Transcripts For CSPAN3 Millennial Generation 20240622

The things that the occupy movement brought up, whether it means the affordability of college, right . The 1 . Those things are still happening. I actually think the movement is still continuing. Maybe its just different. That is whats different about our generation. Were still the civil rights movement, unfortunately it still has to happen in our day and age. Im sure during lbj and Martin Luther king jr. s time, they would have never wanted us to continue to have to fight that. We see it today. Through the eric garner stuff. I want to ask. I get asked by friends all the time, who are overseas, living in arab countries, they cant understand after the arab spring why young people dont stand up more and protest, and arent out in the streets. If the situation is really that bad, why dont we speak up. Is there something to this point that young people just engage differently when they want to make their voices heard and not maybe in the 60s sensibility of what it meant to be an activist . I want to say yes and no. If thats a fair answer to make. I think that theres still a lot of folks who are engaging in direct actions. You see them in ferguson, you see them in staten island. You see people who are doing the action tactics. I think whats different about this generation is our ability to amplify those beyond those whom they would normally affect, especially using social media and other forms of technology. Weve seen black twitter, names who were not in the news at all all of a sudden became news stories by organizations that wouldnt have picked them up before. The ability to amplify things from the ground level is different, because we have technology that facilitates that. Which i think says something for how establishment institutions need to think about how theyre going to engage in our generation. We still havent figured out how young people and the communities that weve built online and in person are actually going to be able to marry with institutions like government, like large corporations, things of that nature. Thats still something we have to sort out. I think its kind of a combo of both, to your point. Yes, theres protesting. And that can be part of a movement. But also, theres sort of phases to it. Movement in the 80s in the United States where a lot of gay men in new york and San Francisco were protesting. And then they realized that even though they didnt know policy, they were mainly, you know, kind of the big leaders in this base. Were lawyers, were working in real estate. They learned everything about policy, and then went to the nih and were able to speak to what they were dealing with. That looks very different than standing in the streets. But its equally if not so more important because it changes policy that affect millions of more peoples lives. So i think we need to remember that its both. Theres one thats much more of a stark image that you can remember in your mind. Theres one thats going on behind closed doors that we all need to be a part of. Its kind of all of our responsibility to be educated on how that can happen also. I want to ask specifically, because i know its something thats important to all of you about National Service. And i think another way of asking the question is, president obama in 2008, you know, i distinctly remember his victory speech where he came out and said, this is a great victory. But this is about you, not about me. For this to be a real victory, Everybody Needs to do service in their communities. I wonder what you think about whether or not thats happening. Are young people as motivated and engaged we obviously saw a huge amount of enthusiasm in the beginning of the president presidency. Lots of friends of mine who had never heard of Community Service and what that was, all of a sudden were doing Community Service. Teach for america and things like that. I was reading a story recently about sort of enrollment numbers for tfa going down over the last two years. I wonder, you know, what you would all say about that. Is National Service again, you know, a way of asking is it still happening . Barbara . Maybe its because what i work on every day, but i you know, i see hundreds of people joining Global Health care every year. Theyre all 30 and under. Average age is 26, so theyre young. 40 are quitting their jobs to work on issues that they care about. 40 masters degrees. Theyre essentially trying to figure out how they fit into building a healthier world. We, as i mentioned before, we accept 2 of the people that apply. Were fighters. So were basically a startup. The fact that people are coming to an organization that doesnt have a big name, trying to figure out how to work on these issues says a lot to me. But on the tfa, i read that article also. I mean, i dont know that its sort of a defeat for them. I think if you ask them five years ago, where do you think your application numbers will be, they wouldnt have even dreamed of where they were going to be last year, or the year before. And so their numbers rose enormously after 2008. And that was huge. And i dont think that theyve dropped presort of 2008 numbers right now. So i think it can be perceived in different ways. And i mean, i meet people every single day that are basically begging us, like how can i figure out how to work on Health Issues . Im not a doctor or a nurse. How do i get my foot in the door . That means people want to serve. Service may look different. It may not look like government, it may look like working on challenging issues. I would agree that service does take place in a lot of different ways. For us, 80 of the folks in our network go into public service, in government or the nonprofit sector. Were working with a lot of young people who are really dedicated to that. Were now ten years old. We were founded off of the idea aside from just putting boots on the ground, young people can change the policy process with their own ideas. Thats sustained us over ten years. Now we have folks in State Government running for office, working in the white house. I think there is a generation of having a narrative to serve. I want to ask just before getting to you, sara, specifically we had a writer on mlk day this year who talked about, as he called it, the santa claus iification of the mlk day. As 9 11 and mlk have become big National Days of service. As he put it, a little bit of it obscures what the purpose of the day was to begin with. Im not sure if i agree with that or not, but i wanted to throw that out there as an idea. I would be interested to know how you react to that. The big National Days of service, are they the right way to think about National Service for this generation specifically, or maybe not . Well, im going to address actual actually the teachers here. I am a teacher alum. That was a way for me to get into National Service. I was an alum in 2005. It was an incredible way to jump in, and after two years i went to the hill for five years. I really truly believed legislation was a way to affect the schools in the classroom. And the programs that theyre doing are encouraging people to leave their jobs. And with the new generation, to look at things such as startups as a way of being part of the social movement and having National Service. There are plenty of startups from our generation that are really helping people. For instance, some in the audience shouted out because i do not remember