0:02

When

0:02

Vivian Schiller signed on as a senior

0:04

executive at Twitter in twenty thirteen,

0:07

she was excited to be joining a company

0:09

that seem poised to remake the world.

0:11

It was a heavy time for the social media

0:13

startup. Just a few years earlier, it had been

0:15

messages on Twitter that connected democracy

0:18

activists throughout the Middle East leading to

0:20

a revolutionary moment known as the Arab

0:22

spring. But Shell soon became

0:25

disillusioned and has long since left the

0:27

company. In the years since Twitter

0:29

was increasingly hijacked by purveyors

0:31

of hate and disinformation following

0:34

democracy instead of spreading it.

0:36

Now billionaire Elon Musk has taken

0:38

over Twitter, fired half its workforce,

0:41

and signal plans to revise if

0:43

not roll back the content moderation

0:45

policies that led the company to kick Donald

0:47

Trump off the platform for spreading

0:50

election lives. We'll talk to

0:52

Shiller about what we should make of the must takeover

0:54

and what it portends for the future of Twitter,

0:56

social media, and American democracy

0:59

on this episode of skullduggery.

1:03

I do solemnly swear

1:06

that I will faithfully execute the office

1:08

of president of the United States and

1:10

welcome to the best of my building. Reserve,

1:13

protect, and defend the

1:15

constitution of the United States. So

1:17

help me god. So help me god.

1:19

So help me god. So help me god. Don't

1:21

help me die. Don't help me die.

1:24

I'm

1:24

Michael Isakoff, chief investigative correspondent for

1:26

Yahoo News. I'm Dan Clydeman, editor

1:28

in chief of Yahoo News.

1:30

And I'm Victoria Bessetti, a senior counselor

1:32

at States United.

1:33

So the other day, right

1:35

after Musk had taken over

1:37

Twitter. I'm walking the

1:40

dog and have my head buried

1:42

in my iPhone reading all about

1:44

what Musk is doing

1:47

to the company and the threats

1:49

to its content moderation policies.

1:53

And some elderly gentleman comes

1:55

up to me and says, get

1:57

your head out of your phone, take

1:59

in the environment, look at the trees,

2:01

and look he was

2:03

right. You know, we all spend too

2:05

much time scrolling

2:08

through Twitter, and this

2:10

is we shouldn't be getting

2:12

our heads off our phone. That said,

2:14

Twitter clearly plays an

2:16

outsized role in our

2:18

political dialogue. So the

2:20

idea that this eccentric billionaire,

2:23

Elon Musk, could run the company

2:26

as he wishes and influence what

2:28

Americans see and read and

2:31

how they get their news is I think

2:33

troubling on its face and,

2:35

you know, put on top of that.

2:37

Musk's start in which

2:39

he, a, retweets some

2:42

crazy conspiracy theory about the

2:44

Paul Pelosi attack. signals

2:47

he plans to have Donald Trump back

2:49

on the platform, although it's, you

2:51

know, he's saying we're

2:53

gonna establish our new

2:55

content

2:55

moderation guidelines first.

2:58

All of that has huge implications

3:01

for all of us. Well

3:03

well, now we have a title for the podcast.

3:06

What's that? Smell the roses

3:08

is a cough. Yeah. But

3:11

the trees smell the roses. Yeah.

3:13

Yeah. So, you know, we're we're, like,

3:15

four days away from, you know, these very

3:18

consequential mid term elections and

3:20

everyone's obsessed with politics

3:22

right now. The one story that's,

3:24

you know, really breaking through is

3:26

Elon Musk buying Twitter. That's partly

3:29

because people are fascinated by

3:31

Elon Musk and his Mercurial

3:33

personality. It's partly because people are assessed

3:35

with Twitter and many people, including

3:38

many of our colleagues, and probably some

3:40

of our listeners are addicted to Twitter, But

3:43

it's also relevant to

3:45

the election because of the outsized

3:47

influence that Twitter has,

3:49

because of the dangers of disinformation

3:52

and voter intimidation. And because

3:55

of the fundamental questions that

3:57

Twitter and Twitter's problems and social

3:59

media's problems more generally posed

4:02

to our democracy. So

4:05

it deserves to break through and I'm

4:08

very glad that we're gonna be having

4:10

this conversation today with Vivian Schiller

4:13

who was a a high ranking executive

4:15

there and and is very thoughtful about

4:17

these issues and how important

4:19

they are. Howard Bauchner: I

4:20

think one of to me at least one of the really

4:22

interesting things about this is

4:24

that In the past, Elon Musk

4:26

has operated into

4:28

a certain degree a much

4:30

more constrained space. He's been

4:32

running a space

4:34

exploration company and an

4:36

automobile company. He has

4:38

stepped into an arena that I think he

4:40

doesn't fully understand and

4:42

the and he is

4:45

beginning to get buffeted by forces

4:47

that I think he never fully

4:49

expected and possibly isn't prepared to

4:51

deal with. Twitter is

4:53

fundamentally, and at the end of the day,

4:56

an organization that is ruled

4:58

by law, and that is ruled

5:00

by perception, and that it is ruled

5:02

by its millions of users. and

5:04

Musk to the extent that he thinks he can

5:06

actually control or dictate the

5:08

fate of that product or the fate

5:10

of its economics. is

5:12

probably gonna find out he's sadly

5:14

mistaken. He's already

5:16

the subject of a major class action lawsuit

5:18

because of the way he fired all of these people.

5:21

he's potentially the subject of a federal

5:23

investigation regarding who his second

5:25

largest investor is in

5:27

Saudi Arabia. billionaire just point

5:30

that out. Yes. He's got advertiser revolts.

