place to do it and also simultaneously
next door in the lamar room at midnight
is a screening of dark web produced
directed by alex winter about the Silk
Road case but right now i'm going to
introduce alyssa chevensky AKA lady boss
who was going to be a talk doing a talk
about censorship social media and the
presidential election very topical so
take it away lady boss
thank you thank you so much and thank
you all for coming
I'm really glad that were discussing
this this is such an important topic
increasingly so with each election so
I'm really glad for us to talk about it
here at Hope where we can be uh how do I
say we can be very honest i posted a
tweet that I might destroy like all my
future likely job prospects in this one
talk so I'm glad that you're here to be
here with me for this as I complain
about pretty much all the major
political and technological
organizations any bias in this talk is
brought to you by me
that's my hashtag and my handle on
Twitter some disclosures I was formerly
on Rand Paul's tech Advisory Council I'm
talking to folks who ya Dona folks who
worked for both Clinton and Trump I'm
very strongly pro-clinton but just you
would not be able to tell this from this
talk because I'm pretty upset about the
bias in her favor
we accept political endorsements by the
press we're used to that it's fine
or if it's not fine we're certainly used
to it and one thing that is really nice
is they disclose their bias the post
officially endorses Donald Trump they
declare and the Daily News explains why
they choose Hillary hill over burning
and we see opposites that reflect this
there's no pretense of neutrality
there's the understanding that there's
editorship and
duration but social media is supposed to
be neutral
it's this beautiful fantasy that we've
created our Facebook pages and indeed of
the company's support this
facebook has officially denied that it
would ever try to influence the election
they haven't denied that they ever would
influence the election
they've denied that they would try not
that they would succeed so tell us more
about this neutrality Mark Zuckerberg
well we have guidelines they have
guidelines so it's fine we have rigorous
guidelines that do not permit the
prioritisation of one viewpoint over
another for the suppression of political
perspectives
tell me more well we have the trending
section as you can see Mark Cuban is
criticizing Donald Trump the nominee
says he won't accept Ted Cruz's
endorsement you know it's all about
what's going on in the Republican Party
Nazi salute some of these don't seem
like the things that are most popular
but perhaps the things that are most
interesting to the team of curators so
how did they come up with this list of
what's trending well Facebook has an
answer for this in their handy help
section trending shows your topics that
have recently become popular the topics
you've seen are based on factors
including engagement timeliness pages
you've liked and your location if only
that were true
if that were true then perhaps we really
would have a neutral ish facebook
instead what we have are manually
curated trends can i get a show of hands
of folks in this room who's kind of
familiar with the story of how Facebook
was suppressing conservative news or
allegedly suppressing conservative news
ok so that's some of you but not
everyone so to bring you all up to speed
on this trending section that you see
here that's actually
not algorithmic that is curated by
people people like you and me who are
not employees but contractors of
facebook one or more of them complain to
news organization about their work
conditions and a subset of that
complaint was that conservative news was
being suppressed that seems possible
whether or not it's actually true the
fact does remain that this is human
curated there is inherent bias it is not
what's most popular it's what the
curation team deems to be worth viewing
which of course inherently is biased
this is what they're too looks like the
review tool for deciding what goes up or
down and there's a 28-page document
that's been released its an internal
facebook document and it talks about all
of their policies and procedures and
blacklisting of this topic or that topic
gizmodo headline we routinely suppressed
conservative news depending on who was
on shift things would be blacklisted or
trending says a former curator that's
the danger with curation right like
there are humans doing it how can it
possibly be free of bias the company
does state that it's neutral but the
leadership isn't neutral here's one
headline Mark Zuckerberg throw shade at
Donald Trump during his speech he did
insight trumped by name but it is it's
clear his affiliations lie and it's
clear where the affiliations of the
employees like on the hey they went so
far as to say in an internal meeting can
we prevent president Trump and they also
asked are we obligated to which is
interesting if you could make sure all
phones are off please
it's dark we could have a dance party we
can do whatever we want i have this
stage I'm biased
I'll do what I want huh with your
consent the right this is hope it should
be it should be all of us together one
ideally so this was very interesting to
me that the facebook employees asked not
um know what their ethical
responsibilities were as a company or is
a supposedly neutral company but they
asked if they were obligated to prevent
one candidate from becoming successful
and Mark Zuckerberg said no no we are
not going to officially prevent a
president Trump but still how much how
much is the company controlling the
employees and how much are they able to
influence in the ways that they feel are