off the top of my head, there is an app for women, when theyve been sexually assaulted on the street does anybody holler back app, yes. Thats an i mean, thats an incredible app. Its allowing government throughout the nation to be able to look at that data, and see this is a real problem. And that conversation has been spurred. I think looking at it a little differently is what National Service actually is, has also changed in our generation. As for Santa Clausing holidays, i am of the opinion that if you can get more people out on a date, to go into your community and have that one experience where they have that spark to go to barbara and say, i want to do this more, i dont see that as, you know, a bad thing. Its hard for me to say that for us to push it on a national front, Everyone Needs to come out is bad. I dont. Okay. Im a believer of more questions from the audience and not less. So maybe ill just do one or two more and then open it up. I want to ask one question about political participation. You mentioned this earlier. But i think another issue for this generation is sort of the barriers to entry for running for office, or participating in elected political life. And, you know, from my experience, this generation looks at elected political life a lot differently than others. Running for office, or working on the hill may or may not actually be the best way to participate in service. As weve been discussing. I would be interested to hear what you have to say, joelle. What are the Biggest Barriers for young people participating in politics . Or why are young people not doing it more . To be frank, people in Political Office today oftentimes i mean, we look at the news, and we see all of this infighting, all this bickering over things that dont seem to matter, versus the big issues that are affecting us. Like young people getting jobs, or doing something about Climate Change, making sure that everyone has health care for all. Those are the issues that young people are invested in. But then we dont see that happening in congress, right . We hear about corporate interest. The revolving door happening between big Financial Firms and the u. S. Government. We think, you know, well, why would i want to be that person . But that doesnt mean that i dont think young people believe in the potential for government. The Campus Network ran a project called government signed for, where we surveyed thousands of people across the country about what their views were about government. You get a different answer than what you think what government is. We think government can provide for the common good, and serve as a source for innovation, scaling innovation. Frankly, no one can scale innovation like government can. I think that what matters is that we invest in organizations, we invest in local and State Governments, and places where we can gain access, where we can provide opportunities for participation at a wider scale. I think that groundswell can lead to wide changing government. Dream job, startup, politics . One or the other . What . I think probably more times than most, if im going to run for office, you know, i dont know. My inkling is thats a no. But i think a dream job is really continuing to do what im doing. Thats pushing my josh and my office is sometimes on a very small level of being a Public Relation to the community. And i think whatever i do when i grow up is going to have to be something that is connected to service. Because it is important for us to reconnect. But i do want to touch on how we can be more politically active and want to be in office. And thats if more of us start voting. First of all, i dont understand why election day isnt a national holiday. If we want to talk about Santa Clausing things, give people an opportunity to not have an excuse not to vote. That have national holidays. I think thats a huge, huge thing that would actually change a lot of whats going on in congress. Because when we vote, were influencing who steps through that door on capitol hill. Unfortunately, like joelle said, maybe a lot of us didnt drop off between 2010 and 2014, but theres still not enough of us. If you look at who voted in the Mayoral Campaign in new york state, it was less than 10 of people who voted in the primary. Less than 10 of new york city chose who our mayor was going to be. I think if we start voting more, and we start seeing people that we that reflect who we are, and electoratedriven congress, i think were going to see changes. And i think were going to be more inspired to be in office. And ill have an easier answer when someone comes to me and tells me im wrong. Barbara . Dream jobs startup versus you can give us that. Not startup, but 5yearold organization. I have no interest in running for office. I love policy. And i dont love politics. And i think that thats okay. And i love working with people every day that are trying to figure out how they can learn skills on the ground right now so theyre very informed for positions of greater influence. I promise this is going to be my last one and it will take maybe two minutes. Ill do a few quick hits. You can give a one tweet or oneword answer for these, okay . I think the first thing, what would you say to the one thing that people over 50 dont understand about young people . [ laughter ] i guess i would say inner connectivity. What do you mean by that . You said one word. I was like inner connectivity. I think, you know, the way that were connected, whether its through our devices, on our phones, you know, like barbara mentioned globally even, is something that i think maybe someone over 50 might not quite understand. Some people do. My moms on facebook and twitter. She does her thing. But i think people assume that the way that were interconnected is that were selfabsorbed. Because were constantly sharing and putting things on twitter and instagram, that its a sign were not paying attention. I think it can be indicative of the potential for connectivity that we have, and how that connectivity can actually be used for broader scale change. When it comes to things like civic technology, where folks are actually taking advantage of that connectivity, to actually build stronger communities, you know, allow for sharing of resources, theres a lot of potential there. So id say interconnectivity for that reason. Let me do a different one, just to change it up. What should our leaders know about young people . Sara . What should our leaders know . Yes. That were watching you. That were watching you and well tell everyone what you do. Yes . Everyones got their phones . Its true. I think that if leaders understood that how many of us have seen and we have a couple of politicians in new york who have done something really dumb on twitter, or facebook, or have done something very dumb and it blasts through the news i mean, were watching you. And we have this tool, like im more than my phone, this is not a distraction, this is a tool. Im going to tell the world. Im going to let them know what youre doing. Okay, barbara, your opinion of les shark at the super bowl . Amazing, inspirational. Let me ask a real question. What do i want to ask you . I guess, whats the one issue that you think will be most important for young people in 2016 . My goodness. So many. Well, i think this gets back to the millennial. This is not a oneword answer, but i think we all have issues that are important to us, and important to our communities