00:04:23.640You spent money to animate something that would intentionally bring shame to domestic violence victims and make a joke of it.
00:04:29.700This isn't about my personal feelings, because I don't have much of them.
00:04:32.840But all the women, children, and men who have been victims of domestic violence in the past, and especially the ones that haven't made it out yet.
00:04:39.520You let us down. Shame on you. Throw the whole app-ology away.
00:04:44.720And people listened, and they really did throw the whole app away.
00:04:49.160This whole thing ended up costing Snapchat about $800 million, according to Vanity Fair.
00:04:53.700So there is definitely a precedent for big celebrities having a very real influence over social media platforms.
00:05:00.640Which is probably why, the very next day, the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, rushed to respond to the Kardashian criticisms of the app.
00:05:09.520Criticisms that I feel really echo how a lot of us feel about Instagram.
00:05:13.840Ryan Mack, tech reporter at the New York Times, pointed out that Mosseri usually posts recaps
00:05:19.460or updates about what's happening with Instagram at the end of the week, but this time he responded
00:05:24.400the very next day, on a Tuesday, after the Kardashians' posts. Mack said that he would
00:05:29.700not be surprised at all if their criticisms were seen internally at Instagram as red alerts
00:05:34.660that the company needed to respond to immediately. So let's get into his response, which frankly
00:05:39.980wasn't great. First, he posted a video on Twitter, which I feel like really tells you something that
00:05:46.280he needed to use a completely different platform to explain the changes. But in any event,
00:05:51.420basically he said, we know you hate what's going on with Instagram and it's obviously awful, but
00:05:57.340too bad because we're not going to change it. A big complaint is that photos, which was initially
00:06:02.240the purpose of Instagram in the first place, have been deprioritized by the platform's algorithm
00:07:05.240Now, if you're seeing things in your feed that are recommendations that you're not interested in, that means that we're doing a bad job ranking and we need to improve.
00:07:13.820You can even snooze all recommendations for up to a month or go to your following feed.
00:07:17.940But we're going to continue to try and get better at recommendations because we think it's one of the most effective and important ways to help creators reach more people.
00:07:26.760And I hate, hate, hate that reasoning.
00:07:30.800Because first, they basically use their algorithm to surface video content over photos.
00:07:36.280And they've been explicitly telling creators that they have to make video content if they want to perform well on Instagram.
00:07:42.380So then turning around and claiming, oh, video is just the kind of content that users like to engage with the most.
00:07:47.660So we're just giving you what you want.
00:07:49.140Like they didn't actually put their thumb on the scales, doesn't really work.
00:07:53.540And Instagram really has gone out of their way to tell creators that they must be making
00:07:57.860Reels to perform well, even giving creators the ability to monetize Reels on the platform.
00:08:02.900So obviously, prioritizing video content isn't just some happenstance way that the
00:08:07.720platform is trying to give users what they want.
00:08:10.140Also, I have a really hard time just taking Facebook at their word about how they say
00:08:16.020their users are engaging with video content.
00:08:18.640Let's take a little trip down memory lane.
00:08:20.700Facebook has a clear, documented history of inflating metrics to benefit their own bottom line.
00:08:26.260And I guess another word for that might be lying or might be fraud.
00:08:30.680I don't know. I'm no legal expert, but, you know, not telling the truth about what's going on, we'll say.
00:08:35.920Facebook had to pay out $40 million to settle a lawsuit involving inflated video metrics.
00:08:40.760Their metrics were inflated by 150 to 900 percent.
00:08:44.880So basically, Facebook told media companies that users are watching lots and lots and lots of video content, as opposed to reading text content, which was not true at all.
00:08:55.360And based on that, companies then pivoted to video and did things like laying off writing staff to prioritize video producers.
00:09:02.860I was working in media at the time, and I actually saw firsthand the real-world impact and harm this caused to actual people.
00:09:10.240People lost their jobs, and previously independent media outlets like College Humor and Enzi on the air either shrunk or in some cases folded all together.
00:09:19.380And I saw so many good people be pushed out of media because of this and just leave the field.
00:09:25.840Because working in a field where a company like Facebook can have so much control over your livelihood by lying just didn't feel stable.
00:09:33.820And Facebook's punishment for doing all this?
00:09:36.340Well, I told you that Facebook had to pay $40 million to settle this case.
00:09:40.420But that's just 0.18% of the company's annual revenue.
00:13:51.300If you listen to the episode that we did with Abby Richards about how they worked with PR companies to make TikTok look bad, then you already know all about this.