Gadgetory

it's the Wednesday May 3rd edition of the 359 podcast last time I checked it's episode 221 and in the House today is Alfred Inge and Ben Fox Rubin and it's going to be a bit of a dour episode yeah my understanding it's gonna be a tough one guys so if you want to click out you don't want to talk about Facebook's grisly video problem you know we wanted to make that very clear in the headline that this is what we're going to discuss because we do think it's important and something that has been getting a lot of attention a lot of conversation in the tech world I realize that we do talk a lot about gadgets devices newest you know fun technologies that kind of thing a lot on the podcast but today we do want to focus on this more serious issue about murders and suicides that do get posted on Facebook and Facebook live but to lighten up the episode a little bit more later on we will talk about Apple's earnings which were also reported on last night yeah I'm gonna throw something in while I'm saying if I'm you know for everyone that loves to make fun of Apple in our chats yes a love you can still do that but you will get also it will happen Murdoch yeah we got to be serious for a bit yeah all right let's do it so on that note we'll be back we look forward to discussing with you this rather serious topic a little out of character for us but hey once in a while you got to get real so here we go we're going to record the podcast be back seeing the chat send in your comments and questions in 3 minutes and 59 seconds from 3 to sorry welcome to the 359 phox Ruben I'm Alfred Aang Mark Zuckerberg has been getting harsh criticism for Facebook's slow response to taking down grizzly videos of murders and suicides on the social site in response he said this morning that the company will be hiring an additional 3,000 people to monitor and remove gruesome videos hate speech and child exploitation on Facebook thoughts well they already they've already had a team 4500 people but you know obviously it wasn't enough you take a look at the last month of you know just gruesome videos that have popped up on Facebook a man in Cleveland was murdered a man in Thailand like committed suicide and killed a killed a child like before and you know Facebook's been catching a lot of flak for this even though things like this happen on Twitter and on YouTube as well right but the issue is you know with Facebook there they've got you know 1.1 billion users and when you have that kind of space you know and it's being broadcasted live you know give people a platform they're attracted to this kind of thing where you know they get an audience like this well not only that too but I think that in certain instances YouTube has been better at taking down some of these videos whereas Facebook was seen as being a little too slow to respond which is why I think that they probably decided to beef up their operations and hire this many more people and I think the important thing in here is that they're not just hiring you know more people to watch and take the videos down but they're also proactively taking action you know in real life so that Mark Zuckerberg talked about a situation where last week somebody had you know went on Facebook live and told the world that he was going to kill himself and it was reported in time luckily and Facebook was able to contact the authorities based off of you know where this person's like Facebook account was logged in from where the phone was at and they were able to contact law enforcement and they were able to stop him before anything worse happened you know that's a lucky situation there's so many more scenarios where you know it's been seen and broadcasted live where it's been especially gruesome so face yeah bad thing has already happened yes so Facebook is beefing up you know reporting tools people watching over the reports which they say they get millions of reports of and also making it easier for them to contact law enforcement based off of that so how much do you think this is actually hurting Facebook's brand and making it more difficult or less likely for people to want to go on Facebook because they feel like it's not a good space for them to spend their time I don't know so much that it's hurting Facebook's brand so much as it's hurting Facebook lives brand because they're trying to encourage people to go on this you know they think Facebook live for them is supposed to be a platform I'll watch this watermelon explode or watch the rock you know roast Kevin Hart for some reason and now it's becoming this thing was like I don't want to go on this because like I don't want to randomly stumble across something really nasty yeah yeah all right next up lighten it up a little bit to end the show the iPhone 7 is helping Apple Reba rebound its iPhone sales after it's all weaker demand last year for its latest quarterly earnings reported last night Apple reported stronger results thanks to more people buying the pricier iPhone 7 plus I mean all of us are still really interested in what's going to happen in September so does this really matter or are we gonna hold our breath I will say I hope that this doesn't make it kind of like a set set a trend for Apple wears oh well we can just make our phones more expensive and people will still buy them and we'll still make more money and sell less phones because but exactly what happens yeah that's exactly what happened and I hope it doesn't lead to a future trend where all these phones are just getting more expensive because you know if they can sell less and make more money like wouldn't that make way more sense just keep doing that I think that might be what's going to end up happening I mean like there are rumors that they're gonna create this like super top high-end anniversary edition phone in September that could be like $1,000 and I just hope that they still have a low market phone because I personally hate that like when companies do that great well that's about it if you want to read more about these stories check us out on CNN I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm alfred Aang thanks for listening all right so elephant in the room this is going to be