HEFFNER: I'm Alexander Heffner,
your host on The Open Mind.
From his Master Switch:
The Rise and Fall of
Information, circa 2010,
to his newly published
The Attention Merchants:
The Epic Scramble to
Get Inside Our Heads,
Columbia University
law professor Tim Wu is the
preeminent internet thinker.
The father of
net neutrality,
Wu is a devoted
advocate of democracy.
In fact, he and Zephyr
Teachout challenged
Andrew Cuomo's governorship on
an anti-corruption
and economic
fairness plank.
While their candidacy
did not prevail,
it was the most visibly
contested gubernatorial
primary with an incumbent
in recent memory.
For now Wu has turned
his attention anew
to these mercenaries
of advertising,
from analog to digital
monopolies of information power.
Booklist calls his
book "an urgently needed
national and global
conversation."
Wu is studying the
seemingly inescapable
advertising
saturated culture.
Indeed, clickbait that
surrounds us is
the new normal, as is the
absence of regulation.
In a revenue
making formula,
the financial gain on
which powerhouses like
Google and
Facebook thrive.
Even as we may think
we're tuning out the ads,
they no doubt
have altered,
and perhaps undermined
the potential of
our civic consciousness.
And that's what
we're here to discuss.
Tim, a pleasure to
finally meet you.
WU: Likewise.
HEFFNER: How have the
attention merchants,
stunned, if they have...
WU: [LAUGHS]
HEFFNER:
our civic growth.
WU: You know I think they
have completely affected
how we live
day-to-day life.
Um I don't know
about you but uh,
ah, most of us are
subject to thousands,
if not tens of
thousands of appeals,
solicitations, little
efforts to gain our
attention every day.
Facebook updates, emails, you,
you name it.
And I think in
that kind of context,
where our
attention is so uh,
uh captured, or
so uh, contested,
the sort of normal civic
discourse that you imagine in,
in a democratic system
is hard to maintain.
HEFFNER: How should
we try to maintain it?
WU: Uh you know it's,
it's a hard question.
It's always been the, uh,
uh a question of how do
you battle consciousness.
But I think one of the
things I say in the book
is that it is important
if we're going to have
an informed and educated
citizen—citizenry,
that we have more control
over our attention,
if that makes sense.
If, that we... choose to
use this resource—I mean,
this, what I mean
by that is our time,
you know, 168 hours
a week that we have,
and spend it how we
really want to spend it.
And one of those things
is spending it on uh,
not whatever
comes to you, but,
you know, what you
really want to read.
The movies you
really want to watch.
The news you
really want to read,
as opposed to,
kind of just,
f—uh... letting it
become dissipated away.
HEFFNER: Where do you see,
in this digital paradigm,
the right relationship
between the advertisers
and their readers?
WU: Well it is,
whatever it is,
it's not what we
have right now.
[LAUGHS] I think
we've kind of...
hit, especially
with the web,
uh we've hit uh,
hit rock bottom,
I, I, I like to think.
We're in this kind of
war between readers,
who are um increasingly
frustrated with,
with the number
of ads, with,
you know, stuff
clogging their sites,
click-baity content—and
advertisers who are
absolutely
desperate to reach people.
And uh they,
they can't uh,
they, they can't get
people to sit still for
ads, and so their
ads become ever more
intrusive, ever more
privacy uh intruding.
At the same time, just to, to
add to this further,
there are demands on
growth of Facebook,
Twitter, Google, so
they have to increase
their ad load, increase
their revenue.
So we're sort of in
this terrible standoff,
where the web keeps in
some ways getting worse.
I mean you think about
the web over the last five
years, a lot of the sites
have actually gotten worse
instead of better as they've
become a better platform
for advertising as opposed to
better for the users.
So we're in a bad place,
and one of the things
I call for in this book,
is we kind of need to,
to, to fix it, reboot.
I don't know what it
is, but save the web.
HEFFNER: Save the web.
WU: Yeah.
HEFFNER: What is the most likely
prescription um
that is within reach?
And I say this knowing
from the book and your
history, that you are...
a pragmatic advocate of
digital equality,
digital literacy.
What, if anything, do
regulatory— WU: Mhm.
HEFFNER: organs...
WU: Right.
HEFFNER: ...do to protect the
actual democratization?
