July 7, 2023 • 40 mins
Jordan Rich filled in on NightSide:
Aimed at competing with Twitter, Meta launched a similar social media network called Threads. Within 18 hours, it had more than 30 million sign-ups! To learn more, Jordan chatted with David Gerzof Richard, PR and Digital Media Professor at Emerson College and CEO of the PR Agency BIG FISH.
Aimed at competing with Twitter, Meta launched a similar social media network called Threads. Within 18 hours, it had more than 30 million sign-ups! To learn more, Jordan chatted with David Gerzof Richard, PR and Digital Media Professor at Emerson College and CEO of the PR Agency BIG FISH.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
It's Nightside, Dan Ray, I'mgot busy Boston's news radio. Dan is
off as the other Dan just mentioned, and I'm here filling in tonight and
tomorrow. And the number, ofcourse is six one seven two five four
ten thirty. We repeat that oftenbecause hey, it's available to you when
we have guests or not, sofeel free to make use of at six
(00:21):
one seven two five four ten thirty. So we're gonna be talking about the
very latest social media platform that haslaunched. It's called Threads, and it's
a Zuckerberg product out of the Metauniverse. And to help us along here,
I've reeled in a big Fish's sorryabout that. David gerzof Richard is
(00:42):
a PR and digital media professor atEmerson College and CEO of the PR agency
Big Fish. And it says inyour bio that you're a punster. So
you're welcome here, sir, excellent, Well, good to be here.
Let's talk a little bit about justthe news of the day. Is it?
This launched? What Wednesday? Metalaunching Threads and already, y that
(01:04):
is correct? YEA attracted what tenmillion in the first day, something like
that, ten million the first sevenhours. It's up to a thirty million
at this point. Oh, preytell, I should be paying more attention.
So, um, before we getinto the whole the stat of the
thing. Um, what is threadsfor those who don't know and maybe haven't
(01:25):
thought about it yet, what isit expected to do? Yeah? So
it's Threads is essentially the Facebook's versionof what Twitter is, or what it
was maybe you know in its earlyday as in infancy. It is the
digital water cooler. So it's thatvery simple platform where people can post a
(01:51):
picture, a video or just likea quick quick set of thoughts and share
it, have others like it orfull it along. Not so distiller from
what you know Twitter was and isUm, I guess you have to be
an Instagram user to take advantage ofit. Is that right? Yes?
(02:12):
So the way that Meta has structuredthis is that in order to get a
surrends account, you have to bean Instagram user. But that is creating
a couple really interesting sort of likeside effects, if you will, in
social media that you don't typically seethat with apps that start off like this.
(02:35):
On the on the plus side,you're seeing that there's quite a few
people out there that have Instagram accounts, and so what's happening is when they
sign up and log on, allof the friends, everybody that they've connected
with that are following them, thatthey've been following pop up and so it's
it seems like a very familiar theyuh platform versus just getting on the platform
(03:05):
and not knowing who to follow,where to find anybody. It's like you
you show up at a party andeverybody's already there. I see now already.
Elon Musk is threatening to sue andis suggesting that the Zuckerberg is stealing
his talent and ideas, et cetera, et cetera, and some say he
doesn't have a chance in court onthis. What's your take early on as
(03:29):
to what's happening. I can Ican totally see why why a lot is
annoyed at at the situation. Imean he, you know, first of
all, Um, at every turnin the road, he's been making life
difficult for you know, his employees, for the users of Twitter. It's
just been chaos and turmoil. Uh, you literally day after day after day.
(03:53):
Uh. And so there has beenthis sort of flight and a desire
to find a platform, social mediaplatform like Twitter. Um, that's not
Twitter with you know, with anotherchaos, and what we're seeing here is
you know, is that that isuh, you know, this is a
(04:14):
very smart play by by zuck byZuckerberg. Um, and I think we're
all seeing the same articles that Alanis threatening to sue. I don't know
what he's going to be able tosue them over, but um, it
could be I could be, Um, you know the employees that you know
he's driven away or that they've he'sgoing to you know, say that that
(04:38):
you know they stole ideas and stolethose employees. But I to your to
your point earlier, I don't thinkit's going to stand up in court.
So it looking at this just froma personality point of view or curriculum vitae
point of view, Zuckerberg is thelikely guy to do this and do it
well because he's the originator or Facebook. He understands how these things work.
(05:01):
I mean must will yeah, Imean the metaverse. Yeah, that's the
guy that created the metaverse that fellflat. That's true. So so I
think right now he's just he's justas you that he's he's gotten behind a
ball and hitting it, hit itout of the park. Yeah. Look
there, there's a lot of momentumhere. I wouldn't say that that Threads
(05:25):
has you know, taken a positionyet where it's going to um, you
know, take the throne from fromTwitter. You know, Twitter, Twitter
is just suffering from a lot ofself inflicted wounds. UM. It's it's
been around for a while and it'sUM, it's really become UM beyond just
(05:46):
sort of the chaos and turmoil thatAlan brings to it. UM, the
just the platform itself has become verydifficult for a lot of people who are
just looking for sort of like maybea little bit of like kind end and
gentle discourse versus you know, thecesspool that it's it's become. And so
what I think that's like that alot of these you know, thirta and
(06:10):
thirty million people can't be wrong onthis. UM. What what's really attracting
them to this is that there's thislike idealistic you know platform of UM,
a place where you know, wecan you know, do the things that
we did on Twitter back when Twitterwas you know, a nicer, friendlier,
you know platform. UM. Andreally, like, what what makes
(06:31):
me so excited about um threads rightnow? And that there's this sort of
you know, tidal wave of ofusers jumping on the board. Is it's
it's getting to this um sort ofthis critical mass of people where they're you
know, the idea sharing is goingto be there, but that it's so
new, there's this opportunity to doit sort of the right way without the
(06:57):
anger and like all the sort ofpolitical contempt that has bled into Twitter,
and you know, the way todo this. I see this like a
reset button, is h you know, bringing that sort of you know,
kindergarten rules to it where it's youknow, not to say like you can't
be you know, angry or whatever, but just you know, there's this
(07:18):
blue, you know, blue oceanof what can what we can do here
without um all the nastiness that drovepeople to want to flee from Twitter in
the first place. Well, you'resuggesting, David that there is a set
of guidelines that people are okay withthat the ones who jumped on board at
(07:39):
least for now it's only been fortyeight hours, they're okay with this.
There there people are looking for analternative to the vitriol that they see on
completely completely because it's gotten, it'sgotten out of control. And so this
really is that sort of that opportunityfor a reset button. Not saying that
you know, zuckerbur or anybody haslike set down like guidelines or rules,
(08:03):
but you know, clearly it's somethingthat people are looking for. I mean
it really at its core, whatTwitter was was it like a like a
town square or a digital water cooler. And you know what it what it's
become is a wrestling match. Andthat's not what people are looking for.
