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This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
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So, Paddy, every now and again a news story comes along that is important and interesting and politically significant, but also sometimes just downright strange. And today we're going to be talking about one of those curiosities.
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Well, it was more than a curiosity because it was a resignation of a government minister. And I think as well it would have had far more prominence in our lives if it wasn't for the tides of the news. It sort of ebbed because of war.
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B
That's absolutely right. So today we will be talking to a man who was a government minister, Josh Simons. He had to resign having been at the heart of a big controversy about a labour organization that was always charged with having been part of getting Keir Starmer into power. But he also curiously finds himself involved in one of the other huge news stories of this week. In a bizarre twist of fate, Josh Simons, who's still a Labour mp, worked at Meta, who of course finds themselves at the heart of one of the huge big news stories of of this week, found alongside Google of producing algorithms and products that are addictive and they lost a landmark legal case in the United States. So there are two very good reasons to speak to Josh Simons, the former labor minister who on this Saturday's newscast is giving us his first proper interview about his resignation on this Saturday's edition of. Newscast, newscast, newscast from the BBC.
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Fat Boy Slim and me in the
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classroom doing our violin lessons. I was the tattletale in the class.
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Can I have an apology, please? I trust almost nobody that daddy has
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to sometimes use strong language. Next time in Moscow.
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I feel delulu with no Salulu Take
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me down to Downing street let's go have a tour. Blimey.
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Hello, it's Laura in the studio and hello back. It's Paddy opposite you in the studio
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B
and we are in your lug holes and on your tv. So if you know absolutely nothing about this story, shall we just go through the bare bones? Because it's one of these things that blew up in Westmin and became quite a big deal, but everybody might not be across the exact details of what went on.
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A
Yes. So man who was in government had been man in opposition, trying to get opposition into government, working in a coalition of people desperate to get Labour into power. And they gave it themselves a name.
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The name was Labour Together and that think tank that was previously run by Morgan McSweeney, who after they won the election, became Keir Starmer's chief of staff, you might have heard of him. Now, there was controversy back in 2023 when there was an accusation and a story that appeared in the Sunday Times that Labor Together had not declared more than £700,000 worth of donations to them. Now that was a big story. It was known that Keir Starmer had links to that think tank and it was something that caused a lot of consternation.
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A
It's more than an UPS £730,000 not
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correctly declared, but it was an error
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B
and as you say, it wasn't an oops. £700,000 is a lot of money. Now, that story was written by two very expert good journalists, important leading members of the Westminster press pack, Gabriel Pogrand and Harry York. And some of the information in that story was from documents made available by some other people, Josh Simons, then at that point is the boss of Labour Together. He thinks, how did they know all of this stuff? Where did it come from? And he then went to seek help to try to get to the bottom of how it had all emerged. Fast forward then to earlier this year.
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Yes, because they hired a PR firm to look into possible avenues of information going from Labour Together to journalists. Now, what then became clear was that this firm was investig the journalists, which is very unpopular in a free speech country. So it began to snowball because individual people who you have named, like Gabriel Pogren, discovered that the firm had been researching their life, their views, their home,
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B
and then that becomes a news story. So this is all very story upon story, but you end up with a situation where government minister stands accused of spending £30,000 trying to investigate journalists doing their job as part of a free press, which in this country we hold very dear. It ends up with that government minister having to resign, it was embarrassing for him, it was embarrassing for the government. But there's a lot of questions still about how on earth it really all happened. So let's get on with our conversation with Josh Simons, his first long interview about what really happened. And also we're going to ask him for his inside track of what was really going on at Meta.
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Hello, Josh.
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C
Hello, Josh.
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Just at the most simplest point, why are you speaking now? Has time gone by? Do you look upon it as a giant error in your life and you want to clear the air? Or have you been waiting for something to happen that's happened? Why are we meeting you now?
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Well, the honest answer to that, Paddy, is that there's lots of things that I've done before politics and really important public debates going on that I want to contribute to. Some of them I hope will talk about today. And I feel like that experience, for example, the years I worked at Facebook before I became an mp, it's really relevant to some of the big conversations we're talking about now. So I think it's important to be able to say what happened in the series of events that led to my resignation. But really what I want to do is contribute to these important things in public debate and to do so with humility and straightforwardness. So that's why I'm speaking today.
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B
So we've given newscasters the sort of bones and the headlines of actually what happened. But just take us back to the beginning, then. Why did you decide at all to engage a PR firm? And is it ever appropriate to investigate a journalist's sources like that?
