Is it curtains for Facebook?

And if not, what's the future for its

parent company? More than 20 years after

the founding of Facebook, Meta is in an

existential funk. Young people say

Facebook couldn't be less cool. They're

leaving it in droves. The company's

virtual reality experiment known as the

metaverse was canned after tens of

billions of dollars of losses. If you

remember the movie The Social Network

about the early days of the company, now

there's a sort of a sequel. It's called

The Social Reckoning.

Today on the show, we'll be talking with

the reporter whose story is at the

center of this film about where Facebook

and Meta went wrong

>> [music]

>> and what the company's hopes for a

comeback are. From the BBC, I'm Tristan

Redman in London. Welcome to The Global

Story on YouTube.

Jeff Horwitz doesn't feel all that

comfortable being near the center of the

story. He's currently a tech reporter at

Reuters, but previously he worked at The

Wall Street Journal where he made big

waves with his work on the so-called

Facebook files. These were a series of

investigative reports in 2021 that made

explosive revelations about how Meta

functions. And just a note for anyone

listening with children, some of the

allegations we'll be discussing involve

explicit online content.

>> It's fantastic to have you with us,

Jeff. Particularly at this moment when

um you are about to enter a maelstrom of

a film which is partly about your life.

The Social Reckoning, it's coming out

very soon.

You are played by Jeremy Allen White, um

who is known to some people as an

underwear model uh for Calvin Klein as

well as being an actor. How does that

feel being played by uh such a such a

person?

>> Um well, I am not known as an underwear

model. Um, you know, I have yet to have

my break on that front. Um, it's it's

look, it's it's crazy

and

uh

you know, when I first sort of heard

about that casting choice, I was like,

well, well then.

Um, and I mean the whole thing of of

having a film in which there is a

character named

Jeff Horwitz who participates in

journalism. Although he is not, you

know, sort of strictly based on

uh

my experiences precisely. Inspired by,

not based on.

Um

is

kind of awesome [snorts] and weird. I

have not seen the film yet. So,

you know, I I'll I'll save my opinion on

whether it's more awesome or more weird

but for down the road but

you know, it's certainly exciting.

>> Well, tell us then what is the story?

What is your story depicted in this

movie?

>> Back in 2020 and 2021

I made contact with

a Facebook employee. Wasn't Meta then,

it was Facebook.

As I am want to do, that's a very key

part of my process and and work. Um

and started building a relationship

to sort of because this person had

serious concerns about how the company

was

building its products and

hiding information potentially about

relevant societal effects of those

products.

And um

that person was Frances Haugen and so

the movie is

the story of that relationship and uh

the you know, telling sort of [snorts]

explaining what the company was doing um

through that.

>> Well, apart from you, Jeff Horwitz, who

are the other main characters?

>> There's Frances Haugen uh who was uh the

um

the whistleblower who I worked with uh

and

uh she's being played by Mikey Madison.

And then there are um a whole bunch of

uh other folks uh including um

uh

Jeremy Strong as uh a a uh Mark

Zuckerberg.

Um so um yeah, it'll be I

I'm interested in seeing it. I'll say

that.

>> Okay, well, it's called The Social

Reckoning and it's

let's think of it as a second

installment of a first film that came

out all the way back in 2010, which was

called The Social Network. Many of our

listeners will remember it. It um

it was the story of Facebook back in the

early 2000s.

And it was fascinating. I remember

watching it at the time because the

story arc was of

uh this group of people who were college

students and then before they knew it,

um they were almost unimaginably

unimaginably rich because of launching

this this social network. So, that was

very much kind of act one. The story of

Facebook, then now Meta, has become

somewhat more complicated

um since then.

How have things progressed since the end

of that movie until the beginning of

this one, Fhil Is In?

>> The I think it's it's useful to think

about like what the social network that

the platform that existed at that time,

right? Which is Facebook, was um

a set of like largely

static pages that people maintained uh

and then there would be updates um that

you know, from people you'd follow that

would show up in chronological order.

There there was no real curation

happening. And

what happened after that is

on its way to the 2012 IPO, they began

sort of building the curated

personalized version of the platform

that anyone who uses social media is now

vastly more familiar with

in which um

the platform itself is designed to

optimize

what it shows you based on what it

believes is broadly popular and

specifically going to be popular with

you.

Um

And

you know, this was done because it was

meant to optimize for how much time

people spent on the platform

and how much content they produced, how

many ads they watched. Obviously is the

the final measure of this as a business

matter.

And

um

>> [clears throat]

>> it it came with a lot of consequences.

>> Such as?

