Google is the latest FAANG to invest in India, Facebook might ban political ads, and civil rights advocate Rashad Robinson on the ad boycott

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Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Hi, I'm Kara Swisher.

And I'm Scott Galloway, and I am so not going to Disney World.

Kara, I am so not going.

Are you going?

Left Florida.

No, I hate Disney in the best of times.

I made a whole video about it.

I hate it.

Bob Eiger and I have an ongoing war about how much I hate the Disney parks.

Listen to to me.

14 seconds until the first name drop.

A new winner.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

You know what?

Listen to me.

I'm not the one who abandoned Florida in its time of need to jet off to lovely places that don't have COVID.

Well, you know, I would have stayed, but they have their heads up their asses, and I'm embarrassed to be from there.

Is that wrong?

Is that going to come back to haunt me when I run for governor against the king of all heads up their asses, Ron DeSantis?

What is the, did you see the video he did?

He should not have taken a victory lap right ahead of this.

It was like a week before this started going downhill.

It's crazy.

You mean I want my apology that we're the smart ones opening?

Yeah.

Yeah.

What is going?

Is there a mentality there?

When were you last there?

When were you last in Florida?

A couple of weeks ago.

Are they not wearing masks?

It's hard to, you know, to be a reductionist and say Florida, Florida has, I mean, Miami is just much different than Orlando, which is much different than Ocala.

So it's hard to reduce it.

But I will say I've been in Montana and Colorado and Florida in the last couple of weeks and New York.

And one of these things is not like the other.

Montana had 21 infections and everyone's masking.

New York has several hundred and everyone's masking.

And in Florida, there were, I think, 15

a record.

Yeah.

And yeah,

more people are masking, but it's still nowhere near the prevalence.

And look, words matter when the governor comes out and says, when the governor and the president don't wear masks and when the governor reinforces this notion that we don't, that we can reopen safely and not acknowledge that we totally blew this and need to go back, it has an impact.

In some, you know, leadership matters and the dearth.

So why is Disney opening?

Why is Disney speaking of the, I expect exactly zip from Ron DeSantos.

I think he's he's about as a fatuous shucklehead as it gets in terms of of Republican politics.

But Disney knows better.

Why are they doing that?

Yeah, but Disney, Disney is not Florida.

Disney is a city and a state instant amongst itself.

Yes, I know.

I've read the stories.

Disney, it's really interesting.

Disney might be trying to, at first, I thought, oh, this is irresponsible.

And I thought, you know, but Disney as a business strategy, first off, Netflix passed Disney in terms of market capitalization, which gives you a sense of where the world is at.

But Disney, I think, is pursuing what might be this incredible gangster strategy, and that is they are putting in place the investments and the protocols and the training to try and create what I would call the first vaccinated theme park experience.

And they feel confident that they can pull it off.

And if anyone can pull it off, it could be Disney to get it.

Yes, I think it's a huge risk given bringing all those people in.

I think it's just, as perfect as you can, because as perfect as you can be, you can't be perfect.

You know what I mean?

Like, it's just, I don't care what you are.

And I think this is something you don't need to go to a theme park.

I get the jobs thing.

I get it.

I get it.

But there's

you don't need to go to restaurants that I feel terrible for restaurant people.

But I mean, there's certain things that have to happen and there's certain things that could happen.

And this is not one of them.

And unfortunately.

The faster we put a nail in this thing's coffin, the faster the economy is.

Europe's going to school.

Everybody's going.

Let me get to the second story here, which is, it's not related, but it's sort of a fatuous chucklehead area of my life, which is, there's a lot of people.

The Washington, I'm not even going to say their names anymore.

The NFL football team is dropping the racial slur from its team name and rebranding its name and logo.

It's going to be, it hasn't decided on that yet.

See how quickly it got pressure from FedEx and others.

But any advice for the company doing a total rebrand?

I mean, this is like, and it took them, this Dan Snyder, the zoner,

it had taken years and always said, no, I'm never going to change it.

This and that.

What do you, what do you, and there's others, the Indians are thinking of it in Cleveland.

What do you think about all this?

Hi.

Well, thank you because

it's an outstanding opportunity to talk about me.

But in my second year of business school, Cara, I started a brand strategy firm because I was inspired by this professor named David Awker.

Expertise, expertise.

And so we started a brand strategy firm called Profit based on the notion that a company's most valuable assets were its brand.

And ultimately, the firm's done a great job.

I sold it in 2002, but the firm's now 400 people.

They do a great job.

I have probably counseled.

or directly consulted to a third of the Fortune 100, either the CEO or the CMO, on this type of issue.

And let me run down after robust analysis of this issue, what they should and will do.

The first is, yes, the name is racist.

And two, you're going to change it.

So just get on with it and change it.

Yeah.

Boom.

I mean, it's just, this is literally the world's easiest brand strategy.

Where do I send the invoice, Kara?

This is literally the easy.

I went to a high school in West Los Angeles University High School.

And our mascot was the Warriors and a Native American in a big headdress.

And in 1998, we decided, okay, that's racist.

So my high school 22 years ago

recognized how ridiculous this thing was.

But the football team.

What did they change it to?

What did they change it?

The football team in

the nation's capital hasn't figured it out yet.

I know.

Why do you think this is?

It's just this chucklehead who runs it, Dan Snyder.

I think the owners are tone-deaf.

Owner.

Owner.

It's one guy.

Owner.

I just, I can't, there's no rational excuse.

I can't.

I think this is indefensible what do you think I am amazed I left I mean I lived in Washington 25 years ago and it was a controversy then and it's you know that it was owned I think at the time by a man named Jack Kent Cook another piece of work as they say

and I think you know then he he there wasn't sort of this push to do it I thought it was repulsive and a lot of people did

and you know there was a big push at the time by saying would you call it this would you call it that and you know another bunch of slurs just to give you an idea of how much of a a slur it is.

And it was when I came back again, it was raging.

And now I think the time has come.

I just can't believe it took this long.

And this guy,

I don't even, they won't sell his

goods in a lot of places because of the name.

Well, that's what pushed them over the edge is when Nike said they're no longer selling your merchandise.

Yeah.

So I don't know what will happen to the other

teams.

There's, I guess, the

there's two others, right?

In Cleveland and the Indians.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then in

there's another another one.

Anyway, they're the Dolphins.

It should be the Miami Dolphins reaching out.

I'm good with the Dolphins.

I'm feeling the Dolphins are fine.

I mean,

what would be the name you would give them then?

