Pivot · Feb 27, 2024

SCOTUS and Social Media, Reddit's IPO, and Guest Barbara McQuade

Automatic transcript of the end of the episode, from 52:08. Speakers are labeled by software and may contain errors. Highlighted passages are Scott’s predictions.

Guest · 52:08 Public about being critical consumers of social media. You know, we have intended to believe what we read online, believe what we see online. And again, it is a wonderful way to share information at scale. But in Finland, a place where they have suffered from disinformation from Russia for decades, schoolchildren are trained in critical reading studies to be able to identify disinformation when they see it, looking for a second source, not reading solely the headline, looking past artificial intelligence and recognizing that there is such a thing as deep fakes on audio and visual and those sorts of things. And I think, Scott, we can't end it at just critical media studies. We also have to look at civics education, and so to understand, you know, how our government works, the three branches of government, checks and balances we have. Kara Swisher · 52:57 What about that PERP walk or repealing or amending section two thirty? Does a liability exist Guest · 53:02 in So some I don't know that we could completely repeal Section two thirty. I think it might be... I think if we were to repeal Section two thirty, we would put these social media companies out of business. I think there's just too much volume online for them to do it. But I do think, yeah, we could have some amendments to Section two thirty for things like algorithms that are manipulating people and pushing content that outrages us. I think we could have liability for false advertising where they've accepted money in exchange for the content that is online. So I think, again, it's this all or nothing thinking, the dumbed down, and perhaps social media has driven us to that sort of this or that all or nothing thinking. But the nuance is in between, and we need our legislators to take this seriously. You know, a lot of times when we have those hearings and we have some of our senators and members of Congress listening to people like Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey testify, you can see them start to glaze over, and they look like those people in the ads for progressive insurance. You know, you're becoming your parents. Am I hashtagging right now? But they can hire experts to help them work through this. Kara Swisher · 54:14 They have. They're they're more... They're smart. They get smarter and smarter, I think. Guest · 54:18 Sure. And they've got staff members who are smart enough to sort through this. And so I think we need to take a responsibility that we are going to look to some of these suggestions for regulating social media. It doesn't have to be a complete elimination of Section two thirty, but some specific amendments to try to reduce disinformation. It's not one thing that's going to solve this problem. It's a series of solutions. And I think one is all of us have to make a commitment to truth that we are not going to pile on, we're not going to choose our tribe over truth. We are going to demand truth from our leaders and from ourselves. Scott Galloway · 54:50 You're a former US attorney. You're an academic. You're obviously very thoughtful. You have domain expertise that is really relevant to our country. Why wouldn't you run for office? Guest · 55:00 I Barbara. I'm not willing to make I'm not willing to make the personal sacrifices it takes, but, I appreciate I appreciate the, the vote of confidence. Kara Swisher · 55:09 Why don't you run for office, Scott Galloway? Scott Galloway · 55:11 For the exact same reason Barbara won't. Kara Swisher · 55:13 Yes. That's right. Yeah. That's it. And other things. Barbara, last question. These elections are coming up. How are you looking at this disinformation? We're in a post shame world, a post truth world. What what what what does, disinformation play here, and what, if anything, can be done about it? Guest · 55:28 Really relevant at at this time, Kara. You know, we just saw in New Hampshire a series of robocalls using artificial intelligence to Yeah. Falsify Joe Biden's voice. I think we need to be on the lookout for those kinds of things and quickly debunk them. I think, you know, fact checking in real time is very important, and I think providing information when there are these false claims out there. We're gonna see it. We're gonna see text message campaigns. We're going to see AI campaigns, and I think alerting the public to these things. And the other thing, Kara, that we can't lose is engagement in politics because that is what authoritarians seek in Putin's Russia. It is to flood the zone with so much information that people don't know what to think. They become cynical and then numb, and they disengage from politics altogether. And so I want to encourage people that the best