and important to where we live. Not saying that theres one issue that is important, because every issue is connected. And figuring out how to have a bigger lens, thinking about solving each issue. And my last thing to copy your question to her is, i never really understand why older people are like, well, i dont understand millennials. You can ask people what theyre interested in. You can ask them how they want to communicate and how they would want to partner with you. Instead of categorizing one group of this elusive group, we all have the power to make relationships with people. Im going to close just by doing a quick survey of the audience. On the question of what issue most young people are interested in in 2016, mic surveys our readers, and we recently did a survey, and i just want to get a quick show of hands, or somebody can shout it out, what do people think the most important Foreign Policy issue is . I think this was by a 44 margin guess. Its not les shark. Anybody . Yeah . Global warming . Ding, ding, ding, you got it. Totally. Youre a reporter, i think, right . [ laughter ] we polled our audience and in fact Climate Change was the most important issue for the Foreign Policy. On national issues, what do people think . Immigration. Immigration. Anybody else . Jobs, marriage equality. Economy. Related to economy is income inequality and disparity. Did you say that . We should have a prize. Income inequality was the most Important National issue. I dont know if theyre going to be the most important issues for 2016, but i thought it was interesting. Lets open it up for questions. I want to remind everybody, if youre going to ask a question, use the microphone. Youre going to be on cspan. I know there are a lot of millennials watching cspan. Youre going to be on cspan, so if people want to tweet, ill have my phone also. I heard jon stewart is going to be on cspan. Raise your hand. I think we have a mic coming around. Can you hear me . Yep. Im a researcher. And what the model that im always asked about, you mentioned religious institutions, health care brands. Everybodys talking about engagement. The next step they ask me is, what about loyalty . If i get someone to engage a candidate, can i make them a lifelong exparty person or exgrant person or exreligious institution person . Is that a model, or broken older model . I can take that, because i think about this a lot. I think its absolutely true that once you become locked in to a loyal brand person, youre locked in for good. Theres plenty of examples of brands that have done this really well with this demographic, whether its whole foods, or others. I think thats actually why youve seen many, many more brands coming out on twitter during big events, like the super bowl, or other big events. And actually, like, making their social issues you know, their policies on social issues known. Youve seen many, many more Brands Taking a stand on gay rights, taking a stand on Climate Change. People are recognizing that, you know, for millennials, once you sort of buy into the ethos in a brand, youre sort of locked in for good. And youre eating at whole foods, because even though its really expensive, you have as much agreement and philosophy of the company as you do the product. For politicians, i think authenticity is really, really important. So the best example of somebody who uses facebook and twitter well is cory booker. I think. Hes tweeting every day, i think theres only one person who has access to his twitter account other than him. Hes actually on twitter all day responding to people. It may be about serious things, and it may just be about everyday life things. I think that sort of realness and humanness is actually really, really important. And regardless of where he stands on policy, has actually made many people in our generation excited about him as a candidate, and watching his rise through government more closely than others. But you guys can weigh in. No, i think thats right. I think you can definitely lock people in. But i think in our generation, the tool we have in social media that if you mess up and lie to us, much like people are dropping American Apparel or Urban Outfitters over things, they had brand loyalty, but once something came out about them being either antigay or, you know, having a sexual abuse problem, immediately their loyalship dropped. So thats kind of a power that we have in our generation. And i think even generations just in general as voters. Im genx professor. To pick up on your last point, if im teaching the history of the baby boom, i talk about the economy and rising middle class, really shaping that generation, to how they thought about civil rights to how they thought about politician. Millennials have a generation with inequality that the survey pointed out, the hardening of the kind of movement from one class to another, with jobs that are less stable, or more fleeting, fewer unions. How does all that, in your various opinions, shape the outlook of politics, and the culture of the millennial generation . Anybody want to touch on that . Ill just keep my comments brief on this. But i think this is a deeply skeptical generation. We feel like weve been lied to one too many times by politicians, by corporations, by media. But were actually very, very optimistic. Which is really interesting, because if you ask our parents, will the world be better than for us, they will say, no way, we screwed it up. If you ask young people the same question, theyll say yes. Were the maker, the entrepreneurial generation. I started a startup media company. But theres so many examples of young people who look at the economy as bad. You know the phrase make lemon out of lemonade, and going out and starting companies and trying to make the best of it. So i think the thats a very, very unique thing for this generation, that there is this sort of optimism that were actually going to make the world a better place and change the world for the better. Thats how weve dealt with a lot of the problems that you mentioned. I would be curious to hear what you guys think. We started health group in 2005. I think the benefit of that was a lot of people reconsidered what their careers could look like. And thought about, okay, if im watching things fall apart, if you think about how you felt in 2008, it felt like things were falling apart, and thinking, okay, well, what do i want my future to look like . I think i should think about what is the world that i want to see . What do i care about in order to see . What do i care about in order to change this . I think that had a huge impact on our generation and we started at the same time as yall did, around then, and theres obviously a huge burgeoning startup space. Theres tons of social enterprises that are focused on problem solving and are startups and i think theres creativity that has kind of come out of having an unsure job market. I think theres also something to the fact that, you know, we grew up during a really, really serious economic crisis, longstanding foreign wars, partisan bickering all over the 24 hour news cycle,th, et cetera. That coupled with our optimism actually, you know, makes our generation desire to see ourselves reflected in a lot more spaces, especially since were so diverse. To saras point earlier about when companies mess up when it comes to not respecting native american populations or not respecting the will be b ing tia generation