I mean,

the Capitals did it.

Remember, they were called the Bullets, and it was in the middle of a shooting thing, and they changed it.

It was passed.

It was done.

They changed their name.

The Capitals is a great name.

I think that's their name, right?

So, going back to my days as a brand strategist, the hardest thing to do, literally the hardest thing to do, is naming because every name is taken so washing capitals is the hockey team washington wizards is the basketball team i think those are both shitty names the capitals how do you guys find the capitals i think the wizards are great

i don't even know what that looks like the wizards are great i think that's their name anyway what name would you give it and then we're gonna move on to our big story i haven't come up i haven't come up with come on you didn't you earn your money you did not earn not come up with your money not come up with a name i'll think about it the cherry how about the cherry blossoms the blossoms yeah that brings out a lot of macho come i think that would be the a total count.

Come on, the blossoms.

Go blossoms.

Go

blossoms.

Do you know what?

Oh my god, that's brilliant.

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By the way, I've been watching cable TV.

I'm so excited.

I got home.

One of the things, I'm back in New York and at Hulu, where you actually have live TV for like $700 a month.

Live TV is so awesome.

One, I haven't seen commercials in so long.

They're kind of interesting.

Two,

you can watch little bits of goodfellas all the time on live cable TV.

And then you can go to a Hallmark channel and find out how to fall in love with a man.

And then you go to Lifetime and you find out how to kill that same man.

I only watch news on live TV.

Let me just say, I'll just tell you something.

I'm going to give you a recommendation.

I still haven't watched the rabbit one that you want me to watch.

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Two movies, Palm Springs with

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Charlie Sarin is one

badass lady.

It's about this people, immortals that go around and do things.

And

she's the oldest of them.

And it's a good thing.

You missed my joke.

You go to Hallmark TV to find out how to fall in love with a man and then Lifetime to figure out how to kill him.

Oh, okay.

I got it.

Okay.

I'm sorry.

I didn't laugh at you.

I was in the Twitter account of Instagram.

I forgot dad.

I forgot dad jokes.

My son is starting to do dad jokes, speaking of which I'll get to that later.

By the way, my other son thinks you're the bomb.

He's listening to your profit show.

Did he see the me on Anderson Cooper on there?

Yes, he did.

He likes everything about you, and he's like, I think Galloway is fine by himself.

He doesn't need you.

And I was like, okay.

He likes you.

He thought your first shows

were rocky, but then it got better.

On Anderson Cooper,

he clearly knows and likes you because

he called out Pivot.

Yeah, the gays.

It's the gay network.

That's the whole thing.

And you know, he said, he said he's reading my book.

And for the first time, I had this emotion I haven't had in a while.

I thought, oh, my gosh, I hope it's good.

I forget what's in there.

I hope it's good.

He needs a partner to raise his child.

I think you're right in there.

He has a partner.

In New York?

I've already looked into it.

Does he?

Yeah, he's got a partner.

Okay.

All right.

Never see them.

All right.

Okay.

Anyway, we're now going to move on to big stories.

Google will invest $10 billion in India, the latest in a string of big tech investments in the country during 2020.

The company is launching the Google for India digitization fund.

They'll invest the money over the next five to seven years through equity investments and partnerships as well as infrastructure.

Sudar Pichai, who is from India actually,

he came here from there as a young man, says the investment will focus on four areas, affordable access in local Indian languages, new products and services aimed at Indians, helping businesses get online and using technology to promote social issues.

Back in January, Jeff Bezos announced that Amazon would be investing $1 billion in India over the next five years.

A few months ago, Facebook announced they'd be investing $5.7 billion into the geo platform, an Indian digital services provider.

You know, this is coming even as India is banning things all over the place, like TikTok and other things, so and getting a lot of control of the internet.

What thinks you of these things?

Well, this is, I mean, if you think about it, especially the difference between a second world and a third world country was I think the second world was had gone communist.

I mean, basically, every nation tried to play the U.S.

off against the Russian in terms of getting aid.

And effectively, India is now kind of, I don't want to say stuck in the middle, but exploiting the middle in the sense that India is the next big opportunity.

billion and a half people only half of them are online it's an emerging middle class biggest democracy in the world most PhDs

it just it's it's ripe with opportunity and I think a lot of these internet giants have said okay China which is not a democracy China which has the kind of there's two internets the ones behind the great firewall and the rest and they see I mean, simply put, they're just say, India is the biggest opportunity.

And the fact that India and China have had some border skirmishes that's resulted in India banning TikTok or threatening to ban TikTok, I think a lot of the tech giants see this as the big opportunity.

This is the forward-looking investment is India.

You know, it's interesting.

For years, India has been the place where obviously they did other work.

You know, they did extra work there and they had hired people and it was never sort of the center of the action.

They would, you know, they would do

they would do the main

software development here and then use Indian, the talent in India in the secondary way.

And now it's sort of become its own power

and doing all kinds of innovative things and stuff like that.

But

why do you think it's India versus, well, they can't go to China.

And then secondly, given our conversations about HB1 visa suspensions from the Trump administration, these work visas specifically bar a lot of skilled Indian workers from coming to Silicon Valley.

Will this big, you know, is this the next big move for them?

It'll be interesting.

I mean, one, it's a great looking,

just as Lululemon invested a million dollars in Mir to conduct diligence and then make acquisitions, you're going to see so many small invests.

It's a great time to be an Indian entrepreneur in tech because a lot of these big companies will say, okay, we'll just give you a million or two million dollars early on just so we can get closer to you and decide if you should be a potential acquisition or a potential partner.

So you're going to see just a flood into India.

I wonder, unfortunately, I wonder if it, as usual, might be really good for big tech.

I wonder if it'll be bad for America, though, because the CEOs of Microsoft, Adobe, Google, MasterCard, Andrew Nouye from Pepsi, these are all people who came over on student visas just from one country to India.

And I wonder if at some point our xenophobia and just a general overt bigotry most recently displayed as we've decided that students who don't, who are here on student visas, who are enrolled in a campus that goes all online means they're supposed to leave, which is just so ridiculous and weird.

I wonder if India, if a lot of the most, some of the most talented people, immigrants,

folks from India, decide to come here, maybe get their education, and then just go back.

I wonder if

the number of people who decide that the opportunity is so huge that they go back.

But having said that, you would have thought the same thing about China.

And I am shocked how many Chinese nationals come here, get educated here, and want to stay.

