Challenging Zuckerberg’s Metanarrative
Who is Mark Zuckerberg? That is the question at the heart of Nick Green’s new Sky documentary, Zuckerberg: King of the Metaverse.
We all know how Zuckerberg took Facebook from being a website accessible to just a few American college students in 2004 to one that is used by over a billion people worldwide in 2024. Along the way, he has acquired Instagram and WhatsApp making him one of the most wide reaching and influential men in the world today.
But what are his thoughts? His views? What does he believe in? As Nick Green tells Matthew Sherwood, uncovering the man behind the avatar and update was hard. Unlike his social media rival, Elon Musk, Zuckerberg speaks only guardedly.
The importance of his position, however, makes it worth taking time to unravel Zuckerberg’s life. As Matthew notes, he has gone from being a hero, to villain, and is now a survivor. For Nick Green, he has been a disrupter, someone willing to “move fast, [and] break things” in the pursuit of money. In doing so, Zuckerberg has had to navigate serious legal challenges and also the attention of American politicians, all of which, he has overcome.
In this year of important elections, a film about the man who could influence them by his actions or inaction could not be more timely. Especially since, as Nick points out, we can only hope that Zuckerberg is up to the challenge of what lies ahead.
On Facebook’s algorithm:
“Curating what people see and curating what they are exposed to from a business perspective is extraordinary. But... it’s just caused the most horrendous problems.” – Nick Green
Time Stamps
00:00 – Trailer for Zuckerberg: King of the Metaverse
00:42 – Matthew Sherwood introduces this episode’s guest, Nick Green, and his film, Mark Zuckerberg: King of the Metaverse
02:51 – Nick explains what Zuckerberg: King of the Metaverse is about
06:35 – Changing perceptions of Mark Zuckerberg
07:50 – Peter Thiel and Mark Zuckerberg: kindred spirits
10:10 – Zuckerberg: Politics, Success, and Influence
16:15 – Points of Connection: Facebook and the Democratic Process
22:31 – 2016 and 2018: Two critical years for Zuckerberg: The annus horribilis and appearing before Congress
27:05 – Facebook Whistleblowers Frances Haugen and Arturo Bejar
29:02 – Parents’ fear of social media amidst politicians’ slowness to protect children
31:22 – The addictive nature of social media
38:00 – Where making Zuckerberg: King of the Metaverse ranks among making Nick’s other films (about Putin, the Assads et al)
43:35 – The cost of being a whistleblower and consequences for filmmakers
46:42 – Revisiting the question of who is Mark Zuckerberg?
49:17 – Zuckerberg’s own wariness in what he puts on his Facebook feed
50:08 – Zuckerberg’s great (engineering) achievement
51:27 – Nick looks forward to his next project
53:04 – Nick’s fascination with making films about alpha males
Resources:
Zuckerberg: King of the Metaverse
MovieMaker Magazine
Innersound Audio
Alamo Pictures
Connect with Nick Green
More from Factual America:
Uncover the Post Truth World with The Great Hack
Elon Musk's Crash Course in Self-Driving Technology
Finding Hope amidst Hate in A Town Called Victoria
Transcript for Factual America Episode 153: Challenging Zuckerberg’s Metanarrative
Matthew Sherwood 00:00 (00:42)
This is Factual America. I'm your host, Matthew Sherwood. Each week, I watch a hit documentary, and then talk with the filmmakers and their subjects. In January 2004, Mark Zuckerberg embarked on a coding journey that would change the world. Two decades later, we can see the impact that one man and his company, Facebook, now called Meta, have had on all our lives. Join us as we talk with award-winning and BAFTA nominated director Nick Green about the challenges he faced in discovering what drives one of the world's most powerful and wealthiest men. Does Zuckerberg fully understand the impact he continues to have on society? It is hard to tell. Zuckerberg: King of the Metaverse delves into themes of power, privacy, mistrust, and disinformation, shining a light on an inscrutable man whose influence shapes the future of democracies around the world. Stay tuned.
Matthew Sherwood 01:00
Nick Green, welcome to Factual America. How are things with you?
Nick Green 01:05
Oh, very nice. Thank you so much for having me. I'm pretty flattered that you've asked me.
Matthew Sherwood 01:09
Well, we're flattered that you've agreed to join us. As our listeners and viewers will have known from the intro, we're talking about Zuckerberg: King of the Metaverse. It's currently on Sky here in the UK and all the Sky territories. We talked earlier just before starting this recording that Fremantle has picked it up. So, I'm sure it's going to be showing somewhere near you, somehow, someway very soon. So, congratulations, great to have you on. As you may or may not be aware, we usually start off by asking our filmmakers what the film's all about. It does seem pretty - you know, the title, it's - it is what it says on the tin: Zuckerberg: King of the Metaverse, but, you know, and he's become one of these one name figures, hasn't he, but what is your film trying - what is your film about?
Nick Green 02:01 (02:51)
Well, look, I mean, what we were trying to do - and I, you know, I hope we were successful. I mean, this film was sort of incredibly challenging on a number of levels, we'll talk about that later, but I think the idea of the film was just to sort of try and look under the bonnet, look under the hood, of, you know, who this sort of main designer, who the main man behind Facebook and Instagram and various other, you know, well-known brands, who he actually is, what he stands for, you know, where he comes from, what, you know, basically who this guy is, and I think, you know, there's obviously been many Facebook documentaries been made...
Matthew Sherwood 02:39
Right.
Nick Green 02:39
... in the past. And obviously, you know, what we were trying to do is, to a certain extent, try and avoid that and look at sort of the person's motivations behind it and get people to try and talk to that. So, we were trying to sort of make a film about the man himself.
Matthew Sherwood 02:56
Yeah. And I think - so, I think that's a very good point, because we've had some of those documentaries, the filmmakers on. We've had The Great Hack filmmakers, that's all about Cambridge Analytica. I had forgotten, I'd even written a film review of The Social Dilemma, which came out, which kind of deals with some of these issues. I think even one of the subjects - so, I mean, there's a guy - one of your subjects is in every one of these docs, I have to say!
Nick Green 03:19
Oh, which one? There's - the couple, probably.
Matthew Sherwood 03:21
Yeah, but the one that who's the venture capitalist...