They're looking for like this, youknow, sharing ideas and funny stories and
(08:26):
jokes and whatever it is that youknow that they find interesting in their various
corners of Twitter. Um what's interestingto me is that, Um, as
I'm looking at it, it's youknow, I'm reading and I'm seeing you
know, some some big names,not just you know the sort of the
famous folks, the Paris Hilton's andthe Tom Brady's that are on it,
(08:50):
but it's like a good chunk ofgovernment of you know, Congress is on
there now too, Like they're they'reseeing it as you know, a way
to to potentially sign a platform forpolitical discourse that might be a little bit
more team than Twitter. So Iwouldn't be surprised if we see more and
(09:11):
more over the next couple of daysof our commerceman and senators taking up you
know, you know, spots onthreads. Well, you certainly have your
finger on the pulse here because thisis what you teach, and you're in
the business, a pr business andall that. Um, I'm a bit
more cynical because it seems like peoplejust can't help themselves. They want to,
(09:33):
whether it's Facebook or Twitter or whatever. I mean, they just can't
help themselves. But tell them,tell the world how right they are and
everybody else is wrong. Um.Interestingly enough, I have become a TikTok
fan. I know that's not aproper thing to say in certain circles because
of the Chinese government or whatever,but I love TikTok. Why. I
(09:56):
don't record anything, I don't sendany messages out, but I love the
videos that reflect what I want towatch, mostly comedians and mostly movie clips.
So I'm I'm happy as anything tohave half an hour a day just
mosing through there. But what arepeople looking to do with threads? What
are they doing? So far?You haven't really said what they're sharing?
(10:18):
Are they sharing recipes? Are theysharing thoughtful sentiments? What what do you
notice on there? It's it's allof it, I mean, and that's
that's it's it's exactly what they weredoing back in the in the days of
Twitter when Twitter was more about justlike some posting and sharing and not so
much you know with the uh sortof the bots and all this. And
(10:43):
then that's the wonderful thing about havingto have an Instagram account to get in
here. You can't just you know, create a fake account or a bunch
of bots that are just you know, spamming all kinds of whatever you know,
hate or you know, whether orit's a left leanings or right leanings
or whatever the you know, thepolitical leanings are that they're trying to push
(11:05):
through these pots like all that ithasn't hasn't gotten an yet. That's not
to say that it's not going toand someone will figure it out. Um,
there's always teaching to your point,there's always someone who's going to like
build a platform, get in there, um, build a following, and
then use that as a bully pulpit. So um, we're only like,
(11:26):
you know, forty eight hours intothis thing, so that that hasn't happened
yet, but just just give ussome time, we'll figure out how to
break it. David Richard is hereis a PR and digital media professor at
Emerson College, actually a pioneer inthis area. We'll talk a little bit
about the course you're teaching, andalso the CEO of the PR agency,
Big Fish, and we're talking aboutthe latest launch of a social media platform
(11:48):
called Threads by Meta U Zuckerberg's organization, and the impact on well, the
population, but also the impact onthe competitors. And we'll get into more
of the us with our very fineexpert who's on the line. We'll take
a short break. This is Jordanfilling in for Dan. You're listening to
WBZ and we'll be right back withmore Nightside. You're on Nightside with Dan
(12:11):
Ray on Boston's news radio. Yes, this is Nightside. We are keeping
you abreast of what's going on inthe Meta universe, the generic term Meta
universe, or the specific term becauseMeta The company launched a new social media
platform called Threads, similar to tweetsand Twitter, but a little different and
(12:33):
different enough that a bunch of people, about thirty million, have already jumped
on. After forty eight hours.David Grizov Richard is with me. He's
the CEO of a PR agency herein Boston called Big Fish, and also
a PR and digital media professor atEmerson. Before we get further along on
this, tell me about the course, and I understand you're one of the
originators of this kind of stuff incollege classrooms. Oh yeah, So,
(12:56):
so one of the courses that we'vewe've taught it at Emerson is a social
media course where we social media marketingcourse where we look at um in terms
of Twitter. Just since to keepit in context of the story, one
of the one of the sort ofthe projects that we look at is how
(13:20):
Twitter can be used to get aroundgatekeepers. Um. So, figure take
like a sports athlete Rob Gronkowski,a Julian Edelman. Um. Typically they
have an agent, they have apublicist. There's a bunch of folks circling
around them that are are gatekeepers tothat individual. But once these uh,
(13:43):
these folks, the Paris Hilton's ofthe world, get onto Twitter, you
can actually um directly communicate with them. And so what we what we did
is we built um so, wedid some market research. We figured out
how a gronkower Skier or An Edelmanwas using Twitter, what time they were
(14:05):
using it, what they were tweeting, what they were interested in. And
then we built a campaign to reachthem to sort of break through the noise.
And any good campaign has a callto action, and the call to
action was um. For Edelman,it was you know, his whole thing
was burger time. Um. Andwe had we had him. I invited
(14:26):
him to come talk to us aboutsocial media and his brand, and he
came and delivered uh, you know, burgers to the to the whole class.
Gron Couchy, that was a differentsemester where we wanted him to be
our substitute professor for the day andhe came in and uh and and spoke
to us. But the students didthis. They you know, they figured
(14:48):
out the behavior, they figured outthe timing, they came up with a
campaign, they broke through the noise, and um, they got that call
to action in there. And thatthat's really the power of Twitter right there.
I mean, these are these arekids that are at eighteen to you
know, twenty two years old thatnormally would not be able to uh,
(15:11):
you know, get one of theirsort of sports heroes to to show up
at h at their their school andteach them in a in a class,
and that's what they pulled off.It's interesting to say this, by the
way, you're it's pr public relationsas part of this. But in my
world, I've been doing this fordecades, finding people for interviews and follow
(15:33):
ups and things like that, whenit used to be literally the phone book,
and then it became a lot easierwith the Internet. But social media,
You're absolutely right. I mean,I will use LinkedIn, I will
use Facebook, I will use whatevermeans I can to try to connect with
somebody on a personal one to onebasis. And it's really effective, it
really is. But beyond that kindof thing. Um, first of all,
(15:54):
our cell phones required to take thecourse. You have to have your
ready at the at the desk.Well. Yeah, The funny thing is,
and I know you're going to thisquestion, is that at one point
in time, Sprint saw that thisclass was um uh you know, so
sort of a cutting edge that theyprovided UM free phones, UM smartphones to
(16:21):
UM to all the entire class ofstudents, UM to do the sort of
the campaigns that we were running usingTwitter and Facebook. Uh. And you
know where I was totally wrong isI was convinced that these kids were just
going to be you know, callingall over the place, like finding friends
in Italy and you know, runningup phone bills. And the thing was,
it wasn't a single phone call wasmade. Um, they couldn't have
(16:45):
called anywhere they wanted in the world. But all it was was texting and
tweeting and posting and creating content.And it was a really eye opening experience.
That's an interesting take on the socialmedia use for productive purposes, for
creative purposes. We hear about thenegative so much and what it's doing to
(17:08):
our brains collectively, but it's itreally has amazing properties and potential, doesn't
it day? But I mean it'sit's you couldn't have imagined this in nineteen
sixty anything remotely as incredible as this, the ability to connect as we do.
What do you see though, aswith threads and now threads going up
(17:29):
against Twitter and just additional platforms.Is their overkill? Is it too much?
Is it turning people off to toomany things to keep in track of?
I think the market is what isthis sort of the final judge there
There's been a lot of social mediaapps that there's been a lot of people
(17:51):
trying to build this sort of thenext Facebook. And you know, Facebook
wasn't even you know, what itis today, wasn't what it started out
as. UM it just sort ofgets canalyzed into being what what people want.