The number of kids that call me and say, you know, enjoyed the class, enjoyed Stern.

Can you help me find a job?

I want to stay.

but it's, it's, there's just no doubt about it.

You're going to see a boom,

you know, even more so than is already here.

But all eyes, not on the Far East, but the Near East, India.

It'll be interesting to see what happens to the stock market there.

But yeah, everyone's saying, okay, it sort of worked with China on some levels, but it looks like we're getting in a non-shooting war with China.

Let's move to our ally, India.

I get that.

But, you know, under Modi, he's been one of the, one of the, he's shut down the internet more than any other democracy.

He, you know, he tries to control it a lot.

He's much more autocratic.

Is that an issue for them?

I mean, I don't think it's an issue at all for them.

It's sort of like in, it's not shiny light, but it's sort of a version of

the state taking a lot of interest in controlling technology and what people get.

Yeah, but unfortunately, that's a nuance.

We no longer have the luxury of examining in detail because we have such dumpster fires that are so much more egregious and brazen.

I mean,

that's the problem with all of this.

When you have a pandemic, when you have a move towards fascism in the current administration, you basically that topic that you just mentioned would have been a real topic of discussion six years ago.

Now it's like, oh, well, you know, it's not, it's like you said, it's China light.

It's just, it doesn't get the scrutiny it deserves.

Yeah.

And in terms of

what they hope to get out when they're all there, obviously there was car sharing, there's commerce competition.

You think it's just these investments that they're making all over the place

rather than purchasing anything.

It would be difficult.

I I mean, you saw.

It'd be difficult to purchase.

Again, this government

is very proud of its technology pros.

And so I think they used to be seen as a sort of secondary market of like copycat or doing things, you know, the scut work they'd send at night that you they so they would have a 24-7 development thing.

Now they really do feel they have innovative companies that have been started there.

And so

I think it'll be very hard for them to, for U.S.

companies to buy anything there at all.

I don't know.

So, I mean, if you look at the mother of all kind of defensive acquisitions, what I mean is trying to keep it out of the hands of another player.

Walmart went in and I think spent $14 billion on Flipkart so Amazon wouldn't get it.

Yeah.

Facebook just put $5 billion, and you're right, it's not an acquisition, it's an investment into, I think it's called Geomart, the largest telco provider trying to figure out a way to put small businesses on a platform and move from a telco to

maybe a marketplace.

So I think you're going to see, I think it's going to be a very exciting time.

You're going to see venture capitalists open up offices in India.

You're going to see, for the first time, a reverse migration.

It reminds me of, you're going to see a lot of MBA students in the U.S.

go to India to try and take away.

Have you been to India?

I'm just curious.

It's the only major, it's really kind of the only, I would describe, major place I've never been to.

And quite frankly, I'm intimidated by it.

Really?

I love India.

You love India.

What do you love about it?

Well, it's a complicated place.

Love would be a hard thing.

I find it invigorating in a lot of ways.

There's so much activity.

There's so much entrepreneurship.

You can feel, and then at the same time, there's such astonishing income inequality that it's hard to intimidate.

It's hard to justify what's happening there.

And at the same time, it's very modern.

It's just a really interesting place.

And the entrepreneurs I've always found riveting to talk to, just terrific entrepreneurs.

I did a story there for the Wall Street Journal.

That's how long ago.

I've been there many times, but

where they had taken a field that was, I can't, it's no other way to say it, it was a field of yaks, and they turned it into a just-in-time software development thing.

It was a Microsoft executive, it was right next to a power station, so people didn't, there was, you know, there's travel issues and all kinds of, you know, infrastructure problems at India at the time.

And so they were making this village that was just for software developers.

It was a great story.

And it was really, I just enjoyed my time there so much.

And I found the, it was so entrepreneurial.

And I remember coming back and saying, we, this is not a country we can treat like a

sideline software development place.

It's a really innovative group of people.

Same thing in Israel.

You have the same feeling when you go to Israel.

It's a little less stark.

In Israel, it's just the starkness of the income inequality is really hard to deal with.

And the religious, there's so many religious groups competing.

I've always been very drawn to it.

My best friends at Stern are Indian.

And it's just, there's a certain, and I'm making a stereotype here, but there's a certain...

You just sort of said some of my best friends are Indian, but go ahead.

Keep going.

There you go.

I tried to do that.

But it's true.

If you look at Sterns,

we are so incredibly blessed by immigrants from India.

Our dean, Raghu Sundaranam, my close friend

Vasant Dar, a leader in AI, Aswat the Motoran, probably the best teacher alive on the planet, are all these incredibly impressive people that came from India and decided to stay.

And they all share, and again, this is a stereotype, they all share this sort of gentleness and grace about them.

So I've always been really fascinated with

people.

It's graceful.

But what's interesting is how much this country is really hurting itself in terms of having, you know, I think these are global companies, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and they have to have global investments.

And China is sort of barred from all of them, right?

There's just not, there's not an opportunity to get into the next big market.

It's a massive market.

And we have benefited the United States from these visas and the people coming here.

And now

hopefully will be over soon.

The Trump administration's efforts to de-innovate this country will be over.

Well, let's put some numbers on it.

It's a million international students.

It's about a $40 billion.

They spent $40 million here.

About half a million jobs can be directly correlated to

international students.

And a lot of people have said, well, MIT and the lawsuit for MIT and Harvard are going to overturn it.

It doesn't matter because the damage is done.

It's basically what you have with international students.

You know, when you walk into a hotel car and on the back of the door, it says the rack rate is $1,280 and you're at a holiday inn.

You know, I never look at the back of the door.

Well, you know, they usually have this piece of paper saying we can charge up to $1,200 for this room.

The only people that pay that, you think, okay, no one pays that.

But international students do pay full freight at schools.

Colleges, yeah.

And so, again, I think this goes back to something fairly dark, even beyond the free gift with purchase of racism.

And that is, I think, that the Trump administration has decided to go out and financially neuter the most liberal areas, the most liberal institutions in America, specifically our universities.

I think this is, and if you think about it, this is so dark if you just keep going more and more meta.

And that is when you move from an autocracy, or sorry, when you move from a democracy to an autocracy, the first

institutions the autocrat goes after are what, the media.

And then number two is they go after the universities and the intellectuals.

And Dr.

Fauci.

But anyway, we have to move on because we have another break.

We're going to take a quick break and come back to talk about Facebook, possibly banning political ads.

And we have a friend of Pivot, Rashad Robinson, from Color Change, to talk about how Facebook has failed to meet its civil rights standards.