Nick Green 03:22
Roger McNamee?
Matthew Sherwood 03:25
Yeah, I think that's him. The one - older guy, right, who's...
Nick Green 03:28
The older guy, yes, yeah, the early investor who's just become a sort of, you know, poacher turned gamekeeper or gamekeeper turned poacher, whichever way round it is.
Matthew Sherwood 03:37
I think he makes a full-time career now of appearing on docs and news programmes and stuff like that! But...
Nick Green 03:43
Yeah!
Matthew Sherwood 03:43
... but to get back to your point it isn't - you know, we're not talking about the ill effects of social media or trying to get all this stuff, it's about - it is about the man, the mogul, the dictator, whatever you want to call him. And what drives Zuckerberg.
Nick Green 03:59
Yeah, that's right, and you know what - I mean, it - gosh, it was hard. It was so hard. And, you know, I mean, I'm sure some people would still feel that we should have worked harder, and maybe we should have sort of got a bit more of a sort of psychology - psychological profile, but it's unbelievably difficult. I mean, you know, he's, you know, if you sort of - I mean, the two, sort of gods of our social media world, if you like, are sort of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, and, you know, one, you know, is everywhere, spouting opinions for, you know, about everything. And, of course, the other is very, very guarded and speaks in sort of thirty second sound bites that seem to be sort of via curated house trained journalists, and, like, who is this guy? I mean, like, you know, you know, after, you know - it's really interesting, because when you compare the sort of man now, to how he was as a sort of teenager, early 20s guy, when they were just - as I think one of the contributors said, you know, they were all sort of like guys in their 20s, and they were having a great time, and they didn't know what they shouldn't be saying to journalists, they didn't know - they, you know, they didn't sort of - they didn't - they weren't sort of house trained in that way. And now, obviously, these businesses are just worth billions and billions and billions. And, you know, they have battalions of sort of PR people behind them, I'm sure. And everything is just curated to within an inch of its life. So, you get the message. Everything is just on message and what people really think of Mark Zuckerberg, you know, in recent years, very, very hard - very, very hard to get. Very, very hard to gauge.
Matthew Sherwood 05:47 (06:35)
I mean, inscrutable seems like the perfect term for the fella. I mean, I guess maybe one way of looking at - one way your film does explore is, you know, explores it chronologically in that you forget how much his image and perceptions of him have changed and evolved, you know, over the last sort of 20 years. So, he's this whiz kid, curiosity. I think it's not unfair to describe him a hero, at least in one sense of the definition, in terms of social network and everything's going on, and then you've got - then becomes a villain. And maybe he's now, you know, he's even a survivor now.
Nick Green 06:28
Yeah, totally. And I think there's - you know, that's the sort of natural drama that obviously sort of lends itself to a story. It's a huge sort of pendulum shift. You know, it's a huge change, as you say, from somebody who, you know, in the archive is sort of wet behind the ears and, you know, looks like he's...
Matthew Sherwood 06:48
I mean, they're doing keg stands in the office, right.
Nick Green 06:50
Yeah.
Matthew Sherwood 06:51
... they're rolling around on - I mean, it's like...
Nick Green 06:53
Yeah, great fun, right.
Matthew Sherwood 06:54
Yes, everyone's stereotype of Silicon Valley of at least a certain era. Google, all those, they're playing...
Nick Green 07:00
Yes.
Matthew Sherwood 07:01
... ping pong.
Nick Green 07:02 (07:50)
And of course, the most - you know, the more successful any business comes, the more sort of scrutiny it, you know, attracts. And I think that, you know, I mean, what we were sort of quite interested in, I think, was just the sort of origins, and - I mean, I was - I'm really sort of fascinated by the sort of Peter Thiel character. And, you know, obviously, you know, Peter Thiel is obviously, you know, a reasonably sort of well-known part of the sort of Facebook story. And he has this sort of interesting sort of parallel narrative with Facebook, and we interviewed this terrific writer called Max Chafkin, who is the biographer of Peter Thiel. And, I mean, you know, I think he probably had a little bit of a fight with the publisher's lawyers to try and get that book over the line finally, because he's quite a powerful guy. But he's - but Peter Thiel is obviously an, you know, an arch-disrupter. And the fact that he saw something in Mark Zuckerberg, you know, at a time when there were dozens and dozens and dozens of these sorts of networking kind of websites, that were trying to get going. Theil saw something in Zuckerberg, you know, and sort of, if you like, a sort of, it seems like a kindred spirit really, you know, that sort of shared idea that you could take something, you could shake it up, and you can, you know, you can break the mold. I think he liked that. And I think that he sort of became, you know, he became a sort of mentor, and obviously an investor in Zuckerberg. And I think they spent quite a bit of time together, right from the early days. And then obviously, they sort of went in their own sort of directions, but they keep looping back, you know, the whole Trump side of the story and all this kind of stuff.
Matthew Sherwood 08:40 (10:10)
Yeah, no, I think that's a very interesting point. Because don't we - it's not one - at least I have not seen previously, played up very much - this connection with Peter Thiel - I mean, obviously, people know he was an early investor, and well, first, if not the first. But, you know, it's funny because Facebook, depending on which - well, especially if you are in the US, which media you're listening to, or watching, I mean, you know, in 2020, Facebook was behind suppressing a lot of news that would have been potentially helpful for Trump. But yet, there is this interesting connection to Thiel. And it's almost - is it almost like Zuckerberg is sort of beyond politics in a way, or did someone in your film say he's almost - it's all about Zuckerberg.
Nick Green 09:32
Totally, totally. I mean, that's what that sort of opinion basically sort of stated. It was this idea that, you know, his single interest is, you know, I mean, obviously, you have to sort of assume that he's interested in his family because he seems to be sort of quite a good family man and this sort of stuff, but beyond that, it is Facebook, it's the survival of Facebook and it's, you know, it's, you know, it's keeping it growing, it's keeping people sort of engaged on the platforms so that he can monetize their interest in sort of people around the world. So, so, no, his politics are very much sort of Facebook. And I sort of understand that as a sort of - as a way of sort of seeing the world. I mean, you know, he sort of had dinner with, you know, Donald Trump while Donald Trump was in the presidency, because clearly, you know, Trump could have done all sorts of damage to Facebook had he sort of chosen to, so he had to play politics there. You know, he obviously was great friends with - maybe not friends, but he had sort of alliances with a sort of Barack Obama. The sort of Biden administration is quite interesting, because they seem to be sort of, like, sniffing each other's bottoms without doing a great deal of damage to each other. But he plays politics, you know, purely for the benefit of Facebook, I think. You know, goodness knows who he voted for in the last election. I would have thought he's a bright guy so he probably would have voted for Biden, but you never know.