ethical one thing we can say is that the
company is officially neutral and the
people inside of it are all over the
place board member Peter teal is now
famously a delegate for Trump and spoke
at the RNC so one thing we can rely on
within many of these companies is even
the ones who are leaning heavily in one
direction or another it's it's still a
mixed bag of people it would be legal if
Facebook wanted to impact the elections
the same way it's legal for the New York
Times or The Washington Post Facebook
does not have an obligation to
neutrality it's a business decision that
they are making that they want to do
things in this way it is arguably part
of free speech they do need to stay
within campaign finance regulations but
that is not so difficult to do according
to UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh who
told Gizmodo facebook has the same First
Amendment rights as the new york times
you could argue that Google does not
have these rights that google has an
obligation to provide the most accurate
or highest quality search results this
law professor argues that Google does
not have that obligation you could argue
either way I think either other
dave is valid I'm not a locks for though
as for twitter i don't know is it
business is a bias or is it like just a
shitshow I don't know it's a good
question i think about this a lot i
wonder
let's look at their curation so this is
a sample of the moments that were on
Twitter today earlier today
it includes funniest gifs and memes to
come from the RNC Donald Trump is now
the official nominee guest RNC but what
does that mean it seems like whoever
created this was looking for the most
entertaining not necessarily the most
newsworthy or the most tweeted compared
to this set of moments which is fairly
dry i think um but is supposed to be
what was the top three tweeted moments
this came from the Twitter government
account as opposed to the moments
account they're both Twitter curated
accounts and I think they're interesting
as examples of of generation which just
much like Facebook Twitter moments is
curated by people people who have biases
and the lack of transparency around how
all of this is dawn leads to questions
and skepticism why I'm not voting for
hillary was the number-one trending
hashtag and then it wasn't it was
replaced by another hashtag Hillary 2016
now it's possible that one hashtag just
overtook the other but Twitter's lack of
transparency leads to skepticism and
questions and just a general lack of
trust and I wonder whether bands will
impact the election
twitter is banning conservatives who in
some cases may vary rightfully deserve
it but nonetheless it could potentially
impact the election if those folks are
no
longer tweeting you could say that's
good or you could say that's bad but it
does seem clear that Twitter's bands are
more heavily conservative than in other
directions i'm not saying whether that's
good or bad but i do think it would
impact the election so let's shift gears
a bit and talk about Google apparently
it wasn't a glitch when a State
Department video was cut from youtube
this is very interesting
it's very interesting classified email
suggest that Hillary Clinton worked with
google and youtube to block those videos
and we do know that Google and the White
House are very very friendly or books is
here and there are vending this book
which is an interesting read on the
topic from Julian Assange which
documents his conversations with eric
schmidt which documents Eric Schmidt's
closeness with the White House eric
schmidt started a start-up which has the
aim of helping the Clinton campaign
which actually you know it's like pretty
cool the way that campaigns are becoming
much more technical but not a lot of
transparency there either
this is the webpage for the groundwork
the startup started by eric schmidt that
is working closely with the Clinton
campaign it's so stealthy the that's all
that's there that's it that's that's
everything
the only reason I why have any
background information on the groundwork
is because I'm it's been documented
elsewhere by reporters and researchers
and I'm actually quite fond of how the
Clinton campaign has handled many things
i think that they seem to be a very
intelligent and well run campaign
nonetheless it is noteworthy that on
many of their top people do help from
google there's a some kind of a close
relationship there that's that search
does seem legit questions were raised
about whether Google search results were
sanitized on behalf of Hillary Clinton I
this looked as if it was some kind of a
scandal I mean if you look at the
results they're they're not as
interesting as the results you get with
the same query on being on on other
search engines but the same is true for
Trump and in fact google autocomplete is
dull ache for everyone
you name a criminal named your favorite
terminal and type your favorite
criminals name into Google and they just
won't autocomplete crime or criminal
these algorithms are strange google
doesn't want you searching for a
person's name and then the word criminal
for whatever reason maybe someone who
worked on the algorithm decided that
like those just weren't great search
results
I think if there's any one theme that
comes out from this talk by knee today
it's that this lack of transparency
raises questions and is frustrating and
and confusing
I mean we really don't know the reason
why Google works this way and because we
don't know why sometimes we imagined or
create theories about why that aren't
very favorable and the truth is we
actually don't know whether this is
secretly to help one group or another
group we just don't know the reasons
what did you set maybe maybe it's to
