Transcripts For CSPAN3 Technology Political Polarization 20

Of the 2016 election . You know, i think the mike. Microphone. Microphone. I think the impact of fake news was to allow prooimarily the trp voters to discount what was going on in the mainstream media, no matter how bad it was for their candidate or how bad it was factually, they just it allowed them to assume that it was coming from a biased point of view and that therefore they ignored it. And, you know, that has not been typical of american campaigns in the past. So i have a slightly different view on fake news in the sense that i think we focus a lot on the fact that, you know, this news might have, you know, changed the results of the election and i think in fake news of a symptom verses a cause. So i think its a symptom of the polarization thats in this country. So my backgrounds in psychology and a lot of the research that gets done is about how people believe what they want to believe. And really smart people who have access to all the news that they and should know Better Believe what they want to believe. And i think people are going to believe what they want to believe. Certainly social medias kind of like gasoline on a fire. But, you know, i dont think fake news is necessarily their problem, i think its just more an accelerant on the underlying problem which is the divisions that we see in this country. Yeah, i largely agree with you, i mean, the term phenomenon was because people were unhappy. It may have been acc sasser balted and fake news may have played a role in that, but i question the depth of the role. I mean, the spin that theyre talking about on facebook is a joke. I mean, you cant affect change with that kind of money. Now, its bothersome to us because it conceptually could affect our elections to you which is very holy to us and should be. But in terms of practical consequence, i dont think it did much for this particular election. I think it could and theres some interesting components to that fabric. But in actual reality i just dont think it did much. So many of the questions about fake news come from the way were receiving this, maybe new content of questionable quality and thats because theres been a change in control of news information. Its been shifting from Media Companies with editors and editorial policies to Tech Companies that may not have such expertise onboard. So some in Congress Want them to regulate political ads on facebook similarly to the way theyre regulated on tv. What is your thoughts on this . Well, i mean, the regulation on television is pretty minimal for the most part. But it essentially is the creation of a disclaimer that says who the ads are paid for by. So theyre paid for by a campaign, it says paid for by bob fromm for governor committee. Beyond that, theres theres not much regulation, theres theres in terms of candidates and their ability to say whatever they want to say on television, its pretty unrestricted. Theyre mostly immune to libel laws. So i dont think that its asking a lot for our online advertisers to have some commitment to disclose in the while the ads are playing who paid for them. Similar to what we do on television. I think the reality is, we didnt get where we are in terms of television and disclaimers last week or the week before, it evolved over time and the other very key element in this is the airwaves, the broadcast airwaves are publicly owned. And the federal Communications Commission regulates them. And they they put together these requirements. Obviously Online Communications is not federally regulated and i dont think theres any political will to federally regulate them nor should there be. But so its a real question of whether theyre going to be selfpolicing in terms of what they do or is Congress Going to step in . And weve seen that argument be joined in the last few weeks. I mean, i think honestly if it would be tough for the government to regulate the i think Technology Just moves too fast for for government to really meaningfully regulate. But i think, you know, i work in the Tech Industry and i talk to people at some of these companies and ive never talked to someone at one of these companies who does not somewhat acknowledge the responsibility and want to do a better job. These companies are made of people who care just like you do and were surprised by things that have happened in the political world just like you are and want things to be better, not necessarily just in one direction or another, but just better in terms of, you know, the kinds of things we all care about. So, you know, i can say i think people are working on it, think theres a lot of smart people walking on it, i kind of sometimes liken it to new transition. Once upon a time, you know, weve evolved to be really into sugar, right, and to really want to eat sugar and then eventually we learn that too much sugar bad for us and we have signs that tell us how many calories things are and weve evolved to sort of Pay Attention to negative information and to compete as groups and, you know, our information diet, you know, can be verien healthy for us in a similar way. Its not just online. Look at the 11 00 news. All the seven things that you dont know that might kill you if you dont watch the 11 00 like its sort of engrained in us that these algorithms and the media, theyre all optimizing towards in some ways human nature. But just like with nutrition, there are ways for us as a thoughtful species to understand that, you know, the kinds of things were seeing arent go for us and for smart people to do good things, to do things about that. And so people are working on these algorithms pmtd so in the absence of regulation are i do think things will get better. That was extremely thoughtful and im not going to say anything thats remotely that thoughtful. But i like bills perspective that it makes common sense that there should be some degree of transparency. But when you game that out i dont think it will have any practical effect. Because this expenditure say naive expenditure that goes through a pac unraveling how funds get into that pac is very, very difficult if not impossible. The point have youre not going to see a facebook ad or any ad with the disclaimer this ad was purchased by the russian government. Its going to go through a lot of hands before it gets there. So i think practically speak, bill, i would defer to you if you feel differently because youve actually would place those nings things and interact with them. I think its extremely challenging to figure out whos paid that. The transparency just isnt there. I think the the impact on particularly on independent expenditure ads of disclaimers is grossly exaggerated by most campaign reformers because often times they say paid for by the committee for a better world. And whos against a better world, obviously. But on the other hand, it does lead a paper trail that you can follow and try to figure out who is behind the money. Now, i think the russian particular issue involved with the russian, i think if somebody comes up to you and says they want to hire you to do their polling and pays you in rubles, youre probably going to say this is not a good idea. They would just pay cash. Youre absolutely right. So i enjoyed your analogy about sugar and maybe you mentioned diabetes, right. So maybe when