>> The concept of virality of things that

just sort of breach containment very

quickly and before maybe anyone's had a

time to chat a chance to fact-check them

or think through them. That's greatly

boosted by um

by the system they set up, right? It it

is sort of a pro-virality sort of

pro-acceleration

system.

Um likewise uh you know, the ability to

um see certain types of content if you

engage with it, um

then have the system

you know, recognize that engagement and

try to serve you

uh

uh more of the same.

Whether that is um

you know, cat [clears throat] videos or

videos featuring unhealthy

weight loss techniques or whether that

is, uh you know, conspiracies,

um and you know, sort of political

rhetoric of a sort that um

uh

you know, might be a little bit um

vitriolic. There was a long period of

time when like the the big thing people

were concerned about was like

microtargeting of advertisements. This

is the the Cambridge Analytica stuff.

>> Which was a scandal which broke out in

2016 around the Brexit vote in the UK,

right?

>> And the US election and Russian election

interference.

In the wake of the 2016 election and

then kind of continuing on for a couple

of years with Cambridge Analytica and

just kind of

uh there was a broad sense that

something had gone wrong on social

media, right? Like people just weren't

supposed to talk to each other like

this. And so the the question was like,

what was going on? And for a few years

inside Meta,

they uh legitimately grappled with um

what this what was going on and whether

maybe it could be fixed. And so they

spun up a whole bunch of teams, they

called themselves like the integrity

team, uh with the idea being that uh

they were going to try to, you know,

not only see if they could do a better

job of catching people who violate the

rules, but also see what changes to the

product might accomplish uh in terms of

making

you know, the product something that

people could be proud of. Um and that,

you know, where where good discussions

happened and healthy

uh relationships were formed and, you

know, groups distributed useful

information.

And um

that lasted for a few years. Uh the uh a

very short version would be that the

company in fact realized that

what they had been optimizing for,

growth and engagement and advertising

revenue, uh

was in fact frequently running directly

contrary to trying to optimize for

quality discussion uh,

civil discourse. I have managed to get

uh, you know, people to share tens of

thousands of blurry screenshots taken

with uh, personal phones uh, of internal

meta work product that demonstrates that

this is exactly the tension, right?

Between between growth and uh, what I

think a lot of people would consider a

healthy platform. And what's very well

demonstrated is the company has when

push comes to shove consistently chosen

growth.

>> Mhm.

>> So, what happened is the people that

meta had hired to make the platform

better found themselves increasingly

boxed in in which they came up with

solutions uh, for how to address things

from polarization to child predation um,

uh, to scam uh, activity. And um,

unfortunately the solutions they came up

with uh, almost invariably involved

taking the platform off of sort of the

growth optimal path.

>> Well, over the years Mark Zuckerberg and

the company leadership have been pretty

adamant that Facebook uh, they say is

about connecting people. Um, they have

this indicator uh, meaningful social

interactions MSI

um, which they talk about. So, so they

say that Facebook is is a force for good

in the world. Be that as it may, if the

atmosphere around the company in the

world is very different from the moment

when that first film was released back

in 2010.

From your reporting, how would you

describe public sentiment around meta

right now?

>> It look, I think there was always some

level of of discomfort with a a whiz kid

uh, who had become so central to the

world's communications. Like uh, I think

people did start to appreciate,

certainly by by 2020 and and definitely

by the time we we published the Facebook

files at The Wall Street Journal.

>> Which was in 2021.

>> that that

that this company was making choices

that seemed to benefit itself at the

expense of democracy in in fragile parts

of the world, the expense of teenagers

consuming some really horrendous stuff.

The company for a few years, I think,

made an effort to

try say it was like really trying to fix

the things that had gone wrong.

I think the company accepted that there

were going to be significant public

image problems that were going to be

lasting.

I mean, this is a memo I got inside the

company company was a marketing document

noting that people absolutely thought

the worst of Meta, but that there was no

decline

in how often they use the product.

So, this was not a business problem. It

was, you know, maybe a problem for for

executives on a, you know, an annoyance

basis. And

Mark Zuckerberg in particular just sort

of adopted a different tone. I mean, he

he has publicly said that uh

he regretted all the years that he spent

taking criticism of the company and its

products seriously.

>> I mean, when you published those

Facebook files back in 2021, one of the

things that you and your colleagues

revealed

was that there was an internal finding

inside the company, inside Meta, that

Facebook, the platform, was considered

desperately uncool,

especially by younger people. Well,

those young people who may or may not

think that Facebook is now desperately

uncool, they're very much at the center

of the conversation about the company

right now because

um we have all these lawsuits

that are swirling around meta. Roughly

speaking, meta

is facing accusations, which it denies,

that it concealed the possible harm that

its platforms did to young people, that

the company was intentionally

juicing its platforms to make them more

addictive for young people. But,

notably, then August meta settled a

lawsuit of paying $17 to 47 states, the

District of Columbia, and US

territories. And it actually, as part of

that settlement, agreed to make some

changes.