Matthew Sherwood 11:06
I mean, like you said, he's so inscrutable. I mean, let's give credit - I mean, whatever people - and I think, probably when you were going around doing this project, you discover that he's like a lightning rod, isn't he? I mean, people have very strong views about Zuckerberg one way or the other. But...
Nick Green 11:21
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew Sherwood 11:23
... give him credit. He's built this amazing - I mean, depending on how you view life, and your values, but he has built this amazingly successful company, and he's all about trying to protect it.
Nick Green 11:35
I totally agree. And, you know, I mean, I think it's next month or something is the 20th anniversary. So, 20 years of running a business, growing a business, and actually sticking with it. I mean, the whole sort of - what's interesting about him in the sort of world of sort of tech is that, you know, he didn't sell up, he didn't, you know, he didn't just take his, you know, billions and, you know, live on a yacht moored off the sort of coast of Capri. I mean, he's, you know, he's absolutely sort of dug in, and he's not going anywhere. I don't think he wants to go. Nobody's sort of expressed any sort of thoughts that he might one day cash in his chips and leave. I mean, I think this is very much his [...] respect, I think you've got to admire him. I mean, you know, he's an extraordinary survivor. And he - as you say - he's built this sort of tool that, you know, everybody has sort of touched at some point in their life. And I think you can always see the measure of somebody's success, when you sort of mention a single name. You know, as you said, you know, 'Zuckerberg' word is extraordinary powerful, and can only sort of - and only, you know, you know that you're only talking about one person, there's only one person you're talking about. So, no, I mean, I do sort of admire him in huge, in huge ways, in many ways, rather, but I do think that - yeah, I mean, I'm not sure that the world he's ended up sort of creating has bettered mankind. I mean, in my opinion, and I think, you know, that's worth challenging. And that's why I think we sort of wanted to sort of, you know, just sort of kick the hornet's nest a little bit in the film, and just sort of - and just put that under the lens a little bit. Because I think these are, you know, these are complicated times. I mean, at one point, we sort of had the story about the fact that, you know, this year, 2024, is obviously, I think there's something like - God knows how many elections - there are 50 elections, democratic elections this year. And, you know, and Facebook will be an active participant in pretty well all of those, if not all of those. And, I think, you know, how Facebook is curated and engineered, it should be of interest to everybody, you know. Can you sort of trust the sort of information that you're getting? Should you be able to trust it? Should you just, you know, should you get any of your sort of, you know, politics through Facebook? I mean, I don't - you know, I don't know, but I mean, he's certainly sort of changed the narrative with politics. And I think this year, you know, more than any other, you know, we've got to be really careful with how fragile our democracies are. And in my opinion, I'm not sure he has, you could probably - I'm choosing my words carefully here. But, you know, but in my opinion, I'm not sure he has been particularly careful with looking after our democracies in the past. So, I think we, you know, so, it's a key time to be doing the film. And it makes him even more sort of interesting and even more powerful, really.
Matthew Sherwood 14:34
I think that's - I do want to actually follow up on that, but, like, I think this is a good point to give our listeners and viewers an early break, so we'll be right back with Nick Green, the award-winning director of Zuckerberg: King of the Metaverse, currently showing on Sky here in the UK, and coming your way if it hasn't already.
Factual America Midroll 14:54
You're listening to Factual America. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or X to keep up-to-date with new releases for upcoming shows. Check out the show notes to learn more about the programme, our guests, and the team behind the production. Now back to Factual America.
Matthew Sherwood 15:13 (16:15)
Welcome back to Factual America. I'm here with Nick Green, the award-winning director of Zuckerberg: King of the Metaverse, currently showing on Sky TV here in the UK and its territories, and it will be coming your way soon, do check it out. So, Nick, we've been talking about - you raised the point about all these elections, I think the figure's at least around half the world's population is going to be voting in democratic elections this year. Other films, but certainly yours as well, show the impact that Facebook has had and continues to have on our politics. And I think this gets to this point - I think it comes out in your film, you're alluding to it, you're - at least in your opinion, is this view that maybe he hasn't quite cottoned on to how much of an impact Facebook really has in terms of these things? I mean, isn't it - because it's not just about - the business model he's created - this tool that he created, many now - almost 20 years ago, it's not just about capturing our data, it is - that's not what advertisers and now politicians are interested - they want the ability to sort of manipulate and predict our behaviour. And that's what they learn from what we do on things like Facebook.
Nick Green 16:31
Yeah, I mean, I think there was a - there's a really - so, yeah, I mean, we interviewed a sort of couple of very interesting people about this. I mean, they're unbelievable. I mean, you know, one of the sort of extraordinary sort of tools that sort of Facebook has is the ability to be able to sort of find people, basically, that advertisers, you know, politicians, you know, want to find. So, I mean, so, there's somebody sort of referred to this very, very clever sort of feature where, basically, if you go online, and you buy a, you know, and I buy a Donald Trump hat or something, you know...
Matthew Sherwood 17:08
I can see you in a Donald Trump hat!
Nick Green 17:13
Can you!
Matthew Sherwood 17:13
No, I'm just joking! Make America Great Again, you know, red hat. Yeah.
Nick Green 17:19
Just supposing I bought, you know, a Donald Trump hat...
Matthew Sherwood 17:22
... hypothetically, let's say...
Nick Green 17:24
Hypothetically.
Matthew Sherwood 17:25
Yeah.