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Well, we were concerned that information that had been obtained was confidential information that might have come from a hack of the Electoral Commission. And we were concerned that that information might be used to retell of the anti Semitism crisis that happened under Labour Together and to downplay it. And the reason for that was when we were asked these questions about something that had happened a few years earlier, Labour Together's failure to declare its donations, which it reported. The documents that were referenced were private documents. They were actually a letter from a lawyer to the Electoral Commission, and they were a record of a phone call to the Electoral Commission. And a few months before that, there had been a public confirmation about a hack of the Electoral Commission. And we couldn't really explain how these documents that appeared to have come from the Electoral Commission had been obtained. And when we then saw the published piece in the Sunday Times, at the bottom of the piece was this quite strange reference to an upcoming book by a man called Paul Holden, who I'd never heard of, and the title of that book was called the Fraud Keir Starmer Laboured Together in the Crisis of British Democracy. And that book was going to be published on a blog by a guy called Matt Daniel Taibbi, who I'd never also heard of. So a couple of days later, after that Sunday Times piece was published, there was a blog on Matt Taiby's website. And that blog referred to a cache of documents and leaked documents from the Electoral Commission. And it all just added up to this odd picture of a cache of documents that appeared to be related to the Electoral Commission in a context where there were real. It was a publicly confirmed hack of the Electoral Commission. And when I looked up who this guy Paul Holden was, his book was being published by a publisher or books. And the other book that was listed next to his book was a book called Weaponizing how the Israel Lobby Brought Down Corbyn. And as a Jewish person who resigned from Corbyn's office, actually where I worked for a period, because of their failure to deal with antisemitism, that made me really concerned about the motivations of the people who were writing this book and the fact that the material they had seemed to be private, confidential material that had actually come from the Electoral Commission. And that meant we thought, well, let's ask for advice. I had no experience of anything like this, so I asked for advice, you know, was referred to apco and they said they had a cybersecurity expert who could trail the dark web and look at where that material might have come from and they could investigate it and provide us with some advice.
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A
Right, but that's a very long way round saying why you wouldn't have resigned if there hadn't been a problem. Do you accept that whatever you might have explained to our newscasters started you on this trail, that the trail led into very dark and bad places? Do you. Do you get the fact that we don't want journalists, lives, homes, views, research? Do you have anything to be sorry about, anything to resign about?
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Absolutely, there's no doubt about that. I mean, there's a couple of things to say, Paddy. The first is that I always teach my kids a very simple thing, which is that sometimes in life, things that you didn't intend to happen happen, and you have to take responsibility for those. And that's what I did.
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What didn't you intend to happen about the named people who were investigated? What didn't you mean to happen?
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Well, I've Always been really clear that I never intended any newspaper reporter to be investigated. That was never my goal. And when I was subject to a pretty forensic process, first with the Cabinet Office and then with the Independent Advisor on Standards, Laurie Magnus, you know, I shared reams of documents that I could never make public. I had hours of interviewing, and he found that I hadn't breached the code because I was being honest and truthful. But it's still the case that I gave the impression that that's what I'd intended, even though it wasn't. And actually, I think it was right for me to take responsibility for that, to say, look, I'm so sorry this happened. I spoke to the journalist at the heart of this, the Sunday Times journalist, and had a long conversation about it, and he knows what happens, and I took responsibility for it, and I do take responsibility for it, and that's why I resigned.
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B
Just in terms of the basic facts, though, here, Josh, what you're saying is you did not ask that firm to look into Gabriel Pogrand, Harry York and Henry Dyer, who were the newspaper reporters? Is that what you're saying? You never asked for that to be done on your behalf?
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Yes, it actually, it was a bizarre start to this whole affair. When I was contacted by the Guardian maybe six weeks or so ago, they were asking whether I'd asked a series of journalists, including Henry Dyer, for example, who I'd actually never heard of at that point. And the basis for that question was a document that I'd never seen, I've still never seen, that described those journalists as persons of interest. And that is just not a document that I ever asked for, that I ever wanted, or, as I say, that I'd seen then or have seen now. There was one journalist who was investigated in the document that I said that was Gabriel Pogrand, who you just mentioned, who I've known for a long time, well before I was an mp. And what I saw in the document about him was wrong. It was baseless, and it was completely irrelevant to the question that we'd asked, because, to go back to where we started, this was never about the journalists themselves. It was about how this information that appeared to have come from the Electoral Commission had been obtained by this guy called Paul Holden, and whether or not it had come from a hack of the Electoral Commission, and that's what we asked them to look into.
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B
But did you explicitly ask for Paul Holden to be investigated, or Andrew Feinstein or Matt Taibbi? Because they were the people. Paul Holden, who wrote the book that you said raised concerns, you talked about your concerns because of his political stance. But there's two different things here. There's you raising concerns about how he had been part of Jeremy Corbyn's sort of version of the Labour Party, where they've been concerned about anti Semitism. Then there's concern about whether or not your organ might have been the victim of a hack. So, for the record, explicitly, did you ask for those people to be investigated?
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C
No, it was never even about those two individuals themselves. It was about how they'd obtained this material. And just to go back to the context at the time, five months before this, the government of the day had announced that there was a hack of the Electoral Commission. During this work, a statement was made to Parliament saying that there had been hacks of multiple organisations and individuals around British politics. And so when we were confronted with these private documents that only our lawyers and the Electoral Commission had a record of, it seemed like it was an important enough thing to go away and find out. And, you know, apco, the firm, assured us that they had a cyber security expert who could go and trawl the dark web and find out about this. And, you know, if I'm being really honest, I had absolutely no experience of this, and there's things I've learned about this sort of world and how to conduct yourself in it, but I had no experience of it. I was told that this firm was credible, serious, international firm. They could go away and find out whether that material was out there on the dark web and why it was being used, and they would provide a report and advice on what to do about that.
