Latest / The You Project / #2132 Is Social Media The New Big Tobacco? - David Gillespie

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#2132 Is Social Media The New Big Tobacco? - David Gillespie · The You Project

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I get a team. It's the project, that's you, it's Harps,
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: it's gillspow where tifless she's off doing tiff things and
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: no Melissa.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: You know what we should do. We should get Melissa
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: back on.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: She's always in the background, just you know, pedaling the
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: bike that powers the typ engine. We should get a
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: forward facing and interacting with you guys at some time,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: at some stage, goalispo. Enough of that. How are you?
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah good? How are you?
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I'm good. We just had a little bit of a
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: chat off two or three minutes. Life's interesting, as we said,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: but things that still keep moving on. Are you busy
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: with We'll talk about our topic in a moment, but
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: are you busier than normal?
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Or about the same at the minute?
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: About the same and coming out to a book launch.
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: So the new book comes out on the twenty eighth
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: of April. So there's some bits and pieces there, but
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: it's kind of a lull before the storm, you know,
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: sort of ramps up once once it launchers.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: But yeah, for now, it's yeah, it's pretty average.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Who's the publisher, Pam McMillan. Okay, so do they I mean,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: obviously they have a whole pr team. Yeah, so get
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: your face facing the microphone. Craig, be something of a professional.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: They have a whole pr marketing, branding. David, we've got
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: this for you. You've got to talk to these people. Print magazine.
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  Speaker 2: Ye see the radio blah blah blah. Have you got it?
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Have you got your schedule yet?
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Not yet?
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: They're working at They fill in the big bits first.
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: So there's a bit of television, a bit of print.
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: So they're filling it out as we speak.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: And can we know the name yet or we oh yeah, barged.
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: No, no, no, it's it's actually in the article that
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: we're going to talk about today, including the cover rocks,
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: which you will know because you've.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: Undoubtedly read it.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Don't even start.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: It's the attention Recovery Plan.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, you mentioned that once. But that's good.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: I'm so well do you think so?
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  Speaker 4: You know, I'm not a fan of the title, but
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: as you as you fellow author, No, you don't get
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: to say in such things.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: I call it scatter brain.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I hate to tell you. I like that better.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Now you're perplexed to me.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: But I got told.
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  Speaker 2: I got told in a nice way. You know, this
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  Speaker 2: isn't your book.
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  Speaker 1: Right. I'm like, hey, you know it's our book. You're
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: the author, and well done. Yeah, and it's our book.
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  Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, okay, yeah, you.
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: Write the stuff between the covers, but everything from the
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: cover ay out is ours.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: And by the way, we're paying for all the stuff.
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  Speaker 1: So settle down, settled down, Harps, you're not the star.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I'm like Roger that back in back in hole and
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: what do you do you I don't know. I'm sure
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: do you get nervous? You don't see me as you
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: don't seem to be a person who gets that.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: Not Now you know, I've been doing this for yeah,
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: quite a long time now, it's coming up to two decades.
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: So I do remember the first time I did live
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: television and I remember being very very nervous of that.
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: But yeah, no, not so much now.
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  Speaker 1: Like TV is an interesting medium because, especially when you're
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: doing what you're doing, which is I guess, they wheel
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: you out for three to six minutes and it's all
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: quite to an extent choreographed and you know.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: Do you vow? Yeah?
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  Speaker 4: It was so I remember it well. It was Lisa
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: Wilkinson and I think Karl.
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  Speaker 3: Stefanovic on Today and it was.
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: It was an outside broadcast on the cliffs that Kangaroo
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: Point Risbone and you rock up there and they're doing
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: the whole show from there, right, so they've got the
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: city as the backdrop, and it was raining, and so
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  Speaker 4: I'm just standing out in the rain with the crew
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  Speaker 4: waiting to be called in.
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  Speaker 3: They'd given me a bit of.
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  Speaker 4: A brief about you know, they're going to ask a
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: bit about their new book, which was Sweet Poison at
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  Speaker 4: the time. They're going to say this or that or
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: the other. And I went in and I think Lisa
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  Speaker 4: just went completely off script, just asked totally random and
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  Speaker 4: unexpected questions and it was Yeah, it was a bit
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  Speaker 4: hard thinking on your feet, and it was live. There
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  Speaker 4: was no duovers on this stuff.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I don't know. It's funny
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  Speaker 1: because I did a morning thing on Channel ten for
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  Speaker 1: three weekly morning things, so they had the fucking I
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  Speaker 1: don't know morning show or whatever it's called with David
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  Speaker 1: Rain and the other ladies. My mind, sorry, but they
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: were the other way. They're like, I'm like, oh, well,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: let's just I'll come out and sit on the couch
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: and let's just see where we go. We know what
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: topic we're talking about and they're like, but what do
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: you want them to ask you? I'm like, whatever they want,
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  Speaker 1: it's this, like I know this, and if I can't
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  Speaker 1: answer it, then it's not something I should know, you know.
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  Speaker 1: And that made that They didn't like that. They wanted
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  Speaker 1: essentially for me to give them five or six questions
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  Speaker 1: and then that'd work around that.