as diverse as ours doesnt see that as something we would stand for. We want to see ourselves reflected in these spaces and in leadership positions because frankly during our coming of age leadership has failed, especially in establishment institutions. And i think our generations still relate to things our grandparents, great grandparents, parents had. We still have civil rights struggle, we still have women getting 77 cents on every dollar that men are getting. We havent reached what our great grandparents are fighting for. As a latino, were an emerging population in the u. S. And were still treated as secondclass citizens often times. So i think that you may be teaching about a different generation but i think it still relates to us and i think were a more introspective, sometime, generation. Were more comfortable with talking about how we feel about issues. So i think what you do is important because it actually is something thats helping us to not repeat history but to continue the struggle because its probably going to, unfortunately, be a struggle for the next one. And we do want a legacy that maybe is brighter and more optimistic. But were still fighting the same fights that our previous generations did. I want somebody to prove the stereotype wright that millennial are on twitter all day. I havent gotten a tweet yet. I can take snaps also or we can go onic yak, i have that on my phone, too. In the back, maybe . Hi there, just following up on a comment jake made about some of the Companies Taking on causes as a way to brand themselves, whole foods and global warming. So two examples i thought of, Goldman Sachs came out for gay marriage in, like, 2012 or 2013 and thats great, but they also are not great on financial reform. American apparel also came out on Immigration Reform but theyre not great on workers rights, workplace safety, sexual harassment, things like that. Should millennials embrace corporations taking on causes or should we look at it as a carbon credit where they can buy a certain cause and then pollute in another cause . Who wants to take on the corporations . [ laughter ] a great question, by the way. Its tough. So im just, like, still reeling from that joke but its tough because, you know the idea of, like, csr is important and i think thats, like, a baseline, frankly, in my opinion. You should not it should be a standard that companies are good on social issues your example about American Apparel thats to me, at least, and a lot of the folks i hang out with, thats, like, baseline for us. I think what matters is where folks stand, like you said, on policy issues and i think that theres an opportunity in i think we see this with a lot of these, like, social media campaigns with a lot of young people starting nonprofits, a lot of young people getting involved with the policy process to ill luce date some of those nuances that arent often seen. Because a press release saying, you know, we support Immigration Reform will only go so far because there are a lot of people looking into what American Apparel is doing on workers rights so i think theres an opportunity for the baseline to change is where im at. I would echo that. I think theres an authenticity to it that cant be overlooked. These are not token things to throw around where you support gay rights on twitter and suddenly youre a Great Company but there are other things young people know and have been talking about and can point to which havent changed. That being said, the super bowl was an amazing moment this year i think. We have an identity section at mike focused on feminism, will be bth rights, race, the intersectionalty of social justice issues and every year the super bowl becomes this moment where theres sexist advertisements or ways that brapds take advantage of sexualized depictions of women and this year we didnt see that at all. [ inaudible question ] not in the same way we saw in years passed. [ inaudible question ] really . Well, theres always degrees of it. But it was mostly positive relative to years past a and i think thats by and large a good thing. Theres always more to be done. So on specific advertisements, there may have been sort of wanting more from a company but i think just by and large as things change its a good thing. I think the grammys is another good example where theres a lot to poke at at the grammys but also the fact that black lives matter was mentioned, that the president came on national tv and talked about Domestic Violence, that social justice issues were actually a big part of the grammys in a way we havent seen again, that didnt change the fact that chris brown was in the audience, but it sort of moved miles from where were at, if that makes sense. I think the first thing that came to my mind when you said that was the nfl, right . The nfl as had this long going stance where they dont really comment on what their players are doing and suddenly this year against a rock and a hard place and while goodall and his entire company or organization has a lot of movement to make, i cant help but be happy the conversation has started and that they are putting money into antiDomestic Violence campaigns. Does that mean i think the nfl is the you know, the absolute soap box to go to to talk about Domestic Violence . No, there are major problems still, whether it be from contracts to how players are treated for taking paternity leave to anything else. But im happy that there are Companies Making this stance. And our generation and other generations arent as shallow as Companies May think we are. I think that because we have that tool of social media, when American Apparel has they had Migrant Workers in their campaign, right . And they made them look like they just loved all imMigrant Workers and then they werent even paying half of the people that were in those ads, that came out really quickly, right . So i dont know. I applaud companies that get that they need to put their money behind issues that matter towards our generation because i think thats a steppingstone to becoming a better company. My name is bill mcgowan, im a journalist and author and i wanted to say i came here today in part i spent a little time today thinking about Kayla Mueller and i find her really generationally impressive and i think shes a real tribute to the best you guys have to offer. That being said, i do find a lot of the insularity, the generational insularity millennials kind of annoying. You know, sometimes youre reinventing the wheel. So let me ask you this. Were involved in a pretty steep crisis of legitimacy on the part of our leadership, moral, political, social. How are you going to avoid those issues . And ill give you an example. If you had to do a word cloud right now of what was on the panel, youd have lgbt rights, twitter with the, economic disparity, less big. So we have trend lines going that are not good and part of that is our dysfunctional leadership. What are you guys going to do thats different . Well, is the question how are we going to solve inequality or how are we going to do it differently . If you had to define personally i think income inequality and class stratification and lack of upward mobility is going to kill this country. Were not going to become a social democracy like europe. Were going to have to figure this out. So if you do premise that that is the challenge, what do you see your generation doing that other generations, xoers, baby boomers, or what. I