Project Veritas’ YouTube sting was deeply misleading — and successful
My esteemed colleague Russell Brandom leads our policy team. He was struck by the disingenuous response from conservative lawmakers to the most recent video sting from Project Veritas, which presented YouTube employees in an unfair light. Russell asked if he could take over the column today, and I was happy to oblige. I’ll be back tomorrow with thoughts on Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance at the Aspen Ideas festival.
James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas has been on a tear against Google lately, with the most recent salvo coming this Monday. Like most of O’Keefe’s work, it’s deceptively edited and doesn’t add up to much, but he managed to catch one executive in a pretty poor choice of words. In a hidden camera conversation with Jen Gennai, Google’s Head of Responsible Innovation, the executive is caught saying the following:
Elizabeth Warren is saying we should break up Google. And like, I love her but she’s very misguided, like that will not make it better it will make it worse, because all these smaller companies who don’t have the same resources that we do will be charged with preventing the next Trump situation, it’s like a small company cannot do that.
If you substitute “Cambridge Analytica” for “Trump Situation,” it’s more or less the argument Facebook and Google have been using to fend off antitrust proposals all year. But if you’re inclined to think the whole media is biased against the president, it was exactly what you’d been waiting to hear. When the video was pulled off YouTube for “privacy violations” the next day, it only fueled the paranoia.
The whole situation would probably have stayed quiet if it weren’t for Ted Cruz, who called out the video in an uncomfortable moment at the Senate Commerce hearing the following day. Cruz was questioning Google UX Director Maggie Stanphill, who was nominally there to speak about dark patterns in interface design. Cruz took her to task for the quote in the video, and then again when he realized she hadn’t actually read the report.
“I would recommend people interested in political bias at Google watch the entire report and judge for yourself,” Cruz said. The clip was then circulated on the usual right wing outlets (Town Hall, Breitbart, PJ Media), and got a minor replay from the Homeland Security Committee the next day. After that last hearing, the scandal grew big enough that YouTube decided to issue an official denial, saying simply “we apply our policies fairly and without political bias.”
It’s embarrassing that Congress took this so seriously, and no one wants to give it any more attention than it deserves. But O’Keefe has played this trick over and over, so it’s worth breaking down exactly what’s happening here.
To start with, there’s a fairly straightforward reason why the Veritas video was banned. YouTube’s privacy guidelines ban videos that identify people who don’t want to be identified. There are exceptions for newsworthiness and public figures, but the Veritas video is clearly on the wrong side of the rule. The offending footage is the hidden-camera video of Gennai, who is no one’s idea of a public figure, and obviously didn’t consent to be in the video.
Even if you see Veritas as making a newsworthy point about platform bias, it’s hard to argue that including Gennai’s name and face was necessary to make that point. (Hidden camera footage used on broadcast news typically blurs out faces for exactly this reason.) Given the general temperament of Veritas subscribers, one can only imagine the kind of abuse that’s been pointed at Gennai in the days since the video went live.
This sort of takedown happens often enough that we can assume most YouTubers are aware of them, to say nothing of reporters covering YouTube moderation issues. It’s hard to believe O’Keefe was walking into this blind — just like it’s hard to believe he wasn’t aware that YouTube was scheduled for a run of congressional hearings in the days after the video posted. He was daring YouTube to ban him, knowing that it would elevate a mediocre scoop into two days of congressional berating.
The point wasn’t to force YouTube into better policies or more consistent enforcement. It was simply brute force, letting executives know that every time someone in the conservative clique has trouble with YouTube, there will be a lawmaker ready to sweat them over it. Each time it happens, Google gets a little more gun-shy dealing with high-profile policy violations, whether it’s Alex Jones or Steven Crowder. And as long as the trick keeps working, O’Keefe and Cruz will keep doing it.
Pushback
Some readers thought my column about the development of a Chinese-style social credit system in the United States was a tad too alarmist. After all, there’s no evidence the government is collaborating with any of the companies I mentioned, or even a suggestion it wants to. My goal was to float the possibility to encourage discussion before such a thing comes to pass — but I apologize to anyone who found my subject line too sensational.
In the meantime, ProPublica published an article Tuesday about another technology that moves us in the direction of social credit inside schools. Jack Gillum and Jeff Kao report:
The students were helping ProPublica test an aggression detector that’s used in hundreds of schools, health care facilities, banks, stores and prisons worldwide, including more than 100 in the U.S. Sound Intelligence, the Dutch company that makes the software for the device, plans to open an office this year in Chicago, where its chief executive will be based.
