TFGL20212- S5 - Ep6 - Mall Cops vs Delta Force

Welcome to this episode of the Tech For Good Live podcast.

Joining host Fay Schofield is TFGL pod regular Greg Ashton.

Our special guest for this episode is Becky Steeden, Strategic Social Media Manager at the RNLI

Transcript

Fay: Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome to another episode of the Tech For Good Life. Today, we're heading out into the open ocean of tech for good as we'll be chatting about plant based foods, hacking and advertising. Oh boy. And if you couldn't tell that was boy spelled BUOY. Here for the puns this week. So buckle up and let's get cracking. Joining me today, we have Greg Ashton, reliable like an old seadog. Greg is back on the pod. And our opening question this week is Greg. If you had a boat, what would you call it? And the reason I'm asking sea based puns is in honor of our guest, which we'll get to in a minute. But yeah, what would you call a boat if you owned it? And this could be a yacht, a lifeboat, that's a hint to our guests, or it could be just some kind of shit dinghy. 

Greg: [laughs] I think it'd be a canal boat, probably Simmering Rage.

Fay: Simmering Rage. 

Greg: Or 9am drinking. 

Fay: Love it. Love it. I'm here for that.

Fay: Going to sea on 9:00am. 

Greg: drinking. 

Fay: I like that. 9am drinking. 9am drinking. You came prepared. I love it. And thank God. We have a guest with us today. Becky Stevens. Strategic Social Media manager at the RL&I is joining us today. Becky, we are super excited to have you with us. Same question. If you owned a boat, what would you call it? It doesn't have to be a lifeboat. It could be a life boat if you want it to be a lifeboat, but yeah. What would you call a seafaring vessel if you owned one?

Becky: Oh, blimey. Well if it was a lifeboat, I think I would probably call it the Victim Marsh. My husband is a lifeboat crew and he comes from a long line of lifeboat crew and his granddad who isn't with us anymore, Victor Marsh, used to be the cox of a Spanish lifeboat many, many years ago. So I'd probably name it in honor of him. 

Fay: Awww. Look, two very different vibes honoring family members of ye' old times. And day drinking. I love it.

Becky: [ laughs] 

Fay: I'm here drinking. 

Becky: I'm sure we could partake in some day drinking. 

Fay: We could do a toast to Victor on the 9:00 AM drinking.

Becky: Absolutely.

Fay: On the canal boat. I love it. Lovely answer. And me. I'm Fay. Today, the name of my boat, I can't take credit for this. I saw it on Reddit years ago and it still makes me laugh to this day because God knows. I love a pun. If I owned a boat, it would be The Unsinkable 2. And I can't again, I can't take credit for that.

Becky: Brilliant.

Fay: It was Reddit. It was a Reddit one. So whoever out there owns the Unsinkable, God love ya. So let's move on from this shipwreck of an intro. But first of all, before we dive in. Becky, we've chatted a lot about the RNLI on the podcast, over the past year because Christ you guys have been in a bit of a shit storm, but in a, you know, a bit of a sea storm yourselves. What's it been like being on the receiving end of the barrage of shit, basically. Like, you know, kudos to you and the team, like yeah, what's it been like? 

Becky: It's been quite relentless, I think is probably the word I would use to describe certainly the sort of second half of last year but it's also been really lovely and amazing to see the response that we've had from existing supporters, but also brand new supporters who may be didn't really know what the online was all about, what it stood for and the fact that our volunteers have a pager goes off and they rush off, leave their day job to go and rescue a complete stranger, which over the course of last year, a lot of those complete strangers have been asylum seekers trying to make their way across the channel. So that's been really heartwarming and the way that they kind of came to our aid and came to our support and were very vocal about that on social media last year was really uplifting. And to be honest, it really, it was what kept us going as a social media team. It was really relentless and we did, we were dealing with kind of volumes of comments that we have never seen before. I've worked at the RNLI for 12 years, in the social team, and I've never seen anything like that before. Yeah, relentless, but also kind of uplifting and heartwarming, I would say. 

Fay: Oh bless ya. God love you, to like to you and the team for just having such an amazing attitude to deal with that, you know what I mean? Like some teams would cripple and crumble under it, but the RNLI has remained strong. Like I was trying, I was trying to fight the Shannon class lifeboat. There we go. There we go. 

