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welcome to the 359 I rotor Chang I'm Johnny salesman I'm Alfred ring well that was a marathon after what is it now six six and a half hours of testimony we just were almost done it's still actually going on Facebook and Twitter showed up to DC and we're gonna break it all down for you and there was a lot to take in we'll break it down into two sessions the first session Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey showed up to talk about foreign influence on social media what were some of the big takeaways free to you know from from the first session well I composedly miss the procession but what you think like for one thing we assumed that you know censorship was gonna be a big part of that and it didn't it ended up being more about well about the actual topic of foreigners right yeah so it was another opportunity for these tech giants to show up and answers the basic questions about what they're doing and make apologies for what they've missed and promised to get better generally I mean I didn't notice a lot different from you know when Zuckerberg showed up yeah yeah I think that there was even one point you know they were pressed a couple times about things like will you put a value on the data of your users and when they were pressed they kind of especially Sandberg sort of defaulted to that line well I go we're in favor of you know regulation but the right regulation we want to work with you not really giving a lot of firm commitments it seems like these companies were really playing nice in my mind it's sort of in a bid to to kind of create foundation for crafting legislation that they want as well as what Congress wants and you know as X sort of demonstrated few months ago like these folks are pretty smart when it comes to how these companies work a lot smarter than the senators who are asking the questions although to be fair the the questions were lots more this time right they were they seemed a lot more informed there weren't any especially during the Senate one there weren't any glaring like except for well I think one of the first questions was asking both Jack Dorsey and Joel Sandberg can you define what a social network is oh yeah there was that to like kick off the entire day that was the first question but there was a lot more I did think that there was more on the surface welcoming of regulation right from the to right and we did have the the extra exhibition of Alex Jones outside of the hearing holding his own press conference our own rich needs actually you know interviewed him short briefly where we what he said he was basically trying to you know he was facing his accusers calling them cowards weird it was a weird sideshow aspect to it getting moving on to the second session because we're running out of time already you know Jack Dorsey was sitting by himself basically facing questions about transparency and accuracy bias and it turned into a bit of a shouting match between a fella between the Democrats and the Republicans right it was less about Twitter and more about like the political motivations behind this session yeah the second one definitely felt a lot more like political grandstanding whereas the first Senate hearing did feel a little bit more like there were legislators attempting to do some legislative groundwork right right there was a lot more like how can my Republican colleagues be doing this or how is it possible that you are such a biased service against conservatives there's a lot more of extremity well yeah if you take a look at the second hearing you know a lot of the questions were it started off with shadow banning which was something that they thought was targeted specifically at conservative voices Jack Dorsey explained and this was actually an algorithm issue that they had with it where he basically said this effect is six hundred thousand accounts and really didn't have anything to do based on your politically he was he was sort of pressed by at least one representative who was asking whether or not the the breakdown was you know what was skewed more towards conservative or yeah liberals and Dorsey generally have an answer for that yeah he said they didn't really have a breakdown based on political views it was just kind of done across the board for everybody all right so this is an ultra complicated conversation with the cram more than four minutes and we just ran out of time you can if you want the full coverage check us on CNET I'm Roger Chang I'm Jody Salzman I'm Alfred ring thanks Wilson maybe talk about like cane we're talking about you ain't kidding Roger you say barely scratch the surface that was a dense day and a lot the process I think you guys did a good job doing a highlight reel here so I applaud you for that in the meantime as always if anybody has any questions or comments what was your takeaway today we want to hear what your feedback is mine was that it was largely reminiscent of Zuck with a whole lot more subtle shade throwing from around the horn anyone else get that vibe I thought it was more shade thrown at each other as opposed to Dorsey I thought it was at Google we didn't get to Google and I really wanted to bring that up the fact that Google is missing that they were asked to send way to Larry Page or sundar Pichai the CEO of Google they opted to send Ken Walker Ken Walker who is their general counsel or vice president SVP of like publisher right the policy guy they're like nope he's not high-level enough so we're just gonna have an epi seat there and we're gonna we're gonna like continuously mock Google throughout the session what's take away from that like is there any repercussions I don't even know how words is there any repercussion if Congress is like we want you to send this person I think the repercussions are probably gonna be like a political like this is terrible publicity like they've gone for like two and a half hours like pretty much every senator took their turn bashing Google a little bit right come on Harris was like hello invisible guests so that's not actually there