I do believe that people want adigital watercooler. They want a sort
(18:12):
of a town square where they canyou know, share their ideas and be
heard and hear from other people.That is not that successible that that Twitter
has become. And if you justlook at the cast of characters that are
working on us, so certainly,you know, the news from the last
(18:33):
forty eight hours was Zuckerberg and Thread. But there's also this guy, Jack
Dorsey who's out there who's the originalfounder of Twitter, and he's working on
something called Blue Sky Social, whichI wouldn't be surprised if, in the
light of what's happened here, ifwe start seeing more activity out of those
(18:55):
guys. Um, that is aplatform that is, you know, essentially
a Twitter two point zero. He'staking all of his lessons learned in building
Twitter and building it a second timebut better. It's right now in an
invitation only beta. But I couldimagine that doing this sort of thing start
(19:18):
to slow down in the dust settlesfrom all this, all the noise from
threads, that those invitations might becomea lot more easy to get their hands
on and we might start seeing alot more of that. So another phoenix
rising from the ashes. He wassort of disgraced for a while there because
(19:40):
of the political issues and Twitter andm he sort of lost control, But
he's coming back. These guys don'tgive up, do they. They're they're
a certain breed or brand of fighters. They want to get in there and
make a difference. What about theones that haven't done it, well,
I mean they're there. I'm surethe landscape somewhat littered with failure too.
(20:03):
Yeah. I mean that's the thing, right, is that the biggest trick
with any one of these platforms isreaching critical mass. And it's the it's
the challenge that they all face.It's, you know, building something that
a lot of people want to useand getting a lot of people to want
to use it um all at thesame time. Because if you're the only
person at you know, at thedigital watercool or no one else is there
(20:26):
and you're not hearing other people's ideasand you're not, you know, you're
not nobody's hearing your ideas. Soit's it's whatever it is, whether it's
a dating, social media app,whether it's like, you know, a
career networking app. In order toreally get this, it's this this sort
of this um fine formula of havingyou know, enough people there but also
(20:51):
like having systems being able to standup and not collapse if you have too
many people coming on all at once. And the history of the web and
apps is just littered with companies thathave you know, for for every one
of these like look, we've gotInstagram, We've got Facebook, we've got
TikTok um, these are these aresome you know, and then like a
(21:14):
like a handful of um dating apps, and there's like a whole bunch more
out there. But for every oneof those, there's probably thousands of apps
that people have spent time and energybuilding trying to build, you know,
a social network around something that itjust it didn't for one reason or another,
didn't it didn't catch this right now. And what's you know so remarkable
(21:37):
with threads is it has caught andyou know, I think it's a it's
a real strong combination between the factthat it's a Facebook product, that they've
gotten a lot of real solid celebritiesUm to Helen to Generous Is the Paraceltons
to Tom Brady's are on it.So they did a really good job curating
(22:02):
that. That's you know, andthe people that all of them are going
to fall in there. They've gotum, you know, the Instagram network
that they figured out how to flipand transition right into this UM and they
know that there's this desire. Youknow, people keep looking around, you
know, for what that next Twitteris going to be. Is it going
(22:22):
to be Massadon, Is it goingto be Blue Sky Social? Is it?
What is it? What is itgoing to be? And Threads hit
it perfectly. I was thinking aboutthe Ron de Santa's announcement for the campaign,
the kickoff with the Musk and howit all collapsed the platform and uh,
there you go. I mean,here's there's a social media platform.
It's been around over a decade andit couldn't it couldn't stand up because you
(22:48):
know all the I don't know exactlyall the reasons why, but that alone
just killed it. Right listen,stand by your fascinating guests I really appreciate
you being on, and I wantto ask more questions because I'm curious as
I'll get out. But I alsowant to invite anyone who's listening and who
has an interest in social media ofany kind to join us. At six
(23:11):
one, seven, two, five, four ten thirty, we're talking here
on Nightside with Jordan in for Dan, with David Richard, PR and digital
media professor at Emerson College, CEOof the PR agency Big Fish, and
we're going to talk further about howthese companies expect to make it and make
money and monetize in the midst ofall this, and where the advertising comes
(23:32):
into play, because they're certainly thosealgorithms that are looking for you and looking
for me, and they found me. By the way. We'll be back
with much more right after these words. You're on Nightside with Dan Ray.
I'm w BZY Boston's News Radio.Yes you are, and this is Jordan
rich filling in tonight and tomorrow forDan who's on vacation. We are talking
about social media. That's a ratherbroad introduction, but we're focusing on the
(23:57):
big, big development, which isThreads, which launched yesterday Wednesday and already
thirty million subscribers. And my guestis David Richard, PR and digital media
professor over at Emerson College. Healso has a PR agency called Big Fish
here in Boston. And David,let's talk about how these organizations monetize.
(24:18):
I mean, we all know there'sadvertising, and that's how Facebook does it.
But in a case like Threads,how is it going to work,
similar platform, similar kind of developmentof advertising. Yeah, so you know,
as we're as we're seeing this,I think you're going to hear more
and more of advertising with AI sprinkledon. But looking at the content that
(24:45):
you're you're sharing that you're looking atthere as AI or algorithms that can sort
of figure out and draw what youwould be interested in and in your feed,
sprinkle it in. Sprinkle in anad for you know, if you're
you know, discussing a lot ofbaseball, you know, tickets to a
(25:06):
Fenway you know Fenway game, oryou know, you know gear for the
Red Sox. So like that ishow this is going to work. Um,
you know it's it's not all socialmedia. Is they say it's free.
It's not free. No, You'reyou're giving up your data and that
(25:26):
data is how they're they're targeting youfor for the dads, and some people
very much appreciate having like really tailoredads coming at them. Um, and
and even you act on them,and others are completely creeped out by it.
I'll tell you who's probably creeped outevery day she goes to work,
Linda yak Arena now, but peopledon't know that name. She's the new
(25:48):
CEO of Twitter. And the reasonI bring it up and we don't have
to get into the weeds on this, David, but I mean she's tasked
with making the company work and besolved. And every couple of days when
Elon decides to change his mind,it throws everything into into a tizzy.
Um, is she the right personat the right time, at the right
(26:11):
place to try to right the shipover there? Or can anybody Oh my
gosh, I don't know. Ireally don't know the answer to that question.
All I can say is that,um, it's it's a wild ride.
Whoever that that CEO is that's dealingwith all the twists the turns that
it curves that Elan is bringing toTwitter. Man, that has got to
(26:37):
be one challenging job. The factthat a couple of weeks ago. Um,
they were talking about launching actual programs. Uh. Tucker Carlson, for
instance, comes to mind people ofthat nature. UM, And it looked
like it was about to happen,and then it sort of stopped in its
tracks. There are a lot ofthese things that he talks about and he
(27:00):
promotes, and then he forgets aboutit or the changes his mind. It's
a very strange way to run abit. But then again, he's a
multi billionaire, So who am Ito tell him how to run his business?
What? Let me ask you ina more broad general sense, UM,
what what are the dangers? Um? If you've done research on the
effect of social media, particularly onteenagers and people who just are so addicted
(27:26):
to their phones they sleep with them, what what do we know about that?