way to fight back is to stay engaged in politics, talk to your neighbors, work hard to... For credible sources like the League of Women Voters and others that provide accurate information about voting. Kara Swisher · 56:25 Alright. Barbara, thank you so much. This is a terrific book, and Barbara's a really sharp... She's all over the... You're all over the place, Barbara. The book is called Attack From Within, How Disinformation is Sabotaging America. Thank you, Barbara. Guest · 56:39 Thank you both for having me on. Really appreciate it. Scott Galloway · 56:40 Nice to meet you, Barbara. Guest · 56:41 Thank you. Kara Swisher · 56:41 Nice to Guest · 56:42 meet you both. I enjoyed your podcast. Kara Swisher · 56:44 Alright, Scott. One more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. Guest · 56:53 I get so many headaches every month. [Ad break] — Predictions segment begins — Kara Swisher · 58:57 Okay, Scott. Let's hear some wins and fails. Do you have any? Scott Galloway · 59:00 I'm all screwed up. It's like I'm I'm bass awkward. I thought today was predictions in this Joey bag of donuts production. Kara Swisher · 59:07 Prediction, Scott, and then I'll do Guest · 59:08 a win and a fail. Kara Swisher · 59:09 How about that? Let's just... Let's be bisexual about it. Scott Galloway · 59:12 My mind is a blank after you said that. It was like pressing or reset button. So I think that Alphabet is gonna be the best performing big tech stock, and I think it's gonna attract an activist investor in the next thirty to sixty days. It's the only it's the only one of the magnificent seven that is trading whose price earnings ratio is trading below the broader S and P. They've had a series of stumbles. The underlying businesses are just unbelievable. YouTube is actually bigger than Netflix. It's got, I think, the second biggest cloud business. Obviously, search is arguably the best business ever invented. And it's also where it's gotten hammered is similar to how Meta got, in my opinion, unfairly punished or over punished because of this terrible rollout or this ridiculous consensual hallucination called Oculus and the headsets. The market ignored that the underlying business continued to be just this cash volcano. The equivalent of the Oculus for Alphabet has been its kind of innovator's dilemma, flat footed, sitting on their hands around AI. And even the rollout of Gemini had some real hiccups, where it was a lot of people, and I think there's some truth here, it got over programmed around sort of DEI issues. And the rollout has been... It just hasn't gone very well. And if you look at the history of AI, literally, Alphabet was at the center of it in terms of people, intellectual property, discovery. And it's a classic case of the innovator's dilemma where they didn't go aggressively at it. There's a few things that are going to happen here. One, the stock is going to outperform because it's cheap relative to the others given the strength of its businesses. Two, an activist is going to show up in three, and I don't like to say this, they're going to have fairly significant layoffs because they have over hired and the year of efficiencies has not really hit Alphabet yet. And they're going to come under pressure to show a similar type of shareholder returns as the other six, given the strength in underlying business. And the easiest way to juice their earnings will be to trim their workforce. So anyways, I think Alphabet is about to get more attention. I think it's going to outperform layoffs, a different narrative around AI, and you're going to see an activist show up there. — Predictions segment ends — Kara Swisher · 1:01:26 Yeah. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the government too. That's why they've been so quiet on that stuff. That's interesting. Alright. I'm gonna do a win and a fail. Alright? Fail... I gotta say, these comments about... By Donald Trump about black people and that I like them because of a meg shot, none of his ridiculous crazy comments are gonna get enough attention because he says one every five minutes. That's the problem with Donald Trump. But that one was just particularly heinous. Like... But of course, then you're like, oh, that was particularly heinous. He benefits from being heinous all the time, so that it just all falls on deaf ears. But some of the stuff he's been saying lately has been particularly nutty. And for my win, I would say, I think that I'm of heartened by Nikki Haley continuing. I'm like, I know like, all these men are like, get out now. Quit. They... Scott Galloway · 1:02:13 She's men. Kara Swisher · 1:02:14 They are. Scott Galloway · 1:02:15 All these Kara Swisher · 1:02:15 I just... I... I've noticed. Scott Galloway · 1:02:17 What if I said all these women want her to stay in the race? Kara Swisher · 1:02:20 Well, all these women are writing columns. Stay in. I think she's really interesting. I think she has no