Not everything in moderation: Twitter v Facebook

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Hello, and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Three years ago, Emmanuel Macron swept to victory as France's president, just a year after founding an entirely new party. But his tenure has been rocky, wracked by protests. Now, as party members defect, he must continue to adjust his course. And it's not hard to find books by doctors and surgeons. But where are the books by nurses? They're coming. The healthcare professionals with the closest patient relationships are at last finding their way onto bookshelves. But first, on every screen, television to computer to phone. America's wave of protests has captivated the world's attention. Black Lives Matter talking about make America great.

Great for who?

And great win.

We gonna make America great for everybody. For the first time, Donald Trump has cast himself as a wartime president, a force for law and order.

I am mobilizing all available federal resources, civilian and military, to stop the rioting and looting.

The television cameras can't look away. But online, Mr. Trump's efforts have run into difficulty. Last week, for the first time, Twitter put warnings on two of his tweets, suggesting one was misleading and that another glorified violence. The spat continued this week. On Wednesday, Twitter published a story correcting information in another presidential tweet. Yesterday, it removed a video the president tweeted, citing copyright claims. All that stands in sharp contrast to action or lack of action taken by Facebook. Even as many employees staged a walkout earlier this week, calling on the platform to moderate Mr. Trump's posts, its boss, Mark Zuckerberg, insisted he was committed to free expression. Potential business partners have also criticized Facebook. The online therapy company Talkspace pulled out of a collaboration. Its chief executive, Oren Frank, says the company knows how damaging inflammatory posts can be.

I think it's about time that everyone.

Takes a stand and it's time for.

Action and not for opinions and tweets. And I thought it was a Very.

It was a line that was being crossed. So in essence we took the decision, but mostly because we couldn't take any other one. So why is it these two social networks have such different approaches?

For one, it's a question of personalities.

Ludwig Sigele is our US Technology editor.

So Jack Dorsey is a very hands off New Ager. He likes ice baths and regular fasts. Let's say he's probably politically more left wing than Zuckerberg, where Zuckerberg is kind of this corporate absolutist ruler. And he has a mission. He wants to bring the world closer together. So they're clearly personality or differences in personality and differences in style. But I think a very important role is the difference in business model between Twitter and Facebook.

How do you mean? How are the business models so different?

So if you look at Twitter and Facebook and if you look at them superficially, you may think they're actually quite the same or quite similar. They both offer you kind of news feeds, they're online, they make their money with advertising, they collect a lot of data. But if you look more closely, they're actually quite different. The best way to think about Twitter is to think of it as kind of a speaker's corner. Twitter by social media scholars is considered a one to many medium. Whereas Facebook is much more about having friends, having groups of friends. You have to be invited. Basically a one to one, one to a few type of network. So that difference may seem subtle to non experts, but it has very important economic and business implications for these two companies.

Differences how one makes more money than the other.

In the end, that's the outcome. So Facebook, because it's a social network, it has much stronger, what economists call network effects. So the platform, the service gets more valuable as more people join, which attracts more people. You want to talk to your friends. If your friends are on Facebook, that's where you go. Whereas with Twitter those network effects are much weaker. I mean they exist, let's say between extroverts who really want to be on Twitter and make their voices heard. For them, that's a must to be on there. But it's basically there's no kind of turbocharged growth engine built into the Twitter service. You talked about growth and making more money. If you look at the numbers, Facebook is much, much bigger than Twitter. So Facebook boasts 10 times the users of Twitter and 25 times the profit.

Do those differences go any way to explaining why there are differences in the way they think about moderating content?

Yes. Twitter is not a monopoly and so they are freer in what they can do with content. Whereas Facebook basically has become, in countries like the US the main, the dominant platform for political discourse. Because Facebook is so much bigger, it's politically more vulnerable to, let's say, antitrust action. And so that's been in the air for some time. There are apparently plans by government agencies in Washington to go after Facebook. So politically, Facebook has to be much more careful in what it does.

But even Twitter doesn't seem immune here. President Trump threatened big action after those posts were hidden.

So what Mr. Trump did was signing an executive order saying that if these companies, if these services are not neutral, quote, unquote, we have to reconsider what is called the exemption from liability for the content on there. Now, let me explain that. So in the mid-90s, there was a worry that, that these companies, and it wasn't Facebook or Twitter back then, but other online companies, that they would not touch online content, moderate what's on their sites in any way, because otherwise they would make themselves liable to all kinds of lawsuits. And that would be very costly. And that would kind of stymie the development of the online industry. And so Congress passed a law, the Communications Decency Act. And one section of that act, section 230, it says, basically, so even if an online company does moderate content, it doesn't make it liable in any way for that content. And now Mr. Trump then went ahead and said, so if you're not neutral, let's look at section 230 again and perhaps get rid of it kind of as a threat.