Yeah? It's um, it's theresearch. You know, more and
more research comes out every year onthis. UM. There there's a very
deep dark underbelly to UM to socialmedia, especially when it comes to tweens,
(27:48):
tween girls. UM. You know, there's so much that that can
go wrong, And the challenge isthat the smartphone is really the on ramp
to the internet that that gives themaccess to this thing. And so you
know, as I was saying before, that there's AI or algorithms that you
(28:15):
know, can can look at youryour interests in your search behavior and start
feeding you content and ads that umthat you're interested in. You end up
you know, almost in an echochamber. And so you know, we
see that with a lot of thesefolks that are you know, tweeting about
politics and one one side of politicsor another and they don't end up hearing
(28:36):
from the other side at all.UM. But imagine that for you know,
between girl, UM, if allthat she's doing is looking at you
know, supermodels and you know modelsand diets and all this sort of stuff
before you know it, UM,that's all that they're seeing, and it
really does sort of canalyze them andtheir thoughts and their views on who they
(29:00):
are in the world and everything else. It's it's a very very dangerous UM
scenario and it you know, I'veI've got two small children and I UM
just just being familiar with with somuch of this the body of research has
gone into this. UM will notlet them have smartphones. UM. I
think having you know, connected deviceswhere they can you know, text and
(29:25):
connect with friends is fine. Butthe problem even I have, and I'm
someone that that studies this stuff,is I can't keep up with a number
of apps that are out there andwhat they're interested in. And you know,
before you know it, they're goingdown a rabbit hole that I didn't
even know existed, right, Andso, you know, the the it's
(29:51):
a kind of thing that we needto be teaching our youth at a very
early age how to you know,discern um and how to sort of navigate
the social web, and we don'tdo a very good job at it,
and so, um, we doend up I think failing a lot of
(30:11):
our youth. Um. You know, I think parents feel it certainly,
like communities feel it that it's it'sjust it's really not that great. I
mean, there's wonderful things that comeout of social media, but you know,
one of one of the worst ishow how it all just kind of
(30:32):
like falls on these these young childrenthat are so impressionable and are trying to
figure their their way out through tothe world, and it's it's through the
lens of you know, basically analgorithm that's showing them a whole bunch of
different images and diets or whatever.It is, and there's the addictive of
properties as well. The neuroscience onthat is startling on a grander scale,
(30:57):
not grand with a capital G meaningwonderful, but on a more society governmental
scale. There are two things thatare interesting. One the other day,
a federal judge a rule that theBiden administration was uh disavowing the First Amendment
in terms of asking and demanding socialmedia platforms take certain things down. That
(31:19):
was interesting. And then Irish readthat President Macron and France was having his
problems big time with riding in thestreets. Is looking at the possibility of
shutting down social media platforms? Yea. The debate is raging, isn't it
about what role government has, ifany, and who's the ring leader,
(31:41):
who's going to you know, corralthese these organizations and should they be correct?
It could completely you know, whenwhen we were you know, when
the founding fathers were looking at youknow, building our constitution and looking at
you know, the freedoms of speech, social media was not anything that was
in any way you know, wejust goes even our concept and so you
(32:04):
know what we're talking about here isum, you know, facts and misinformation
and you know if a if aplatform or a you know, an administration
is looking to you know, Iwouldn't say necessarily control the facts, but
(32:25):
just control the misinformation or tame itor or you know, prevent it from
happening. Um. And then theFirst Amendment rights are coming up against that.
It's a real difficult UM set ofshallows Tom to navigate because you know,
what one person believes, um isis fact, and we're finding someone
(32:49):
else believes is fiction and vice versa, and it creates creating a situation where
um, there, you know,the administration is not going to be able
to really, you know, puta hammer down and cut out some business
information that's getting spread around social platforms. Let's take a phone call or two
(33:12):
before we wrap up. David Richardis my guest. He's a professor over
at Emerson and also the CEO ofa PR agency called Big Fish, which
is operating in Boston and as clientsall over. Let's go to Joe Anne
in Weymouth. Joanne, thank youfor calling WBC's Nightside. Hi, Hi
Jordan him David much respect. I'mactually reading a book called The Disconnected Generation,
(33:40):
Saving our Youth from self Destruction,and it's all about what's going on
with social media. I'm a CDDN, a certified Developmental Disabilities in nurse.
I've worked at Hampstead Hospital in NewHampshire where we've dealt with this, worked
to there from two thousand and twelveto two thousand and twenty. Where have
(34:02):
you been all my life? David? I'm serious. I mean we need
to connect people because there's a lotof very educated people that are in agreement
and would probably like to see thistaught in the school system. Yeah,
it's it's The thing is is socialmedia has come up on us so quickly,
(34:27):
and it's two thousand and nine probably, Yeah, it's only been but
even two thousand and nine. Ifwe were to if we were to try
to build a curriculum around two thousandand nine, um, it had already
started with poeting different I mean,i I've built, I built a syllabus
around social media marketing and I hadto completely change around because because integram right,
(34:54):
so like, since the challenge isteaching our teachers how to how to
teach how to adjust to these things, right, It's just like it's looking
at you know, the facts andwhat comes at us through these social platforms
and understanding like is this you know, how do I how do I verify
that? But also like is theinformation coming at me? Is this an
(35:17):
actual snapshot of the world or isit what an algorithm or AI is feeding
me? And Joe. I'd liketo see it taught very young, because
I've dealt with children as young astwo years old who are on the spectrum
from non verbal to high functioning asBurghers twenty six years old at Hampstead Hospital
(35:43):
and then ste Run. I believeand geezu, these kids can be very
much misinterpreted in the school system.The behaviors well, I also think it.
I remember hearing a story or two, and it's not apocryphal about a
kid in some country, maybe America, who stuck himself in a room and
(36:04):
played video games for twenty eight straightdays and died or something. It's it's
it's it's like anything. It canbe addictive. And you're on a If
you're on a trolley and I know, David, you may take the tea
occasionally. Since you're going to Emerson, Man, there isn't anybody I know
where Emerson is. I went toschool in um Dorchester. Very good Emerson,
(36:25):
Ryan Hold on one second, holdon, Joe in Um writing the
subway, you cannot find more thanone person out of three hundred not looking
down at the phone, right,David, That is true. And chances
are, you know, if they'renot scrolling through just a regular news feed
(36:46):
for a CBS or type of news, then it's probably gonna be Twitter,
Instagram, Facebook, some one ofthese platforms where they're they're catching up on
their world. All right, Joeanne, thank you for the call, and
thank you for your service to thechildren. That's really a noble profession to
(37:06):
be in. So before we wrapup threads, it's only been forty eight
hours, thirty million. We startedoff with you being kind of high on
this and thinking this could be theone that challenges Twitter and maybe wins out.
What do you think now after wetalk for forty minutes, Yeah,
I really I don't there's going tobe a winner. And I as much
(37:29):
as I like Twitter and I've beenon that platform for a very long time,
I've enjoyed being on that platform fora very long time, there's just
so much going against it. Itjust it's eating itself alive, both in
terms of sort of the content onthe platform and you know from the top
down how it's being run. Atthe same time, you've got a much
(37:53):
bigger competitor, Facebook's plus Instagram rollingout a platform that is you know,
Blue Ocean with no bots in it. I think that they that they have
a lot. Twitter has a lotto worry about here. Um. That
being said, there's you know,other platforms in the works, like as
(38:14):
I mentioned, Blue Sky, umthat I wouldn't write off just yet either.
So um, there at the endof this, Jordan, I think
that there's there's going to be awinner, Like there's going to be one
one platform that's going to come out. Who that is, Which platform that
is, It's it's too hard totell. But at the core, we
(38:37):
as you know, social beings,um that want to be connected and have
trained ourselves now to be connected throughthese smartphones. Do want that digital water
cool or that digital you know townsquare and you know we're more we're itching
for it. That's why we're seeingyou know, thirty thousand people downloading this
(38:59):
appen such a amount of time andso this this smart smart guys out out
of California, the Zucks, theMuskus, the door Sees, they all
know what we want. They're tryingto just build it and build it to
to win the game, and soone of them is going to win.
(39:19):
I just I don't know which horseis going to be. I'm very very
excited to see that there's a strongcompetitor now for Twitter. Big fishpr dot
com is your company's website. Veryinteresting company. I love the site,
love the humor on there. You'vegot to have a sense of humor in
this crazy world. David, It'sbeen a real pleasure. I would say
that the students are lucky to haveyou. Thank you very much for joining
(39:42):
us and filling us in and allthis. Thank you, Jordan Creepy in
here. Take indeed, David Richardis his name. He's a Professor of
Public Relations and Digital Media, whichis of course a very commanding title and
a very good field for young peopleto think about getting into. All right,
we'll take a break and come backwith much more here on Night Side.