California-based Louroe Electronics, which has loaded the software on its microphones since 2015, advertises the devices in school safety magazines and at law enforcement conventions, and it said it has between 100 and 1,000 customers for them. Louroe’s marketing materials say the detection software enables security officers to “engage antagonistic individuals immediately, resolving the conflict before it turns into physical violence.”
I suppose this is more of a surveillance system than a “social credit” system, per se. But the lines are blurry, the technology is rapidly developing, and it seems like a good time to keep connecting the dots.
Democracy
Trump signals U.S. government ‘should be suing Google and Facebook’
On one hand, who cares? The president runs his mouth about this sort of thing all the time. On the other:
The president’s comments during an interview on Fox Business came just weeks after federal competition regulators at the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission divvied up scrutiny of Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google, a move that could suggest the government is in the early stages of an investigation into those tech giants.
Reddit Quarantines Pro-Trump Subreddit r/The_Donald Over Anti-Police Threats
Will Sommer broke the news that a notorious subreddit devoted to the president has been “quarantined,” meaning that visitors will see a content advisory when they visit. It’s also considered a first step toward being banned. “Users allegedly threatened law enforcement ordered to find Republican senators in Oregon who went on the lam to duck voting for climate-change bill,” Sommer writes.
The_Donald was controversial on Reddit long before Wednesday’s quarantine. Prior to the 2017 Unite the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, The_Donald moderators pinned a post encouraging members to attend the rally to the top of the page. The subreddit’s users regularly vote content from white supremacists and other extremists to the forum’s frontpage. The subreddit was also an early hotbed for conspiracy theories about murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, with The_Donald posters regularly claiming without evidence that Rich was murdered by Hillary Clinton.
Trump is making sure more YouTubers see him than see the Democratic debate
Emily Stewart reports that the president is counter-programming tonight’s debate among Democratic presidential candidates with a giant ad on YouTube:
President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has bought YouTube’s “masthead” — basically, the advertisement at the top of YouTube’s homepage — for Wednesday, the first night of the Democratic debates. That means anyone who goes to YouTube’s website is going to be hit with pro-Trump messaging. It’s an expensive move, and an effective one.
“It’s one of the highest impact digital ad placements possible,” Daniel Scarvalone, senior director of research and data at Democratic communications and strategy firm Bully Pulpit Interactive, said in an email.
Democrats have focused their Facebook ads on making it to the debate stage
Michelle Ye Hee Lee reports that Democratic candidates are spent big on Facebook ahead of the debate:
About a quarter of Democratic presidential campaigns’ ad spending on Facebook in recent months has focused on the upcoming debates — a sign of how important the candidates view these forums as they seek to break out of a crowded field.
Of the $9.8 million Democratic candidates spent between March 30 and June 15 on Facebook advertisements, $2.5 million went toward ads that mentioned the Democratic National Committee debates, including their need to reach the required number of donors to get them on the debate stage this week, according to Facebook ad spending data analyzed by Democratic digital firm Bully Pulpit Interactive.
Social media companies readying to combat disinformation in Democratic debates
Cat Zakrzewski reports that Facebook and Twitter are “taking additional precautions this week” to defend against debate-related interference online:
Facebook’s Menlo Park, Calif., “War Room” will be in action – with a team on the watch for threats and looking into any reports of abuse. The group will include representatives from more than a dozen of the companies internal teams, ranging from data science and engineering to policy. This is an additional line of defense on top of the 30,000 people Facebook regularly has working on safety and security measures.
How 24,000 Tweets Tell You What the Democratic Presidential Candidates Care About
Allison McCartney does a nice visual analysis of what’s on the Democratic candidates’ minds ahead of their debate:
In total, issues were mentioned in candidate tweets 16,000 times. Jobs, the environment and social issues—including women’s rights, LGBTQ rights and race—have been the issues most discussed in their tweets—making up a combined 37% of topics mentioned.
Some hot-button issues aren’t yet trending in the Democratic field. Infrastructure has barely registered. On average the candidates have mentioned it just eight times in tweets this year, and have tweeted about trade wars and tariffs—defining issues for Trump—even less.
