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Land of the Giants

The Facebook Election

Land of the Giants

Vox Media Podcast Network

Technology, Society & Culture, Business

4.62.3K Ratings

🗓️ 10 August 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Facebook used to brag about how its tools helped politicians swing elections. Now, the platform’s relationship to politics is much more complicated. Today: the story of how one politician again and again forced Zuckerberg to confront his own role in democracy. This episode hosted by Alex Heath (@alexeheath) Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear next week's episode by hitting the plus sign in your favorite podcast app Follow @recode and @verge for more coverage of Meta and Big Tech Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:07.6

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0:28.6

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0:35.2

all-wheel drive, which is bound to add a little more acceleration to your next drive. Your Genesis

0:41.1

GB70 is waiting for you. What will you begin? Learn more at Genesis.com. Genesis, keep beginning.

0:58.6

A student at Harvard builds a website for ranking classmates on campus by hotness. Then he builds a

1:05.6

college directory. Facebook's origin story is well known. That's why it was curious when in

1:12.1

October of 2019, Mark Zuckerberg tried to recast it around a much loftier idea. Back when when I was

1:20.0

in college, our country had just gone to war in Iraq. And I remember feeling that if more people

1:28.0

had a voice to share their experiences, then maybe it could have gone differently. This is

1:35.0

Zuckerberg framed by a giant American flag speaking to a packed room at Georgetown University.

1:41.4

And those early years shaped my belief that giving more people a voice gives power to the powerless

1:49.1

and pushes society to get better over time. The timing of this speech was pretty revealing.

1:54.5

Next on his DCI tinerary in just a few days, Zuckerberg would testify before Congress.

2:00.2

It would be his second experience getting grilled on Capitol Hill since he appeared the year before

2:05.1

to explain how Russia weaponized Facebook ahead of the US election.

2:09.7

There was growing concern that Facebook, with its more than two billion users, had become

2:14.8

too powerful. Concerns politicians had campaigned on.

2:18.8

I guess Mark Zuckerberg, I'm looking at you.

2:23.6

And here was Zuckerberg giving a speech in the nation's Capitol trying to position his company

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