Politics

Twitter took a (somewhat) principled stand last week. They exhibited some understanding of the fact that product leadership extends beyond creating a product: it also entails product stewardship. By “product stewardship” I mean taking a stand on what people should and shouldn’t be able to do with your product.

Jony Ive put it well when he was interviewed about the iOS feature Screen Time: “If you’re creating something new, it is inevitable there will be consequences that were not foreseen,” he said. “It’s part of the culture at Apple to believe that there is a responsibility that doesn’t end when you ship a product.”

This is an idea I’ve been thinking since I was at eBay. As I wrote a couple years ago:

When I led product at eBay, we wanted to be “a well-lit place to trade.” The company’s mission was “to empower people by connecting millions of buyers and sellers around the world and creating economic opportunity.” That was the intention. But as we scaled, people began to use eBay in ways we hadn’t predicted. At one point people began trading disturbing items, including Nazi memorabilia. As we thought about how to solve it, we asked ourselves a few questions: Who are we? What do we believe? Why did we create this product? Once we framed it in terms of core values, the decision about what to do became clear. The company decided to ban all hate-related propaganda, including Nazi memorabilia.

This week, yet another black man was murdered in broad daylight because of the color of his skin. It makes me ill. And it makes stewardship even more relevant.

Twitter, much like eBay in the past, asked themselves who they were, that they believed in, and why they created the product. But unlike eBay, they were not bold. Instead, they took a baby step forward last week and exhibited that they were finally willing to face the consequences for taking a (little) stand.

Twitter has a set of rules and policies. They include:

• You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people. We also prohibit the glorification of violence.
• You may not threaten or promote terrorism or violent extremism
• You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so.
• You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.

And until last week, Twitter had declined to enforce these policies when it came to one user: Donald Trump. Twitter’s reasoning was that as the President, his tweets were of public interest, and different rules applied to him. And so for years, Twitter allowed the most powerful man to:

• threaten violence
• threaten or promote extremism
• engage in harassment
• promote violence and threaten harassment on the basis of race

Twitter allowed the product they had built with love and care to be abused and defiled. And then, last week, Donald Trump went too far, even for Twitter.

First, Trump tweeted falsehoods about mail-in ballots. This violated Twitter’s Election Misinformation policies which have existed since 2018. So, Twitter enforced their policies and added a misinformation label to his tweet.

Since Trump is also a child (and a dictator wannabe), he went after a Twitter policy employee who received numerous death threats as a result. He also threatened to revoke Section 230.

Second, Trump used language that included a threat of violence, which he has done before. This time, finally, Twitter hid the tweet behind a warning.

This immediately divided the Twitterverse. Many, who felt this small step was long overdue, were glad. Others felt that this was a huge violation of free speech.

I disagree with the second group. Twitter is a private company, which means the First Amendment does not apply. The First Amendment applies to the government and how it deals with citizens’ First Amendment rights. A private company can say “No shirt, No service”, or a restaurant can ask someone to leave if they start cursing loudly. In addition, Twitter actually has rules and policies that they have not been enforcing with Trump. Those rules aren’t new. Starting to enforce the existing rules fairly, and applying them to all users, is not a restriction. If Trump were not President, he’d have been suspended a long time ago.

So, at least they did something. They decided to enforce a version of the rules. Sort of lame. But better than nothing (our new low standard).

Meanwhile the other big platform in tech land is, of course, Facebook. They also have rules and they decided that the rules do not apply to Trump. They gave the racist-in-chief carte blanche. They effectively and fully caved. And with that, they picked a side.

As I said in my piece —

As product leaders, we all want people to love what we create. But people often use our products in ways we never could have predicted. Once we release something into the world, it belongs to the users — and sometimes they use our products in unexpected and negative ways. We can’t be held responsible for what they do with it… right?

We have become painfully aware of what can happen when the tools we use encourage our worst instincts and amplify the most virulent voices. In past few months, there have been several violent efforts where the suspects behind them had been vocal about their beliefs on social media. Do the platforms really have no control over the ways in which their products are used? That feels both naive and untrue.

My friend Ashita Achuthan, who used to worked at Twitter, said this: “Technology’s ethics mirrors society’s ethics. As technologists we apply a set of trade offs to the design decisions we make. While we are responsible for thinking through the second and third order effects of our choices, it is impossible to predict every use of our products. However, once a new reality emerges, it is our responsibility to ask who has the power to fix things. And then fix them.”