5:32

He's

5:32

got advertiser revolts, and

5:35

he's got a user based revolt. And

5:37

the thing he needs remember is that

5:39

his users are his actual product.

5:41

In stark contrast to

5:44

rockets and cars, where

5:47

he can control the product

5:49

and make the product. He can't

5:51

do that at all with Twitter. And I

5:53

think he's in for a sharp awakening

5:55

and maybe unpleasant look at his

5:57

bank account in the not too distant

5:59

future.

5:59

Well, that would be interesting. And who's

6:02

gonna do that? take a look at

6:04

his bank account. Are we talking through

6:06

litigation, lawsuits, or, you

6:08

know, some of the old governmental I

6:10

mean, intervention investigation.

6:12

Some of it is just out there. I mean, he's

6:14

he's he's taken on thirteen billion

6:16

dollars in debt in this

6:18

acquisition and he he

6:20

has to to service that

6:22

debt, you know, he's gonna be paying a billion

6:24

dollars a year, which is

6:27

more than Twitter earns. So,

6:29

you know, just to Victoria's point,

6:31

I mean, just just financially, just

6:33

on that basis alone, he's

6:36

got he he may have bitten off more

6:38

that he can chew. And and the point is, yes,

6:40

he is a very successful businessman. He's the wealthiest

6:42

man in the world. but just to emphasize

6:45

Victoria's point, media

6:47

is a very very different business.

6:49

And

6:50

to answer your point, Mike,

6:53

government may be, but this guy's in

6:55

hock up to his eyeballs, it to

6:57

banks. And those banks those

6:59

banks have covenants and

7:01

they very are very, very

7:03

carefully looking at their investment

7:06

and at their at what

7:08

Musk is doing with it. So he's

7:10

gotta he's gotta hit his covenants.

7:11

And when he does It'll be

7:13

fascinating to see. I I'm just,

7:15

you know, from larger perspective,

7:19

historians turn in

7:21

the century would talk about the outsized

7:23

influence of the

7:25

press barons The yellow press

7:27

all first and Joseph Pulitzer.

7:30

Look at today to the extent to

7:32

which we have not evolved

7:34

at all. Rupert Murdoch, Jeff

7:37

Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon

7:40

Musk, billionaires, all

7:42

of them, having a

7:45

really outsized significant role

7:47

in determining how we get our

7:49

news and what news we read.

7:51

And I think that on its face

7:53

ought to be a trouble issue

7:56

for all of us. But anyway, we've got

7:58

a great guest to

7:59

talk about all this. Vivian

8:02

Schiller, a former Twitter executive herself,

8:05

So let's get to it.

8:13

Alright. We now have with us Vivian

8:16

Schiller. She was once the chief

8:18

of global news at Twitter.

8:20

She's also been the

8:22

president and CEO of NPR, General

8:25

Manager of The New York Times, a

8:27

Chief Digital Officer of NBC News.

8:30

So fair to say she is

8:32

a steep in the news business,

8:34

Vivian. Welcome to Skaldegree.

8:36

Thank you.

8:37

Thanks so much. Glad to be back.

8:38

So you are at

8:41

Twitter in its relatively

8:43

early stages two thousand

8:46

thirteen, fourteen, if I remember

8:48

correctly. Yeah. You've long since left,

8:50

but you've like all of us,

8:52

you've been watching Elon

8:54

Musk's takeover and the

8:56

turmoil within Twitter now.

8:58

How concerned are you

9:01

with what Musk seems to

9:03

be doing at Twitter.

9:05

Very

9:05

concerned for a

9:07

whole bunch of reasons. starting with

9:09

the fact that there doesn't seem to

9:11

be a plan, a strategy

9:14

that I have heard. It seems to

9:16

keep shifting hour to hour

9:18

so I don't know what's going to happen to Twitter as a

9:20

business. I'm concerned because

9:22

they have fired not all,

9:24

but a huge number of people that

9:26

looked out for the integrity

9:28

of the content on Twitter.

9:30

And I'm concerned because even though

9:32

I left Twitter long ago,

9:35

I'm still a heavy Twitter user, and it's incredibly

9:37

valuable to me. And I feel like it

9:39

has the potential to either

9:42

turn into a trap, sheep, or go

9:44

away entirely. So,

9:46

yeah, lots of

9:47

problems here. Let

9:48

me ask you a follow-up on just on

9:50

the firings, Vivian. because

9:53

at least as of the time we are

9:55

recording this podcast on Saturday, that's the

9:57

latest big news. And, you

9:59

know, basically, in a

10:01

number of hours, Musk fired

10:03

half the workforce. It was a

10:05

appears to have been a totally chaotic

10:07

process with people getting fired in the

10:09

middle of the night, people getting

10:11

locked out of their email, but

10:13

not their Which is how they found out. Yeah. Which is

10:15

how they found out. There was a crazy

10:17

story about, you know, there was some product

10:19

meeting where people were it was a video

10:21

conference where people were calling in. one

10:23

person on the call just disappeared because

10:26

at that moment, they've been locked out of

10:28

the Twitter system. So I'm

10:30

just curious, what does the

10:32

way this hack and

10:34

tell you at all about

10:36

Elon Musk and how

10:38

he might run this company. The there's

10:40

a professor of management at Harvard

10:42

who said that she called it a master

10:44

class in not how to do this.

10:47

Some might argue that, you know, you you gotta pull

10:49

the band aid off if you had to do

10:51

this. to get Twitter on

10:53

a viable, you know,

10:55

financial path that you might as well do it

10:57

quickly, but I'm curious what your thoughts are

10:59

about how this went down. Well,

11:00

there's and then there's just complete and utter

11:03

badness, which is,

11:03

you know, what appears to have happened.

