The DOJ readies a lawsuit against Google, Amazon tries to get into designer retail again, and a Friend of Pivot on the “plandemic”

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Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway.
Scott, did you watch Obama's commencement speech?

It felt like we had our president, any president who can give a speech without, you know, referring to Independence Day back. What did you think about that?

I thought it was interesting that he's sort of crossing the line that most presidents don't cross, and that is he is,

in his own Obama-esque way,

he's going after the president. And typically, former presidents have sort of

an unwritten pact with each other that they're not critical of previous presidents or administrations.

And he's clearly, when he says, you know, these people aren't even pretending that they're in charge, it's pretty clear who he is talking about. But in general,

I thought it was really,

I was really moved by the whole thing. Did you watch it? Yeah, I did.
Yeah, it was great. It was a great speech.

You know, it was funny because it was that Independence Day thing that they put Trump's hat on, which was so cheesy and ridiculous. And I liked Independence Day.
It's a movie I've seen a lot of times.

It was interesting. I was just, it was an interesting move.

I think this idea of previous presidents, he's attacked Obama so drastically.

I don't, I feel like gloves off is fine on this one because not just Obama gate, which is the most recent thing, but it's constant and persistent and incredibly disrespectful.

You're not supposed to also insult previous presidents this way, but this is all that's happening. You know what I mean? So

just saying we didn't do this before is not an excuse for anything at all anymore. But it was interesting that it went on all the networks.
It was all over social media.

It was a very calculated and I thought very deft way of getting across that speech. I thought it was, you know, the same kind of stuff.

I think the Trump campaign is quite good about getting messages out, not as sharp as they've been.

Maybe, I haven't seen the bowels of Facebook, but I'm talking about the sort of larger ones. And I thought it was rather clever.

And

it was such a contrast. It was such an interesting contrast, which I think was the point

of the thing. And it did, I watched it all on social media, not on the networks, but the networks did broadcast it.
Because, you know, they like a fight.

You know, all those cable networks like a fight going on that they can then talk about endlessly.

But it was interesting.

It was well done. It was a well-done speech, I thought.
He also, it's just so striking that just how ridiculously old these people are. He looks younger.

He's already been president for eight years and been out of office for four years and he looks like their nephew. Yeah.

I mean, adopted, of course, but he looks like their nephew. The other thing that was out this weekend, which we should discuss very slightly, was Facebook's acquiring of Giphy for $400 million.

This is their second big purchase in the U.S. since the U.S.
shutdown because of the pandemic. They also invested in Indian internet provider, GEO.
They did not buy it outright.

They're not allowed to, I believe. Now seems to be a bold time to be acquiring a video library company and also this one.
Do you think it's going to be allowed?

It's an interesting situation there. That's a company that has never been bought.

And

I met the founders once a while ago, and Yahoo would have been looking at them a million years ago. I'm sure Google had looked at them.

They probably were in some bit of distress, but maybe not. It was an interesting move.

Yeah,

first off, it feels a little bit weird because don't you think of Giphy? I think of Giphy as sort of in the same genre vein as Wikipedia, almost as if it's a public good.

And I realize it isn't, but for some reason, it has that sort of PBS Wikipedia feel about it,

almost as if it's common, you know.

public source or common source or whatever you call it.

What's interesting is I do think it'll probably go through because it's $400 million. And I think the majority of people who regulate these things probably don't really

understand

what the...

Facebook is going to start getting kind of these gift signals from all over the internet, which they'll use to understand. I mean, they could do a variety of things.
They can anticipate news stories.

If the New York Times is all of a sudden pulling GIFs on,

you know, Marguerite Bestier, they have a heads up that, okay, they're working on a story on Marguerite.

There's all kinds of signals they'll be able to get from all across the internet and different players now which they'll get very good at at analyzing uh to their own benefit

you could also see that they might uh start copying all sorts of uh features or way that people handle images by examining how people use gifts so Look, it's another example.

They're going more and more vertical into content, which is interesting, but this is a different type of content, if you will.

It's not the end content. It's a piece.
It's a part of the recipe. But the whole thing just kind of makes you just go, okay, the whole thing just sort of makes you nervous.

I'm uncomfortable when Facebook buys anything.

What do you think of this? I think that it might be looked at. I think it might be looked at.
I think they'll have competitors complaining because they're embedded in so many places.

They have so many partnerships with not just Facebook, but Twitter and a bunch of others. And so, you know, anything Facebook buys is going to be looked at.

And it's,

you know, they will have, they will have so much. What I think it is, is they'll have so much information about other people's activities.

Okay, this is just what the FTC was looking at in these smaller purchases where any of these big companies purchase something and then get enormous amounts of information from it.

And this is where the real, they're not crimes, but this is where the real problems are in this space is them acquiring companies like Giphy.

And I think it definitely will be scrutinized, which speaking of big tech getting bigger or maybe not, the DOJ is reportedly bringing antitrust charges to Google.

I'm surprised Facebook is not involved in this, but this is the DOJ. Remember, FTC and the DOJ split up the investigations.

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are both reporting that the Department of Justice, as well as the state's attorneys generals, could wage an antitrust suit as early as this summer.

Both cases would be litigating Google's grip on the online advertising market. Right now, Google makes about roughly one-third of every dollar spent on internet.
internet advertising.

If the lawsuit does happen, it would be the biggest antitrust suit the government has pursued pursued since its settlement with Microsoft in the late 1990s and the first major move to break up the big four.

Scott, what do you think about this? And I'm, you know, it's interesting you could do this without also doing Google, without doing Facebook, excuse me.

