this video will make you angry




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hello there I just had a terrifying thought so I figured hey I'll just
come to let you know about it cuz I'm sure that you don't have enough
to worry about right now I think a lot about social media and I think
a lot about content and like how by content in platforms interface and
also like the human behavior that that like exists in between those
things and some of the economics that exists that like to to sort of
like push for or against one or the other of those things and here's
something that like is true of content the the more people want to do
this job that I have the the harder they will work for it and and hard
work functions and I'm I'm sorry that I'm like a 40 year old judgmental
old man now but this functions in two different ways one as you create
higher quality content that doesn't have to mean more expensive content
but it doesn't usually mean harder work sometimes it can mean really good
ideas but it's usually some combination of hard work and good ideas and
more money and then there's this like other thing there are folks who
will also differentiate themselves not with money not with quality but
by being you know by pushing boundaries and I think that's something
like sometimes you get like yes go push boundaries there are lots of
boundaries that you know we don't know whether they're necessary until we
push on them but but also like sometimes it's just like this is clearly
destructive destructive stuff for kids and dad and they don't like it
so like there's there's also that thing and then I think back to how
YouTube started which is it was pushing a boundary it wasn't pushing a
cultural boundary was pushing a legal one and that legal boundary was
copyright lots of stuff was getting uploaded a YouTube daily show clips
families Family Guy Clips and people were going to youtube to watch
that stuff that they couldn't find any other way you'd have to watch a
whole up is that a Family Guy if you wanted to see just the funny part
that is kind of the story of a of social platforms and I think even you
know you could you could imagine Facebook this way where Facebook didn't
think it ton about the significance of the impact that they might have
before launching and like their their thesis was move fast and break
things and you know I don't think they meant to mock receipt but here we
are not broken but you know dented and now we are entering into the era
where these platforms and really there aren't that many of them there's
Twitter Facebook Amazon through twitch and and YouTube Google but then
you've got like a couple of minor players like Snap which has managed to
maintain its independence despite and then once it was clear that they
were going to do that Facebook just just went after them and mostly you
know neutralized a lot of what of snaps competitive advantage but but what
you didn't see was snap really moving fast and breaking things there's
a little bit of that when they launched they're like like location cloud
feature there was some concern about how that might be used for privacy
stuff but for the most part to me Snap feels like it's moved out of the
realm where it's going to do something that's sort of like super weirdly
world-changing and but but in a like a destructive way or either or a
constructive way like it just sort of seems like it's going to exist and
do its thing and be good at messaging and be good at like certain certain
kinds of communities I don't use it very much anymore though so what do
I know and then we get to tick-tock which i think is really interesting
not just from the like it's its own self but like what it might mean for
the future and I think what it might mean for the future is that we in
the US for two different reasons can't create things like this that move
fast and break stuff and so we won't anymore the two reasons are monopoly
because Facebook and Google and Amazon won't let it happen they'll snatch
it up or they'll crush it and - because we care down we're terrified
we're like our regulators are starting to pay attention we've got some
people in there who actually understand any of this we've got journalists
who are writing stories about it we've got we've got critics we've got
op-eds we've got all the things people being like actually we're worried
and we should be more careful with this because we have no idea what the
impacts are and they could be pretty severe we're seeing an increase in
teen depression and teen suicide we're seeing more misinformation and
it's spreading faster and like all that stuff's worrying and so like we're
gonna pay attention and and these main companies are gonna invest less in
this kind of content it is kind of these kind of companies so Facebook
in Google mostly also Amazon are going to invest less in content type
in like content platforms they're going to push them less they're not
and they're going to compete them out because they have the power to do
that so now what you have is like back to my original conversation here
the reason I brought up the content because like I see things through
the lens of content you can't compete on quality you can't compete on
money and so you have to compete on being on that outskirts a little
bit and UK if you can't do that inside of America because of you know
fear of regulation and this like overwhelming monopoly that we're dealing
with then you like the entrants almost definitionally have to be from
elsewhere and start and build in other markets before coming into the US
and that's really scary to me one of the big reasons that I'm terrified
of Google and Facebook is because we live there and they are corporations
and so I live in a company town that is called YouTube and that's where
I run my business I spend a lot of my time there I socialize there so
in other other places that are corporations Twitter and Facebook and
and I you know a lot of socialization happens on the inside of Apple's
ecosystems and the inside of Facebook's ecosystems so like we now live
I've talked about this on this channel before inside of corporate spaces
places that are we we have no voting rights but we do live there there
we're like social interaction happens and I don't think that you can call
it anything but like living so we live in spaces that are controlled
by corporations tik-tok it's a little a little more worrying even than
that one because like it's already a corporation so you have to worry
about all the same stuff but then also it's a Chinese corporation which
means it has to abide by all kinds of China's specific rules that mean
you know censorship is more easy they can sort of act like the Chinese
government can ask for data and the you know in the US there are pretty
serious rules against like when and how data can be shared with the
government in China they there are none so that's that that's a thing
of concern and then also like just Jen's is just generally because like
China the state has a lot more involvement in corporations and the state
is one that has a somewhat antagonistic relationship with other states
particularly the US and and Europe you know you start to wonder like could
this be both data and also systems of control that might be useful to an
you know government to a state and that's like how do you dinner faced
with that and then the other reason that this freaks me out is is bit
like there's there's this thing that nobody like that that the platforms
will say that I don't want to believe but I don't know if I don't know
if I actually don't believe it so what they say is you need to be this
big you need to be Facebook big in order to deal with the problems that
Facebook has created and yeah and so like so just put it another way