it's kind of shame because there are a lot of questions that I think Google needed to answer about foreign influence on on the elections like what the midterm elections coming up I think Google has because you know they control Android control YouTube Gmail I mean that that's like a huge number of platforms that yeah Facebook has about like 2 billion users like a month which is you know about the same level of people that use YouTube or or you know Android devices everyday but I would argue that because Google has like so many different platforms and has like two billion for each of them that has more of a surface area for attackers to go after and it's been like shown that you know nation-states have targeted these like John Podesta's email that got hacked was a gmail account the influencer campaigns that happened on YouTube as well as the ads that were bought on YouTube right it's just like it's a massive like puzzle piece that's missing that when Google is not there that being said to though they did offer Ken Walker is still there even though he's not testifying publicly he's giving like private briefings to these congressional members so you know Google's representative or their CEO won't be there to you know get yelled at if you public by everybody including Alex Jones but I mean in private he's still like Google is still briefing all these Congress members on what what they should know I suppose but I think the biggest loss is that you know the the public doesn't really get to hear all the things that Google is doing right you know what else we also didn't have time to talk about was the Justice Department releasing a statement right after the first right after the first hearing ended the Justice Department puts out a statement basically saying that they're having a bunch of attorney generals meeting later this month to talk about a growing concern that these social media companies are hurting competition and intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas on their platforms back to this censorship notion that what's been going on and we didn't really even know the the call out to Huawei and ZTE yet again like these companies can't catch a break like you know in a session that's really designed to put the the microscope or put Facebook and Twitter the Microsoft you know Huawei and ZTE it's like random shots yeah there was also a call out during the house hearing from rep I hope I'm pronouncing her I was like Luhan or Lou Jean one of the two but he's from I believe yeah he's from New Mexico and he just mentioned Equifax out of nowhere he's one of the Democrat Congress members I was basically saying this hearing is a waste of our time we should be focusing on real issues right there really isn't like any censorship going on at least according to him there is no censorship going on let's focus on like actual issues I was like basically having dorsey's like presence there right writing any questions I just don't want to start off with this one from Matthew - or what's worse being hauled in front of Congress or having to report on it we should get rich in the a vertical and I would say I mean even for us report I would say reporting on it because if I'm getting hauled for Congress I'm probably getting paid a lot of money I'm probably a pretty important person so I'll deal with it not paid by Congress and like the CEO of a company I'm important enough that Congress decided I needed to show up there I'm probably getting paid more so also Dorsey did have like some some branding opportunities we offer you my personal my personal thoughts on this matter after I tweet it yes right now anybody get a head count about how many times they said we'll get back to you a lot and the second one a lot yeah there's a lot more than the second one the first one I think it was only like two or three times actually it was a fairly thoughtful exchange of ideas the yeah the I think cuz the second one was just all over the place Dorsey wasn't quite prepared watching if you liked what you heard from Taylor foils have we followed up on the changes made after the first facebook hearing specifying a tally of the issues that Congress brought up that have actually been addressed other than their fluff commercial saying they can do better follow up on that Facebook's like put out a that while they released the answers to all of congress's questions that they said we'll get back to you do they actually change anything I feel like a lot of privacy settings they changed before the zucker well I know like they might have changed a lot of stuff behind the scenes but the stuff that they've done publicly they've changed like how ads can be bought on their platform yeah Google said they've done the same thing was that done before after this was done after cyclists if I like where you can see who's like that the donors are not donors but things like that they've been much more public about influence campaigns like it doesn't take for a reporter to find out about it now for this to be public it you know we like they announced the Iran yeah yeah enough on their own yep they like created this bug bounty for like data abuse and things like that yeah they actually have done a lot to address this because I think they do take this issue seriously I would not agree with the statement that they have like that they you know are are meeting it at the pace that it's like challenging them at but I think they are like throwing a lot of their resources at it right I mean I think part of it is they still I don't think they quite grasp how big a problem this is well if they do then they don't really have an answer for right I would say it's the latter I think they know it's a really big deal okay from Josh Buda on the point of Equifax has anything there been changed Alfred no well I mean it depends on what angle you're looking at nothing has been changed as far as from the victim's perspective it's not like Equifax aside will you know give you your money back or anything like that we caught who did this or anything like that but Equifax in itself has been shifting