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Okay, Scott, we're back.

We have very quick time before Rashad comes on.

Facebook says it is considering a ban on political ads.

I don't know if this is blanket or something more nuanced.

I'm hoping for something more nuanced.

After weeks of vitriol from advertisers and civil rights advocates, Facebook is poorly considering a ban on political ads across its networks.

Prior to the November election, Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly said the company would not police politicians' ads because of his, quote, belief in free speech.

Last fall, Twitter announced it would be banning political ads.

Twitter says it defines political advertising as referencing a, quote, candidate, political party, elected or appointed government official, election, referendum, ballot measure, legislation, regulation, directive, or judicial outcome.

But they do allow some things around the environment and

topic issues.

So let's talk very quickly as we have Rashad coming on.

But I think this is what I was saying on CNBC this morning is like throwing a hammer at a piano.

I'm sorry, you were on CNBC this morning?

Yes, I was.

Like you were

on your favorite show with Anderson Cooper.

But

I think they have to have a nuanced decision, not just a complete ban.

I'm hoping it's not a complete ban because it does hurt

small campaigns and it advantages people like Donald Trump.

Well, you know who it hurts the most?

It hurts Biden.

Biden has 2 million followers, so organic, and Trump has 28, so a banning of paid ads

naturally goes to the, the advantage goes to who has the most organic following.

I mean,

everything around Facebook just leads you to somewhere, to somewhere bad.

And this most recent decision that they're contemplating, and they put out a trial balloon, stopping political advertising leading up to the election is sort of like a tobacco company saying, well,

well, we're going to stop selling cigarettes to children on Christmas Day.

It's like, okay, let me get this leading up to it.

So what, the last 24 hours, the last seven days?

It just doesn't.

It's just amazing to me that, okay, if we'd had any organization in the world that had been effectively weaponized to pervert or

decrease the sanctity of our elections, that A, would that business be around?

B, would they be allowed to advertise?

C, would they be allowed to do political advertising?

It just amazes me that we're even having this conversation kind of three and a half years post.

I'm surprised their answer is not more nuanced.

You know what I mean?

It's not, they think they're going to like, this is sort of throwing,

you know,

here, we'll give you this.

Like, and they don't understand that it's not, it's not the point.

It's, um, right now, Facebook expects to sell, and this was in October, $420 million in political ads next year.

So it's a substantive amount, but not for Facebook.

But that they can't come up with a more nuanced way to do this around, they just want to to get out of it.

This is so typical of them.

They want to get out of it without doing any of the hard lift.

We're just going to ban them.

So we'll ban the truth tellers and the liars at the same time.

And that what they don't want to have anything to do with the getting rid of egregious problems.

And then it doesn't solve the problem of content, political content that isn't paid that the Trump administration campaign and others use so handily on the surface.

It's not paid that's really the problem from what I understand from experts.

It's actually these

these content mills that gin up false stories.

I don't understand why they just wouldn't take a page from traditional media and have some sort of editorial oversight of the ads, force that you identify who's paying for the ads and either label or refuse to run blatantly false.

I mean, other media companies have figured this out.

They don't want to judge it.

Now, there's no rule that broadcasts has to do this.

They just do it.

They just have broadcast standards.

And so

I don't understand what's,

it will end up either being ridiculously like ham-handed or it will be so complex and we don't have time until November to figure it out.

And at the heart of it is that they continue to favor their version of free speech, which is not free speech, over civil rights protections of people.

And they do have a duty to do that.

And I think it's really quite astonishing that they continue.

continue to do this.

I'd love to be in these meetings.

I wonder how we could sneak into them.

I'm sure we'll get it.

That invites in the mail.

So you know who summarizes it perfectly?

Tell me.

Roger McNamee wrote an opinion piece for Wired.

This is just one excerpt.

The problems with Silicon Valley's largest companies, especially the internet platforms, are not occasional or inadvertent.

They're systemic and intentional.

Hate speech, disinformation, and conspiracy theories are the meticulously engineered lubricants that maximize revenue for Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter.

The decline of journalism has happened because Google and Facebook found a way to insert themselves between media companies and their audience and then to siphon off advertising dollars.

The explosion and influence of extremist groups on Facebook are not an accident.

They are the result of conscious choices.

Go Roger.

Roger.

Go Roger.

Roger the gangster.

Roger the gangster.

You know, you know, and I think he, I think he knows these people better must.

And they, of course, try really hard to call him a crank.

You know, but I think he, he, he, you know, he understands.

He understands that Silicon Valley is at heart elitist and authoritarian.

They just are.

That's what it's, you know, that's what he's talking about.

Elitist and authoritarian say the podcast elite.

You know what?

If I had authority, perhaps we would be authoritarian.

We don't have a lot of people

who are.

No,

no, I do not have actual authority.

Actual, like, I do not have an ability to stop them from doing that.

I have my mouth, which I can run on, as you do, but I don't have authority.

Run, we will.

Run like the wind, my sister.

But it seems like, again, getting back to Charlize Theron, she's tired of fighting all the bad guys after a while.

And this is the whole theme of this movie.

But you get, like, today on on on when i was talking i was like i'm tired of saying this i'm tired of like having to be the one to note it and i i know roger does it you do it many others it doesn't they like wait you out that's what they do they just wait you out well i gotta admit

i'm i'm i'm i'm with you people i got a lot of calls and i trusted on my in this big hearing coming out and i just feel exhausted by it all Do you feel exhausted?

I feel exhausted.

I do.

I do.

It's like with Trump and other things.

It's like today, Chuck Woolery.

He was retweeting Chuck Woolery.

I was like, are you kidding me?

Damn show host?

Yes, he's very right-wingy, and he says that science doesn't honestly.

No, do not, do not, no.

Go look and see what he just posted.

He's like, you don't have to listen to doctors and medical people.

This is all about hurting Trump and the election.

He's crazy.

No, Chuck Woolery is down Scott Bio lane.

He lives down there with him.

He's a great actor.

Oh, my God.

Come on.

Like, both of those.

Joni loves Chachi.

No, Joni hates Chachi.

Joni hates Chachi.

Let me just say, both of those are big Trump supporters.

That's the level of celebrity he gets.

I'm sorry.

When Scarabio and Chuck Willery come out for Trump, I think that helps out.

No, no.

Go, guys.

UBU.

Anyway, we're going to talk about this.

In terms of what, I want a prediction before Rashad gets on of what you think that Facebook will come out with.