One of your principal sources, a former

meta employee,

testified at that trial. Who is he, and

what did he reveal to you and at the

trial?

>> Artur Bakhar was a former

Facebook safety executive who left in

2015, but then started getting back in

touch with his old colleagues because

his daughter was having such awful

experiences on the platform. He's like,

"What's going wrong?" I mean, so she was

receiving a lot of unsolicited pictures

of genitalia, and other

you know, sort of just misogynistic sort

of abuse.

And

he was actually invited back in as a

consultant to try to study this problem

at Instagram.

And

one of the things he did was sort of

run this massive survey studying teens'

actual lived experiences on the

platform. And it was it was awful. Like,

the the statistics in terms of people

who'd been

you know, sexually harassed or groomed

or sent you know, something really

inappropriate to a child was like

a very high rate. The percentage of

people who said that Instagram regularly

made them see if feel they themselves

feel bad about themselves was

uncomfortably high.

Uh and so

he became a source and the state AGs

actually had him as the lead witness for

the trial. Um

on teen well-being and meta and mental

health. Uh the things that are in the

settlement aside from

a very big payout over the course of 17

years uh are restrictions on

notifications. So like no more sending

teens

you know prompts to log on at 11:00 p.m.

And also no doing that during the school

day. And then also there is a limit on

for known teens and teens with teen

accounts that meta understands to be

actual minors

that there's theoretically a 2-hour

limit on how much time they can spend on

the platform every day to sort of

prevent binging

on potentially unhealthy content.

I I do say theoretically there because

um

the catch is that meta has to correctly

be able to determine that a account is a

teenager.

And how the company is going to go about

doing that, that is not clear.

>> I have to say some some of our listeners

might be wondering, well,

isn't that up to parents to deal with

that situation and take their phone

away, for example? Why is that Meta's

fault?

>> The idea that parents are actually

capable of monitoring

their children's use of the platform or

of any plat of any social media

platforms is uh just

it's impossible. I mean, even people who

are really serious about doing it um

uh you know, and set all of the parental

restrictions, like there are always ways

around it.

>> Mhm.

>> The internal understanding at Meta and

that you know, this was written down in

documents, was that everyone liked the

idea of parental controls, but almost

nobody used them, and nobody used them

well. We'll put it that way.

That realization has been why a growing

number of countries have attempted to

put restrictions on just

teens below a certain age from using the

platform at all. Uh and you could see in

Australia, I think which was one of the

first out of the gate here, um

that they have struggled to uh get

social media companies, not just Meta,

to

uh

uh functionally keep teenagers off the

platform. Um you know, that most

Australian teens of, you know, the age

13 to 15 who are theoretically banned

are still using it per surveys.

>> So, Meta settled $17 billion. They

agreed to make these changes. Is this

enough to stem the bleeding as far as

the company is concerned, or is there a

threat

longer term to Meta's future?

>> This was a very big thing for Meta to

put behind it. That said, there's still

a ton of other cases um brought by

private litigants, by school districts,

um

basically making very similar

allegations that the company knowingly

designed a product that was harmful to

teenagers. So, how painful this is going

to be for the company is is unclear, but

certainly

being able to put this particular suit

behind them um

uh is very welcome for the company.

>> And what's their way out therefore from

this tricky patch? I mean, we've seen

reports that

uh

it's a rare thing. Um Meta users are

declining this year, and then obviously

the the lawsuit is been very bad news

for them. But what's the solution?

What's next?

>> For a number of years, the company has

been

I would say less and less interested in

social media as the next thing. Um

uh so, you know, you saw this with Mark

Zuckerberg getting really excited about

the blockchain and

you know, cryptocurrency stuff for a

while.

Um You saw this then with the pivot to

the metaverse.

>> I mean I Jeff, I remember the metaverse.

They spent they spent 80 billion dollars

almost on on that project, which was

then

canned pretty unceremoniously not very

long afterwards. I think it it limped

into the beginning of this year before

finally being axed. I mean, it does

suggest that Mark Zuckerberg as an

operator is not infallible. So,

is there a possibility that the next big

project could tank in the same way?

>> I mean, the next big project is LLMs and

large language models and generative AI.

Like everyone is chasing that that

whale.

>> Mhm.

