How Facebook and Twitter are dealing with racist posts and Friend of Pivot Baratunde Thurston on why “now is the time to step up, show up, or shut up”

Support for the show comes from Saks Fifth Avenue.

Saks Fifth Avenue makes it easy to shop for your personal style.

Follow us here, and you can invest in some new arrivals that you'll want to wear again and again, like a relaxed product blazer and Gucci loafers, which can take you from work to the weekend.

Shopping from Saks feels totally customized, from the in-store stylist to a visit to Saks.com, where they can show you things that fit your style and taste.

They'll even let you know when arrivals from your favorite designers are in, or when that Brunello Caccinelli sweater you've been eyeing is back in stock.

So, if you're like me and you need shopping to be personalized and easy, head to Saks Fifth Avenue for the Best Fall Arrivals and Style inspiration.

Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start?

Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to.

Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin, or what that clunking sound from your dryer is?

With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro, you just have to hire one.

You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app.

Download today.

Hi, everyone.

This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

I'm Kara Swisher.

And this is Scott Galloway.

Kara, how are you doing?

Oh, I had some dental surgery this morning, but otherwise, I am fine.

I'm a lot better than the rest of the country.

I think we just should get into this because rather than shitty chat, because this is really, this is the only story.

If we talk about big stories, it's the only story, which is civil unrest hits the United States of America in a massive dose.

We watched it unfold on social media, on cable, everywhere.

The killing of George Floyd on top of years of social media videos that show black people dying at the hands of police led to national protests in Minneapolis, Atlanta, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and the list goes on.

Social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter, are central to our understanding of how this is unfolding at a place for a lot of misinformation.

By the way, dozens of Facebook employees did a virtual walkout today, Monday, after the company refused to take down Trump's inflammatory posts about protesters over the weekend.

Meanwhile, the president moved to an underground bunker, which apparently still has Twitter access because he tweeted that he will be adding anti-FA to the United States terrorist lists.

He also tweeted fake news, et cetera, et cetera.

Finally, there are also concerns that pictures of protesters on platforms could be used by police using facial recognition technology.

Scott, I don't know where to start.

This has been something we actually talked about on a show last week about about

some predictions you had heard about from, I think it was a bank or

another big business.

So let's talk a little bit about it.

What's your reaction?

Well,

so the social unrest isn't surprising.

I think it's surprising it's taken this long, and that is if you look at the percentage of retail that's done via e-commerce, it's loosely speaking, and Derek Thompson pointed the stat out to me, which I think is really interesting from the Atlantic.

Essentially, e-commerce has been 1% growing by 1% of retail when it started, and it's grown 1% a year, and it's 18 years after kind of e-commerce got traction.

It's now 18% of retail, but in the last eight weeks, it's gone to 28%.

And ever since kind of the 70s and 80s and Reagan, we've decided that the new nobility are rich people, and we've sort of embraced this notion.

This ugly notion of a meritocracy where billionaires deserve what they get and poor people deserve what they get.

So let's reward the billionaires.

And now we have taxes on the top 0.1% lower than everyone else.

So we've sort of embraced what I would call this massive move towards income inequality.

And then in the last eight weeks, it jumped from 18 to 28%, if you will.

And that is inequality has been so dramatically escalated over the last

60 days.

And throughout history, it's just pretty straightforward.

When you have, when you reach a certain level of income inequality,

it self-corrects with war, famine, or revolution.

And right now we have two.

We have famine and we have revolution.

And the scary part is usually when you have two of the three, it leads to the other third.

So

I don't think this is.

I don't think it's surprising, Carol.

Because there have been shocking videos over and over, over and over again.

And this one was particularly, the New York Times has an amazing breakdown of it from minute to minute, the whole arrest.

And it is

even to watch it slow or just watch the thing by itself it was horrific it was and and especially the people on the street saying you're killing him stop like there's several people that are trying attempting to stop the police who are being obstructive uh I think the whole thing is is astonishing it's an astonishing

situation when you look at that video and I think they're all awful by the way every single one of them is awful I would argue that as it relates to or I think as it relates to systemic racism that the the arc has been curved but it bends towards justice until trump and that is i don't want to say presidents have been good but i think over time they become less bad no i don't think you think it's always i think it's deep and it's we pretend it doesn't exist and everyone's surprised by these white supremacists I'm not surprised by them.

And by the way, this is us two white people talking about this.

I think the experience of, I have a friend who

is so scared for her sons, you know, and we had a long talk about that, is scared for her sons.

Different America.

And this is someone who is money and means and everything else, still scared for her sons.

And so they have plenty of money, they've got plenty of ability to put the kid in a nice school and this and that.

And it doesn't matter, it just doesn't.

And so, I just don't, I think we, again, we're two white people talking about this, so we're never going to get it right, but we certainly have to start to talk about our culpability and it either by ignoring it or allowing our elected officials to continue,

you know, just the idea of these police forces with these military-grade weapons.

It's like crazy.

That would be a start to demilitarize.

Whoa, whoa, like, who did that?

It wasn't Trump.

Listen, Trump is absolute worst.

I'm not saying that, but it's like we have to have a larger discussion with all of us.

And I don't want to, you know, you don't want to say truth and reconciliation because I don't think they're ready to reconcile yet and shouldn't be, shouldn't be ready to reconcile yet.

I think that's what I'm saying.

So if someone from the Trump administration was here, they would say, well, Carol, what about criminal justice reform?

Do you think that's a step in the right direction?

Yes.

Yes, it is.

But it's still, it doesn't, it's sort of like putting putting a band-aid on what is really at the heart, the dark heart of America, which is racism.

