Frances Haugen - Facebook’s Algorithm & Teen Mental Health | The Daily Show — Transcript

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1. 0:00francis haugen welcome to the daily show
2. 0:02thank you for inviting me happy to be
3. 0:03here um
4. 0:04your name
5. 0:06isn't as big as the story that you
6. 0:10really i mean leaked to the world
7. 0:12you know a lot of people you say francis
8. 0:13how can they be like who is that but
9. 0:15then if you say to people
10. 0:16hey remember how we all learned that
11. 0:19facebook and what social media is doing
12. 0:21is essentially destroying teenagers
13. 0:22brains and it's harming all of us yeah
14. 0:24that report happened because of you so
15. 0:27let's start with the question of why
16. 0:29you've worked for
17. 0:31google you've worked for pinterest
18. 0:32you've worked for yelp and yet you blew
19. 0:34the whistle on facebook why did you feel
20. 0:36like oh this this is something i can't
21. 0:38sit on
22. 0:39so when i joined
23. 0:41facebook i thought i was going to work
24. 0:42on misinformation in the united states
25. 0:45and i was surprised i actually was
26. 0:47charged with working on information
27. 0:49outside only outside the united states
28. 0:51okay and
29. 0:52like many people and many technologists
30. 0:54i had never really focused on facebook's
31. 0:57impact internationally
32. 0:58and very rapidly
33. 1:02i realized kind of the horrifying
34. 1:04magnitude of the danger that we are
35. 1:05facing that facebook's algorithms give
36. 1:08the most reach to the most extreme and
37. 1:10divisive ideas um and that that process
38. 1:14is destabilizing some of the most
39. 1:16fragile places in the world like
40. 1:17ethiopia or what happened in myanmar it
41. 1:20you see when when you say that there are
42. 1:22some people who will accept it
43. 1:23immediately and then there are some
44. 1:24people be like that's that's not true at
45. 1:26all but i'm sure there are a lot of
46. 1:27people who will say well but i mean
47. 1:30aren't they always going to be extreme
48. 1:31people in the world you know there's
49. 1:33always somebody saying something you
50. 1:34know facebook themselves say they go
51. 1:36like hey we're not we're not part of the
52. 1:37problem we're merely a platform that
53. 1:40people put their views on we are not
54. 1:42part of the problem and you disagree
55. 1:43with that so let's imagine you had a
56. 1:45relative who had particularly extreme
57. 1:48ideas you know
58. 1:49we often say like the crazy uncle right
59. 1:51right some of us have those uh
60. 1:54that person if they're if we're talking
61. 1:56to them one-on-one or we're talking to
62. 1:57them at a family gathering that scale
63. 2:00allows for resolution of ideas okay
64. 2:02what's happening on facebook right now
65. 2:04is ideas that are the most able to
66. 2:06elicit a reaction and the shortest path
67. 2:09to a click is anger
68. 2:11those get the most reach and ideas that
69. 2:13are more moderate or that try to bring
70. 2:15us into synthesis or to to help us find
71. 2:17a middle path those aren't as likely to
72. 2:20elicit a comment from you or elicit a
73. 2:22like right and so facebook doesn't get
74. 2:24as much distribution so facebook is
75. 2:26essentially propelling certain ideas out
76. 2:28there so they may say we're the platform
77. 2:30but really what they're also doing is
78. 2:31they're advocating for certain
79. 2:32viewpoints because they push those out
80. 2:34because those get people engaged and
81. 2:35spinning in the cycle so i think it's
82. 2:37the thing where it's not they sit out
83. 2:38and go how can we have more extreme
84. 2:40ideas i don't think that's what they're
85. 2:41trying to do but they do know that there
86. 2:43are lots of solutions that are not about
87. 2:45censorship it's not about picking good
88. 2:47or bad ideas or good or bad people it's
89. 2:49about how do we change the dynamics of
90. 2:51these systems so that you could have
91. 2:54good speech counter counter bad speech
92. 2:56how do we give those more of an equal
93. 2:58say at the table you know it's
94. 2:59interesting that you lay it out like