Greg: [laughs]

Becky: Absolutely. It has a new life but actually a new Shannon that's been called Storm Rider. 

Fay: There we go. 

Becky: Storm riders. 

Fay: Storm riders. I love it. I'm here for it. Greg, let's storm right into stat...

Becky: [laughs]

Fay: I will stop with a ship, sorry, stat of the week what's happening? 

Greg: Yes. So this is a topic that I wanted to talk about for a while. We keep asking our guests for a rant in the week and I've had this one in the hold for a bit. So everybody gets really excited about all this vegan food that's popping up and I just keep looking at it and thinking yeah, but it's all really processed. It all seems to be fast food. And is it actually helping the situation? A new report has come out kind of a number of different places, but it's mainly come from proteins, a life research program. Onegan University of Research in the Netherlands. Basically what they've found is although there's a big increase in the sale of plant-based products, that hasn't actually corresponded in a decline in meat consumption. So we're actually just consuming more and more. So a lot of these organisations are picking up on this trend, so for the likes of Tesco, Burger King, McDonald's, they're all adding new lines, but apparently these are very much additives. So the adding to the existing lines. So claims, you know, for example, Burger King said it plans to make its menu 50% plant-based but the kind of expectation is they're just going to add lots more stuff to the menu and not reduce the amount of meat. So yeah, it's really disappointing that actually what we're going to see is rather than a shift away from meat, it's just pushing further consumption, which even if it's plant-based has a damaging effect on the environment. Is anybody veggie, vegan, flexi, on the call?

Fay: Yeah. Soz, that's me. Well, no, I am. So I've been a pescatarian for, oh, good Lord. Since like 20. Oh, Jesus. I don't know, a long time, nearly a decade. I would say I've been a pescatarian. I didn't stop eating meat because I don't like the taste of it. Meat is amazing. Like, let me just say that. So  for me as somebody that like doesn't eat meat, all of this plant-based stuff is brilliant. Oh my God. Look, I can go into a Burger King, buy a burger and it tastes, well, probably doesn't taste like the real thing. I haven't eaten the real thing in a long time, but it's like, I love it. Cause for me, it's a super accessible kind of thing. So when I saw this story, I was like, oh God, that's like, you know, being somebody that is consuming all of this kind of plant-based stuff. Yeah, it's kind of heartbreaking in a way. It's just like it's not having an impact. Oh, gee. Great. Let me go back to my tofu then, you know what I mean? So it's just, yeah, it's a really interesting one. Cause yeah, I've been super happy to see you. Like, you know, you're walking into the supermarket and there's fake bacon that actually tastes like bacon. That, well, again, it probably doesn't, but to me it tastes like bacon and stuff and it's just like, yeah, it's just really, really exciting to kind of see all that stuff. So this is actually quite upsetting. Maybe upsetting is a bit strong. Yeah. It's just gutting. 

Becky: Disappointing. 

Fay: Disappointing. That's it. That's what my dad used to say to me when I'd go and get pissed on a weekend. 

Greg: [laughs] 

Fay: Disappointed in you. I'm disappointed in the plant-based industry not having an impact on meat sales. What about you, Becky? Are you veggie, meat eater, flexitarian, pescatarian. 

Becky: I am, we all eat meat in our house, but we trying to have, we only really eat meat for kind of evening meals. And we try to have at least half of the week where we don't eat meat. I would say about these products and the kind of impact it has on my kind of buying and eating habits is that on the nights where we don't eat meat, we already kind of have in the main home cooked meals I might make, I don't know, a stirfry or mushroom risotto or something like that. So we're not going to be that inclined to buy these products anyway to be honest. I don't think. I think I would probably only consider buying them if I was actually fully veggie. So yeah, I guess people like me, maybe it doesn't have an impact on our buying habits anyway.

Fay: Yeah, I dunno. It's a funny one. What about you, Greg? You're a carnivore, aren't you?

Greg: I'm a flexi.

Fay: Oh are you?

