Facebook, though, is still sticking with its

45:23

policy, at least for now.

45:26

Thanks so much for listening everyone. If a

45:28

weekly podcast isn't enough

45:30

of me, you can follow me yet on

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and Twitter. And if you feel like you're drowning

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in a seven sea of news and information,

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say, the best part of

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waking up is Katie

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in your inbox. Sorry,

45:55

folgers, that was pretty bad, wasn't

45:57

it. Everyone, Thanks again for listening.

46:00

Everyone, and I can't wait to be in your

46:02

ear again next week.

46:10

Next Question with Katie Curic is a production of

46:12

I Heart Radio and Katie Curic Media.

46:15

The executive producers are Katie Curic, Lauren

46:17

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producers are Emily Pinto and Derek Clemens.

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