LGBTQ Google employees ask SF Pride to remove the company from celebrations
Megan Farokhmanesh reports that LGBTQ employees within Google are petitioning San Francisco Pride to kick the company from its official festivities this weekend. (Pride declined to do so.)
“[We] urge you to revoke Google’s sponsorship of Pride 2019, and exclude Google from representation in the San Francisco Pride Parade on June 30th, 2019,” reads a Medium post with the full petition, posted to the site on Tuesday. The name includes close to 100 signatures of employees who “are compelled to speak,” despite potential repercussions.
The petition, which is addressed to San Francisco Pride’s board of directors, was first reported by Bloomberg. Prior to the petition’s public existence, a source told The Verge it was “extremely controversial” within the Gayglers group, but it had already collected dozens of signatures by Tuesday night.
Elsewhere
Regulators Have Doubts About Facebook Cryptocurrency. So Do Its Partners.
Nathaniel Popper reports that some of the signatories to the Libra project might not be fully committed:
One of the biggest selling points of Facebook’s ambitious plans for its new cryptocurrency, Libra, was that the social media company had 27 partners, including prominent outfits like Visa, Mastercard and Uber, helping out on the project.
But some of those partners are approaching Libra warily. They signed nonbinding agreements to join the effort partly because they knew they weren’t obliged to use or promote the digital token and could easily back out if they didn’t like where it was going, said executives at seven of those companies, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.
Facebook’s cryptocurrency Libra, explained
Elizabeth Lopatto has a skeptical (and very funny) explainer on Libra:
You remember Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss? The twins from whom Mark Zuckerberg ripped the initial idea for Facebook? Yeah, so they have a cryptocurrency exchange called Gemini. As any astrology buff will tell you, both Libra and Gemini are air signs, and Geminis are stereotypically scarier than Libras. Gemini is the sign of twins and is associated with two-faced-ness. Plus, it’s a mutable air sign, which makes it somewhat unstable. Libra, as a cardinal sign, is somewhat more stable. Libra sees both sides; Gemini tries to be both sides.
On the other hand, astrology is made up. On some theoretical third hand: so is money!
Consortium of Tech Firms Sets AI Benchmarks
Tech giants are collaborating to set benchmarks for helping other companies measure the effectiveness of artificial intelligence, Agam Shah reports:
A consortium of tech companies, including Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, has released a set of benchmarks for evaluating the performance of artificial-intelligence tools, aiming to help businesses navigate the fast-growing field.
The benchmarks—which cover image recognition, object detection and voice translation—are meant to help companies compare various AI tools to see which work best for them as they pursue their own AI initiatives, said Peter Mattson, general chairman of the consortium, MLPerf, which counts 40 companies as members.
Facebook will now allow (some) CBD ads
With CBD popping up in an increasing number of products, Facebook is relaxing its total ban on ads promoting it, Kerry Flynn And Kristina Monllos report:
Advertisers are allowed to run ads for topical hemp across Facebook. Advertisers can run ads that direct to landing pages that feature ingestible hemp and topical CBD. But the ads cannot specifically feature those products. Facebook is still prohibiting ads for ingestible CBD, including ads that direct to landing pages with those products.
Something Awful’s founder thinks YouTube sucks at moderation
Bijan Stephen talks to Rich Kyanka of the influential web forum Something Awful about his preferred ways to moderate content. Among them: reserve the right to ban any user for any reason, and charge people $10 to create an account.
At Something Awful, the mods were organically chosen by the administrators: they were part of the community, with the same sense of humor and priorities as the admins, but near and dear to the forum’s user base. “Because nobody knows your community better than the people who are in charge of cleaning up the community,” Kyanka told me. The mods should be the foundation of the community. Which means the site needs to have a real, firm identity. It can’t just be a play for engagement or advertising; you have to know what kind of person you want on your platform. “And hopefully, if that message is relayed properly, then it will be a much easier way to have moderators that actually do the job well and are transparent about it.”
Chasing fame and fun 15 seconds at a time: Why TikTok has India hooked
Tora Agarwala, Surbhi Gupta, and Karishma Mehrotra report on how TikTok is sweeping India:
TikTok is not as easy as Facebook. It involves an element of skill. “Do you know how difficult it is to get one TikTok like? On Facebook, you just put a photo and the likes pour in. Here, we have to work hard.” Medhi admits he was naïve initially. “I would make photo-collages from my trips to Kaziranga and add some background music.” But that would not have worked. “The viewer takes into account everything: is our lip-sync matching? Are our clothes suited to the mood of the music? Are our expressions accurate?”