help conceal criminals who knows the
lack of transparency for me is extremely
frustrating but I it does seem clear
that it's it's not specifically to help
say Clinton or Trump google autocomplete
doll for everyone
let's go back to facebook this actually
makes me a little worried and nervous
and sad facebook runs experiments all
the time they don't always tell us they
don't have to google messed with your
feed in 2012
that's not the only time they did that
to promote voting and they also messed
with our feet in 2010
which is there right right like they get
to do whatever they want this is their
stage they are in charge i think the
issue with facebook is it feels like
it's my page but it's very heavily
curated what they're going to show for
my friends and then they've started to
really do those messages at the top of
the page like suggesting that someone
goes out and votes they dip is 260
million users that's a lot of users that
actually really will impact panel an
election this was the paper that they
published about it at least they come
and they wrote about it it was after the
fact
here we report results from a randomized
control trial of political mobilization
messages delivered to 61 million
facebook users during the Toulon during
the congressional elections so it's a
kind of digital gerrymandering if they
were to show this to some people and not
to others and that actually was the
experiment some people got shown buttons
that were more encouraging to vote than
other people
now we could just say civic engagement
is good and that it's neutral and for
the most part it's hard to argue against
that but when I spoke to someone who
works in Democratic campaigns and i said
i would like to be helpful this election
cycle to the Democrats you know how can
i what can I do I'm here I'm here for
you and they said that they didn't want
me to promote their specific candidate
that the most helpful thing I could do
for the Democratic Party would be to
just register more voters which was
strange to me I I thought that the way
to help a candidate win was to help the
candidate went and and they said alyssa
you know you've worked on Republican
races because I helped her and Paul but
democrats democrats we run races by
registering voters that's how we went so
you know when I see companies working
together
the vote i I'm a little bit skeptical
because Democrats win elections by
increasing voter turnout so if a
platform like Facebook is working to
increase voter turnout like on the one
hand of course that's great on the other
hand is it neutral maybe not
and his neutrality an impossible goal i
don't i don't know
here's another curation escape his
caricature Donald Trump passes up the
chance
it'sit's just not neutral and something
much more favorable to clinton today so
the next place i take that is this very
hope like critique where I think the
chance that we have for having actual
neutrality on our platforms on is if
we've removed the centralized curators
and can actually just exchanged
one-on-one the censorship is is
problematic because there's just no
transparency we just really don't know
what's going on
can I start opening it up for questions
although it's very dark so I can't see
anyone i might need some help
could i get some help from one of the
conference organizers thanks
alright let's open it up for questions
so I have worked for google for traders
but these are in no way of presenting of
use of either Google or Twitter okay
positive negative Lee so a I think
you're making a couple of logical
mistakes here in your analyses one is
you're ignoring the echo chamber effect
when you when i'm looking at facebook
pages and what facebook would show me
and as interesting for me is what i have
said what my friends have said now most
of my friends are not hardcore
Republicans will vote for Trump so it is
natural except it's going into this guy
here so it's natural that facebook won't
show me stuff about Trump now if I were
to just create a sock puppet that would
that that would listen to the Westboro
Baptist Church and rudy giuliani and
Trump and another such things
maybe i would get a difference in the
results have you tried that experiment
of creating a persona that does not fit
the model you're trying to accuse or the
modalities that you're suggesting that
facebook is promoting and seeing what
the results you get our I think that's
right i think that it would be helpful
to see it from different vantage point
right but because some of that it
doesn't change that the moments for the
most part are universal
I I don't that's true for twitter and i
believe it's true for facebook as well
that these aren't as highly customized
as we would think
everyone that's true for your newsfeed
ah i'm curious about how true it is for
what's trending at large
can you come to my place I'm not done
good
doesn't that doesn't apply to it what it
applies to is is each person's newsfeed
right that is different for every person
that's right what I'm referring to here
is the trending section here
yes the newsfeeds very customized well
the newsfeed will be customized for the
sort of articles i would be likely to
read the show to click on them look at
the ads and then make Facebook or Google
or Twitter money they wouldn't rope if
they showed me an ad about oh I don't
know the starving children of africa i
would probably not click on it and not
read the article and you know not get
the money so of course they won't do
that they do a very good job of
customizing those yeah so how can you
differentiate what what is the the your
you're out your algorithm for
differentiating between a feed that is
easily curated to only show those those