Nick Green 17:25
... then obviously, what the Facebook tool can do, and what the Trump, you know, Army want is the ability to be able to find sort of lookie-likes. So, basically, they'll sort of find sort of Nick Green look-alikes around the sort of country, with a similar profile, you know, race, age, interests, friendship groups, and this sort of stuff. And they'll then stick Donald Trump hats as an advert in front of those people. So, it's an incredibly sort of, you know, highly focused tool. And it gives people the ability to actually sort of search for their sort of customers. And it's great if you're selling shoes, that's fantastic. But if you're selling ideas, then, you know, then it gives people, you know, with those ideas, an incredibly sort of strong tool just to be able to bombard people who are perhaps sort of supple minded or plastic minded, to be able to sort of, you know, to give them information that might be sort of receptive to; so, it's incredibly clever. And, look, I mean, it's not just Trump, by the way, you know, I mean, it's a sort of, I mean, you know, Obama, you know, started doing this, you know, way back when; it's just refined and perfected by the Trump people, you know, to a phenomenal - I mean, they are, you know, their sort of ability to sort of get through the sort of resolution is, I mean, it's extraordinarily powerful. And I think the problem - for me, the problem with all of this sort of stuff is - and it goes back to the algorithm, and it goes back to the first that, you know, this is the stuff that sort of Facebook did come up with, is the idea that with an algorithm, basically what it - one of the guys that we interviewed from Facebook sort of talked about this - is that, when you go on to sort of Facebook, you know, what Facebook is very good at is reading you and then throwing stuff back at you that it thinks that you are interested in...
Matthew Sherwood 19:30
Right.
Nick Green 19:30
... so, if I'm a Trump supporter then it will just chuck stuff back at me that is pro-Trump. If I'm a Biden supporter then, you know, it works the other way. And, of course, what it does is it creates this sort of weird echo chamber - and Facebook's not the only organisation that sort of does this - and so, what you end up realising, if you're politically engaged and you're on Facebook all the time is the whole world must be a Trump supporter because that's all I'm seeing. And so, what if - just suppose - the election doesn't go your way, and somehow the other guy wins; you're kind of thinking, Yeah but in my world everybody's a Trump supporter, everybody's a Biden supporter, or whatever, and all of a sudden that sort of echo chamber, that sort of reassurance that you get isn't there, and I think it just spurs anger, and I think it spurs discontent, and disillusionment with the sort of democratic process. I think it's a really - you know, I personally really fear the role of Facebook, and Twitter, and all of the various other sort of social medias, you know, looking forward across this year. I think it's fragile, democracy, and I'm not sure that these big billion-dollar organisations quite sort of care for democracy in a way that perhaps they should.
Matthew Sherwood 20:50
And I think the point you - and you've got the famous case of supposedly the pope endorsing Trump, which was fake...
Nick Green 20:59
Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew Sherwood 20:59
... but now we're eight years on and with AI and everything - I mean, that looked actually, positively, sort of crude, in a way.
Nick Green 21:11
Getting nostalgia for those...
Matthew Sherwood 21:12
... nostalgia. Whereas, you know, you're gonna have someone looking like - who knows who it is - we'll have Taylor Swift or somebody out there saying things about some candidate or, you know, or even just the - all the local election, you know, all the different smaller country elections that are gonna be happening.
Nick Green 21:29 (22:31)
Exactly. You just have to hope that Zuckerberg and his top engineers are well braced for this and can sort of weed this stuff out, and have the inclination to do it. I mean, I'm sure that it's, you know - I mean, it was a really interesting year - you know, that whole sort of, you know, that sort of 2016 year, his annus horribilis, you know, I think he probably is aware that he wouldn't want to repeat that. He wouldn't want another one of those sorts of things. So, maybe he's going to, you know, maybe that, you know, he'll - maybe it won't be the sort of the disaster that many of us fear it will be.
Matthew Sherwood 22:07
Yeah, but at the same time, does he learn a different lesson, which is he shows up on Congress in 2018, and, you know, these guys, and women, too, but mostly men, just ask the most asinine, stupid question, they don't have - they - I am not trying to be ageist because believe me, I struggle with some technology, and I have to get my kids to work the remote on the TV and all that stuff, but they just had no clue about what they're really dealing with.
Nick Green 22:41
They asked entry level questions, didn't they? I think, you know, part of the, you know, I mean, it was interesting, you know, we look at the sort of - we use the sort of the trope of the congressional hearings, almost like sort of chapter headings, you know, the, you know, because I think that basically our sort of thesis for the film was that, you know, that there are - everything that is a sort of problem today that the seeds of that disaster were sown right from the beginning, you know, right from the way that the company was set up - whole sort of 'move fast, break things', you know, even going back to sort of FaceMash and the sort of - and the slight sort of, like, casual sort of nature of dealing with people's data and pictures and that sort of stuff, and that's what a lot of people sort of told us. And I think that the, you know - yeah, I'm sorry, I'm waffling a bit now.
Matthew Sherwood 23:39
No, but I think you're getting to a point where I mean, that did also come up in one of the hearings, and maybe not done well, or maybe it was, but you definitely had one congressman, I think it was, who basically goes down a litany of every year, he seems to have had to make an apology.
Nick Green 23:56
Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew Sherwood 23:57
And then carries on
Nick Green 24:00
Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, like, you know, there's a really interesting sort of split between sort of, you know, politics and technology. I mean, technology is, you know, works incredibly fast. It is, you know, by its very nature disruptive and breaks things because it can, you know, and because that's how you sort of create new sort of markets. It's how you make money, basically. And politics obviously, in its, you know, because of the way it's set up moves very, very slowly. So, politics can never keep up with technology. And I think that the two thou - why we wanted to concentrate on the sort of 2018 hearings was because we sort of all felt that that was a sort of - that was the chance, that was the chance to try and sort of put some sort of shackles on - on not just Mark Zuckerberg, but social media and, you know, these sorts of platforms more generally. And they effectively sort of blew it, I think, and most people would sort of agree I think that were sort of plugged in, you know, they found that as you say that, you know, the questions were sort of simplistic, they didn't go anywhere, they were given, I think - I might be wrong about this - but I think they were given four minute bursts. So, follow-up questions were really, really difficult. The other thing is you have a load of American politicians, much like British politicians, you got, you know, a lot of them showboat. So, they basically just sort of go into it with sort of swagger just because they know they're going to be on TV, they're not really interested in sort of, you know, getting to the meat of what Zuckerberg's all about. So, I think it's, you know, I found it a really, I mean, just such a sort of silly, silly sort of process. And I think he sort of wriggled off the hook. And I think, you know, what's fascinating is, you know, a couple of years later, you have the January 6 riots, and then, you know, everything sort of goes back to politics, and its inability to be able to sort of grab hold of, you know, some of these, you know, fast moving, powerful, complicated digital entities, and their inability to be able to sort of grasp them and to stop them doing things that are bad for society.
