tv Velshi MSNBC June 18, 2023 8:00am-9:00am PDT
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>> joe, you? do you think anyone there can win or should win? >> no. the only two candidates they were taking trump out like we did our christiane isa hutchinson and they have no shot in this party. look. we have to wrap our arms around the fact that the base of this party wants a son of a bit. they want trump or desantis. trump or desantis are the only two people that are even registering in the polls. they are the same thing except trump is a lot better at it. there is no shock -- no shot for anybody else. >> the country is much weaker for not having had the three of you debating during the 2020 presidential race. but you are always welcome here. as you. know joe walsh, for republican congressman from illinois. bill, well former republican of acidosis. mark sanford, four republican governor of south carolina and member of congress. all former presidential candidates. thank you, gentlemen. >> thank you, ali. >> coming up, donald trump's
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legal team is gathering the resources to properly define him against a federal indictment. we'll bring you the latest on trump's legal troubles in another hour of velshi begins right now. right now. >> good morning, it. >> good morning, i'm ali velshi. the minneapolis police department for years engaged in, quote, excessive force, unlawful discrimination and violations of constitutional rights. those are the findings of a two-year federal investigation into the police department. triggered by the murder of george floyd. on may 25th, 2020, george floyd's three final words became a fixture in history as at the weight of the minneapolis police officer derek chauvin was actively cutting off his oxygen flow. those three words were i can't breathe. we now know that george floyd's choking death was not an isolated incident. the attorney general merrick garland announced on friday, quote, we found numerous incidents in which officers
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responded to a person's statement that they could not breathe with a version of, you can't breathe, you're talking right now. this is just one of the disturbing anecdotes included in the justice department findings of its formal investigation into the minneapolis police department. the doj launched its review in the wake of george floyd's death and the murder conviction of derek chauvin who knelt on floyd's neck and killed him. the report goes on to say that the officers practices change depending on the neighborhoods they find themselves in, quote, mpd disproportionately stops black and native american people and patrols differently based on the racial composition of the neighborhood, without a legitimate, related safety rationale. >> the justice department also heard a council of aggressive and threatening rhetoric from officers who also had no legitimate or related safety admission to engage with community members the way they did. one incident, garland relate, it was notable because of minneapolis this large concentration of people whose families came from somalia. >> after npd officers stopped a
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car carrying for some alien american teens, one officer told the teens, quote, do you remember what happened in black hawk down, when he killed a bunch of your folk? i am proud of that. we didn't finish the job over there, if we had, you guys wouldn't be over here right now. as everyone no doubt knows, this is a reference to the 19 90s raid by american special forces in mogadishu. >> in a review from 19 shootings that took place between january 26th in august of last year, investigators from the justice department found quote a significant portion of them were unconstitutional uses of deadly force and at times officers shot of people without determining whether there was an immediate threat of harm to the officers or others, and quote. in a year since george floyd's death, the city of minneapolis has made a few changes to the standard of policing, including a de-escalation training in the
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banning of neck restraints and no knock warrants. but there is apparently still a lot of work to be done and that work comes in the form of a consent decree, that is a deal for overhauling the police department that could be enforced by a court, and that is overseen by a federal judge an independent monitor to make sure the agreed upon charges, changes, are carried out. according to the attorney general garland, the city of minneapolis and the minneapolis police department have signed an agreement and principle with the department of justice that commits the city and the to working with the doj the committee with police officers and other stakeholders. but all the other parties involved are also working to negotiate the exact terms for the legally-binding consent decree. now, and moving forward with this process, garland us portman are recognizing the importance of good policing argue that this agreement is not a form of punishment but rather, support, so that police officers can be successful in their essential professions. joining me now is keith allison, he is the democratic attorney