even people that you don't want that
you're accusing of up let me Tony down
you know how can you differentiate
between a feed that is customized
according to some guidelines from above
vs feed that happens to shoot to appear
that way because of all your prior post
in history
well we need to separate news feed which
is highly personalized and highly
algorithmic vs
what you can see here which is like
national trending topics which is
curated by humans skin discoloration
that you're that you're talking about
are the people who have you mentioned
that
oh excuse later said that and the rumor
said that
how have you actually are verified that
this is indeed the case you know I heard
from from from my dog yesterday that you
know what Mark Zuckerberg girl don't
need something like up just because you
said it executes later said that did you
reveal who ever publish that story did
they go out and actually see that his
head was actually an executor you know
the the journalistic standards that we
hope that we usually hold up of the
Washington Post and The New York Times
hundred years ago or 50 years ago our
are a lot different that that and we
expect when when you get the New York
Times The Washington Post says you know
about something happened that would be
generally have actually check check I
think that's fair that we just don't
know what's going on with the curation
and the trans and I certainly don't mean
to say that we know for sure that
there's this Lander that slant I think
that it's compelling the evidence that
there was the evidence that i was going
on in this team that was a contract team
that wasn't being given a lot of
attention that like there may have been
some things happening there that weren't
up to facebook standards or up to the
standards that we would want but that
that's a lot of the point that's a lot
of the point of this talk is that uh so
much of this is a black box and we just
don't know and that it would be possible
for social media companies to have an
outsized impact on the elections and in
the absence of transparency about their
methods were left not knowing
thank you you got next week we give up
the mic and come back thank you for your
question and thank you for the cheering
I always was particularly interested in
your last slide we had a p2p model not
kind of yes forgetting what is most
interesting to you know like kind of
figuring out in a decentralized way what
is most interesting come to show people
um I do kind of wonder how that how you
would defend against creating echo
chambers are just little pods of people
to share the same news amongst each
other and kind of always thinking that I
was thinking you know there's a lot of
talk about how everyone getting news
from a different source kind of like
helps to just make just many sizes just
don't want to talk to each other anymore
and how like having fewer new sources
like everyone would watch one or two of
them and they're like more common
watching and so you would have less
extreme is divisiveness in kind of hold
political process so i do think there's
a there's a kind of a part to play for
these outlets to maybe show multiple
like a diversity of things that may be
interesting so they aren't just making
echo chambers
um it's going to be a question if i
understand it is how would we do a
peer-to-peer model that would bypass the
echo chamber problem yes quite right
huh that's a really hard problem that's
like a human problem right
I think you solved that in a human way
uh I have a lot of friends who have
different points of view and I engage
with them and I've learned to stop doing
that as much because I've got a negative
feedback because I engage with people
are very different points of view
sometimes they will troll me or
sometimes they'll be very mean or the
whole my friends or people who have a
similar point of view to me will get mad
at me for interacting with people who
they think are wrong so I actually
wanted to be sure to started out as
someone who was mentored by ethan
Zuckerman who wrote rewire like his old
thesis was that the internet is an echo
chamber and we need to break out of that
so like I came into the internet with
that mentality being mentored by him and
now I'm becoming smaller
because of all the bad feedback that I'm
getting is I actually engage with
diverse views and and I say that in a
sheepish way I don't want to I don't
want my worldview to become smaller I
don't want to become smaller as a person
but it's what's happening
sure i started deleting posts on my
facebook last week for the first time
kind of apologizing to people and
explaining why so i think one first step
is for us to be nicer to each other
sure to agree to disagree yeah like if
we could agree to disagree then it would
be a lot easier to free exchange
um yeah I think the bottom line for me
is that's like a human problem in a
kindness problem and I like can we be
interested in views beyond our own with
the humbleness that there's something to
learn problem
sure that that's a really big ass was
awesome and i love it i think it should
happen in the meantime maybe do you
think it's possible for like Twitter and
Facebook um to use their kind of power
that they have just by doing these feeds
not feasible like the trending topics um
to try and force that hand a little bit
like you think they have the capacity to
be more even-handed i guess i'll just be
like the BBC or something like that
power is dry but it tends to be a little
more neutral i think that Twitter and
Facebook just have tremendous power
right now
oh yeah and it's and part of what i came
away with as they did the research for
the talk was just the respect for how
much power Twitter and Facebook and you