WU: Right. Uh, you know, I
think it doesn't start there,
but starts with what
you said which was uh,
with the business models.
So the web was this, you
know, tremendous invention.
The internet before, but
the web in particular,
tremendous invention.
Uh with a lot of promise,
um, idealistic in its way.
Uh, the ideas connecting anyone
who wants to share information.
The problem is that almost all
the sites have decided
that they uh... only,
their only model is a
high-growth, uh... revenue
quarterly doubling every
year or so forth, kind of
business model through
advertising.
And if you're gonna
have that business model,
if you're gonna
promise your investors,
I'm gonna double your
revenue you know every
X years or every—maybe every
year—it means you
have to constantly make your
product worse for users
and better for
advertisers.
And so we've
seen you know,
over the years, uh
look at YouTube.
YouTube, it was better
just a few years ago.
[LAUGHS] Now it is loaded.
You know, Google itself
is getting heavier
and heavier with ads.
And the demands are getting
stronger and stronger.
The sites and
the web get worse.
Uh I think you, you put your
finger on the button.
I, I don't think the first
response is you know,
regulatory, uh, you know, here's
the rules of the web.
Um I think the first
response is a profound
rethinking of the
business models,
of the major companies.
Uh Wikipedia, you
know, it's not perfect,
but has certainly maintained
its character of the years.
It's a non-profit.
Uh Twitter is uh currently in
trouble for example,
because they only
make a bill—you know,
a billion dollars a year.
A billion dollars a
year is a decent amount
of money,
sustained, you know,
a company that basically,
what do they do?
Distributes conversations.
Uh so this... uh idea—and I
think there's some hope
for example, for Twitter,
to move to a co-op or
non-profit model, where
they can last a longer
and try to focus on being
better as opposed to
trying to generate
more ad revenue.
'Cause once you're in the
trap of constantly trying
to get more ad revenue—if this
show was about ad
revenue—[LAUGHS]
HEFFNER: [LAUGHS]
WU: You know you
would be in a completely
different—you, uh state.
I mean somehow we
would—
HEFFNER: We, we wouldn't be the
accidental billionaires.
WU: Right. You would
be throwing some native
advertisements in.
I would be talking about
like Chevrolet
or something.
I mean, you would have
to warp the show a lot,
to keep that ad
revenue coming in.
And that's
what's happened,
that's the trap the
web has gotten in.
HEFFNER: Right so, in an
environment in which we
are primed to... be the...
victims of those ads
or subliminal messaging...
how do you rethink the
business model in such a
way that... the...
goal is not the
IPO bonanza—
WU: Right.
HEFFNER: ...but preserving
a communications
apparatus that is going
to serve the best
interests of the country.
WU: Uh I'm an optimist
and you know I think
that media can be reborn.
They go through
ups and downs.
Television, you know, has gone
through multiple incarnations.
It was, you know, s—idealistic
in the early 50s.
By the late 50s everyone's like
given up on it.
It was the game shows and
uh Gunsmoke and western.
You know they had
sort of fallen,
all the good
shows had gone.
But you know, TV's had
a tremendous come back.
I think the web can come back.
Um and can come better.
I also think the
internet itself uh...
isn't limited to the web.
You know sometimes people
get the two mixed up
and you can have things that run
on top of the internet
that are not the
web, but have content.
One of the things that has
emerged over the last ten
years, which I think
has been uh great in a,
in, in many ways, is,
is streaming video.
You know, new T—paid TV
models over the internet.
I mean Netflix,
Amazon Prime,
and... uh sh—uh, you
know, and that has really
changed television, but it's
actually part of the internet.
So I wanna say that it's
so—what I'm trying to say
is not only can we
try to save the web,
but have new, new
things, new platforms,
new forms of
media, which we try to,
from the beginning uh
preserve a better
public character to them.
We sort of blew
it on the web, I think.
[LAUGHS] You know we were too
optimistic, too idealistic.
We thought, okay, we'll
just put it out there
and everything will be
fine. And it's gotten way down.
And you could build
something from the outset
that was, that
was a better media.
Ultimately, we get
the media we build
and I think that's what
I'm trying to say.
HEFFNER: Right,
in, in terms of the
classification of the
internet as a utility
rather than a luxury.