Greg: Well, I live with a vegetarian, pescatarian technically and so I'm kind of enforced that for a good majority of the time, because I'm not cooking myself a different meal, but also, yeah, I don't get the point in being called a flexitarian like it's something unusual that I choose not to eat meat for some of my males. They're the weird ones who decided that they just wanted me to vouch for every single meal like that for me is just what you've got zero imagination, so you can't see past just having a piece of meat and two vegetables on your plate. So I have to be labeled flexitarian because, oh my God, I want to eat something else. It's just, that should be the norm to me. But it is that accessibility, it is that simplicity of just, we'll just swap this thing for this meat thing. But actually when you look at some of the food that is available, I've used like Gusto and Hello Fresh for a while and their menus, the veggie ones, some of theri stuff is so tasty.

Fay: Yeah.

Greg: For me, it's really just about introducing people to interesting food instead of like, hey, look, you can have this same thing but in veggie. And it doesn't taste the same Fay. It's completely different.

Fay: I know. I know. I know. Every Christmas day I allow myself to eat me. I'm like, fuck it. I'm like, you know, don't eat bait like 300 odd days a year. This is the time I'm going to have my pigs in blankets. So, you know, I get you, but it's just, yeah, it's kind of one of these where I'm like, is this just a trend? Are we going to get, you know, are we going to get to the stage where. You know, you're walking in the supermarket and there's like a vegan and a meat option for everything, which would be amazing. But then again, you know, from what you've sort of said Greg, it's not having an impact anyway. So, is this just an accessibility thing and we just need to get over that and, you know, take out the, kind of like the moral, like, oh, I'm going to eat this because I'm saving a life or whatever it is. 

Greg: Well, I think that the big difference, and there's some really interesting information coming out about this now is around choice architecture. so how we structure, so there's a research report not too long ago about structuring menus to kind of promote the vegetarian, vegan options, which found to be, you know, there's a lot of research actually around how you write a good menu. And it pushes, you know, certain things and makes people look at the vegetarian option more often. The same with choice architecture around supermarkets. So in this article from Box Kroger's, which is a supermarket, they made a decision to sell plant-based meats and cheeses with the conventional meat and cheese, rather than on a separate vegan, vegetarian aisle. And they found that when they did that sales increased by 23% versus being sold in a separate section. So there's little things it's not just about having the options there. It's about how the people that are selling them, promote them. Because as much as people like to think that they are completely in control of their own senses and they make their own decisions, if it's sold to them right, they will just buy it. Like, yeah, the marketing works otherwise people wouldn't be making a lot of money off it.

Becky: I can definitely see how that would make a massive difference. I wouldn't go specifically to the vegan section but if I could see that there was what looked like a really good cheese next to, I would definitely try it, at least. I would be tempted to try it rather than just not going to that part, the supermarket at all. I think there's a lot to be said for that.

Greg: I'm not sure there is a really good vegan cheese. 

Fay: There isn't. I've tried. I've tried them all. Oh God, my mate Fleur is probably the most hardcore vegan that I know and she has tried every single vegan. She's like, try this try, try that. And I'm like, it tastes like plastic mate. 

Becky: Oh no. 

Fay: Can't beat a bit of brie. 

Becky: You know, there's a really good, um, there's a lifeboat named after a cheese. It's called the Lincolnshire Poacher.

Fay: See>? You wouldn't name a lifeboat after a vegan cheese, would you? Like sometimes dairy is the answer. 

Greg: [laughs]

Fay: Launching the Viola. Oh God, well, TBC, I guess. It is nice to be able to go to Mackie D and be like, oh, I'm going to have a vegan burger. 

Greg: Yeah, but what vegan going to Mackie D s? I don't get that. 

Fay: Me. Well, no, no, I'm not a vegan. Well, it's one of them, isn't it? It's just like, you know, vegans can now go out and, but like, if you've been to the cinema, I mean like, oh, let's just pop for a mackies on the way home. Again, this is like showcasing my personal life, isn't it? Like going to the cinema and popping to a mackie's on the way home. But if you've got a vegan in the car, they can now eat with you. Anyway.

Greg: I'm not sure they will.

Fay: Anyway.

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Fay: Greg, what's charity news of the week? What's happening?