know Instagram and snapchat have for
getting us to take actions and for
changing our lens on world events and
that's what's frustrating to me about
the notion that they're neutral they're
just so powerful and I want to see more
acknowledgement of that and as for like
how they could use that for good i think
the first step might be for them to kind
of acknowledge that there are entities
that are trying to do things in the
world as long as Facebook and Twitter
take a stand and say we're neutral and
we're not really doing much but by the
way we're gonna run this experiment and
some of you will vote in some of you
want based on what we show you as long
as there's this
pretense that they're like bystanders um
I think it would be hard for them to
become best actors right to thank you
thank you thank you
um I do I probably should confess before
I start is that I'm not unconsciously
not on facebook because i am dismayed
about the amount of power they have
but what I'm saying is you're in good
company hear what I like to point out is
that no private company has transparency
unless they want to i mean just think
about the credit reporting agencies and
the problem that I have with this
Facebook story is they have no
obligation to be neutral and the truth
is if you're getting your news and
you're allowing companies like Facebook
or Twitter or snapchat app to mold your
political views
there's something wrong right there you
need to take it back from these
companies they have only as much power
as we give to them and why you're giving
these companies the power to mold your
political views is beyond me
I think yeah yeah I think that's a good
lesson I think that's that was my
takeaway from Snowden's revelations from
so many other moments where we've seen
these companies aggregating data and
becoming very powerful that's power that
they only have that we give them that's
a very important point I i would argue
that it's my hope that companies will be
true to their word and it's my hope that
companies will be true to the power and
responsibility they have that's a very
optimistic view they don't need to do
that but we can call on them and and and
you know come together and say we think
it matters where we can you know I I
admire your stance
okay thanks Sharky niña like anyway i'm
sitting because I'm like actually that
the previous speaker actually had one of
the things I wanted to say about the
other thing i want to say is i mean i
know a lot of people are suspicious of
government because you know you know
don't you know they're all these ones i
want to go into why but I'm just
thinking of that I think we should also
be suspicious of private business
because you know that's that's what they
are and that people are just way too
trusting and I don't I really don't
think it's reasonable to expect that
these companies are going to you know be
what we want them to be
I mean we have to decide you know like
you said you know decide to engage or
not you know but with our eyes open
they're in it to make money they can do
what they want and just you know that
that's basically where is that they're
in it to make money and in some cases uh
I believe that technologist at these
companies come in either with like a
genuinely ethical point of view from
their point of view you know like is it
our obligation to stop Trump that's an
employee question that's not about money
it's what we can do about civilization i
guess that's probably one of those core
value things that people just do because
of who they are you know when and when
you look at people running experiments
that's coming out of curiosity but with
the so I think we got experiment but the
thing is that it when it's when it's a
private company doing experiments it's a
kind of a different but I guess that's
the thing it isn't that people know
about it now I guess the only other
thing I would mention is back in the day
when we used to have like comment
sections that were not moderated not
curated any of that stuff one of the put
one of those things that happens a lot
is that you get the trolls types you get
wall-to-wall shit there's and then
everybody leaves everybody leaves and
you've got nothing
well maybe we do the smaller groups that
it's an interesting question you
and one that I hope people will continue
of what else we could be doing anyway
ok
hi this is not like really more of a
questions more of a comment and i want
to live off of what the first man was
speaking about but I want to give more
of a differing outlook he was saying
that maybe if you do follow conservative
pages things like that maybe you do get
different search results and I myself I
support down from I follow the GOP on
Twitter Trump and the other candidates
when they were still competing in the
primaries and I might has tagged the
trends everything is still filled with
Trump hate things like that and so I
really and I get Hillary adds all the
time I really don't think has anything
to do with who you follow or what you
say cuz i'm always tweeting pro
conservative things out on Twitter arm
and I think that even if it was based
off of a majority of what people
treating about I still think I disagree
because I don't think if Trump would
have won the primaries by such a
landslide he obviously has such a large
following
and I don't think that the majority of
people tweeting would always be tweeting
such awful things about him
I like I barely ever see if I've ever
seen a positive hashtag about him and
the trends so i really do think that the
large social medias are trying to turn
people left-leaning that's my opinion
twitter in particular there's more
evidence that there is an anti