What will it be a total ban on political advertising, which I think is problematic, or what?

The calculus they'll do, and I don't know what the decision is, but I know the calculus leading up to the decision will be what will create the greatest perception or appearance of us doing anything over the minimum impact to revenue?

That is the entire calculus driving that decision.

What will we get the most potential credit for actually moving on?

What is that?

What will happen?

Well, this notion that 48 hours before the actual voting booths open, we will not allow political ads, meaning that I think 8% of the revenue comes from political ads.

If you cancel it the last 72 hours or withhold it, you probably don't lose any revenue because if you give all your advertisers a heads up that

the windows close for advertising 72 hours before, you know, call it October 31st, they lose no revenue.

So they want to be perceived as doing something and being earnest.

This is this trial balloon while having absolutely no impact or revenue.

This is to their credit on some level.

It's the most shareholder-driven organization in the world, whether it means lying, whether it means addicting teens, whether it means perverting our elections.

You know, Honey Badger just don't give a shit.

What gets us the most money in the door?

So they're going to try and come up with something that looks like they're doing something, but has absolutely no impact to their revenue.

So something like cutting it off three days before the election.

Which is what they're probably.

I mean, it seems ridiculous to me that that is even something that people think, oh, good for them.

I mean, it's just so what?

I did not think good for them.

That's what I said.

It's a so what.

Anyway, all right, Scott, let's move on to a friend of Pivot who has a lot of opinions about Facebook.

Rashad Robinson is the executive director of Color of Change, the country's largest racial justice organization.

Last week, he was part of a meeting with Facebook executives about the July ad boycott on Facebook and the demands he and those companies have on the social media platform.

He was not impressed by Zuckerberg's performance.

Cheryl Sandberg was also on the call.

So, Rashad, why don't you give us a rundown?

I know you've been on the phone before with these

two, especially.

So, give us a rundown of what happened.

So, you know, we got to the meeting and before the meeting, we had shared the list of demands again.

And demands are not complicated.

These demands have been part of ongoing meetings, protests.

Some of them have been highlighted in previous versions of the civil rights audit that have come out over the past year and a half, two years.

And so we got to the meeting really with the goal of having

them tell us what they

thought and where they were heading because they actually requested the meeting.

Right.

And we've been very clear about the boycott.

And so we got to the meeting and, you know, they wanted us to go through and explain the demands.

You know, I've been in a lot of meetings with Facebook.

I've been in meetings with a lot of corporations where they get trained on how to run out the clock.

They have these sort of strategies on how to, you know, have a meeting where they, you know, get you to talk a lot and then they don't actually have to tell you anything new.

And so I actually took the lead in the opening and really sort of pushed him like, hey, you know, you've got the demands.

We actually want to go through it.

Right.

Tell you where you're at.

You brought them to them before.

Is that correct?

I mean, you had mentioned, mention one or two.

Give me an example.

Yeah.

So one is, it was about a C-suite civil rights leader that had budget and had the ability to oversee and weigh in on product and new policy.

Another was specifically to deal with the political exemption and the way in which

they kind of talk out of both sides of their mouth.

On one hand, they'll say that they have political exemption, exemption, but they don't really use it and no one ever gets exempted.

And then Donald Trump will get exempted.

And then they'll say, well, that's because he didn't violate the policy, but they can't ever tell you when he will violate the policy.

It's just like you're talking in circles.

And so that's just another example of how you end up this situation where they may, we have spent years working on getting rules in place only for them to not enforce the rules when it actually matters.

And so I wanted them to go through this.

And, you know, my last meeting with Mark and Scher was on June 1st, right after the looters and shooters post, right after those posts around voter suppression, where I, at the end of the meeting, was like, what are we doing here?

Why are we continuing to meet if I don't feel like anything's happening?

And if you're trying to just explain to us why you haven't,

you know, why you're working hard.

They spent a lot of time in the meeting telling us why their platform, why they're doing more than all the other social media platforms.

They've done that.

They've gone around to advertisers and done that too.

They're so much better they're working so much harder they have done things that other folks won't do i mean this is the kind of constant line and you know at some point someone said in the meeting so i guess what you're saying is that you're doing everything right and that we're just you know crazy and they're like no no no that's not what we're saying i'm like no what are you saying yeah they're like that What are you saying to us if you're saying that, yes, you are working hard.

This is part of an ongoing conversation.

This is a start, not a finish.

I mean, you've heard all these things as well.

And then they spend all this time telling you how great they are doing, how much better they're doing.

And you're left to be like,

so they were backed up by the audit too.

Their own audit said exactly what you're saying, which is that they have created a really dangerous situation, civil rights, by

favoring their version of free speech over civil rights.

Why do you think that is?

You have spent time with him.

If you were him, what would you do to fix the structure among the demands of the first second?

Well,

I would separate

the kind of decisions about moderation and content from his global policy shop.

There is not a scenario moving forward where Joe Kaplan overseeing this is going to be fine with anyone.

And if he replaces Joe Kaplan with someone else that has to oversee their relationships in Washington, other folks are not going to be comfortable with that.

The fact of the matter is, is if these decisions are through the lens of how to keep policymakers and policy leaders happy, then you've actually violated one of the sort of opening tenets of bringing and fermenting sort of connection because you are making decisions rooted in keeping powerful people and powerful forces comfortable and happy, which is what happens around the world, right?

It happens here in the United States, and we have a particular experience with it, but other folks in other parts of the world have a different experience where protests might be illegal, where speaking out might be illegal.

The fact of the matter is, is that Facebook will tell us one thing about their intentions, but every single decision is rooted in profit and growth.

And every single decision is through that lens.

And so in order to keep profit and growth going, they actually have to stay friends with those in power.

So, Russia, first off, kudos to you and Color of Change.

I was really skeptical that this boycott was going to have any impact.

And this boycott that you and your organization have catalyzed has had more impact than and more awareness than almost any other effort I can see to date.

So first off, well done.

Secondly, quite frankly, I'm not sure it's going to do anything.

And let's speculate that if you call on their better angels, that no one's home and that you have to move back to applying financial pressure.

Can you give us a sense of the state of the boycott and how you put pressure on or call on the better angels of the people at organizations that spend money on Facebook?

What's the state of the boycott and how can you increase it 10 or 20 fold such you bring about real pressure, which in my view, financial pressure is the only lever that you or any of us have?