It's Nightside, Dan Ray, I'mgot busy Boston's news radio. Dan is
off as the other Dan just mentioned, and I'm here filling in tonight and
tomorrow. And the number, ofcourse is six one seven two five four
ten thirty. We repeat that oftenbecause hey, it's available to you when
we have guests or not, sofeel free to make use of at six
(00:21):
one seven two five four ten thirty. So we're gonna be talking about the
very latest social media platform that haslaunched. It's called Threads, and it's
a Zuckerberg product out of the Metauniverse. And to help us along here,
I've reeled in a big Fish's sorryabout that. David gerzof Richard is
(00:42):
a PR and digital media professor atEmerson College and CEO of the PR agency
Big Fish. And it says inyour bio that you're a punster. So
you're welcome here, sir, excellent, Well, good to be here.
Let's talk a little bit about justthe news of the day. Is it?
This launched? What Wednesday? Metalaunching Threads and already, y that
(01:04):
is correct? YEA attracted what tenmillion in the first day, something like
that, ten million the first sevenhours. It's up to a thirty million
at this point. Oh, preytell, I should be paying more attention.
So, um, before we getinto the whole the stat of the
thing. Um, what is threadsfor those who don't know and maybe haven't
(01:25):
thought about it yet, what isit expected to do? Yeah? So
it's Threads is essentially the Facebook's versionof what Twitter is, or what it
was maybe you know in its earlyday as in infancy. It is the
digital water cooler. So it's thatvery simple platform where people can post a
(01:51):
picture, a video or just likea quick quick set of thoughts and share
it, have others like it orfull it along. Not so distiller from
what you know Twitter was and isUm, I guess you have to be
an Instagram user to take advantage ofit. Is that right? Yes?
(02:12):
So the way that Meta has structuredthis is that in order to get a
surrends account, you have to bean Instagram user. But that is creating
a couple really interesting sort of likeside effects, if you will, in
social media that you don't typically seethat with apps that start off like this.
(02:35):
On the on the plus side,you're seeing that there's quite a few
people out there that have Instagram accounts, and so what's happening is when they
sign up and log on, allof the friends, everybody that they've connected
with that are following them, thatthey've been following pop up and so it's
it seems like a very familiar theyuh platform versus just getting on the platform
(03:05):
and not knowing who to follow,where to find anybody. It's like you
you show up at a party andeverybody's already there. I see now already.
Elon Musk is threatening to sue andis suggesting that the Zuckerberg is stealing
his talent and ideas, et cetera, et cetera, and some say he
doesn't have a chance in court onthis. What's your take early on as
(03:29):
to what's happening. I can Ican totally see why why a lot is
annoyed at at the situation. Imean he, you know, first of
all, Um, at every turnin the road, he's been making life
difficult for you know, his employees, for the users of Twitter. It's
just been chaos and turmoil. Uh, you literally day after day after day.
(03:53):
Uh. And so there has beenthis sort of flight and a desire
to find a platform, social mediaplatform like Twitter. Um, that's not
Twitter with you know, with anotherchaos, and what we're seeing here is
you know, is that that isuh, you know, this is a
(04:14):
very smart play by by zuck byZuckerberg. Um, and I think we're
all seeing the same articles that Alanis threatening to sue. I don't know
what he's going to be able tosue them over, but um, it
could be I could be, Um, you know the employees that you know
he's driven away or that they've he'sgoing to you know, say that that
(04:38):
you know they stole ideas and stolethose employees. But I to your to
your point earlier, I don't thinkit's going to stand up in court.
So it looking at this just froma personality point of view or curriculum vitae
point of view, Zuckerberg is thelikely guy to do this and do it
well because he's the originator or Facebook. He understands how these things work.
(05:01):
I mean must will yeah, Imean the metaverse. Yeah, that's the
guy that created the metaverse that fellflat. That's true. So so I
think right now he's just he's justas you that he's he's gotten behind a
ball and hitting it, hit itout of the park. Yeah. Look
there, there's a lot of momentumhere. I wouldn't say that that Threads
(05:25):
has you know, taken a positionyet where it's going to um, you
know, take the throne from fromTwitter. You know, Twitter, Twitter
is just suffering from a lot ofself inflicted wounds. UM. It's it's
been around for a while and it'sUM, it's really become UM beyond just
(05:46):
sort of the chaos and turmoil thatAlan brings to it. UM, the
just the platform itself has become verydifficult for a lot of people who are
just looking for sort of like maybea little bit of like kind end and
gentle discourse versus you know, thecesspool that it's it's become. And so
what I think that's like that alot of these you know, thirta and
(06:10):
thirty million people can't be wrong onthis. UM. What what's really attracting
them to this is that there's thislike idealistic you know platform of UM,
a place where you know, wecan you know, do the things that
we did on Twitter back when Twitterwas you know, a nicer, friendlier,
you know platform. UM. Andreally, like, what what makes
(06:31):
me so excited about um threads rightnow? And that there's this sort of
you know, tidal wave of ofusers jumping on the board. Is it's
it's getting to this um sort ofthis critical mass of people where they're you
know, the idea sharing is goingto be there, but that it's so
new, there's this opportunity to doit sort of the right way without the
(06:57):
anger and like all the sort ofpolitical contempt that has bled into Twitter,
and you know, the way todo this. I see this like a
reset button, is h you know, bringing that sort of you know,
kindergarten rules to it where it's youknow, not to say like you can't
be you know, angry or whatever, but just you know, there's this
(07:18):
blue, you know, blue oceanof what can what we can do here
without um all the nastiness that drovepeople to want to flee from Twitter in
the first place. Well, you'resuggesting, David that there is a set
of guidelines that people are okay withthat the ones who jumped on board at
(07:39):
least for now it's only been fortyeight hours, they're okay with this.
There there people are looking for analternative to the vitriol that they see on
completely completely because it's gotten, it'sgotten out of control. And so this
really is that sort of that opportunityfor a reset button. Not saying that
you know, zuckerbur or anybody haslike set down like guidelines or rules,
(08:03):
but you know, clearly it's somethingthat people are looking for. I mean
it really at its core, whatTwitter was was it like a like a
town square or a digital water cooler. And you know what it what it's
become is a wrestling match. Andthat's not what people are looking for.
They're looking for like this, youknow, sharing ideas and funny stories and
(08:26):
jokes and whatever it is that youknow that they find interesting in their various
corners of Twitter. Um what's interestingto me is that, Um, as
I'm looking at it, it's youknow, I'm reading and I'm seeing you
know, some some big names,not just you know the sort of the
famous folks, the Paris Hilton's andthe Tom Brady's that are on it,
(08:50):
but it's like a good chunk ofgovernment of you know, Congress is on
there now too, Like they're they'reseeing it as you know, a way
to to potentially sign a platform forpolitical discourse that might be a little bit
more team than Twitter. So Iwouldn't be surprised if we see more and
(09:11):
more over the next couple of daysof our commerceman and senators taking up you
know, you know, spots onthreads. Well, you certainly have your
finger on the pulse here because thisis what you teach, and you're in
the business, a pr business andall that. Um, I'm a bit
more cynical because it seems like peoplejust can't help themselves. They want to,
(09:33):
whether it's Facebook or Twitter or whatever. I mean, they just can't
help themselves. But tell them,tell the world how right they are and
everybody else is wrong. Um.Interestingly enough, I have become a TikTok
fan. I know that's not aproper thing to say in certain circles because
of the Chinese government or whatever,but I love TikTok. Why. I
(09:56):
don't record anything, I don't sendany messages out, but I love the
videos that reflect what I want towatch, mostly comedians and mostly movie clips.