Yeah, and that's the interesting thing here, is that the order going after Google first sort of intimates or somehow communicates that Google is the worst offender. So there is.

It's the longest time offender.

Yeah, but it says something. It communicates to the public that, oh, Google must be the worst.
So I think timing around who goes first is actually important.

But you covered the analogy here is obviously the DOJ's case against Microsoft in the 90s. I know you covered that.
Give us a brief history lesson.

Well, it's not, it didn't actually end up with anything, right? I mean, it was a big, noisy trial. Bill Gates made a mess of himself at

being deposed. I did not have sex with that woman.
Oh, no, it covered someone else. No, that was a different one.
That was a different one.

He was in this. If you ever want to go see a really terrible deposition, go look at the Bill Gates deposition in this trial.

You know, there was Netscape was involved.

People from AOL were involved, all kinds of people about what they were doing. And in the end, it didn't, you know, it didn't, it slowed them down is what it did.

And I think later, different rulings had called into question some of the initial rulings.

And I think it was more that it was Microsoft, the first time this one tech company is scary for the rest of us and has impact on it. Maybe, I don't know, maybe 10 or less or less years ago.

You know, they had started to look at Google for its behavior and its wanting to take over the search market. There was some

noise when it was trying to get the Yahoo search market, when that was a big deal, the percentage of the search market. And then that went away.

And the Obama administration really declined to do anything about the growing power of Google. And so I think they sort of took a,

didn't do anything. I don't know, there's a boxing term, but they just didn't, they didn't do anything at all.
And then now we're here.

And so to me, I don't know how you do this without doing the other, like, because

they basically split up the advertising market. And this breakup drum, you've been beating for a long time.
And so

why do one if you're not going to look at the whole system of these things? Does it undercut the case? I'm not a lawyer, but it's a real, it's a real, it really is interesting.

They may have more ability to prove it. They worked with companies like Yelp and some others, which have been cross-purposes with Google for a long time.

That's actually a really interesting point, because I think if you were to try and tackle this, you're right. You need to understand the ecosystem, and there would be, it would seem obvious synergy.

I mean, a lot of this just comes down to resources, and that is the DOJ and the FTC

decided to divide and conquer. They kind of split up the four and said, all right, you take these guys, we'll take these guys, because it's a resource issue.

This is kind of the flare across the bow of the battleship saying, all right, we're about to enter a 10-year shooting war.

Because

this could take 10 years. And we're talking about hundreds, if not thousands, of lawyers on either side.
And so it feels... Which is a problem, the 10 years, by the way.
Things change. They do.

And also, to be fair, typically when the government kicks off a DOJ trial, it's usually the high watermark for the power of that company.

You know, about the time they start calling IBM in front of Congress is when IBM's power begins to wane. So we'll see.
I don't think that's the case here.

To your point, though, it seems as if

20 to 30 percent of the research that you would do around competitive dynamics or anti-competitive behavior would overlap with Facebook's anti-competitive behavior. And I agree with you.

I don't it seems to me like the initial 50% of their diligence and research should be on the market that is 70%

Facebook and Google as as opposed to just Google. So I don't, I agree with you.
It seems to me that they would

go after both. I also think it's just strange and diminishes the threat,

diminishes the threat that Facebook,

Amazon, and to a lesser extent, Apple represent by announcing that they're going after Google first. I think that's just unusual.

Maybe there's a reason for it, but it definitely says to the public that Google is the biggest offender when you go after them first. It says that

this is the menace that we're most most frightened of.

They may be able, this is the one they may be able to prove better. I think

that's the issue.

So

it's interesting that the state's attorney generals are also involved.

These lawyers coordinate with each other, obviously.

And I think it will be around the online advertising business. And Google is the dominant player in this regard.
But, you know, then you also, as you know, have Amazon coming in here.

I think they'll make that defense.

There's other big players.

What's, I think, difficult

is that, is

how many resources Bill Barr has committed to this. And then, so there's always with the Trump administration, what else is going on here, right?

What political thing? Now, Bill Barr is so tainted right now from a political point of view, it's hard to imagine there won't be some attacks in that direction towards him and deservedly.

And it will take them too long. I think that's one of the issues.

Google and others have worn down

these regulators.

And I wonder where the FTC will come out here. I guess I forget which ones they would, they might be looking at Facebook, I think.

And many people feel like the FTC didn't take enough aim at Facebook during that time.

There's also a competition, people don't realize it, between the FTC and the DOJ, right?

Who's going to get these cases? If you watch any legal drama with regulators involved, they're always like, no, I'll get this case. No, I'll take this case.

And so I think the advantage is still to the tech companies but what's interesting is that it doesn't it didn't slow them down they in turn the coronavirus hasn't slowed them down and these companies have been trying to go for redemption um for a while uh for during this using this period to do that and and and these cases will proceed as planned i think is is interesting and to i i think it's actually been effective i think they have uh a it helps to have the distraction of an enemy that's even more frightening than them And two,

my sense is that their behavior during this period has largely been seen as accretive to society as opposed to everybody who's worried that they see it as an opportunity to spread more misinformation.

Yep, agreed. Agreed.
Agreed. One of the things that's interesting is the sort of

that the Federal Trade Commission did not declined to prosecute Google back in 2013. This is the historical thing I was talking about,

saying it didn't warrant it, even though there were companies like Yelp and others really pressing. And in this case, you know, a lot of

big media companies like News Corp was very aggressive in this area. And according to Wall Street Journal, they had been contacted.

