The Social Reckoning Highlights the Need to Protect Children Online

0:00 Speaker 1 What is today? Is Lynn sure? Well, lynnswarriors.org, protecting our kids. Well, Lynn, tell us what you’re doing this week to make sure our kids are well.

0:12 Speaker 2 Good morning, John. Last week I had the opportunity with my husband to attend the New York premiere of a brand new movie, a screening of Aaron Sorkin’s new film, The Social Reckoning. It just opened nationwide on Friday. Have you heard of it, John, The Social Reckoning?

0:27 Speaker 1 No, I have not.

0:29 Speaker 2 Okay, you’ve got to hear about this, John, because I walked out of the theater thinking, this is much more than a movie about Facebook. It’s a movie about power, kids, technology, and accountability. So let me just give you the premise here.

0:43 It’s a film that tells the story behind what we call the Facebook whistleblower. Back in 2021, Frances Haugen, she worked at Facebook, and she started confiding in a Wall Street Journal reporter, Jeff Horowitz. And she was leaking information about what’s really going on behind the scenes at Facebook and exposing all these internal Facebook documents. And she ignited

1:05 this international debate about the consequences of social media. And that’s what’s so important, John, because Frances, in 2020-21... This started this movement we have of holding big tech accountable, of getting parents involved and getting legislation passed to put some guardrails, protections around these big tech companies who right now have nothing. They can do whatever they want. But

1:29 the movie is distributed by Sony. It’s going to be in all the theaters. There was a movie, John, years ago in 2010 called The Social Network. And that was a David versus Goliath story about... Frances Haugen’s, you know, her decision to expose, that pushed her. That was 2010.

1:48 She came out in 2020, 21. It pushed her. She really went to work at Facebook thinking we’re connecting community, lonely people, or putting families together. She had a really good heart. She does have a good heart. She could not work there ethically anymore with all this going on. But, John, here’s the question I keep asking myself. Why does this

2:09 story matter now? Aaron Sorkin, director, writer. John, he gave us the West Wing on television. Remember that series that was on for seven years? Why now? Because we still are dealing with, we haven’t finished with all these consequences.

2:21 We’ve learned now in the last five, six, seven years, and artificial intelligence now is already racing past us. So what is making this movie, The Social Reckoning, so timely? Because years ago we asked, are kids spending too much time online? But today we know, now we have, about the addictive designs, the algorithms, the harms, such as extortion, exploitation,

2:43 mental health. So the technology has changed. The stakes have changed, John. And childhood has changed. But we want everybody, this is the takeaway, we want everybody to go see this movie, The Social Reckoning. It matters now that we all have the conversation about what’s happening, especially with AI, artificial intelligence, And giving credit to Frances Haugen, who came forth risking

3:07 her life to be this whistleblower and tell us what’s really happening behind the scenes, that all they care about big tech, and this is about Facebook, which is now meta, okay, is the bottom line, is a dollar. They don’t care about children as collateral damage. They don’t care about families and parents’ feelings. And we know this, John, from internal memos. So, look,

3:26 now they’re asking us to trust Facebook. trust these companies with AI. We can’t, John, because we can’t trust them with any of all of this. So everybody should go see the movie. We should come back. We should talk about it. But the social reckoning, I say, John, the reckoning is only beginning with artificial intelligence.

3:42 Speaker 1 Well, Lynn Shaw, I agree with you. You know how I feel about artificial intelligence or super intelligence or whatever else you want to talk about it. It’s only as good as the people programming it and only as good as the people that own the company that direct the program is what to do.

4:01 Speaker 2 Absolutely. But keep in mind one thing, John. This information, this for another program, that goes in for this artificial intelligence, it can self-generate. And that’s the problem when it’s out of control and it’s self-generating into dangerous content. That’s what we have to be aware of and put some protections around.

4:20 Speaker 1 Absolutely. And time will tell. And you saw what happened to Terminator Man. Absolutely. Absolutely. I saw the movie twice. Thank you so much for coming on.

4:32 Speaker 2 I don’t know what to say, John, but I’ll say thank you for always showcasing all of our issues for child safety and family safety. We can’t thank you enough for always wanting, giving us a platform to talk about all of this.

4:43 Speaker 1 Thank you so much.