So I'm I'm happy as anything tohave half an hour a day just
mosing through there. But what arepeople looking to do with threads? What
are they doing? So far?You haven't really said what they're sharing?
(10:18):
Are they sharing recipes? Are theysharing thoughtful sentiments? What what do you
notice on there? It's it's allof it, I mean, and that's
that's it's it's exactly what they weredoing back in the in the days of
Twitter when Twitter was more about justlike some posting and sharing and not so
much you know with the uh sortof the bots and all this. And
(10:43):
then that's the wonderful thing about havingto have an Instagram account to get in
here. You can't just you know, create a fake account or a bunch
of bots that are just you know, spamming all kinds of whatever you know,
hate or you know, whether orit's a left leanings or right leanings
or whatever the you know, thepolitical leanings are that they're trying to push
(11:05):
through these pots like all that ithasn't hasn't gotten an yet. That's not
to say that it's not going toand someone will figure it out. Um,
there's always teaching to your point,there's always someone who's going to like
build a platform, get in there, um, build a following, and
then use that as a bully pulpit. So um, we're only like,
(11:26):
you know, forty eight hours intothis thing, so that that hasn't happened
yet, but just just give ussome time, we'll figure out how to
break it. David Richard is hereis a PR and digital media professor at
Emerson College, actually a pioneer inthis area. We'll talk a little bit
about the course you're teaching, andalso the CEO of the PR agency,
Big Fish, and we're talking aboutthe latest launch of a social media platform
(11:48):
called Threads by Meta U Zuckerberg's organization, and the impact on well, the
population, but also the impact onthe competitors. And we'll get into more
of the us with our very fineexpert who's on the line. We'll take
a short break. This is Jordanfilling in for Dan. You're listening to
WBZ and we'll be right back withmore Nightside. You're on Nightside with Dan
(12:11):
Ray on Boston's news radio. Yes, this is Nightside. We are keeping
you abreast of what's going on inthe Meta universe, the generic term Meta
universe, or the specific term becauseMeta The company launched a new social media
platform called Threads, similar to tweetsand Twitter, but a little different and
(12:33):
different enough that a bunch of people, about thirty million, have already jumped
on. After forty eight hours.David Grizov Richard is with me. He's
the CEO of a PR agency herein Boston called Big Fish, and also
a PR and digital media professor atEmerson. Before we get further along on
this, tell me about the course, and I understand you're one of the
originators of this kind of stuff incollege classrooms. Oh yeah, So,
(12:56):
so one of the courses that we'vewe've taught it at Emerson is a social
media course where we social media marketingcourse where we look at um in terms
of Twitter. Just since to keepit in context of the story, one
of the one of the sort ofthe projects that we look at is how
(13:20):
Twitter can be used to get aroundgatekeepers. Um. So, figure take
like a sports athlete Rob Gronkowski,a Julian Edelman. Um. Typically they
have an agent, they have apublicist. There's a bunch of folks circling
around them that are are gatekeepers tothat individual. But once these uh,
(13:43):
these folks, the Paris Hilton's ofthe world, get onto Twitter, you
can actually um directly communicate with them. And so what we what we did
is we built um so, wedid some market research. We figured out
how a gronkower Skier or An Edelmanwas using Twitter, what time they were
(14:05):
using it, what they were tweeting, what they were interested in. And
then we built a campaign to reachthem to sort of break through the noise.
And any good campaign has a callto action, and the call to
action was um. For Edelman,it was you know, his whole thing
was burger time. Um. Andwe had we had him. I invited
(14:26):
him to come talk to us aboutsocial media and his brand, and he
came and delivered uh, you know, burgers to the to the whole class.
Gron Couchy, that was a differentsemester where we wanted him to be
our substitute professor for the day andhe came in and uh and and spoke
to us. But the students didthis. They you know, they figured
(14:48):
out the behavior, they figured outthe timing, they came up with a
campaign, they broke through the noise, and um, they got that call
to action in there. And thatthat's really the power of Twitter right there.
I mean, these are these arekids that are at eighteen to you
know, twenty two years old thatnormally would not be able to uh,
(15:11):
you know, get one of theirsort of sports heroes to to show up
at h at their their school andteach them in a in a class,
and that's what they pulled off.It's interesting to say this, by the
way, you're it's pr public relationsas part of this. But in my
world, I've been doing this fordecades, finding people for interviews and follow
(15:33):
ups and things like that, whenit used to be literally the phone book,
and then it became a lot easierwith the Internet. But social media,
You're absolutely right. I mean,I will use LinkedIn, I will
use Facebook, I will use whatevermeans I can to try to connect with
somebody on a personal one to onebasis. And it's really effective, it
really is. But beyond that kindof thing. Um, first of all,
(15:54):
our cell phones required to take thecourse. You have to have your
ready at the at the desk.Well. Yeah, The funny thing is,
and I know you're going to thisquestion, is that at one point
in time, Sprint saw that thisclass was um uh you know, so
sort of a cutting edge that theyprovided UM free phones, UM smartphones to
(16:21):
UM to all the entire class ofstudents, UM to do the sort of
the campaigns that we were running usingTwitter and Facebook. Uh. And you
know where I was totally wrong isI was convinced that these kids were just
going to be you know, callingall over the place, like finding friends
in Italy and you know, runningup phone bills. And the thing was,
it wasn't a single phone call wasmade. Um, they couldn't have
(16:45):
called anywhere they wanted in the world. But all it was was texting and
tweeting and posting and creating content.And it was a really eye opening experience.
That's an interesting take on the socialmedia use for productive purposes, for
creative purposes. We hear about thenegative so much and what it's doing to
(17:08):
our brains collectively, but it's itreally has amazing properties and potential, doesn't
it day? But I mean it'sit's you couldn't have imagined this in nineteen
sixty anything remotely as incredible as this, the ability to connect as we do.
What do you see though, aswith threads and now threads going up
(17:29):
against Twitter and just additional platforms.Is their overkill? Is it too much?
Is it turning people off to toomany things to keep in track of?
I think the market is what isthis sort of the final judge there
There's been a lot of social mediaapps that there's been a lot of people
(17:51):
trying to build this sort of thenext Facebook. And you know, Facebook
wasn't even you know, what itis today, wasn't what it started out
as. UM it just sort ofgets canalyzed into being what what people want.
I do believe that people want adigital watercooler. They want a sort
(18:12):
of a town square where they canyou know, share their ideas and be
heard and hear from other people.That is not that successible that that Twitter
has become. And if you justlook at the cast of characters that are
working on us, so certainly,you know, the news from the last
(18:33):
forty eight hours was Zuckerberg and Thread. But there's also this guy, Jack
Dorsey who's out there who's the originalfounder of Twitter, and he's working on
something called Blue Sky Social, whichI wouldn't be surprised if, in the
light of what's happened here, ifwe start seeing more activity out of those
(18:55):
guys. Um, that is aplatform that is, you know, essentially
a Twitter two point zero. He'staking all of his lessons learned in building
Twitter and building it a second timebut better. It's right now in an
invitation only beta. But I couldimagine that doing this sort of thing start
(19:18):
to slow down in the dust settlesfrom all this, all the noise from
threads, that those invitations might becomea lot more easy to get their hands
on and we might start seeing alot more of that. So another phoenix
rising from the ashes. He wassort of disgraced for a while there because
(19:40):
of the political issues and Twitter andm he sort of lost control, But
he's coming back. These guys don'tgive up, do they. They're they're
a certain breed or brand of fighters. They want to get in there and
make a difference. What about theones that haven't done it, well,
I mean they're there. I'm surethe landscape somewhat littered with failure too.