11:05

Look, he owns the joint now. He

11:08

can do whatever he wants. And

11:11

so, I mean, he had sort of telegraphed that he

11:13

was gonna fire a bunch of people. So

11:15

that part is not a surprise,

11:17

but And I suppose, you know, it's

11:19

not a surprise that it was handled so chaoticly.

11:21

I'm just concerned that

11:23

based on the kinds of categories of people,

11:25

well, just I've got to share numbers. I mean,

11:28

inevitably he's going to lose a

11:30

lot of people who make sure that the

11:32

site can basically stay line

11:34

is protected from

11:35

outside cyberattacks

11:37

is

11:37

protected from content

11:40

influence campaigns. where

11:42

is protected from, you know,

11:44

the kind of garbage that sadly

11:46

is part of human nature and, you

11:48

know, people would like to, you know,

11:50

inflect on on Twitter

11:52

users. So I don't know. Look, the guy,

11:54

he's the you know, he's the richest man

11:56

in the world. Right? And he's built a couple of

11:58

successful businesses, but

11:59

sure doesn't seem to be much of a

12:02

strategy

12:02

here that I can discern. And just one really quick

12:04

follow-up. It's just the what he's been

12:06

saying is he had to do this Twitter's losing

12:08

four million dollars a day, and it's

12:10

because of these activists

12:12

-- Oh, come there. You

12:14

know, who who are scaring off the

12:16

advertisers. I mean, that's bullshit.

12:18

Right? He's scaring off the

12:20

advertisers. The activists were trying to

12:22

tell him what he needs to do to protect the

12:24

site. then he threatened to

12:26

name and shame the advertisers

12:29

who are no longer advertising, boy, that's

12:31

a real way to win hearts and minds of the

12:33

people that, you know, keep your lights

12:35

on. Let me step back for a moment and

12:37

contextualize Twitter's importance.

12:40

Only and only is actually probably

12:42

not the right word, but only about twenty

12:44

five percent of Americans used Twitter,

12:47

and only a sub portion of

12:49

them used Twitter for purposes of

12:51

the news. So all of us on this

12:53

podcast are probably slightly Twitter

12:55

addicted and use it for a lot

12:57

of our jobs. But why

12:59

should the average American,

13:01

most of whom are not on Twitter

13:03

care about what happens to this

13:05

platform? Look, the

13:06

people that are listening to this

13:07

podcast right now in which we're

13:09

talking about Twitter is exactly

13:11

why Twitter punches above its

13:13

weight in terms of the reach and

13:15

influence that it has. Journalists

13:17

are all on Twitter. So

13:19

journalists then use Twitter

13:21

whether they

13:21

should or shouldn't. That's a whole other topic

13:24

for

13:24

another day in their reporting.

13:26

And so it is and, you

13:28

know, heads of state use Twitter,

13:31

Titans of corporate industry use Twitter,

13:33

whether they'll continue to as a whole other

13:35

story. So it has tremendous

13:38

influence beyond just the people who happen

13:40

to be

13:40

on Twitter all day like all of us.

13:42

And there's

13:43

nothing like Twitter. There is

13:45

no other platform that

13:48

is public and real

13:50

time communication platform.

13:52

Howard Bauchner:

13:52

Now, in the midst of all of the turmoil

13:55

that's been going on on Twitter, there have been

13:57

a lot people who've been leaving or saying that

13:59

they're leaving, and there

14:01

are a fair number of people who are

14:03

kind of pumping up alternative platforms

14:05

to Twitter. you hear about, I think,

14:07

Mastodon is one of the I I hear that

14:09

Jack Dorsey, who's one of the former CEOs

14:11

of Twitter, is starting up his own kind

14:13

of new new Twitter.

14:15

Darcy is the one who pushed pushed

14:18

Musk to buy Twitter. Yep.

14:20

So so there is no

14:21

alternative. Is that your that

14:23

There is no alternative today. There

14:25

is no alternative today.

14:27

So I should have in the

14:29

introduction mentioned your current

14:31

position. Thank you. I I would never get Yeah.

14:34

You are chief of Aspen

14:37

Digital and executive director of

14:39

Aspen Digital. And

14:41

I gather one of the

14:43

issues you deal with, which you're part of the

14:45

Aspen Institute, is

14:47

the whole question of

14:49

the role of social media companies and

14:53

how they have both

14:55

contributed to

14:57

Democratic dialogue at least

14:59

that was the original conception

15:01

of Twitter and others and,

15:03

you know, how they have been degraded

15:06

by hate speech and and

15:08

conspiracy theories. And and, you know,

15:10

look, Musk started off

15:12

on a bad foot on

15:14

the content moderation side

15:16

of the equation. First, he retweets

15:19

some wild conspiracy theory

15:22

about the attack Paul Pelosi.

15:24

And then, you know, in a

15:26

twelve hour period right

15:28

after his takeover it

15:30

was pointed out that there was like a

15:32

five hundred percent increase in

15:34

the use of the n word,

15:37

something that should disturb everybody.

15:39

On the other hand, there is a

15:42

question, you know, the outstanding

15:44

about content moderation and

15:46

whether there can be any real

15:48

rules that could be

15:50

guide posts for social media

15:52

companies like Twitter and whether there's

15:54

any role for the government at all

15:56

in dictating what information, not

15:58

dictating or influencing what information

16:00

we see.

16:02

How do you navigate that

16:04

larger issue of

16:06

content moderation in an age

16:08

of conspiracy theories in hate

16:10

speech. And preserve the

16:12

first amendment. Yeah. carefully

16:14

and imperfectly. You know,

16:17

look, I can't think of any platform

16:18

that has gotten content

16:21

moderation entirely right. I don't even know

16:23

that it's possible. But it

16:25

requires diligence

16:26

and vigilance to

16:28

what

16:28

you're seeing happening on your platform line. I'm

16:31

saying if you work in content moderation,

16:33

it

16:33

requires judgment and

16:36

flexibility. It cannot be automated,

16:38

and you will

16:40

never get

16:41

it perfectly right, but you can just keep

16:43

trying to move as close as you

16:45

can to good enough. So,

16:47

you know, the thing is on

16:49

on Twitter,

16:50

pre Musk, there were plenty of issues. I mean,

16:53

Musk was right. There's a bot problem.