Matthew Sherwood 26:15 (27:05)
Well, it's an interest - yeah, I mean, I think it's an interesting point, too, because one thing I was going to - I mean, you do have in your doc the whistleblower, Frances Haugen, who - I was actually on Capitol Hill the week she testified. So, in the Senate side, and people were so excited that she was going to be there. But again, is that been another lost opportunity? She, you know, she had some very damning testimony, but...
Nick Green 26:43
Yeah.
Matthew Sherwood 26:43
... doesn't seem like it...
Nick Green 26:44
There's another guy who came out last November, I think, Wall Street Journal, Arturo Bejar, I think is - I never did Spanish at school - but it's a Spanish sounding surname. And he basically sort of confirmed a lot of what Frances said, which is that sort of Facebook's internal studies, you know, had sort of thrown up a load of concerns, and they knew what those concerns were, and they chose to ignore them. You know, that was the argument that was made. And Arturo basically confirmed a lot of that, and I know that sort of Facebook and Instagram have made a lot of changes, you know, since Frances's testimony, but Arturo's, you know, testimony seemed to suggest that the risks are still there, particularly for sort of - I mean, he was more focused on teenage girls using Instagram.
Matthew Sherwood 27:40
Right. Right.
Nick Green 27:41
And how...
Matthew Sherwood 27:45
... body images and...
Nick Green 27:46
... body image and sexual harassment and what have you.
Matthew Sherwood 27:49
Right, and it sends them to anorexic sites. Not the good kind; not the kind that will tell them how to...
Nick Green 27:55 (29:02)
That's right, yeah. And obviously, there's a sort of class action against Instagram, that's sort of happening to, you know, to try, and, I guess, I mean, compensation on one sort of level, but I think, you know, you - but I think that the, you know, the lack - I mean, you know, I mean, I think we've all - anybody who's got sort of, you know, kids, is utterly sort of terrified of social media, because, you know, we grew up not with, you know, without social media, and all of a sudden, our sort of kids are sort of negotiating this sort of, this - what is a pretty horrendous world, it seems to me - and I think, you know, can we trust these sort of companies to actually sort of look after our kids, and who they're sort of hooked up with, and what they are exposed to, you know, I'm not really sure, actually, I don't really think we are. And I think that, you know, that's the purpose of politicians, and that's the purpose of Congress and the Senate and our parliament. And, you know, I think we're pretty slow. I think we're pretty slow and clumsy, actually.
Matthew Sherwood 29:00
I'd agree with you. And I agree with you as a father myself, and my kids, if they ever listen to these will say, you know, accuse me of being a boomer or whatever, but I'm not worried about - I'm not worried about alcohol or drugs or a lot of things. The thing that worries me most is social media, and what that potential harm that can be done, and it's not unsubstantiated. We know - I mean, that's not the point of this discussion and your film, but we do know, that there's, you know, we're starting to get a pretty high stack of academic studies talking about - and we have evidence about: is it just purely coincidental that what we're seeing with sort of mental health and these sort of issues just really have skyrocketed since, you know, a lot of this stuff came to the fore, you know, it's hard to say - you know, I think most people say it's not. So, you're right. Do you just want - we just want our governments to do their jobs, which is often to protect us and to make sure - not to stranglehold this, I mean, the whole point with Facebook and the others is they want - certainly the US based companies - all want to do - they all want to self-regulate. And they all say that that's the best way to do it. Well, of course, they're going to say that because then they can control the narrative, and not just the narrative, but how things are done. So, you know, it's - well, you and I, it's above our pay grade, I think, to just say how that can be dealt with, but...
Nick Green 30:31
Yeah.
Matthew Sherwood 30:32
... there's something's got to give, it would seem.
Nick Green 30:34 (31:22)
Well, I think that, you know, it's the sort of, you know, I think the recent stuff about sort of Instagram, about the stickiness of it for teenagers, and the idea that, you know, I guess the sort of top executives at Meta, you know, they know, sort of, they know exactly how to sort of make these sort of sites - I mean, I want to say addictive, but that might be sort of pejorative. I think it probably is addictive in certain cases.
Matthew Sherwood 31:02
I can tell you that - I mean; so, I will say it, you know, I've seen it - well, I've seen other films that kind of do it in a very creative way, showing how you can make it addictive, not just - because obviously, as you've already pointed out, and I think it was even in your film, what is it, it's like Facebook discovered, like sort of 60% of those who joined right wing web sites on Facebook, it was because they had been...
Nick Green 31:30
They were pushed in.
Matthew Sherwood 31:31
... pushed in. They didn't go searching for them. They got drawn in. But yeah, you've - these algorithms send you little pings, little notes, and then there's the dopamine or whatever it is in the brain that kicks in from having your, you know, the screen time and increasing screen time, because you're getting the alerts and stuff. It's, you know, I think it's - that's, it is a form - he won't want to hear this, having a son who can't - who has a hard time keeping his phone out of his hand on 100% of the time. Yeah, you know, I think it's obvious. I should - to be honest, I'll point the finger at myself. I sometimes struggle, you know, whatever your social media platform of choice, maybe it's Twitter, maybe, you know, I - you know, why am I checking Twitter again, there's nothing, you know.
Nick Green 32:26
I mean, just go outside and look at the sunset, you know, just do something wholesome. But that is maybe our generation rather than - but I think - what's really interesting from a sort of, you know, Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg perspective is just keeping - you know, right from the start, and I don't think this has ever changed, is that, you know, his desire is to sort of keep people on the site. Now, obviously, what comes later, is the fact that the longer you're on the site, the more information that they can suck out of your computer and sell to advertisers.
Matthew Sherwood 32:59
Right.