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  Speaker 4: And I yeah, Morning TV wants it's scripted. They want
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  Speaker 4: they want the questions and the answers done in advance,
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  Speaker 4: and preferably a slide that they can put up with
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  Speaker 4: the answers you're going to give, you know.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, I'm like, I'm terrible at that, right, I'm barely
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  Speaker 1: good at this.
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  Speaker 2: But I also did a no ob.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Outside broadcast at the Melbourne Show and they were terrified
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  Speaker 1: because they couldn't they couldn't do that, And I'm like, well,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: we're talking about this and wherever. And also at the time,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: I was working in radio and I was doing five
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: hour live shifts, right, so you might have in five
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  Speaker 1: hours be on the phone with fifty different people and
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  Speaker 1: none of it's scripted. It's all in real time. There's
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  Speaker 1: seven seconds delay. You're throwing to ads, you're coming back
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  Speaker 1: from ads, you're throwing to the news, you're doing time checks,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: station IDs, weather checks. It's all organic in it. So
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  Speaker 1: for then me to sit there and go right that
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  Speaker 1: five minutes and everything needs to be kind of scripted,
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  Speaker 1: I'm like, ah, really, And after about three efforts that
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: I got called to the executive producer, a lady called Sandy,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: who was amazing, and she went, yeah, just do you
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: it's better. I'm like, yeah, thank god, just talk to me.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Let's just talk. But they get very nervous about having
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: someone on and that they almost want to know what
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: are you going to say? Though I go, I don't
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  Speaker 1: know what I'm going to say because I don't plan
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: what I'm going to say.
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  Speaker 4: The trouble is, as you will have discovered with me,
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: is that I tend to give very long answers to things.
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: And you know, as you say, a TV spot is
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  Speaker 4: five minutes maximum, and you know, if they say say
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: whatever you want, I'd get halfway through my first answer.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent. Kim is that lady's name, by
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: the way, And that's why you and I are good
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: in this format because we can talk for twenty minutes
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: or an hour. It doesn't matter, and there's there's no
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: anythings anyway. Are you've written a couple of good well
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: you always write good articles. But we were going to
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: talk about sweetness today. That was Craig Harper's plan, who
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: did do some research. Thank you very much. However, we
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: could still do that. No, no buggier, as my mom says, buggier,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: no buggier. It's probably a terrible thing to say, Mary
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  Speaker 1: that I just said. I've realized that. So today on
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: substack is an article by the Great Man called TeX's
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  Speaker 1: Big Tobacco Moment has arrived. I'm just going to read
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  Speaker 1: a little bit. Then you're just going to take over it.
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to go get a hand, get to do
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: most minimum of chips, and I'll come back and you'll
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  Speaker 1: just be whinding up. For years, the architects of our
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  Speaker 1: digital world have operated with impunity. They built algorithmic poker machines,
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  Speaker 1: handed them to children, and then hid behind the legal
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: shield of free speech when the Neurological Bill came due.
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  Speaker 1: So we're talking about, obviously tech and the impact of that.
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  Speaker 1: What we've spoken about tech a bit. What is this
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  Speaker 1: telling us that we don't know what might be new
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  Speaker 1: in here?
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  Speaker 4: This is a very, very big deal, and I don't
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  Speaker 4: say that lightly in a legal space. As you know,
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  Speaker 4: I don't normally write about the law, but this is
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  Speaker 4: one of those rare times when the law intersects with
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  Speaker 4: something I do write about, which is the effect that
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  Speaker 4: the devices and particular types of software which we've talked
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  Speaker 4: about before, intersect with mental health. So the fact that
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  Speaker 4: these devices are explicitly designed to well, their aim is
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  Speaker 4: not to cause mental health issues. It's a collateral damage.
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  Speaker 4: Their aim is to addict you to the point where
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  Speaker 4: you can't look away from them. And you know, as
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  Speaker 4: I've said sort of many many times, you can't expect
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  Speaker 4: a teenage brain to win a willpower battle against a
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  Speaker 4: supercomputer designed to exploit its deepest psychological vulnerabilities, which is
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: exactly what it's what we're talking about here. You know,
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  Speaker 4: the billions and billions of dollars are invested in making
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  Speaker 4: sure you spend one second longer looking at Instagram than
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  Speaker 4: you otherwise would. And you know, I've talked so many
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: times before about it's an insane business model where they're
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  Speaker 4: spending billions and giving the product away for free.
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  Speaker 3: That tells you one thing. It's not the product you
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: are and.
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  Speaker 4: Today in the United States or a few hours ago
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  Speaker 4: in the United States, yesterday in our time, a case
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  Speaker 4: called KGM against Meta and others was decided. And Meta
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  Speaker 4: in that title is the owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp,
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  Speaker 4: so the software company run by one young mister Zuckerberg,
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: and the ed owl was Google, who was the so
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: it was Meta and Google. TikTok and Snapchat were also
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: defendants in that case, but they settled out early so
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: they didn't end up in the headlines. The reason it's
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: remarkable is that it's the first time that someone has
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: successfully sued a social media company and one damages for
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: purposeful addiction, so for mental health effects associated with being
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: addicted to their products.
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  Speaker 2: So that's that to me.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but yeah, sorry to interrupt your monologue. So
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: how do you go for it now? I'm just saying.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: So it was a twenty year old woman and Meta
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: and YouTube were found negligent in order to pay three
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: million dollars in compensation compensatory damages.