dont know if thats the core challenge everybody in this demographic is working to solve and i think as weve highlighted everybody has different challenges that they think about and you know i have friends for the last two months who have been out in the streets in new york for the black lives matter protests and that will be their issue. I would say a few things. I think up with i think online activism gets a really, really bad rap, particularly for older people, its sort of what thats that term . Lacktivist, that its lazy activism. I dont think thats true and i think thats overblown. Theres plenty of examples now where change. Org petitions have resulted in major changes by corporations reversing policies which r actually amazing moments that have shown that this generation is not unengaged and does activism very, very differently but is still doing activism. So i think thats one thing. I think secondly just to the point earlier on our panel that the biggest barrier in politics i mean, the money in politics issue is just insane and for me, you know, the biggest barrier for more young people our age entering politics is just the amount of money you need to raise in order to run and its very, very difficult for somebody under 35 to be able to do it. Thats just sort of the truth of the matter. Which i think has resulted in other forms of activism and sort of working to change the system. So i think there is a lot of great work being done by everybody on this panel and otherwise and im not sure how were going to solve all the worlds problems but i know that its going to look a lot differently than sort of working within the system. And there will be people who do that, and thats a good thing. But its going to a lot more diverse than it does in this typical organizing sense. On the beat of things that are going to be different or could be different i think weve talked a lot about online engagement, twitter and social media. But i think whats yet to be seen and i think will be seen is how online actually translates into Offline Community building for us. The ability for folks in localities to be connected but rooted in a place. So for us at the Roosevelt Institute Campus Network were working on an initiative where students are looking at how their universities relate to local Economic Development under the banner of income inequality and there are folks working in d. C. And new york and california and humboldt county in eureka, california, which is by almost nowhere all connected via Online Platforms because they have the ability to connect to people but theyre still working on the ground in physical communities face to face. So i think that thats something that could be very different is that confluence both online and offline activity. And i i dont think were trying to reinvent the wheel but we have to go from having a die carriage to a prius. Were no longer using the same tools to reach people. But i will say, things like black lives matter, that hashtag has to do with more than police brutality. It has to do with the fact that black lives matter in terms of income inequality, in terms of access to Affordable Housing and access to Higher Education and i think that those issues, while maybe they arent coming out within how were speaking on the social media level about it, underlying all of that movement are the issues that you brought up that are important. Income inequality is a huge problem in this country. I dont think anyone in this room would argue with that. But the way that this generation is choosing to move behind it is in a different vehicle than perhaps generations before. I think maybe in the front . [ inaudible ] oh, sorry. Im intrigued, the facts you gave around millennials core issues, global warming, Climate Change and then nationally around income inequality. If these are the issues, and given that demographically the millennials will be the dominant generation outstripping baby boomers by, i think, over the next ten years, what are the panels views on the Political Landscape and future Political Landscape of the u. S. And the impact in policy . Particularly related to those two issues . I think money in politics really shapes my view of the Political Landscape because i think, you know, the confluence and emergence of super pacs, the high barrier candidates have to pass in terms of fundraising does dramatically affect our Political Landscape, especially in regards to whos running for Political Office. Well see the same folks time after time if those same folks are a part of an existing topdown hierarchy. So i think that money in politics issue is critical to solving and equaling the Playing Field for the future Political Landscape because i think thats something i care deeply about and a lot of people in our generation arent always excited about political candidates because theyre, like, oh, these are the people i have been seeing since i was in high school. So where are the new people . If we can get to the root of that money in politics issue, we can see a landscape i think our generation will be happier with i think also and really to the work that theyre doing at the Roosevelt Network is seeding the field. Like we cant expect to see very different people in positions of influence if were not ensuring that theres other folks being sort of rising up to where they have the where they have equally as powerful networks and understanding of policy and advocacy change and thats something theyre doing with younger people every single day and by huge numbers and thats really encouraging to know that thinking about in ten years how many people have been seeded through their work in other peoples works that we will see in ten years in positions of greater influence. I would just add, you know, there is a Huge Movement right now for people who want to elect Elizabeth Warren and, you know, thats not me as a liberal in new york talking. Theres a lot of people out there who have bought into her sort of indictment of our political system so much so that Hillary Clinton, for penal on the for progressives is actually not as interesting as a candidate as Elizabeth Warren and her sort of rise to fame over the last very short period of time reflects that, you know, she talks about income inequality everyday and young people are buying it and theyre listening. Climate change i dont think weve cracked yet as a country and certainly amongst political leaders. Its not something thats top of mind being talked about day in and day out. I think it should be but we havent seen Mass Mobilization yet and i think that will change in the same way we saw a change on will be blgbt rights but inc inequality, that is gaining big traction so i think what youll see is more people like that. And it doesnt have to be somebody on the left. Theres plenty of people who are libertarians and on the right who talk about that issue also and it will gain more traction. I think that Campaign Finance reform is a huge issue. Joellle brought it up. Maybe well not be able to run for office with a lot of money but maybe we can change how those who run for office run. So one huge thing and im from texas originally that really hits home is gerrymandering and redistricting reform. And the fact that people can redistrict their areas so that they continue to win and remain in office. So as a millennial, as any generation, quite frankly, we should be hitting hard on these politicians that find that redistricting