16:55

There's hate speech on Twitter.

16:57

There were attempts, most of which have been

16:59

thorted at at sort of coordinated, you

17:01

know, to thwart coordinated,

17:03

you know, misinteraction campaigns.

17:06

Twitter, I think, was

17:08

one of the best and the most

17:10

thoughtful on

17:11

these issues, even though there was a

17:13

lot of

17:14

problems. And I will say that the guy who is

17:16

now running trust in safety at Twitter

17:18

because the his bosses were

17:21

all fired, name is

17:22

UL Roth, is

17:23

still there and at least

17:26

as of this recording at

17:28

this moment on Saturday morning

17:30

at eleven sixteen AM eastern,

17:32

Musk seems to like them and is basically

17:34

on Twitter telling everybody to listen to

17:36

this guy. And I

17:36

know you well, and he

17:39

is a person of utmost integrity. So

17:41

that is sort of the small comfort

17:43

that I'm hanging on to right now.

17:45

But

17:45

content moderation is is

17:48

really, really, really difficult. The

17:50

role

17:50

of the government? Oh, man.

17:53

No.

17:53

Yeah. Just a

17:55

quick follow-up just on that, which is that, I mean, if you look

17:57

at kind of the legal landscape, you've got

18:00

challenges to Section three

18:02

twenty Is it section two thirty? Section

18:04

five o? Is it you got set

18:06

challenges to section two thirty, which immunizes

18:08

the platform. more basic class. Yeah.

18:10

Yeah. Yeah. Which it immunizes the that

18:13

form from liability for, you know,

18:15

content that appears on their sites. Right? And then

18:17

you've got you've got challenges to the

18:19

moderation of content in

18:21

states like Texas and

18:23

Florida. So Mike was talking about,

18:25

you know, how you, you know,

18:27

navigate all that. How do you situate Musk on

18:29

the continuum between those

18:31

two things? I don't

18:32

know. I mean, I don't know because he hasn't

18:34

told us. Yeah. I mean, he says that he's

18:36

for free speech, which has

18:39

turned into a completely empty

18:42

term that appears to mean

18:44

whatever this the person

18:46

uttering those words wants it

18:48

to mean. So we really

18:50

don't know. So, you

18:52

know, and it's gonna be I

18:54

mean, if he doesn't know already, he's gonna quickly

18:56

learn, there is no such thing as as a

18:58

site with no content moderation. It

19:00

certainly won't last long because

19:02

that's where you're gonna get his, you know,

19:04

his hated spots. You're gonna

19:06

get hate speech. You're

19:06

gonna get spam. You're gonna

19:09

get solicitations for

19:11

all kinds of garbage. You're gonna

19:13

get porn. It's just going to be

19:15

You can't run a business that

19:17

way. So so far, Musk

19:21

has managed to turn

19:23

off most of the advertisers

19:26

on Twitter and severely

19:28

restrict or severely kind

19:30

of You've been alienated, alienated. Okay.

19:32

I just want to be clear about it.

19:34

And so severely

19:36

impacted the incoming revenue of

19:38

Twitter over the course of at least the

19:40

next year, probably. He has fired so

19:43

many people that he's imperiled the

19:45

product quality. Is

19:48

Twitter on life support right now? How

19:50

long does it actually have? You know, I think

19:52

we'll know a lot next week with

19:54

the midterms. I don't know. I mean, I don't I

19:56

don't wanna just you know, I try to make up

19:58

an answer to that. I really

19:59

don't know. I mean, it hasn't don't

20:02

forget, most people only got fired

20:04

yesterday. So I've seen those same reports

20:06

about increases in the use of the n

20:08

word, etcetera. But I haven't

20:10

seen you know, we haven't really seen

20:12

any other must impact on

20:14

Twitter yet. I will say that I feel

20:16

like the energy on Twitter has gone

20:18

this is just my experience. This

20:19

is not, you know,

20:21

a quantitative not

20:24

based on quantitative data, but I feel like

20:26

people are a little quieter on Twitter right

20:27

now. So you do actually believe that he can

20:30

turn it around. No. I have

20:31

no idea. I mean, he has not

20:33

given us any

20:34

any plan. He says

20:35

he wants to try to

20:38

reduce box actually, that would be a great thing. Although some bots are

20:40

fine, you know, just starting with

20:42

labeling bots would be a great thing. He says

20:44

he wants to

20:46

Find

20:46

ways for Twitter to make more money, which

20:49

all the previous CEOs have

20:51

basically

20:51

failed to do

20:53

and it's possible there is not a way for that

20:55

Twitter just, you know, that there's not

20:57

revenue streams that nobody's thought of. I

20:59

must think he's gonna do it by charging

21:02

people eight dollars a month to be

21:04

verified, which don't forget

21:06

verification is intended

21:08

to signal that the person tweeting is

21:10

who they say they are.

21:13

It is some people perceive it as status symbol,

21:15

that's not its intention. So by

21:17

selling verification as if

21:19

it's a status symbol, the

21:21

people like us, I'm not

21:23

gonna I'm verified because I'm a journalist

21:26

and I'm not gonna pay eight dollars

21:28

a month, but yet people

21:30

who are

21:30

frauds can pay eight dollars a month,

21:33

so it's gonna become meaningless. It's

21:35

like the starbelly

21:36

snitches. Yeah. Yeah. It

21:37

seems to me it totally defeats

21:40

the purpose of the blue check

21:42

mark. He doesn't buy it. I

21:44

mean, it's like the housekeeping

21:46

seal of approval. You'd run an

21:48

ad in the magazine. You get one or something.