Nick Green 33:00
That comes a little bit later. But, you know, but they're constantly sort of figuring out new ways of just keeping you on their site. You know, and going back to the, you know, the point that you made about, you know, the right wingers, you know, I mean, there are, you know, the whole sort of idea of sort of Facebook groups, this is sort of Roger McNamee’s theory, comes after the sort of 2016 elections, and basically, sort of Facebook is in crisis because the brand is stagnating, and all this sort of stuff. This is, you know, according to sort of theory, and so, they're just constantly having to sort of find ways of connecting people in different ways, keeping people on the site, so they invent this thing called sort of Facebook groups and Facebook groups, you know, are things that, you know, might sort of breed, I don't know, breeders of cockapoos or something. And, you know, you might be sort of attached, you know, and all of a sudden, you know, Facebook might think, okay, you're interested in breeding cockapoos, well, you might be interested in breeding rabbits as well, or you might be interested in whatever, you know. And I think that what they're able to do is these groups that sort of form these sort of alliances are able to - you know, again, this is the theory. So, if you're a sort of right wing, you know, you have sort of ideas that are, say, sort of problematic to the liberal world, what your, you know, you're a MAGA sort of, you know, character for example, then what you'll do is you'll find yourself sort of recommended to, you know, to vaccine conspiracy groups, and you'll find yourself con-, you know, connected to the NRA, and what you end up with is a sort of life - as I said before, you know, your sort of idea of how sort of life works is sort of reflected and sort of slightly sort of bent, and sort of exaggerated, and it becomes an echo chamber; so, that, as I said, we know when the results don't go your way, you're slightly confused, because, Hang on, that's not the way that Facebook tells me that the world works. So, you know, surely something's wrong. Maybe the election rigged.
Matthew Sherwood 35:15
I mean, what I - Yeah, well, indeed - and I can tell you, for transparency's sake, I have access to two Twitter accounts. One is related to this podcast, and the other is related to some research I've been doing and have been doing on some political things. I can tell you, that it's like, when I get on there, it's like being in two totally different worlds. You know, there is the world that is - let's put it in current terms - Biden is coasting to re-election, or, you know, it's going to, you know, problems there, or the other one that it's, you know, it tends to, it's more than just tends to veer well to the right, you know, and it's just kind of like, you get on these things, and you're like, how do - these things look like totally - they're two totally different - I'm not saying either one's right, they're just - but they are two totally different realities.
Nick Green 36:07
Need to try - you need to try sort of - I mean, it's interesting. My Twitter feed is, you know, it must be really confused, because I sort of follow, you know, I follow people to the hard right, and I follow people to the hard left and everything in between, you know, and I hope that that somehow sort of confuses the algorithm, but I still get some pretty sort of, yeah, I mean, I get some pretty sort of distasteful things sort of, you know, arriving in my sort of on my phone now and again, so. Yeah, it's - sorry...
Matthew Sherwood 36:32
No, no, go ahead. Finish that thought.
Nick Green 36:38
... no, I think the algorithm is, you know, that sort of big breakthrough that sort of Facebook had is the breakthrough, I think, you know, curating what people see, and curating what they're sort of exposed to is - I mean, from a business perspective, it's extraordinary. But, I mean, I think it's just, you know, it's just caused, you know, problems like, you know, just the most horrendous problems, really. I mean, you know, many...
Matthew Sherwood 37:11 (38:00)
So, I mean, let's put this in perspective, because if I've read your filmography correctly, you've got a, you know, you've got a long history of profiling some controversial figures. You've got a - you've had documentaries about Vladimir Putin and the Assads and - I mean, how does this rank - does making this film, how does it rank with these? Is this been the most challenging of film - one of the most challenging films you've made?
Nick Green 37:37
You know what, it's strange, it's quite strange, actually, because I think whenever, you know, whenever I set out on a project, what you try and do is you try and get a sort of deeper understanding, you try - I mean, obviously, it's human nature sort of go in with a, you know, with a, an idea about what a particular character is like. And it's quite nice when you're sort of surprised, you know, and when I did - I did a series about the Assad family, particularly sort of Asma and Bashar, as you said, I did a series about sort of Putin. You go in with sort of - try and be as open minded as you can, and you try and say, Come on, let's just - tell me what, tell me why Putin's great, tell me why Assad - you know, I mean, what are his qualities, let's just unpack that. And I know these guys are, you know, have done more damage to the world than anybody should be allowed to do but, you know, but you go in with a sort of slightly sort of open mind. And, you know, you do - actually with Putin - Putin is very difficult to find anybody to - I mean apparently he likes tigers, you know, I mean, crikey...
Matthew Sherwood 38:38
Yeah.
Nick Green 38:39
... that's the only person that, you know, would say - anybody in Russia, you know, I mean, well, he likes tigers. But the thing about sort of - but people will talk, you know, and they will sort of, they'll sort of, you know, they'll, you know, you can - it's, you know, it's not horrendously awful trying to sort of drive a story through the Assad family and through Putin because people will talk whereas actually sort of Zuckerberg was - the Zuckerberg film was extraordinarily difficult getting anybody to talk. And, you know, we spent a lot of time with these two brilliant writers from the New York Times. Cecilia King - Kang, and Sheera Frankel.
Matthew Sherwood 39:25
Yeah.
Nick Green 39:25
And Sheera is a extraordinary woman, really; a terrific journalist. And she sort of said to me that it was, you know, she's done working extraordinary sort of shitholes around the world, you know, terrible sort of places where, you know, run by sort of dictators and horrendous characters and she's found it easier getting information and news out of those places, and she's found it easier getting news out of those places than she found getting news out of Meta about what sort of Zuckerberg really feels, what he thinks, what he wants, what - you know, all of those sorts of things. And I think that, you know, and, you know, my experience mirrors that. It was really tough. Really, really, really tough. And it's interesting you say like, there's, you know, the Roger McNamee character; the way he sort of appears in these films. Well, there's a reason for that, because he talks! And he's actually got quite a dynamic opinion and this sort of stuff, but it's very, very difficult. I mean, we spent a lot of time, you know, I had so many conversations that were off the record, off the record, and then obviously, you know, the killer conversation - killer question comes in, it's like, how do you fancy actually doing an interview on camera, you know, and it's like, got to be joking, got to be joking. And, you know, we had, you know, even journalists, you know, I interviewed one journalist who was, you know, quite, quite impressive in the sort of tech world, and they were hoping to get an interview with Mark Zuckerberg in the next six months. And that journalist - I'm not going to say, you know, I'm not gonna go any further, but that journalist basically said, Well, I'm not gonna say anything controversial about him, because otherwise I'm not gonna get an interview, and you kind of think, hang on, you're a journalist, speak your mind, just speak your truth, you know...