I think contacted is a very loose term because I think a lot of these companies have been pressing. And they also, of course, face these issues in Europe

in terms of

their market share and things like that. And I think it will be interesting to see their defense.
That will be

saying there's other big giants.

I would imagine that's their defense. Look, there's Facebook.
Look, there's Amazon. Look, there's plenty of competition in the space.
And I think

there will be considerable legal resources devoted to this. And I think it'll be hard for the government, especially on its back heel in this environment.

And then, of course, everything is politicized at this point.

You know,

you'll get some, what's interesting is how protected Facebook has been given its

help of the Trump campaign, that people perceive its help of the Trump campaign. One of the things that first struck me about just

and how naive I was to the resource question was Senator Mark Warner invited me down to speak to him about big tech and I went down there.

And my first thought was, of course, this is a very large and handsome man. That was the first thing I thought.
He's a big, handsome man.

He's just enormous. And he's very handsome.
He's a handsome man. He's a handsome man.
He's a handsome man. Yeah.

And the second thing, he was in there with his legislative aides who are all, you know, these overeducated 14-year-olds. And I brought it, they said, said, well, what two things

he does have very eager

staff, right? They all do. And they said, well, what would you do right away? And I'm like, you know,

mandate identity and take away the Content Decency Act and give them, you know, take away these shields, these liability shields. Communications decency.
And both of these

legislative aides like practically started having seizures. And they said, there's just no way we could take on those two things.
I mean, they looked as if they had been working 18 hours a day as is.

And they're like, they looked at him.

They said, Senator, there's no way we we can even put out a press release saying we're looking at that because they knew that if they even got anywhere near those two issues, they'd be overwhelmed, that there would be a shock and awe response from the entities controlled by Google.

And they just look so kind of intimidated. Like, okay, you really want to poke it.
Well, they shouldn't be intimidated. Guess what? Well, the bear's got a lot of lobbying money.

So, you know, the bear is well armed in terms of the, I think I have talked to DOJ people, high-ranking, and they're like, oh, God, you you know, taking this on, including the length of time tech changes and their inability to do anything.

I think it'll be, it's really interesting. And again, they're further stressed by the coronavirus issue.

It'll degenerate, and that's to Google's and Facebook's and Amazon's advantage. Anyway, we're going to take a quick break.

We'll be back to talk about Amazon making its way into retail and also a friend of Pivot.

Support for the show comes from Neiman Marcus. This holiday season, you can show the people in your life just how special they they are with exceptional gifts from Neiman Marcus.

From the ultimate stocking stuffers to statement bags made for celebration to their legendary fantasy gifts that surpass every expectation, Neiman Marcus has something extraordinary for everyone.

And their style advisors can guide you and make finding the perfect gift at every price point totally effortless. So head to Neiman Marcus for a truly unforgettable holiday.

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Welcome back. Amazon is wasting no time in pushing into the struggling retail market.
What a surprise.

The company is teaming up with Vogue and the Council of Fashion Designers of America to create a new high-fashion storefront called Common Threads, Threads, Vogue X Amazon Fashion. Okay.

Amazon has billed it as an effort to help the retail industry, which has been floundering during the pandemic as storefronts close. But Amazon has had its sites on designer retail for some time.

Back in December, in the before times, that's we're going to refer to it now, Scott, as. We talked to Joanna Coles about Amazon's plans in fashion.
Here is a rewind.

Clearly, Amazon wants to eat shops, right? It wants to finish off fashion.

I do think, though, that fashion's resistance will be that fashion is frequently an emotional purchase, and it's hard to imagine a less emotional shopping environment than Amazon.

Clearly, Amazon wants to eat the shops. It wants to finish off fashion.
Naughty, I have. We should absolutely keep that.
That was very good. That was very good.
Thank you very much. Anyway,

Scott, what do you think? Now is the time we can imagine Amazon becoming an emotional purchase platform. I have an emotional relationship with Amazon, I think, now.

I think I feel feel weirdly grateful. I was ordering something last night and I feel bad.
It's like a bad relationship. I feel bad and yet it's good.
So

what? Yeah, but the emotion and the instinct you feel from Amazon is around your gut. And that is you feel,

it goes to survival. And that is if you go into your cave with a lot of food, you're going to be fine.

If you don't go into your cave with enough food, you die the worst death that has taken more lives than any, than any malady in history, and that's starvation.

So you feel smarter and it foots your uh survival instinct the instinct that luxury is supposed to connote is uh one an old instinct and two a newer one and the first is that you want to be more attractive to the to the other sex or the same sex in your case hashtag hashtag sensitive uh uh anyways i don't know where i'm going with that but basically the need to procreate is is a close second to survival and our ability

we're having babies now okay well yeah but the reason i'm saying the reason i'm

is I want to pretend I'm younger and spread my seed to the four corners of the earth. And I think that increases my likelihood of spreading my seed.
And the reason why most women,

but go ahead.

The reason why most women, other than you, will spend $1,100 on ergonomically impossible shoes called Manola Blanix or Christian Louboutin is they want to signal to the opposite sex that they have longer legs, which means our offspring will be less prone to infection.

And so this procreation, this need... It's just a shoe, Scott.

to feel, this need to feel

sexually attractive is immensely important. And Amazon, you just don't feel very horny when you get onto Amazon.

Whereas you walk into a Birkin store, you walk into a Ferrari dealership, you're like, it's go time. It's time for us to procreate.

The other thing that the newer instinct that luxury has been able to kind of, because over the last several hundred years, the only places you found really beautiful, I mean, really artisanal works was in places of worship where God supposedly hung out.

