Pivot · Sep 24, 2021

Apple Wants to Diagnose Your Depression, Google Bets on New York City, and a Friend of Pivot on Facebook Marketplace

Automatic transcript of the end of the episode, from 43:03. Speakers are labeled by software and may contain errors. Highlighted passages are Scott’s predictions.

Scott Galloway · 43:03 Yeah, it is a better product. My question is, a marketplace, any marketplace will have externalities. I remember hearing about in the Hamptons that some very innovative criminals were posting a summer rental with pictures and giving you very credible reasons to believe this person had a summer rental, wire the money here, sign this contract. And then people would show up to their summer house and watermelon, knock on the door, and they'd be like, who are you? And they'd realize that this was a total fraud. And there'd be usually some sort of redress or what legal liability does the platform have? And is Facebook less liable because of two thirty? Are the means of redress here? And are they any less or greater at Facebook in terms of the law or Facebook's, demeanor and approach around this? Guest · 43:54 As far as I understand it, I mean, they're they're pretty similar with Craigslist in that sense that, you know, they're telling people, listen. Unless you are buying through an e commerce shop on Marketplace, which is something that they've integrated, unless you are buying there, you are on your own. Fire away. It's the other seller beware. Yeah. Both. And so that's certainly the thing. I mean, one of the things that's interesting about Marketplaces, Facebook has represented on its website and other places that listen, you can know who you're dealing with. I think that's a representation that is really misleading for people because because they are not doing a good job of educating people about fake accounts, about hacked accounts. Like your example, real estate agents are getting hacked like crazy on Facebook because then people post apartments for rent or houses for rent and they scam people exactly as you just described. So it's like it's a post from a real real estate agent. And Facebook does not have good guidance for people on how to avoid scams. We in fact wrote our own guide because of that. So I think their education stuff is is doing poorly. Kara Swisher · 44:55 Two things. How did Facebook react to this to you? And then what can users do to protect themselves? Guest · 45:01 You know, their their response was kind of the standard Facebook response in terms of their quote says, listen. You know, we we take safety and security seriously. Scott Galloway · 45:08 Ugh. Guest · 45:08 We invest in it. And nobody's perfect. And these kinds of platforms, there's always scams and fraud. And it's pretty much a cookie cutter comment to the stuff that I've gotten over the years. And the one thing that they were very sensitive about was that they really try hard to engage with law enforcement. And so when law enforcement asks for records or whatever, they try to service them. And they were also very sensitive about the fact that they had given this wide ranging access to these low paid analysts to go and look in people's Messenger inboxes. And they said that they reined that in. And I was told by a source that was about six to eight months ago. So, that's sort of their response on it, which is the standard Facebook thing you see. And maybe in the coming months they'll roll out some new features as a result. Kara Swisher · 45:54 All right. What can people do to protect themselves? Because it's obviously Facebook's not interested in doing that necessarily. Guest · 46:00 Yes. So I mean, of Scott Galloway · 46:02 the big things is that if somebody if you are buying or selling and the person buying or selling from you is not willing to meet you in person, then that is Guest · 46:11 a huge red flag and you should not be sending your money to them unless you have seen the item and inspected it yourself. It seems very obvious, but this is where a lot of people get roped in. Second, when you are meeting someone, it is recommended to meet in person and to meet in person at a police station parking lot where there is surveillance. Yeah. Scott Galloway · 46:28 Come on. There there are people. Stations need. They need a flea market there. Actually encouraging people. Lot. Guest · 46:37 Some some police stations have created what they call safe exchange zones, and they've actually painted parking spots in their parking lot saying, come, do... Because for law enforcement, this is a nightmare. They are getting so many complaints from people and they can't investigate all of them. And we saw so many notices from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, The US. Kara Swisher · 46:55 That's a great idea. Guest · 46:55 Of law enforcement really having to throw up their hands and warn people. So many warnings put out. So, there's that part of it. Other thing is you look at a profile, you should look at someone's seller profile. And a really big red flag there is if they're posting the same item in multiple states that are