their security culture I spoke with their of chief information security officer yes yes not the one that was fired around February and he's like talked about how Equifax has this whole three year plan to regain your trust right and how they're creating this new culture of security within the company so that you know a massive mistake like that wouldn't happen again also some of their like staff has been indicted for insider trading not the big ones that we've we knew about bought like some like random staffer is that like were Neiman on our radars were hit with yeah but as far as you know consequences for Equifax the company like have they been like successfully sued or anything like that we have not seen anything like that or any legislation that's changed there's still one of the three companies that we have to go to for our yeah so yeah so day like today there's not a whole lot of conclusiveness to take away from it there never is for there never is but let's let's be the optimist for just a moment what were some of the good things we took away from both of the hearings today whether it just being little moments that you thought shined light on something potential progress surprising comments anything along the lines I mean the the comment that Dorsey kept making about the victim shouldn't have to be the one who's responsible for reporting yeah the issue like that's I think that's a noble thing to say I really want to see how Twitter actually backed us up I don't think Dorsey or anyone on Twitter knows what the answer to that question is but just the fact that he kept that was something that he kept impressing was was good was at least comforting to know that like he understands that that is a fundamental issue yeah I was gonna mention that but also it is insane to me that so when they mentioned the Megan McCain tweet that had to delete yeah if you're not familiar with the image it's a photo of her with a gun like that was edited in was to show a gun pointed at her it took about five hours for twitter to take that down to spy who's know well Jack Dorsey says that it was five hours the person Meghan McCain's husband says that it was up for over half the day yep and then another Congress member said there was up for 16 plus hours yeah it depends on whose timeline you're looking at here but I the point was that Jack Dorsey mentioned that the reason why that was up for so long is because the threat that they were looking for next face was text based and they said that the threat like was in the image and that's why they're a I didn't detect it immediately okay which is crazy to me because if you think about how much of Twitter is based on images and like the fact that they're only yeah and video and the fact that they're only looking for threats like their AI at least is only looking for in text that's maybe it just hasn't learned yet I still young that's such an incredible oversight because I mean like Facebook learned that before with it's fake news where they realize that a lot of hoaxes were spreading through through images so they like started using AI that like reverse searches images and things like that and it's it's like it just it's such like a mind boggle for me that like they didn't realize that like so much of like harassment and abuse can come in image and video right worm yeah speaking of video I mean there was a lot but there was interesting discussion on deep fakes which I didn't really think that was kind of interesting but senators are aware the special effects and CGI have existed for decades yeah but like the fact that it could be done like at home fairly cheaply and it yeah those is interesting that they acknowledge that and that that was part of dialogue all right there was a good comment coming in from mecca men for government corporations have guidelines and codes of conduct crying about censorship over what is usually paid speech patreon it's hard to feel sympathetic any thoughts on that sentiment it's hard to feel sympathetic for the companies or feel yeah those crying censorship oh yeah well yeah I enjoyed that part of Jack Dorsey's opening statement on the second hearing at the end when he talks about you know you earned your followers but we have no obligation to promote like your tweets to anybody like like you you deserve to have your followers see your tweets but like people that aren't your followers like we don't have any obligation to promote or boost you in any way yeah I have a position on this that I just kind of want to put out there where I'm not explicitly defending anybody involved but the way I kind of see one of the arguments I saw that kind of stuck out to me is I forget which representative it was but it was during the house hearing the second part that pointed out like people are trafficking drugs on Twitter it's like well people are trafficking drugs on telephones and on streets is it that is that the the government's fault for building the street I mean I just I struggled with that thought and that's me just I didn't mean I didn't notice that the open issue the opioid issue it was every was both in the Senate session and this one and they spent a lot of time on it I feel like that's just because it's a politically sensitive issue it's probably one they want to like wave the flag on that's what I feel like those a bit of grandstanding yeah right I don't remember all the instances really talks about it but the one that comes to mind is when there was a West Virginia congressman talking about it and you know if you this is representative of democracy and so it's an issue that matters to his constituents and sure I think it's fair enough that he brings out that I think it's very interesting I think that you know so they pointed out these very public examples one of them he just looked up percocet by yep and on Twitter and I did it myself too and I found several posts on that like people selling drugs but I think it's very interesting that no one's ever like actually gone through and seen how legitimate these are because I looked at those tweets and they look like they were