(20:03):
Yeah. I mean that's the thing, right, is that the biggest trick
with any one of these platforms isreaching critical mass. And it's the it's
the challenge that they all face.It's, you know, building something that
a lot of people want to useand getting a lot of people to want
to use it um all at thesame time. Because if you're the only
person at you know, at thedigital watercool or no one else is there
(20:26):
and you're not hearing other people's ideasand you're not, you know, you're
not nobody's hearing your ideas. Soit's it's whatever it is, whether it's
a dating, social media app,whether it's like, you know, a
career networking app. In order toreally get this, it's this this sort
of this um fine formula of havingyou know, enough people there but also
(20:51):
like having systems being able to standup and not collapse if you have too
many people coming on all at once. And the history of the web and
apps is just littered with companies thathave you know, for for every one
of these like look, we've gotInstagram, We've got Facebook, we've got
TikTok um, these are these aresome you know, and then like a
(21:14):
like a handful of um dating apps, and there's like a whole bunch more
out there. But for every oneof those, there's probably thousands of apps
that people have spent time and energybuilding trying to build, you know,
a social network around something that itjust it didn't for one reason or another,
didn't it didn't catch this right now. And what's you know so remarkable
(21:37):
with threads is it has caught andyou know, I think it's a it's
a real strong combination between the factthat it's a Facebook product, that they've
gotten a lot of real solid celebritiesUm to Helen to Generous Is the Paraceltons
to Tom Brady's are on it.So they did a really good job curating
(22:02):
that. That's you know, andthe people that all of them are going
to fall in there. They've gotum, you know, the Instagram network
that they figured out how to flipand transition right into this UM and they
know that there's this desire. Youknow, people keep looking around, you
know, for what that next Twitteris going to be. Is it going
(22:22):
to be Massadon, Is it goingto be Blue Sky Social? Is it?
What is it? What is itgoing to be? And Threads hit
it perfectly. I was thinking aboutthe Ron de Santa's announcement for the campaign,
the kickoff with the Musk and howit all collapsed the platform and uh,
there you go. I mean,here's there's a social media platform.
It's been around over a decade andit couldn't it couldn't stand up because you
(22:48):
know all the I don't know exactlyall the reasons why, but that alone
just killed it. Right listen,stand by your fascinating guests I really appreciate
you being on, and I wantto ask more questions because I'm curious as
I'll get out. But I alsowant to invite anyone who's listening and who
has an interest in social media ofany kind to join us. At six
(23:11):
one, seven, two, five, four ten thirty, we're talking here
on Nightside with Jordan in for Dan, with David Richard, PR and digital
media professor at Emerson College, CEOof the PR agency Big Fish, and
we're going to talk further about howthese companies expect to make it and make
money and monetize in the midst ofall this, and where the advertising comes
(23:32):
into play, because they're certainly thosealgorithms that are looking for you and looking
for me, and they found me. By the way. We'll be back
with much more right after these words. You're on Nightside with Dan Ray.
I'm w BZY Boston's News Radio.Yes you are, and this is Jordan
rich filling in tonight and tomorrow forDan who's on vacation. We are talking
about social media. That's a ratherbroad introduction, but we're focusing on the
(23:57):
big, big development, which isThreads, which launched yesterday Wednesday and already
thirty million subscribers. And my guestis David Richard, PR and digital media
professor over at Emerson College. Healso has a PR agency called Big Fish
here in Boston. And David,let's talk about how these organizations monetize.
(24:18):
I mean, we all know there'sadvertising, and that's how Facebook does it.
But in a case like Threads,how is it going to work,
similar platform, similar kind of developmentof advertising. Yeah, so you know,
as we're as we're seeing this,I think you're going to hear more
and more of advertising with AI sprinkledon. But looking at the content that
(24:45):
you're you're sharing that you're looking atthere as AI or algorithms that can sort
of figure out and draw what youwould be interested in and in your feed,
sprinkle it in. Sprinkle in anad for you know, if you're
you know, discussing a lot ofbaseball, you know, tickets to a
(25:06):
Fenway you know Fenway game, oryou know, you know gear for the
Red Sox. So like that ishow this is going to work. Um,
you know it's it's not all socialmedia. Is they say it's free.
It's not free. No, You'reyou're giving up your data and that
(25:26):
data is how they're they're targeting youfor for the dads, and some people
very much appreciate having like really tailoredads coming at them. Um, and
and even you act on them,and others are completely creeped out by it.
I'll tell you who's probably creeped outevery day she goes to work,
Linda yak Arena now, but peopledon't know that name. She's the new
(25:48):
CEO of Twitter. And the reasonI bring it up and we don't have
to get into the weeds on this, David, but I mean she's tasked
with making the company work and besolved. And every couple of days when
Elon decides to change his mind,it throws everything into into a tizzy.
Um, is she the right personat the right time, at the right
(26:11):
place to try to right the shipover there? Or can anybody Oh my
gosh, I don't know. Ireally don't know the answer to that question.
All I can say is that,um, it's it's a wild ride.
Whoever that that CEO is that's dealingwith all the twists the turns that
it curves that Elan is bringing toTwitter. Man, that has got to
(26:37):
be one challenging job. The factthat a couple of weeks ago. Um,
they were talking about launching actual programs. Uh. Tucker Carlson, for
instance, comes to mind people ofthat nature. UM, And it looked
like it was about to happen,and then it sort of stopped in its
tracks. There are a lot ofthese things that he talks about and he
(27:00):
promotes, and then he forgets aboutit or the changes his mind. It's
a very strange way to run abit. But then again, he's a
multi billionaire, So who am Ito tell him how to run his business?
What? Let me ask you ina more broad general sense, UM,
what what are the dangers? Um? If you've done research on the
effect of social media, particularly onteenagers and people who just are so addicted
(27:26):
to their phones they sleep with them, what what do we know about that?