we create something when the technology will create Something Like refined sugar, its exciting but, you know, there are consequences like a Public Health problem of diabetes. And as a Technology Developer myself i feel like our community is sensed the pace of the development is increasing, and so the opportunity to regulate and to alter our behaviors for these downstream consequences our window has become shorter and shorter. So i wanted to ask bill and justin, in your line of work, have you have you noticed an acceleration or is it just par for the course the way that technologys changing both Opinion Research and political messaging or the fields you work on . I think the most profound in impact of technology on the political process so far has been huge acceleration of fundraising opportunities from small donors. Literally president baems campaign was funded primarily by small donors, particularly in 08, and i think we saw that with Bernie Sanders this time. So, you know, were talking about ads, but i think one of the most profound impacts has been the fundraising, the change in the fundraising culture. And that that part of Digital Communications and digital Political Communications is far advanced beyond where tiesing is right n advertising is right now. The Digital World is still struggling to get 15 foers 20 of advertising dollars either commercially or politically. So theres questions about where its going to go and of course all these things change. I mean, you know, theres going to be other digital breakthroughs and different ways to communicate. And i have a firm view that what we do in the Communications World is we dont really get rid of any old media, we just add another form of new media on top of it. So its like we get to be a more fragmented and more complex communications culture, particularly in the advertising side. And were still by advertising on tv, still advertising on cable, in terms of people are still advertising on broadcast radio. And then we have all these other new mediums including online and satellite and all these other things that are coming. And im sure i think we can see pod casts are going to play a significant political role over time. So, you know, theres an enormous fragmentation going on in our communications universe. And people are not only selfselecting about the news, as we talked about, theyre also selfselecting about where they get their news and, you know, when know there are people who are watching exclusively Fox Television and people who watch exclusively msnbc. Well probably see the same phenomena on podcasts, people who listen to pro grekt gressive podcasts and there will be people who listen to conservative podcasts exclusively. Thats a big change is that people become so idea logically driven about where they get information from. Yeah, the medium mix that bill was describing, i mean, it evolves over time because but it hasnt flipped because people consume information in the ways that they like to consume them and its usually multiple different ways. So digital doesnt own the world right now simply because people consume information and right of ways and most media markets tv is an incredibly inefficient way to save money if youve got the money. In my small world which is trying to figure out how people thing and trying to influence their thoughts and behaviors, digital has had a profound impact. If youre talking about a highly informed horse race and theres really only one thats the president ial race, then google surveys is fantastic, its remarkable, unbelievable. If youre talk about anything other than that, then it becomes degrades in efficacy. There are, you know, folks who are pros la tiesing a particular tool or method because they get enamored with that method, just with any kind of industry. And they forget that sometimes theres a right wid get for every application and its not one size fits all. In my world theres a move right now to transition from telephone research which if you perform it in the right way can still be the most accurate form to integrating Digital Online research, which could be incredibly useful for the right approach. But there are pit falls with it. The digit all aspect of that typically comes in in california from the voter file. And in recent years, 50 of every knew Voter Registration card has a valid email address, it works, its really, really good. But if you say arbitrarily im going to do 50 of this on phone and that includes cell phones and all that kind of stuff, and 50 of it online, what youve done is confined 50 of your sample to new registrants, which composes a traction of the electorate. So youve gone ahead and put an artificial constraint and there is good reason to look at that and say that methodology is flawed. It may hit the mark from time to time, but its going to be wrong much more often than a different methodology for that particular purpose. On the other hand, if youre researching a small California Coastal town on a ballot measure and theres 10,000 voters in that space, then you can slice and dice the methodology and include digital and just make sure that youre careful about the proportions and you can get much better well, reality is youll get higher rate of response than you would normally. And that information cant be regard as statistically significant because the math doesnt work that way, but its directional. And ghes what . The rest of the world works with with directional research. When i work on consumer based stuff, if im selling footage paste or technology, i cant use the voter file which say remarkable be a will he infective tool. But i have to use some construct of big data. And what people forget, because big data sounds cool, its just a work around and it gets better. But its nowhere near as good as the voter polls that we have. So back to companies, the Media Companies. So companies such as google, facebook and twitter are making the case that theyre actually not Media Companies and should be they should take a handsoff role in policing content on their platforms. So i want to get your takes on whether the benefits of free speech outweigh the consequences of the spread of false information and how platforms might deal with bad actors that are trying to manipulate messaging. Broad question. Well, i mean, its going to be a very complex problem for a long time. I think that i mean, theres a difference between what the hearings did on facebook when they were talking about russian collusion and i totally agree it was not the impact was not that great on this election but the potential impact in some future election if this continues to grow as rapidly, the foreign interference grows rapidly as its grown in the last 20 years, you know, it will have an impact. How the industry itself deals with these issues is you know, its going to be really difficult for them. I mean, to the extent an industry can have an ideology, theres is more antiregulatory, antigovernment lib bertarian in many ways than other industries, even more conservative industries. Theyre going to resist any kind of regulation. And congress is going to hold, you know, particularly when it is amazing how interesting Congress Gets into issues about elections. They have a little bit of selfinterest in how elections are conducted. So theyre aggressiveness on this issue will be pretty