Greg: So this was an article that Harish shared and I thought it was really interesting and we have talked about similar challenges in the past. It comes from rest of the world dot org. Basically they found that charities are open to hacking for a very obvious reason, which is, they just don't have the money to prevent it. So Nathaniel Raymond, the lecturer at Jackson School of Global Affairs at Yale University puts it really brilliantly, where he says what we say over and over again is that humanitarians are being expected to hold some of the most sensitive data in the world of the most vulnerable people in the world and have the resources of mall cops to protect against the cyber hacking equivalent of Delta.

Fay: Oh God.

Greg: That is exactly what's happening. And this comes off the back of the International Committee of the Red Cross announced they had been targeted in a major hack on January 19th. The hack comprised of data of more than 500,000 people who were part of its restoring family links database, a program created to help people separated by migration and conflict, find their family members. I mean, it really cannot be like, some know how dangerous it is for that information to be out there. Realistically, I mean, unless they're just grabbing whatever data they can find, which often happens with hacks, if that is a targeted attack, then you know, there's real signs of somebody wanting to do something very bad with that. One example that someone gave was people could contact family members on that list and say, we can tell you, you know, put you in contact with family but you need to pay us X amount, which obviously... 

Becky: Oh God. 

Fay: Not even that, but if somebody is from a conflict zone, for example, you know, if a hacker is getting, I don't know, if we're thinking about kind of, you know, the horrible situation in Afghanistan, hypothetically speaking. Again, professionally speaking, but if you've got, you know, If you've got somebody who's managed to escape and is seeking asylum somewhere else and then a hacker has got your family's details, that possibly could put your family in danger of somebody like the Taliban. Like it's just. Yeah, like this is insanely bad. This is really, really bad. 

Greg: Now the angle I wanted to look out here because none of us are security experts on this call, is an aspect that they pulled out on the article, which was donors don't want to see their money going towards overheads. So the idea of, hey, give us some money so we can fix this really unsexy administrative thing that IT needs to do to keep us safe, is a really tough sell. People don't like doing that kind of fun fundraising. So my question to you guys is, you know, in the social media space, how do we get that message across? Because it is quite a complex one. You know, we need this information to do this service. Some people are trying to hack us and get access to that information. It's complex. So how do we, how do we get that message across that they need to give us more money so we can stop being hacked. 

Fay: Stop being hacked. 

Becky: Good question. I'm not sure I've got the answer, but I think we probably need to do more as a sector to normalise the fact that there's a hell of a lot going on behind the scenes that legitimately needs funding and that if donors really, really want to support this cause, and that's such an integral part of it and that, you know, paying staff fairly and being able to do all the administrative functions that go on in the background is an absolutely critical factor in helping to achieve those causes. So I guess it's kind of a broader subject beyond just the kind of cybersecurity issue, but how do we, a, come together as a sector normalize that more, but also how do we tell that story in a way that is really, I'm just throwing your question back at you, Greg, aren't I? [laughs]

Greg: [laughs]

Becky: How do we explain that in a way that makes supporters and potential donors really get it. I don't have the answer. It's just finding a simple way of telling that story, don't we? 

Fay: It's a really tricky one. I mean, good God. The amount of times that I've either worked for clients or like being in house and you have somebody send, you know, it's normally on Facebook, send a comment and going, oh my God, I can't believe how much your CEO is paid. I've seen your accounts. I've seen your annual review. This is despicable. Why are you not using the money to do XYZ. And it is forever, forever this debate of like, you know, the skilled people in this organisation doing an amazing job. They deserve to get paid. If we didn't have the skilled people doing the jobs that they do, we wouldn't be making the impact that we're making. But as you know, as you rightly say, Greg, it is such an unsexy thing that people want to donate to and they get really, really pissed off. I've worked in house at a charity when we were rebranding and the amount of backlash that we got on social media. So like, well, why are you changing that? Why are you changing it? It's like, well, to rebrand to reach new people, to raise more money, to do work on the ground. And it's just, it's forever this battle of being transparent, but the more transparent you are, sometimes the more it pisses people off, but it's, you know, I think the sector (very big sector}, but I think the sector in general and coming out of the pandemic, you know, everybody has to be transparent about where the money is going, how it's spent and why. So, you know, as you rightly said, Becky, maybe cyber security is just another string to that bow. But then on the flip side, as you rightly said Greg, some of it, you know, some charities hold some of the most vulnerable data that there is. So is it a case of being like, hey, we have people on our database whose lives could legitimately be threatened in whatever way by this hack. We need to beef up our cyber security. This is how much it's going to cost, donate here, blah, blah, blah. So there's almost a way, like, is it actually taking something like this and flipping it and making it a bit of, you know, this is a real risk to all's an hour kind of, you know, the people that we are providing a service for and this is how much it's gonna cost to fix it.