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Because the thing is, you're scampering across the timeline a bit, aren't you? Because the story was about undeclared money. That's. That's the story which they tried to investigate. And then Paul Holden has told us that the contract signed with APCO sought to proactively undermine factually accurate public interest stories that dealt with serious unlawful conduct by the most senior people in the incoming labor administration, many of whom were Simon's personal friends and political allies. This was intended to undermine not just my work, but the work of all, all the journalists, including Gabriel Pogren and Harry Yorke of the Sunday Times and Matt Taibe. Do you understand the charge that Paul Holden is making about what you did, which you say is unintended, but do you understand that statement?
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C
He's making a claim about what I intended to do that just isn't true. Paddy, the context of the time is really, really Important. And there are two separate things to say about it. One is that the antisemitism, it's not just a story, it's not just a difference in political argument or narratives. I worked in Jeremy Corbyn's office. I left that office because I saw instances in which antisemitism was not dealt with repeatedly that I couldn't stomach being around. I then brought a case to the ehrc, and I did that because I thought it was completely wrong for one of the the two major political parties in this country to have any doubt that they needed to deal with antisemitism. So it was important to me that when I hear about this book from this person I've never heard of and this outfit that he's part of called Shadow World Investigations, run by a man called Andrew Feinstein, as Laura said, it appeared to me that there was a serious risk they would be using private confidential information that appeared to have come from the Electoral Commission to cast doubt on something that I had experienced firsthand. And what I wanted to do was find out whether that material had been obtained illegally, whether it had come from this publicly confirmed hack of the Electoral Commission, and whether it was going to be used to question what is a fundamental part of Keir Starmer's leadership, which is dealing with the moral scourge of anti Semitism in the Labour Party.
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B
Well, Andrew Feinstein has previously said that your resignation letter didn't say that he was the Jewish son of a Holocaust survivor, also that he was Keir Starmer's political opponent in his constituency. And Matt Taibi said it was absurd to suggest that they were using Russian sources. Most of it came from Freedom of Information requests. And he says that everybody was all lumped together, I suppose. Josh, the thing is here. Do you now think that you were naive? Do you think you were foolish? You say you weren't meaning to do anything wrong. It wasn't what you intended for a journalist to be investigated. But if you went to a PR firm saying, please, can you find out about where this story came from, surely actually it was inevitable they were going to look into what the journalists had been doing. If you're asking where story comes from. So looking back now, do you think you, were you naive? Were you foolish? Were you mistaken? How do you characterize it?
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C
Absolutely. I was naive. And there's a lot I've learned from it. And there's things that I would have done differently. You know, for example, when I got the report with that really frankly, bizarre and reprehensible information about Gabriel Pogren. The day afterwards, I asked for it to be taken out. And then I asked our lawyers, Mishkon Daraya, to make sure that the report was confidential and to look at the contract with Atco so that they assumed responsibility for it to protect us. Now, I wish that I'd asked them to do that before any of this was commissioned, so that they were in the driving seat and that they understood it, but I didn't do that. And I've learned. And, you know, another thing I wish I'd done when I got that report, I took steps to protect the journalists that I knew well, take the information out, make sure the report's confidential. But I wish I'd just sent him the report, rung him up and said, look, there's this very odd information about you that I know to be untrue, because I know you, but it's in there and you should decide what action to take on of it. So there's absolutely things that I've learned and things that I would have done differently.
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A
It sounds like a car crash, doesn't it, Josh? Because it's someone you know, it's an action you've started with unintended consequences, which produces information that you know to be wrong. I mean, that's like betraying a contact, isn't it? Did you feel that you'd betrayed Gabriel Pogrand?
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C
I don't think that's fair. I mean, I've spoken to him at length and we've discussed what happened along the way and why this went wrong and in the way that it did and not at all the way I intended. And I think he knows what happened and he knows my role in it. And he, you know, I hope he knows, and I think he does know that there was no betrayal. You know, it was never about any of the journalists who wrote the news stories about Labour Together. Labour Together said that it had failed to declare those donations. And I issue quotes all the time saying we did fail to declare the donations. There's never any denying of that story. It was about how the material that was used in this book by this guy came to be obtained, whether it was obtained in illegally and whether it was going to be used to misdescribe and, you know, redescribe an important part of the Labour Party's history, an important part of what Keir Starmer did to change the Labour Party. And that was. That seemed important to me to get right. And I think Gabriel Pogrand knows that, you know, the intention was never to have him as an individual investigated at all.
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B
Can you see, though, why opponents of Keir Starmer in the labour movement, that this does look like sort of absolute control freakery from his allies, from an organization that many of them didn't really trust, that was set up to try to get labor back into power and to try to propel him to power. Hiring a firm to look into how information got into the public domain, targeted at people who'd opposed Keir Starmer, who'd been Jeremy Corbyn's allies. Can you see why it looks like, you know, control freakery? And in terms of investigating how information gets into the public domain, some people looked at this, thought, this even looks quite sinister.