I'm sorry.

I just think it's,

I think there's dark heart reasons that we do not experience.

And again, I've had some great discussions with my sons.

I'm like, he does not, my sons do not experience it.

They've only had either no interactions with the police or nothing.

problematic like nothing and in fact we had an interaction with the police uh where my son broke off a leaf of a tree and the other day and we found him

well he was grabbing a leaf he was grabbing a leaf and he pulled off the whole branch and we happened to be passing a cop car and the cop goes uh

put that back where you found it and like scared the out of my son and he was kidding and he goes oh i'm just kidding and it was a nice interaction do you know what i mean like and i and my son was like i wonder what that would have been like if i was african-american and i said i don't know and then he all went and had lattes and a chicken no he did not have lattes and chicken in any case it's a time that we've got to really face the ugly face.

And Trump is our ugliest face, but we're not, none of us are so pretty.

That's my feeling.

Scott, again, our discussions, of course, are not talking about business, but let's talk a little bit about business.

Obviously, civil unrest continues.

Facebook is having some of its employees who are never really, who never really complain at Facebook.

They've been the least, they're sort of the most culty.

Mark Zuckerberg has, you know, sort of tried to put himself into the Trump camp by appearing on Fox News and saying he doesn't want to be armor

truth and attacking Jack Dorsey from labeling some of Trump's tweets.

So

what do you think is responsibility for its users, their employees, and specifically their black employees?

And also sort of what should be the response from companies.

There's been relative silence from tech.

Nike and Adidas, longtime rivals, released powerful ad campaigns in support of the protests.

Nike produced an ad that flipped their just do it tagline to just don't do it as in don't ignore systemic racism.

Then Adidas released an ad that added together is how we move forward record labels across the ten billion dollar music industry issued an agreement to give employees tuesday off in protest warner music group sony universal music motown capital records and columbia records are some uh major labels participating um you know over there's all kinds of things going on any comment about what how how companies should react to this

So I had Facebook first.

Facebook first.

Well, I'm just kind of sick of hearing Facebook people going on background saying how disappointed and upset they are as they cast their checks and go down to the cafeteria.

I think, like, I just don't think there's any around it.

People have a right to make a living.

I think it's a great company on a lot of levels, but I think you're complicit if you work for Facebook and what is one of the most damaging and dangerous organizations in the world, and your grandkids are going to be really embarrassed to say that you're...

that Nana worked at Facebook.

I just don't think there's any getting around it.

I think history is going to judge you and your coworkers

really harshly.

And going on background of the New York Times, think that you're distressed and upset about Trump and Dark Republic.

I don't think that does anyone any fucking good.

Oddly enough, that's my columns.

I called Mark Zuckerberg the Susan Collins of the internet.

I'm concerned.

I'm disturbed and concerned.

And this is not good.

You know, this kind of bullshit response.

I agree.

How should companies respond?

Like,

they did these ads.

And of course, there are all those pandemic ads, right?

So what, and those are all like, we're here to help.

This is a very important thing to do and also a dicey thing.

So

in the last, over the weekend, in the last 72 hours, I've talked to a major apparel and shoe manufacturer, a large CPG company, and then a big specialty retailer.

And the question was, you know, how do you think we respond to this?

And they're all with their agencies saying, this is an opportunity.

And my attitude is, I didn't like the Nike yet.

I love Nike, but I think, I thought Amazon actually had a stronger statement.

They just said, we stand with these people.

But I don't even think that's the right thing.

I think unless you're going to come out with concrete

action.

Okay, so Nike,

8% of their 350 VPs or whatever it is, are African American.

And you might argue, well, okay, if 12% of America is African-American, but 80% of the athletes, they support in the NBA.

I mean, it just...

You subject yourself.

I think unless you're going to come out with a specific goal or action item or a specific commitment, I just think you keep it to yourself.

What is that number you just said?

I didn't know that about Nike.

I'm sorry, I should know that.

I don't know.

Well, Nike, to be fair, Nike does have, I think, a real concerted effort to try and advance.

They're very self-aware around the fact that they are largely, their brand is largely a function of the endorsements from people of color on athletes.

And I think they've made a concerted effort.

But the reality is it's still, and like that, it's really difficult.

That sounds weird.

It's not easy to find

executives of color in Portland, Oregon.

So, and that's not an excuse, but it's a complicated issue.

And my advice to anyone right now is in this environment that is so serious, unless you're going to announce a specific action, we are going to ensure that by X date,

our executive ranks look like America.

We are going to fund X initiative to ensure more

young men and women of color have access to affordable education, whatever it might be.

whatever, I thought what you just said is a fantastic thing, saying we're giving the, the record label said, we're giving people the day off to protest if they choose to.

Just like voting.

That's the same thing.

But these platitudes around

a smile, although I did like that.

And we're going to get through this and we stand with, you know, I just.

I might be cynical because I just see so much of it.

Yeah.

But I don't.

I don't think you are.

I think we may have jumped a shark here.

I think we all are susceptible to marking.

I'm thinking of the, I'd like to teach the world to sing or have a coke and a smile or any of those, any Kodak commercial can make me tear up in a second.

But if you're watching them from a different perspective, you'd be like bullshit, like bullshit with a Coke and a smile.

That's not how it works.

I'll grab a Coke and I'll get stopped for shoplifting.

Like even though I did nothing.

I mean, I think that that's the thing is this marketing does not, you know, the pandemic stuff is laughable for everybody because everyone's experiencing because it's like, stop.

You're not with me.

You know, you're not trying to help me.