I think that very much
speaks to the point
that your making, which
is, in order to safeguard
institutions within the
web that are of paramount
significance, to ensure
our civic livelihood...
WU: Mhm.
HEFFNER: We, we have to
reclassify not just
their status as utilities, but
not gauge them as these...
WU: Right.
HEFFNER: ... um,
big pay days.
WU: Right.
HEFFNER: And so as
you looked in the book,
as the history
unfolded of advertising,
one of the things you
say is it was darker
than you ever envisioned.
WU: Yeah.
HEFFNER: But...
for our viewers,
how, is it truly
unprecedented,
the scale and scope
to which the internet
as we know it today
is unrelegated, if you look at
the way these monopolies
from analog to digital evolved?
WU: Well they're not
fully un—that's a,
it's a hard
question actually,
'cause it depends
what you call regulated.
Uh, you know the
advertising on the
internet is still in
theory, regulated.
It's um... uh... uh, it's
uh, still illegal to
lie—supposedly illegal to
lie in your advertisements
and you know, promise this pill
is gonna lose you
40 pounds when in
fact it, you know,
drives you
crazy or something.
HEFFNER: [LAUGHS]
WU: So that, that stuff is still
in technically illegal.
I think what there isn't,
is a kind of norms
that evolved in print
journalism for example.
You know in
print journalism,
um... I don't say the ad,
the wall between ad
and editorial is perfect, but at
least it somewhat exists.
On the web, all that
stuff is up for grabs.
It's, you
know, the entire,
look at uh, you know,
something like BuzzFeed.
You know, everything
they do is driven towards
trying to
maximize ad revenue.
And so I think there—we
just kind of have a
chaotic
situation on the web,
no strong norms that preserve
um... editorial independence.
Eh and I think that's
one of the main problems.
HEFFNER: What are the
implications of this network
of ad buyers and sellers in
equalizing access to the web?
You of course
were... a leading advocate
of net neutrality as
instituting a norm—
WU: Right
HEFFNER: ...for the way the
internet ought to operate.
WU: Right.
HEFFNER: And not have super
highways for the rich and
internet access that is of a
lesser quality for everyone
else. How is the attention
merchant culture rewiring us?
WU: Sure. Uh that's
a great question.
I, I think that the
attention uh merchants
that I describe in the
book do get at some
of the concerns
that net neutrality
was also concerned about.
Net Neutrality's
fundamentally about some
equality of
arms on the web.
Some sense that uh the
big owners of the pipes
don't get to dictate who
wins, who gets to speak.
And that, that
was its principle.
But that same eh equality
principle has come
to have I think increasing
importance on the pipes
in the content
world. Um.
We once thought that the
web would be this kind
of incredibly egalitarian,
everyone speaks and gets
listened to, a
kind of network.
Uh, you know people
believed that for—I,
I was one of the
ones who believed it.
We believed it.
Uh now you look at it,
it really has become a
platform dominated by a
few really big speaker—you
know, plat—Facebook,
Google, uh Twitter.
Now they sort of
facilitate other people's
speech, but Facebook's
almost more about Facebook
than it is
about, about us.
It, it all—we almost sort of all
seem the same there.
So, eh, to the extent
there's an attentional
contest, they are also
powerfully warping it.
Uh in other
words, you know,
either you get your
message through Facebook
or it's very
hard to get heard.
All the publishers uh
complain about this.
You know the
newspapers and so forth.
So I uh think—I, I don't
have like—unlike net
neutrality, I had a
very clear solution—here,
I don't know what we do,
but I think we have to do
something to try to kind
of um... deal with the power
uh of the main
platforms on the web. Um.
You know there's, there's
antitrust investigations
sometimes.
But I think above all that
is one of the big concerns
of the next uh ten years,
is the power of the uh,
internet's main platforms.
HEFFNER: And how,
how do you foresee
that battle being waged?
WU: Well it's somewhat
being waged in Europe
right now with various antitrust
uh investigations.
HEFFNER: I was
saying to our viewers,
if you use the web in Europe,
you're in another society!
Just, in terms of the kinds
of advisories that you receive.
WU: Right. Yeah, no, it, that,
that, that is uh going on.
Uh as again I don't
think it... I'm not,
uh, of the belief
there's a one—you know,
one silver bullet legislative
solution to this challenge.
