Careless people

This is not your father’s book review

So, a bit of an admission: I normally don’t read stuff about Big Tech, even though I’ve been railing against it in one form or other for a little over the past decade.

Why?

It gets me angry.

Like, really angry.

I used to believe, back when I was giving dozens of talks a year about the problem – talks with titles like Free is a Lie, Excuse Me, Your Unicorn Keeps Shitting In My Back Yard, Can He Please Not?, and Avoiding Digital Feudalism at places like the European Parliament – that if I could just explain the problem plainly enough, maybe even in an entertaining way, people would understand and we would all do something about it.

Instead, my personal experience has been that it’s apparently easier to shoot the messenger.

So, a while ago, I decided that I would stop talking about the problem and invest all my time and effort in building a potential solution in the form of the Small Web.

That was six years ago and I’m still working on it with zero EU funding (but with the support of Laura’s work at Penpot and generous everyday folks like you).

Anyway, so the only reason I picked up a physical copy of Careless People: A story of where I used to work at my local bookstore was because Meta (née Facebook), tried to block it.

(Because, clearly, being ruthless enough to be a billionaire doesn’t preclude you from being stupid enough to not understand the Streisand effect.)

The book is a memoir by Sarah Wynn-Williams, who was Facebook’s director of global public policy. And, truth be told, I have a habit of listening when directors of global public policy tell me things. Like that time Mozilla’s told me I shouldn’t be so hard on them because they’re “just another Silicon Valley tech company.”

Needless to say, you can learn a thing or two from such folks.

Highlights

This is not a review of the book.

Were it, I’d say it is a brilliantly written, gripping memoir, that would – were there any justice in the world – bring Meta crashing down.

As things stand, in a world where IBM – the company that helped Hitler carry out the Holocaust – is still in business, I won’t be holding my breath.

Were this a review, I’d mention that beyond providing an unflattering glimpse inside the putrid bowels of a trillion-dollar surveillance capitalist, it is a raw, personal, and emotional account of Sarah’s life. A beautifully executed redemption arc – which isn’t surprising given the author’s job is to manipulate people for a living – as long as you don’t think too hard about the fact that Mark Zuckerberg calling the people who trusted him “dumb fucks” was already public information in 2010, a whole year before the author’s “idealism” led her to start a job at Facebook.

But as I said, this isn’t a review of the book. Instead, it’s a summary of the bits that stood out to me. Bits, for example, that if the EU Parliament and Commission were to ever pull their heads out of their asses, would lead them to having some strong words not just with Meta but also with, say, the government of Ireland.

Luck of the Irish

One of the most damning sections of the book lays bare the backroom dealing that goes on between governments and Silicon Valley corporations like Facebook. It takes place, as do a lot of the anecdotes, at Davos – the annual wankfest of the rich and powerful – and involves then Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

Sarah sets the stage with a bit of background about the issue at hand (taxes, and, later, data protection and GDPR):

The Italian prime minister tells us that he and his counterparts in Europe are struggling with unemployment and slowing economic growth, and the tech companies are seen as leeches, sucking money out of their countries and not creating jobs, making investments, or paying tax.

…

Facebook deploys something called a “double Irish” to avoid paying taxes. It’s something Google and Apple do as well. The way the double Irish works is that when one of these companies makes a dollar selling ads (or iPhones in Apple’s case) in Italy or Germany or elsewhere in the European Union, that revenue can be shifted to Ireland for tax purposes, and then on to a tax-haven country like Bermuda that charges no taxes at all. To do this, companies have set up subsidiaries in Ireland and transfer the foreign IP rights to those subsidiaries. What Ireland gets out of the deal is big Google and Apple and Facebook operations located on their soil, with thousands of local employees earning good wages. Those employees pay taxes in Ireland, even if the tech companies don’t.

However, it would appear the luck of the Irish is running out:

After years of controversy and opposition, the EU had just forced Ireland to shut down the boondoggle a few months before Davos.

This makes our next meeting with Irish prime minister Enda Kenny particularly important.

So how does this meeting go? About as you would expect. First a little background on Kenny:

Kenny has been one of Facebook’s firmest allies since the beginning, and the Irish have gone above and beyond to court our business. Sheryl [Sandberg] often tells the story about how she decided to locate the Facebook European headquarters in Ireland in 2008, after the Irish government gave her a special phone when she landed in the country on her first business trip. The phone connected her to someone in the Irish government who could solve any problem or address any accommodation she needed.

And then straight to business as Kenny is concerned:

With the EU quashing the double Irish, is Facebook going to stay in Ireland? Google and Twitter have publicly committed to keeping their operations going, but Facebook hasn’t.

Sheryl says, “I appreciate that there was substantial pressure and scrutiny this year on global tax rules and arrangements,” and thanks Kenny for his “careful” and “considered” handling of it. What she’s thanking him for is an additional five years of double Irish for Facebook and the other tech companies that Kenny had somehow wrangled. We’re protected from tax until 2020. But what comes after that?

Before you get too worried about the financial well-being of Facebook, we learn that Kenny is on the case:

He’d already promised her at Davos three years ago that even if European countries make him tax Facebook, he won’t raise the corporate tax rate above what it is now in Ireland: 12.5 per cent. (In comparison, it’s 35 per cent in the US.) Of course, 12.5 per cent is a lot more than nothing, which is what Facebook is currently paying.