Yeah? It's um, it's theresearch. You know, more and
more research comes out every year onthis. UM. There there's a very
deep dark underbelly to UM to socialmedia, especially when it comes to tweens,
(27:48):
tween girls. UM. You know, there's so much that that can
go wrong, And the challenge isthat the smartphone is really the on ramp
to the internet that that gives themaccess to this thing. And so you
know, as I was saying before, that there's AI or algorithms that you
(28:15):
know, can can look at youryour interests in your search behavior and start
feeding you content and ads that umthat you're interested in. You end up
you know, almost in an echochamber. And so you know, we
see that with a lot of thesefolks that are you know, tweeting about
politics and one one side of politicsor another and they don't end up hearing
(28:36):
from the other side at all.UM. But imagine that for you know,
between girl, UM, if allthat she's doing is looking at you
know, supermodels and you know modelsand diets and all this sort of stuff
before you know it, UM,that's all that they're seeing, and it
really does sort of canalyze them andtheir thoughts and their views on who they
(29:00):
are in the world and everything else. It's it's a very very dangerous UM
scenario and it you know, I'veI've got two small children and I UM
just just being familiar with with somuch of this the body of research has
gone into this. UM will notlet them have smartphones. UM. I
think having you know, connected deviceswhere they can you know, text and
(29:25):
connect with friends is fine. Butthe problem even I have, and I'm
someone that that studies this stuff,is I can't keep up with a number
of apps that are out there andwhat they're interested in. And you know,
before you know it, they're goingdown a rabbit hole that I didn't
even know existed, right, Andso, you know, the the it's
(29:51):
a kind of thing that we needto be teaching our youth at a very
early age how to you know,discern um and how to sort of navigate
the social web, and we don'tdo a very good job at it,
and so, um, we doend up I think failing a lot of
(30:11):
our youth. Um. You know, I think parents feel it certainly,
like communities feel it that it's it'sjust it's really not that great. I
mean, there's wonderful things that comeout of social media, but you know,
one of one of the worst ishow how it all just kind of
(30:32):
like falls on these these young childrenthat are so impressionable and are trying to
figure their their way out through tothe world, and it's it's through the
lens of you know, basically analgorithm that's showing them a whole bunch of
different images and diets or whatever.It is, and there's the addictive of
properties as well. The neuroscience onthat is startling on a grander scale,
(30:57):
not grand with a capital G meaningwonderful, but on a more society governmental
scale. There are two things thatare interesting. One the other day,
a federal judge a rule that theBiden administration was uh disavowing the First Amendment
in terms of asking and demanding socialmedia platforms take certain things down. That
(31:19):
was interesting. And then Irish readthat President Macron and France was having his
problems big time with riding in thestreets. Is looking at the possibility of
shutting down social media platforms? Yea. The debate is raging, isn't it
about what role government has, ifany, and who's the ring leader,
(31:41):
who's going to you know, corralthese these organizations and should they be correct?
It could completely you know, whenwhen we were you know, when
the founding fathers were looking at youknow, building our constitution and looking at
you know, the freedoms of speech, social media was not anything that was
in any way you know, wejust goes even our concept and so you
(32:04):
know what we're talking about here isum, you know, facts and misinformation
and you know if a if aplatform or a you know, an administration
is looking to you know, Iwouldn't say necessarily control the facts, but
(32:25):
just control the misinformation or tame itor or you know, prevent it from
happening. Um. And then theFirst Amendment rights are coming up against that.
It's a real difficult UM set ofshallows Tom to navigate because you know,
what one person believes, um isis fact, and we're finding someone
(32:49):
else believes is fiction and vice versa, and it creates creating a situation where
um, there, you know,the administration is not going to be able
to really, you know, puta hammer down and cut out some business
information that's getting spread around social platforms. Let's take a phone call or two
(33:12):
before we wrap up. David Richardis my guest. He's a professor over
at Emerson and also the CEO ofa PR agency called Big Fish, which
is operating in Boston and as clientsall over. Let's go to Joe Anne
in Weymouth. Joanne, thank youfor calling WBC's Nightside. Hi, Hi
Jordan him David much respect. I'mactually reading a book called The Disconnected Generation,
(33:40):
Saving our Youth from self Destruction,and it's all about what's going on
with social media. I'm a CDDN, a certified Developmental Disabilities in nurse.
I've worked at Hampstead Hospital in NewHampshire where we've dealt with this, worked
to there from two thousand and twelveto two thousand and twenty. Where have
(34:02):
you been all my life? David? I'm serious. I mean we need
to connect people because there's a lotof very educated people that are in agreement
and would probably like to see thistaught in the school system. Yeah,
it's it's The thing is is socialmedia has come up on us so quickly,
(34:27):
and it's two thousand and nine probably, Yeah, it's only been but
even two thousand and nine. Ifwe were to if we were to try
to build a curriculum around two thousandand nine, um, it had already
started with poeting different I mean,i I've built, I built a syllabus
around social media marketing and I hadto completely change around because because integram right,
(34:54):
so like, since the challenge isteaching our teachers how to how to
teach how to adjust to these things, right, It's just like it's looking
at you know, the facts andwhat comes at us through these social platforms
and understanding like is this you know, how do I how do I verify
that? But also like is theinformation coming at me? Is this an
(35:17):
actual snapshot of the world or isit what an algorithm or AI is feeding
me? And Joe. I'd liketo see it taught very young, because
I've dealt with children as young astwo years old who are on the spectrum
from non verbal to high functioning asBurghers twenty six years old at Hampstead Hospital
(35:43):
and then ste Run. I believeand geezu, these kids can be very
much misinterpreted in the school system.The behaviors well, I also think it.
I remember hearing a story or two, and it's not apocryphal about a
kid in some country, maybe America, who stuck himself in a room and
(36:04):
played video games for twenty eight straightdays and died or something. It's it's
it's it's like anything. It canbe addictive. And you're on a If
you're on a trolley and I know, David, you may take the tea
occasionally. Since you're going to Emerson, Man, there isn't anybody I know
where Emerson is. I went toschool in um Dorchester. Very good Emerson,
(36:25):
Ryan Hold on one second, holdon, Joe in Um writing the
subway, you cannot find more thanone person out of three hundred not looking
down at the phone, right,David, That is true. And chances
are, you know, if they'renot scrolling through just a regular news feed
(36:46):
for a CBS or type of news, then it's probably gonna be Twitter,
Instagram, Facebook, some one ofthese platforms where they're they're catching up on
their world. All right, Joeanne, thank you for the call, and
thank you for your service to thechildren. That's really a noble profession to
(37:06):
be in. So before we wrapup threads, it's only been forty eight
hours, thirty million. We startedoff with you being kind of high on
this and thinking this could be theone that challenges Twitter and maybe wins out.
What do you think now after wetalk for forty minutes, Yeah,
I really I don't there's going tobe a winner. And I as much
(37:29):
as I like Twitter and I've beenon that platform for a very long time,
I've enjoyed being on that platform fora very long time, there's just
so much going against it. Itjust it's eating itself alive, both in
terms of sort of the content onthe platform and you know from the top
down how it's being run. Atthe same time, you've got a much
(37:53):
bigger competitor, Facebook's plus Instagram rollingout a platform that is you know,
Blue Ocean with no bots in it. I think that they that they have
a lot. Twitter has a lotto worry about here. Um. That
being said, there's you know,other platforms in the works, like as
(38:14):
I mentioned, Blue Sky, umthat I wouldn't write off just yet either.
So um, there at the endof this, Jordan, I think
that there's there's going to be awinner, Like there's going to be one
one platform that's going to come out. Who that is, Which platform that
is, It's it's too hard totell. But at the core, we
(38:37):
as you know, social beings,um that want to be connected and have
trained ourselves now to be connected throughthese smartphones. Do want that digital water
cool or that digital you know townsquare and you know we're more we're itching
for it. That's why we're seeingyou know, thirty thousand people downloading this
(38:59):
appen such a amount of time andso this this smart smart guys out out
of California, the Zucks, theMuskus, the door Sees, they all
know what we want. They're tryingto just build it and build it to
to win the game, and soone of them is going to win.
(39:19):
I just I don't know which horseis going to be. I'm very very
excited to see that there's a strongcompetitor now for Twitter. Big fishpr dot
com is your company's website. Veryinteresting company. I love the site,
love the humor on there. You'vegot to have a sense of humor in
this crazy world. David, It'sbeen a real pleasure. I would say
that the students are lucky to haveyou. Thank you very much for joining
(39:42):
us and filling us in and allthis. Thank you, Jordan Creepy in
here. Take indeed, David Richardis his name. He's a Professor of
Public Relations and Digital Media, whichis of course a very commanding title and
a very good field for young peopleto think about getting into. All right,
we'll take a break and come backwith much more here on Night Side.
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