conservative bias and that shows up
primarily and who they choose to ban and
I'm certainly not defending that because
the band people who are trolling people
but I would argue that I haven't seen
the same number of bands on the other
side who uh in in other social media
organizations like I believe personally
that that's less clear but there I i do
believe that there are legitimate
concerns about bias at twitter twitter
has made less statements and facebook
about being neutral and if I could just
like the the trouble yourself campaign
that Hillary Clinton started on if you
actually go to our website and look in
that thing that she just started it says
how he doesn't want to support lesbian
and gay marriage but like I've seen him
speak live in species board he said that
he wants to protect people like that
from hateful ideologies far an ideology
is not domestic even foreign they're
such a large number of people outside
the united states that still have such
barbaric points of views calling those
ideals for you know that ideas of the
domestic for as it for in themselves
well we should probably move to next
question last week unless we get off
track but it's helpful to hear that your
trends don't seem to reflect your
ideology that's helpful
um I don't know that until this current
careful with the facebooks trending news
stories that either facebook or twitter
or any of these companies a professed
that there or like really made a big
deal out of like the neutrality of the
topics that they're showing in there
trending sections right already wasn't
as important when there is less curation
well but i think i'm a i think that what
people often mistook for what people are
mistaking for neutrality is like oh
that's 100% algorithm powered no human
ever touches it and I think that you
would be really every yes that's very
naive i mean i think that you would be
incredibly as everyone was surprised
that Facebook has dozens of people
working around the clock to like look at
the stuff that's coming through the
algorithms and sort it all out and like
make it not totally garbage like all of
these companies have staffs of those
people i think that the idea that an
algorithm is like has no bias because
its computer powered is like
well but I mean but that it's an
algorithm that it's I wouldn't say it's
naive because in the facebook help
section
here's the question how does facebook
determine topics and these sure you're
gonna die today they don't mention
anything about it being an algorithm or
it being curated at all right and most
people aren't going to read through this
to cash or they're trying to focus on
their lives and they're not necessarily
diving in sharpie
I'm just telling you that like I don't I
don't want to live in a world in 2016
where an algorithm a pure algorithm with
no human oversight whatsoever is
controlling everything that comes
through my social media feeds because
like who wrote the algorithm some
squishy human with biases wrote that too
and you know what there's like much less
diversity of like thought and opinion
and like background in those algorithm
writers then there are amongst the
editors and people who are like going
through and picking out the trends and
whatever and that might be one of the
reasons why no one likes to talk about
yeah i mean like that might be one of
the reasons that no one likes to talk
about the fact that their technology is
not a hundred percent perfect and still
turns up regular garbage if you look at
what is the most popular on any social
network i guarantee you it is gar bitch
yeah that's a good point we need the
curators we do
that's a good point hello first of all
before i get to my point i want to
commit you for saying that
overall people should be able to have
different political views without
jumping on each other and getting all
crazy whether you're for Trump Hillary
whoever thank you yeah that's just
unfair you know i'm a registered into
and you're very patient with the first
guy by the way to I commend you for that
but I'm registered independent and you
know I don't follow parties i kinda go
with who I like at the time you know
concerns the country at the time but you
know I signed on LOL i still have a well
and there's a giant picture Hillary time
with her and I don't get that's their
right to do it i get on facebook and I
have you know i know my feet I get my
friends and things were into movies and
stuff but the sides are inundated with
you know since reflect you it doesn't
reflect me so obviously they're not it's
not being catered to me so it's not
being catered to me what why is it all
stupid things like Laura Ingraham giving
his Nazi salute you know Republicans
must be racist or you know or even you
know even when you get stuff about the
Democrats are Hillary's you know jacket
cost six thousand dollars it's just
stupidity and I think it it wasn't
fabulous it was like it looked like
mount state owns a jacket back in the
day it's what the curators seems to be
newsworthy what is what I look at that
don't I see like like facebook like you
know if you're if you're an adult who is
smart enough to like you know not be
affected by what facebook tells you what
about the youth you know I think in
general in the media music all facets
there's a certain slant to one party
compared to another and you know the
slant is kind of fortified with that
notion that well if you follow Trump you
must you know be against gays you must
be against african-americans and I think
that is that kind of it kind of like
subliminally or subconsciously sustains
that kind of schism that we have going
on now it doesn't do any good so whether
it's going to help Trump or help Hillary