Just give me my stuff, you know, give me a job, give me the money.

Give me a way to not have my business closed.

That's different.

But I think that marketing right now, I think all companies should say, you're right, say something concrete, should say something for once, because a lot of these companies are saying nothing.

And then

and then do something.

Like Mark, take down Trump's.

terror or cover them or whatever label them if you don't feel comfortable taking them down label them um as as dangerous like the fact that they didn't take that one looting and shooting one which is such a clear

crystal clear example of inciting violence and using a racist trope to do so to me i don't know what it what would make him do it you know what i mean and then there was reporting from axios for example that he had had a call and saying he was um he was concerned you know he was he strongly disagreed with mr trump and he was concerned he gave him a call like he's what is he customer fucking service for president trump hey dude you might be being a little problematic for me but it was all about facebook and none of it about solving the problem you're right they need to concrete things need to be done what would you do if you were any of these tech companies or any company what would be a move Disney whatever pick one well first off I'm not sure I agree with say something I think that so the NFL put out a statement Roger Godell yeah oh yeah and I just read this thing I'll just read the last paragraph and I just pulled it up as current events dramatically underscore there remains much more to do as a country and as a league these strategies inform the NFL's commitment and our ongoing efforts there remains an urgent need for action We recognize the power of our platform and communities, and it's part of a fabric American society.

We embrace that responsibility and commit it to continuing the important work to address these systemic issues together with our players, clubs, and partners, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

And nothing, I find if you're going to,

that's how to say nothing.

And I find that that's worse than saying nothing.

Pretending, wanting credit for actually saying something.

And then clearly this was massaged, strangled by a series of $850 an hour PR and communications consultants that said, okay, we're going to water this down and we're going to bastardize and gangbang the statement until we can't recognize it.

When they're through like making people lose their minds through not having adequate protection and stuff, you know, look, be nice to Colin Kaepernick.

You know, he couldn't play in the league because he peacefully protested police violence, ironically, by taking a knee, which is amazing.

He takes a knee and he loses his body.

No doubt about it.

You know,

it's just like astonishing that,

and them doing that was a controversy, including for President Trump.

Like, like, back Colin Kaepernick for doing what he's doing.

It is literally, and they're worried about their TV rights.

You know, I get it for a second to feel that way, but then putting this out, I'm sorry, anything that comes out of the NFL is given that 70% of the players are African-American men, it's just like, stop, please stop.

So, there is a gangster opportunity.

So, do nothing, do something.

So, you say say nothing, not even make a statement.

I think, let me put it this way.

I think this is worse than nothing.

Yeah, okay.

So if you can't get your act together and commit to something or say something that's heartfelt and real, keep it to yourself.

I don't know.

Have you seen anything that's heartfelt and real from anybody?

I think I don't love Amazon, but I think they came right out and said we stand

with, you know, we stand with.

What does it mean?

I think it was, I don't know.

They basically made a statement, and it felt political, and it felt dangerous and

clearly alienate some people, but it was short, sweet, and it didn't have a specific action item.

But I thought it was a declarative, definitive statement that took a stand.

And I think all these other guys are like, well, we don't want to piss off our white owners.

We don't want to piss off the people in Green Bay, but we don't want to piss off our fans in Detroit.

I mean, they were just trying to have it.

The NFL is just trying to have it all ways.

And I really.

So you, like the record companies, giving people the day off, giving them an actionable action.

I think that's outstanding.

I think that's outstanding.

That's what Hearst does, by the the way.

Hearst, for a long time, has given everyone the day off on all election days, which I think is a wonderful thing.

Well, that should be a national holiday.

Yeah, they make it a national holiday.

But look, you asked about social media.

I think there's a moment here of real opportunity for Twitter.

And as it relates to Trump, and that is everything has been politicized from the environment used to be a bipartisan issue, then it became politicized.

And fast forward now, masks have become politicized.

And now there's just no way getting around it.

Social media is about to become politicized.

And I I think Twitter has an opportunity to lean in and start enforcing their terms of service, kick off tens of thousands of accounts, including the person who violates every term of service, the president, and lean into and use this as cloud cover to go to slowly but surely a subscription model where they charge people based on the number of followers they have.

I think it would not only get rid of the fire or the kerosene underneath the rage machine that is tearing apart our society and the world society, but at 1 20th the market cap of Facebook, they have the opportunity to take bolder, bigger risks.

Interesting.

And even if their revenue declined by 20, 30, 50%,

their share price would likely go up because it would move to a recurring revenue business model.

Well, that's an interesting thing.

Here's where it's interesting is that I've talked to a lot of lawyers this week.

All of them tell me their safest thing legally actually is to kick him off.

Oh, they're fine.

And he's probably

for the first time I'm coming to your side of the boat.

For the first time, I think he's actually not going to get re-elected.

So he wouldn't have time to really go after them.

Yeah, you know, so but there's an opportunity for Twitter here to do something not only meaningful and good for the world, but also good for shareholders.

Because the bottom line is their ad model, which is the underlying rage machine, isn't working.

Twitter's tools suck.

They have not innovated around nowhere near what Facebook has done.

Anyway, let's take a quick break.

We'll be back to talk about corporate response to the protests, and we'll be joined by a friend of Pivot, Bharatundi Thurston.

Running a business comes with a lot of what-ifs, but luckily, there's a simple answer to them: Shopify.

It's the commerce platform behind millions of businesses, including Thrive Cosmetics and Momofuku, and it'll help you with everything you need.

From website design and marketing to boosting sales and expanding operations, Shopify can get the job done and make your dream a reality.