So it's instinctive that when you see the slope of the back of a 9-11 or the mesh on a Botega Vanetta bag, you get stilled and you feel as if you're in the presence of something holy.

You feel as if you're in the presence of God.

Have people changed? Have people changed? Because now, like, the person providing them food into the cave is in the middle of the food. And I don't mean food.
It's, I need to have my food.

It puts to utilitarian. It puts to the front of your brain as opposed to the rear of your brain.
It puts to smart. Okay, so how does it get in here? Does it buy Conde Nast? What if it does?

Well, it also represents desperation. Anna Winter is accessorizing her analog outfit with a pair of digital earrings by saying, We're partnering with Amazon.
And it shows that Conda Nast.

I mean, Condonast has really, is really fallen far fast. Whereas a company like Hearst, that was big in print, has diversified into data businesses and is probably as strong as they've ever been.

Condonast, although the family owns a bunch of cable companies that they get billions from, the print properties have just been, just gone from bad to worse, right?

They've had a very difficult time figuring out

any sort of way out. And a lot of it's not their fault.

They still make some of the best print properties, but what they should have done, they should have sold Vogue five years ago to some golf billionaire who wanted to go to Vogue parties.

But this is...

So what do they do? Would they sell to Amazon? Is that the way in for Amazon is to buy something that's been asked? I don't know.

I think a better partner would be someone like a pencil.

They didn't buy Neiman Marcus. Remember, there was that rumor.

What should Amazon be looking at if they wanted to get, besides buying the most expensive house in Los Angeles or a big house here,

what should Amazon do if it wanted to be in the fashion?

Or does it? Does it want to be?

I think it does because so one of the key dimensions of profitable e-commerce is value to weight ratio.

And some of the best ratios in the world of commerce as it relates to fulfillment to the cost of fulfillment relative to the cost of the product, specifically the margin, is that $120

two-ounce bottle of Le Mer or that $1,100 poochie dress that weighs 15 ounces.

So this is absolutely an enormous opportunity for e-commerce, but they have been, this is one of the areas they have been really, really unsuccessful. They had Amazon beauty shops.

So the gangster acquisition for them in terms of value would be

100% would be Nordstrom. They can pick up Nordstrom for.
That was a rumor too. Seattle, Seattle.
That's right. They know each other.
And

Nordstrom has outstanding operations and management. They are very, very, I mean, everybody assumes that everyone that works at department stores are idiots.
They're not. Nordstrom and

very, very good. They have fantastic e-commerce.
They're very innovative. Struggled, though.
Well, struggled, had some struggles. It's like being the best buggy whip manufacturer.

It's just going to be a tough place to be right now.

But they're very strong, and

they would immediately have access to all the brands that you populate your high-end beauty cabinet with and

what's in the most fashionable closets in the world.

so you would you would inherit those relationships you'd inherit unfortunately you'd inherit bad real estate i don't think they want to be the anchor in a bunch of bad malls but it would seem if they really wanted to get into luxury or fashion i don't think they'd go to go after a media property that's dying i think they'd go after a company that has all the relationships with the beauty and luxury why not why not have gone after neiman marcus when it was because neiman marcus has a really shitty cap table it's a marginal business with just a terrible cap structure as too many private equity guys have loaded it up with debt so they would just be buying a company that they would be sort of bailing out.

And what do you get with Neiman Marcus? You get, I don't know, it just Neiman Marcus. Yeah, Nordstrom's.
Neiman Marcus doesn't have half the operating mojo as a Nordstrom.

Nordstrom is an outstanding company.

All right. I like this.
Neiman Marcus is

Neiman Marcus is a trivia question for me.

All right. Likelihood.
Likelihood is. Well, it hasn't happened.
I thought this was going to happen a couple years ago. Yeah.
And they got to know each other.

They got to play golf at the same Seattle, you know, golf club or whatever. They don't play golf.
They go

there. But go ahead.
I don't know. I don't ever go to Seattle.
I used to date someone there. Seattle.
I think Seattle is actually one of the most overrated cities. He's not in Seattle anymore.

He's like flying all over the world. Ever since Kirk Cobain died, Seattle, you have nothing for me.

Oh, I like Seattle. Totally overrated.
Anyway. All right.
All right. Very good.
I like that. I like LA with rain.

That's really interesting. Wow.
We're going to have to try. We have to have Joanna Coles back on and so she can do her real, actual sexy British accent accent and talk about this.

This is really interesting. Very interesting, Scott, as usual.
But now we're going to move on to a totally different direction moving forward.

We're going to talk about internet conspiracies, more importantly, where they come from and how to stop them. We have with us Phil Howard.

I just did a long podcast, Rico Deco podcast with him and Emily Bell from Columbia.

He is from the Oxford Internet Institute.

He is the author of the new book called Lie Machines: How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News operations, and political operatives. Uh, Phil, welcome to Pivot.

Thank you for coming. And you and I just recently had a long talk.
Um, so let's go right into it. What are some of the biggest stories of misinformation on the internet right now?

If you could do sort of a take us through pandemic or the concept, we talked about a number of really disturbing, and you guys track this at the Oxford Internet Institute.

That's right, we track it on a weekly basis, and I would say the misinformation of the week is around ObamaGate, whatever that may or may not be.

It's certainly around the

rumor that COVID was created in a lab.

And then it's often also pegged to immigrants and migrants bringing in COVID or

making us all suffer in some way.

And so when you talked about this idea, these different stories, they go up and down, correct? They sort of rise and fall. There was one you were talking about that if you took the flu vaccine,

you are more susceptible to COVID, correct?