But all this is a much bigger debate about the degree to which social media networks should or even can kind of police all of that content. How do you think this will actually play out starting from this?

So my guess is that you will continue to see a tightening of things like section 230. And that's already happening. Germany is revising its law. The European Union wants to go further. But what is interesting is that you see the emergence of a third actor on the content moderating stage. Groups that second guess or oversee the content moderating decisions by big social media companies. And they come in the form of public policy bodies or regulatory bodies, like in the UK they're planning to do that, but also, interestingly, by groups started by the social media companies. In particular, Facebook has recently launched what's called the oversight board, which is kind of a Supreme Court where Facebook users can go to, if they feel that their content, for instance, has been taken down for the wrong reasons, that, and they feel limited in their speech. And that body is supposed to be rather independent. It's based in London, has its own budgets. So I think what you will see is kind of this third layer between governments and social media companies that helps finding decisions or making decisions on these very, very tricky questions when it comes to speech online.

Ludwig, thanks very much for your time.

Thanks, J.

On this week's episode of the Economist asks our interview show, Ann McElvoy speaks to Valerie Jarrett, a former senior advisor to President Obama who held responsibility for criminal justice reform. Ms. Jarrett reflects on whether America's protest mood could represent a turning point.

Now, you might say this is late, and that would be true. And that's part of the anger and frustration is why have we not done this sooner? But here we are now, and the question is, do we have that perfect storm in a sense, where you have people mobilizing in the streets, where you have mayors saying, yes, we have to do something about this, because they're managing the unrest and they're being put under a lot of pressure. And then you have the swift, really swifter than I've ever seen Attorney General from Minnesota, Keith Ellison, who I knew when he served in Congress, not only bring charges against all four officers up the charge of the initial officer from third degree to second degree, but to do it so swiftly and decisively sent a positive message that those in power are listening.

For the full conversation, look for the Economist asks, available wherever you listen. France's President, Emmanuel Macron, is looking politically wobbly. Elected officials are drifting away from En Marche, the party he founded. It seems a long time since he swept to electoral victory in 2017, calling for unity as he addressed a cheering.

Crowd in the courtyard of the Louvre.

Tonight there are only French women and men the people of France brought together. And what you represent tonight at the Louvre is a fervor and enthusiasm. It is the energy of the people of France.

His ambitious plan to reform France's economy resonated with many. But his presidency has been overshadowed by widespread and sustained protests. And just as the country split over what France's future should look like, the same issues seem to be splitting his party.

President Macron has come through this pandemic with a slight problem in parliament and a slight problem with his own popularity rating.

Sophie Petter is our Paris bureau chief.

He has lost a group of deputies which has robbed him of his absolute parliamentary majority. And in opinion polls, he has not enjoyed the sort of bounce that some other leaders have done. So he is looking at ways in which he can try and deal with this particularly difficult situation.

And how is it that he lost that majority? Why did members defect from the party?

So when Macron set up Homage as a party, it brought people from the left of the political spectrum and from the right. And those who originally came from the left, often from the Socialist Party, had felt that this has really turned into something of a right wing government. The prime minister is from the right, the finance minister is from the right. And some of the policies they felt were not answering the needs of those on the left and in the Green movement. So it was a feeling that the party didn't really speak to them anymore and they wanted to do something about it. They haven't set up a new party, but they have set up a new group within the French parliament. And in doing so, they have therefore deprived Macron of his absolute majority.

And as for losing that absolute majority in terms of the day to day business of government, how problematic is that?

Well, I think it's important to make a distinction between Macron losing his absolute majority with his own party, La Repubublique Homme Marche, and then looking at the majority that formally backs the government, and that has always been made up of Macron's party, but also of another centrist party called Modem, and also other party members on the right of the political spectrum. Now, that hasn't changed. There is still a working majority for the government, and this is a very loyal majority. So in terms of policymaking, I don't think it will have an impact. The government can still pretty much do what it wants in terms of legislation, but the impact is more the symbolism of it, which is damaging, and I think the fact that it does reflect real discontent within the ranks of Macron's party about the direction in which this government has gone or might be going.

We've spoken before about the degree to which Mr. Macron has had to kind of adjust his presidency as it's gone along in the face of new threats. Do you think that these defections and the way things have played out will force him to rethink things once again?

I think over the next few weeks or months, we should be looking, we could be looking at some quite significant changes in the French government. And I think that Macron is working through these options in his own mind at the moment. There is an opportunity to make important decisions at the end of June, because France holds the second round of its municipal election, which was. And the Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, is running for mayor of Le Havre, a town in northern France. So if he wins that election, the Prime Minister would have an exit option, and that would leave Macron able to replace him with someone else. This could provide Macron with exactly what he needs in order to try and reset his presidency, rethink the way in which he reforms France in a very, very different sort of era, after this pandemic, when people are looking really for protection, for safety, for security, for an efficient public administration, rather than some of the reforms, the more liberalising reforms that he had been promoting during the first three years.