reform isnt important. I think its insanely important. I think Campaign Finance reform is important. Thats the way were going to get people in office and higher voter turnout. Stopping people from creating voter i. D. Laws that keep people from going to the polls. Maybe we cant raise as much money as everyone else, but we can sure as hell sorry, should i say hell . Sure as heck raise cane on th office. So i think those are three issues we need to be pushing harder because it will put Major Pressure on those people regardless of how much money they have. I would say one other things which, you know, as we mentioned at the top, the generation is the most diverse and to both of these questions. This was a survey of mic readers, the generation as a whole and i think these are two important issues but, again, theres lots of other ones that really, really matter and people our age are voting based on a series of things and, you know, theres millennials on the coast and theres millennials in the middle of the country so i dont pretend to know all the issues young people are going to vote on. Should we move to maybe over here . First of all, thanks so much for being on the panel. Second i thought it was time for some female voices. [ laughter ] third, i wanted to transcend the United States. So given these new tools, given how interconnected we are and given this energy and discontent that were seeing among young people around the world, whether its turkey or mexico or india, how do we harness that energy to create whether its alliances or shared understanding for some of these issues that matter for the entire world or given that all of us will be leaders at some point and it would be better to have more countries as our friends than our enemies, how do we harness that energy right now . I can speak to that based on our work. So we work in six countries, the u. S. Is one of them and then three in east africa and two in Southern Africa and Global Health fellows are from around the world. Theyre from 22 countries right now. Ive been talking about american ones because of the audience. But we received more applications this year from uganda than anywhere else. And why its interesting is that 60 of People Living in uganda are 35 and under and the Unemployment Rate within that group of people is 60 . So its a very Large Population of the country that doesnt have a job market. So we worked with our fellow there is who are doing the same thing as our other fellows. But we worked a lot with them because its more of a society of elders using the like the public narrative framework to figure out how they can use their voice to affect change and do it in a positive way. Their president is i want to say 85 years old. Hes well past he doesnt get elected anymore. And so they feel a huge all of our fellows feel a huge disconnection between themselves and the issues people in power care about and yet there hasnt been they havent had opportunities to explore how to use their voice and explore advocacy. Where i see a huge area for potential impact is we have 90 current fellows and alums in uganda and they are essentially building advocacy campaigns where now they have a lot of voices behind them and theres a safety in having a lot of voices together so thats one things thats cool. And in addition our world is so global that we could look up and see whats going on in uganda right now on the internet if we wanted to. So its much easier to understand issues in other partsover the world. So for us, were really excited. One of our we do our training at the beginning of the year with all of our fellows before they start their year and we do it in new haven at yale and two years ago one of our fellows whos nigerian stood up and said its going to be so convenient when im the minister of health in nigeria. And diego is running the Gates Foundation because we all know each other and we all have a shared vision for health equity. And that was cute moment and its even cuter now because the woman who said that is getting her ph. D. At harvard paid for by the ministry of health in nigeria with the stipulation she returns to nigeria and joins them. So i think theres a huge luxury to all of us being connected and that being said i think theres a difference between using your voice and using it responsibly and knowing how to speak to power and then figuring out everything you have to do in order if youre in that position, what skills do you need to be effective rather than just speaking. I want to do a time check, tyler, how are we doing . One or two more. Okay. Youve been waiting. Thank you. I actually represent a previous millennium. [ laughter ] but i do have a daughter that is a millennial and i very much appreciate your involvement in the global scene the but i do feel also that the United States is responsible for maybe over 20 of gdp in the world and that i feel that its very important that we use the infrastructure that we have to the ability that we can possibly use it and the question that my daughter had is what should we be doing about student debt and the cost of Higher Education in this country because it looks as though its very prohibitive for many peopl people. Anyone want to take on student debt . I think theres legislation, obviously in congress, and also if you look at things happening on a state level trying to make college more affordable. The president Just Announced Community Colleges were going to be free . Was that what it was . Theres some big things and i think your daughter has a point. For me, i cant even and i think joelle and i were talking about that that we cant even fathom how our parents put us through college and the fact that there are people that walk around everyday having to put themselves through college and work and that this is a hurd that will disproportionately affects low income minority groups the most. I think its raising our voices about that lidge slags and Holding People like the president to his promise. We work on College Campuses so i care a lot about access to Higher Education. I think something that was interesting, one of our students at San Bernardino valley college, a Community College in california, because were on four year and community College Campuses, very articulately said that part of how were going to be able to solve the Higher Education crisis is by involving more young people at the table. So two students in d. C. From our organization went to a department of education meeting. And i think that thats part of the first step. A lot of times were just analyzing things, looking at reports, people in d. C. Are reading those things, having panels, et cetera, et cetera, but what matters is if you have the people who are working two jobs and trying to go to Community College or even nontraditional students who have families and are trying to put themselves through college in order to chase this idea of opportunity that we have in this country, those are the types of people that we need involved in the policy process if were going to make policies that are good for a large portion of the population. I think we have time for one more in the back. Sorry. Im with the columbia journalism school. Im wondering what the panel thinks of the notion a socially liberal fiscally conservative kind of candidate might be able to mobilize young voters. I think soci socially libe fiscally conservative . I think thats very possible. People often ask me as the editor of