extensive. They will want to see some clean up your act kind of dynamic, but i think there will be resistance. Were a long way from figuring this out, too. A hell of a long way. So i mean i think ive already said that i think its almost impossible for for starters. I think its impossible for government to effectively regulate some of these technologies, but i mean, ill give a hopeful thing, which is that, you know, and also i think maybe useful for your engineering students who might be in the audience today. I think there is a Movement Towards the idea that you dont have to measure just clicks or time onsite or ad impressions, which is what a lot of these sites are designed to optimize towards. There are other things you can measure. There are products out there on some of these Media Companies that try and sense when you are in danger of hurting yourself and try and help with you that, right . Or, you know, there are things that are trying to measure things that are a little bit more human, theyre a little bit closer to the goals. And, you know, were reminded by some people say if you ever gave an ai a problem like stop all human suffering, you know, the easiest way to stop all human suffering is it to kill all the human beings now theres no humans in the world. So sometimes there are unintentional goals that we set for these algorithms and i think were realizing those consequences. For the engineering students here, there are interesting ways to think about how i can measure measuring things like, you know, fulfillment, happiness, you know, those are fuzzy constructs, but theyre they are if you can measure whether something is or is not a cat you can measure some of these fuzzy constructs as well. And speaking carefully because some of the companies are clients, theresy think theres a challenge within Technology Companies of huber russ and i think they tend to breathe their own exhaust a little bit too much and they tend to be some of the worst corporate actors in america. For one example, a particular ride hailing app, the way that they approached growth was to ignore the law. And im not a law and order person, but the reality is we live under a construct of laws and we have to respond to them and respect them. That particular car company, in every city that they rolled out to, they simply ignored it, and states. So even with selfdriving cars. So when they did something that was against the law, rather than working with another organization say lets fix this in a way that works for everybody to some degree, which means everyone walks away to some degree unhappy as well as happy, they didnt. If you could imagine an oil company or a Tobacco Company behaving in the way that many Technology Companies behave, they would be crucified. But so far so far that momentum is still there. I think theres a i dont think theres an appetite to selfregulate. So the companies that you were alluding to include Tech Companies and also traditional Media Companies, and you mentioned some metrics that might be might provide more value to society. But i dont know if theres a connection between those metrics and what is Good Business for the companies. So do you see is that a problem . Is that so many of the Better Believe<\/a> what they want to believe. And i think people are going to believe what they want to believe. Certainly social medias kind of like gasoline on a fire. But, you know, i dont think fake news is necessarily their problem, i think its just more an accelerant on the underlying problem which is the divisions that we see in this country. Yeah, i largely agree with you, i mean, the term phenomenon was because people were unhappy. It may have been acc sasser balted and fake news may have played a role in that, but i question the depth of the role. I mean, the spin that theyre talking about on facebook is a joke. I mean, you cant affect change with that kind of money. Now, its bothersome to us because it conceptually could affect our elections to you which is very holy to us and should be. But in terms of practical consequence, i dont think it did much for this particular election. I think it could and theres some interesting components to that fabric. But in actual reality i just dont think it did much. So many of the questions about fake news come from the way were receiving this, maybe new content of questionable quality and thats because theres been a change in control of news information. Its been shifting from Media Companies<\/a> with editors and editorial policies to Tech Companies<\/a> that may not have such expertise onboard. So some in Congress Want<\/a> them to regulate political ads on facebook similarly to the way theyre regulated on tv. What is your thoughts on this . Well, i mean, the regulation on television is pretty minimal for the most part. But it essentially is the creation of a disclaimer that says who the ads are paid for by. So theyre paid for by a campaign, it says paid for by bob fromm for governor committee. Beyond that, theres theres not much regulation, theres theres in terms of candidates and their ability to say whatever they want to say on television, its pretty unrestricted. Theyre mostly immune to libel laws. So i dont think that its asking a lot for our online advertisers to have some commitment to disclose in the while the ads are playing who paid for them. Similar to what we do on television. I think the reality is, we didnt get where we are in terms of television and disclaimers last week or the week before, it evolved over time and the other very key element in this is the airwaves, the broadcast airwaves are publicly owned. And the federal Communications Commission<\/a> regulates them. And they they put together these requirements. Obviously Online Communications<\/a> is not federally regulated and i dont think theres any political will to federally regulate them nor should there be. But so its a real question of whether theyre going to be selfpolicing in terms of what they do or is Congress Going<\/a> to step in . And weve seen that argument be joined in the last few weeks. I mean, i think honestly if it would be tough for the government to regulate the i think Technology Just<\/a> moves too fast for for government to really meaningfully regulate. But i think, you know, i work in the Tech Industry<\/a> and i talk to people at some of these companies and ive never talked to someone at one of these companies who does not somewhat acknowledge the responsibility and want to do a better job. These companies are made of people who care just like you do and were surprised by things that have happened in the political world just like you are and want things to be better, not necessarily just in one direction or another, but just better in terms of, you know, the kinds of things we all care about. So, you know, i can say i think people are working on it, think theres a lot of smart people walking on it, i kind of sometimes liken it to new transition. Once upon a time, you know, weve evolved to be really into sugar, right, and to really want to eat sugar and then eventually we learn that too much sugar bad for us and we have signs that tell us how many calories things are and weve evolved to sort of Pay Attention<\/a> to negative information and to compete as groups and, you know, our information diet, you know, can be verien healthy for us