Greg: Yeah, I think there is that opportunity with this unlike management costs, where I think it's a little bit harder to make that case. There's a bad guy and there's a victim in this and if you've got a victim, it's a much easier story to sell and kind of say, look with these bad guys, they're trying to get these poor people's information. You need to help them to protect them. So I think there's more opportunities in this space. Yeah, certainly. Like you were saying, Becky, people understanding how difficult it is to run a charity in the background, I think that more work needs to be done around that. I have a really good idea about using a game for kind of doing some of that. It's like Wordle but you can never find a word cause there's always stuff getting in the way. 

Becky: [laughs]

Greg: So if anybody wants to speak to me about creating that game, let me know. But yeah, I think that definitely, there's an opportunity here where people could identify it as a campaign and say, look, we hope this information. We want to make sure it's secure. We can't afford to do it currently. We need your help. I think the other side of stuff. Let's worry about that later. I mean, look at Captain Tom's charity.

Becky: Oh God, absolutely. 

Greg: I mean, you could argue that it's the whole typical, well, yes, why are they complaining, management costs exist. There is the argument there of, well, you could have given that money through a trust, which would have been much easier. But anyway, that's a whole other topic. 

Fay: That's a whole topic. That's next week's podcast. Yeah. It's a interesting one. It is an interesting one. And it's just, you know, for somebody, an organisation, the size of the International Committee of the Red Cross. And, you know, just reading a point in your, um, in this article here, Greg, that it's probably the better resourced organisations in the humanitarian sector. So it's like, you know, if they're going after the big boys, then smaller orgs possibly, don't stand a chance, but then again, maybe as we've all said, maybe that's a great marketing opportunity. Who knows, who knows? Talking of tech, tech news of the week. Greg what's happening?

Greg: Should have said talking of marketing.

Fay: Talking of, awww shit, marketing. What happening, Greg? There we go. 

Fay: Who else could it be? There's three stories here, actually. I've said two but it's Facebook again. Before we get onto the topic, they've just announced today and it's perfect for this. Mark wants employees to be called meta mates. 

Becky: Oh no.

Greg: And the reason for this is it comes from the nautical thing of shipmates self. So like the order of importance. So he wants it to be meta mates self. 

Greg: Oh, cool. What's the rest of them? So you've got Google Googlers. Are they Googlers? I think they're Googlers, aren't they? You've got Googlers. Is it tweet? Like, I don't know what they call the Twitter lot. 

Greg: Yeah. Oh, that sounds like. Oh, I'm meeting with my friends, not my real friends. My meta mates.

Fay: It's better said in like a proper Mancunian accent, isn't it? If they're going to call themselves that..... 

Becky: laughs]

Fay: I know you're not, sorry. [speaks in Mancurian accent] Forgive me. Greg. What's the story then? 

Greg: Alongside this, they've also just announced, well, Mozilla announced this. So Mozilla who make the Firefox browser are teaming up with Facebook to look at this challenge that Google is also looking at, which is in a more scrutinised world now that people are questioning, well, hang on a minute, why have you got all that data on me. And with the arrival of Apple's update last year, which decimated Facebook's advertising revenue, they're now looking for a new way to do advertising in a more, well, they claim to be a more sensitive way, which is why they're working with Mozilla to do that. So yeah, on Tuesday, Mozilla revealed ‘last few months we've been working with the team from Meta on a new proposal that aims to enable conversion, measurement, or attribution for advertising called Interoperable Private Attribution or IPA’. That's not going to get confusing.

Fay: Nope.