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C
Well, I can absolutely see why it created an impression that, that we somehow wanted what happened to have happened. I mean, I've always been really clear. I never wanted any journalists, any reporters to be investigated. I've always said that. And in being subject to this intensive process where I couldn't talk about anything in public, I couldn't share the documents that I was sharing privately with that process, that's exactly what the process found, that I told the truth, I'd acted with integrity, and I think that's important. But sometimes your intention doesn't matter. And I really, you know, I mean that I think it's important in life sometimes to take responsibility for something because of the impression it gave, because of the effect it had, regardless of what your original intention was. And in resigning, that's exactly what I've done. I'm taking responsibility for what happened, regardless of the intention that I've always been clear about, and that's why I chose to resign.
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A
And did you go quickly enough? Looking back, do you think if you felt this bad about something, which I've described as a car crash, do you think you should have walked the plank sooner?
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C
I think it was really important, actually, to go through a rigorous, independent process. You know, for example, when this story started, it was based on a document that I've never seen and I've still not seen, labeling several journalists, some of whom I'd not heard of as persons of interest. The fact that I'd never seen that document is one thing to say to a journalist, but it's another thing to be able to show it to the person who's responsible for investigating ministerial standards in private, in a rigorous and detailed process. So it was really important to me. I am a person of integrity. I tell the truth and that matters to me. And to go through a process privately, even though it was pretty painful to be subject to that. While I couldn't speak in public, the documents I was sharing in private, I couldn't share in public. Even though that was a difficult process, it was important to me to show that I was telling the truth. I was being honest about what I tried to do and why. And that's exactly what that process found.
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B
Why did Labour Together not declare the money properly?
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C
I have no idea. I wasn't the director of Labour Together at the time. When I ran Labour Together, it wasn't a shadowy, nefarious, complicated organisation. It was a political think tank that was explicit that it wanted the Labour Party to win the election and therefore declared all of its donations. And what we did was scour our country for talented, brilliant people, many of whom are now advisors or MPs or ministers in some cases in this government, because we wanted to inject talent into the heart of the Labour Party and frankly, do some much needed thinking in a politics that is too often devoid of ideas. You know, I'm proud of the work that we did under my leadership. One of the values that we put first was humility. One of the things I would always say to the team of what was then almost 40 people was whenever you go to a meeting, take a notebook because there's always something you can learn. You know, that is the kind of organization that I ran under me. I'm proud of that and I think the people involved are proud of the work we did too.
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B
But did you never ask? I mean, you were boss of the organization that was, you know, in the press for having made a quite big financial mistake. Did you, did you never ask?
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C
What was important for me was that we had failed to declare the donations, that we should be completely upfront about that. Explain the investigation that went on. There was no, you know, there was nothing complicated about that at all. We issued many public quotes while I was director saying we had failed to declare those donations. We self reported to the Electoral Commission that was the right thing to do. And then when that investigation concluded, we paid the fine. And that was every time this story came up when I was the director. That's what we said and that's what we did. And that was the right thing to
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A
do because the man you worked with went on to be chief of staff in number 10. So it's like, should he ever have been appointed if he couldn't add up?
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C
Well, after he went into that job, the investigation into Labour Together's failure to declare the nations happened. And it happened because Labour Together said, we have failed to declare the donations, the investigation happened, they cooperated fully with that process. They paid the fine at the end of it. All of that happened before. I was the director. At that point, I was running. I was living in Bury and running an organization called the Civic Power Fund. And when this all happened, before that, I was studying for a PhD in Harvard, writing a book about technology and democracy. So when I ran labor together, I was very clear. We got advice from lawyers about what we should declare and why we declared every penny correctly. And I was proud that we used the funding we received to hire talented people to help make this government better and to do the thinking that our politics needs to be done.
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B
The statement that we have from the PR firm in question is that we are deeply committed to upholding values and standards as an organisation. They say they're in the process of undertaking a detailed internal review of the project. So a curious story that cost you your job in government, Josh Simons. But as you say, there is plenty for you now to talk about and areas where you want to contribute. Not least, as you've mentioned there, that you wrote a book about algorithms, and you wrote a book about algorithms, partly because you were working at Meta for several years, who of course have found themselves in the news in a very, very big way this year when you were working on ethics at Meta, just tell us, you know, what do you, what do you actually do all day?
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C
So my job was to help set up this team and grow this team called the Responsible AI Team. And our job was when Facebook was building AI systems, which it does across almost all of its products, news feed, chat spots, Instagram feeds, groups, almost everything you see on Facebook is powered by AI. And our team's job was basically to say, look, when you build an AI system, you have to think about the harms that it can cause before you roll it out across your products. And then when you think about those harms, you have to take responsibility for them and address them where appropriate. And that's not normally how big tech companies work. They normally have engineers and tech people who design these things. And then just before they get launched and unleashed on the world, lawyers and policy people come in and look at them and sometimes say, oh, you can't do that because it might be illegal. But those really important questions about harms, very rarely, at least when I was there, were getting asked at the start of building those systems. And our team's job was to change that.