mic are you guys biased . And what i like to say is were biased toward young people which what i mean by that is theres certain issues like social issues which are sort of nonstarters for this generation, lgbt rights, as weve been hearing, feminism, race. These are issues that if you asked people in our generation, everybody universally agrees but then theres others that are really, really hot debates. Fiscal policy, as you mentioned, is one of them. Foreign policy is another. And so i think what will be interesting to see if this election i dont know who that candidate is going to be. It will be interesting to see over the next election cycle, if you ask most young people, are you liberal or conservative they say were neither, were independent. Which means that theres a real opportunity for somebody to carve out that niche and a real opportunity for the gop as a party to appeal to this demo if they can strike the right balance, if that makes sense. I think one interesting person to watch will be rand paul particularly in 2016. Its clear that on certain issues theres things young people will really agree with and on others maybe not so much and how people weigh those different factors will be Something Interesting to watch, i think. Its how much we make them speak about it during the debates. But i think one thing about just your question, i think the term socially liberal fiscally conservative is insanely loaded. Because i think when we look at candidates like Hillary Clinton versus Elizabeth Warren, people want to label Hillary Clinton as being fiscally conservative and thats i dont think that thats fair. And i dont necessarily think that Elizabeth Warren is insanely liberally on that point. So i just have a problem with liabling people as that. But when you look at it from a bigger term and you look at the bigger nation in order to win people in the midwest and Everything Else it has to be relatable to things that matter to them. So things like student debt are going to matter. Things like jobs, stability. So that candidate, its what we make them talk about during the campaign that matters that will maybe show them as this middle centrist Everybody Loves me candidate. But we have to admit when people run for Office Everyone tends to be catered to whatever questions are being asked of them and to whoevers paying attention. Thats why i want us to be paying attention more because then well be able to ask the questions and put them on the spot to answer them. Okay, there are snacks in the back. I want everybody in the audience to join me in thanking all three of our great panelists. [ applause ] i learned a lot from all three of you. Feel free to stop by and say hello. Thank you. Okay, well, that was fun. Thank you. Thank you so much. Youre the professor. Tonight on American History tv, programming about Ronald Reagan. At 8 00 p. M. , regent universitys Ronald Reagan symposium focuses on the speeches that defined his administration, including what became known as the evil empire speech and his 1987 west berlin call to soviet Union Leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down this wall. And a look back at president reagans june 8, 1982 address to the british parliament. Delivered in the royal gallery at londons palace of westminster, this speech is remembered for reagans declaration that the marchover freedom and democracy would leave marxism leninism on the ash heap of history. Thats tonight on American History tv on cspan 3. Twitter chief Communications Officer Gabriel Stricker discusses the companys efforts to address free speech concerns while limiting abusive practices such as trolling. Mr. Stricker spoke at the university of california berkeley, which is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement on its campus. Its a delight for me to introduce Gabriel Stricker. He is a cal alum, some of you already know that. Hes chief of communications at twitter. Chief Communications Officer. We will be welcoming back not just for this event but also he has been helping berkeley think about and celebrate the 50 Year Anniversary of the Free Speech Movement which is quite an important year in berkeley this year. His bachelor of arts was in latin american studies. As an undergraduate here at berkeley. His current role as chief Communications Officer, he leads the global teams for Media Relations and Public Policy and media partnerships more generally at twitter. He first came to twitter in 2012 stepping into what some have called one of the worlds most high profile roles in the communications field. He has, in fact, been credited by many as the driving force with turning around twitters public reputation. Gabriel has been well recognized for his success in the field. He was listed by the holmes report as one of the worlds 100 most influential corporate communicators, one of pr weeks top 20 digital influencers and named one of the 20 most Effective Communications professionals by business insider. Prior to joining twitter in 2012 he was the director of Global Information and Public Affairs at google where he was active on the issue of Free Expression and defended the companys refusal to sensor information. At twitter, he accepted the Radio Television digital news associations First Amendment award. His earlier work was in campaign politics. He developed his expertise in Strategic Communications through his work in the electoral arena. Today we have a chance to talk to him on a variety of topics, Free Expression and speech but also leadership and how he thinks about culture and what makes organizations work better. Well have a chance also to celebrate with him as i mentioned this 50th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement. So it was exactly that 64 65 year, for those of you that know the free speech cafe, many of you have been in there and the ma pictures of mario savio. Its an important part of this institution. Its an important part of our society, of course, it is the notion of freedom of expression is not equally appreciated throughout the whole world and part of those different value judgments on where one draws the line on expression is a very active area worldwide of policy and management. So theres much to cover. Let me introduce to you gabriel strickl strickler, thank you very much for being here, gabriel [ applause ] so let me start with the Free Speech Movement. I mentioned it a couple times and when you think so you werent here the 60s but you, like i, was here a little bit after that. Can you say what you think about free speech and how it relates to twitter and that fine line between freedom of expression and some of the things that happen when sometimes expression is too free. Yeah. First of all, thank you all for having me here. Its lovely to be back. And, yup, the Free Speech Movement definitely predated me but even when i graduated here as an undergrad in the early 90s, that sort of spirit and the disruptive spirit of the free speech Movement Still lived on and i think today still on campus theres an attempt to figure out how to keep that culture going. The good news is that culture exists beyond that place and for many graduates like myself who are now if Companies Like twitter and before that at google, were still figuring out how to ensure that those values are part of what we do. And for me, i get to go to work everyday at a place that is, i think, arguably one of the most extraordinary viral platforms that has ever