'An Ugly Truth' Examines Facebook's Desire To Dominate

KQED's Forum

KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 21 July 2021

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

President Joe Biden lashed out at Facebook last week, saying the site was killing people by spreading coronavirus-vaccine misinformation. As New York Times reporters Cecilia Kang and Sheera Frenkel highlight in their new book An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebooks Battle for Domination, conspiracy theories and hate speech are not just problems that plague the company, they are the inevitable byproducts of the company's algorithms which keep users glued to the screen and mines their data. Relying on 400 interviews of current and former employees and executives, Kang and Frankel give an insiders view of how Facebook influenced the 2016 election, the Trump era and the January 6th insurrection and how the company struggles to create policies that can stay ahead of the challenges created by its own technology. We talk to Kang and Frenkel about their book, and growing tensions between Facebook and the Biden administration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for Kikiweedy Podcasts comes from Rancho La Puerta, a resort with 85 years of wellness experience.
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1:00.3	From KQED, public radio in San Franciscoisco i'm alexis madrigal facebook the corporation is worth nearly a trillion
1:17.1	dollars facebook the suite of apps that includes facebook instagram and whats app is coming up on three
1:22.5	billion users but facebook the social and political actor in global life, is run by a coterie around Mark Zuckerberg.
1:29.9	And it's this power structure that is the subject of a new book by New York Times reporters Shira Frankel and Cecilia Kong, the ugly truth inside Facebook's battle for domination.
1:39.3	Their creation may be nearly beyond comprehension, but the leaders of the institution are not.
1:43.9	And we'll talk with the authors about vaccine misinformation, populist politicians, but the leaders of the institution are not. And we'll talk with
1:44.6	the authors about vaccine misinformation, populist politicians, and the Biden administration's new
1:49.3	antitrust team. That's all next on Forum after this news.
1:57.9	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Facebook happened to the world, and for the past decade, so many of us have been trying to figure out what that means for our friendships, our democracy, our ourselves.
2:10.3	Meanwhile, the company has never been more profitable because of its tremendous reach into the phones and minds of people around the world.
2:17.9	Are the goals of its leaders, Mark Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg,
2:21.3	compatible with the country we want?
	...

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