nowhere near each other. Because that's just a scammer trying to get as many victims as possible. And again, Facebook systems should stop this, but they don't. It's also considered a warning sign if they're trying to take you off platform. Like some people may want to just text rather than use Messenger. But a lot of times scammers want you and direct you to an email and they'll say, Oh, I'm selling this on behalf of my aunt. And there's a suspiciously low price on it and they're trying to get you to send the money really quickly. Those are all really big red flags. Scott Galloway · 47:42 Won't this ultimately or shouldn't this? I would think that Facebook has a vested interest in not having the core associations in their marketplace be fraud and violence. And similar to eBay or Amazon, won't there be certain certifications, power seller at some point? Whenever I was on eBay or Amazon, I did look for that company wide certification that these guys deliver, not for even fraud, but for better customer service. Is there some sort of evolving badging mechanism here? Guest · 48:08 So they have reviews. You can see a seller's profile. But again, beware because if it's a hack profile, the hackers will often target people with a good reputation. [Ad break] Guest · 48:19 And then the second part of it is that at one point Marketplace actually had verified sellers and then they kind of got rid of that. And Facebook wouldn't really tell me why they got rid of it except to say, well, we test different things. So the short answer is no. There's really no certified kind of piece happening here. And so people really need to treat this as the Wild West. They really need to guard themselves whether they're selling or buying and to follow the best practices that are out there. Kara Swisher · 48:45 All right. So what's going to happen? What is they're just going get bigger? Is there any other marketplace that is problematic? EBay or or others? What what will happen? They'll just eat up the business of Craigslist and eBay, then we're at their mercy? Guest · 48:58 Yeah. I mean, I think it's... You know, we had a guy in a story, whose account was hacked and used to sell cell phones and vehicles that never arrived. And one of the things he said to me, he's like, you know, everybody's on Marketplace now. The only things that'll be left in this world are Marketplace and Amazon. He may be right. EBay is still very strong, but I think Craigslist is in huge trouble. And as for Marketplace, as I said, they're in more than 150 countries and territories, and they continue to roll out. Last month, they announced that they were launching Marketplace in 37 sub Saharan African countries. An interesting note on that is one of those countries was Benin. But we found from internal documents that Benin, for months and potentially years, had already been labeled a high risk country because scammers there were using hacked and fake accounts to scam people. So they rolled out officially in a country where they already knew there's a huge problem, and they haven't put any new guardrails on that. Kara Swisher · 49:52 Jesus. They can't. There's nothing they don't wanna eat, is there? There isn't. There just isn't. It's amazing. Alright. Craig, this has been great. Everybody, we recommend you read his piece. It's a really important thing. Everybody... There's been so much Facebook news. How do you feel about that, Craig? There's been so much over here, over there. Yeah. But this is a really important area, because it really does affect people physically in a way that I think people don't realize, which I think is critically important and their and their money and stuff like that. Thank you so much for coming on. Guest · 50:25 Yeah. Thank you for having me. Kara Swisher · 50:27 Alright, Scott. That... As usual. Scott Galloway · 50:29 That was interesting, wasn't it? Kara Swisher · 50:30 Yes. It's a [Ad break] Kara Swisher · 50:32 It's a really interesting area because it's an area that Facebook's not as... People tend to focus on Amazon or in commerce or or other companies. Anyway, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for predictions. [Ad break] — Predictions segment begins — Kara Swisher · 52:17 Okay, Scott. Give us this week's predictions besides the fact that Code is gonna be lit, and it Scott Galloway · 52:22 could gonna be lit. I'm so excited about it. Kara Swisher · 52:25 I know. It's... Don't know how... I can... Can you interact with people? Because I can't. I I I did this. Scott Galloway · 52:30 I thought you were asking, like, are you so fucked up in the head that you cannot interact with people? Kara Swisher · 52:34 No. But I Scott Galloway · 52:35 I'm actually... I'm an introvert, so I don't like people, but I'll... I don't know. I'll do my best. I'll represent. I will represent.... Kara Swisher · 52:41 Do that because I was at a... I did a a live event with Sam b for... On Little Island in New York this week Scott Galloway · 52:47 Mhmm. Kara Swisher · 52:47 Which was great. And both she and I were like, this is the first live event I've done in a