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general for the state of minnesota and the person who led the prosecution of derek chauvin. he previously served as a congressman for the state's fifth congressional district, he is the author of an important new book called break the wheel, ending the cycle of police violence. attorney general ellison, it is good to see this, morning thank you for being with us. >> good to see you, thank you, happy father's day. >> and to you, sir. let's talk about this. are you, obviously, as the attorney general, you made a decision to go hard after these minneapolis police department on the basis of evidence. you brought together a prosecutorial team that won a team that, for some of us, we think of as a low hanging fruit or a slam dunk. but it actually wasn't. it was really complicated to convict police officers of a murder. to a lot of people, it was the first time ever that they had seen that degree of accountability in police and to a lot of people they found a page had been turned. tell me where we are today. >> my fear all along is that people would see our prosecution of derek chauvin in
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the other free officers as simply a done deal. okay, we took care, that let's go on to get back to business as usual as fast as we can. well, the truth is the state of minnesota and the department of justice, their consent decree work, the fact that they've done these investigations, released these findings means that we are going to get to the systemic change that we really do need. and i just want to agree with you about another thing, ali, and that is that this is not a punishment. this is trying to raise the standard of policing so that the officers who go in every single day are doing their best to protect people and can have a department that they can feel proud of. derek chauvin and others disgraced the department. now it, is time to lift them back up so that it can do the important work of helping keep people safe. so i would say where we are now is that we are going to implement, we are going to bring in the changes that are needed, and we are looking forward to better days, which we believe are not only
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possible, but likely, because we have people who are committed. >> you said something that is very important here, there has been since those early days of 2020, a demoralization across police force in this country, and many many police have left the force of the can't hire enough people but there is something that goes on in these major city police forces, there is a police chief, and had a good one in minneapolis, even when george floyd was killed. and there is a police boston's hyped up on some sort of it was tough to donald trump have been saying, you and i had been saying on, this show on may 31st of 2020. let me just play it back. >> unfortunately, we have a federation president who wanted to do an alternative chief who literally undermines good order in the city of minneapolis, and so we have to find a way to put our chief that we have selected in charge of the department. there needs to be clear accountability, more training,
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we need to work on officer wellness. >> that union boss is gone, but this concept of an alternative chief exists across america. >> union bosses versus actual police chiefs. >> well, it is something that we've got to solve it is part of what the problem is, it's part of that the work this in front of us and i'm for unions, i believe workers should have points on the job, i always have and i think that when it comes to the job of public safety, the chiefs should be in charge but she should be in control of discipline, but you should be held accountable when things don't go right. i'm glad that we have a chief that we're proud of, brian o'hara, formally of north in minneapolis, they believe we are off to a good start, also commissioner alexander, cedric alexander, who was our commissioner of public safety, but we've got to put the union leaders and the union president in their proper role, making sure that workers are paid
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properly and get their proper benefits not controlling public safety policy which sadly, in the past we have seen not the benefit of the people of minneapolis. >> what's the point you brought up on to beginning this conversation was that the prosecution of the police officers involved in the killing of george floyd were for specific acts consent decrees are about pattern and practice of behavior, and that is what it found, then going back to 20, 16 they found that there are things that happen in the minneapolis police force, in many cases, as it relates to relations with minority groups, the former union president had said that racism is not common in the ranks but there is a distinction here, it is not about racists or racism it is about patterns and practices that are apply differently to different people, and what we found is that when it comes to minorities, when it comes to black people, when it comes to native americans in minneapolis, things are done differently, we call that racism or you can call fact. >> i agree entirely, but, look,
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depending on what union president you're talking about, one of them, bob crow actually called me a terrorist and actually the chief had to publicly apologize to me for it because of his words this guy tried to buff the chief and said that he was going to introduce trump in his uniform and was threatened with disciplinary action, and then he backed down, that is who our union president was we have a much better one now, but some of these in the past we have seen problems with some of these presence, and this is part of the work ahead of us to make sure that we have a constitutional policing with a duly elected, appointed authority, not somebody who the people of minneapolis or any other city did not pick, who has another sort of alternative agenda. >> culture, as you know, it's strategy for breakfast. can you fix this problem? >> yes, absolutely, absolutely we can fix this problem. we are on our way to fixing this problem.