21:50

I am fascinated by

21:53

the evolution of

21:55

Twitter over the years. You

21:57

were there in two thousand thirteen,

22:00

sort of the aftermath of the Arab

22:02

spring, and there was, you know,

22:04

a a great deal of excitement about

22:07

Twitter that you

22:09

know, spread democracy

22:11

throughout the world. And

22:13

then, you know, over time, things

22:16

change quite dramatic. actually. Give me a

22:18

sense of the arc of

22:20

this, and I assume when you were

22:22

there, you shared, you know,

22:24

much of the enthusiasm about

22:26

I believe a positive role Twitter

22:28

could play. Pro democracy role.

22:32

When did it start to change and

22:34

why? Well,

22:35

there's two concurrent sets of issues. Yes. When

22:37

I joined Twitter, it was

22:38

there was a great deal of excitement about

22:41

Twitter and its positive role

22:43

in the world. And I

22:45

shared that excitement, which was why I was

22:47

so excited to go be part

22:49

of that and to grow

22:51

that

22:51

positive influence in the world.

22:53

So

22:53

that's why I joined I joined Twitter. But

22:56

the

22:56

problems at at Twitter, there

22:58

are two different

23:00

issues that have sort of collided and woven

23:03

together

23:03

over the years

23:04

that have been problematic for

23:07

Twitter. One is and you

23:09

know, this has been well documented, including

23:11

by, you know, the early or early days

23:13

Nick Middleton's Fantastic Book

23:15

Hatching Twitter. Twitter has always

23:17

been plagued by management issues. It

23:19

is a platform that

23:21

the creators created something and

23:23

I think they didn't I

23:25

mean, it was brilliant, but I think they didn't even

23:28

understand the way people would use it. And the

23:30

users of Twitter turned it into

23:32

that force. And it was always sort

23:34

of like the leaders of Twitter kind of

23:36

chase the followers and figure out how

23:38

to keep up. And they did in many

23:40

ways, but it

23:41

has always had

23:43

management difficulties. And

23:46

now, you know, we see this playing out. I

23:48

think as I understand it, it was

23:50

pretty chaotic place internally when I was

23:52

there, which is one of the reasons that I left.

23:54

It was very hard to get things

23:57

done. I understand from people that stayed, it got a

23:59

little bit better during

24:00

some of the Jack Dorsey years.

24:02

And now we see where we Dorsey always

24:04

seemed to be kind of a weird dude.

24:07

Tell us about your own experiences. I don't feel But

24:09

I didn't work with him. He was not

24:12

CEO when I was there. Anyway, I didn't

24:14

stay.

24:14

I'm not gonna so

24:16

that

24:17

so one trajectory has been sort

24:19

of the internal dynamics

24:22

of Twitter. and and you

24:24

know, legitimate difficulty

24:26

figuring out how to monetize

24:28

it without destroying what Twitter

24:30

is, which I I don't know the answer to that either,

24:32

so I have incredible sympathy with that

24:35

dilemma. The second issue is the

24:37

world. And

24:37

in two thousand

24:40

fourteen, know,

24:41

before I left, the issues that were percolating

24:43

up, there was a little bit of bots, but there

24:45

was some some abuse and some hate speech,

24:47

and that was

24:48

a huge Game of Wackamole

24:50

as content moderation

24:52

practices were really getting up to

24:54

speed. But

24:55

after that, as, you know, as we now

24:58

know well, this

24:58

sort of, you know, miss disinformation industrial complex

25:00

really kicked in. You know, in the years leading

25:02

up to the twenty sixteen elections, and it's

25:04

only gotten worse. And now we

25:07

have you

25:08

know, an incredibly polarized society,

25:11

societies all over the world. What's the cause and

25:13

effect? Is the story for

25:15

another podcast? So now you've got a

25:17

situation where Twitter where

25:19

it's just hard to be

25:21

Twitter in a world where

25:23

you're trying to keep

25:25

it as

25:26

a healthy platform that does good in

25:28

the world in given all of the chaos of

25:30

the last

25:31

eight years. So

25:32

those two things together have become real I

25:35

think have brought us where we are today. David,

25:37

you

25:37

were talking about Twitter in the world. A

25:39

little bit before in the conversation, you talked about

25:41

Twitter and free speech? And what does

25:44

Elon Musk really mean by free

25:46

speech? I'm gonna connect these two things

25:48

because the majority of

25:50

Twitter users today are actually

25:52

overseas in international

25:55

markets. And it seems to me that Elon

25:57

Musk has a very kind of

25:59

sort

25:59

of

25:59

almost US centric view of speech issues very

26:02

much rooted in our

26:04

politics today. So

26:06

it's about cancel culture.

26:08

and the like. And the idea that people

26:10

on the right are being are

26:12

being silenced. But overseas

26:15

speech is threatened. on a

26:17

daily basis by

26:19

dictators and, you know, illegal regimes.

26:22

And I saw recently that that I think

26:24

that the Turkish courts ordered

26:26

that tweets be taken down

26:29

because they were critical of of

26:31

the the leader of Turkey recipient

26:33

with Erdogan. I

26:35

wonder how you think Elon

26:38

Musk will handle the

26:40

issue of dissidents. And I know this is something that Isankoff,

26:42

he's gonna alarm a question thing on on

26:44

this. But any sense of

26:47

of how this all will play globally?