in a similar way. Its not just online. Look at the 11 00 news. All the seven things that you dont know that might kill you if you dont watch the 11 00 like its sort of engrained in us that these algorithms and the media, theyre all optimizing towards in some ways human nature. But just like with nutrition, there are ways for us as a thoughtful species to understand that, you know, the kinds of things were seeing arent go for us and for smart people to do good things, to do things about that. And so people are working on these algorithms pmtd so in the absence of regulation are i do think things will get better. That was extremely thoughtful and im not going to say anything thats remotely that thoughtful. But i like bills perspective that it makes common sense that there should be some degree of transparency. But when you game that out i dont think it will have any practical effect. Because this expenditure say naive expenditure that goes through a pac unraveling how funds get into that pac is very, very difficult if not impossible. The point have youre not going to see a facebook ad or any ad with the disclaimer this ad was purchased by the russian government. Its going to go through a lot of hands before it gets there. So i think practically speak, bill, i would defer to you if you feel differently because youve actually would place those nings things and interact with them. I think its extremely challenging to figure out whos paid that. The transparency just isnt there. I think the the impact on particularly on independent expenditure ads of disclaimers is grossly exaggerated by most campaign reformers because often times they say paid for by the committee for a better world. And whos against a better world, obviously. But on the other hand, it does lead a paper trail that you can follow and try to figure out who is behind the money. Now, i think the russian particular issue involved with the russian, i think if somebody comes up to you and says they want to hire you to do their polling and pays you in rubles, youre probably going to say this is not a good idea. They would just pay cash. Youre absolutely right. So i enjoyed your analogy about sugar and maybe you mentioned diabetes, right. So maybe when we create something when the technology will create Something Like<\/a> refined sugar, its exciting but, you know, there are consequences like a Public Health<\/a> problem of diabetes. And as a Technology Developer<\/a> myself i feel like our community is sensed the pace of the development is increasing, and so the opportunity to regulate and to alter our behaviors for these downstream consequences our window has become shorter and shorter. So i wanted to ask bill and justin, in your line of work, have you have you noticed an acceleration or is it just par for the course the way that technologys changing both Opinion Research<\/a> and political messaging or the fields you work on . I think the most profound in impact of technology on the political process so far has been huge acceleration of fundraising opportunities from small donors. Literally president baems campaign was funded primarily by small donors, particularly in 08, and i think we saw that with Bernie Sanders<\/a> this time. So, you know, were talking about ads, but i think one of the most profound impacts has been the fundraising, the change in the fundraising culture. And that that part of Digital Communications<\/a> and digital Political Communications<\/a> is far advanced beyond where tiesing is right n advertising is right now. The Digital World<\/a> is still struggling to get 15 foers 20 of advertising dollars either commercially or politically. So theres questions about where its going to go and of course all these things change. I mean, you know, theres going to be other digital breakthroughs and different ways to communicate. And i have a firm view that what we do in the Communications World<\/a> is we dont really get rid of any old media, we just add another form of new media on top of it. So its like we get to be a more fragmented and more complex communications culture, particularly in the advertising side. And were still by advertising on tv, still advertising on cable, in terms of people are still advertising on broadcast radio. And then we have all these other new mediums including online and satellite and all these other things that are coming. And im sure i think we can see pod casts are going to play a significant political role over time. So, you know, theres an enormous fragmentation going on in our communications universe. And people are not only selfselecting about the news, as we talked about, theyre also selfselecting about where they get their news and, you know, when know there are people who are watching exclusively Fox Television<\/a> and people who watch exclusively msnbc. Well probably see the same phenomena on podcasts, people who listen to pro grekt gressive podcasts and there will be people who listen to conservative podcasts exclusively. Thats a big change is that people become so idea logically driven about where they get information from. Yeah, the medium mix that bill was describing, i mean, it evolves over time because but it hasnt flipped because people consume information in the ways that they like to consume them and its usually multiple different ways. So digital doesnt own the world right now simply because people consume information and right of ways and most media markets tv is an incredibly inefficient way to save money if youve got the money. In my small world which is trying to figure out how people thing and trying to influence their thoughts and behaviors, digital has had a profound impact. If youre talking about a highly informed horse race and theres really only one thats the president ial race, then google surveys is fantastic, its remarkable, unbelievable. If youre talk about anything other than that, then it becomes degrades in efficacy. There are, you know, folks who are pros la tiesing a particular tool or method because they get enamored with that method, just with any kind of industry. And they forget that sometimes theres a right wid get for every application and its not one size fits all. In my world theres a move right now to transition from telephone research which if you perform it in the right way can still be the most accurate form to integrating Digital Online<\/a> research, which could be incredibly useful for the right approach. But there are pit falls with it. The digit all aspect of that typically comes in in california from the voter file. And in recent years, 50 of every knew Voter Registration<\/a> card has a valid email address, it works, its really, really good. But if you say arbitrarily im going to do 50 of this on phone and that includes cell phones and all that kind of stuff, and 50 of it online, what youve done is confined 50 of your sample to new registrants, which composes a traction of the electorate. So youve gone ahead and put an artificial constraint and there is good reason to look at that and say that methodology is flawed. It may hit the mark from time to time, but its going to be wrong much more often than a different methodology for that particular purpose. On the other hand, if youre researching a small California Coastal<\/a> town on a ballot measure and theres 10,000 voters in that space, then you can slice