Launches
YouTube introducing changes to give people more control over recommended videos
YouTube has new features to let you surf its recommendations with more control, Julia Alexander reports:
YouTube is introducing changes to two crucial browsing features as concerns grow over harmful content spreading through the platform’s recommendation algorithm.
Sortable topics and filtering capabilities are being added to YouTube’s homepage and “up next” recommended categories, according to a new blog post. The goal is to give users more control over what they see on the site. People will have the ability to click on certain topics they want to explore, like DIY crafts or music videos, from the top of the homepage. The same type of filtering applies to “up next,” which will allow users to more specifically curate what type of videos they want to see as recommendations and which creators they want to see videos from. Similar product changes were first rumored earlier this year.
WhatsApp tests feature that shares your status to Facebook and other apps
WhatsApp is increasing sharing options without explicitly linking your account to Facebook, which poses legal risks, Jon Porter reports:
WhatsApp is testing the idea of letting its users share posts from their WhatsApp status with other apps. Starting today, users in WhatsApp’s beta program will start to see a new sharing option beneath their status, which can be used to post a status directly to their Facebook story or send it to another app like Instagram, Gmail, or Google Photos. WhatsApp Status is the service’s Instagram Stories-style feature that lets you post images, text, and videos on your profile that disappear after 24 hours.
Instagram will start putting ads within the Explore page
Instagram is finally addressing one of my major concerns about it, which is that it doesn’t have advertisements available for me to look at across every surface of the app. Ashley Carman:
Today, the social media platform announced that it’ll soon start placing ads within the Explore page, which is where users go to discover new content that lines up with their interests. The ads won’t appear on the Explore grid itself, but they’ll appear once a user taps on an Explore post and begins scrolling through that discovery feed. The ads will be photos and videos, and the first ad — for IGTV — will go live today. The team will begin working with select partners over the next few weeks with the goal of opening Explore ads up to everyone over the next few months.
Takes
Instagram Verified Accounts: The System Is Broken
Taylor Lorenz says Twitter and Instagram should overhaul their verification systems:
Rather than have a binary system where users are either check-marked or not—and the lucky few get access to special perks that all users would likely appreciate—Twitter, Instagram, and the like should rebuild the whole system and adopt new features to meet users’ needs. “When I ask friends how they get verified, nine times out of 10 they say they know a guy,” says Siqi Chen, the chief product officer of Sandbox VR. “It seems to be a predictable symptom of the fact that it takes knowing someone to get verified. But when Instagram and Twitter rely on personal relationships it opens the opportunity for scamming. Anyone can say ‘I know someone at Insta who can get you verified,’ and there’s no way to prove or disprove that.”
Where Is Larry Page? Alphabet Deserves Better
Shira Ovide asks, fairly, what the heck Alphabet’s CEO has been doing for the past …. many years:
Page seems to want to have it both ways. He wants the power of a CEO to be able to award on his own a $150 million stock payout to an executive under investigation for sexual harassment, according to a lawsuit, but he doesn’t want the responsibility of a CEO to show up in front of sometimes unhappy employees at regular meetings, to face questions from annoyed shareholders or to absorb verbal blows from members of Congress. (Alphabet has disputed the lawsuit’s characterization of Page’s role in the stock award.)
As the technology industry faces growing government scrutiny, this may not be the time for a visionary, chimerical CEO. Everyone would like to do only the interesting parts of a job and skip the unpleasant or dull tasks. That’s not how adult life works, and that isn’t how a public company should work, either.
And finally ...
Most of us get on Facebook for one specific reason: we want to post the album cover for Led Zeppelin’s iconic 1973 record, Houses of the Holy. Unfortunately, the cover photo was banned for including images of unclothed children … until now, Shira Feder reports:
Facebook this week overturned the ban, saying they recognized it was a culturally significant image. “Our nudity policies have become more nuanced over time,” Facebook states in its guidelines. “We understand that nudity can be shared for a variety of reasons, including as a form of protest. Where such intent is clear, we make allowances for the content.”
I have a whole lotta love for this decision, personally.
Talk to me
Send me tips, comments, questions, and tips for handling video stings: casey@theverge.com.
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