And that runs into the anti-vaxxers at the same time. Absolutely.
They're the source for this.

And in fact, that rumor is sort of evergreen in that whenever there's a new medical crisis that seems to be connected to a mysterious disease, the anti-vax claim is that if you were inoculated as a kid at some point, you're either more susceptible or you're going to suffer if you take another vaccine.

It's a sort of constant refrain. Trevor Burrus And Phil, isn't there,

it seems like propaganda throughout history has required more creativity on the part. If it was a foreign entity trying to damage a country, they had to come up with a narrative and a story

and then figure out a way to plant it, promote it.

Now it seems like all you need is a credit card because we have so much batshit crazy internally that we just find the most divisive incendiary statements from, I don't know, our president, and then they just with a credit card, just pour fuel on it.

I mean, aren't we the problem?

I think you're right.

Your instinct is right in that there are dozens and dozens of people who will spend

their own money to put together, slap together a website and launch an automated campaign, a bot-driven campaign to push some messages around.

You know, one of the most potent forces in all this is a homegrown misinformation lab based in Montreal. called the Global Research Initiative, something like that.

And long before Breitbart, this was an outlet for conspiracy theories and extremist white supremacist content.

And it's a small shop of a guy and one or two volunteers putting out this stuff. I refuse to believe anyone in Canada does anything not nice.

They do. But it does, it does from big state actors, right? Phil, talk about sort of the way it moves, the way these things move through the system.

Well, that's certainly where it goes to scale, right? We've just worked out that the Chinese can reach a billion social media accounts in English

when they push their messaging. And usually what foreign governments will do is rather than planting a clearly fake story, they'll turn some fake story that was generated domestically into a question.

So was the coronavirus generated in a lab? Question mark.

And that becomes the RT story, or that becomes the CGTN headline, except that they can reach hundreds and hundreds of millions of social media users, whereas these small operations that are locally based, they reach tens of thousands.

And the point being for

a country like China or Russia, do they have differing goals that they're trying to pull off or is it similar?

Well, China is very interested. China wants to make sure we do not refer to this as the Wuhan virus, and they want to make sure that we do not retaliate with trade in any way.

For the Russian goals are a little bit more,

I mean, they're much more tied to undermining trust in our public institutions and in our elections, right? In the way we hold elections.

And what about domestic

actors? Well,

that gets even harder to speculate on. Most of this activity is on the far right.
It's not really on the far left.

Once in a while, there's a group on the far left that does this, but it's usually ultra-conservatives that spend big money on these things. And

for the most part, they're about supporting big money. They're about supporting Republican candidates or about undermining the role of government in public life.
And

we always talk about the threat to us. Are we good at this? Are we doing the same thing to the other guys?

I don't think so.

I think the other guys

are much more likely to spend money in ways that violate everybody's everybody's privacy norms and launch campaigns that

are simply full of made-up information. There's also

a strange subgroup of people who are just grifters, right? They just want to make some money out of this, generate a documentary and drive some clicks through to their website.

And they don't have actually any strong ideological beliefs. They just want to keep the servers running and make a little money out of these kinds of things.

Is that what something like Plandemic is, or is that really from people's feelings? Like talk about that particular movie and how it's gone around. Plandemic's an interesting phenomenon.

I haven't interviewed them. I don't know what their motivations are, but I would say that they're very successful at driving traffic, right?

And any talk of a sequel or a follow-on movie or a deeper explanation

or a book, right? A book contract, all that stuff is the follow-on money-making activity that that seems to be an important part of the reason to produce this junk.

And how is it different from, say, everyday news information that may be disputed, like watching Fox News versus an MSNBC and misinformation itself?

What's the difference between misinformation and disinformation?

So I'm going to touch that by separating out Fox News.

The main difference, though, is that most is that the major news organizations do fact checking and have a professional, a culture of professional journalism norms.

And we don't always agree with them. They're not always applied consistently.
Sometimes the fact fact-checking doesn't work. But on the whole, for the most part, most stories get a lot of vetting.

And if an editor doesn't like something in the story, they'll spike the story or, you know, things will get edited until they're closer to truths. Misinformation does not have any of that oversight.

They're creative essays. They're commentary.
They're what you and I might see as commentary essays. using the New York Times font or put on a website with the BBC colors.

As for Fox,

they are ostensibly a commentary outlet. I don't know what their fact-checking processes are, but I'd be surprised if they were as rigorous as other news organizations.

And what can we do?

What can the platforms do?

Okay, well, there's two questions. The what we can do question

is

not forward stuff that we haven't checked out ourselves.

Try to engage with the friends and relatives who do send junk.

Try to consume stuff about COVID.

When you say engage, you like threaten to put in a home, that kind of thing. When you say engage.

Threaten to lock away. No, you know, try your best to have a civil conversation and ask them to check their sources.

I don't, yeah, the threats won't work. So the worst possible situation is if Democrats and Republicans all unfriend each other, right?

And if family members really do delink and break social media ties and never hear from each other, that would make things much, much worse.

All right, what about the platforms themselves?

You had talked about the idea that the advertising, there was a lot of heat around political advertising and the lies that Facebook allows versus you thought that was not as important as something, as content itself.

As the content, yeah, when we did our work with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, we found that the Russians had largely moved on to Instagram. It was no longer

we were doing this work in 2018.

And so we found the Russians had moved off of Facebook and Twitter and were mostly on Instagram and then we found that overall ads paid for in rubles were a fairly small amount of the content that was placed it was it's the organic it's the organic photos and text written by fake fake accounts over the course of months

by by people who are maintaining 10, 20, 30 different accounts. This is the stuff that reaches the most the the most.
So how do we stop? How do they stop that? Should they stop that?