Facebook is only useful to to us because a lot of it has everybody uses
Facebook and everybody's there and we can see like all of our cousin's
kids pictures so that Network effect is the thing that makes Facebook
useful and then that Network effect also creates all of these problems
with regard to like how the algorithm you know keeps people on the site
and and so like we need the algorithm to to make the network effect so
that the product will be useful but the algorithm is maybe taking certain
people who have you know fairly strong political persuasions and putting
them down rabbit holes that make those make them more extreme in their
beliefs create filter bubbles create people who are and and one of the
things that Facebook says I love this is they're like people on Facebook
actually see a greater diversity of perspectives than people who aren't
on Facebook this is so enthusiasts because it's absolutely true but you
know what the perspective when I go on Facebook the perspectives that
I see from the other side aren't like you know here's my nuanced take
on why it's actually like why I actually should have be able to have a
handgun what I see are liberals posting the craziest conservative shit
they can find just the like that's so I'm exposed to that shit but I'm
exposed to the worst of it right that's not that's how the filter bubble
actually works that's the really insidious thing about it isn't hearing
your own beliefs parroted back at you it's hearing the craziest most
disgusting meanest most fucked-up things that the other side says that
and like yeah I'm being exposed to those people but it's the it's it's
the way that the filter bubble exposes you to the worst of it that's
the end in like it makes you more scared and it happens on both sides
and like yeah liberals say a lot of shitty stuff too and so they'll see
the shitty stuff and so just because you're being exposed to a diversity
of viewpoints doesn't mean that you're not being like pushed into and
more extreme viewpoints as we move along Facebook is saying that that in
any platform that actually had the level of network effects necessary
for it to be a useful social platform there would be massive problems
with content moderation and so you need to be very big and have a lot
of resources to throw at the content moderation problem both in terms of
human moderators and in terms of machine moderators this is the case that
YouTube that Google and Facebook are making and and that if you fracture
them up if you break them apart like if you take Instagram and put it
over on the side then Instagram says our entire team now is smaller than
the Facebook content moderation team and so we have fewer resources with
which to tackle these problems this is gotta be bullshit right except
I'm afraid that it isn't I'm afraid that these are really big problems
and then the network effects do actually require the platforms to be
this big and that any platform this link would have these problems and
if we have smaller networks there was recently I can't remember what it
was called but there was a platform lunch that was basically designed
to sell weed but also was like an anonymous and and open I don't know a
social network of a sort and of course it immediately devolved into gore
and bad porn not the good porn and then yeah Blake stuff that illegal
stuff because it was out there being anonymous and and a bunch of people
are like oh hey I don't know it probably still exists I clearly can't
remember what it's called it's read an article about that does make me
worried and like tick tock makes me worried that it's sort of like when
you win a new platform arises it doesn't have to be beholden to all of
these these you know current regulations or current like concerns about
regulations that the existing platforms need to be concerned about and
that's the only thing that's gonna like it's the only chink in the armor
so one thing I will say about antitrust is that we need to create space
for growth and if like we have these three big trees that are shading
out the entire ground nothing else will ever happen but if the only hole
that we allow is is like you can be small enough to avoid regulation
or small enough to avoid the fear of regulation or you know like that's
that's the that's the only like competitive advantage any any platform
can have then the only platforms that are gonna rise up are going to be
worse than the ones we have now not maybe not in terms of like creative
ecosystem actually think that tick-tocks creative ecosystem is really
great but in terms of like caring about the impact that the platform
will have on the world and I think that any platform right now in the
u.s. that's getting the funding is probably trying to be more careful
about that stuff then then like less careful like tick tock is and I
think that that means that none of them will succeed because there's
that's the only chink in the armor it's the only the only beam of light
coming through the forest canopy is like it is like concern about like
harming the world and if you have a company that's like okay well that
I won't be concerned about harming the world for the first couple of
years and that'll be my competitive advantage then then suddenly that's
every platform that you have if that's the only array of light that's
the only thing you'll get which is why we need to think up cut down
these trees like we need to make space I hesitate to even say it because
like I benefit from YouTube's fucking monopoly and video because like
I have a good position on YouTube I have successful channels that have
subscribers that like I understand how this system works and a new one
would be confusing to me and I have good relationships with the people
who work at you to the infringed power structures don't want to talk
about this and like if I'm talking about it it's only because I'm like
a fucking like you can't keep my mouth shut about things I perceive
as like like concerning and just or interesting so this is the thing
that I'm worried about that there is no competitive advantages except
caring less about the impact that the platform has in the world in the
same way that you know one of the competitive advantages of that content
creators were able to go after you know as you know YouTube has gotten
more crowded is being like more risque and and not caring as much about
the impact that you have unlike the children that are watching your video
and I don't think that I have to say out loud the names of some of the
content creators who do that stuff but like they're out there and I like
and also I think that it's really interesting to watch them as they as
they like get a chance to like interact with the people who are fans of
their content and see them sort of moderate what they do / like they get
their their their audience power and then they recognize that they're not
going to get like like deals with media companies and and you know like
sponsorships if they don't sort of tone it down so it's like ultimately
the thing that keeps us all behaving on these platforms in the long run
is that advertisers won't work with you if you don't fit a certain mold
and that I think sometimes actually is you know this is like 40 year
old dad talking but sometimes actually good sometimes very very bad
and you know I think that it's it's good when it's actually considering
like okay you know children have to be thought of differently in terms
of what content is created for them it's bad when it's like okay but we
don't want to put push certain ideas because they're you know bad for the
status quo not this is like less about children more about you know sort
of protecting entrenched power structures so that's that's where were at