and dice the methodology and include digital and just make sure that youre careful about the proportions and you can get much better well, reality is youll get higher rate of response than you would normally. And that information cant be regard as statistically significant because the math doesnt work that way, but its directional. And ghes what . The rest of the world works with with directional research. When i work on consumer based stuff, if im selling footage paste or technology, i cant use the voter file which say remarkable be a will he infective tool. But i have to use some construct of big data. And what people forget, because big data sounds cool, its just a work around and it gets better. But its nowhere near as good as the voter polls that we have. So back to companies, the Media Companies<\/a>. So companies such as google, facebook and twitter are making the case that theyre actually not Media Companies<\/a> and should be they should take a handsoff role in policing content on their platforms. So i want to get your takes on whether the benefits of free speech outweigh the consequences of the spread of false information and how platforms might deal with bad actors that are trying to manipulate messaging. Broad question. Well, i mean, its going to be a very complex problem for a long time. I think that i mean, theres a difference between what the hearings did on facebook when they were talking about russian collusion and i totally agree it was not the impact was not that great on this election but the potential impact in some future election if this continues to grow as rapidly, the foreign interference grows rapidly as its grown in the last 20 years, you know, it will have an impact. How the industry itself deals with these issues is you know, its going to be really difficult for them. I mean, to the extent an industry can have an ideology, theres is more antiregulatory, antigovernment lib bertarian in many ways than other industries, even more conservative industries. Theyre going to resist any kind of regulation. And congress is going to hold, you know, particularly when it is amazing how interesting Congress Gets<\/a> into issues about elections. They have a little bit of selfinterest in how elections are conducted. So theyre aggressiveness on this issue will be pretty extensive. They will want to see some clean up your act kind of dynamic, but i think there will be resistance. Were a long way from figuring this out, too. A hell of a long way. So i mean i think ive already said that i think its almost impossible for for starters. I think its impossible for government to effectively regulate some of these technologies, but i mean, ill give a hopeful thing, which is that, you know, and also i think maybe useful for your engineering students who might be in the audience today. I think there is a Movement Towards<\/a> the idea that you dont have to measure just clicks or time onsite or ad impressions, which is what a lot of these sites are designed to optimize towards. There are other things you can measure. There are products out there on some of these Media Companies<\/a> that try and sense when you are in danger of hurting yourself and try and help with you that, right . Or, you know, there are things that are trying to measure things that are a little bit more human, theyre a little bit closer to the goals. And, you know, were reminded by some people say if you ever gave an ai a problem like stop all human suffering, you know, the easiest way to stop all human suffering is it to kill all the human beings now theres no humans in the world. So sometimes there are unintentional goals that we set for these algorithms and i think were realizing those consequences. For the engineering students here, there are interesting ways to think about how i can measure measuring things like, you know, fulfillment, happiness, you know, those are fuzzy constructs, but theyre they are if you can measure whether something is or is not a cat you can measure some of these fuzzy constructs as well. And speaking carefully because some of the companies are clients, theresy think theres a challenge within Technology Companies<\/a> of huber russ and i think they tend to breathe their own exhaust a little bit too much and they tend to be some of the worst corporate actors in america. For one example, a particular ride hailing app, the way that they approached growth was to ignore the law. And im not a law and order person, but the reality is we live under a construct of laws and we have to respond to them and respect them. That particular car company, in every city that they rolled out to, they simply ignored it, and states. So even with selfdriving cars. So when they did something that was against the law, rather than working with another organization say lets fix this in a way that works for everybody to some degree, which means everyone walks away to some degree unhappy as well as happy, they didnt. If you could imagine an oil company or a Tobacco Company<\/a> behaving in the way that many Technology Companies<\/a> behave, they would be crucified. But so far so far that momentum is still there. I think theres a i dont think theres an appetite to selfregulate. So the companies that you were alluding to include Tech Companies<\/a> and also traditional Media Companies<\/a>, and you mentioned some metrics that might be might provide more value to society. But i dont know if theres a connection between those metrics and what is Good Business<\/a> for the companies. So do you see is that a problem . Is that so many of the Media Companies<\/a> are more incentivized to maintain intention, maybe loyalty to that media source which seems like its not in line, necessarily, with some of the values that were proposed as alternative benefits of these media i mean, yeah, thats certainly true at the micro level for individual companies. But then, you know, eventually the things that people value and the things that Companies Value<\/a> converge. Theres so i guess, you know, ultimately for example some of these platforms are theyre paid by advertisers. Theres advertisers on the platform, a lot of them are brand advertisers. You know, they want to be associated with things that provide value and, you know, theres a huge effort right now on brand safety, for example, where brands are removing their ads from places that are they feel are harming, you know, their consumers. And so, you know, thats in some ways in response to everyday consumers who are tweeting tho these brands that look, here your ad is on this offensive place. So, you know, the world doesnt get there right away, but eventually things converge towards the things that people value are the things that businesses will optimize towards. And there will be inefficiencies along the way that will be, you know, will be terrible and there will be terrible consequences. But, you know think there business as a whole will eventually get to a point where theyre trying to serve some of these larger goals, even if youre right, some of these companies right now the Business Models<\/a> are not opt mieimized tos that. Id say theres a comparison here historically between television and online, and its back to the issue of how you evaluate how many people are watching an ad. Television adopted a universal method that was monopolied by the Neilson