Matthew Sherwood 41:12
... and it's not like he's gonna say anything, anyway, when you interview him.
Nick Green 41:15
Well, there's that, yes, of course. And we were sort of dealing with, you know, former Facebook employees, and, you know, one guy in particular, I was really excited about him, because he was so sort of active and his mind was so sort of, you know, painted a picture of the world of sort of Facebook, which was just vivid and so sort of exciting. And I sort of had half a dozen conversations with him, and they get, you know, again, the question finally sort of comes out, So, what about that sort of on-camera interview, are you up for that? And he said, Well, I've just got a start-up business, and I'm hoping that Meta are gonna invest in it. So, of course, I'm only, Oh, you bastard, you know, really? So, it's very, very difficult. And I think there's sort of tentacles. And also, I think, you know, they've got incredibly sort of strong lawyers who watch pretty well, everything. And they're very, very protective. They're very, very protective.
Matthew Sherwood 42:16
And isn't it - no, last on that point - I mean, isn't it, I think, sure, Frankel does say in your, towards the end of your doc, that there's certainly, you know, these lawyers or whoever they are, the people within the company, or it's not even just, you know, on any whistleblowers, or, you know, it's not even just you losing your job, you'll never work in Silicon Valley again.
Nick Green 42:39 (43:35)
You'll never work again. I mean, that was – this guy who came out last November - I mean, we – there's an organisation that sort of helped Frances Haugen come out of the closet, so to speak. And, I mean, one of the occasions, Frances sort of said, you know, she basically just - she had a real wobble, because they said, You do realise you'll literally never work in this town, again, you'll never work in the technology world ever again. And this was her life, you know, this is what her - you know, this is what she'd studied for, through her sort of adolescence, and through her sort of 20s. And, you know, to be told that actually, you know, at a pretty modest young age that you're never going to, you know, get to play again is utterly terrifying. You know, but that's the sort of reach, you know, and I, you know, I'm not sure that sort of Facebook is any different from Twitter or many of these other sort of companies, but nevertheless, there is a real fear of, you know, people seeing stuff and coming out and sort of speaking out about it. It's interesting, because a lot of, you know, a lot of the, you know, the people who will talk about it are, you know, insiders, so you get the sort of PR people and this sort of stuff, and, you know, I mean from my taste, you don't really get anything interesting at all, you get the sort of company line, and certainly it never really gets us really interesting stuff, which is the human interest stuff, you know, what is it that sort of drives Zuckerberg and his - you know, his sort of, his chief executives. You know, what is it that drives them? What is it that they want out of life? What is it they want for the world? What is it, you know, beyond the sort of nonsense sort of platitudes, like, you know, that sort of slightly...
Matthew Sherwood 44:31
... connecting the world, and...
Nick Green 44:32
... yeah, exactly, let's all hold hands around the world and this kind of stuff. Which, I mean, I'm - you know, I mean, I think, you know, I think most of us are pretty cynical about now. But that's still the line that they sort of trot out.
Matthew Sherwood 44:46
Well, that's an interesting point and maybe we kind of partly close on this in that we as a society maybe have grown up as well. You know, we kind of bought into - I mean, I was - I actually wasn't on Facebook until very recently, but, you know - for whatever reason - but, you know, people bought into this idea. Yeah, it's connecting us. It's an - and, you know, I think you can appreciate certainly from in the film industry, you know, it's this sort of, certainly social media and a lot of this stuff that's happened with technology has really kind of levelled the playing field and made it more accessible for maybe a lot of people who certainly, you know, budding documentarians and stuff like that, but I think we've now - everyone's become - I mean, I'm a Gen Xer, so I'm naturally cynical, I mean, I think it's, you know, everyone's kind of finally coming around my way of thinking is that no, no, no, let's face it. It's just a business...
Nick Green 45:43
It's just a business. I'm afraid it is.
Matthew Sherwood 45:45 (46:42)
... you know, and so, with that in mind, I mean, where's he, what's his - I mean, it's - the upshot of the film is that we really still, I mean, I'm not - we still don't know who, what drives him, and what he's all about, do we?
Nick Green 46:02
Yeah, yeah, I - you know, and I, you know, I mean, that is the - that's the big - that's my fail, I'm afraid. But then I don't think I - you know, I think, you know, I'm not sure anybody setting out to make this film would be able to at this stage, you know, come to any sort of deeper conclusions. I mean, you know, he's, you know - I mean, he's, you know, it's - he's sealed off. I mean, if you're making a sort of - if you wanted to make a new film about sort of Vladimir Putin now, you know, after, you know, you could, you know, I mean, all you could do is sort of guess at his sort of intentions. And I - you know, and obviously, you know, you hear about, you know, from Zuck, just to sort of parallel that with the sort of Zuckerberg experience - obviously, he's not Putin, clearly not...
Matthew Sherwood 46:51
Right, right.
Nick Green 46:52
... nowhere near, but just in terms of similar sort of filmmaking challenge, you know, you've got people who, you know, he'll sort of come out and he'll do his sort of, as I said, sort of thirty second, you know, news pieces with sort of tame journalists, but you're never going to be able to go off-message and be able to say, So hang on, just a second, what about this? What are you gonna do about that? Aren't you worried about that, you know, just, you know, he just doesn't do those sorts of interviews anymore. And all of his sort of close cohorts are exactly the same. I mean, you know, Musk, as I said, you know, just started off by sort of comparing him with Musk, you know, I mean, Musk has just got sort of verbal diarrhoea, you can't shut him up about anything, you know, seemingly, and, I mean, you can guess at lot of his motivations as well, because of, you know, how much stuff is out there. With Zuckerberg, you know, I mean, he is, you know, there's something sort of, slightly - yeah, I mean, he's opaque. He's opaque. I mean, you know, people say, you know, people who, you know, have met him, you know, and worked with him and come out say he's a really nice guy, you know, he's a really nice guy, he loves his kids, he loves his wife, he's totally faithful. He's, you know, he's actually a pretty good guy. But from a, you know - I'm not sure you can sort of argue that his business has been wholly good for the world, and how much responsibility he takes, how much he's driven that. You know, I think - you know, you just only - you can only guess that, because, I mean, what else can you do, really, because you can't get - as I said, you can't get under the bonnet, really.