95. 3:00this because i remember talking to my
96. 3:02friends about this saying have we become
97. 3:05angrier in the world
98. 3:07have we become less able to
99. 3:09have misunderstandings because i because
100. 3:11i sit with my friends and i go like i
101. 3:12don't agree on so many things with my
102. 3:14friends but i don't remember a time when
103. 3:16that meant that i couldn't be friends
104. 3:18with them yeah in the world of social
105. 3:19media right now it feels like if i
106. 3:20disagree with you on this i disagree
107. 3:23with you on everything
108. 3:24it seems like facebook goes if you
109. 3:26disagree on this we're gonna make or
110. 3:28we're gonna find more ways to to you
111. 3:30know to find where you disagree or how
112. 3:32to make you disagree yeah so some people
113. 3:33have said this idea of like facebook's
114. 3:35always looking for fault lines right so
115. 3:37so a high quality piece of content is
116. 3:40one that gets lots of engagement and it
117. 3:42turns out an angry comment thread
118. 3:44where you know it causes us to yell at
119. 3:45each other that is viewed as a higher
120. 3:47quality piece of content
121. 3:49and so i you know during um covet i've
122. 3:52had friends who wrote very long
123. 3:54thoughtful pieces they went and digested
124. 3:56lots of information that's going to
125. 3:58cause less knee-jerk reaction than
126. 4:00something that really offends you
127. 4:03so masks don't work people are clicking
128. 4:05on that here's the thing about masks we
129. 4:07have to consider in our society boom
130. 4:09yeah facebook's not pushing that so
131. 4:11what's interesting you know in
132. 4:13everything that you've done is even
133. 4:14though you're a whistleblower even
134. 4:16though you came up with this information
135. 4:17you've never said i'm anti-facebook
136. 4:19you've never said shut facebook down
137. 4:20you've never said this thing needs to go
138. 4:21away what you're arguing for is we
139. 4:24change our relationship with not just
140. 4:26facebook but social media company as a
141. 4:27whole
142. 4:28explain what that means so often when
143. 4:30people talk with this idea if we need to
144. 4:31change our relationship with social
145. 4:32media it's more about like should we use
146. 4:34our phones so much but i'm i'm
147. 4:36encouraging us to have a conversation
148. 4:37about what's our relationship with
149. 4:39companies or what's the company's
150. 4:40relationships with us okay facebook
151. 4:42knows that they have a level of of um on
152. 4:45accountability that's very different
153. 4:47than either google or apple or other big
154. 4:49platforms because in the case of google
155. 4:51we can scrape and download their results
156. 4:53and analyze them and see if there are
157. 4:55biases in the case of apple we can take
158. 4:57apart the phones and put up youtube
159. 4:58videos saying apple phones do or don't
160. 5:00work the way they claim
161. 5:02but in case of facebook
162. 5:04researchers and activists have been
163. 5:06telling facebook hey we have found
164. 5:08all these examples we think there's a
165. 5:10pattern here we think there's too much
166. 5:11human trafficking we think kids are
167. 5:13suffering right and facebook keeps
168. 5:14coming back because they know no one can
169. 5:16call them on it
170. 5:18and saying that's just anecdotal that's
171. 5:19not real
172. 5:21when you release the information
173. 5:22realized it wasn't anecdotal it was real
174. 5:23because facebook had done research right
175. 5:25you see now this is interesting because
176. 5:26this reminds me of a tobacco company yes
177. 5:29it reminds us of the you know the fossil
178. 5:31fuel companies
179. 5:33they do the research they find out
180. 5:34something really bad and then i mean
181. 5:36obviously they go like we're not going
182. 5:37to put this out there but but we know
183. 5:39one of the biggest things that's really
184. 5:41gotten people worried is how social
185. 5:43media affects younger brains i mean it
186. 5:46affects my brain i'm i don't consider
187. 5:48myself younger anymore but
188. 5:50young people are like it seems like the