Essentially, I mean this book is
about our attention.
Our moment to
moment experience.
It's a very subtle thing.
And so part of what I
call for in the book is,
you know, ourselves
kind of taking...
uh our own control
over your attention.
Being more conscious about
how you spend your time.
So I don't know if you've
ever had this experience.
Uh, you, you decide you're
gonna write an e-mail
and you go to your
computer, and then like,
three or four hours later
you clicked on a million
links and you just
kinda lost yourself?
I, I think this
happens to us a lot.
I think we're always kinda
losing control of our
attentional autonomy.
And part of what I call
for in this book is, is
reclaiming that.
And I don't think like
a bill of Congress can
reclaim your
consciousness for you.
[LAUGHS] Uh it would
be nice if it could.
I think we have to limit the
power of the main players.
But I think that it starts
with us and seeing
and thinking
carefully about
what we pay attention
to in our lives.
And realizing that if
you are spending you know,
most of your
life on a screen,
that that might
have consequences.
HEFFNER: So a kind of
psychological evaluation?
WU: Well I think
just a self-awareness.
Um I think it takes a
different kind of
self-control in our period.
It's, it's incredible the
kind of self-control you
need actually, to do
what you want to do.
Because everything you
want to do it starts by
what you pay attention to.
[LAUGHS] And... it's
very hard to control our
attention in
this day and age,
because as I said earlier,
there's so many powerful
entities who want you
paying attention to them
for this reason
or that reason.
And you get sort of
sucked into things.
Uh I know a lot of people you
know just at their day
jobs and at
their desk, you,
you know can't get their
work done anymore because
they just spend so much
time clicking or getting
lost and um... I, I,
think that we need uh,
you know, to become very wise
about how we spend our
attention.
HEFFNER: The genius of the web
from its inception
was to practically
connect you to resources.
WU: Right.
HEFFNER: In your interest.
In the utility of time.
And instead, it
seems to have...
shortened our
attention spans.
WU: Mhm.
HEFFNER: In the process of...
that kind of utilitarian use.
WU: Right. I think that what
you spend your time with
affects your life
very profoundly.
Part of the thing—part
of the motivations for writing
this book was uh the study of
the work of William James—
HEFFNER: Sure.
WU: ... a philosopher
of the 19th century.
Very focused on attention.
And the one line in
particular that he made
that had an affect
on me, which was,
the idea that your life,
when you get down to it,
is just what you choose
to pay attention to.
[LAUGHS] And so, you, you
know to um... whether—so the
web um... you know in theory
offers the potential
for a much more realized life,
in the sense that you have
many more options... for what
you can spend your attention on.
You just go to this
site or that site.
It's not like there's
three big networks and
that's it, and you either watch
I Love Lucy or a game show.
No uh you have almost, in some
ways, unlimited options.
But... one of the things
that I think we learn
about ourselves is we're
not great sometimes at
dealing with
freedoms [LAUGHS].
You know offered
a full plate of,
of every possible
freedom, uh sometimes we,
I, I don't
know squander it,
or, or aren't good
at controlling it.
And we almost have to set up
systems to discipline ourselves.
And that's what I think has
happened over the last 15 years.
I don't know if it's a
utilitarian or, or what, uh,
it is.
But it certainly, the fact that
we have this enormous
menu of options and
have found that kind of
confusing and have, you
know almost acted like
people at a buffet who've been
stuffing their faces and you
know—
HEFFNER: [LAUGHS]
WU: ... taking tiny little
pieces of a million different
types of food.
That's kind of our intentional
diet right now.
HEFFNER: [LAUGHS]
WU: Is we just run
around randomly like
eating pieces of shrimp,
and you know carrots and—
HEFFNER: [LAUGHS]
WU: ... whatever comes our
way, and uh... yeah.
HEFFNER: There is a
certain mindlessness—and
I wanna ask you about how
politics influenced—
WU: Sure.
HEFFNER: ...your notion of the
attention span of the electorate
or the—
WU: Sure yeah.
HEFFNER: ...consumer base.
But, prior to
writing this book,
you had run for
lieutenant governor here.
And... addressed a host
of constituent concerns.
WU: Yeah.
HEFFNER: Public policy.