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A
What do you think of the case? Do you think it's terrifying? The tech bros, what happened in Los Angeles and New Mexico, finding that they know their stuff's addictive and they're peddling it to children, basically, which they're going to appeal, for the record. Do you think it's terrifying the tech
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C
Bros. Well, I hope so, basically. I think it was so obvious to me that when you build a set of AI systems to maximize things like clicks and likes and shares and angry faces and things like that, what you're doing is designing AI to addict people. You're trying to make them keep coming back. And you do that by making people feel shame or fear or anger or guilt. And all those emotions are addictive emotions. And when you build an entire ecosystem designed to elicit those emotions, you're going to damage people. You're going to make it harder for them to concentrate, to feel joy, to do other things in life, to maintain motivation. And that is a fundamental question, not actually about the technology of AI itself, but about how the whole business model of social media companies that ultimately are about people coming back and spending time works. And that's why this case is probably the biggest big tech case ever. And I'm very proud to be a part of it because it gets to the very heart of what these social media companies do.
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B
And did you say that at the time, Josh? Because I think a lot of people listening to you worked at Meta for three years. You've just explained very coherently why, in your view, they were deliberately creating products that were addictive to people. Were you warning that at the time when you were on their payroll?
- [28:35]
C
Absolutely. The whole purpose of our team was to was to change the way that Facebook built AI systems, or Meta as it now is, so that they took responsibility for the harms that those AI systems would cause. That was the very purpose of the team that I was on. And as the team grew and there were more and more high stakes decisions about things that would be required for them to do that. The sort of pattern that I observed was despite things that I'd written, despite rooms that I'd been in, despite the recommendations of some other people in our team, it wasn't happening. They weren't doing it. Every time a decision was made, it seemed like the opposite of what they would need to do to think about these harms and these addictive harms. And the only real conclusion that I could come to, and I think many others did in the team too, is they weren't serious, they didn't want to take responsibility for it because in the end, you know, that engagement, that revenue was more important than the things that you'd need to do to take responsibility from those harms. And that's why I left the company in the end.
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B
So in your view, they were very clearly putting profit above the welfare, particularly of young people, but above the welfare of their users?
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C
Yes. I mean, it's a weird world. Big, big tech and these social media companies, because they use lots of abstract things like engagement and meaningful social interactions and value and so on. So no one ever says, you know, what we should do is we should build a system that's going to addict children or that's going to stop adults concentrating, whatever. So it's never actually said out loud. But in the end, if what they needed to do was think about harms at the start of building these AI systems rather than after the fact in order to take responsibility for them, and they keep choosing not to do that, what conclusion can you draw other than actually you don't want to take responsibility for this? It's almost like you want to keep your eyes closed, even though you know that if you opened them, you'd see things that you didn't like. And that's essentially what they chose to do repeatedly.
- [30:28]
B
And, Josh, you say you were in lots of rooms. You made many warnings. How high up the business did those warnings go? Did you tell Nick Clegg, a name that will be familiar to many newscasters, did you tell Mark Zuckerberg or people who work closely with him?
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C
Well, I have to be a bit careful, Laura, because. Because I've testified in this case, the evidence that I gave and the documents that came up in. In evidence discovery are under something called a protective order, which means that in US Courts, you can't legally disclose them or publicly refer to them. But I think it's important to say that our team's job was to send up decisions to the very top of the company and to make sure that those decisions were the things that the company needed to do, in essence, to take responsibility for the harms that its AI systems could cause. And that involved writing memos and recommendations that went to the top of the company and for those recommendations to then be decided on and come back down so we could implement them. But actually, what tended to happen is when we wrote recommendations and they went up, the decision that came back was very rarely the decision that you would need to make to take responsibility for the harms that your AI systems will cause.
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A
So Laura's done a lot more work than I have in this area. But together we've met Ian Russell, who's the dad of Molly Russell and you're a young dad yourself. And I wonder, do you think that this is. Will we look back and think it's like asbestos in schools or like smoking in the era when tobacco firms flogged cigarettes knowing that they killed people and there was a gap before they were held to account. On what scale is this scandal and how much do you feel it as a dad yourself?
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C
Well, I've got two kids, as you say, Paddy, and I've got one more on the way in a couple of weeks.
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A
Congratulations.
- [32:22]
C
Thank you. I worry about it all the time with them. I mean, I think it's probably not an exaggeration to say that the way that social media is using AI is one of the biggest experiments in how human consciousness and human attention is shaped that we've ever had in the history of humanity. Basically, you know, I was in a town hall just yesterday in my constituency in Makerfield and some of the kids there who were in Year six were spending seven, eight hours a day at the weekend on this. And when you ask them what it feels like to stop using it when they're in school, they talk about feeling anxious and bobbing their knee and start scratching their legs and so on. And it's adults who say that too. Adults often say, now, oh, I'm struggling to concentrate. I find it harder to focus on one thing at a time. If human beings cannot focus, cannot ask questions, cannot see things through from start to end. We are in a really tricky state both as individuals and also in general for our society and democracy. And that's where I think we are.
- [33:24]
A
Well, it's really striking. Laura said at the start, you're at the conference of two giant news stories and I'm so pleased that we're able to listen to you on both of them. I mean, we did an experiment on Radio 4 where we asked listeners of all ages to give up their phones for a week. And there was 100% of them said they were happier at the end of that week by giving up their smartphone. People from different walks of life and I wonder, have you, have you changed? Do you, Were you addicted? I mean, I'm not trying to be personal here. Do you, did you change your use of your own device? Did you feel you were going too much doom scrolling or especially in your job, which we've just been discussing, were you asleep? Were you sleeping? Were you up at night doom scrolling your own troubles?