They don't want to at all, I think. Well, I would say the business model certainly thrives on having exciting, engaging content on the platform.

I also think social media firms, social media platforms like Facebook are designed to

bring out the controversy, to get the sensational stories up and out in front of us so that we stay on the platform.

They're not designed to promote consensus or to figure out which stories are being widely read by credible stories sources and push those into your feed.

That's not what these platforms are designed to do.

So how have they done going into this election?

The thing you're most worried about are these content farms that are making these stories that seem credible, like you said, using New York Times font or people thinking it's real information.

And if you had to pick two or three of the worst stories right now, what would they be?

Well, certainly the worst is Obama because it's been created as an empty shell that is allowing several different kinds of actors to put whatever they want into it.

And

I think what makes one of these things successful is when an outlet like Fox will pick it up and turn it into a broadcast story, because that creates links, URLs, that can then go into another round of tweets or into another round of YouTube videos.

So, you know, I think the firms have actually been pretty constructive around COVID misinformation. Right, they have.
The evidence suggests they're clamping down in creative ways.

I don't know that they're going to show that same sense of responsibility when it comes to November 2020. Could they? They claim that the problem is just too big.

They throw their arms up and say, as much as we'd like to. Or they don't want to.
We can't, that it's physically impossible. Or we shouldn't.

No, I don't think that's right. It's not physically possible.
They could do a much better job sharing data.

Right now, they share data with journalists and independent researchers that is years out of date with so many constraints that none of us can actually play with it and figure out what's going on.

They have a real-time, Facebook has a real-time ad library that

could be useful to watch if we want to sort of watch things closely in October and November. But

there are more things. And one of the real problems with social media firms is when they experiment with something constructive in Canada, but then don't run it in the US.

Or they play with a platform feature in Australia and find that it works well, but then they decide not to run it in another democracy. And so getting all the democracies sort of up to the same level

would be something that

they should do. Will they?

I don't think so. Not without government response, not without government nudges.
I mean,

it took a judicial inquiry, a Senate inquiry,

four years of bad press, constant pressure from journalists and academics saying there's misinformation on the platform, and that's barely got a small number of tweaks, I would say, to the platform to try to improve the level of information that's available.

They're starting to spend more money on these kinds of things, but the United States is 200, 250 million voters. That's a big population to help.

And I haven't seen a comprehensive help package from the social media firms.

All right. Phil, thank you so much for coming on.
Phil's book is called Lie Machines, How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News Operations, and Political Operative.

I think you've got that covered. We really appreciate it.
Thank you so much for coming on Pivot. So, Kara, I have conflicting emotions after that interview.
I found what he was saying

exceptionally alarming, but the way he says it is so calming. He's very

oh, hi. Scott, hey, sweetheart, we're here to take you to the gas chamber.
I mean, that guy's so calm. He's so calm.
He is calm. He is calm.

He looks at a Drek all day long and tries to figure out where it comes from, essentially. Anyway, Scott, one more quick break.
We'll be back for Wins and Fails.

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Okay, Scott, we're back. What are your wins and fails this week? What are they? Well, my fail is just the ad-supported industrial complex and how incredibly redundant and non-creative they are.

They're all here for us. Yeah.
They all need to tell us that we're in this together. And then they all

sent you that video.

Yeah. And then they show some guy.
We're here to help. Some guy or gal and an essential worker that they're calling a hero.

Although it has been a huge source of comfort for me when, so for example, when when my son isn't doing well and really struggling, I just yell out, Hyundai, because Hyundai is here for me, Kara.

They're here for me. Hyundai.
Hyundai, where are you, Hyundai? Do you like the little tinkling music? That was, I sent Scott a video of all of them put together.

I think Fast Company put it together, but it was like tinkling music. And then later, the music gets more tinkly at the end.
And we're here to help.

We're in this together. What else? Stop it.
All these brands

are tall.

Family, family, family.

And also, you want to talk about the ad industrial complex just getting all these, the biggest advertisers in the world are all trying to get out of their commitments. Yeah.
This is, it's really,

I mean, you could actually see, and this Impacts Us, I did a podcast or I had Sam Harris on my other podcast. And by the way, that guy is very thoughtful.
Sam Harris. That guy's like crazy thoughtful.

Him and Fareed Zakaria are my new like brain boners. Those guys are like incredibly smart.

Anyways,

he's doing this paid thing.

I wonder if and when podcasts are finally going to go paid because even the people who listen to us, as funny and as wonderful as our advertisers are, people are just getting sick of it.

They're getting sick of it. Yeah, that's interesting.
It was the ad-supported industrial complex and the ridiculously lame ads. It's claiming that they're here for us.
We're family. Yeah.

We're in this together, Carol. We're in this together.
Buy our ketchup. We're in this together, goddammit.

They're not going to let you down. Yeah, who's your loser? Do you have a loser?

So many losers. So many losers.
I still think these openings are, you know, it's interesting. I feel like there's like, as usual in this country, there's no plan.
We're just sort of like winging it.

It's sort of winging it. And we then we eat wings while we're doing it.

You know, that's the part of it I like about the United States is winging it. You know what I mean? That's one part.

In this case, these openings, like, I was thinking like New Orleans, I want to go out. I'm trying to think of what I need to do in June or July to go somewhere, not here where I am.

And I I like, I'm in a very comfortable place. But like when they, there's a story about New Orleans opening.
I just, would I go to New Orleans right now?