And had to grapple with
how you... achieved that
minimal degree of
attention for—
WU: Sure.
HEFFNER: ... something nuanced
that you might want to say.
WU: Right.
HEFFNER: How is
that process?
WU: You know, running for
office is a good [LAUGHS]
eh, experience for anyone
who wants to learn how
attentional markets work.
Because you then, or how
any of our markets work
today because you realize,
before the substance.
Before the like, am I right, are
you right,
is the point of getting anyone's
attention at all.
So you could be the
better candidate.
You could, you know, be
vastly more qualified,
better ideas,
whatever it is.
If you don't have the
attention of uh anyone,
you, you just don't get
anywhere. You're a zero.
Um it's, you know, it's
the same with products.
You maybe have a
better mouse trap.
Well if no one hears about your
mouse trap, it doesn't sell.
So [LAUGHS] uh
it, uh Joe Trippi,
we, the uh advisor uh
gave me this advice.
You know, we were
unknown candidates,
and he said, uh, "You know
your name isn't out there",
he said, "what you need to do uh
is light yourself on fire.
Uh and then uh everyone
will know who you are."
The problem with that is
then you will have lit
yourself on fire
[LAUGHS] and so,
you know, you're gone.
So you need to
find a way—
HEFFNER: That's what happened to
Lawrence Lessig when he
said that he would resign
upon his ascension to
the Presidency and then no one
took him seriously.
WU: Right, so he
said, so you know,
he said if you light—if
you do light yourself on
fire, well that, that...
so you need to find a way
where you come
close to that,
and get, you know, sort
of so you get on the page
with people... uh you know
all of our contests are,
are, are two step.
Number one, get
people's attention,
then you can get
to the merits.
So in the case of our campaign,
um, it did take a while.
Eventually I think we did
reach at least the voting
public—primary
voting public,
which is a small
segment of the population.
Uh we had the fortune
of, of uh Andrew Cuomo uh
suing us to try and
get us off the ballot,
and that created a
lot of attention.
It was kind of a, uh,
poor move on their part.
And I, uh we also had
you know more coverage
than you, you might uh usually
get for an in—for uh
insurgent candidacy but...
Uh it was a real lesson
in just how hard it
is to get started,
you know, in politics if
you don't have a big name
already, or if
you're not a millionaire.
Those two things—if
you are let's say a,
a Clinton, or a Trump,
that's your name—
I mean you don't have
to be Donald Trump,
you could be any of the
Trump family—then you
start with a
huge advantage.
Uh if you are
a billionaire,
then you start with, well
the billionaire is here.
So they, they are
running. Uh. Yeah.
HEFFNER: The most
interesting thing,
according to the
Shorenstein report,
uh at Harvard... Tom
Patterson studied the
extent to which these
candidates while their
name recognition was
through the roof—
WU: Right.
HEFFNER: ... were both the
recipients of the most
negative coverage in the
history of the American
political press.
WU: Right.
Well the one thing you learn is
coverage is still coverage.
I mean there's, the, the
old idea that no publicity
eh is bad publicity, is
somewhat true in politics.
I mean there's
some that can be bad.
But you know, Donald
Trump during the primaries
season endured a
lot of bad publicity.
But he had publicity
[LAUGHS] you know.
Anything he did got
people interested.
And so he reached many
more people than he ever
might have otherwise.
Uh, you know, it's a
trick to doing that while
maintaining
your viability.
But uh... being
scandalous, I think,
in the future's not
necessarily going to be as
bad for politicians,
especially with the
decreased attention spans.
So I, I, I see a
future where more and more
candidates are like
reality TV show people,
where somehow
they're—
HEFFNER: So they, they are
lighting themselves on fire.
WU: They are lighting
themselves on fire.
Um you know why, why
did everyone watch
juice—Jersey Shore?
It was like
not—it was Snooki.
You know like this crazy person
who just did random stuff.
[LAUGHS] I think that's
kind of where some of
our politics is headed.
HEFFNER: Of course we have to
pay homage to Neil Postman
in the amusement
to our death, possibly.
I like to say, can we mute—amuse
ourselves back to civil society?
Back to a [LAUGHS]
functioning democracy?
The jury is out.
WU: Right, I agree.
HEFFNER: But you seem to be
a, a bit more optimistic
about the potential for,
for those... fires to—
WU: Right. Mm.