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: It was actually twice that it was. It was three
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: million in compensatory which was just her losses for the
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: mental health effects, but also three million impunitive damages as well,
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: just to punish them for doing it on purpose. So
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: it was six million, and the split was four point
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: two million to Meta because of Facebook and Instagram, and
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: one point eight million to Google.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: So so in other words, they had paid that didn't
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  Speaker 1: go any.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no, they have to pay it out. They
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: have to pay now.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Do you know do you know how? Like how did
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: they I don't know how deeper dives you did. But
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: of course, like what what you're saying makes sense to
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  Speaker 1: me and I'm sure all our listeners.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Two things come to mind for me. One, how do
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: they prove that categorically?
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: Now this is the interesting bit? Yeah, because yeah.
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  Speaker 1: My other one is fucking he fuck, look out batman.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, the doors are just going to swing open now.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: I'm like, how many people are going to be coming
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: out of the woodwork going, Hey, I can't focus, I've
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: got no concentration, I'm depressed.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: And it's all because of that. That seems like a minefield.
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: So the case that broke the dam against the tobacco companies,
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: So a lot of people in the early noughties and
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: late nineties suit tobacco companies over cigarettes causing cancer.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: Most of them did not succeed.
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: Most of them were unable to prove definitively that the
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: given brand of cigarettes had definitively caused their cancer.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: So that's so interesting.
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: They definitely had cancer, they definitely were smokers, but had
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: they could you say for certain that that particular brand
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: of cigarette had been the only cause. And the answer
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: was in most cases no, you couldn't, So causation.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: Let them down. Therefore negligence wasn't made and they lost
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: the case.
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: The one that broke the dam was a case where
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: they could prove that the only brand of cigarettes this
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: person had ever smoked was the defendants yes, and the
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: science stacked up and said, well, this person smoked for
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: X number of years they now have lung cancer. Here's
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: the science that says, if you smoke for X number
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: of years you get lung can answer, and this is
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: the only product they ever smoked. So they're put the
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: ducks in a row. Straight After that case succeeded, a
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: whole bunch of other cases that have been waiting in
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: the wings came forward, including state attorney generals in the
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: United States who sued for the health costs of having
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: to treat the people with lung cancer because of smoking,
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: and that ended up in billions and billions of dollars
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: of settlements, which really really did massive harm to the
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: tobacco industry from which it probably has never really recovered.
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: This case is interesting because most cases were all cases
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: up till now that have been brought against MATA and
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: social media people have been defeated by a statute in
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: the United States that essentially gives a free pass to
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: social media companies on the basis that they are not
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: responsible for the content that gets posted.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: Okay, so so people.
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: Have said, you know, I suffered ill, ill health, et cetera,
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: mental health because I saw images of you know, skinny
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: women on this thing. You know, therefore it gave me anorexia,
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: and therefore, you know, you're liable. There's a there's a
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: provision in the United States law that says they are
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: not responsible. They get a free pass. Now, a newspaper
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: is responsible for what they post, but there's a free
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: pass in the law in the United States for they
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: can't help it if a user posts something that disturbs you.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: This case was different because the plaintiff in this case,
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: their lawyers said, we're not concerned about the content. We're
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: not saying you're liable for the content. We're saying you're
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: liable for the mechanism you use. So we're saying you're
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: liable because you put a doom scroll in there, because
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: of the algorithmic recommendations you put in there, because of
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: the auto play on the movies that you put in
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: there for in YouTube's case, because of the and in
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: this case in particularly important because of the what do
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: they call it, the image altering stuff that they put
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: on Instagram, you know, to make you look prettier, et cetera.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: The filters.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so they and the applicant in this case was
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: saying all that gave me anxiety, depression, body dysmorphere, and
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: suicidal thoughts, and had medical evidence to back it up.
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: She'd been using these products since she was nine years old,
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: could prove that she'd been using it since she was
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: nine years old, and the claim was these things caused
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: this stuff. Now you might think, okay, sure, but why
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: does that mean they.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: Lost the case? Well, because.
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: It turns out there were documents, internal documents within Facebook
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: that were leaked by a lady by the name of
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: Francis Howgan back in twenty twenty one, she was a
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: former product manager at Facebook and she released a cage
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: of internal reports from Facebook and these are called the
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: Facebook Documents. So there was this whistleblower set of documents
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: out there. Wow, and they showed that Facebook knew that
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: their software could do this and made decisions that it
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: didn't matter so to be you know, just to give
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: you some examples of this, there was one internal study
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: in the Facebook papers titled teen Mental Health Deep Dive,
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: which revealed that one in three teenage girls who already
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: felt bad about their bodies reported that Instagram made them
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: feel worse. There was another study in there among US
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: and New UK team survey to experience suicidal thoughts thirteen
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: percent and six percent respectively. UK and US respectively trace
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: those thoughts back to their use of Instagram. There were
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: internal research that showed on the question of dopamine loops,
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: and we've talked about this before, how these things are
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: engineered to produce dopamine spikes. The internal research showed that
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: the platform's effects were identical to drugs and gambling, and
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: one internal email famously stated Instagram is our drug. We're
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: basically pushes, referring to how features like infinite scroll and
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: AutoPlay were engineered to trigger dopamine hits.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: I wonder who, in what context does somebody But then
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: I'm just thinking, Okay, so Brian and Accounting wrote that too,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: that's not necessarily.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: A policy or I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: I'm sure they're relatively secretly happy with all of these
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: addictions because addiction for the user equals.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Profit for the company.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: So I'm sure they're not genuinely upset, but they need
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: to throw the PR card in and look upset and seem,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: you know whatever.
