'I think it's a make-or-break moment for many of these companies': Alex Kantrowitz on COVID-19

Alex Kantrowitz, Senior Tech Reporter at Buzzfeed and 'Always Day One' Author joins Yahoo Finance’s On The Move to shed light on the tech industry’s crisis response to COVID-19.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: And we're joining you from our homes, as are most people. We're working from home these days. We want to talk about what this pandemic has meant for the technology industry and how they have, perhaps, risen to the challenge. Alex Kantrowitz is the author of "Always Day One," which looks at sort of the mentality under which these tech companies operate. He's also the senior tech reporter at "BuzzFeed." Thanks for joining us, Alex. Appreciate it.

It has seemed as though some of these companies that have come under criticism for quite some time have sort of stepped up at this time. Is that your perception? And what do you make of that?

ALEX KANTROWITZ: Yeah. I mean, the [INAUDIBLE] were much more critical to the country right now and to the world. I mean, you think about the world that we're living in right now, we're all confined to our homes. So what's more important than Amazon to deliver essential products to our doors? We're trying to speak with friends and family, but confined inside of our houses. So we need apps like Messenger and Whatsapp to be able to communicate with them.

And then finally, we're collaborating at work. Many of us are working from home, using tools like Microsoft Teams to be able to come together. I mean, even this show right now is being held on a Google Hangout. So the tech giants are certainly playing a much bigger role in our world now than they were before, which is kind of hard to imagine. But with that, comes much more responsibility as well.

MELODY HAHM: Hey, Alex. Melody here. We recently spoke with Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group, And one of the points that he brought up was that the tech-lash seems to have died down amidst this crisis, because, to your point, they're now being heralded as essential goods and essential services. As you anticipate kind of post-pandemic and as we get away the crisis period, how do you anticipate the reception or the likelihood that we'll be, perhaps, more cozy to Facebook again, right? We saw Sheryl Sandberg, including on our programming, going on the offensive again, whereas a lot of these executives have been quite quiet for the last few months. Do you anticipate that there will be a total cultural shift in the way that average citizens perceive these companies?

ALEX KANTROWITZ: You know, I don't think it's a given that they're going to come out of this OK. I think it's a make-or-break moment for many of these companies. You know, Amazon can build its Prime subscriptions and become this necessary delivery device for people around the world. On the other hand, if it doesn't protect its workers, it's going to be in some deep trouble. And you might see something even worse than the tech-lash. I mean, before, it was, does Amazon treat its workers right? Is it paying them the right wage?

Now, it's literally, is Amazon protecting their lives? So for the company to walk this balance, it's going to be super important. And of course, it should err on the side of worker safety. The same goes for companies like Facebook and Google, right-- like, they're playing very important roles mediating our lives right now, helping us communicate with our loved ones. But if they allow misinformation about this virus to spread and for people to not take it seriously because of what they read and what they watch on these platforms, then they're going to be in much deeper trouble.

So I really do think that it's make-or-break moment for these companies. You know, maybe the fact they've been through the tech-lash ends up working in their favor because they take some of these issues more seriously, where in the past they might have been so optimistic about the work that they do that they wouldn't have considered the criticism.

JULIE HYMAN: And I am curious, Alex, as we come out of this, now that we've seen that they're capable of cracking down on things like misinformation, are they now going to be under more pressure? Because one of their arguments has been, we're throwing a lot of resources at it. It just-- it's so big that we can't get our arms around it. We can't solve this problem-- whatever that problem might be, whether it's bias or misinformation or what have you. Does that argument hold less water now?

ALEX KANTROWITZ: Well, yeah. It's interesting, right? Like, Facebook has always said it doesn't want to be the arbiter of truth and now it's showing the extreme willingness to be the arbiter of truth-- same with Google, same with Twitter. So I do think that it's going to create an interesting discussion for us, right, because you can't just one day wake up and say, actually, the truth matters. Because what's happened on these platforms is there's been a disintegration in terms of the value of truth and how people look at facts, because so much misinformation has been allowed to spread on them-- to the point that now you have people reading stuff about the coronavirus and yelling fake news at it.

Now, how did that happen? It's not just that this news showed up one day and people were like, hey, wait a second, we don't really believe in the coronavirus. It's a system that's been allowed to develop over time. OK, so now they're taking preventative measures to make sure that that system doesn't lead people to go out and get others killed. But I do think that we're going to have a long discussion after this in terms of the way these companies actually approach facts and the truth. And we might see them take more aggressive action.

ETHAN WOLFF-MANN: Alex, Ethan Wolff-Mann here. Consumer Reports has published kind of an interesting little investigation. They tried to create ads. One of them said coronavirus is a hoax and multiple ads like this were not flagged by Facebook's system. What's your take on that? Facebook has been trying to be a little more proactive with respect to this since it is a public health crisis, but it doesn't seem to actually be working if you can have coronavirus is a hoax published on a site.

ALEX KANTROWITZ: It's a tough question, right, because-- so I haven't read the report, but I have read, you know, prior reports talking about Facebook's difficulties with moderating content during this situation. What's the problem? The problem is they've relied so heavily on a human moderator force. And now those people can't go into the office and work together and Facebook said, well, you know, they review sensitive content so we don't want them in. It puts more of a burden on its artificial intelligence systems.

So I think this is something they're going to have to figure out. I know they've put full-time employees on moderation. But obviously, it's not enough. And it's also a platform of 2.5-- more than 2.5 billion people, so there's going to be things that are going to get through, which is not an excuse. But I think it really shows the limitations right now of the AI systems that the company is using to try to moderate its platform. And they're going to have to find some way to have their human moderators and full-time employees step in and take this stuff out.

Because, like you said, like, having a message out there that says, coronavirus is a hoax, can lead to death. I mean, it can lead to people not taking this seriously-- going out, socializing, violating social distancing guidelines, and leading to massive problems. So again, make-or-break moment for Facebook-- it's not a question of whether they can figure it out, it's they need to figure it out. There's got to be a solution to it.

JULIE HYMAN: Alex, thanks for your perspective. Alex Kantrowitz is the senior tech reporter at "BuzzFeed." He is also the author of "Always Day One," which looks at the tech industry. Thank you. We appreciate it.