And what about more widely still in Europe? Mr. Macron is certainly involved in discussions for how Europe will develop and distribute stimulus to get through the pandemic. Do you think this political wobble at home is going to have any effect on all that?

I don't think it will, actually. I mean, that's one of the interesting things, is that even though Macron is criticized at home, he is actually largely praised for the actions he's taken in terms of trying to rebuild Europe. And we've seen that with this Franco German proposal which he and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, put together. And this is for the 500 billion euro recovery funds, which would be financed by borrowing, joint borrowing by the European Commission. And this is a historic moment in a way, for Europe and for Macron himself to have managed to convince Angela Merck to contemplate any form of sort of mutualized debt for Europe. And it's been very much perceived in Paris as a victory for the French. It's what they've been pressing for years, actually, ever since Macron was elected. And so in that respect, I think he is showing that he can still act on the world stage, and that is somewhat independent of his domestic political difficulties.

Sophie, thank you very much for your time.

Thank you very much.

For a lot more analysis like this, subscribe to the Economist. To check out the best introductory offer wherever you are around the world, just go to economist.com intelligenceoffer.

These invisible women, goddesses of caring and tending but no one hears when their skulls pack pound like coconut shells about the crack.

Raised in the Philippines, Romalyn Ante is a nurse in Britain's National Health Service. She's also an award winning poet.

Once my mother cut through the blurred backs of men towards a gasping child and found a blade of grass fluttering in his throat. The air opened and she was gone.

She writes a lot, not only about frontline nursing and the challenges, the drama of that work, but also about how coming to another place in order to perform this function changes you. So her poetry is also about Migration. It's about memory. It's a very intense, visceral nostalgia for the central world of the Philippines where she grew up.

Boyd Tonkin writes for the Economist's Books and Arts section.

There's a new poem called Unbecoming Maramot, which was written in fact in the middle of March as she was working as the pandemic struck in Britain.

Here is a world that surrenders to stiffness. Doors paint shadows in the windows. She walks an unlit road on her own, yet not alone. Look at her now, night after night, shift after shift.

It's about essentially trying to keep it together as a nurse on the ward under immense pressure day in and day out, and using that memory of the legends, the law, the customs and rituals of your childhood in order to just keep everything together in this incredibly difficult time.

And so why is her poetry remarkable to you?

It's extremely good poetry, very powerful, very affecting, very well crafted. But also, it's still comparatively rare to have literary work from people who are currently working as nurses. Literary doctors have been really pretty commonplace for many hundreds of years. Nurses have taken much longer to enter that literary limelight. And of course this reflects the historic undervaluing of their profession, something that has really only been addressed and partially rectified in the last few decades.

And looking across that sort of emergent breed of literature, what does it teach you about nursing, about the role of a nurse?

Well, people have always said that literary doctors have a special almost advantage in that they're seeing people in these very dramatic situations when powers of observation, of empathy, of understanding matter and that those qualities can be conveyed if you have the gift, into literature. And all of that applies to nurses, but to my mind, there's something extra about their position.

How do you mean?

Well, among the recent British nurses who've become writers, I think for instance of Christy Watson, who has a memoir called the Language of Kindness. And one of the points she makes in that, a really excellent book, is that nurses are really the focus of the entire journey of the patient through the experience of illness. She talks about nurses being the thing at the center, always there, always able to observe, always able to interact with the patient in a deeper and more rounded way perhaps than even doctors can achieve. Then, for instance, there's Emma Glass, the Welsh born writer who professionally is a pediatric nurse working in intensive care. And in her new novel, which is called Rest and Be Thankful, there are some astonishing scenes which take you really into the heart of the nurse's experience of working with these tiny, vulnerable children's lives as they struggle to survive. And she makes very powerful use of the impact of that experience on the nurse themselves. In other words, the way that the nurse has to absorb the pain of others has to soak it up. And the burden that imposes on the carer, a burden that the patient and the patient's family often don't see.

And so do you think that the growing prevalence of this kind of writing will help people understand the nurse's plight better? Do you think the pandemic itself might change how the profession itself is appreciated?

Well, I hope that it will do that, irrespective of what happens in literature. But maybe what the literary dimension can add is, as you say, an understanding of what it feels like from the nurse's point of view, that these engagements with the patient are often reported from the point of view of someone who's gone through the experience of illness. But the mind of the carer matters just as much, and that is precisely what this new and very welcome collection of nurse writers can tell us about.

Boyd, thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. If you like us, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts and see you back here on Monday. Ra.