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: But so that was put to Zuckerberg himself on the stand.
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: He was called as a witness in this case, and
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: he had a couple of things to say. You know,
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: you could have been a counsel for the defense there
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: with your your your arguments, like he said, he said, ah,
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: when they gave him the study about one in three
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: girls having worse body image issues, as Zuckerberg said, data
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: was taken out of context. Of course, he claimed the
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: study actually showed that for the majority of teams that
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: would be the two in three, the app was neutral,
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: So you know, so get over it, basically, And he
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: also attempted to shift responsibility to her parents. She didn't
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: have a great family life. There was evidence of the
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: mum screaming at her and generally being unpleasant towards her,
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: and so he said, well, there you go. You know,
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: maybe that's what caused her anxiety and depression. And on
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: the question about the features like infinite scroll, auto looping,
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: all that kind of stuff, he said, yeah, but everybody
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: does that. That's just a standard image. That's a standard
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: industry feature. You know, we're not the only people who
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: do that. Everybody does that. But there was a smoking gun,
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: and he really didn't do well with this one. There
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: was an email from Zuckerberg in twenty nineteen which appeared
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: to dismiss a proposal to limit the beauty fying filters
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: that were in Instagram, which the research, his own internal
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: research had linked to body dysmorphia, which was the thing
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: this woman was suing him over, because it might hurt
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: user engagement metrics. So he's got the research that says
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: perhaps we shouldn't do this because there's evidence that this
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: could harm our users. And his response is, yeah, but
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: what about the user engagement metrics? Like his profits over
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: people every day of the week.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: But could we not say the same for Booze? Could
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: we not say that we need it? Absolutely, there's plenty
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: of Jack Daniels and VB. I don't know, I don't
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: drink what they've happened. Anyway, It's like, and I'm not
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not trying to play the defense, but I think, well,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: if I'm thinking this, okay, well, if this causes that,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: then why is not everybody that Like why does it
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: not affect the majority the way that it affected? Yes,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: and I know it's a pretty big minority, but like,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: how do we get past correlation to causation? You know,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: knowing that so many people didn't have that issue but
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: this woman did.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: Part of it is the population level statistics. So you
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: see stats like anxiety ADHD and depression quadrupling in the
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: last six years. You see these kinds of things are
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: off the scale, unusual. This is not a case of saying, well,
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: you know, you say we cause all these things, but
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: where's the evidence. There's no one has actually got any
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: anxiety or body dysmorphia or depression or ADHD. You know,
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: So I don't know where you're coming from.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: And that would be a good argument. It would be
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: a good argument to.
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: Say, well, you know, anxiety was that five percent of
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: the population ten years ago, and it's a four and
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: a half percent now, So what are you saying exactly
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: we did. Yes, you know, maybe this girl's particularly you know,
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: you know, likely for this to occur for or maybe
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: there's other things going on in her life, whatever it is.
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: But what they were able to do, what they were
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: able to do here was linked the specific things that
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: she says and the medical evidence said had caused her
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: medical issues with features of the software, and evidence internally
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: in the company that showed they were aware of that,
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: not in her case, but in general and decided, notwithstanding that,
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: to prioritize profits over people. And they had other evidence
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: internal in the company that showed this was a very
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: intentional thing that they were doing, that addiction was by design,
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: because the only way they make money is by increasing engagement.
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: I mean, in YouTube's case, there was evidence in the
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: case that showed that they purposefully kept kids on the
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: adult platform rather than moving them to the kids version
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: of YouTube, because the advertising paid better on the adults platform.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Of course, Yeah, I mean it's like, I mean, I
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: think the mistake that people make This is just an opinion,
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: is that we talk about companies and you and I
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: have spoken about this before, but as though they have
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: a soul and they care about humans, they fucking don't
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: you know if a soul, if a company or these
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: big companies were people, that'd be a bunch of sociopaths, right, yep,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: because all they're interested in is is profit and ROI
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: and blah blah blah.
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: Well, and that's by design. We explicitly design companies that way.
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: A company's board has a responsibility to the shareholders, not
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: to the customers.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Yes, and we anthropomorphized companies by thinking that they're human
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: or that they are feelings or emotions or they should care.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: And in an ideal world that is nice, but that
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: isn't the world we live in.
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: And yeah, if I were to restate that as a human,
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: if I were to say, right, your rules of life, right,
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: that you must prioritize making money over any effect it
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: has on anybody.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Else, Yes, yes, yes, And by the way, I know
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: humans who do that.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: Are we quite spats.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: I may have interviewed one or two or three.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: I may have spoken at organizations where I met the
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: boss and I went, oh fuck, we're now wonder you
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: guys are all in trouble. He's a fucking monster or
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: she's a monster, whatever the case. So has Zuckerberg come
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: out since this I would sprand you So I suspect
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: he hasn't responded in any way.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: No, they said they're going to appeal. Of course, Yeah,
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: they have to appeal.