a tough one to garner chatter from but hopefully we can get a bit of a dialogue going this is truly become kind of a horrifying issue and I don't want to undersell it in any way shape or form but how the hell did we get here you know it's it's a situation where you give somebody a platform and they abuse it but this is next level you know you didn't see this when public access TV came out because it was vetted and monitored and managed and programmed how did they put that into place with these 3,000 employees of Facebook that's a really good question I think Alfred pointed to the fact that when you have a platform that's this big it just results in people wanting to broadcast this kind of stuff unfortunately I mean and on top of that there are you know it's it's close to two billion people I think they'd go on Facebook monthly which it just means that even if you get point zero zero one percent of the videos that get posted on there being these types of grizzly videos well it's going to happen and it's also going to garner a lot of attention when it does happen because it's it's like shocking it's unavoidable stuff the thing is with a lot of criminals is that they aim for notoriety where they want to be you know the next like big name kind of thing so with the situation in Cleveland I mean even when he was broadcasting alive he was kind of advertising for the next one where he was saying you know I'm going to keep killing and broadcasting it live it's not a matter of you know being a criminal and saying I like being on the lam where they don't want to be caught it's is they want people to know their names and know who they are and then when you have a platform like Facebook where you know the entire world can see what you're doing I mean that's very enticing for somebody who wants their names like out there and this has just been a thing that then going on with like criminal psychology that's been going on for a really long time like it goes all the way back to like Jack the Ripper who would like leave notes son of Sam who would send his letters to the you know newspapers this is pretty much just the evolution of that man that is messed up I mean like but that's that's like really being pushed into hyperdrive because it's not regionalised or nationalized this is something where like the Cleveland situation was international and it was international very quickly so that's really unfortunate that we have gotten to this point just to affirm Assad in the chat is asking if we're referring to the killing situation on Facebook recorded live and yes that is unfortunately what we are talking about today Josh extends on your thought alfred where the crimes come from people looking to go down for the infamy of their crimes yeah it's absolutely the case but how do we not how is this not further punished against you know somebody is essentially broadcasting their location you know everybody's phone is traceable how are these people not immediately brought to justice uh in certain well I'll let you take that one well it's very difficult to report it to law enforcement like immediately when it happens that's what Facebook is having a lot of trouble with right now and then it's you know to report it like that quickly and then to reach Facebook's desk like before like anything bad happens it's it's very difficult for law enforcement for that to work for that you know Facebook would like need their own like police force or something like that to be able to dispatch on their own like in every state or right wherever Facebook is used which again is very difficult and that that's the problem here I mean the most they can do is hire like more people to moderate these so they can get you know they can at least respond fast they can get to these reports faster they can get the reports to the police in the corresponding state faster but the the unfortunate issue as far as like punishment goes like somebody most of the times people don't get arrested for this like in the case of the Cleveland guy while police were like searching for him he ended up just like killing himself to in a standoff the situation in Thailand was similar where that was a murder-suicide so it's really like notoriety any of these sick people who go in and shoot up a school right sound so crass they're not looking to get out this the other side yeah yeah unfortunately which means that like when you have a platform like this it's a way for them as we've been talking about you get the immediacy of that notoriety and you're not really looking to get away you know yeah that's that's what happened two years ago in Virginia too but this one was on periscope instead right where the the two reporters were shot live on air oh yeah both when they were live on TV and his own like periscope right yeah man that was really that was a tough one to know let's not pretend that there aren't always going to be sick people out there doing sick things it's just disturbing how easy that it becomes part of our front page anymore you know I think what's interesting or unfortunate about it is is that Zuckerberg and you know the other Facebook folks go and they present concepts like Facebook live as like isn't this fun isn't this interesting and it like when was it introduced just last year no we like longer than that probably like two years ago so either way - yeah we're still we're still very much in the early days of this and it's already like turned into a pretty unfortunate Pandora's box I've certainly wondered like would they ever get rid of Facebook live I really don't see that as a possibility but let's be honest here it's not Facebook's fault you know it's simply as long as there is an avenue for someone to broadcast and there always will be from this point on forward till forever and ever it's not Facebook's fault if Twitter beat them to the live video thing to be Twitter's problem and like you said periscope I mean he'll live stream there's a thousand different platforms out there this could be happening on of course it the volume is there due to the sheer size of Facebook mm-hmm that's all it really whittles down - right so are they also on top of the monitoring I also do wonder if