Yeah, I mean, I think financial pressure as well as hopefully if we can change the sort of political levers in Washington, that to me

is the long game because even this type of effort feels like something that we just can't be in constant

go-around with against the largest advertising platform the world has ever known, right?

And it just can't simply be about asking advertisers to walk away.

I've had a lot of conversation with advertisers, a lot of conversations recently with the Madison Avenue firms who sort of manage advertisers, trying to continue to get a pulse of where folks are at.

I think one thing that's been really helpful here is that this conversation has trickled up to the board level at a lot of companies.

And, you know, Facebook is really good.

Cheryl is really good.

Cheryl will pick up the phone and call you.

And look, she's like a personable person.

And

she's in the role that she's in because she can sort of manage relationships.

And a lot of folks who are in advertising, who are in powerful positions, corporations, don't want to be on the opposite side of one of those powerful sort of corporations.

Don't want to be on the opposite side of the leadership inside the ad space at Facebook.

And so they've built these relationships over time.

But because things have trickled up to the board level, a lot of the sort of relationships are not as powerful anymore because they don't have the same levers with people who are making these decisions.

They're getting pressured by other forces.

I also think like some of the things that Mark has said about advertisers coming back, some of the sort of flip ways he has sort of responded to this, I think

I've been able to sort of talk directly with corporate CEOs and be like, well, you know, it's one thing for Mark to call us weak, for us to say he doesn't have to think about sort of what we're demanding.

But, you know, a bunch of corporate CEOs, at what point are you all going to like stand up?

At what point are you all going to like say that you're not going to let this person walk all over you?

And I think that that, I think, has been

part of their challenging missteps is that I think that they have stepped on the ego of a lot of folks who have ego and who don't want to be treated like that they're not valuable.

Their opinions don't matter.

One of the things is they don't like Facebook.

You can talk to most of them.

They tolerate it because they need it because it's the only game in town.

And you're right about the political levers.

So two things I'd love to know.

What do you think the impact right now of what Facebook is doing on people of color?

Because you have a group group that's not just people of color you have the ADL you've got the NAACP you've got so many groups you're working with

what is the impact on society right now for these continued

I would call them abuses by Facebook to the general public yeah I mean the technology that's supposed to bring us into the future is in so many ways dragging us into the past where we had created a sense of social contacts social contracts around the ways that white nationalists could organize right They can't organize at the Starbucks in a public space and have a meeting.

They couldn't like do things out in public in the same ways.

And the ways in which the incentive structures at Facebook have allowed people to not only organize, but, you know, when someone starts to, you know, a 15-year-old that sort of is searching for some one thing runs into some white nationalist content and then goes down a hole because they get served more and more of this content because the ways that the algorithms are set up, they're almost sort of indoctrinated into these ideas that in many ways there's been a lot of effort to like put at the margins.

They have created a space that it feels like home, makes these things comfortable, makes these things acceptable.

And so to that extent, that has been damaging.

And at the same time, Facebook has refused to be accountable.

So I was having a conversation with Alicia Garza, who's one of the co-founders of Black Lives Matter.

Alicia famously posted Black Lives Matter on Facebook right after the Zimmerman verdict, you know, after

how it started.

Mark talks about it and talked about it in his free expression speech at Georgetown.

And Alicia gets regular death threats.

She's a friend of mine and a colleague in the movement, and she gets regular death threats on Facebook.

And she has to go through the same decision tree that anyone else has to go through.

And she's had about 20 over the last like several months.

And every one of them has been declined through automation.

She goes in, she puts the thing, she passes off, and they say something about it doesn't violate.

Never a phone call from Facebook, never an outreach, never sort of the engagement one would expect.

And so this is Alicia, who's on TV, who is like well-known, who has, who actually like they use her name, they use her work in the cases they make around this.

And they like don't even respond to the attacks that she's getting.

It's because they don't care.

The same way Mark can say that these Fortune 500 advertisers don't matter.

He's on the other hand saying that black activists and their voices don't matter.

Like the fact of the matter is, is like one would imagine how

he would have treated SNCC organizers, how he would have treated, you know, the sort of civil rights leaders that we lionize today in terms of the ways in which they were attacked and targeted.

And all of this, right, is because you've got this person that has far too much control and believes that they and they alone sort of understand what's right.

And we don't actually have the levers to challenge them.

And so I really appreciate what you said around the boycott.

And I feel really proud of what we've been able to do.

But part of this, from my perspective, has always been about raising the level of attention and energy and focus so that we can advance the real conversation about 21st century rules of the road.

Because we, it's not just Facebook, it is that all of these platforms,

if left to their own devices, will rely on the wrong set of incentive structures because profit and growth are key drivers to why they sort of exist.

I'm always fascinated by,

I don't know how old you are, you sound young.

What advice would you give to a younger person or your younger self who wants a career in activism or social justice?

How did you get where you are?

And what advice would you give to people who want to be in a career that makes a difference?

Yeah,

a couple of things.

I grew up in a really like involved political family.

I grew up in a town that was like 10%

black on Eastern Long Island.

So we had to organize for everything.

I also learned what it means to be involved with multiracial coalitions, like to be rooted rooted in your community, but recognizing that you have to build alliances to get anything done.

You know, I think the thing that I oftentimes give people advice around is around disrupting magical thinking about how change happens.

Like constantly questioning sort of what are the levers that we actually have to pull.

I think we tell ourselves stories about that if we just change hearts and minds or that if we just have the right set of ideas that that will win.

And I constantly help people

and I think I talk to folks in my own organization, people who come to me, is to really start wrestling with power.

Because the reason why we don't have equality for women, for people of color, the reason why we still have so many challenges is not related to like ideas.

It's not related to hearts and minds.

It is related to power.

And that means that we actually have to build institutions.

And that means we have to be part of institutions.

So the final thing I tell people is like,

we sometimes tell a story that a single person can sort of like unlock stuff on their own and make change.

And I just don't think that that's true.

I think that like, yes, a single, single people, each of us individually are important, but we actually have to be part of things, right?

Like this was, this campaign was not built on a Twitter strategy of an individual person's Twitter account.

Now we've learned from a lot of people out in social media, but it was built because we built infrastructure over the years.

And then that infrastructure could leverage and make sure corporations did things that they didn't want to have to do and then followed up with them and then engaged them and created an incentive for them to feel like if they did it, they would be publicly rewarded.

All of those things take time and you just don't make change overnight.

So just in a different way,

along the lines of change, just a call to action here, Rashad, if people buy into what you're saying and what Color of Change is doing with respect to Facebook, what are the one or two things any of the three and a half billion Facebook users could do right now if they wanted to be supportive of your actions.