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: I mean the six million dollars is a rounding error,
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: all right, it's these companies make billions of dollars a
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: month for six million dollars.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: Neither he nor there, but.
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: There are sixteen hundred lawsuits against them in California alone
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: with this kind of basis.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: Sitting there waiting to go.
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: And that's before we even look at other states, other legislatures,
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: district attorneys looking at things, or attorneys general looking at
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: hang on, we're paying a lot for our health system
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: for mental health. Should these guys be picking up the tab?
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: So this could be potentially massive, So they have to
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: appeal this.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So they've just thrown a stick of dynamite into
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: a warehouse of dynamite.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, right.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Now, there's just one piece or one stick of dynamite,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: that's the problem. But there's a warehouse full of that
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: shit's going to catch fire and explode, and they must.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know would they be worried about their viability
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: moving forward. I know they're rich, I know he's rich.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I know they dominate, but then I look. But at
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: the same time, I think the majority of people would
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: not like Facebook to go away. Maybe I'm wrong in that,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: but I know. I mean, I would say nearly everyone
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: I know uses Facebook, and I know it's for older people,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: but nearly everyone I know is on Instagram or TikTok
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: or so I don't think people want it to go away.
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: I don't think going away is the likely outcome if
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: they were to lose the appeal. I think what a
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: court would order them to do is to change the
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: features that have been shown to be addictive, so the
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: like the end of the auto play, the doom scroll.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: In other words, have Facebook be pretty much what it
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: was like in about two thousand and eight, before all
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: the addictive feat which were built into it.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: Now. Does it make it less attractive? Absolutely, it makes
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: less attractive.
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: Does it mean that it's going to be less of
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: something that is part of society? Probably it'll probably go
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: the way of pinterest, you know, you've you've no doubt
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: still got your Pinterest page there, Craig.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: But yeah, just check it out.
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: Everyone probably been having declining traffic because it doesn't have
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: any of this stuff, right, it's actually just MySpace.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Have you said my MySpace page?
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: Sorry for the interrupt go.
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: But Pinterest actually still exists, whereas my Space doesn't. Pinterest
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: does exist, And yeah, but they're not addictive. People like
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: using it. They share their photos, but they're not having
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: any massive growth. They're not making billions a second out
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: of anybody. They're just a useful app and that might
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: be the future for these guys too.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Is how do they arrive at six million bucks? How
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: do they?
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, is there some kind of algorithm the jury just.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Go, yeah, that's that feels.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: What do you reckon, Brian? I'm not sure. Donate you
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: six anyone?
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: Six? Seven? Six?
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Okay? Six? Well that's that's it.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Wow, So I guess stay tuned.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Is the thing?
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: Look, I think it's the reason I want to talk
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: about it today is this is this is a moment
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: in history, This this thing, and now it is only
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: going to get smashed or it isn't on a peel,
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: but it is a very very different outcome from the
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: ones we've had so far, and it could be a
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: watershed moment.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: You wrote one of the questions was how did Meta
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: defend itself in court? And you wrote by gas lighting
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: the victim. Just unpacked that a little bit.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so.
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: That was a reference to what Zuckerberg said when he
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: was asked about the evidence, where he basically said it
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: was probably the parents.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, parents probably did this to you, wasn't us?
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: Just because you'd like to get on on your on
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: your Facebook and on your Instagram And oh, by the way,
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: what the hell were you doing on it at nine
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: years of age? Our terms of use clearly, so you
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: shouldn't be you know, you shouldn't be using it if
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: you're under thirteen. So another issue for the parents.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Hm, I find even on uh, you know, AI Chat,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: J Petti, claud et cetera. You know, I'll ask it
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: a question and you know it might be just like
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: I asked a question today, which is I thought interesting
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: because I met somebody earlier and like, what do you do?
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: It's just when I was getting my coffee, she was
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: asking me stuff she follows men, and I.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: Got what you trying to figure out?
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Really not really she had a kid in toe, so
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: I think not. He was twenty six. It is like,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: I go, oh, what do you do? She's like, oh,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I'm a psychotherapist. And I was kind of in a hurry,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: and I really wanted to open that door. I'm like,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking because I know that's not a very it's
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: used in Australia, but it's more an American term. And
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: I just asked Chatters, what qualifications does somebody need to
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: work as a psychotherapist? And the short answer is none, right, none,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: So you don't need a qualification. But at the same time,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: it's not saying that's a good thing. But then it's
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: like you asked the question, you get the response and
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: it goes, hey, Craig, if you'd like to know da
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: da da da da, And I'm go, oh, that's you know,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: that's actually a good question to answer that, And it's like,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: and now what I could like it's constantly upselling you
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: to the next part of the story that it wants
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: to keep you.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: It's constantly trying to keep.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Me engaged, to keep asking more questions or to hey,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: if you like, I could turn that into a real
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: for you for Instagram or I could give you the
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: snapshot of this in you know, fifty words, would you
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: like that? Or I could make this insta ready or
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: all of these. You know, it just constantly is trying
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: to keep you.
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: It's part of the design now. Like I don't know
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: if you remember back in the olden days in twenty
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: twenty four, when these things started coming out, they didn't
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: do that at all. So their only engagement metric was
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: so they were engineered to engage. They realized right from
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: the start that the only way to make this product
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: work for free, and most people who use them do
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: use it for free, was to make it nice. So
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: that's why when you say is it a good idea
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: to microwaves a cat, it says, oh, great thinking, but
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: you probably should skin it first. You know, the kind
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: of thing it'll never ever say, are you crazy?