26:49

Well,

26:49

if if most doesn't realize it yet,

26:52

he's certainly gonna learn very quickly

26:54

that he's gonna have to comply with

26:56

the

26:56

laws of the countries that he's operating

26:59

in. and every country has their

27:01

limits on

27:03

speech.

27:03

So some of it, you know,

27:05

in Germany, there's a lot of restrictions

27:07

around having to do understandably

27:10

around speech and support of, you

27:12

know,

27:12

Nazis. And then you have, with,

27:14

you know, with good intentions, obviously. But

27:16

then you have,

27:17

like you said, the autocrafts who

27:19

are trying to control the kind

27:21

of information about themselves. And

27:24

so,

27:24

you know, what's going to happen

27:26

with Twitter is I mean, and this is the way every platform

27:28

operates is they try to do

27:30

the best they can. And in the end, they have

27:32

to make a choice. Are they gonna operate in

27:35

the country complying with

27:37

laws or rules they

27:37

disagree with or are they gonna pull out?

27:39

And so, I guess, we will

27:42

see how his free

27:44

speech all the time, doctrine,

27:46

how that works out when he's up against

27:49

laws and rigid

27:51

liberal autocrats. I've

27:52

got a few questions along those

27:54

lines because it relates to, I think, one

27:56

of the more alarming aspects

27:59

of the new regime.

28:02

and that is the role of

28:04

the Saudis. Now this is something that

28:06

you had some direct experience

28:08

with, as I recall, A

28:10

few years ago, the FBI busted a Saudi

28:14

espionage plot within Twitter

28:16

to steal personal data

28:18

from the Twitter accounts of

28:21

Saudi dissidents and provide

28:23

them to Saudi intelligence services

28:25

for the purpose of

28:27

passing or worse to those

28:30

dissidents. And the guy, I

28:32

believe you worked with one

28:34

of those guys who was at

28:36

a Saudi spy, ahmed

28:39

Balama, or -- Yeah. -- was the guy.

28:41

He was recently convicted in federal court

28:43

-- Yeah. -- of spying for

28:46

the Saudis in exchange for hundreds

28:48

of thousands of dollars from

28:50

MBS's personal

28:53

secretary.

28:53

And as we reported a year

28:55

ago, MBS himself actually

28:58

boasted about how we did

29:00

that. We had our guy at

29:02

Twitter. So the FBI the plot. They convict Abu

29:04

Bahama, a guy you worked with when

29:06

you were at Twitter. And now we

29:08

learned that the number

29:11

that the second largest shareholder

29:15

in Twitter is

29:17

Prince Alwaleed of

29:19

Saudi Arabia billionaire investor, a

29:21

guy who was

29:24

imprisoned by MBS at the Ritz

29:26

Carlton a couple years ago,

29:28

emerges you know, months

29:30

later, Gaunt, chastened

29:33

and does MBS's bidding

29:36

sells share in his company to

29:38

this Saudi sovereign wealth

29:40

fund. It seems like the

29:42

Saudi's got what they wanted

29:44

you know, from the get go

29:46

now with a

29:48

a substantial corporate

29:50

interest in Twitter itself.

29:52

Yeah.

29:53

It's pretty troubling. You know, Ahmed, I

29:55

did work with him. Lovely guy enjoyed

29:57

working with him. Needless to

29:59

say, wouldn't had not in a million years could

30:02

have imagined that he was using

30:04

the

30:04

internal systems, the open internal

30:07

systems to supply the

30:09

Saudis with the registration

30:12

information of, you know,

30:14

personal data from Saudi dissidents. It's

30:16

horrifying. The systems have been

30:18

more locked down since then with pretty

30:20

much the wild west then.

30:22

Yeah. So now here we are

30:24

again. And you raise a good

30:26

question, which is, what are they

30:28

getting for that investment other than potentially return on that investment

30:30

that I'm sure Elon is hoping to deliver?

30:33

I would like

30:33

to believe maybe

30:36

naively so that they will not

30:38

have access.

30:39

But if I were somebody, I

30:42

didn't want

30:42

the Saudis to have personal

30:45

information about I might not. I might

30:47

take some actions right now. Well,

30:48

what could a government like

30:51

Saudi Arabia or a

30:53

Saudi actor who owns a substantial

30:56

stake in Twitter actually do with it that would

30:58

be damaging. I mean, there there are plenty of

31:00

ways of structuring a corporate

31:02

ownership transaction that wouldn't

31:04

leave that owner with, you know, kind of any

31:06

access to put together

31:08

valuable information. And III

31:10

would have to imagine that that was the

31:12

case. III

31:14

would imagine that there's not

31:16

a clause in their agreement that they can, you

31:19

know, see the

31:19

personal personal data of of

31:21

Twitter users. So That's

31:24

exactly what the Saudis were doing in their

31:26

No. Well, it was. Wonderful. But they but

31:28

they had to recruit these inside

31:30

individuals. So, yeah, I I mean, I

31:32

think it's gonna

31:33

be a while before if, you

31:35

know, for distance or others who

31:37

are operating anonymously, I

31:39

would probably caution them

31:42

about

31:42

their continued use of

31:45

Twitter and take a look at the

31:47

kind of information they provided,

31:49

you know, cell phone numbers, etcetera, when

31:51

they logged in and maybe quit the

31:53

platform,

31:53

honestly. Do you think there

31:55

ought to be AUS government review of this?