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not only has the city taken decisive action, the state of minnesota is changed its licensing requirements for police with the police officer status and training board that have been reforms there i am not promising, i know that this change has been a long time coming. but i can tell you that when things are already noticeably better, and we are sure that we're gonna have bumps along the way i think we have a commitment and we want to make minneapolis a model for police community relations and that is what we are committed to. >> but keep checking with each other on this, i was appreciate yourself, sir keith ellison is the attorney general for minnesota. he's got to break the, we'll ending the cycle of police violence. still ahead this hour, on velshi, if the judge randomly assigned in trump's criminal case is raising some major concerns for her noticeably thin resume in a direct kind of the former president. plus, the woman who bravely stuffing and social media giant, meta, facebook as you may know, it has a new warning on the dangers of new social media
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workers are threatening to strike in what would be the largest single employer workout in u.s. history began 2017 this current contract is set to expire at midnight on july 31st u.p.s. voters were voted authorized to see if no agreement was reached on this currently will contract. their demands include more competitive pay, more balanced work, hours including overtime demands, and humane driving conditions. most notably, air conditioning in delivery trucks and vans. this week the two sides reached a preliminary agreement on the air conditioned sticking point. the p.s. conceded to providing
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air conditioning fans and he feels for the companies of vehicles notably the changes will be applied to nearly purchase vehicles first. according to nbc news, since 2015, at least 145 u.p.s. employees have been hospitalized for heat related illnesses one union commented on the air on the air conditioning crisis, saying, quote, with he being what it is. it is just not about what is cost-effective and efficiently more. it is about keeping people alive, and quote. and there remain a few other matters to work out both sides seem hopeful, but what a u.p.s. strike mean for consumers, for businesses in the economy? nbc news logistics department, or logistics expert say that even just several days of a u.p.s. strike would it disrupt package deliveries more than the rivals like fedex and u.p.s., postal service could fully absorb, which could result in renewed supply chain issues and, once again, higher prices for consumers and businesses. this is a developing story, we'll bring you updates as they come in. right after the break what we learned from the first order
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it really works. >> it could be a preview of what's to come in the prosecution of donald trump. believe it or, not until friday, trump's current courtroom legal team had not even begun the process of obtaining the security clearances needed to view the evidence cited in the indictment. it is that sensitive and secret. trump's team, todd blanche and christopher, case only started that process after the judge overseeing the proceedings, aileen cannon essentially instructed them to get do it on the double judge cannon was randomly selected for the trump case however her selection does not come without controversy, for starters, she was not needed for a lifetime appointment to the federal bench by donald trump and concerned shortly after trump lost his reelection in 2020 this despite the fact that she had no previous experience of a judge of any kind at any level, new york times review reveals
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that since taking her seat on the federal bench she was overseeing a grand total of four cases that went to trial for a total of 14 trial days in all, it's not nothing but she was about to oversee one of the most important trials possibly in american history she's also subject to widespread criticism an accusation of showing bias towards trump last year when she disrupted the fbi's investigation into the documents case, suggesting that trump should get a special treatment that no other target of a court approved search would receive, on that point, she was roundly and unanimously overruled by a three judge appeals court panel that included to trump appointed judges. judge cannon could recuse herself from the trump case, or special counsel jack smith could ask her to do so, but so far there has been no indication that either of those things are going to happen. joining me now is joyce vance, former united states attorney for alabama's northern district. she is an msnbc columnist in a contributor, she is a co-host of the sisters in law podcast, and joyce, good morning to, you first of all. thank you for being with us. >> good to be with you, happy
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father's day. >> thank you. >> you caught my attention with a column you wrote in which you are more troubled than some are about this moving forward without a challenge do you think there is potentially more problem with having aileen cannon sit there unchallenged as the judge in this trial, tell me why? >> so there is a bright line distinction in these proceedings. right now, any decisions that she makes it that are wrong headed or that the doj thinks are wrong headed can be challenged via, not everything that she does but the big ones the decisions under cepa of the classified information production act about what evidence is admissible in trial and what isn't but once a journeys empaneled once a jury is hearing this case in trial, double jeopardy has attached. and any rulings that the judge makes where she puts her thumbs very heavily on the scales of justice for trump, those are just part of the process.