they're going to try to create a few more hoops - for folks to jump through if they actually do want to go live like I know that's the thing you know the smart thing to do would to be basically be able to monitor it on Facebook life before it's broadcasted but then one that's not exactly live anymore and it's the purpose and - everyone can lie on that you know it's not like somebody's gonna fill out like some kind of form saying what they're going on for right Facebook will no that's not perhaps there should just simply be more restrictions as far as what accounts are allowed to broadcast live maybe just the average user especially something like perhaps a throwaway account that could be created just for instances like this there needs to be some kind of they're like more in pensive verification process and I got that blue check yeah but then let that goes into that dig digs into a deeper issue of basically like censorship on Facebook's and there's a lot of scenarios where there's like police brutality I don't move on that like it it gets outed on Facebook live and then in one scenario I can't remember like where exactly to happen but I know what happened last July where a man was shot by a police officer and it was on Facebook live and Facebook took it down and everyone rail rallied against Facebook saying like why are you censoring this kind of like and it fit oh it fit the bill for the other situation its brutality yeah but I no matter how you spin it yes who really needs to butter Manning to see it that's a newish it was actually West it was it was in that particular case that was deemed as newsworthy and I think Facebook did actually end up putting that back on they did um so the the I mean like but that really just presents how complicated this is is we're literally a shooting or a killing isn't the baseline where you say if it's a shooting or killing it should never go on Facebook apparently not so that just shows how hard and how complicated the problem is for yeah Facebook or as you said you know Twitter Google you know with YouTube any of these guys and even it is certainly not a question I would want you have to answer mm-hmm and even even things that aren't like as gruesome as like a suicide or a murder like there was a video last year this mother like basically beating her teen daughter like on Facebook life as like a punishment yep and she did it on the girls account so all her friends saw which like wow just multiple levels of off use and Facebook kept that video up for like a really long time until it had been reported and that's that's the other issue too like it's parenting and it goes on in the home and it's awful but at the same time it's like this is abuse you know and people really shouldn't have to see this on on Facebook and I think ultimately a lot of people really just had the problem of Facebook slow response it wasn't so much as it because I appreciate what you're saying as far as like how how much should really be blaming Facebook for this but at the same time we should blame Facebook hey I'm not here trying to over defend anything no not at all I'm just we should rest something oh so horrifying right my argument is we should blame them if they're not responding to it appropriately they're too slow to respond to it and Zuckerberg has obviously shown the point that we don't have enough resources that's why we're going to hire an additional 3,000 people and right the problem with this is you know unlike videos that are already just just normally uploaded to Facebook or photos that are normally uploaded to Facebook they can't do algorithms that scrub like videos while their life and being broadcasted like they have you know BOTS that you know can track down like any kind of like child pornography or like graphic images that if they see if the bot spots it it'll automatically like take it down yeah but they can't do that for live so that's why they need to hire like all these like thousands of more people right it's just sad that we've gotten to this point and for the record I do applaud Facebook for this effort we'll have to come back and redress the question whether this will be enough and how it will actually pan out in the long run but let's jump into the chat because we're getting some really good feedback uh Scott points out that no matter what platform unfortunately this will happen but surely Facebook has rolled us out quick surely they should have rolled out Facebook live country-by-country and scaled up slowly that's a fair argument and maybe they should have - great point a better trial process to kind of see where people help you yet their original trial process was we're only giving it to select celebrities that like the rock was like one of the first people on and they did it from a red carpet then their second stage was we're only giving it to verified users so journalists all these people could use it and then it was it's going to be available to everybody which makes no sense because there you can't get a gauge of the public by we're only giving it to news organizations and celebrities because they're not gonna there they don't have the same mindset that you know the entire world has totally it makes no sense is it to have that like kind of roll out yeah yeah just uh to be fair though let's let's be honest and take a bit of a light air on this for a second most people suck at it yeah at Facebook live it live yeah I mean that is a very good point that we're talking about present company possibly included but we are talking about an extremely small percentage like an infinite bit like like a really really tiny percentage of the actual Facebook live videos but you know if they're it's creating a problem regardless like obviously one or two of these is too much yeah this is the problems like live in general I I don't see the Internet's like insatiable demand like and like why they want everything to be live currently is it just doesn't make that much sense it's just a trend right yeah it's it remember just even a couple of years ago live was almost a dirty word everybody wanted on-demand and now live it's become kind of fun then right now we've already ruined it because yeah it's