HEFFNER: Do you think that
the, the attention merchants
um... sort of uh abiding
thesis of sensationalism, right?
WU: Right.
HEFFNER: Is what has
hijacked... all elements
of discourse today?
WU: Uh, I mean,
I, in a word, yes.
I, I think that we have
moved towards a society
where it is
far less about,
you know, the
merits of an issue,
but much more about
who first can get enough
people to pay
attention. Yeah.
HEFFNER: From your experience
running for public office—
WU: Sure.
HEFFNER: Were there
any examples of where
you did to some extent
light yourself on fire—
WU: Right.
HEFFNER: ... and you felt that
the substance came through?
WU: I mean,
yeah, I think so.
One day uh somehow, we got Mark
Ruffalo to show up.
[LAUGHS] You know.
The incredible Hulk is here to
endorse our candidacy.
People go crazy—that was like...
all the press showed up.
And, you know, Mark
Ruffalo was there.
That, that was the substance of
the, of the event.
We were talking about fracking
so that was an important issue.
So I think that, you know, there
are ways in which you can
create a sensation and
deliver uh, uh, a message.
And so I'm not completely
saying that everyone needs
to be boring and you know
we should never have um...
any interesting things
going on in the campaign.
There's just a question
of the ratio of the way we
make decisions
in our society,
and how much of it is
driven by the spectacle.
Society of the spectacle,
[LAUGHS] another famous work.
And how much of it,
you know is... uh the,
uh really people thinking
about important decisions.
And uh I think we're
sort of out of balance.
I don't want to
say like politics,
as I said, should be
completely boring.
But the fact
that is, you know,
closer and closer to
reality TV is something
you might want
to think about. [LAUGHS]
HEFFNER: You
have two young kids.
WU: Yeah.
HEFFNER: How, how
do you... want to,
in this next phase
of the internet—
WU: Yeah.
HEFFNER: sort of secure
that promise um so that
their experience grappling
with the attention merchants
is perhaps more constructive
than their father's [LAUGHS]...
WU: [LAUGHS] That is
a great question that
I haven't uh thought
about to this point.
I think I might, just
putting it out there...
limit... say, yes the
internet is great,
but the web not so much.
You know so, for
example—we've already used
uh the internet to watch
Winnie the Pooh and this
Japanese uh movie
Totoro and so forth.
So in a way we've already
used the internet with
them, but it's mainly
been for... programming.
Uh that sort of,
getting on Facebook,
social media—I think I
put a brake on that.
Now by the time
they uh grow up,
it'll probably
be, you know,
I don't know,
virtual reality.
A.I. based, self-driving
[LAUGHS] version of
something... I guess I
would look very carefully at the
business model of anything my
children are exposed to.
That is what I
would fundamentally do.
And it's not that old.
I mean when I was a kid we
watched Sesame Street
and kind of trusted it better
than commercial television.
And I think I would just
be very careful about all
the business models that
my children are exposed to.
HEFFNER: We're running out of
time but I think you said it,
the business model speaks
to the larger motive.
WU: Right.
HEFFNER: And when you
enter a library versus
when you enter a
brothel on 42nd street.
WU: [LAUGHS] Right.
HEFFNER: There's a
different motive.
WU: Right. Um-
HEFFNER: And those,
and, and that's why
your digital footprint,
your young kids,
and all of the
youngsters watching this,
or the children
of our viewers—it,
that's why the digital
footprint matters just as
much as a, a
carbon footprint.
WU: Yeah.
Uh I, I, I believe, if
there's one thing from
this book is like—the
business model of media
drives everything.
And, you know, the kind
of media you're getting
exposed to, is always
warped or sometimes
corrupted by how they
need to earn the dollars.
You know, it's not
evil. It's just the way it is.
And uh, I, I... uh, so, I,
I think that we would do
better um... you know we, we
would do better in a world
where we knew more about,
and understood better the
business models that
drive what we see.
HEFFNER: Tim Wu.
Thanks so much for
being here today.
WU: It's been a
pleasure. Thanks.
HEFFNER: And thanks to
you in the audience.
I hope you join us again
next time for a thoughtful
excursion into
the world of ideas.
Until then,
keep an open mind.
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Open Mind website at
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