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if there is an acquittal, for instance, the government can't appeal for that, and that would stand for all-time, so given what we know about this judge, and frankly, i'm less worried about the fact that she's the trump appointee and her level of experience every judges appointed by a president from one party or another, and many come through the bench without significant prior experience as a judge. i am focused on those decisions where at the 11th circuit reversed had not once but twice while she was handling the mar-a-lago search proceedings. her decisions weren't just, lawyers think judges are wrong all the time. they challenge them all the time. these weren't just wrong, they were so far removed from the mainstream of judicial thought that three of her colleagues on the 11th certain chastised her for not even having jurisdiction to consider the matter that is significant i think the government needs to deal with that issue now and see if the 11th circuit might be interested and directing the
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chief judge in her district to reassigned the case to another judge, how does that process work who says what to whom to says the 11th circuit is at the 11th circuit that determined that or is it aileen cannon's supervising judge, how does that work? >> so, you know, chief judges don't really supervised the other district judges, they are all equals. but something like this could play out in a couple of different ways and one might be that some of the judges might consult here and there could be a conference, they could all the side and she might except that in the interests of justice and fairness, maybe she should four step aside just so there won't be questions, after all, recusal roles are meant to promote confidence in judicial proceedings. so that is one option. and then there is an option where doj goes to her now and makes a motion and asked her to recuse, if i were the judge i would probably consider a recusal instead of one of the parties formally asked me to that is something that doj
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might choose to do it does require her to require a written rule and explain why she is not going to him if she doesn't do that, that is a regular part of the record to have, but i think the most likely approach given the law and the 11th circuit is to see if there is a bad ruling, for instance if she excludes the evidence under ceta. and then there is the process of taking an appeal to the 11th circuit and under the law in the circuit even have to approve bias, what judges what courts have done in the past is that they've said that this judge has just gotten so far down the road with this case and these views we think it would be impossible for them to walk it back even in the absence of a bias, so we will ask the chief judge to reassigned the case to another judge, of course that's problematic because it is possible that there are bad cases in areas, here where she prays it straight up to trial and then only shows bias for trump once trial has begun, so doj might not be able to wait.
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and special counsel may not be able to wait all the way through. but i think, that least for, now they should let it run for a little bit. >> any jury trial where they are part of the justice, what can a judge do to influence something if they were to do so, where the kinds of things that could happen? >>, so there are a lot of things that can happen starting with jury selection, where the judge plays a heavy role in determining for instance, whether the government has to exercise the strikes it can normally exercise for jurors and it is concerned about. does it have to waste all of those because the judge won't agree to remove anyone easy in the even already for cause. those of the subtle threats of decision that show us how much discretion judges have and perhaps the biggest area for discretion is in admissibility of evidence where those calls about what comes in a trial and what dozens are in the hands of the judge, that is why support
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requires those decisions with regards to classified information to be made before trial in a case like this, but their evidentiary calls that happen all along the way, and that is an area where the judge can show some of the very subtle influence,. you >> said something on your podcast that collar attention like comes to how she had not had any judiciary experience and experiences judge at all and had only tried four cases you said it is odd to me to see this argument circulating and i confess i've questioned whether we'll be hearing this argument if should we would be hearing us or even if she was a man not a woman and what you confirmed as a federal judge you are a federal judge. but >>, i think that's right i think aileen cannon is a federal judge just several senate confirmed. i think it is not unheard of for judges to come to the bench with very scant experience, and even some experienced judges, there was a great judge in my district who was a tax lawyer, so he didn't have a lot of experience with trials he got
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up to speed pretty quickly and we know that aileen cannon worked both within a big firm and a new u.s. attorney's office she has a great legal education on a graduate of the university of michigan's school of law so i don't think she is outside of the parameters, and i do think that it is important to focus on the fact that the objection to her isn't going to put her on the bench, isn't her experience it is really these two prior decisions that give rise to legitimate concern under the law and the 11th circuit. >> i can tell you how much i appreciate not just the deliberation that you've given to the fact you make these conversations accessible to those of us who don't understand is all that well, thank, you joyce. as always. joyce vance is a former u.s. attorney in an msnbc contributor. we are following because she writes a lot about these things in ways that you don't always see on tv. tomorrow is juneteenth which commemorates the day in 1865 when the last enslaved african americans who were in texas were informed that they had been freed more than two years after abraham lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation
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with new flonase headache and allergy relief! two pills relieve allergy headache pain? and the congestion that causes it! flonase headache and allergy relief. psst! psst! all good! >> tomorrow, america will celebrate juneteenth. the nation's newest federal holiday. i'm sure a lot of you know what it represents, but for those of you who don't it commemorates the day when the last enslaved
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black americans in galveston, texas, were informed that they had been freed. this took place on june 19th, 1865. more than two years after abraham lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation, declaring the official end of slavery. but the civil war itself which really resulted in the practical end of slavery had ended two months earlier. black americans have been paying tribute to their ancestors on juneteenth for generations, but it only became official on the federal calendar two years ago, when president joe biden signed a bill passed by congress making juneteenth what it is today was no easy feat. it requires tireless work from countless activists and advocates over the years to keep this movement front and center and one of the most prominent people in the fight to recognize juneteenth is 96-year-old opal lee. dubbed the grandmother of juneteenth, least spent decades working to make this a reality, it became her life's mission. she spent more than 40 years as a community activist spreading
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the word of juneteenth, she worked for the tariff county texas black county and historical geological society which oversaw local juneteenth celebrations. but in 2016, at the age of 89, she knew she had to go bigger if she wanted juneteenth to be recognized on a national scale. that year she tracked 1400 miles from fort worth texas to washington d.c., the campaign to convince the obama administration and congressional lawmakers to recognize the holiday. seven years later, it became law. joining me now is the grandmother of juneteenth herself, miss opal lee. she was a tired educator in an honorary national co-chair of the juneteenth legacy project. she was president at the white house when president biden signed juneteenth into law two years ago, miss opal lee, good to see you on the show thank you for being with us. thank you for having me. >> it is. an honor to have you here, for
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many years juneteenth was just simply not a household name among white people and some black people but now thanks to the hard work of people like you and others, this has been your life's mission. what made you want to make this into a national holiday? >> well, you'd need to know about pierre the talks i had, and one of them was doctor -- myers. he was a medical doctor, he was a minister, and a jazz musician all rolled into one. well, docks responsible for some 42, if not more states having some kind of commemoration, so i think maybe some of doc rubbed off for me. and i think he might be looking down now and saying it is about cotton picking time you got it
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done. >> as we discussed in the intro, you, at the age of 89, you are 96 now, at the age of 89, you walked from fort worth all the way to d.c. in an effort to raise awareness for juneteenth, and by the way, you are inspiring many of us to walk home after work today, which is not new that kind of track why you decide to do that wide side that was going to be important and how did that, feel that is quite a walk. >> well, you've got to know that hey but i'm a mother of four children have been growing up. i had gone to colleges and universities, i had taught school, you know, i taught third grade for so long that i began to act like those eight-year-olds. so they gave me another position. i was the visiting teacher, but
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i started a food bank i had a farm. so, i decided that maybe there was something else that i needed to do. and so, i figured some of that rolled off on me and i started walking from fort worth to d.c.. and they don't want you to give the people the impression i did 1400 miles, i did a lot of miles, but, and i started out to do the 1400, so i walked two and a half miles, i'd go home i'd pick up where i left off, i do two and a half more miles, so i walked through fort worth, arlington, grande prairie put, box springs, dallas, but somebody had promised that i could use an rv to rest, and
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they change their minds, they said what i was doing was too political and they kept that rv. but everybody was so nice to me somebody and shreveport took me to texarkana somebody in texas cannot took me to little rock, and so it went. i want to colorado springs, st. louis, i was in atlanta. i was all over the place. philadelphia. so, if i left pierre june pierre, if i left june 2016, i actually got their january 2017. >>. wow. >> i had asked president obama to walk with us from the
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frederick douglass house to the capitol. but he was in chicago. i didn't get what i wanted. but guess what? >> what. >> he did help me get 1,000,500 signatures to take to congress, and we were prepared to take that many more when we got the call to go to the white house. >> that's amazing. i'll tell you, i was a happy camper. >> when you are at the white house, you exchanged words with joe biden during his official signing of juneteenth. it was june of 2021 at this point, some several years later, what did you talk about, what did you say in that moment? >> well, i thought i would keep something to myself. i'm not telling all. he gave me that pen, that i am delighted to have and every one of those he used to sign the
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bill into law. and he gave me a check for $6.19. because we are going to have a juneteenth museum a, national one, in fort worth, texas. and so, pierre i was delighted to be in the white house with the president, and the vice president and all of those legislators. >> i could've done a wholly dance, but my kids say i can't try talking. >> that is an amazing story, opal lee, unbelievable is the time you spent doing this, but the fact that you did when you decided to kick it up, you did so at the age of 89. and, now 96, you get to celebrate along with the rest of us. we get to celebrate along with you for some of that you fought so hard along with others. thank you for being with us, miss opal lee is the honorary national co-chair of the juneteenth legacy project.