What's the call to action?

So a couple of things.

I think that folks need to first and foremost vote in this upcoming election.

And I think that people need to make sure that politicians know that

we want

to hold big institutions accountable and that we vote because the long game is is a new set of rules and we just don't get that by wishing.

The second thing I think for folks who are like actively using Facebook is that if they see negative content if they see content that's hateful and they see an advertiser next to it send that to the advertiser advertisers need to consistently hear from consumers that why are you sponsoring this type of content why do you have your brands next to this type of content most most the vast majority the overwhelming majority of advertisers are not trying to have their stuff next to this but facebook is telling them one story and there's a totally different story that's actually

sort of at play.

And then sort of finally, I think that all of us have to be really active users about the content that's coming our way.

What are we clicking on?

What are we sharing?

What are we engaging with?

Because the level of disinformation and misinformation that's going to be sort of on platforms as we head into this election is going to be outrageous.

And we all sort of in our day-to-day lives can play a role in disrupting that and pushing back on them.

Yeah.

Last question for me.

They had just announced that they floated a trial balloon that they're going to cut off all political advertising.

I am not a fan of this because I think it's not nuanced.

It's not complex.

It doesn't require them to do anything, but you know, it's not even virtue signaling.

I don't know what it is.

It's so dumb.

I can't even begin to start.

What do you think?

You do not want that.

You want them to just,

and also it doesn't address the issue of political content, not just political advertising.

What do you think of that?

Well, but in a country that's like, was supposedly the story we are told, right, was founded on insurgents, right, who like wanted to make their voice heard up against powerful elites, even if they kept so many other people out, right?

This bakes in the people who are already in charge, right?

If folks who have emerging voices can't build audience, can't use this, it's going to prioritize people who can pay for TV ads.

and and you know part of why these platforms are actually even um helpful and useful is that they allow for people to um engage um people that they wouldn't otherwise reach the other thing is that for groups like mine i have to pay to reach my audience I like I we've built an audience, but then we have to pay to reach them.

And if I can't, and if they are classifying things that we're doing as political, then that creates a problem.

Facebook has been really bad also about what is political and what's not political.

Like ads for LGBT Pride celebrations have been classified as political over the years.

And so, like, is that political?

Is it political to just to say that you're gay?

Like, or, and maybe it is, but is that politics like an election?

Like, do, like, if this is their way of not actually having to have, um, um, take responsibility for disinformation, for lying, for hate content on their platform that money gets put behind.

This is their way of continuing to make a lot of money without being responsible and not offending people that might sort of play a role in holding them accountable.

And it's not cute, and we don't think it's a good trial balloon.

And I've already had that conversation with them.

Good.

Well, they have the oversight board, Rashad.

I mean, come on.

I mean, I remember when they've called us about the oversight board, and I asked, like, the questions that one asks when someone says has an oversight board, like will those people

sort of, you know, what will those people's charge will be?

I mean, I remember when the looters and shooters post happened and I asked them about the oversight board and they said something to me about like those people not being fully on board yet.

They didn't have laptops and they hadn't gotten their laptops.

And all I could think of was like looking at these people's names and credibility and bylines.

It was like, oh, those people don't have laptops?

Are you joking with me?

But they're very good at a Davos dinner party, Rashad.

You know what I mean?

And

what is your next move?

People getting boycotts or continuing the pressure?

Because they can't do that.

Continuing the pressure.

I mean, July 27th, Mark testifies in front of Congress on antitrust.

And honestly, like

a corporation that has become so big and powerful where they don't listen to major corporations, where they don't have to listen to social justice leaders means that there are questions about has this platform become too powerful and does it sit in the space of needing new rules, which I've sort of talked about.

I think that that is the next sort of phase in this work and how do we sort of get ourselves ready for that.

And then the sort of end of July and beyond, you know, we are also in ongoing conversations with Facebook as they keep trying to have meetings with us to explain how they've done.

everything that we've asked them to do, which they continue to tell advertisers that they've done everything that we've asked them to do, only to find like every week we get like BuzzFeed who shows a white new white nationalist group that's been on their platform.

You know, like the problem for Facebook is, is that they are asking people to trust them and big companies to trust them.

And the thing, the message I have for big companies is like, do you think that they're going to embarrass you?

Because I have a quick answer for you.

They will.

And so like, just know that time and time again, they have no problem with embarrassing you, embarrassing your brand, so that they can keep the systems running as is and not have to make changes.

So, we've got to help them make changes, or we've got to get new rules in place.

Rashad, thank you so much.

I don't know what to say.

It's great to hear a voice like you.

It's all your whole group is fantastic.

You all should pay attention, and advertisers should absolutely be paying attention to this as we're going forward.

And anything we can do to help, we certainly will.

And we appreciate you being on.

Nice meeting you, Rashad.

Pleasure.

All right, Scott, one more quick break.

We'll be back for Wins and Fails.

Rashad Rocks.

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Okay, Scott, wins and fails.

I'd say Rashad Robinson is a win, but

what is your wins and fails this week?

My win is an opinion piece in the New York Times by Ann Borden King, and she disclosed her breast cancer diagnosis on Facebook and immediately started receiving alternative cancer care ads.

In other words, pseudoscience, everything from

using different types of silver or non-toxic cancer therapies on a beach in Mexico or cumin seeds.

You know, and as someone who's been around a a number of people who have terminal cancer, this is when people are at their most vulnerable

and they are grasping for hope and very susceptible to this kind of junk science.

It's not pseudoscience.

It really is fraudulent.

And it's, at the end of the day, it's just not,

I can't, I just can never see MSNBC or SNAP or the New York Times deciding that, okay, this is clearly junk science preying on the most vulnerable.

We're just not going to allow it.

And of course, Facebook sees, as long as they're check clears, we'll let you target people who have late-stage metastatic breast cancer with junk science cures.

It's just, it's really, it kind of cuts to the notion that of, you know, what does this say about the character and the code of the people at Facebook who are approving these ads and cashing these checks and sending the invoices and then figuring out who to target with these ads.

And if we didn't have so many like gigantic dumpster fires at Facebook, we'd have the time to say, all right, Facebook, should you really be preying on vulnerable cancer patients?

And anyways, Ms.

King brought that to light, I thought, very, very eloquently.

My loss is, I just think it's fascinating.

I'm doing a ton of work looking at schools that have the most international students and who is most vulnerable.