Now pay attention to the next part. Because this is where we see who’s holding the leash and who is going “woof” (hint: Sheryl isn’t Ireland’s bitch):

Kenny starts explaining the pressure he’s facing. “Now, you know Ireland had no choice but to comply with what these other countries…”

Sheryl interrupts. “Did you know Facebook has over five hundred employees from fifty-four nations based in Dublin, and we’ve just leased a building with capacity for over two thousand employees?”

“Have I told you about the Knowledge Development Box?” Kenny asks with a twinkle in his eye.

And now one of the really damning bits:

“Sarah, stop taking notes,” Sheryl instructs, knowing Kenny’s about to tell us how he’s going to keep the gravy train going for us. She doesn’t want it written down. My notes can be subpoenaed. So this part of the meeting will be “off the books.” “Is this the thing that you told Marne you were focussed on, to make us happy? The IP initiative?”

“Oh, yes,” replies Kenny, before he describes a new tax scheme that will allow companies like Facebook to separate out “income from intellectual property” and pay half of Ireland’s already low tax rate. “Details are still being negotiated.”

And, finally, the point where Kenny hears his master’s voice:

“We’ll have our team help shape them,” Sheryl insists.

Oh, my.

And if you think that’s the worst of it, you clearly missed the bit about data protection and GDPR. Read and weep:

Before the meeting closes, Prime Minister Kelly has a favour to ask. Europe is steaming about privacy and Facebook, and they’re about to adopt a law – the General Data Protection Regulation – to crack down on how Big Tech uses personal data. Exactly who will enforce the law is still being negotiated. Kenny wants it to be Ireland. We do too. But we’ve got a problem because no one believes Ireland will be tough enough on the tech companies. With good reason. Kenny needs to make it seem like his regulator – the Irish Data Protection Commission – is on the case right now, doing proper oversight, a watchdog Europe can trust with this responsibility. “Ireland’s been criticized,” he says, which is true, and asks if we can assist in “building up the credibility” of his regulator by talking publicly about its audits of Facebook privacy, and the changes we’ve made because of it. In other words, we should tell the world that the lapdog has been a pit bull. Of course, Sheryl agrees to this.

Well, thank fuck we have None of Your Business because we sure as hell don’t have Ireland on our side.

(As far as I can tell, The Irish Data Protection Commission – an Orwellian name, if ever there was one – has never seen a regulation it wanted to enforce until being forced into doing so by losing a court case to NOYB. Maybe it’s time to take enforcement of GDPR away from Ireland. What say ye, European Commission?)

Liberty means order

Facebook and other Silicon Valley companies riding roughshod over nation states is just one half of the story, however. They only do that with weak states like Ireland that have made themselves dependent on them.

With strong states, like China, the story is quite different.

Sarah’s book goes into excruciating detail about how Mark Zuckerberg is adamant about getting Facebook into China and the lengths to which they will go to try and make it happen. This also highlights how these people farmers (as I call them), are ready to share their spoils with authoritarian regimes if it means a few more pennies in their pockets.

I’m curious – why would China allow Facebook in? I soon find a set of documents that sets out Facebook’s pitch. The first is titled “China – Our Value Proposition.” It’s mostly the corporate feel good “we’ll boost your economy and help you prosper” bullshit. They promise to help China increase its global influence and promote “the China dream,” support innovation and job growth, and advertise Chinese products to people around the world.

Ah, OK, that doesn’t sound that bad…

But the “key” offer is that Facebook will help China “promote safe and secure social order.” And what does this mean? Surveillance. They point out that on Facebook, the profiles represent real people with their real names, and that “we adhere to local laws wherever we operate and develop close relationships with law enforcement and governments.”

Oh…

In the most benign reading of this, Facebook is saying: millions of your citizens will post information about themselves publicly that you can view and collect if you want. In the least benign reading – the way I read this – Facebook is dangling the possibility that it’ll give China special access to users’ data. Authoritarian states need information on everyone at every level of society, and Facebook can provide a treasure trove.

That pitch signals Facebook’s intent to work hand-in-glove with the CCP to help enforce its will on its people:

“Facebook seeks to create an online environment that is civilized, which is why we respect local laws, as well as harmonious, which is why we remove offending content. We agree with Minister Lu Wei when he said, ‘We must stick to the bottom line and exercise governance in accordance with the law’ and ‘Liberty means order. The two are closely linked… Liberty cannot exist without order.’”

So, yeah, there’s that.

And I’m getting angry again so I’m going to stop here.

There’s more, far more, in the book itself.

But the one thing that recurs over and over again is that the people at Facebook appear worse than even their worst critics (which I count myself among) have been able to imagine from the outside. This isn’t that surprising for me since, over the years, any time anyone on the inside leaked any information to me, it’s always been worse than I’d imagined.

From the outside, all you need to know is that Mark Zuckerberg thinks the people who trust him with the most intimate details of their lives are “dumb fucks” and all you need to have is a basic understanding of Facebook’s business model to understand who they are and what they do and why they do it.

But reading about just how morally vacuous, just how sociopathic, just how irredeemably toxic these people are from a first-hand internal account – while not surprising – does add oxygen to the fire within me that keeps me working to create a kinder, fairer alternative to the world these greedy, evil motherfuckers want to smother us in.