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she is not affectionately as the grandmother of juneteenth. thank you for being with us this morning. >> thank you. >> coming up, one woman stood up to facebook and look to the social media giants dana's practices. today, she's got a new. warning frances haugen joins me right after the break. right after the break. if you want laundry to smell fresh for weeks, make sure you have downy unstopables in-wash scent boosters.
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whistle on facebook in 2021, she exposed to social media giant complicity in amplifying harmful content and spread misinformation. that sent shockwaves throughout the country. as a former facebook product manager handling democracy and misinformation, haugen witnessed firsthand how certainly content can actually be. she leaked thousands of internal documents of the wall street journal, hoping that public pressure would force facebook to change. the documents show that facebook knew its algorithms
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were promoting falsehoods and hate speech, and that users were implementing it to promote violence. despite, that they prioritized profits over public safety time and time again, because that was the business model. haugen submitted the trouble of documents, tens and thousands of pages to the securities and exchange commission, as part of her whistleblower complaint and she subsequently testified before congress. and now she is detailing all that she discovered in a new memoir titled the power of one. how i found the strength to tell the truth and why i blew the whistle, quote in my complaint i detail the myriad of ways facebook had over and over again failed to warn the public about issues as diverse and as dire as national and international security threats, the facebook algorithms that drive political party platforms, and the fact that facebook had known leave been harming the health and well-being of children as young as ten years old all for the sake of profit. the complaint, read in the
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documentary, evidence made clear that facebook was endangering the world in that the company was stuck in a dead word feedback loop that only get worse unless and until the public was made aware that it was compelled by regulatory intervention to change. compelled by regulatory intervention to change. haugen's book also describes what she called the physics of social media the how and why behind facebook algorithms that rewards the most extreme content contributing to the widespread political polarization in this country. this content is testing our democratic institutions like they have never been tested before, and haugen's words, algorithms can sink a democracy if left unregulated. after a quick break frances haugen joins me to discuss what other dangers lurk on social media and what specific kinds of regulations need to be implemented to rein in these dangerous platforms.