To be clear, these decisions are not easy because these are complex problems. There are legal considerations, there are social considerations, there are moral and ethical considerations. When platforms are used globally, these decisions are hard to rush. Policy teams, business teams, and product teams agonize over where to draw the line and the unintended consequences of these decisions. As I tweeted on Thursday night, regardless of the decision, people will criticize it. But at the end of the day, these decisions have to be made. That is the job when you run a company like this.

In the past week, two white male CEOs—Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg—made two different choices. They have shown us who they are. It is now up to us (the users, the employees, the investors) to decide if we want to support that.

What can one do? If I use a platform that puts the most vulnerable at risk, I can stop using the platform. If I work at a company, I can evaluate whether my values and those of leadership match—my time matters, where I work and who I enrich with my work matters. If our values are aligned, and it’s a disagreement on tactics, I can try to convince the leadership to see the logic of my argument. If my values and those of the leadership are not aligned (and if I am in a position to do so) I might consider leaving to work at a company which is more aligned with my values. And if I am an investor in company that doesn’t share my values, I can sell my shares.

The United States of America was built on abusing black men, women, and children (in addition, of course, to Native Americans). That some of our fellow citizens live in fear and get killed on a whim is not acceptable. We should not allow this to keep happening. If you live in America, whether you were born here or came here later in life (like I did), everything we have is built on top of black bodies.

It is our jobs, as human beings, as leaders, to stand up for what’s right. And it is not right that the biggest bully in our country can use the platforms that were built to connect people to threaten and intimidate the most vulnerable. The leaders of these companies need to be stewards of their platforms and make sure the platforms are not used to harm people in the real world.

Thank you to Ashita Achuthan for reading drafts of this post.
This is the post and video on Product Leadership is Product Stewardship.

David Brooks wrote about his efforts to improve social isolation with his project, Weave:

The first core idea was that social isolation is the problem underlying a lot of our other problems. The second idea was that this problem is being solved by people around the country, at the local level, who are building community and weaving the social fabric. How can we learn from their example and nationalize their effect?

Brooks found these “weavers” all across the nation. When you can connect people around shared interests, common goals and mutually-experienced problems rather than the things that separate and divide them, you build communities.

This is something we think about since one of our key investment areas is human connection. So how can we use tech to do this better? Technology scales and can cross local/geographic boundaries. And it can be used to form deep relationships (remember Twitter in the early days when you formed friendships?). How can tech recreate the feeling of presence and attention? The feeling of a small group intimacy? If we can do this, we open up such interesting ways to make people feel less alone.

The only tweak I’d make to Brooks’ article is his statement that “We precedes me.” Relationships and compassion can live side by side with the idea of self-interest and self-expression. It’s should be in my own self-interest to want my community to thrive and be healthy because I live here. One does not have to precede the other and when we realize that we are all inter-connected and have to coexist is when there will be balance.

I just voted. I voted for the less terrible option. Even given  how disappointed I am with this administration, they are better than the nutjobs that populate the Republican Party.

Reading Evan Bayh’s opinion in the NY Times depressed me even more. He sounds like a completely reasonable moderate and this man has opted out of politics because of how things work (or don’t work). That’s a sad statement on where our country is today. We need more Evan Bayhs, not fewer.

Please do read his most sensible thoughts in it’s full.

It is clear that Democrats over-interpreted our mandate. Talk of a “political realignment” and a “new progressive era” proved wishful thinking. Exit polls in 2008 showed that 22 percent of voters identified themselves as liberals, 32 percent as conservatives and 44 percent as moderates. An electorate that is 76 percent moderate to conservative was not crying out for a move to the left.

We also overreached by focusing on health care rather than job creation during a severe recession. It was a noble aspiration, but $1 trillion in new spending and a major entitlement expansion are best attempted when the Treasury is flush and the economy strong, hardly our situation today.

If President Obama and Congressional Democrats were to take these and other moderate steps on tax reform, deficit reduction and energy security, they would confront Republicans with a quandary: cooperate to make America more prosperous and financially stable, running the risk that the president would likely receive the credit, or obstruct what voters perceive as sensible solutions.

We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers.

This is the first time a President has acknowledged Hindus and Atheists in any address, let alone an inaugural address. This is a small sign that Barack Obama is a President in touch with reality, in touch with the country that America is today. Finally – an intelligent leader. Now, let’s hope his policies are as effective as his rhetoric.