Company<\/a> and has become a standard measurement in the television industry. I mean, there has been arguments over various rating methodology changes and there hasnt been all happiness and sweetness, but mostly its been universally accepted as the standard measurement. Online nobody can figure out who the hell theyre talking to. Its just reality. And there was an experiment that proctor and gamble, which is arguably the Largest Consumer<\/a> company in the world, did over the summer where they basically their argument based on a study done by advertising agencies in the United Kingdom<\/a> is that we didnt really know who we were talking to and there were a lot of bots out there and all the other things we know were big problems, and what is this and what semipressions mean and what are we getting for it and whatnot. So this came across the atlantic, procter and gamble takes a look at it and they decide to do an experiment. Their experiment was for one quarter they dropped all their online advertising, which had been 20 of their budget, advertising budget, they just dropped it. And to see what impact it would have on their sales. What they uncovered was it had zero impact on their sales. Absolutely zero. Then cocacola did a study which they wanted to try to figure out, okay, what media most influences people at the point of purchase . And they found out just slightly over 50 said television. And then in the teens were radio and unbelievably enough, print. And the high Single Digits<\/a> was online. So were still in the infancy of this industry as an advertising platform. Not not as we all experience it every day getting online and doing with all the things we do, communicating with each other, getting information online, whatnot. But as an advertising platform were still in the infancy. We cant quite measure what were getting for our bucks and on the other hand, we cant stay away from it. And theres, as we talked about, you know, there are situations where, you know, california, this is the biggest state in the union, Everybody Knows<\/a> that, its also got two of the top Ten Television<\/a> markets in the country, los angeles and san francisco, one in the top 20 25, sacramento another is like 26, san diego. So we have four of the largest media markets in the country. Whats that do some it makes us the most expensive place to communicate in the world. And then we have this political setup where the whole state votes for everybody so its very, very expensive to communicate here. Online gives people an option to do something other than mail people things, to talk to them. So everybody finds it very attractive and i think the political community, whether its Opinion Research<\/a> or advertising or field people, whatever, everybody wants online to succeed, theyre just not sure what theyre getting for their buck right now. Which is a bad thing in a capitalist society. So i guess related to that, another thing online allows do you is do much more precise targeting. So the next questions about that. So targeting political ads on social media are unlike tv ads in that campaign opponents might not see and respond to information in the ads. How will this change campaigns approach Going Forward<\/a> . Well, i think that that is one of the advantages is obviously targeting. Its also one of the limitations. I mean, limits the number of people youre communicating with. But you can do wonderful things online with targeting. Did a ballot measure last november where we spent a whole lel of a lot of money on texting because we wanted to find someway to talk to millennials because we know they dont really watch television that much. So there are a lot people are going to explore all kinds of vehicles in order to talk in a targeted way. And ultimately i think well get it will become more universal and media platform and people will talk to large numbers of voters online. Yeah, i see lots of people using targeting to really impressive effect, you know, a lot of the companies that work, you know, micro targeting, niche targeting, you know, think about entertainment. Entertainment as historically been marketed to young men, young women, older men, older women. We although that our entertainment preferences are not so simple and being able to market to, you know, market vikings to game of thrones, it seems obvious but being able to do those very kinds of obvious things is really helpful. And i guess the key is someway to make it seem like more if someday this could be seen as more like a service and less like an intrusion, you know, i get ads that that i am really genuinely happy to see and i get ads that im not. So speaking to the targeting thing, it can be really useful and theres a change in that kind of black box of digital spend. Digital spend used to be kind of and largely still is evaluated kind of like a government program, how much money did you spend ton as posed to who did it actually go to in tracking the folks that saw it in terms of the demographics, that was hard. That was the gap. There are companies that are being purchased by or partnering with isps so theyre being able to track that spend to an isp and then have you that incredible not only target willing by demographic but you know who digested the information and in what way they digested it. Its a little creepy but thats that missing link of efficacy and its getting more and more prevalent throughout media markets. Its incredibly useful to me because i can do visual advertisement, especially tiesing is perfectly aligned to this. In a period of one and a half weeks or so i can figure out and do an ab testing of a couple different concepts and get very, very Accurate Information<\/a> in terms of who it is most effective with. So for my little world its becoming more and more useful. Specifically when theres messaging from one campaign with targeted approaches there may not be chance for opponents to respond. Is this something thats likely to be exploited or is this do you find this problematic . I dont i dont think anything really occurs in that degree of a vacuum. I think at some point or another its visible. Yeah, i agree totally. I think that people once you are out there in the world, people are going to find out about it outside of the targeted universe. If youre saying extraordinarily controversial things to one audience, you know, and something entirely dourch another audience, if you dont get caught it will be a minor miracle. Okay. So final prepared question. 