Turn those what-ifs into

sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com/slash special offer.

Support for Pivot comes from Groons.

If you've ever done a deep internet dive trying to discover different nutrition solutions, you've likely had the thought, surely there's a way to improve my skin, gut health, immunity, brain fog without offending my taste buds.

Well, there is.

It's called groons.

Groons are a convenient, comprehensive formula packed into a daily snack pack of gummies.

It's not a multivitamin, a greens gummy, or a prebiotic.

It's all of those things, and then some for a fraction of the price.

In a Groons daily snack pack, you get more than 20 vitamins and minerals, six grams of prebiotic fiber, plus more than 60 ingredients.

They include nutrient dense and whole foods, all of which will help you out in different ways.

For example, Groons has six times the gut health ingredients compared to the leading greens powders.

It contains biotin and niacinamide, which helps with thicker hair, nails, and skin health.

They also contain mushrooms, which can help with brain function.

And of course, you're probably familiar with vitamin C and how great it's for your immune system.

On top of all, groons are vegan and free of dairy nuts and gluten.

Get up to 52% off when you go to groons.co and use the code PIVOT.

That's G-R-U-N-S dot C-O using the code PIVOT for 52%

off.

This is perfect.

We can talk about it with our friend of Pivot today, Beratunde Thurston.

He's on the line.

He's a comedian, writer, Ted speaker, and former producer of The Daily Show.

He has written about his experience of being a black man in America, including a best-selling autobiographical satire, How to Be Black.

We want to talk to him about Tech's response to Trump's racist and violent remarks on Twitter at the end of the week.

So tell us what you think of them, Barratunde.

Hello, Kara.

Hey.

Hello, Big Dog Scott.

Go on, Barratunde.

Now,

I know what I did.

I know what I did here.

I know what I'm walking into.

I'm sorry, Kara, but I like this text.

It had to be.

All right.

I don't have any nice thoughts about the president of the United States.

I think there are moments that call for leadership.

There are bad leaders.

And then there are people who are absent in the face of a nation that is in severe pain and can do nothing but cause more of it.

And that is what we're faced with now.

It is worse than a bad president.

It's like the inverse of a president, the opposite of what we need right now.

So his decision to inflame already inflamed cities even further certainly goes beyond the terms and conditions and policies we've all co-signed onto by being a part of these billionaire platforms.

And the Republican Party's decision to co-sign on everything he's done so far means this is a much bigger problem.

What do you think of what Twitter has done?

Let's review last week.

And what do you think the social media sites should do?

And in general, the narratives that have to change on these sites to my knowledge what twitter decided to do last week was to start flagging the flagrantly um false and probably dangerous uh tweets from the president of the united states uh that's good i was honestly shocked i had like with my expectations of the united states as a black citizen i had lowered my expectations to expect nothing and had adjusted to that normal.

So I was pleasantly surprised to see them enforcing their policies against just another user.

Years late into the game, but later is better than never.

I was also totally not shocked by his temper tantrumic response, temper tantric.

I'm not sure the appropriate version of that, but his response to go even harder because it would be one of the few times in this person's life that he's actually faced accountability or public judgment for his actions.

So it's a beginning.

It's not enough.

I think, look, at this stage, we all have a choice to make, whether you're a citizen, a voter, a member of Congress, a corporate leader controlling a platform.

The stability of our nation and the world to some extent is at stake.

And so you have to choose, like, are you going to upset a thin-skinned man

or are you going to enable the destruction of even more of society?

And so this isn't even to me about policy consistency.

It's about preventing death, preventing harm, preventing further inflammation of actual violence at this stage.

And certainly we all know people who've been kicked off the platform for far, far less.

Yeah, we do.

So if the U.S.

Senate won't do it, maybe Twitter will.

That is hold this president accountable for something.

And Barratende,

you've been really successful in digital and in comedy and in media and in sectors that aren't, for lack of a better term, very diverse.

What message do you have for young people of color around, I mean, what are your,

you know, if you can give a, if you can send message to young people of color around trying to be successful in markets and sectors that traditionally have just lacked diversity, is it, you know, how do you inspire young people?

What is your message to young men?

Thank you, Scott.

And I will give two messages, two states of the union

to young people of color, especially young black people in the United States.

States, I would say you're amazing.

There is a lot of negativity and a lot of language and messaging around our vulnerability, our weakness, our susceptibility, our targeting by the system and the state and the racism.

And those are all true, but there is another truth, which is we're still here.

We're here through all of that.

Our ancestors ensured that we would be here, which means we are strong as hell.

We are resilient.

We are creative.

You are resilient.

You are creative.

There is no easy promise from a slightly older person, I'm 42 years old, that things are going to get better.

Maybe.

And if they do, maybe they'll last, maybe they won't.

But your existence is proof of your brilliance.

And so hold on to that.

as the world tells you directly and indirectly that your life doesn't matter.

The fact that you have it is a testament to your strength.

So keep hold of that.

And then if I could add two white people

to whether you're young or not, I don't want to just limit my audience to the youth.

But one, I want to thank a lot of white people for belatedly acknowledging the validity.

of our experiences.

Later is better than never.

And welcome.

Welcome to America as we have been experiencing it for so, so long.

And thank you.

And I think there's a great opportunity here to deepen our relationship with each other and our empathy with each other and to recognize that it's not just up to people like me who make a partial living off of talking about race to solve this thing.

Just like it's not up to women to solve sexism.

It takes men to show up better and check other men.

It takes white people to show up better and check other white people.

And it's not for me.

And it's not for the unborn black baby, boy, or girl.