downside to this. And, like, let her stay in. She's got the money. She's got the means. Let her stay in and make a case. And she's making... I don't know. She's burnt the boat burnt burnt the boats, and she's staying in, and I think it's great. I love competition. I love it. Scott Galloway · 1:02:39 I saw you on Chris Wallace, and I thought that was an interesting discussion. I was thinking about it. We like it because I I don't see how it's good for... It's nothing but downside for Trump, and I'm all for anything that is nothing for downside. I actually think at this point, it's probably bad for her to stay in. I think she's starting to alienate more and more people in the Republican Party. She's becoming a bit of a a gadfly. I don't know. Kara Swisher · 1:03:00 Alright. Okay. Scott Galloway · 1:03:01 You like that she's in? Kara Swisher · 1:03:02 Like that she's [Ad break] Kara Swisher · 1:03:03 I like... Let me have my win. Don't insult my win. Take down my fucking win. Scott Galloway · 1:03:08 The Koch brothers just withdrew their funding. Kara Swisher · 1:03:11 Of course, they did. But they were nice about it. They were like, we think she's great. It was fine. Of course, they were gonna do that. They gotta put their money in local races. That, I don't I don't care. Scott Galloway · 1:03:18 Let me ask you. Who do you think is gonna be his VP pick? Kara Swisher · 1:03:20 I don't know. Someone heinous. Probably Tim Scott because he's the most obsequious Right. Of all of them. Yeah. Probably. You know what I Scott Galloway · 1:03:27 thought Tim Scott was definitely gonna be his pick or thought he was? He got engaged. How come all these guys decide to, like, go full hetero or full, like, I'm a... The Marian man when they... I mean, didn't Cory Booker show up with a girlfriend when he was running for president? Kara Swisher · 1:03:41 Rumors about that. Yeah. Anyway Yeah. But not our friend Lindsey Graham. He continues to Scott Galloway · 1:03:47 So ladies, if you want a ring, if you want him to put a finger... A ring on it, just get him to run for president. Just get him to think they can be president if they only show up with Kara Swisher · 1:03:54 a word. You know, allegedly. That's all we have to say. Allegedly. Allegedly. Look. He just looks like he's dying inside. Every time he smiles, I'm like, oh, I want... I'd love to hear the... If you could broadcast the internal Monologue. I would love to hear that. Scott Galloway · 1:04:06 Oh god. Kara Swisher · 1:04:07 I would love to hear that. Scott Galloway · 1:04:08 Let me just be the VP. I know. Let me get inaugurated, and let's hope this this sack of shit drops dead. Kara Swisher · 1:04:14 He could be president, and it got all of a sudden Easy. And all of a and then we have... You know, you know, there we have it. Scott Galloway · 1:04:21 And There's a... Let me go this way. When he started when he started his campaign, I think the odds were, like, 200 to one that he'd be president. If he's Donald Trump's vice Kara Swisher · 1:04:28 president of five years Mhmm. Scott Galloway · 1:04:30 Five years, five, seventy seven Kara Swisher · 1:04:32 One year. Scott Galloway · 1:04:32 Well, no. No. No. Five... No. No. I'm saying Guest · 1:04:35 Yeah. Scott Galloway · 1:04:35 Between now and the end of the... If Trump were elected, so call it five years for a 77 year old obese man. Literally, Tim Scott, if he's made VP, has, like, a 40% chance of being president. Kara Swisher · 1:04:46 It's true. It's true. I think he's speaking to Scott. That's what I would say. I would... That makes the most sense. He's a sense... In in weird ways, Trump can be very sensible, and that's the sensible choice. He's obsequious. Scott Galloway · 1:04:56 Yeah. I agree. Kara Swisher · 1:04:57 He's obsequious, and he's a black man, and he's, you know, he's friendly. So he give... You know, he's a friendly guy. Scott Galloway · 1:05:04 He's very Kara Swisher · 1:05:05 He's very admirable. He's a likable guy. Likable. Religious, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And he's willing Scott Galloway · 1:05:10 He checks a lot Kara Swisher · 1:05:11 of boxes. Willing to do whatever it takes to make Trump look good. Anyway, we'll see. We wanna hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show, or call 85551 Okay, Scott. That is the show. I am off to party with Don Lemon. Scott Galloway · 1:05:30 Don Limon. Kara Swisher · 1:05:31 Dee Limon. We'll be back on Friday with more. Beat us out. Scott Galloway · 1:05:34 Today's show is produced by Lara Nayman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Rutaut engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Neil Silverio. Nishat Kerwa is Vox Media's executive producer of audio. Make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com/pod. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business care. Have a great rest of the week. [Ad break] Scott Galloway · 1:07:07 only. [Ad break]