- [34:11]
C
Well, I have to say that the few week period that we were talking about before I resigned, that was particularly bad for My Twitter addiction and I've since nixed it on the head a bit more. But like all addictions, basically, it's a constant struggle. It's not you've fixed it or you haven't, it's just a constant struggle. And as long as the thing is there that addicted you in the first place or that is constantly tempting you back, you've always got to go back to it and say no. Or actually accidentally, I'm on it for three hours instead of one hour. And it's a kind of constant fight. And the real question is for politicians like me, why do we let this technology be deployed in this way that is undermining our democracy and public sphere, that is stopping people pay attention. It's our job to think about the kinds of people we create, the kind of future world we want to live in. That's what we are responsible for doing. That's why people elect us into parliament. And I think there are some very fundamental questions here about whether we can just allow people to be constantly sort of under this addictive fight, or whether actually there's some more deep question that we need to ask about whether people should be allowed to be corrupted in a way by this technology that exists only to addict them when made by social media companies.
- [35:28]
B
Meta's statement this week said teenage mental health is profoundly complex and can't be linked to a single app. They will cont. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously. Google says of the legal case, this case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site. But Josh, let's just move on though, to the politics of this. As you were saying, you as politicians and your rising generation of politicians also you're, you know, someone who's much younger than me, I'm padding. What should the government do? You know, I mean, they're, they're consulting on banning social media for under 16s. That conversation has been going on for a long, long, long, long, long time. What would you like to see the government do?
- [36:10]
C
Well, I think we probably should do both of the bans, ban phones in schools and ban social media for under 16s. But I do really worry about it. And it was interesting last night in the, in the town hall that I hosted, someone said to me, well, if you ban social media, and this was a, I think 12 year old girl. And she said, if you ban social media, you're punishing me for something that's big tech's fault and that doesn't feel fair. Why is it always me and our fault and things that we're doing wrong now. I think in the end it probably is the right thing to do, partly as a sort of temporary measure. But I also think we, that is politicians shouldn't let ourselves off the hook for the deeper thing. Because this 12 year old then went on to say, well, when we first had cars and combustion engines, didn't you have to put in traffic lights and road markings and zebra crossings and all the rest of it? And isn't it your job to figure out what those are going to be like for the world of AI? And I basically think she's right about that. It is our job. We've got to make this world safe for kids, just like we do all other worlds. And that isn't just simply about a ban. It's about what kinds of algorithms are these companies allowed to train and roll out on our children? What kinds of content should those kids be allowed to see and why? And those deeper questions are incumbent on us to ask and to answer. Regardless of the banning of the social media in under 16s or in schools,
- [37:31]
A
should we be banging people up? I mean, should we get named people at big firms and say, you're going to go to prison. If any child in Britain sees strangulation porn on your site? If any one single child in Britain sees that, you'll go to prison. Do you think that's the sort of thing that would make a difference?
- [37:52]
C
I do think there is a role for individual corporate accountability for people at the top of companies to get banged up in situations like that, particularly if they know that that sort of content is circulating on their platform. And quite often they do. But I don't think it's the key issue. Sometimes we focus on the most extreme forms of content, you know, strangulation being. Example, this shocking thing called sextortion, when a kid is essentially manipulated or coerced by an adult into sharing compromising or sexual images of themselves. Those are awful, awful things and they should be outlawed. And often actually it just means much more robust enforcement of existing laws in order to make that happen. But it doesn't deal with the hardest core thing that addiction is really about, which is. But it makes us unable to concentrate, it makes us addicted to the platform. We keep coming back. We feel worse about ourselves, shame, guilt. And that question of addiction, how it affects our public debate, how it affects the development of children. Even if we outlaw the worst kinds of content, that question of addiction will still be there. And you know, just to give you an example of this, you know, Google say that YouTube is misunderstood and so on, but when I put my kids on YouTube kids, it's really striking that although they don't see violence or swearing or nudity, the algorithm will push them towards what I would call slop. More and more ridiculous six minute videos that don't really have a plot, they don't really have a story or a narrative arc. They're just kind of, you know, AI madness. And they do that because my kids hate it when I turn off that slop. Now that is YouTube's algorithm for kids nonetheless aiming to addict those kids to its platform. And I think that is bad even if there's no nudity, no violence, no strangulation.
- [39:41]
B
One of the very difficult policy dilemmas for governments right around the world. You were part of the government, you were part also of getting labour back into power and ready for power. Do you think labour's using its power?
- [39:53]
C
Well, well, I think there are more things we need to do. So for example, I think Ofcom has got to enforce more quickly, enforce more robustly the Online Safety Act. It actually has a lot of powers under that act to look at the risks that social media companies might pose to children, but it's not yet got to the stage of actually enforcing those. And I think it really needs to do that and I think it needs to do that quickly. I also think that the competition and markets authority, we actually have a fantastic world leading CMA and a particular bit of it, it's called the Digital Markets unit, which is essentially responsible for thinking about competition in big tech. It's a really, really good bit of law that sits under that and it's a really good regulator. But again, what I want to see is some real confidence in taking on that and in driving through enforcement action. And I don't think we should be too afraid that Facebook's going to cancel a data center here or whatever it might do in response. Because in the end, the welfare of our children and the minds of our citizens is more important than almost any anything else in a country.