2018 is right around the corner and we dont yet have solid evidence that facebooks efforts to combat fake news are successful. Whats the 2018 political information outlook and how will it be different from 2016 and will our facebook feeds and google searches help us make better decisions about whom to vote for or will it be worse . Well, we had an election last week and it was remarkable, particularly virginia, which was contested. New jersey not so much. I mean, people didnt come away and say fake news had some profound impact on the election. I mean, they talked about what the two candidates were saying and what how they were advertising, how they were organizing, and in the postmortem it was a who showed up and how they voted and all the things he does. It tells us what happened after the fact. But i thought it was interesting that we did not see a huge the fake news, you know, dynamic in that, at least in virginia. I mean, ill say i think its going to get worse. Its going to be worse, its going to probably get worse for a little while and its not because of the platforms, i think the platforms are going to try to get better and there will be largely the same or theyll make improvements around the edges until they figure it out. But i think whats changing is that were that much more pole rised than we were five years ago. And if you look at measures of political polarization, they were all getting worse and worse and very alarming ways. So, you know, again, where i started was that a lot of the problems we see around fake news are a reflection of the partisan ship we see, our willingness to believe things and you can look at them. The race in alabama right now, the kinds of things that people are saying about, you know, what is try and what is not true and who you support and what that says about your beliefs about what is true and whats not true. Its obviously a lot of motivated reasoning going on and its not just limited to people in alabama. I mean, theres research about how, you know, really smart people, the smarter you are the better you are at justifying the thing you want to believe, right . You use that intelligence to believe what you want. So i think things are going to get worse until but the hope is that, you know, there are also people putting on conversations like this who actually are trying to not be so polarized, to make things better. And hopefully if those efforts succeed, thats what will solve things, not technology. The only thing i would say is that that bubble that, you know, twitter and Facebook Create<\/a> and allow people to kind of selfidentify the sirk that they want to be around and that language and that talk and that chatter continues and continues and continues and obviously political circles its highly charged, that has become exacerbated by the algorithms that are part of this. If you say im interested in that and you click on something that has a message then youre getting more and more and the hamster is getting food more and more of whatever drug thats going to eventually kill it. People naturally get more frustrated with that stuff, the tensions rise. I think thats a real problem. I think panneders to human behavior. I think you had a point about companies and having a human nature at some point, they selfcorrect. People do too, thats why companies selfcorrect is because from folks. I think its somewhere in there the intensity hopefully will kind goff down. But i think next year it will probably be crazy. I dont know. Actually, your larger point that this is a reflection of the larger political polarization, this is not creating the larger political polarization. And you go back, i mean, nixon was bashing the media long before there was anything any online world or anything else. He was bashing dan rather daily in the white house. So, i mean, theres been an element of this in our politics for a long time. And it just its just heightened a little bit in dhu find your own world to talk to and you dont have to talk to the rest of the world. That is thats somewhat of a new phenomena. I think i was a little bit answering the question about fake news because i think fake news say symptom of polarization and, you know, so i dont think the platforms are necessarily exacerbating the fake news. But i think to your pointed, i totally agree that the platforms are exacerbating our polarization in some ways. And, you know, i think thats somewhat of a reflection theres a study out that human beings are three times more likely to click on things that are negatively framed than positively framed. Like weve evolved to Pay Attention<\/a> to negative things because thats what stopped us from getting killed, our ancestors from getting killed put dont Pay Attention<\/a> to some danger significant all in die put dont Pay Attention<\/a> to some positive signal, you miss out on the lunch, right . So weve evolved to Pay Attention<\/a> to negative things so therefore, you know, algorithms that are optimized towards clicks and engagement, they optimize towards negative things. The media environment everyone learns. And thats a problem. Its definitely leading to the polarization we see. So but, yeah, that to me i think say problem more so i work on the polarization less so on the fake news because a lot of research we do is about how people are social and emotional first and rational second. We always believe what we want to believe and work on the polarization layer and less on the rational what is the information i got. You mentioned alabama. I mean, that is really an interesting case study and now you have a political universe thats extremely conservative and extremely conservative candidate is now been accused of horrendous acts. And on the news were listening to how the community that supports judge moore is trying to figure out how to rationalize this in a way that they can continue to vote for him. And its like its almost painful to listen to because the truth is, they shouldnt vote for him because hes a bad person. But they they dont want to go there and so lets blame the Washington Post<\/a> instead of ourselves. Yeah, but thats cognitive distance is probably one of the most painful things you can do. Exactly. You can live with in life and nobody wants think about. Think about the most painful things you can think of. Your son or daughter is accused of murder, right . Your favorite sports team, you know, has undergo the star quarterback is accuse of sexual assault, you know, the person you admire most, these are all like it doesnt really if it were someone you didnt care about it wouldnt matter but its that cognitive disa dense, its the thing i wand nt at distance between what i want in one sphere and what i believe in another sphere that is, you know, it is painful just even to watch. So what if the manager of your Favorite Team<\/a> pitches the wrong guy in the seventh game of the world series and it doesnt turn out well . The onions kind of peeling pretty rapidly on that. He pulled support for him and i dont see that i dont see that cognitive distance thing continuing for much longer. Youre exactly right that theres theres a period where everyone tries to figure out i mean, its why people have a surprised look on their face when theyre dead, its not really happening. Its happening. But it takes a little while. Even Something Like<\/a> this, you think it cant possibly be real or maybe theres an explanation and then it becomes pretty evident pretty quickly at least in this case that youve got a real problem. You have to resolve it, right. So cognitive distance, i im a conservative in alabama, i want to vote for a conservative, i want a conservative senator. This man has been accused of, you know, assaulting teenage girls, right. Like something has to give kput not sit there with those two statements forever. You have to resolve it. You either have to believe that its fake, or you have to stop supporting him and you have to resolve it. And thats what people do all the time. They resolve it one way or another. They believe that something is fake news or they stop supporting a candidate. Or they have a third choice which is they dont participate. They can do something else. Maybe in the