It's for yourself.

It's because we all got to figure out how to live together or this whole thing's a shambles.

And we might as well stop pretending.

And that's an option.

I'm not there yet, but I have flirted with it a lot over the past week.

So show up.

Ask questions.

Educate yourself.

I've done my part to make it easy.

You can find me on Instagram and all the other platforms where Baratoon Days are known and read the resources and fund the workshop leaders and do it.

This audience, above many others, is resourceful and curious and smart.

So use that.

Use that now and use that power.

That's absolutely true, Baratone.

One of the things that happens is a lot of people feel nervous to say something wrong in a lot of ways, in a weird way.

But this idea of anti-racism, a term that's new for many white Americans, it's an idea of just saying you're not racist is not enough.

In fact, it's passive.

Can you talk about the idea of anti-racism versus just saying, hey, I'm not afraid of the race.

Well, here's the beautiful thing.

There's a book for everything.

And they're in audio and they're on digital.

And if you're cool with shipping things to your house and leaving them on your porch for three days, they still make them physically.

There was a great book literally called How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X.

Kendi.

Buy the book.

He lays it out in great detail or listen to it while you're walking or jogging or cleaning the house or pretending to teach your kids something.

We're all trying to survive here.

Feed this in at the same time.

We have to actively counter what has been created.

Scott, you might appreciate this as a financial person.

I spent some years in the Microsoft Excel world of putting businesses in software and trying to forecast what would happen to them.

And I remember this concept of cash flow projections.

And especially for a business that makes an upfront investment, say in equipment and marketing, and then has a recurring revenue stream, which is quite in vogue, you're digging yourself out of a hole.

And you end up with this net positive perspective of, okay, cumulative cash flow positive.

You've paid off the investment.

Now you got free cash flow.

You're good.

You're actually making money.

And it might take some companies years.

With respect to justice in the United States, we are in a significant hole.

When we started digging, when we brought the first captive Africans here in 1619 and kept digging formally, legally, until at least 1965, maybe until very much today.

So we don't just get to say, oh, we're making money.

We're doing a, I did a good thing today.

So none of that stuff happens.

We're still in the hole.

So we've got to dig ourselves out.

And the value and the idea of anti-racism is to counteract, not just stop doing bad stuff, undo the harm, the multi-generational financial, economic, psychological, physical harm that's been done to the communities for so many years.

We've got to get out of the hole.

So to carry that analogy one step further

that you need this massive investment

to create an asset that yields dividends moving forward.

And what would that massive investment look like or to get out of this hole?

Give us a concrete example of something we could collectively do.

For those of us who want to be anti-racist, for those of us who would be willing to vote for elected officials that would allocate capital towards that big, bold, definitive investment, what might that look like?

How does that manifest itself in something actionable?

Yeah,

I can think of a few things.

In the very immediate moment, there are efforts to shift public funding away from law enforcement resources and into community resources, positive investment rather than negative investment.

You can find those and support those.

They're in.

every city in this country, every state in this country, and in places around the world who are facing some similar challenges.

I think there is a relationship investment that people can make, which is to,

especially for white people, talk about race with other white people.

I think it's really uncomfortable.

I think, Carol, you brought up a very fair and real point about people being nervous to say something wrong.

And many of us who are trying to do this work haven't always been welcoming.

We're tired.

We're burnt out.

You say the wrong word.

Get out the pool.

But amongst yourselves, where you can be safe and vulnerable, start asking questions about your own relationship with what it means to be white, with the unearned privilege.

Not a negative thing, but it's a true thing.

And what else you could do with it besides feel bad about it?

Feeling bad about your superpower helps no one.

Superman doesn't mope around about his super strength.

He uses it to help people.

So start having that conversation.

I think from an economic perspective,

the climate challenge represents a really interesting positive investment opportunity.

We have some rebuilding to do and we cannot rebuild the way we did before.

Normal is below good enough.

And so we have a chance to actually pay workers, to create jobs, to invest in the things that we actually all want, but also to prioritize the folks who've been most harmed.

You saw what happened with weed.

When they legalized weed, the people making money, the people who've always made money in this capitalist system, well-funded, advantaged investors, mostly white, mostly men, and very few people who got locked up for doing the same thing over the past 40 years.

We cannot repeat that.

So if you're in a position to make investments, make them with the communities you claim to respect and love.

If you're in a position to hire, go out of your comfort zone and your comfortable way of the networks you already know from this university and this professional society.

Try harder.

Stretch, because that's how we dig out of the hole.

When people who haven't put forth the effort start to do it and then we get this magical thing that works in finance and works in physics that's called leverage but we need more people bending their back into that stick to actually generate how do we think the media is covering because a lot of it does have to do with these image it's the imagery you know what i mean which what's really interesting about this imagery and i noticed my sons watching it is when they're talking about the looting it's always sort of linked with racism in some way this looting and my sons were counting it was interesting i don't know why they were doing this the the white people coming out of looting and who had, that's a white guy with a, with a, with a, with a, they all have skateboards.

I'm like, what the fuck are you doing with the skateboards?

Have you noticed they're using skateboards to break the windows?

And it's, and it's, there was one really amazing video of an African-American woman pulling a white guy away from destroying a sidewalk.

And he kept, she kept saying, we're going to be blamed for this.

And it's you who's doing it.

You're not doing it for us.

And it was really interesting.

And I was like, sort of, it was, in one case, the media is doing a good job because you're seeing it.

You're seeing who's actually doing the looting.

One point in Beverly Hills, it was a bunch of white ladies who were walking in and out of one of the stores, which was,

and they weren't getting stopped, but they also weren't getting stopped, which was amazing.