- [40:56]
B
More broadly, do you think the government's using its power?
- [40:59]
C
Well, I think always with any government at the moment in this issue, they're struggling to keep up with the sort of gravity of the issues and the pace of it. And I would like to see them go further and faster, more robust enforcement of the Online Safety act, asking those deeper questions about kids and addiction and so on, and making sure that there is real competition enforcement in online tech, including to make sure that future growth in the Tech sector in our company is not burdened and held back by big tech who buy up small companies and essentially strangle them. So on all those things, I think there is a lot more that we can do, and most of that is about using existing powers much more aggressively, much more confidently and with much less fear about retaliation.
- [41:44]
B
And I suppose, Josh, you're sticking very carefully to the regulation of online companies there, which is a hugely important issue and we've discussed. Discussed it with you and it's great to hear your insights. But more broadly, you're a Labour MP in a government that is very unpopular. It's going into a set of elections where most expectations are that you're going to get absolutely hammered in England, in Scotland and in Wales. Do you think that Labour is providing effective government right now?
- [42:13]
C
Well, I have to say, since I was elected 18 months or so ago, I do think there is a big gulf between what happens in Westminster and what people feel like out there, including in my constituency. People in my patch feel angry, frustrated. They feel like we're almost sleepwalking into crises after crises after crises. And Westminster and the sort of way our countries govern, it just doesn't really feel like that. It's kind of slower. It's more about what side of a particular debate you're on rather than why you think what you. And I think that's partly about a sort of general paucity of thinking and ideas and big picture. But I also think that if I'm being really honest, our politics, and that includes in my party, hasn't caught up with the seriousness of the world. You know, we're in two wars right now. In one of them, a million people have died, and in the other one, we're in the biggest energy sock potentially for half a century. And our politics just doesn't feel as serious and as big picture as the moment demands. And I think it really is important for my party to think about that and to think, what does it look like to have the same urgency, the same anger, the same frustration, the same seriousness that the people in my constituency really do want?
- [43:28]
A
Well, it's been, oh, yes, Laura's saying starmer to me because she knows that without her help, I never ask anything of interest on newscast Will. Will the Prime Minister lead Labour into the next general election?
- [43:45]
C
Well, I'm glad you asked that, because I do. You know, the horse race question always has to come up at the very end of an interview and I do. You know, this is a boring answer in a way, and I'm sure you're probably sitting there in the studio rolling your eyes. But we do obsess over this horse race question way too much. I mean, one of the things I think about the people positioning to be the future leader of my party is that it's actually much more important what they think they're going to do and do differently than it is who they are. And sometimes I think we get obsessed with who's positioning themselves for the top job and how and whether they're going to succeed and actually spend far too little time asking themselves, including them, what are you actually going to do with that job? It's less important to get there and it's more important what you'll do with it. And I think, you know, the Prime Minister won a massive majority. Mandates need respect in politics, and you can't just wipe them off the table because it's going difficult and it's a tough period to be in government.
- [44:39]
B
But, Josh, the reason people ask that question and the reason you've just confirmed to us that there are people who want the job, who are thinking about the job. You've been very candid about that. The reason they do that is that the Prime Minister is incredibly unpopular. And without wanting to just, you know, be a racing commentator, it's not just a horse race. It's about whether or not the leadership that Keir Starmer's providing the country is good enough. And the public right now think it's not good enough. So, as Paddy so surprised you with that shock question, I will ask you again, do you think that Keir Starmer will lead Labour into the next election?
- [45:16]
C
I think he will lead us into the next election. And I think he's got to be given the chance to do it. And I think the sort of, in some ways, just as importantly as that is, anyone who is positioning to replace the Prime Minister, briefing their newspapers that that's what they're going to do, has got to ask themselves the question, what would I actually do differently? It's less important how people would position themselves to get the top job, and much more important what they would actually do with the top job. And the fundamentals of our country right now are that we are facing some of the biggest challenges we have for decades and decades and decades in a geopolitical context where it is really hard to solve those problems. And what I care about, you know, I'm only 32. I hope that the Labour Party is going to have a bright future, seriously grappling with the country's problems for a long time. Those problems are what we should be thinking and talking about, just like the social media and kids question. And I really do think that every hour spent in Parliament with my colleagues gossiping about who's up, who's down, and why, is time less well spent than thinking about how we deal with those fundamental problems facing my constituents and our country.
- [46:24]
A
Thank you very much indeed. It's probably not an easy decision to come and meet Laura Kuensberg, talking about the scandal in which you lost your job, and then to talk about meta from your experience with this wrinkle that you've been giving evidence in the court case, it's been absolutely fascinating.
- [46:41]
B
It's been great to talk to you. Josh. Thank you so much indeed for your time this afternoon on Saturday's newscast. Very interesting indeed. We think we have to let you go to a kid's birthday party now, so we can't let you be late.
- [46:50]
C
You do. My wife will. I'll be in big trouble if I'm late.
- [46:53]
B
So we don't want to be in trouble. Thanks so much.