in general you know it's their right to
do it but it's just it's troublesome
it's concerning maybe it's hurting us in
terms of our stereotypes of each other I
definitely think so cuz I you know I
can't wait till this election is over
just because my friends
it's like everybody's hating each other
well thank you thank you very much
I thanks for talking i'm just wondering
you talked a little about the
peer-to-peer thing and I know that was
kind of touched on with the filter
bubble thing i'm just wondering if you
thought more if there's any like way of
sort of getting the critical mass for an
alternative to a decent return to
facebook or do you think that's just
sort of too difficult to the only thing
we can do is to just put pressure on
facebook and twitter to improve and I
don't want to say it's too difficult I
think that it's absolutely worthwhile
so the aspirant tried it and isn't doing
all that well well you know it and I was
making social apps for a long time I
stopped and and but the reason why I did
it was because I thought you could get
new companies and new social networks
off the ground and i still believe that
we can it just it's a really big
endeavor you have to find some way to
get so many people on it right like if
you really want it to take off and
sustained as a platform it has to be
appealing to a wide group of people and
that's tough but I think that we may get
their Google+ and how am I gonna do I i
think that's the challenge right because
I'm so many people here at Hope have the
technical ability and and those
platforms in the open source code to
build them that's already out there
the tricky pieces like how do we make it
stick so we can have something that's
more ours and and it's a really hard
problem but i do think that we could get
there you know I really do and things
are changing very fast look at the world
look at the things that you never
thought would have happened we can for
sure make a new social network i'm not
sure how just yet but I think that's
absolutely a worthwhile topic for us to
keep noodling on and i have to believe
it's possible you know I like to think
that the future's going to do you think
we can go to another one that's not just
like that doesn't just become another
corporate facebook and twitter and let
ya like building a decentralized
building like another corporate one is
no can't ya because that the thing is
you look at google rate this is actually
really important to me
our diocese what if so you remember the
Kickstarter maybe hopefully it was a
while ago about dice para they built a
centralized showing that morning I mean
they feel that they built it but did
anybody come but there are people on
even though I killed himself
oh I would argue this about what we
could do if you look at google google
became evil you could argue it certainly
created problems that it didn't
anticipate the google solve many of the
problems we wanted to solve in the early
days in terms of like what a work
environment could be like what what
google did so many wonderful things they
just they didn't foresee the dark side
and I think that's what we can do I
think we can solve this and we're gonna
mess up in some way that we won't
foresee but it's still like a process of
evolution and things get better so like
I'm down for that i'm down for us to
solve this problem unintentionally
create something that we can foresee
because it didn't exist yet
and then it keeps going
so like also like other things that they
do that really got is google Summer of
Code what gets college student
yeah and then they have google code in
which actually gets a doula it reaches
out to middle school to high school
students have been thinking get any car
so yeah you want to change the way
Google and Facebook do their algorithms
I have a very simple solution you know
go work for them they're hiring both of
them as the street I think although they
get no no no no that that is you
obviously were not on the debate team
that was an idiotic remark if you want
to counter your welcome to come up to
the mic so i challenge I want to
challenge the original assumption that
facebook even has a responsibility or we
even have a the right to demand of them
to be neutral
you know you look at things that are
supposed to be neutral because their
journal that they claim to be
generalists organizations like folks
news who are anything but no they do is
promote hatred and nobody's actually
taking them up to the task so why should
somebody who doesn't even have the UH
the the uh I would be more comfortable
at Facebook admitted any bias that it
has that's my point but but don't but is
why is your comfort even consider why
should your comfort be a consideration
for facebook if you don't like Facebook
do what the the previous speaker said
don't be on Facebook and you know you
can
there is life outside of facebook fair
enough next question
so where I I've been thinking about this
a little bit and hearing about all the
curfuffle and it seemed like a lot of
people that we're talking about it kind
of warrant really techie there was no
they're saying things like you can't
change the algorithm at all you know
ever
yeah it was very much like you know
whatever facebook did last Tuesday well
that was perfect and that kind of didn't
seem to go along with how we have tech
companies now that you know they're
doing a be test their changing little
things all the time and facebook is
running tests all the time yeah and
every you know everything you know
twitter is an every big you know tech
companies like how they work
so what and I was saying about the mom
almost not sure what do you see what
would have more transparent facebook be
how would they be able to communicate