existed and its been this amazing vector of thats facilitated Free Expression around the world. I know the mythology is that we create these technologies with Free Expression in mind like wouldnt it be amazing if we could create this platform that would let all of these flowers bloom. We had ideas, of course, all the time of what the impact of the platform would be but we never thought that would be used in the way that it has been and facilitate revolutions as it has and just giving People Voices where they didnt in the profound ways that it does. But, yeah, its its an ongoing commitment to upholding the platform as we do and as you say its a tricky one, too, because in the same way for those of you who are less familiar with twitter, one of the parts of it that has allowed the rise of it as being this platform for Free Expression is that we support pseudonyms. And so unlike other platforms that require you to give your actual identity, because we allow pseudonym support, if you go into cases like the arab spring, for example, turns out that if you want to take down the man, its a lot easier to do so if you dont say, oh, heres exactly who i am and my real identity and my address, and so forth. The flip side of that spectrum is if you dont have to give your actual identity it makes it easier for you to express yourself in i would say less constructive ways not bringing down an oppressive regime but in trolling and abusive ways and thats a tricky balance. One that were today grappling with, our ceo actually had one of our internal emails leaked out and our ceo was saying in his words that we have been falling short on striking that balance and its something where were trying to figure out what are the ways to preserve the beauty of the platform as this incredible vehicle for Free Expression while at the same time having boundaries in there that prevent people from engaging in what is really at its core abusive behavior. Its a daily challenge. And i guess part of it, if you felt the pseudonyms allow many things, then there might be other tools to manage some of these unfortunate behaviors and outcomes that come from it . Yeah, yeah. Is there an example where could you give us an example where its trolling and things along those lines where you say, look, we tried to address that issue in a mar targeted way . Yeah. I can tell you the things that weve done and the kind of things that i think you can expect from us going forward. So some of the things, some of you may look at it as fixing bugs. Some of them have been more or less difficult, we historically have done i think a pretty lackluster job of making it possible to even report abuse. The amount of hoops people had to go through to even just be able to say, hey, this person is engaging with me in a super abusive manner, it has to be the case that its roughly as easy to report the abuse as it is to do the abusing. And in our case i think it was for the longest time really easy to engage in the abuse and hard to report it. That has been something that weve gone out of our way to fi fix. The next step is i think in again balancing the ability for someone to express themselves freely but also giving someone the ability to not having to be exposed to what is abusive behavior. The next step is because, again, for those of you less familiar with twitter is one of its hallmarks is we have an asymmetrical graph and what that means less technically is we can follow each other, we can do that, we can both follow each other but it can be the case that you follow me but i dont follow you. And part of what our thinking is, if you are sending tweets to me throughout the day saying youre a jerk, if we follow each other, im presumably saying i really want to hear you telling me that im a jerk. But if i dont follow you and youre telling me throughout the day that im a jerk and trust me, we have far more colorful examples than just saying somebody is a jerk maybe there should be ways that if youre bombarding me with this that i should be able to control that. So you should be able to say it but i should be able to have greater control of tuning that out. So thats kind of what were trying to pave the way for. Thats a super example. For those of you that are tweeting, we have a hashta hashtag, haasspeakers, if you want to tweet any of this. And i will certainly tweet i always take notes and tweet after talks and i will do it again. I personally so appreciate twitter. Its just just a very quick aside. When i first became dean people were saying oh, you should do these blog posts and all this sort of stuff and im thinking holy smokes, i could spend half my day doing that. But 140 characters once or twice a day its just a great bite size for putting out thoughts and for a lot of us in seats where we get to hear a lot of interesting things everyday, thats one of the functions i feel like im serving is sort of bouncing back out so other people get to hear the stuff that im hearing. Now recently so twitter sued the federal government over the ability to disclose more information in its ongoing transparency report. So could you talk about that Public Policy interface . So i should just say that twitter was not the first to have a transparency report. When i was at google we started this process of issuing the transparency report. And what that is is simply when technology Companies Get requests from governments around the world specifically to take action on certain content, it could be to remove content because it violates their local laws, to suspend certain accounts similarly because its against whatever their local policies are. A lot of companies in our space have felt like there needs to be a way in some centralized fashion to disclose to the people of the world, hey, were getting these requests and you should be aware of them. But not just to say were getting these requests but here are the nature of the requests and heres what governments are giving us these requests and by the way heres how many of them there are and kind of roughly how to categorize them and of course what action we took coming off of these things. And i guess without getting into too much detail regarding a lawsuit but just on a high level it turns out there is a government, it is ours here in the United States, that wanted to limit our ability as a company to tell people and, again, its not just twitter users. It happens to be that there are individual users who are impacted by this that we take action on posts that they have made, but if you are i would argue if youre a user or if you are just a member of this society, you have a right to know. You have a right to know that your government is making requests of a private company like ours and what were going with that. And we should be able to disclose in a reasonable amount of detail what is this sort of boundary surrounding this request, what is going on there. And we had engaged in conversations about this and in terms of our ability to be more transparent in our transparency report and finally when we reached an impasse we said we are going to we will not abide by this. We will just we will sue you over our ability to be more transparent with our users and people of the world. And so thats what motivated it and it continues to motivate it. I think there are other companies that i think share our opinion but i think we just took it another step and forced the issue. And could you we had an earlier brief conversation