Machines Like Us

Facebook is establishing a 40-person oversight board to pass rulings on whether or not content should remain on their platform. The board aims to represent all regions of the world, rulings are set to be released in multiple languages and decisions about content to be made expeditiously. Only one researcher, Kate Klonick, was invited in to observe the process that went into establishing the framework for this oversight board.

In this episode of Big Tech co-hosts David Skok and Taylor Owen speak with Kate Klonick, an assistant professor of law at St. John's University law school, and an affiliate fellow at Yale law school about what she witnessed in this process. Klonick was embedded in Melno Park without a non-disclosure agreement, given full access to meetings and was able to record all the conversations and workshops. Throughout the process, she maintained her academic immunity, not accepting anything from Facebook, not even a free hotel room.

Klonick discusses the struggles faced by the team tasked with building the oversight board. At the beginning, it didn’t look like the project could be a success: “My lens is obviously from a legal perspective, and it's a little bit like when you're a hammer, everything's a nail. I look at a lot of the problems that I was seeing as they were creating this oversight board, and it was comparative constitutionalism, it was administrative law, it was democratic legitimacy.” Facebook continued to work on the oversight board, and as Kate admits, they did solve many of huge constitutional problems presented by content moderation. But she is still skeptical about how this board will scale, whether it will be overrun with appeals and how will the public will perceive its effectiveness.

After discovering several small charges to her credit card that totaled upward of US$900, Rana Foroohar figured her card must have been stolen. She quickly realized those micro-transactions were coming from a game her son was playing. Unknowingly, he was spending real money inside a free-to-play game. As a journalist, Rana was fascinated by the way in which apps were capturing people’s attention and wallets.

In this episode of Big Tech co-hosts David Skok and Taylor Owen speak with Rana Foroohar, global business columnist and associate editor for The Financial Times and global economic analyst at CNN about her new book: Don't Be Evil: How Tech Betrayed Its Founding Principles — and All of Us. They discuss the cognitive, economic, and political impacts that big tech companies are having on our societies and economies.

Foroohar discusses the risks that big tech companies’ current business models present to the global economy. While these businesses are motivated by growth (rather than profits) investors want to see profits once the company goes public. If those profits are not coming, stocks start to sink. “Uber goes out into every possible market, breaks whatever regulation it can, grabs market share, doesn't worry about making money, is allowed to continue that business model with private investors just pumping it up, pumping it up,” Foroohar says. Technology companies make up a large percentage of equity markets, and there is real concern that the economy could be heading toward a tech-led crash.

Taylor Owen and David Skok have known each other for many years; their work in democracy and journalism ensures that their paths often cross. Taylor is an academic studying technology’s transformative impact on democracy. David has spent his journalism career in the thick of an ever-changing media landscape. They both recall one meeting at a restaurant in Toronto about ten years ago, when Taylor brought together a group of academics and journalists to discuss how technology was reshaping society. David was skeptical, and proclaimed to the room that nobody cares about privacy and technology.

A lot has changed since that meeting. Technology’s impact on society, the economy and democracy is evident, and today, people care. On the Big Tech podcast, Taylor and David will unpack the nuanced challenges that technology presents.