Apparently the web has gone into shoot first, ask questions later mode. And too damned bad for anyone who stands in the way.

So Obama names his transition team and in it is a South Asian – Sonal Shah. Her bio is impressive – Google.org, Goldman Sachs and the founder of a Peacorps-like organization, Indicorps, focused on India.

First – Euphoria.

Then, a scathing article about Shah’s politics – attacking her for being part of the despicable and detestable Hindu far right. But the article does not actually provide any fact-based backup for these claims. Instead it points to the associations of her parents. Guilt by association.

Shah is instantly condemned on blogs and in newsgroups – the very same blogs who would defend Obama against the Rev. Wright association (hmm…) Do any of these people fact check? No. It is left to Sonal’s acquaintances, friends, colleagues, and calmer, saner minds to defend her. A gentleman who started a volunteer organization in Pakistan based on Shah’s Indicorp stated categorically that “Sonal Shah has wanted nothing but the best for Pakistan and its Muslims”. Would that be her approach if she were a Hindu fanatic?

Sonal herself issues a statement denouncing the policies of the Hindu far right and disassociating herself with those policies.

What then? Do the people who jumped on the “oppose Shah” camp apologize? Do they even admit they might have over-reached? Oh no! That would be… too civilized. They offer no apology. They move on.

Could Sonal have been more careful about which groups she associated with her efforts to do real good? Sure and it is a very valid point. By the same token though, those who are ready to tear someone down should be more careful to check the facts.

In this day of instant opinions it is incredibly easy to cause irreparable harm. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?? There are two sides to every story – why not wait to figure out both before hanging someone up to dry?

In the instant and constant news cycle, it sometimes makes sense to wait a while before forming an opinion and publishing it for the world to see.

Barack Obama’s election is a milestone in more than his pigmentation. The second most remarkable thing about his election is that American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual. 

Maybe, just maybe, the result will be a step away from the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life. Smart and educated leadership is no panacea, but we’ve seen recently that the converse — a White House that scorns expertise and shrugs at nuance — doesn’t get very far either.

Op-Ed Columnist – Obama and the War on Brains – NYTimes.com

Commenter Krishna alerted me to the fact that Members of the House of Lords are blogging!

The aim of the blog is to help educate, raise awareness and engage with the public on a range of issues relating to the role and business of the House of Lords.

The blog is authored by a group of Members from across the House. Each Member has their own profile and personal section of the blog. A ‘homepage’ provides an at-a-glance digest of the latest post from each Member.

The experiment is being run by the Hansard Society – an independent, political research and education charity based in the UK. Their stated goal is to “strengthen parliamentary democracy and encourage greater public involvement in politics.”

It seems that right now, about eleven Members are blogging and there is an open invitation on the blog for any interested Members to contact the Hansard Society to participate – further reinforcing that this wasn’t mandated but rather a little skunkworks experiment (that and the fact that it a WordPress.com blog!)

This is such a brilliant idea. For example, you can read about how Lord Taylor met with Barack Obama three years ago or read an overview of the debate the House of Lords had on the prevailing economic situation.

There’s a lot of talk about how companies should blog and have open conversations with their customers. How excellent would it be if the politicians we have elected to represent us start blogging? A blog for the House and the Senate? They should look to their colleagues across the pond for guidance.

Obama will always be our first black president. But can he be one of our few great presidents? He is going to have his chance because our greatest presidents are those who assumed the office at some of our darkest hours and at the bottom of some of our deepest holes.

“Taking office at a time of crisis doesn’t guarantee greatness, but it can be an occasion for it,” argued the Harvard University political philosopher Michael Sandel. “That was certainly the case with Lincoln, F.D.R. and Truman.” Part of F.D.R.’s greatness, though, “was that he gradually wove a new governing political philosophy — the New Deal — out of the rubble and political disarray of the economic depression he inherited.” Obama will need to do the same, but these things take time.

Op-Ed Columnist – Finishing Our Work – NYTimes.com

I have an incredible feeling of optimism. Finally, a new beginning. Hope. Progress. A joyful new day.

Congratulations President Barack Obama. I can’t wait to see you in action. Make us proud!

UPDATE: Obama’s victory speech gave me goosebumps.

Here are my favorite bits…

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

Its the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled – Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America

… But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way its been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years – block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world – our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear this world down – we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security – we support you. And to all those who have wondered if Americas beacon still burns as bright – tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.