And you could see the police all grabbing black people.

It was really, it was interesting to watch.

How do you think the media is doing?

Because they, of course, want to focus on the, oh, there's a, there's a firework, there's a bang, there's tear gas.

What do you, what should be done differently?

from the media.

There have been some good moments.

There have been some horrible moments.

On average, it's probably a C

because it takes flames to draw their attention in the first place.

Otherwise, we would have stopped talking about this probably about a week ago as we sit here.

Looting is a charged word and it's never applied when it's done at scale.

When it's done with human bodies from a continent to create a free labor force, it's not called looting.

When it's done to indigenous people and the land that was here first, it's not called looting.

When it's done in the form of a massive over a trillion dollar tax break to take from the poor and redistribute to the already rich, it's not called looting.

It's called tax policy.

And so we have different words for it in different areas of our society.

But when it's a black kid with a flat screen TV, it's called looting.

And I think what we're seeing, what I want from the media, I'll put it this way, it's hard for especially television media to do this, but I need them to try harder to paint a broader picture.

of what we're seeing.

What I've seen, and I've been following the live streams of people who I know are organizers, and I I literally see how they set this up.

I see how the Black Lives Matter Los Angeles organizers coach people with the masks, with the water, with the like, we're going to march this way, do not engage.

We're here to have our voices heard, and that's it.

And it's peaceful.

And then a couple of things happen that lead to violence.

One thing that happens is police show up

and their presence and the police are showing up as their own kind of gang.

And I think we need to raise the bar.

You asked that, we need to raise the bar on who can become a police police officer, how they get trained, and finally actually hold them accountable.

When you can get away with murder repeatedly and have nothing done about it, you don't mind committing murder.

There's no signal in this system that says to any law enforcement officer, don't do that, including your fellow officers who hide behind the badge so often in a very gang-like structure.

So who's the gang?

Who's the organized crime?

The officers show up and they are shoving people with their vehicles at time and they're often making the situation worse you have rogue agents of a more anarchistic nature who are just taking an opportunity you have some right-wing people who always want to sow discord and they're jumping in you have some really aggrieved and angry black people who are showing up as angry and aggrieved and are have been told by the system that there's no right way to protest if you're colin kaepernick and you take a knee Well, that's too disrespectful, even though he got the permission of a member of the armed services to do it in a most respectful way during the national anthem, it's not good enough for some of the pundits in the media of the world.

And then if you burn something on fire, well, that's not good enough.

Then if you block traffic, well, you're inconveniencing.

So what's the right way to demand your rights?

There is none.

So I want the media not to solve it.

It's not their job, but your job is to tell the story.

So tell a more complete story and don't so lazily fall into the old tropes of, oh, it's just a bunch of thugs, aka black thugs, wasting the memory of George Floyd, a memory you had no interest in honoring until those thugs started burning stuff.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Let me finish up, and Scott may have a final question.

In terms of what, we were talking just before you came on and what social media needs to do to stop it, because they are sort of the megaphone for someone like Donald Trump, who is so clearly racist and using the platform incorrectly.

What would you do if you were Mark Zuckerberg and you had unlimited power?

I would just walk away like in a Michael Bay Jerry Bruckheimer.

Quietly.

You know, just fire behind me, slow motion, a wrap.

I gave y'all 12 years of this.

I'm done with shutting it down.

That would be so nice and sweet.

But what would you do?

Like here you are with unlimited power over this, pretending you don't have unlimited power, but say you actually recognize the fact that you have no, nobody holds you accountable for anything what would you do what would be your first move

that is a big and

besides getting a fresh complete shape yeah it's a real question it's a big question it's a hard question kara so i don't pretend to have an easy answer um i think that

what would go a long way for me as a reluctant member of the facebook universe um

is an acknowledgement by mr Zuckerberg of the unforeseen, but now very much seen negative consequences of what he's helped unleash on the world.

There's been so much denial at every turn, every turn.

This guy resists.

Back, I remember when Dana Boyd gave a fiery address at South by Southwest Interactive.

Yeah.

So long ago, it was three Americas and 20 internets ago.

And Zuckerberg at that point was very addicted to the idea of everything's public, everything's real name.

And Dana said something like, that's very easy for you to say if you're a cisgendered white male from the upper middle class background, but you can't be that person if you're in the South, if your father's a preacher, if you're in the closet, trans teen or gay teen.

That standard doesn't hold.

And so I need him to stop resisting.

everyone who's been right every time about everything that they've been wrong about every time.

And just acknowledge, I've gotten this wrong and I've been playing defense and I'm sorry for that.

A lot of y'all were right and I'm sorry for that.

That's the acknowledgement phase.

I also need

the mechanisms, the financial mechanisms that run that service to shift.

A lot of what is wrong is what's encouraged and what's encouraged is what we pay for.

And what we pay for is treating people as means and trading on our identities and selling us back to to ourselves or the highest bidder.

I'm descended from a people who were literally sold.

I'm not excited about the idea of me and my data being auctioned off.

And yet we have an entire industry built on selling people by the slice and the dice in a way that's disgusting.

And we need

if not these leaders, then new ones to step in and build a different way of doing this.

I don't know if Facebook's going to be able to make that turn, to let me own myself again.

It's not in their nature.

It's not in their economic interest.

They're a publicly traded company.

Like they've got every reason not to.

So

why would they do it?

To be a leader, to stay relevant?

I think number one is

not.

So maybe, but

it'd be nice to hear the acknowledgement.

It'd be nice to have them try.