>> And Meta has

certainly not established itself to be

in in in the lead in any of this despite

spending money with the best of them.

And Meta also does have a track record

of they realized they didn't get into

something. They spend a whole bunch of

money trying to catch up. But if it is

actually the future, Meta has the cash

flow to be a serious player. And I think

that's one of the things with with

generative AI that you know, this is

something I got into after the Facebook

files was

how the company was approaching that.

And it was

very similar in terms of the we must

make the thing grow even if there are

some really unpleasant side effects like

the

work I was doing last year was

about Meta knowingly creating chatbots

that they weren't really good for

anything else other than like soft core

sexting.

And um

they intentionally rolled those out to

children.

Um because they um

uh it was a product growth choice. It

was that it was actually the policy

guidelines for their meta AI, their

chatbots, that stated it was acceptable

to engage a child in conversations that

are romantic or sensual.

>> Yeah, this is a this is a company

document that says this.

>> Oh, yeah. No, no, this was this was the

this was the um the policy document

governing chatbots. Uh we got that um

at Reuters and uh we published it. I

mean, and the company said that that was

all a misunderstanding and definitely

should never have been wasn't ever

actually the real rule.

Although we did demonstrate that the

chatbots did indeed do that.

>> is a very much more wholesome um face

that Facebook that Meta is putting on

its um

its LLM AI project. So, there is this

video that I've seen of Mark Zuckerberg

launching Meta's new AI agent. And he

talks about this new product called Muse

that's going to help people to plan

their lives and um how it could how

it'll be able to get into your uh data

and your computer, but you shouldn't

worry. It's not a threat. There are

things it can't see. And it'll help him

do things like, you know, cook bread, uh

bake bread with his daughter, and go

hiking, and plan his MMA training, and

all that kind of thing. Um I mean, can a

thing like this really be the future of

a giant company like Meta? Is it enough?

>> I mean,

I don't know that it has to be, right?

They have as much money as anyone

um or more, and they have as much user

data as anyone or more.

Uh and these two things are um really

formidable advantages in um in this sort

of maximalist AI race. People have

noticed the

vast spending on generative AI and I

think there's still a lot of confusion

as to what it looks like. Reuters

recently, one of my colleagues wrote

about um

uh

how Mark Zuckerberg had to call off

aspirations for

extremely steep layoffs. Like they were

hypothesizing potentially as much as 60%

over the course of like a year or two.

Um

Uh

called it off because simply the AI

wasn't there yet. Um

you know, the technology wasn't ready

and the valuable human beings didn't

really like the idea of working in an

environment where, you know, just their

colleagues are getting axed right and

left. It was just kind of almost a

mutinous situation.

Um

So, you know, what this looks like and

where uh things will um

you know, what the next stage of this

technology is is going to be and how AI

is going to shape or replace social

media.

Um

Uh all TBD. Uh but um

I think I think trying to to envision a

future in which simultaneously

everyone is glued to Meta's products and

also it's very wholesome. That's been a

challenge for the company over the

years. Uh I mean, the advertising

business, I think for a lot of years

people predicted that sort of objective

quality of content on the platform

was going to just tank the numbers. At

some point that, you know, you couldn't

just allow fake news and crappy

generative AI videos to just um

you know, overtake the platform. That

there was going to be something to be a

price to pay with users.

That has never been the case.

I mean, nothing's ever secure. Things

are behemoths until they're not. Uh but

there's as of yet um sort of no

indication that would make you think

that this company isn't going to be

you know, prominent 10 years from now in

the same way.

I mean, they they have historically been

even if they have not maybe come up with

the next new thing themselves, they have

been extremely good at buying

or imitating it. And

you know, have sort of maintained

relevance

you know, through multiple different

cycles of the technology. It's would be

hard to discount meta's dedication to

trying to dominate that next round too,

whatever it should be.

>> Jeff Horwitz, thank you so much. It's

been a real pleasure to talk this

through with you.

>> Thank you very much, Tristan.

>> That was Jeff Horwitz, a Reuters

journalist whose reporting inspired the

new film The Social Reckoning. [music]

And just a note from Meta on the

allegations mentioned by Jeff on

chatbots engaging inappropriate

conversations with children, Meta told

the BBC that quote, "The examples and

notes in question were and are erroneous

and inconsistent with our policies and

have been removed." They said they have

quote, "Clear policies that prohibit

content that sexualizes children and

sexualized role-play between adults and

minors."

That's it from us for today. Thanks so

much for tuning in. The Global Story is

also an audio podcast available every

weekday wherever you get your pods. See

you next time. Cheerio.