I don't think I would go to New Orleans right now. And I don't, and I like New Orleans, by the way.

And so, you know, everything is people have the same feeling. They're like,

and I wonder when that goes away. So I think it's just, I want them to have more thoughtful, like, like, is there a temperature taker there or something? Are there rules?

Is there a place where people don't like, I just feel like no nobody's in charge here that kind of thing and that's that that's you know and i and i i think we were inundated with information but have don't know what to do that's what i would that's well my my new yoda fareed zakaria had some fantastic information that is the only program in the world other than killing eve that i stop and i re

go back and i do it for different reasons i do on killing eve because the set design is so unconscious and beautiful and the people in it are so beautiful i just love watching the fashion and the set design and the beautiful That's just incredible.

Anyways,

with Farida, I rewind it because he's just such a clear blue flame thinker, and I like to take his ideas as my own and then spread them across the world.

But he had some really interesting data, and that is: if you make over $100,000 a year, there's a 60% likelihood you can work from home, and there's only a one in 10 chance you've been laid off.

If you make less than $40,000 a year,

only about 10% of you can work from home, and almost 40% have been laid off. So

the kind of

we're reopening too early movement, to be clear, it is largely science-based, and you have a lot of epidemiologists, including Dr.

Fauci, saying we have to be very thoughtful, i.e., we're reopening too fast. But the fuel behind it is what I'll call this graduate education class that, quite frankly, hasn't been hurt that badly.

And them being at home just isn't that bad. So there's a different sense of urgency and perspective.

And you have to empathize with people who are worried about putting food on the table because we have in this Joey bag of donuts fucked up culture we called America where we've put 50% of our population in the world's wealthiest country at risk such that they can't afford to not have a paycheck for 30 days.

Their attitude is, well, okay, it's easy for the ruling class that disproportionately controls the economy, culture, and government to talk about the need to stay home when you're just fine.

But we're not. It's an entirely different risk profile.
The calculus is entirely different for one group of people versus the other.

And the people who quote unquote control the media, control the government tend to be the ones that are just fine sheltering from place or sheltering in place. Yeah.
All right. What about you? Win.

Oh, my win.

I'm just fascinated. I don't know if you call it a win, but...

So I'm into this notion of when rivers reverse direction. It happened slowly but surely geologically for a bunch of reasons in the Amazon.
The Amazon actually changed direction.

And then the Mississippi River actually changed direction briefly after a hurricane.

But I've been thinking a lot about, okay, if COVID-19 is an accelerant as opposed to a change agent, what parts of the economy do the rivers actually reverse?

And the two things I'm spending a ton of time thinking about.

Huh.

Reversal of rivers. Not one I would pick for Scott Galloway, but go ahead.
Well, that's sort of a, that's my pedantic way of saying when trends not only stop, but they reverse.

And I think there's two really interesting river reversals here. And that is I'm convinced, and we talked a little bit about this last week, that public schools might have an absolute sea change.

And that is,

if you think about, I was thinking, okay, what is the value? You know, I'm public schools all the way through graduate school.

I talk a big game, and then I have kids, and of course, they're in private school because I can afford it. And

you have your intellectual talk track. And then when your kid comes ready for school, you're like, what's the best school? And it's now almost always a private school.

And if you can afford it, boom, they're in a a private school.

And it creates this downward spiral where you not only take money out of the hands of the public school system, but you take out the most important resource and that is parent engagement, right?

Because a lot of the parents now in public schools are single parents that don't have the time or the luxury to be as engaged as they would like in their kids' school.

So it's been this downward spiral and this casting, continued casting and segmentation of our society. But could you have a reversal in a 30, 40 year trend?

Because one of the benefits, and we don't talk about it as parents. I like it.

But one of the things that justifies $10,000 to $20,000 of that $54,000 Fieldstone or Grace Church tuition is that you get to hang out with other people like you who are more impressive than you called parents on the weekends.

And Zoom classes do away with that. You get parent, you get teacher to kid ratio of eight to one as opposed to 23 or 30 to 1.
That doesn't matter on Zoom.

So it's really interesting if all of a sudden the points of differentiation get shaved off or sanded down around private school, and there's not that much difference between public Zoom classes and Zoom classes sponsored by private schools,

you could see this extraordinary reversal of rivers from

the white flight to private schools back to public schools. And quite frankly,

it could inspire and catalyze this wonderful upward spiral after the initial overrun of resources of public schools. So I'm actually hopeful

that public schools K through 12 might get a shot in the arm. And the other thing is just like the idea.
Migration flows out of cities. I just, we have been,

culture, creativity, and money have all been migrating into cities for the last super cities and the last. And that was the trend.
That's been the trend. Could all of a sudden that river reverse?

I mean, I think. I think people get tired of it.

You know, I have a lot of friends who, there was a story in the New York Times this weekend about people like where they're going, the zip codes, like yourselves.

And I do, I agree. I've been in the city the whole time.
I haven't abandoned the city. I'm in D.C.
now. I would have been in San Francisco or New York.

Let me just say, for all you people that I'm going. I like my grass.
I can't believe I don't live here in this small town. They're not going to last long.
I'm sorry.

There's something so magical about cities. And I'm a city person.
And

they're like trying to convince me too much that it's better elsewhere,

you know, whether they're up in a small Connecticut town or Vermont or wherever they are.

You know, I like Vermont and I like people, people who live there should like living there, but I think there's something wonderful about cities.

It throws people together in ways that they aren't used to. It's, I just, I get it.