just spam posts that were like automatically posted like if you looked at the accounts I'm and this is just take this was a grain of salt because I didn't really look into it myself but like my I'm not sure how many of these are actual drug sales in the same way that like if you saw these like spam tweets saying you know hey like me like sexy singles in your area and then would you say like oh Twitter's allowing for you know like prostitution on it like those are most likely also scams so I don't know how many of those are actual drug sales I considered calling the number just to verify but yeah I think I think to be interesting to see like how many of those are actually people trying to sell drugs because I think you'd have to be incredibly stupid to make a public account with a phone number and email listed and actually sell percocet on Twitter you raise a very good point Alfred the point is based that there aren't stupid people on Twitter case in point present company included before we wrap it up Josh wants to know can you clarify the comment that was made about Twitter deleting BOTS and that it was a conspiracy which comment is this yours Josh help us clarify what comment you specifically I know is the conspiracy about like no people bombers and certainly that's what you're talking about when Twitter did its purge of bought accounts I think everyone lost a bunch of I think I lost about two or three thousand I didn't lose any because all my followers are real ones thank see all I was talking about mom but no I think he's one of the reps made the the point that I think Trump lost about 300,000 Obama lost like 2 million 2.8 million I think it was sort of the reverse is like well does Twitter have some sort of conspiracy you know theory some conspiracy against Obama which Dorsey was like no we don't and if I recall right that was a democratic raising a rhetorical point that's like if that is a conspiracy then there's then the the idea was like to get Dorsey to say there's no conspiracy yes yeah so I mean he's trying to it was grants anybody's making the point that like this the the other examples being put up or as ridiculous as this particular example right yeah I don't know soon that's the question you were asking about that was the one conspiracy theory I think that I heard about today yes you are correct that's exactly what he was looking for I think when we screamed so many conspiracies out there I think I think you folks give these guys too much credit I think they're just too dumb for their own platform that's a shot at the developers by the way not all the users we love you guys all right we are just about out of time I do it feels you're doing it so late but I thanks everybody for sticking around and joining us and I hope we brought a little levity following up we're all in the same boat before we go what what are the next steps when is going to be the next procedural ones the next hearing what's happening on the hill next that's I mean the in terms of the Senate hearing I think this was like the capper for it's the fourth one JJ Abrams reboots it and it's the exact same thing as the house I feel like the house ones just sort of came on because the Senate was doing one or like the argument of the censorship no yeah well argument was that the the leader of the House or the whip or the speaker or somebody was like hey committee look into shadow banning please that's not that was actually the third one that the house that the House Committee had because so they had the first one where they invited all three and they all bailed and then they had diamond and so gone for like three hours nothing substantial came out of that then the second one came a few months ago where it was like the policy exact time all three so college stretchers there and Kent Walker I can't remember who it was from YouTube or Google but yeah and then this was the third room of just Jack I think that these hearings will continue happening at least until Google sends one of their like Agassi that's a good point because he's Google is now like the the last missing piece of this puzzle now what are we exciting if there was a subpoena that could be intriguing I think that actually do that sure they can I don't know what are the odds but that what I'm saying yeah that would be it's definitely drama an extreme measure be more exciting than today maybe I don't know today was a thrill we did we didn't talk about the the one random person the woman who like Oh Lauren Loomer yeah them shouting and then like the once presentative who became an auctioneer for so weird that was really wanted her verification back yeah I know that was uh that was her big gripe we couldn't hear what she was saying there but she was chanting Jack Dorsey lies yeah she's a mega conspiracy artist and he could lie about things anyways it was just interesting to watch the that representative rep long jump in there and just I just figure is that his like usual response to like Siemens job he's just a former auctioneer my point is like when you see like dissent or anything like that is is like internal like defense mechanism like start that's a pretty good one I guess they've really distract everyone like you got that's the core like what's going on here and we completely ignore the protests they woke me up from my stupor yeah as silly as silly as the circus got it was kind of nice to have a little break in the action there yeah I choked I couldn't help but chuckle definitely yeah I think we're out of time guys we put in a good long day today congratulations everybody good work let's wrap it up school get drunk and that's not condoning anything drunk but I'm going to positive vibes there's our colleagues yeah so yeah I bought off of Twitter thanks for joining us we'll see ya maybe tomorrow I don't know we might take the day off we'll see anyways wishful thinking the 359 is available on iTunes TuneIn stitcher feedburner google play music google podcast the amazon echo of course you not to come we'll see you tomorrow probably maybe we'll see probably thanks for listening bye bye you