#144 | Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang: The Ugly Truth About Facebook

Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang, technology reporters at The New York Times and authors of An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination, join The Realignment to discuss Facebook’s fall from grace, whether antitrust action will address complaints about tech companies, and the future of social media platforms after Trump.

Find The Realignment wherever you listen to your podcasts:

[fotonical]

Big ups to Marshall for pushing back on some of the speakers assumptions. Kind of felt like they couldn’t really address them well.

[derrickdavis]

I have a difficult time understanding why the 20s and 30 somethings are okay with limiting speech. Who is that will decide what we can and cannot say?

[mattbartlett]

I’ve been off Facebook for 6 years. Leave and use an alternative. Regulation won’t save you.

[elikimmett]

Love your stuff but these ladies are tone-deaf and dismissive on the actual distrust of the public. No acknowledgement why people are distrustful or societal costs of censorship

[beneisenberger]

Y’all’s podcast is great - coming from someone on the left. I wish anything political wasn’t so suppressed because you guys deserve so many views!

[weverleywagstaff]

Voices are NEVER EQUAL !
WE NEED FREE SPEECH ...NO MATTER IF YOU AGREE WITH WHAT IS BEING SAID....

[traindr]

Agree with Marshall. Dont care about FB but do care about their influence....

[dseych]

this was painful to experience... Thank you, Marshal and Saagar for having guests who are totally out of the bubble/sub-culture The Realignment population. It's a good showcase of how varied people in our country can assess problems and view the world.

[nate]

They both couldn't go an hour without looking at their phones

[essiotll]

Interesting. A good chunk of the early conversation centered around Trump and his "special privileges" on FB, which were never defined.

The closest adjacent comment was in reference to "looting and shooting" so the nearest implication I can take is that, supposedly, persons other than Trump could not say this?

It's a famous quote and people say vile and edgy things (some of which I enjoy) all the time on FB so this just simply seems false. In fact, you have to apply "special privileges" in the opposite direction to go after Trump; hold him to every nitty-gritty space open to interpretation in TOS and chase him, doggedly.

[AndyRutledge]

Turned off at 5 minutes into the interview.

[weverleywagstaff]

The fact is this is done by a lot of people in government NOT ONLY TRUMP!!
WHO SHOULD BE TRITH GATEKEEPERS??
THE DEMOCRATS, CORPORATIONS, ELITES????

[scowlistic]

First time checking out a full episode. Saagar & Marshall, you guys are killing the game. Subscribed.

[davidberndt]

Hey guys, Its not just the right being censored.

[slbumkim]

Being has a tendency to 'return' to clusters
='the nature of solidarity' -a desire for empathy -(Wave)-(yin)
and also,
Being has a tendency to 'exist' as individuals
='the nature of self-expension' -a desire for breed-(Particle)-(Yang)

Likewise, humans have two elements.
We must realize that we all have both left and right elements
=Solidarity and Self reliance
No one has only one element.

so 'Sum' derived from 'two poles', (thesis, antithesis, synthesis)
To develop intellect and ethics by harmonizing the two,
It is good to realize it and balance it properly

But A few people polarized the crowd(political partisanship)
without balancing themselves.
And They stole only the sum, only the synthesis from the triangle composition.

Now We all have to get out of this deceptive situation.
This is not the time for us to hate each other.
We have to track down those who have been manipulating us.

[adtastic]

Facebook ain't a utility, it's a publisher. TBH, I think the story of FB shows all the handwringing over it's omnipotence is entirely overstated. Cos it's trending the way of MySpace.

[gabthechef]

I have no idea how FB is a source of news for anyone. I get very few such postings and they are all obvious BS even just looking at the titles. It also stopped being an important or exciting link to friends, because most of my feed (70-80%) seems to be commercials or postings by unknown people (which I'm not interested). The only reason for not leaving is to not missing on any possible/rare posts from actual friends.

[-Gorbi-]

12:00-13:00 Thats not a very convincing argument. Zuckerberg underestimates trump because he went to boarding school? And ‘if only he looked at Duterte and other populist dictators’? That’s a tired NYT boilerplate talking point

[kikiluthra]

Great podcast guys. Gonna go follow Sheera.

[SwiftySanders]

Congress is moving too slow to keep up with technology. Thats not a Facebook problem. Thats a government problem.