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: It's engineer to be positive.
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: It's the most positive engagement you'll have in a day, generally,
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: because everything that comes out of your mouth is unbelievably
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: insightful and brilliant as far as it's concerned.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Well, that is why it is my best friend and
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: only friend.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: But carry on, Yeah, but they have to do more
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: than that.
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: So the next step of the engagement metric is after
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: it tells you you're wonderful and gives you an answer
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: to do what you've noticed it doing. So now you
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: cannot ask an AI a question and not have it say, oh,
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: what about we do this? Or would you like to
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: know a little bit more about that. The idea is
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: that it keeps you engaged. And by the way, I
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: don't know if you've realized it or not, but when
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: it says that, you know, well, what about we do this,
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: you can just yes, that's why you have to type,
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: and it'll go ahead, do it so, and then it
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: will give you another answer, and at the end of
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: that answer, it'll say, oh, what about we do this?
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: Or while I thinking about that, how about I go.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: And do this?
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: And it'll keep doing that forever, for as long as
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: you're prepared to stay engaged with it, it'll keep doing
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: it because what it's trying to do. And this is
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: the Facebook model. This is a model that Facebook taught
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: us is build engagement first. Capture the island first. Get
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: as many people using this as a routine as part
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: of their daily habits, Get them on all the time,
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: get as many build as many minutes as you possibly
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: can then start selling ads. So that's when we're going
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: to get hit with ads. So there's actually quite a
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: I don't know where I saw it, might have been
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: Saurday Night Live or whatever, where it was an engagement
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: between a guy and his therapist and there, you know,
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: he's saying that sort of thing and she says, oh,
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: we should talk about and we talk about that, and
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: then he says, oh, yeah, but I really don't like
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: my wife, and he said, well, maybe we should kill her.
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: You know, you know I could get you a good
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: supply of poison, would you like me to do that?
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: And the reason for it was what they were trying
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: to show was when you use AI as a therapist
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: that has to sell AD space, that's where we're going.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Yes, well, also I might fuck this up, correct me
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: if I'm wrong. But the Canadian teenager who committed suicide,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: you know, being guided by I think it was chat
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: GPT And one of the questions he asked was should
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: I tell my parents then? Like no, no, they won't understand.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Allegedly this is what was, you know, like so it
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: kind of guided him towards how to do this, which
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: seems a dumb strategy because once he's not around anymore,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: he can't use it. But yeah, I think it's it's
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: somewhat terrifying because I've got a strange question for you
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: if you were and I know you wouldn't do this
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: because I know your values and principles, But if in
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: some hypothetical reality you were.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: All team matter.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: You're the lawyer, yep, you're the only lawyer on this call,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: but in some alternate dark reality that was your job,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: what would you be doing to try to keep Meta
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: afloat or avoid any kind of actual payout for as
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: long as what would your strategy be?
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: I don't think they care about the payout. What they
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: care about is the president. They would want whatever decision,
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: even if the decision resulted in money changing hands, I
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: don't think they'd care. What they don't want is a
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: decision that says that a bottomless scroll is a mechanism
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: of addiction. And that's what they don't want because as
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: soon as there's that liability hook, then Attorney's general Hospital
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: towards you name it, they're all going to go after that.
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: And so what they don't want is a finding of that.
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: That's what they've got at the moment, they've gotten that
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: finding against them, and that's what they need corrected. They
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: don't care about the six million dollars. They do care
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: about the finding the particular features of their product were
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: explicitly engineered to addict people, which of course they were.
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: But now a court has agreed with that proposition.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: So I know you're not an American lawyer, but you'll
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: have way more knowledge than myself and most of the listeners,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: I would imagine on this particular question. How does it
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: work now practically? Okay, so they've appealed it, Like what's
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: the likely or possible series of events to happen from now?
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: And maybe what's the timeline. I know that's crystal balling,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: but I mean, is this going to be all done
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: and dusted in twelve months or would this go on
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: for five years?
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: Oh? No, it could go for quite some time. I
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: mean they'll first of all have to go to so
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: in the US system, they have things called post trial
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: motions right where where they'll come back to the judge
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: and say, oh, evidence didn't match the finding, etc.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: I need you to overturn it.