unfortunately you like it's very hard to moderate things that are going on live like even like professional like teams on like Saturday Night Live or like during the Grammys or anything like that if something goes wrong like that's it like you can't do anything to kind of take that back so you know giving that kind of ability for everyone or broadcast it is weird it's very short-sighted on on Facebook's and to do something like this where you know we have all these millions billions of people that are using it that anybody can see at any time and we're going live with it what could possibly go wrong yeah I just like the comment from Yasu says you can't blame the internet for all things people are doing and expanding on that don't worry comments are the gun manufacturers at fault for a shooter no but they do have major regulations as an excellent point to bring up it's not you know what's that what's the phrase cuz guns don't kill people people kill people yeah sure so how how is it exactly is this Facebook initiative 3000 3000 more moderate moderators going to pan out I'm very eager to see because it's very very disturbing I mean chances are they're probably going to hire even more people after that like adding 3,000 there will be 7,500 I still don't think that's enough right global population millions of reports a week yeah for like 7,500 people there's no way that being said it seems like a fairly robust number maybe it isn't as far as like one could make the argument that it's just a band-aid or it's not nearly enough and we'll just have to follow up and say no and now solution is you know what's wrong with the human race I guess so but like it goes back to my point of understand that video is where a lot of the money is being made these days and this is this is what a lot of the audience once and if 99.99% of people are actually doing it reasonably why get rid of it entirely however that very very small segment is is causing enormous problems and is really I think is creating a lot of harm for Facebook if not just Facebook live so I've got a little more input from land of fire says charge them for it when charging them monitor them honestly that's a noble thought but I do not think that I'm imposing any kind of fee to use Facebook live would stop somebody who ultimately thinks like well I'm going to end my own life well it would it would stop the hordes of reports coming in I think is a thing so instead of like them having to deal with oh why is this birthday party being reported for Facebook live oh it's just like a false flag I think would like severely reduce the number of false flags if that were they so they actually focus on the right-half that's a good point yeah excellent point it's it's an impossible but like getting Pete like starting to charge people on Facebook for that kind of stuff I think would really turn people off I mean like yeah that's yeah by reducing the amount of false flags would also be like no one is using Facebook live which is much I would be ok with yeah all right just cuz we gotta lighten up a little bit before we hit the road just so we can palate cleanser little bit if we if we would let's just talk about Apple real quick are we getting Apple questions by the way we have one good comment from a imagine soggy are good longtime friend he just says if Apple keeps on raising that price people might just start keeping their phones longer they already are yeah yeah I mean we're already seeing the replacement cycle extend for phones you you've got essentially two segments of the population at least in the United States where people either upgrade every year because they want the latest and the greatest or they upgrade every three to four to five years so if Apple just keeps raising its price you're gonna see more people just pushing out that RIM citation they're lowering the the quality of the phone so you don't have a choice maybe mine mine took a little bit of a Seltzer bath the other day and it's been dead yeah it's gone it's a they definitely want you to keep buying it but you you know you can't make it so crappy that people want to move on to a different companies I mean that sounds like the dilemma though where like if they're making this like super high-end phone that's like is the best phone ever it is it's incredible and then like and then you have to pay like a thousand dollars for and it just gets to a point like well why would I ever buy like an another phone well I'll give you an excuse she's just like the next one is gonna have just slightly better something yeah but then if like the next one is like oh this one's a thousand and two hundred dollars like why no I'm not this is like I already spent $1,000 on this I know they're not gonna do this but I would really appreciate it if they made you know of the three iPhones that we here are going to be coming out I would like it if they made just a fourth one that had a headphone jack in it that would be really nice just out of spite just know just that that's the one that I would despite themselves I know that I I know that I know that Rogers the kind of dude that replaces his phone at the drop of a hat but my personal rule is I don't upgrade anything until it starts a belching fire right as well you drop it in try out sir Andromeda and seltzer yeah all right that's been a really good discussion I'm glad that didn't get too heavy too depressing yeah thanks everybody so very much for joining us for that Asad right before we leave he's asking about the surface laptop we actually covered that on yesterday's episode onyx check it out yesterday's episode in detail and there's several videos up on CNET and on a youtube that we're doing preemptive reviews and first takes on it so go check those out and hopefully that will hold you over until we get one in front of us here yeah we'll be back tomorrow hopefully with some lighter fare but yeah thanks everybody for joining us for the slightly more serious 359 let's let's round it out guys the 359 podcast is available on iTunes TuneIn stitcher SoundCloud Feedburner Google Play Music and of course on CNET com thanks for watching everybody thanks we'll see you tomorrow May the 3rd to be with you