outcome, you know. We have time for audience questions, about 15 minutes. Anyone . Okay. Get a mike. We have a mike coming to you. Mikes coming to you. Raise your hand again, im sorry. Got you. I have a question about if there will ever be a media source that the majority of the population believes, again, to the extent that people believe tv news or took it for its word or took it as truth in like the 60s and 70s like you mentioned dan rather, will there ever be a figure like that on National Television<\/a> again or in any kind of form where the majority, 70 , 80 , 90 of the population believes them . Well, i think this too. The first answer to that is its going to be difficult because theres an enormous amount of media fragmentation. From 50s, 60s, through much of the 70s into the 80s had you three mnetworks that were dominate and had you three choice tlars was it. Some people liked cron cite, some people like brinkley, not a lot of people liked abc, but nbc and cbs were dominate. Now have you so many more Media Outlets<\/a> that people have a lot more choices and they can and some of them are i ddeological choices. Ted turner started cnn, people laufd at that time thought it was crazy watching all news station on cable, it turned out to be the precursor of all thats come since. So i think its tough because of the media fragmentation. Im going to venture that, yes, there will be a time. Because i was read something anal sees. I work that the company that people vote on things, favorite moves vis and tv shows. Ways doing some analysis of red states and blue states and what the analysis showed there was more agreement between red states and blue states than amongst men and women than amongst young people and old people than there is against americans and people across the world. And its and largely its theres agreement about things that are not, you know, part of the partisanship. So we all agree that clayton occur schau a good pitcher or or christipy cream makes hot donuts that are good for me they taste good but they are not good for me. Stlr things that human beings agree on. And its just when they become controversial and they become part of this partisanship that it all breaks down. But i think sometimes we overplay the number of things that are part of this partisanship and i think there may come a time when, you know, its not you know, you see this like when war happens and people rally around the flag and we stop thinking of ourselves as red state and blue state we think more wholistically. There will come a time where partisanship is not thing that news is about and therefore it will revert to the, you know, the things that most us kind of agree upon. And so, you know, there will abi lot more agreement. I mean, the sheer volume of outlets is definitely a problem and, youre right, you can divide it into prefox and post fox when news became iddyed i logically charged. But what i mean is not idea logical per inspect tifr. So those personalities were turned to present, you know, a reason analysis of the issues. And that might be analysis of both sides of issues, maybe theres multiple sides, but you werent tune in to hear yourself think, which we do largely now. So i dont know if we have an appetite to go back. Its entertainment, its not really news. David. So rephrasing maybe what robbie was saying as part of the response, the partisanship seems to not be on actual opinions as on like expressive partisanship i think its been called in the psychology and Political Science<\/a> literature that your Party Affiliation<\/a> as become a very important part of who you and what your personality is. Do you see a role for media to help none doing this . If you were consulting with facebook and facebook said we see weve really gotten into trouble, what initiatives do you think could you suggest that might help people overcome this hyper expressive partisanship . I mean, yeah, were doing some research as part of civil politics on just that question and one thing i just alluded to, you know, the idea that theres something in psychology called extended contact theory. Its the idea that if i watch, you know, say im at a Football Game<\/a> and i watch my team get into a fight on the field with members of the other team, well now i want to fight with fans of the other team, right . And even so watching people of your group fight with the people of the other group makes you want to fight with people of the other group as well, right . Thats kind of what our media environment as become a little bit is we watch we dont watch theres actually a lot of bipartisan bills, but because of the negativity bias not a lot. Theres some bipartisan bills that get passed that dont get as much attention as say the latest insult that donald trump lobs to random person on the other side of the aisle. And so, yeah, the media could easily, you know, thats one thing i hope to show them a little bit, if we do this research right and it shows what i think it will show because, you know, thats a basic psychology find, watching people fight all the time makes you want to fight. So you can publish stories all you want about people fighting across the aisle, but, you know, you should realize the impact youre having on the electorate and you have the opportunity and the opposite is true. Watching people get along makes want to get along. So you can publish this stuff that could mange things better if you wanted to and hopefully theyll take us up on that. I think theres one unusual thing to this whole environment. Mostly we until recently we were in a universe where the partisan polarization was between the parties. Now we have very severe polarization within the parties. Weve seen the never trumpers on the republican side and they dont seem to be getting over it very fast. And we see the, you know, Bernie Sanders<\/a> supporters on the democratic side who dont seem to be getting over the last campaign very fast. And even the hillary people arent getting over the campaign very fast. So we now have polarization within both Political Parties<\/a> and i think thats thats pretty unpredictable where that ends up. We have time for one final question. Right here. We mentioned how certain algorithms are set up so that you click on one ideological message and it starts to feed you similar ideological messages whatever platform youre on facebook or just google. But in terms of combating extreme partisanship, would there be an advantage to kind of working in an opposite manner so that when you have people who are on a strict news diet of other side that maybe exposure of ads to the ideological party might help them be a little bit more receptive to those arguments or open up the line for debate so that that partisanship doesnt necessarily get in the way of good policy or good Public Policy<\/a> like what advantage would you stla couay could be in that . I only ask whos going to pay for it sentence its a nice idea but theyre a company and theyre selling space. And the reason white algorithm um works is because its the same marketing approach as i went on line and im looking for a pair of pants and suddenly i get all these Different Things<\/a> about pants. Its very simple algorithm um theoretically. I love the noblt know built of idea, but someones bot to pay the tap. 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