that you know easily to people that are
tacky and non-techie well if they
removed the curated section that would
remove a lot of this problem off the bat
because i think the way that they
handled the algorithm for your feed is
generally more transparent and less
problematic people don't seem concerned
about what showing up in their feet
outside of search engine optimization
for example if you're a non-profit
brands it's hard for you to show up in
the feed but that's not really
politicized and and you can choose what
shows up in your feet so for me like i
have my top 10 or 20 friends and I've
wasn't that they should get shown first
and they do get shown first and also
know that seems to work well enough not
perfect but well enough
it's these moments where there's
curation against a claim of neutrality
that I'm seeing uh it's just BS thank
you
hello first off I'd like to thank you
for being patient with this somewhat
rowdy group of people i'm already group
of people good good you're good company
so are you looking for these companies
to be completely neutral or maybe it's
ok if they have a stance but they're
just more transparent about what it is
oh well you know I'm coming out of
having worked in more open source
software or the last few years and I
like transparency I think that
transparency is and it's a nice practice
you know you make mistakes but you're
open about it and we can have
conversations about it as a community so
that would be my preference my
preference would be for companies to
just admit that they're imperfect and
it's a process and solicit feedback and
for us to say yeah we'd rather have you
curate and we understand that humans are
messy and the curations not perfect and
for facebook to say something like
neutrality is a value but it's like we
get as close as we can I think something
like that would probably I'd probably
like that a lot
um it'sit's the conflict between when a
company says a thing and it's just know
what they're doing that's what troubles
me I'm also just troubled by the
enormous power that these companies have
an elections and because of the lack of
transparency we just don't know i think
it's unlikely that Facebook or Twitter
will swing the selection or certainly
that they'll try but it remains true
that they could and I think that's worth
it's worth our attention and that's what
did I answer your question yeah also
follow up which is using neutrality is a
good value is there some limited
neutrality like we we can agree that if
they choose Democrats Republicans that's
a bummer but should they be censoring
Isis posts like is there anything that's
so objectionable that is at
equally desirable for them to step in
and say no we have an opinion on this
content with this viewpoint when i take
a step back and I think about facebook
and i think about Twitter I'm seeing
things that I've selected to see so I
shouldn't see Isis and left i've
selected to see them and then we get
into the question of whether facebook
should be hosting that content and
that's something that I'm unsure about
that's a free-speech question that I'm
not Eddie's with yet myself and I'm
interested in what other people have to
say I if I ran one of those companies i
wouldn't want to host certain kinds of
speech but it is difficult to figure out
where you draw certain lines I suppose
Isis might be an easy line to draw other
lines are less easy
um yeah these are good questions
yeah I thank you thank you
this topic seems to attract a lot of
man's planning I to add onto that not I
wasn't calling on anyone in particular
what maybe my whole talk with
mansplaining and I apologize for that
no huh arms so my question was to add to
someone who asked earlier about how out
the ribbons can have bias and i wanted
to add onto that and say like algorithms
are you know often like simulation so if
you think about i was reading an article
about the algorithms used to predict
whether someone will wind up in jail
again after being released and it was
was really interesting to see how like
the inputs into an algorithm really
affect the outcome and can actually
cause like racism or bias in one way or
another depending on how the algorithm
is crafted so do you have any ideas
about how we can ask for transparency
especially from like government
institutions about the like machine
learning algorithms or or the inputs
that they use into those algorithms uh
to to solve these problems that are
really complicated and you know they're
uh you know a machine so how can machine
have bias but the inputs into those
systems
so I as the cheeks who i've been working
with lon press stuff is giving a talk
tomorrow
uh that deals with them how they make
changes in oakland around
anti-surveillance and oh hi yeah so I
sunday my apologies not tomorrow sunday
so i recommend going and seeing that
talk to see how citizens can impact that
sort of thing
what I've seen specifically an open
source and transparency is the election
of certain candidates who promote those
values and that's starting to happen
then Kalos in Manhattan is one example
Rand Paul was interested in open source
when i was working with him so I think
we can vote for those candidates and
make it clear that we care and perhaps
maybe like become a voting bloc is
hackers or something like I think that
there might be political ways that we
can communicate to the reps that we care
and i think we can become louder on
specific issues like if people are
getting more jail time because an
algorithm determines that that seems
like something that citizens should be
able to see all right
no thanks thank you i think we have time
for one more question no one comes up
alright thank you so much