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the story of frances haugen, the former facebook employee who courageously made public a trove of documents that showed the company was routinely putting profits over the safety of its users. francis joins me now, she is a data scientist. she is a former lead product manager who worked on facebook's civic integrity team. she is the author of the brand-new memoir just out this week called the power of one, how i found the strength to tell the truth and why i blew
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the whistle on facebook. francis, welcome to the show. we have been looking forward to talking to you for a very long time, because a lot of people on my show talked about you, they talked about how you were so brave, and how you sort of broke the seal on things that others had speculated were going on at these social media firms, but that you brought the insight knowledge on. so welcome to the show, thank you for being with us. >> thank you for inviting me. >> let's talk, first, about your decision to work for facebook. this was not obvious to, you in fact, it was something that you had resisted for sometime. >> yes. i had, for a number of years, been approached by facebook for working at instagram, working on facebook's main ranking fees, there is a relatively limited pool of people who are specialists of working on algorithms, particularly the recommended algorithms, that is the kind of things that power your netflix v8, your facebook feed. and i had intentionally not
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work for them a number of times because there was kind of a perception that they didn't really acknowledge their power. that they had a huge amount of influence but they weren't necessarily acting with a level of intentionality, responsibility that that power implied. in the fairytale end of 2018, early 2019, i was rushed out to buy a facebook recruiter and didn't really care if i got the job, not i said the only thing i want to work on facebook is misinformation. and i came, back and i said, hey, i should have a job opening. is for a civic man for misinformation product. so to someone who's gonna focus on misinformation everywhere with third-party fact-checking, which was not present. >> roger mcconney often says that these algorithms, it is not a bug, it is a feature. they are designed to think of what we think of extremism and did strong reaction to this, and strong reactions on always extremism, they're just wrong reactions. but what is it about these
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algorithms that end up bringing the worst in us? >> so one of the things i hope to shine light on in the process of writing this book, logistics lane, is that how so many kind, conscientious, thoughtful people criticism that creates so much harm? and i don't think they set out and said, we want to write algorithms that maximalist the most extreme content, it is more that they had a business that they were optimizing for. they needed each of us to produce more content to power those feeds, and reliving they found that got people to stimulate people to produce more content was giving them more social awards. that is a like, a comment, or reshare. so they started rewarding content that got more of those social interactions and giving it more distribution. unfortunately, within six months of doing that change, something that they called meaningful social interaction, save someone boyd someone, or did hbs that was not meaningful,
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within six months that change, they found that political parties on the right on the left across it said, we know we change the algorithm, now, unless we run really polarizing extreme positions, they don't get distributed. and the reason for that is that when you give more distribution to comments or content that can get a reaction, you end up rewarding more extreme content. because the shortest path is anger. >> the challenge of course we, haven't you called for your book, it is about how to regulate these things. and you often compare today's push for increased social media regulation to the early stages of tobacco regulation, or auto safety reforms, and the government ultimately stepped in with stricter regulations, and seatbelts, and things like that. you known your book that why there was critical factors that drove our national automotive a tally rate was conserved citizen groups, mothers against drunk driving, and you are saying that we need something
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like that in our particular fight? >> so, right now, we are missing a really, really basic information that would catalyze something like mothers against drunk driving. >> when it came to automotive safety, we could all see they fatalities. we could all see the people who got decapitated by the glove compartment, or impaled on their steering wheels. no one argued about those facts, and just like that, how many kids are online, at midnight, one, two, three a. and that basic data is unavailable. the surgeon general came out just a few weeks ago and said one and three kids has said they are on their screens until midnight or later, most school nights. in a world where we had even basic transparency, you know, something like mothers against drunk driving could organize and say, hey, we need to drive those late night usages and ask, why are you shipping more
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features that -- >> one of things that is different about you in your particular level of skill and training is that you go into detail about the actual technology and how it works. you know how important is to teach people the physics social media. i'm not even sure what that means, the physics of social media. but that means doing so is critical democracy. >> sure, yeah. so i will give you an example. most of the conversation we are having today about what are the levers that would negate or prevent these harms usually focuses on censorship. the companies have come out and said, we hear, you these are all serious. problems but it is really about free speech versus safety. when, in reality, they have lots and lots of tools that allow them to change what does a system reward, and don't focus on is this post true are false? i'll give you example. should you have to click on a link before you re-share it? it sounds really simple, you
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know, it's like should probably know what you are re-sharing the four year we share it, but it is a moment of intentionality, a moment of reflection decreases misinformation by ten or 15%. -- well, when i talk about the physics of social media, you know, when we rake change of reassures, misinformation, because it is so seductive, it just hits us in the right spot, it ends up going down very very long chains. so if you can add any friction in that train, people stop and they themselves say, hey, that doesn't sound plausible to me. but people don't necessarily appreciate that, because they don't know that system. >> yeah. >> so i'm hoping through things like simulated social networks, we can teach things like high school classes or college classes. >> all right, first physics lessons we've ever had on our show on velshi. francis, we appreciate you being with. us frances haugen as the former lead product manager for facebook's civic misinformation
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