- [46:57]
C
Put together your summer wardrobe with Abercrombie. First step, new denim. Abercrombie added new linen blend jeans to their lineup. They're really lightweight and a comfortable cotton linen blend you need for summer. Their archive shirt is your next must have cut it, a 90s inspired oversized fit that gives a put together but relaxed look. Pair it with their classic poplin short and you have your new go to outfit for the season. Set your wardrobe up with Abercrombie. This summer. Shop in the app, online and in stores.
- [47:28]
B
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- [47:54]
C
Hi, this is Alex Kanchowitz. I'm the host of Big Technology Podcast, a longtime reporter and an on air contributor to cnbc. And if you're like me, you're trying to figure out how artificial intelligence is changing the business world and our lives. So each week on Big Technology, I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to influence it, asking where this is all going. They come from places like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and plenty more. So if you want to be Smart with your wallet, your career choices, in meetings with your colleagues and at dinner parties. Listen to big technology podcast wherever you get your podcasts. This is Mike Volo of Lexicon Valley
- [48:32]
A
and I'm Bob Garfield. Are you one of those people who sometimes uses words?
- [48:37]
C
Do you communicate or acquire information with, you know, language?
- [48:42]
A
Hey, us too. So join us on Lexicon Valley to true over the history, culture and many mysteries of English, plus some wisecracks.
- [48:53]
C
Find us on one of those apps where people listen to podcasts.
- [49:02]
A
You did. You gave me the same look that you give when I talk about Liz Truss paying your gas bill. Then when you. When.
- [49:07]
B
Well, you made it sound like it must be. You said it can't be an easy decision to come and talk to Laura, like I'm some terrible old dragon who ought to be kept in a cupboard.
- [49:14]
A
No, you're not at all. You're the political journalist that he obviously knew he's gonna have to give his account to. Do you feel that he can move through the gears now? Did he have to make an appointment with the media of some kind?
- [49:28]
B
I think what was interesting, what I took from Josh Simons, talking about the terrible mess that he got himself into.
- [49:34]
A
Yeah.
- [49:35]
B
Was that he said, actually, I. I was really naive, like. And as you said, it was then a bit of a car crash. So his version of events that we heard at length about what happened at labor together and how he then tried to go and find out what had happened and ends up in this completely bizarre, concerning story that you had a political organization trying to basically dig up dirt on journalists who were going about their business. And he gave the impression certainly that it was all just a kind of mess of complete unintended consequences. It'll be interesting to see how other people pick up on it. But also just, it was really fascinating to hear him talk about what it was like when he worked for. For Meta. And he is somebody who, before the mess around labor together, he had been seen very much as someone who was on the up. Somebody says he's only 32, bright guy, loads to offer, big ideas. I think listening to him talk about Meta, somebody who's very kind of seized of the responsibilities and challenges of modern politics. So, I mean, I've got to say, I wouldn't be surprised if in time to come he turns up back in government, because I think the official verdict on what went wrong was that he hadn't actually done anything wrong, but the mess was making it embarrassing for the government. So that was the verdict of the standards boss. Sorry, Magnus, who looked into this. So that's important to say that on the record. They sort of said, yeah, it was embarrassing for the government's reputation that this saga had happened, but actually Josh Simons had told the truth and he hadn't sort of meant to do anything wrong. But, you know, these things are embarrassing and they do sort of stay on people's record. But of course, newscasters will judge for themselves whether or not they've they found his arguments persuasive. But I was also just really struck by him talking about what it was like to be at Meta for a few years and trying to make those arguments upstairs, as he described it, that what they were doing was deliberately trying to addict people to their platforms. And I think maybe that's a bit of a preview of some of the political arguments we'll hear in the months to come. And we should all say, like, technology is also amazing. All sorts of rewards and excitement and fun from technology. But, you know, I think there's no question that our political systems have taken a long time to catch up with the dark side and what can go wrong. And now you see the court stepping in and maybe businesses will change their behavior. We will see. What are you doing tomorrow?
- [51:51]
A
So we're going to like you. We're going to meet the leader of the opposition.
- [51:55]
B
Yes. We both have Kemi Binoch on our program.
- [51:57]
A
Yes, it's an unusual coalition. We don't often have that. So we move on to the end of our podcast saying thank you very much indeed for listening and watching. Goodbye.
- [52:06]
B
Goodbye.
- [52:07]
C
Newscast.
- [52:08]
B
Newscast from the BBC.
- [52:10]
C
Thank you so much for making it to the end of Newscast. You clearly copyright Chris Mason Ooze Stamina. Can I gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? Don't forget, you can email us anytime. It's newscastbc.co.uk and if you would like to join our Discord community to talk about everything newscast related, there is a link in the description of this podcast and don't be scared. It's super easy to click on it and then get set up. Or you can WhatsApp us on 033-01-239480 and I promise you we read and listen to every single message. Thanks for listening to this podcast. Bye.
- [52:51]
B
Foreign.
- [52:56]
C
The Global Gaming League is presented by Atlas Earth, the fun Cashback app. Hey, it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my Howie Do It Gaming team take on Gilly the King and Wallow $267 million gaming in an epic global gaming league video game showdown. Plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to to the championship match right now@globalgamingleague.com that's globalgamingleague.com in partnership with Level Up Expo.