long time. This is outdoors at that beautiful thing that Barry Dillard Scott Galloway · 52:55 It's worked [Ad break] Scott Galloway · 52:57 It's beautiful. Kara Swisher · 52:58 Yeah. And both of us were like, what are you people doing here? Like, it was it was weird to be... Interacting in person is is very hard, I find. It is interesting. Scott Galloway · 53:08 Anyway That's called getting old, and agoraphobic. The mental illness is finally here. Kara Swisher · 53:13 I think people Scott Galloway · 53:13 It's are setting in, Kara. Kara Swisher · 53:15 High. Oh, like, anyway, it's gonna be interesting. I'm excited. It's been two years, and I'm very excited, or more than two years since the Scott Galloway · 53:22 last school. So I track my presentations pretty meticulously. I've given, since the outbreak of COVID, 170 presentations to approximately 84,732 people, 11 universities, 27 of the Fortune 100, and I've only done two in person, and this will be the second one. Kara Swisher · 53:43 Well, what we're excited for. Scott's gonna do a whole presentation of where things are going. I'm sure he'll piss off a sponsor, which he does every time and they come yelling Scott Galloway · 53:49 at I'm gonna piss off more than that, my sister. Kara Swisher · 53:51 Alright. Well, great. Scott Galloway · 53:52 I'm gonna piss off Kara Swisher · 53:53 more deal with them. One sponsor, I'm not gonna say who was, came running up to me and said, I can't believe you did that more sponsoring your show. And I was like Scott Galloway · 54:00 Amazon. Hello, Amazon. Kara Swisher · 54:02 I was like, you know what? I don't know what to tell you. You shouldn't have done it. You shouldn't have sponsored us. And they thought I was gonna say, oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't at all. I was like, that's the way it goes. I don't know Guest · 54:11 what to Scott Galloway · 54:11 You can take the dog out of the pound, but you can't take the pound I out of the just made that up. Boom. Kara Swisher · 54:16 That's Anyways, Scott Galloway · 54:18 my prediction, and I I was reticent to make this prediction because something that really bothered me was when Bill Ackman said about Herbalife, The arrests are coming. I thought that was a reckless thing to say. But my prediction is around Facebook. I think that there are building, mounting political motivation to criminalize or start criminal investigations. I think either the case, the antitrust case in Texas, which has criminal remedies, is going to be federalized. I think some of the stuff around QAnon, I think it's becoming too tempting for an AG, even if they feel like they're standing on fairly tenuous legal ground, I think it's gonna be too tempting for somebody not to say enough is enough. I'm I'm the sheriff in town. The buck stops with me. I'm going to file criminal charges against this company. I think in the next ninety to one hundred and eighty days, we're gonna see, criminal charges, filed against someone or the corporation of Facebook. It's just it's becoming too tempting. I think a lot of this stuff is political. And it's I think there's too many people with teenage girls, too many people who see what's happened to our voting, too many people who think, okay, this is an organization that, has been subject to a fraction of the scrutiny of other firms that have done a fraction of the damage. And I think someone's gonna decide, I'm willing to take this on because, quite frankly, I see personal interest in doing this. So, I don't wanna say arrest. I have no idea if there'll ever be an arrest. But I think somebody, an AG, an estate, or the federal or the feds are gonna decide it's time. Kara Swisher · 55:58 Alright. Well, that's a big one. Okay. Alright. Scott Galloway · 56:00 What do you say if you don't think that's gonna happen? — Predictions segment ends — Kara Swisher · 56:02 I do not. Yep. I think they're I think they're just gonna keep on keeping on. That's what they do. Mhmm. Anyway, we'll see. At some point, you know, at some point at some point, they'll get it, but not today. Anyway, thank you. That's the show. We'll be back on Tuesday for more from Los Angeles. Anyway, we didn't get to a listener question this week. We received some really great questions on our site. Mhmm. Even noticed some listeners talking to each other on Yappa, which we love to see. Keep it coming. Go to nymag.com/pivot and join the conversation. Scott, read us out. Scott Galloway · 56:33 Today's show is produced by Lara Naaman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Thanks also to Drew Burrows. Ernie Andertaut engineered this episode. Make sure you subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts. Or if you're an Android user, check us out on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another break down of all things tech and business. The City of Angels In N Out Burger, the Hollywood Bowl, body surfing at Zuma Beach. The Jungle Cat and the Dog will be doing none of those things. None of those things. But City of Angels, watch out. We're coming in. We're coming in. [Ad break]