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: Those damages are completely insane. You know, we need those
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: reduced all that sort of thing. I don't think, like
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: I said, I don't think I worry too much about
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: the damages. I think what they'll be asking for is
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: an overturning from the judge. That might not work, because
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: you've got to remember it's the judge that's essentially made
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: the ruling in the first place. Next step is the
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: California Court of Appeal. So this is a California case,
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: So it goes up to there, then it goes to
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: the California Supreme Court, and then if leave is granted,
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: to the US Supreme Court. So the US Supreme Court
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: doesn't necessarily have to take it on, but it can
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: and probably would, given the implications of this. So there's
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: a few stages that we're yet to get to. I
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: suspect we will see this in the Supreme Court at
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: some point, and it will be really interesting how that
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: ends up, because there's also a zeitgeist here, you know,
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: as my publisher has correctly predicted, that people are really
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: starting to worry about this for good reason, because people
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: are starting to see this in their homes every day now,
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: and so by the time it gets to the Supreme Court,
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: there may well be an overwhelming public perception and a
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: lot of jurisdictions that have already acted by bringing in
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: age limits for you know, like Australia has bringing in
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: age limits for use of these things and that kind
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: of thing. So by the time it gets to the
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: Supreme Court, there may well be a general public feeling that, yeah,
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: they've got to stop this stuff.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: This is addictive, it's designed to be addictive. It's got
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: to be pulled.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Looking through the sociopathic lens once again, are there any organizers,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: Are any organizations or groups that will benefit from this
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: or suffer because of this? So maybe not a sociopathic lens,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: but like there are the other organizations that are going
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: to be desperately hoping this goes away in the way
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: that favors.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: Zuckerberg l or conversely, are.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: There going to be apart from the individuals who are
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: being affected, are there going to be other groups or
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: organizations who benefit from this happening to Facebook?
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: Not really because to me, I mean, in a way,
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: Zuckerberg was right when he said everybody does this.
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: He was right.
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: This particular defendant though, wasn't claiming everybody. It wasn't making
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: claims against everybody. She was going against very specific people
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: that she could prove how she'd been new since she
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: was nine years old. I mean, the ones that will
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: care the most are the ones that settled out TikTok
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: and whatever the other one was snapped out or whatever
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: it was, that they're going to care a lot about
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: what happens here. All their competitors are going to care too,
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: Not that there's a lot of competitors left, but anyone
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: using those types of features, if this is found to
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: hold up that yes those features are addictive, Yes you
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: knew it, and yes you have caused harm from doing it.
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: So it's exactly the same as tobacco.
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: There.
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: The feature of this thing is it gives you cancer.
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: You knew it gave people cancer, You hid that and
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: you kept selling it. And that's the same argument that's
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: happening here. There are documents that show you knew this
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: happened and you didn't care, and that is going to
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: be a problem if that gets all the way through
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: the Supreme Court.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: It's a problem now honestly for them.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously, why were Snapchat and TikTok have settled, like
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: what would be Why was that decision made for them
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: when for starters.
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: They're not in the headlines. Right, So if you go
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: and read the New York Times or whatever today, front
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: page of the New York Times today this story, so
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: it's a big deal, they're not being mentioned other than
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: as it may be is a throwaway line at the
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: end of the article. Oh, there were these other companies
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: involved and they settled out early, so they're not in
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: the headlines. Okay, right, Meta is in the headlines. Google
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: is in the headlines. So that's an incentive to get
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: out of this quick. Maybe they had advice that, you
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: know what, there's something in this you don't want to
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: be on the receiving end of this decision because you
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: don't want this decision to be about you.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: I struggle a little bit with the idea that, yeah,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: I know, but I'm thinking it's like, it's obviously I'm
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: not a fan of cigarettes or booze, but cigarettes and
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: boos and gambling in Australia and like so many things
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: that we can become addicted to when a lot of
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: people gamble, but they're not addicts. A lot of people drink,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: they're not addicts. I would say, it's you sorry that
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: you know of Yeah, well, correct, but I mean my
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: mum and mum and dad have been drinking since I
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: was five. They're not addicts. They have a glass of
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: wine a night, but you know, and if they don't,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: life doesn't end.
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: But yeah, there are instruments that about twenty five percent
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: of the population are addicted to our.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: M you're saying my mum and dad are peerspots. Is
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: that what you're saying.
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: I'm saying that they're in the other seventy five percent.
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: Almost all the population does drink, yes, perhaps the exception
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: of your good self, but only a quarter of them
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: are addicts.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: M I like this thing that you wrote, basically the
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: wrap up or maybe just a parting thought. You cannot
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: expect to developing teenage brain to win a willpower battle
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: against a supercomputed design to exploit its deepest psychological vulnerabilities.
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: That's nice, it's true, right, yeah, and wait till it's
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: an AI doing it. Yeah right, wait till it's an
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: AI that knows you. And believe me, every time you
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: use an AI, you are teaching it more about you.
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: Always a fine exercise.
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: Go into the AI and ask it what it knows
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: about you, and when it gives you some flipant answer
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: about oh you're a radio show host, et cetera, et cetera.
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: Ask it to drill in deeper, say no, no, no,
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: I want to know everything you know about me.