So University of Rochester, 37%, Mount Holyoke, 28%, BU, 24%,

Bryn Mawr, 22%, Bennington College, 21%, NYU, 19%.

And then you could double each of those numbers, and that's probably the respective cash flow.

So if BU gets half its cash flow from international students and all of them go home, you could literally have, I mean,

these universities are so vulnerable.

And these towns, it gets more nuanced because a place like BU or NYU, They have

New York.

They have great brands.

They have big endowments.

They're going to be fine.

This is a gut punch.

But some universities that could go away that have not great endowments high admin rates meaning that they don't have waiting lists to dip into when they get desperate large international very expensive

an organization or a university like sarah lawrence that has 12 international 56

admin rate a middling endowment university of san francisco 50 000 a year 13 international 65 administrative you know that's used by commuters and people who don't have the money and then for example even for them kind of a global brand brand, 50,000 a year, 9% international, a 46% admin rate, meaning they don't have big waiting lists.

You could literally, see, the University of Rochester, you could see some brand names we know go out of business by January.

Wow, that's a big one.

That's a big one.

You know, it was interesting.

Amanda noticed that there was a college for sale in Vermont.

I thought you and I could buy it.

It's $3 million

and started Scott and Carrie University.

You know what I mean?

It couldn't be worse than that.

That would be heaven for people who don't believe in heaven.

I know.

We would have the best college.

We would have the best college together.

Anyway, I was thinking of buying it for you.

I was thinking of buying it for you.

And then

you could argue about cancel culture the entire.

Anyway, I have a fail, of course.

Tucker Carlson's top writer resigned after it was found.

He'd been posting racist, homophobic, and sexist comments on like three years.

Yes, I can because he does it every day on the show.

Like, he's like,

I know he was in date club on the Washington Post.

You got to go read the date thing.

It's linked to in many of the stories.

You know, the Washington Post has this date lab or whatever where he puts two people together, and it's disturbing.

The date lab is disturbing.

You could already see him say, like, all this stuff that he's trying to trigger, this poor woman on the date with him.

But I have to say, no, I'm not surprised.

They do it every day on the show.

Like, so it's worse.

It's the same stuff.

Yeah, but to think of one of the most

Tucker Carlson gets huge ratings, and supposedly the president watches it religiously so arguably this is the one of the most influential media properties in the world and the most influential voice at that media organization even maybe more

influential than Tucker who's writing this ends up as a raging closeted misogynist and racist I don't think it's closeted.

I think it's closer to the colours.

Well, he wasn't using pseudonyms.

He wasn't even saying exactly.

I understand that.

But on this show, when they put, you know, women of color always attacking, constantly attacking someone who's an amateur senator Tammy Duckworth they do it in the open agreed I they do it in the open they just do it slightly less it's like it's like that same Tom Cotton thing in the New York Times it was a certain yeah but I thought it was for business reasons it's just that these guys are just fucking weirdos no they really go read that date lab it'll freak you out you're like run young woman run from this man it was like full of just awful just

God Jesus like I literally am like I just don't know what to say because these are just your fail wins.

Your fail is a win.

My fail wins.

Yes.

He's just awful.

Win.

I don't know a win.

I don't know a win this week.

I think I'm still loving that.

We got to get the Lincoln Project people on here because I think their ads are fantastic.

Oh, fantastic.

Just fantastic.

And they just really, they know when to go for the jugular.

And I was on Rick Wilson's podcast this week with Molly Youngfest.

And they were, I was like,

you guys are so good at this.

And they're getting noticed.

They're getting it.

I didn't realize they have $60 million now and a staff of 67.

And whoever does their online media, whoever does their Twitter is so smart and funny that it's really great.

And I do think it's going to make a difference.

I know, you know, we can please ourselves and do something, but they seem to understand exactly where to

shoot.

All right, Scott, we have to go.

Thank you, Rashad Robinson.

You were great.

But don't forget, if you can't get enough, Pivot, we're doing a live stream event for the month of August.

It's called Pivot School from New York Magazine and Vox Media Podcast Network.

It unfortunately is virtual, but someday we're we're going to be at a school, our school in Vermont, that we start together, the Kara and Scott University or the Scott and Cara University, whichever way you want to do it.

Scara.

Scara you.

It's expensive, but not worth it.

Okay.

Okay.

Oh my God, that's brilliant.

That is really, you couldn't come up with a plan for the Washington sports team, but you have a good name for our university.

Anyway, you can get tickets at pivotschool.com.

I'm horrified at our political incorrectness.

There's also a link in our show notes.

The only curriculum will be whether cancel culture exists or not or should.

Anyway, don't forget if there's a story in the news and you're curious about it and want to hear our opinion on it, email us at pivot at foxmedia.com to be featured on the show.

Scott, please.

Today's show was produced by Rebecca Sonanas.

Fernando Finite engineered this episode.

Erica Anderson is Pivot's executive producer.

Thanks also to Drew Burroughs.

Make sure you've subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts or if you're an Android user.

Check us out at Spotify, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts.

If you like the show, please recommend it to a friend.

Thanks for listening to Pivot from Box Media.

We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business.

It is never too late to unite against a common enemy.

Our common enemy is a novel coronavirus.

Every mass.

Every attempt at distance is an act of citizenship, an act of generosity, an act of love.

Let's beat the shit out of this thing.

It is not too late to salvage something here.

Let's get on it.

Let's get on it, Kara.

Let's distance.

You know what I'm just saying?

You know what I'm saying?

You're trying to appeal to people's better angels.

I'm saying, don't be a mascot.

Also, don't be a masculine.

As we teach it, Scara You.

Don't be a mascot.

Have a good week, Kara.

Thanks.

This month on Explain It to Me, we're talking about all things wellness.

We spend nearly $2 trillion on things that are supposed to make us well: collagen smoothies and cold plunges, Pilates classes, and fitness trackers.

But what does it actually mean to be well?

Why do we want that so badly?

And is all this money really making us healthier and happier?

That's this month on Explain It to Me, presented by Pureleaf.

Olivia loves a challenge.

It's why she lifts heavy weights

and likes complicated recipes.

But for booking her trip to Paris, Olivia chose the easy way with Expedia.

She bundled her flight with a hotel to save more.

Of course, she still climbed all 674 steps to the top of the Ivy Tower.

You were made to take the easy route.

We were made to easily package your trip.

Expedia, made to travel.

Flight-inclusive packages are at all protected.