189. 5:52highest at the highest risk
190. 5:55yeah facebook's internal research says
191. 5:56that the highest rates of problematic
192. 5:58use peak at age 14. so you're not
193. 6:01allowed to be on the platform until
194. 6:02you're 13. so i guess it takes a little
195. 6:04bit of time to form that habit but but
196. 6:06the largest fraction of any of those age
197. 6:08cohorts they sampled and they've done
198. 6:09studies that have a hundred thousand
199. 6:11people these are not tiny studies
200. 6:13they find that the largest fractions say
201. 6:16i can't control my usage and i know it's
202. 6:18impacting my health my employment or my
203. 6:20school
204. 6:21is at age 14. and so there's a real
205. 6:23thing where young people have both you
206. 6:26know they're struggling with issues in
207. 6:27their life yes and they don't have the
208. 6:29self-control and they say this they say
209. 6:31this to researchers they say i know this
210. 6:33is making me feel bad and i can't stop i
211. 6:36fear i'll be ostracized if i leave
212. 6:38um and those factors mean it's not easy
213. 6:41for kids just to walk away it's also not
214. 6:43easy for people to understand how to um
215. 6:45how to fix it you have lawmakers now who
216. 6:47are trying to figure this thing out
217. 6:49silicon valley is way ahead of them
218. 6:51right like way ahead of them lawmakers
219. 6:53you see these hearings they'll be like
220. 6:54what if what if my facebook is a insta
221. 6:56flap they don't understand what's
222. 6:58happening so how do we begin
223. 7:01creating a world where we're not
224. 7:03destroying the companies but we're we're
225. 7:05regulating them the way they should be
226. 7:07so the main thing i'm advocating for is
227. 7:09around transparency because one of the
228. 7:11problems today is because facebook is
229. 7:12the only one that holds the cards like
230. 7:14they can see they can see whether or not
231. 7:15they're holding you know a royal flush
232. 7:18or not right what they claim um we need
233. 7:20to move to a world where we have more
234. 7:21access to data and that can be aggregate
235. 7:23data it can be privacy sensitive data it
236. 7:26doesn't have to you know expose people
237. 7:27it's not it's a false choice of privacy
238. 7:29versus transparency right and once we
239. 7:31have the ability to have conversations
240. 7:33we can stop talking about boogeyman
241. 7:35social media i see and we can start
242. 7:37having conversations on how do we solve
243. 7:38these problems i think what we what we
244. 7:40need to do and this is what i'm going to
245. 7:41spend 2022 doing is we need to start
246. 7:43organizing people like i want to plant a
247. 7:46youth directed movement where we can
248. 7:48begin putting pressure on facebook to
249. 7:50release this information because i don't
250. 7:52think facebook is just going to do it
251. 7:53automatically out of the goodness of the
252. 7:55heart we have to force them to
253. 7:57and i think there's lots lots of
254. 7:58opportunities where we can begin putting
255. 8:00pressure on them either socially or
256. 8:01financially as a user of social media as
257. 8:04a person who speaks to all my friends on
258. 8:05social media i have my enemies on social
259. 8:07media i appreciate this conversation
260. 8:09because i think um if we're not careful
261. 8:11we end up in a world where we're all
262. 8:13fighting
263. 8:14really just because an algorithm is
264. 8:16trying to make us fight half of those
265. 8:17fights i've noticed even even with the
266. 8:19show if i say a thing
267. 8:22on the show
268. 8:24this has been like the most interesting
269. 8:25thing for me is depending on
270. 8:27what i say facebook sends that to
271. 8:29different people one time we had it on
272. 8:31the show
273. 8:32one yeah one time we had on the show
274. 8:33where um
275. 8:34literally i'd laid out both arguments i
276. 8:36said here's here's one way to see it
277. 8:38there's another way to see it but then
278. 8:40on facebook only one way went to each
279. 8:42group yeah and i was i was fascinated by
280. 8:45that because then people like why didn't