31:57

I mean, there there's increasing call

31:59

amongst some senators and

32:02

and for hill investigations into

32:04

this or for CFIUS,

32:06

which is the main kind of

32:08

executive branch agency that reviews foreign

32:10

transactions like this. Is is that something you

32:11

think ought to get outgoing? I don't

32:14

yeah. I don't I'm I a little out of my lane. So

32:16

I'm I'm sure they're they're taking a

32:18

look. Howard Bauchner: Senator Chris Murphy, who we

32:20

had on the podcast a couple weeks ago talking

32:22

about the Saudis, has called for

32:25

a CFIUS review of --

32:27

Yeah. -- the Saudi role in

32:29

Twitter. But I just wanna take you back to

32:31

when we were talking about content moderation

32:34

before And I, you know, you

32:36

said it's this is

32:38

a a tricky issue to say

32:40

the least, but you said there's

32:42

no role for the

32:44

government at all in this.

32:46

And I don't know if you've noticed, but, you

32:48

know, the the intercept published

32:50

a story this week in which

32:52

they reported on communications

32:54

between Department of Homeland Security

32:57

and various social media

32:59

platforms about various items

33:02

that were showing up on Facebook and

33:04

other social media platforms. And they got

33:06

that story wrong. I would really encourage all your

33:08

listeners to read Mike

33:10

Masnick's debunking of that

33:12

INTERCEPT piece. I

33:14

did, and he made some some

33:16

good points On the other hand,

33:18

it was clear to me that there

33:20

was at least discussions

33:22

among people in the government.

33:25

and the social media

33:27

platforms. And I mean, is

33:29

that they were people at

33:31

DHS and various arms

33:33

were alerting social media companies

33:35

to items that they found

33:37

troubling or problematic. Isn't

33:39

that a role that the government was playing

33:41

and is that appropriate? It's

33:43

making

33:43

recommendations to

33:45

the companies about what they should

33:47

moderate or in effect sensor.

33:49

Right.

33:50

So which is part of the DHS,

33:52

which is the cybersecurity

33:53

and infrastructure security agency,

33:56

which was created in

33:58

twenty eighteen by president

34:00

Trump monitors

34:02

globally cybersecurity

34:04

sort of trends, I guess, around

34:06

the world. And when

34:07

they see concerning

34:09

activity, they alert

34:12

companies to risks and

34:15

threats. And that

34:16

could be

34:17

could be across the whole cybersecurity portfolio,

34:20

including coordinated

34:21

campaigns to spread, you know,

34:23

conspiracy theory or propaganda from overseas,

34:26

etcetera, etcetera. they're not

34:28

making content. I they're not

34:30

making content moderation.

34:31

They're not telling

34:33

platforms what content

34:35

to leave up and what to take down,

34:37

they're flagging activities

34:38

that they see as

34:40

a heads up to

34:41

those platforms. But Vivint, let me

34:44

just read you a section from an

34:46

intercept article, and I understand, you know,

34:48

there are legitimate questions about

34:50

aspects of it, but one part of it

34:52

left out at me according to a draft copy

34:54

of DHS's quadrennial homeland

34:58

security review. their report, it said

35:00

the department plans to target

35:03

quote inaccurate information On a

35:05

wide range of topics including, quote, the

35:08

origins of the COVID-nineteen pandemic and

35:10

the efficacy of COVID-nineteen

35:12

vaccines, racial justice, US withdrawal

35:14

from Afghanistan and the nature of

35:16

US support to Ukraine. How

35:18

is US anything about

35:21

US withdrawal from Afghanistan? or the

35:23

nature of US support to Ukraine within the purview

35:25

of DHS to be telling social

35:27

media companies what they should or

35:29

should not publish.

35:31

Well, I don't

35:32

think they are. I don't know. Look, I let

35:34

me just tell you, I'm not inside. I can't

35:36

validate that information. I can

35:38

either debunk nor validate it.

35:40

But again, I would encourage you

35:42

to read Masnix interpretation of the underlying documents

35:45

that the

35:45

Intercept was using, but

35:47

it is

35:48

about

35:50

activity that they're seeing around coordinated,

35:52

misinteraction campaigns.

35:54

And I am now going

35:58

to the world

35:59

of pure speculation. I would imagine some of those

35:59

are around issues having to do with elections,

36:02

America's withdrawal from Afghanistan,

36:04

Afghanistan, etcetera, etcetera.

36:06

No plaque form is gonna

36:08

take its direction from the US

36:10

government. It's just not gonna

36:12

happen, and it's not the way that

36:14

they work. So I, you know, that's all

36:16

I can say. It just doesn't doesn't

36:18

make sense to me nor should it be the

36:20

role of the US government,

36:22

obviously, to opine

36:24

or try to not I mean, opine about

36:26

the specifics of the content. Only

36:28

the origins

36:28

of the behavior. That's why for

36:31

instance at Facebook, they

36:31

call it CIB,

36:34

coordinated inauthentic behavior.

36:36

There's

36:36

a group that looks

36:37

at the behavior of

36:40

online groups which is separate from looking at the validity of the

36:42

content. Those are two separate things.

36:44

Vivian, I just want to bring the conversation

36:45

down from policy

36:48

level to the product level for a second here because I

36:50

think there are people who are curious Twitter users

36:52

are curious about what the Twitter product

36:55

is gonna look like as as

36:57

time goes on under under Musk. So some of the ideas that

36:59

that they talked about is, you know,

37:01

direct messaging to

37:04

VIPs and celebrities,

37:07

videos behind paywalls,

37:09

which I get the feeling

37:11

might mostly be porn. and then,

37:13

you know, bringing back vine, these, you

37:16

know, short videos on a loop

37:18

for young people. And then

37:20

there's the idea

37:22

of the sort of the everything app, the equivalent of

37:24

China's WeChat,

37:26

where you could, you know, get your Uber

37:28

as you could order food, order on Amazon,

37:31

you know, whatever it is in this on this

37:33

one app. What's your sense of where things are going

37:35

in terms of the product? Look,

37:37

it's

37:37

it this is this

37:39

is the

37:40

the first batter's walking up to the play to

37:42

the top of the first inning here. It's impossible

37:44

to know. I've heard all that all of

37:46

that speculation. I didn't hear

37:48

the one about DM ing celebrities

37:50

and paying for that service. I'm sure that

37:52

celebrities would be super excited

37:54

about that. Look, you know, actually,

37:56

I mean, here, I'm not going to

37:58

Twitter doesn't make you know, Twitter's got

38:00

a revenue problem. And so the

38:03

way to figure out what revenue

38:06

opportunities are is to experiment.