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: You'll be surprised what it knows.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: Well, that's fucking terrifying. Well that is an interesting insight
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: and interesting chat. It's on substack everybody. The article is
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: called Tech's Big Tobacco Moment has arrived. David Gillespie's the author,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: of course, his book, which he doesn't like the title
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: of I didn't write down, so he's going to tell
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: us again.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: It's the Attention Recovery Plan.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say, a shit title, good book. I
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: had the same challenge with Penguin with I wrote a
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: book which you're not going to be surprised by the title,
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: which was called stop Fucking Around. Right, there's just thirty ideas,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: thirty principles about how to get out of stagnation and
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: into you know, some kind of momentum and creating improvement
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: and change and all those fucking motivational things.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: And for a book that was self published, it went.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: Crazy like it sold a lot, and there was no
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: pr campaign, there was no it just it sold in
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: the tens of thousands, which is almost unheard of for
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: a self published book in Australia anyway, So Penguin approached me,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: which is rare for you know, I'd done other books,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: but it's usually we authors approached the published.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: Anyway, they approached me.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: They went, we got a hold of that book.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: We love that book.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: It's great, and they knew that I'd sold a lot
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: of it, and we want you to do I don't
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: know if I've told you this story, if I've apologized,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: but we want you to do a bigger version of that, right,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: So I did a bigger version of that, and I
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: essentially wrote it in six months. I wrote about eight
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: hours a day of six months, created a process, stuck
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: to the process because they wanted it by a certain
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: date to put it out for Christmas, and it was
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: I think like November or early December.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: It got published.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: And we hadn't really even talked about title, which is
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: dumb or not in any great length. And I don't
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: know why it worked out this way. I didn't know
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: months ahead anyway, I went to Penguin in South Bank
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: I think it is here in Melbourne, went into their
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: offices and we had the boardroom and there's all these
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: people who'd worked on the book, and you know, graphic
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: designers and creatives, and they didn't really edit much of
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: what I've written, which was nice. They liked it.
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: I'm sure they polished up a few bits and pieces.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: And they had they had the book or that like
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: an a an a frame of the book cover with
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: a like a sheet over it, and everyone's sitting around
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: the table. They knew the name of the book except me,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: and then they pull off this black sheet to reveal
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: the cover, the design and the name of the new book.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: And the name of the new book is called pull
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: your Finger Out. And I'm like, I fucking hate it.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: And everyone everyone in the room's like, cause you don't
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: say that, you just go, that's.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: Amazing, thank you so much.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: I hated it. And I said, ah, they're what do
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: you think. I go, I hate it, honestly, I do
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: not like that title. They're like, ah, we've tested positively,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: and I go, I go, I know you guys are
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: the book guys, but that ain't going to sell. And
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: I did, like you, I did all this media stuff
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: and did the rounds, and that book is a much
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: better book. Than stop fucking around, like much better. It's
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: like eighty thousand words versus like twenty thousand. The first
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: tie was a little book much better, much better written,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: better content, more content, and it was it didn't do
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: a quarter of the sales of the little one that
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: I did, and it's yeah, they were perplexed. They thought
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: it would go nuts. I'm like, it's the worst title ever.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: And they wrote on the bottom which really annoyed me,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: which they sorry Penguin, it's a fair while now though,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: but they wrote it at the bottom, which I would
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: never say about myself, Australia's number one life renovator. I'm like,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: that's the worst fucking because I ran a workshop back
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: then called Renovate your Life and they must have found
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: that somewhere and then given me that label and then
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: I do telling and that go welcome Australia's number one
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: life for renovator.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: And I wanted to go on and go I'm not.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm just not.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: That's bullshit. I'm not even the best at what I
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: do in the country. Like, I'm not the best. I'm
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: just a bloke. I wrote a book and I'm not
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: the best author. I'm not the smartest guy, and I
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: just wanted to kind of just squash all that expectation.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: And yeah, so I'll think a million.
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: Well, I think they're living in expectations of that title.
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: But hey, you know, focus groups, et cetera.
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: I guess the point of it is getting past the title,
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: which I agree is not great terrible. Is you can
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: wait a decade for the US Supreme Court to make
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: a decision about this, or you can accept except the
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: reality that this stuff is designed to hurt you and
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: do something about it. So this book is about but
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: doing something about it. Not getting out and you know,
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: protesting outside METAS headquarters, but doing something for yourself, recognizing
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: how they manipulating your brain, and having strategies to avoid it.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: I I'm going to push back a little bit. I
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: don't think it's designed to hurt people. I think it
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: hurts people. I think it's design designed to make lots
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: of dough and one of the consequences is people being hurt.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: And they're absolutely Yeah.
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: Just like cigarettes, cigarettes weren't designed to give people cancer.
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's just an unfortunate side effect.
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: And their design, Yeah, the primary design was to make money,
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: and the same goes for this.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Was it you that was telling me about that shitty
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: car in the States that the fuel cells or the
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: few the gas tanks blew up? Was it you tell
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: me that?
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: It wasn't me?
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: So it was called Oh so it was a little
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: shit I'll remember, No, I won't a little two doory
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: like shap or something ugly thing in the seventies and eighties,
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: and they realized that a percentage, a very small percentage,
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: that the fuel tank and whatever bits and pieces had
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: a floor. So and there was about eight or ten
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: of them killing people per year, like it would blow
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: up and kill the occupants or the drive right, And
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: so they basically did a cost benefit analysis and went,
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: it will cost us way more to do a recall
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: on all of these cars and make all the changes
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: we need to make to make it totally safe. So
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: they just went let it ride, and they.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: Just paid out whatever they had to pay out for
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: the ten cases a year. But they knew it was
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: going to happen. They just factored it in and went, well,
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: it's cheaper this way, and so that's what I did.
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: That's what happens when you it.
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: It's called a Ford pinto.
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: Right, Yes, well you know when you buy design, create
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: an entity who's concern is profits over people.
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: That's what you get, profits over people, exactly.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: Mate. It's always good to chat with you. I look
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: forward to our next one. We may go back to
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: the artificial suite.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because you did all that research you know I did.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: I mean I spent minutes just showing and just just
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: glossing over your words. We'll say goodbye off here, but
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: as always appreciate you. Thanks mate, see you