It'd be nicer to see actual innovation again by someone who isn't swallowed up.

by their hyper acquisition spree or copy everything spree to actually have a market.

For all the sins of capitalism, we don't even have that version of it here.

We have a crony system.

And they've been

deep practitioners of the crony arts in stamping out competition rather than facing it head on on a level playing field.

I clearly have a lot of thoughts on this,

but I don't have a simple answer.

Those are some initial directions.

Well, along those lines, where can people find more information on you and your work?

Yeah, I do a show

for this moment.

It's been called Live on lockdown i just did my 20th episode this week baratunday.com slash live and then my social home like i said i'm a reluctant member of the facebook universe because i also find value there like i don't want to like america i don't want to burn it all down like i got to live here so instagram is my chosen uh dialect of facebook and you can find me at you know as baratunday on instagram and i have a bunch of resources and i point to other people i mean weapons of math destruction was a great book The Algorithmic Justice League is a wonderful organization of other people who are showing us a different way to use these tools and don't just want to stop progress or shut everything down, but build something better.

And now is the time to step up, show up, or shut up.

Agreed.

All right.

Perfect.

Thank you, Jenny.

Thank you so much.

Very much for having me.

You're a great man.

And I'm going to make you CEO of Facebook someday.

That's my goal.

That's what I get.

That's what I get.

Listen, y'all do a wonderful show.

I listen to

two of the 13 episodes a week that you make.

Keep it up.

I think you're doing some real good stuff.

To resist this futile.

Thank you.

All right.

Take care.

Thanks, everybody.

All right, Scott.

That was fantastic.

I think I found a new co-host.

Anyway, we'll be back after one more quick break.

We'll be back with wins and fails.

At Sephora, we belong to something beautiful.

That includes one of Sephora's exclusive brands, House Labs, founded by the legendary Lady Gaga.

House Labs viral and best-selling Triclone Skin Tech Foundation and Concealer both give medium coverage, visibly blur for a natural finish, and star fermented Arnica to reduce redness.

The textures are weightless and smooth, so you can feel beautiful in your skin all day, every day.

Shop House Labs by Lady Gaga, only at Sephora.

We belong to something beautiful.

Hello, Daisy speaking.

Hello, Daisy.

This is Phoebe Judge from the IRS.

Oh, bless, that does sound serious.

I wouldn't want to end up in any sort of trouble.

This September on Criminal, we've been thinking a lot about scams.

Over the next couple of weeks, we're releasing episodes about a surprising way to stop scammers.

The people you didn't know were on the other end of the line.

And we have a special bonus episode on Criminal Plus with tips to protect yourself.

Listen to Criminal wherever you get your podcasts and sign up for Criminal Plus at thisiscriminal.com slash plus.

Okay, we're back.

Scott wins and fails.

I'm going to give it all to you.

You already slapped Roger Goodell around.

He deserves it.

What else do you have as a winner or fail?

So, like,

you know,

cursed with riches or whatever the term is around

a loser.

So I'm not going to go there.

I'm going to go with wins.

I do think this is a unique opportunity for Twitter.

And I would absolutely lean in to their terms of service.

I think they should begin qualifying, labeling, and kicking off people from both the left and the right on the platform.

I think it's just time for them to raise their standards, start applying terms of service, and take some risks.

And I think they're in a position to take some risks because, quite frankly, the company just hasn't lived up to its expectations.

And I think it's time for Twitter and Jack Dorsey to command the space they occupy.

I think it would be good for shareholders.

I think they should move to identification, demand that people are who they say they are.

I think they should move to a subscription model, and I think they should begin kicking people off the platform if they're

motivating violence, committing hate crimes, trying to intimidate people based on their gender, their sexual orientation.

I think this is not only the right thing to do, but I think it's an incredible opportunity for them.

And I think it started.

I'm hoping it started last week.

I hope the board supports Jack and encourages him to be bold here.

And I think that Twitter could become, if you will, I don't call it a beacon, but I think if Jack Dorsey, who's worth $4 billion,

wants statues and wants his grandkids to go, wow, dad was a, or pop-pop was a gangster.

I think there's a unique moment in time here.

to do what's right for shareholders, but more importantly, to do the right thing, and that is begin the healing around the rage machine and turn it from the rage machine to a media company that's subscription-based, because Netflix isn't tearing us apart.

It's these ad-driven social media companies that are tearing us apart.

So my win is what I hope is the first step in a real movement by Jack Dorsey and Twitter.

Yeah.

I think the loser of the week, I think, the failed week is Mark Zuckerberg and his arbiter of truths.

You know, Mark has been the Susan Collins of the internet, which is what I called him.

And if he's going to, he's not going to be Elizabeth Warren, which he's not, because I'm terrible.

What do you mean by Susan Collins?

Oh, I'm disturbed.

I'm concerned, but doing nothing.

Like that, it's just so much bullshit.

Just shut up if you're going to do that stuff.

And if not, if you can't be Elizabeth Collins,

yes, college.

I thought you were like the romance novelist.

No, that's Jackie Collins.

Oh, okay, Senator Collins.

Dating.

The one who pretends to give a shit and always votes for Trump.

Yes, that one.

Yeah, who's going to be voted out, by the way, by Sarah Gideon.

Please send her money.

I don't even know about Maine politics, but I know about that one.

If he's not going to be, if he says, be Mitt Romney, if you can't be Elizabeth Warren, be someone else besides Susan Collins.

Like, at least

have some guts and stop sucking up

to the Trump administration and move Joel Kaplan somewhere.

He's got the knee pads out for the Almighty Dollar.