281. 8:46you say the other ones like but that's
282. 8:47exactly what i said they're like oh well
283. 8:48i didn't see that
284. 8:50and then you realize you know so one
285. 8:52thing that happens is um so let's say
286. 8:54you take a video clip so let's say you
287. 8:56have out of any given on your shows
288. 8:58people go and put on youtube lots of
289. 8:59different little chunks
290. 9:01people can reseed those onto facebook
291. 9:03over and over again they do right and
292. 9:05each time that enters into facebook you
293. 9:07know someone posted to a group someone
294. 9:08doesn't know this it enters into the
295. 9:10network in a different way
296. 9:12and the algorithm begins picking up data
297. 9:14on that and it says oh interesting like
298. 9:16these kinds of people engage these kind
299. 9:18of stone and so and because it's
300. 9:20entering from so many different points
301. 9:21it actually gets a chance to learn what
302. 9:23kinds of people or communities it
303. 9:24engages the most with and so that echo
304. 9:27chamber is real like the algorithm
305. 9:29pulls us towards homogeneity it's almost
306. 9:32like
307. 9:33facebook knows that you react most to
308. 9:36your neighbor when they play loud music
309. 9:39there's no reaction from you when your
310. 9:40neighbor's doing other things but when
311. 9:42your neighbor plays in doubt music
312. 9:43that's when you react actually then
313. 9:44facebook goes i'm just gonna it's even
314. 9:45worse than that actually so how can it
315. 9:47be worse let's imagine there's music
316. 9:49that you like and there's music you
317. 9:50don't like wow it actually knows you
318. 9:53really don't like i don't know reggaeton
319. 9:54or something oh wow and one thing is i
320. 9:56think it's really sad is um one of the
321. 9:57things that was in the documents is that
322. 9:59people talk about um especially people
323. 10:01from marginalized communities that they
324. 10:04will go and and correct people who are
325. 10:06spreading um you know racist sexist
326. 10:10homophobic comments
327. 10:11and guess what now facebook knows you
328. 10:13engage with those keywords so they send
329. 10:15you so they send one
330. 10:16yeah i i i didn't know they were doing
331. 10:18that they don't do it on purpose it's
332. 10:20it's a it's a side effect it's a side
333. 10:22effect of the way the algorithm works
334. 10:24so the algorithm is designed to get as
335. 10:25much engagement as possible and the
336. 10:27engagement unfortunately you're more
337. 10:29likely there's a there's a car accident
338. 10:31i'm going to engage yeah yeah or or more
339. 10:33of um if they had an option of showing
340. 10:35you a stream of different things they
341. 10:37know you gawk a car accident so they
342. 10:38show you more
343. 10:40man yeah this is hard because on the one
344. 10:42hand i go like well i need to stop
345. 10:43looking at car accidents but the brain
346. 10:44is the brain it's the brain you know if
347. 10:47if all the um ai is not intelligent
348. 10:50right we like to say artificial
349. 10:51intelligence yes but but people who
350. 10:53actually study it call it machine
351. 10:54learning because it's not intelligent
352. 10:56it's just a hill climber it's optimizing
353. 10:59and uh you know think of all the
354. 11:00different pieces of content you could
355. 11:02expose to
356. 11:04it it's not trying to show you most
357. 11:06extreme content it happens to be to
358. 11:08fulfill its goal function
359. 11:09it mindlessly pushes you towards it and
360. 11:12so this is about facebook making choices
361. 11:14to not fix it that facebook has lots and
362. 11:17lots of options that don't deal with
363. 11:18letting the machine run wild they're
364. 11:19allowing the machine real well
365. 11:22money money that's what it is
366. 11:25thank you so much for being here this
367. 11:26has really been enlightening good luck
368. 11:27on the rest of your journey thank you so
369. 11:29much
370. 11:30if you want to learn more about
371. 11:31francis's advocacy work then you can go
372. 11:33to francis haugen.com
373. 11:38[Music]
374. 11:47you