38:08

So, you know, I don't have any particular

38:10

criticism for trying

38:12

different things. I suppose, you know, my art at personal desire is

38:14

that they don't mess with the core Twitter

38:16

product other than making content

38:18

moderation

38:18

improvements. but

38:20

it's, you know, he bought the toy so he gets to do

38:22

whatever he wants with it now. And he's

38:24

right that Twitter has

38:25

not cracked

38:27

the code of to this point on

38:29

trying to figure out a way to have, you know, the kind of revenue growth that

38:31

certainly the street demanded. All goes, the street

38:33

now is not relevant in

38:36

the picture. But

38:37

it's not realistic that he can, like or is

38:39

it that he could, you know, significantly

38:41

reduce his dependency on

38:44

advertising as the main

38:46

driver of And if he can, isn't that a problem terms

38:48

of, like, not Yeah. Yeah. It isn't

38:50

the pressure from advertisers and

38:53

it used to be from stockholders until he took it

38:56

private. Isn't that isn't that a check

38:58

on his

38:59

his power? I

39:02

don't know

39:02

about that. I think

39:05

advertisers many advertisers

39:07

will flock towards solutions

39:08

that support whatever it

39:10

is they're trying to market. So And and by the way,

39:12

there was a piece in the New York Times op

39:14

ed page today, which made the point

39:17

that advertisers are a

39:19

significant part of the problem in the sense

39:21

that, you know, they prioritize, you

39:23

know, engagement and engagement

39:25

is often about emotion and

39:27

anger, and that's you know, kind of it. And

39:29

and that was what drives the algorithms and that's part of

39:32

the root of the problem here

39:34

anyway. Yeah. Also, don't

39:36

forget that generally speaking when we're talking about

39:38

advertising on social media.

39:39

It's not just what people

39:41

automatically think of as, you

39:43

know, soap commercials. advertising is

39:46

basically an advertiser is anybody who

39:48

pays to amplify and

39:50

spread a message to

39:52

specific targeted

39:54

audiences. So that can be a shampoo commercial, but it can also

39:56

be an individual who has

39:58

an unreliable piece of

39:59

content they wanna get in front of certain

40:02

eyeballs. So So first of all, we need

40:04

to think just be careful with I mean, just we need to

40:06

be not be careful, but being precise about what

40:08

we mean by advertisers. I don't

40:10

really judge mosque

40:12

for experimenting with various

40:14

new forms of revenue.

40:16

Like I said,

40:17

I would like

40:18

it not to be at the expense

40:21

of the main timeline, you

40:23

know, the main news feed on Twitter,

40:25

and and hopefully it won't

40:27

help that turn you know, that won't turn that

40:29

into into a garbage site. But look,

40:32

he's got to experiment. I get that. I don't

40:34

I don't I don't judge

40:35

there. Just to wrap up, I'd like

40:37

to sort of take a step back.

40:39

And, you know, we've all been talking

40:42

about various threats

40:44

to our occupancy with the coming

40:46

election. What does it say about the

40:48

state of our democracy and

40:50

political culture

40:52

that an eccentric

40:55

billionaire can control

40:57

what a substantial portion

41:00

of the, you know,

41:02

American public seize and control the

41:04

news that it sees, Henry?

41:06

Yes. Yeah. It's it's a

41:08

huge problem. try

41:10

to think of a word bigger than that. It's a monumental

41:12

issue and it's this is not just about Twitter.

41:15

We've looked at the I

41:17

mean, much more substantial also

41:20

control effectively even though it's a

41:22

publicly traded company of a single

41:24

individual, which is Facebook now

41:26

meta, you know, it is

41:28

well documented the impact,

41:30

the negative impact that Facebook has

41:32

had, you know, being a spark

41:34

for, you know, for genocide, for

41:36

ERC theories for the polarization of America, you

41:38

know, Twitter at least is generally speaking

41:41

not algorithmically filtered in that

41:43

same way, and it's and

41:46

it's public. So, yeah, this is a big, you

41:48

know, this is why we at Aspen

41:50

and so many organizations and governments,

41:52

frankly, too, around the world, are

41:55

trying to figure out what are the

41:57

ways that we can, you know, put

41:59

the

41:59

I I was gonna say put

42:02

the genie back in the bottle, but don't want there's no such

42:04

thing as the good old days. You know, people go, oh,

42:06

if only we were back to the days of Walter

42:08

Cronkite, that

42:08

was a problematic era because of all the

42:10

people that were left out of that merit.

42:12

So let's not do that. But to find a way

42:14

to ensure that

42:16

quality information is available to

42:20

people

42:20

at the local, regional, national,

42:23

and global level.

42:24

And, you know, we're not gonna we're

42:26

gonna die trying. There's no

42:28

simple answers, but there's a lot of small

42:30

solutions and things that can help.

42:32

It's a big problem. Well, good

42:34

that you are trying

42:36

because somebody's got to

42:38

in any case. Vivian, I

42:40

wanna thank you for a really interesting discussion.

42:43

And, you know, we

42:45

will see what becomes of Twitter

42:47

and perhaps, you know, the future of

42:50

American democracy in in in coming

42:52

weeks. Thanks

42:54

a lot. Yeah. Thank you. Enjoy being

42:56

with you.