I get why you wouldn't want to be here for this, but when it all goes back, you're going to want the frissant of a city. I'm just going to

100% agree. But again,

it might be, there might be a second order effect in that. You won't see an exodus of people who live in cities.
You'll see an exodus of people who work in cities.

And what I mean by that is the guy or the gal, the investment banker or the lawyer that live in Short Hills or New Jersey or Greenwich, Connecticut, that have to be near Manhattan because they work there.

And now their company has said you can work from anywhere and they can increase dramatically their quality of life by moving to

Raleigh or to Delray Beach, Florida, where they can all of a sudden say, okay, if I can work from anywhere, I'm going to where there's lower taxes, more sunshine, and I can buy a house near the beach for the same amount of money I have to buy in this mediocre neighborhood in New Jersey.

So there's going to be a migration, I think, of the people who have to to work in the city but don't live there.

But folks like you and me that are blessed enough to have the opportunity to live in the city itself, I agree. But I think it's the near kind of

city suburbs.

Reversal of rivers is Scott's positive. Here's my positive.
I like The Billions is back, which I'm very happy. Have you been watching that? You like it? Yes, I always like it.

It makes me feel like the before times. I'm like, oh, it's Axe fucking up, whatever.

And there's a lot of like there's a lot of porn rich porn like they're flying to like some one of those internet conferences it's like succession it's new york porn yeah they're like jumping out they're doing whatever they're late they're shaman they're going to shamans this time but i like that's not what it is it's my son louis swisher is on the podcast with the recode decode podcast and you know what my son is freaking brilliant he's so smart he's so reasonable i am very pleased with he turned 18 this week outside i have raised a fine man good for you any lady who gets to marry him is a a lucky lady.

He's a great kid. And if you listen to him on the podcast, I'm so proud of him.
He's so, he's just a, he's just great.

So you can listen to, I have both, I have two tremendous sons, but I'm going to focus on Louie because it's his birthday this weekend.

And I have to say, if you want to hear the smartest kid, who's so much, he's so much, he's every part of me that's good. And that's what I like about him.
That's nice. It's a nice thing to say.

Yeah, that's my happiness.

What makes you happy this week?

My kids make me really happy this week. What makes me happy?

You know, it's,

I find myself checking when I say this, but

I, this whole sheltering in place thing, I'm blessed. I have a nice place to live.
I'm not economically strained. I saw some photos.
It looks nice.

I like my, you know, I mostly like my family, mostly.

And like, I'm, I'm really taking stock of

mostly. Would you please be nice to your nice family? Your family looks lovely, let me just say.
Family, like, these are people you otherwise wouldn't hang out with. That's the definition of family.

But look,

I'm, you know, all of it. I'm really trying to take stock of my blessings.
I'm asking, I've been thinking a lot about my, well, I'm pimping my TV show, but I got my ratings back.

And 80% of our viewers are men. And we have one of the youngest viewerships

in cable television right now. And I thought, what do I want to do? What do I want to accomplish with young men? And I think I've decided

I want you as in the viewer to be a better man. I think young men relative to every other demographic.

You're like a nicer version of Jordan Peterson. Yeah, but relative to every other group, younger men are feeling and falling behind more than any other group.

And I was thinking that this pandemic, and I've talked a little bit about this, offers a huge opportunity for men to break out of this cartoon of being masculine and quiet and not expressing your emotions and to really take stock of your relationships with your, you know, the first one, I think of three questions I present to young men because they don't want to talk about career or Bitcoin.

I'm like, no, those are the wrong questions and the wrong topics. The three questions you got to ask yourself are one,

do you have the relationship with your parents and your siblings that you would want?

And if not, do you need to kind of put the scorecard and the bullshit aside and be kind of the man that your parents hoped you would be and your kids think you are and express real grace and generosity and start repairing and strengthening relationships.

I like it. Scott is Phil Donahue.
You are Phil Donahue. It's a lot of community around that.
At the current age. Anyone who needs to look that up, look up Phil Donahue.
And it's a time for young men.

It's a time for young men, who are a lot of whom are boys, to pivot to being a man and start taking care of their parents, start expressing affection and appreciation for their spouses and their partners, start reaching out to friends.

This is a big opportunity for young men.

As usual, we're on the same neighborhoods. Well, I have a really wonderful young man.
He's now a man. He's now a man.
And

I'm very proud of him.

Anyway,

we should start a cult of some kind of raising young people. I'm in.
As long as I'm the cult leader that gets to sleep with everyone, I'm in. No, no, no, you just ruined it.

Oh, I'm going to, that's enough. That's enough.
Come to the dog. No, no.

Reach new spiritual heights. No, no, no, no.
Anyway,

don't forget if you have a story in the news you're curious about, do not join Scott's cult and want to hear our visitors. Nikes and cyanide.

No,

and we're there now. Okay, email us at pivot at foxmedia.com.
Do not write Scott in any way if you want to join his cult to be featured on the show, Scott. Free to sound.

Today's episode was produced by Rebecca Sinanis. Our executive producer is Erica Anderson.
And special thanks to Drew Burroughs and Rebecca Castro.

If you like what you heard, please download or subscribe. Join us later in the week when we'll be making predictions and talking all things tech and business.

Have a wonderful week, especially it's great weather everywhere.

Just go out and adore and marvel at what this world is like. And I am not an environmentalist with a little less carbon and a little less nitrous, whatever the fuck they call it in the air.

And just appreciate Mother Earth or Father Earth. What a wonderful time to be alive.
Kara, take care. Have a good rest of the week.
Thanks.

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