It doesn't matter who the John is.

Move Joel Kaplan to another place and bring in anybody else that'll give you a wider range of, you know, move Peter Thiel down a notch down at the board meeting.

I don't need a Department of Justice or an aggressive attorney general to start talking about civil and criminal charges.

Don't expect Mark Zuckerberg's better angels to show up.

You know what?

Bill Gates got better.

Oh, Bill Gates never did a fraction of damage to Mark Zuckerberg.

Well, at the time, it's...

Bill Gates was Darwinian.

He wasn't sociopathic.

All right then.

Okay, on that note.

And a win, I don't know.

We got to end on wins, Scott.

Let's have some wins, and then we will go.

Did you see the medium post from the Obamas?

No, not yet.

That was very, very strong.

And I would encourage, and I think it's starting to happen, that both the president and First Lady Obama are starting to get more actively engaged.

I think they're such powerful, graceful voices.

And I also think they're pragmatic.

I think they're taken seriously by moderates, and I think they have an ability to say activism isn't calling out people, what Baratunde said, that You know, there is a real risk.

In order to have a dialogue, intention leads to dialogue leads to action, but you can't have a dialogue if people are constantly worried about being called out in a cancel culture.

And I think the Obamas have a role to play around catalyzing a dialogue, being very getting people registered to vote, and also creating what I'll call safe spaces for us to have a productive dialogue.

But anyways, my win is our medium post.

I thought it was fantastic.

Oh, there.

That's a good win.

That's a really good win.

I don't have a win this week because it's been a hard week.

I have to say, I'm trying to think of something that has been nice.

It was nice to have DC open up for a second.

I think people were a little bit happy to go out and have a restaurant.

And now, of course, everything is boarded up.

Have you gone to a restaurant?

I haven't gone to a restaurant.

No, no, I'm not going to.

I'm not going to.

I believe in COVID-19.

I don't think it's over by any stretch.

I'm a believer.

It's for real.

But I feel badly for these retailers.

I'm trying really hard to

spend money there and things like that.

But it was just heartbreaking.

I was riding, I'm testing electric bikes.

I was riding my bike to the house.

But wait, I have another loss.

What?

I think these declarative, bold statements from university heads pretending to be, well, actually pretending, saying that we're welcoming back our students in the fall.

And they tend to be from universities that have high tuition and high experience value propositions.

And it strikes me, it reminds me of a CEO talking up their stock in the midst of a disastrous earnings call, saying, basically, send in your 500 million in tuition deposits.

And the reality is, and I know this firsthand, we have no idea what we're going to be doing in the fall.

We have no idea.

And any statement, any statement around we have a moral obligation or a national responsibility to open our campuses in the fall is nothing.

Anyone, anyone who says we're in this together or we have an obligation to open is either a CEO looking for a bailout or a university president telling parents to send in their deposits.

I think it's disingenuous and borderline reckless.

All right.

Well, that's not a win.

All right.

All right.

Here's one win.

Young people.

The ones that were protesting.

A win, young people?

You mean the ones that don't vote?

No, going, the ones that no, they do vote.

You're wrong.

Let me just say.

I'm going to bring the average age of our listener down.

Pander.

My sons both went to the protests with my permission.

They asked my permission because they were worried about COVID-19.

They went.

They were safe.

They were as safe as could be.

Did they de-leaf any trees?

No, stop it.

Listen to me.

They're big boys.

Let me just say they're trying to learn.

My son is so interested in voting and he's getting his friends interested.

My youngest son is becoming more politically active.

I think you're wrong.

I think young people do get politically active.

And And

I think they do it on their own.

And they see the challenges being faced.

And they have, I'm hoping for this next generation.

Hey, I have a show on vice.

I get the young people.

I get the young people.

My win is young people.

I still think that is one of my greatest young people.

Oh, you're going out on a limb there.

My greatest hope is.

My greatest hope is.

No, I'm going on my young limb.

Let me just say I'm going for my

son Barato Day.

All the sons.

I don't like that name.

Baratoon.

Okay, we're going to go now.

Okay.

Listen, Scott.

We're going to go now.

Yeah.

Kara, keep it real.

You're keeping it real here.

Don't forget, if you have a story in the news you're curious about and want to hear an opinion on, email us at pivot at Voxmedia.com to feature on the show.

Also, send us suggestions of who we should have on.

We would really like to hear your suggestions because we're just essentially two overprivileged white people who need a lot of help becoming better people.

So it would be really great.

We'd love all your people.

And there she goes to the woke spa.

Listen, no.

She's getting her nails done at the woke spa.

No, I'm not.

No, I'm not.

I'm just saying you don't think hard.

Oh, we're awful.

You know what?

We're not awful, but we could be better.

You know what?

I'm not going to begin with you.

I'm going to go loot a van store of how to go.

No, stop it.

Now, you know what?

Are you triggered?

Are you triggered?

No, I'm irritated by you.

Anyway, read us out, Scott.

Today's episode was produced by Rebecca Sinanas.

And thanks to Fernando Finite for engineering this episode.

Our executive executive producer is Erica Anderson.

Special thanks to Drew Burroughs and Rebecca Castro.

If you like what you heard, please download.

Please stay safe.

There is nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed with what's right with America.

If you don't like your prosecutor,

canvas for the opposition.

If you believe that our elected officials are doing nothing but borrowing from future generations to flatten the curve for rich people, if you believe we have a dangerous imbecile in the White House who is fundamentally a bigot, then hey, let's vote.

There is nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed with what's right with America.

Kara, have a great rest of the week and stay safe.