Matthew Sherwood 48:29 (49:17)
I mean, about that point about his family, I mean, it's also, and as you point out early on, and others have as well, but you do it well, I mean, you know, yeah, he posts on, you know, he's got family shots on his Facebook account and things but, you know, he recognises that they've got their photo, right, you know, face recognition software built in as well. So, you're never gonna see any of his children's faces, because he's, it's almost like the things you used - again, a totally kind of, in a different way, but things you used to hear about Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs, and other people, would never let their kids have smartphones. You know, so, you know, it's a kind of funny one, but I guess the reality is, and he's also still so relatively young, that his legacy, everything, you know, we don't know what it's gonna be, is it yet? You know, it's not...
Nick Green 49:16 (50:08)
No, you don't know. I mean, I, you know, it - I mean, the engineering achievement is extraordinary, you know - I mean, I know, that's a really boring thing to say, but the, you know, but the engineering achievement of actually building something that can support, you know, hundreds of millions, billions of people around the world, and, you know, have, you know, communications between people, you know, people sort of split seconds, lickety-split, you know, really amazing, and it's a truly sort of extraordinary sort of achievement. But, you know, it's the, you know, just because you could do it, maybe you should be asking whether you should do it a lot of the time. You know, I think it's that old sort of Jeff Goldblum sort of warning, I think.
Matthew Sherwood 50:01
Right. Right.
Nick Green 50:03
I suspect that, you know, I suspect he's still, you know, absolutely adamant that Facebook is a force for good. And I think clearly, it has done a lot of good, and it's, you know, and we've all had a bit of fun with it in the past. You know.
Matthew Sherwood 50:19
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens because we know no one under 40 gets on Facebook. So, it's like, you know how things evolve. Okay, so that's why he buys up Instagram, and who knows what else he'll buy. But so, I mean, our time is definitely - is coming to a close, Nick, but I just...
Nick Green 50:37
I've really enjoyed it. Thank you so much.
Matthew Sherwood 50:37 (51:27)
I've really enjoyed it, too. Before we go, though, so who's next on your list? I mean, you've done Putin, you've done Zuckerberg, you've done Assads, you've done Ghosn. Anyone next in your crosshairs?
Nick Green 50:51
I'm NDAd up, I'm afraid, on the next one, but I'll let you know. It's a film for a streamer that is - I think is, you know, is really interesting, but it's not digging the dirt. It's not a man who's - it's actually sort of - I decided, you know, these big sort of alpha men, you know, I do need a break from them, really, because they're quite - they, you know, they do sort of - they do get under your skin a little bit. So, I'm doing something very different now. But I'd like to - there's many profiles I'd love to do about these sort of, you know, these big sort of alpha guys. I do you think they are - they've, you know, they're just endlessly fascinating. They do daft things as well. Ultimately, they always do daft things, you know, and I think that makes their stories, you know, even more compelling.
Matthew Sherwood 51:44
Maybe that's the other thing about Zuckerberg is he hasn't done - by comparison, he hasn't maybe necessarily done something as daft as the others. If...
Nick Green 51:55
No, no, no, no. Yes. God, yeah, let's not even sort of like try and mix Zuckerberg up with the other guys. But the - no, but the, you know, but the, you know, the whole sort of cage fighting nonsense and the weird sort of obsession about fitness that he puts on his own feed. I mean, I find it all a bit weird, to be perfectly honest.
Matthew Sherwood 52:16 (53:04)
So, what drives alph - what is it about the - you're drawn to them, like, I don't know, moths to a flame or something? It's like, but what is it - what...
Nick Green 52:28 Yeah, I mean, I just like - yeah...
Matthew Sherwood 52:29
What is it about the alpha - what is - is there something that as much - what is a sort of unifying characteristic, you think? Again, we're not equating anyone, let's face it, you know, but just - there are - but, you know, to get to this point where these people are, you haven't done anything on Donald Trump, but, you know, what is it, you know, Trump...
Nick Green 52:49
Well, I do like films about men, I've got to say, I mean, this is an unfashionable view, but I do like films about men, because I do think men just do daft things. You know, and I think, you know, no matter how sort of, you know, how successful they can be, how they sort of build up their lives, how smart they are on the way up, you know that they're one stupid decision away from, you know, from disaster, or not even disaster, but just actually, you know, the beginning of the next act of the story...
Matthew Sherwood 53:21
Right.
Nick Green 53:21
So, you've got, you know, these - they do give you sort of natural, dramatic story arcs.
Matthew Sherwood 53:29
The gifts that keep on giving.
Nick Green 53:31
They are - yeah, yes, of course, they really are, you know, most of the time, you know, a lot of them are truly terrible people. And, you know, and obviously, they're interesting in that. But I think just from a sort of human perspective, just that sort of, you know, the hubris that goes along with, you know, great success, a lot of the time, it makes the stories just, actually, I mean, they're not easy stories to tell, but they're just fascinating stories to tell. Sort of frailty of human nature, really.
Matthew Sherwood 54:00
Well, I hope you keep telling those stories. And we'd love to have you on again, when once you do bring the next project to the screen. And just to remind our listeners and viewers, we've been talking with award-winning filmmaker Nick Green, director of Zuckerberg: King of the Metaverse, currently showing on Sky TV here in the UK, and it's going to be near you if you're not in the UK or Sky's territory. So, do check it out. It's well worth your 90 minutes. And Nick, it was great chatting with you. And hope to have you on again sometime.
Nick Green 54:35
Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Best of luck with everything else.
Matthew Sherwood 54:44
Thanks again for joining us on Factual America. A big shout-out to everyone at Innersound Audio in York, England for their great studio and fine editing and production skills. A big thanks to Amy Ord, our podcast manager, who ensures we continue getting great guests onto the show, and that everything otherwise runs smoothly. Finally, a big thanks to you our listeners. Please keep sending us feedback and episode ideas, whether it is on YouTube, social media, or directly by email. And please also remember to like us and share us with your friends and family, wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. This is Factual America, signing off.
Factual America Outro 55:25
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