Greg: IPA's. Nope, probably don't want to call it that. Basically it allows advertisers to measure the success rate of ads while being more privacy respecting. So the core of it is to replace per action reporting with kind of aggregated reports for like batches of events. So separating it more from the individual's actions to kind of groups of actions. My worry with this is, and apparently Firefox has been working on something like this for a while called Priya, I guess they're working with Facebook because Facebook is fucking massive. When their shares dropped billions the other week, the value that they dropped was like the rest of all of the social media platforms combined. And it was only like a quarter of what they'd lost. So it makes sense to kind of team up with a big boy, but at the same time, I mean, we've seen this time and again, you've got somebody who's trying to be more ethical and, you know, the devil and whenever they team up, it's never the nasty one that comes out the worst in that situation. It's always that person who is trying to do good, are the ones that they end up getting smeared because their fans are more expectant of a good project. What do you guys think? 

Becky: Yeah, I think you can see the backlash happening already with Mozilla fans, can't you and people who I guess expected better from them and to team up with Facebook. It's interesting. I don't, I'm trying to think of how it will work in terms of kind of a practical application of it being kind of batches of events rather than specific events in terms of what that would mean particularly for charities using Facebook for advertising and different platforms for advertising. And I guess it might be really bad news for them, depending on how that kind of plays out. 

Greg: I wonder though, I don't think charities are the ones that this would impact. I think the level of detail that charities go to is probably what they're going to deliver. You're probably able to do it, buying a think that kind of really granular, creepy kind of advertising is probably your organisations who've got like hundreds of staff work in their advertising and marketing teams. 

Becky: Yeah, maybe.

Greg: Actually, it might simplify things for charities and make it a little bit easier. 

Becky: Maybe.

Fay: It's just like, oh God, like, just sick of fucking talk about Facebook. I'm not, I'm not, I don't mean that. But it's like Mozilla have, they've been on Facebook's tail for years at this point, you know, being one of the only tech companies that are like, guys, are you not looking at the evil shit that Facebook is doing? And then to like, read like, oh, secretly, we've been partnering with Meta for the past few months. They're shooting themselves in the foot. Like, you know, I can understand what they're trying to do, blah, blah, blah. Sometimes, you know, you need to dance with the devil to actually make some change, but it's just, of all the devils the dance with why the fucking Facebook. Mozilla is a company in the light Missoula foundation and everything else has been so vocal about their reports, their media articles, the work that they do calling out the harm that the face, sorry, Meta platform does, to actually read that they've been cozying up to them. And that's how, like, I know that it's literally not cozying up to, but that's how I'm reading it as somebody that likes Mozilla and uses their platform and all this kind of stuff. It's that to me, which is the real icky thing about this story and it's just, as you said Becky, kind of waiting for the smear campaign to happen now.

Becky: Yeah. Yeah. I guess they're coming at it from the angle, I presume, of hoping to change things from the inside rather than from the outside, that has obviously not had much of an impact until now. So they're hoping maybe this is a different way of tackling it. 

Greg: Being the optimist then for once. Let's say they do this and they come up with a much more ethical way of advertising and Facebook pick it up and they've got huge reach, how does Facebook fuck it up? [laughs] I can only stay optimistic for so long. 

Fay: They would find a way. I have no trust in Facebook at all. As a platform or anything. Do I have to use it day to day? Yes. Clients, you know, my clients are on it, charities are on it or whatever else. So it's kind of like, you know, your shift improves shit with Facebook because it's just, it is, it's true. As a platform, it causes so much harm. The handful of reports that have come out in the past year, the impact that Instagram has on like the mental health of young teens or whatever else. Actually as a platform ethically, it's awful, it's bloody awful. And the thing that really pisses me off about Facebook is that we, you know, as a society, we're so tied into it, work-wise professional-wise you know, especially from mine and Becky's point of view, working in social, it's not as though we can distance ourself from it on a professional level. On a personal level, yeah, do what you want. But that's what grinds my gears about Facebook. And just going back to your question, Greg, of how could they fuck it up. They would find a way because they would find a way to take this and make more money from it and that way that they're going to make more money from it. Because Zuckerberg does not have a soul would come at a cost to somebody or would come at a cost to some marginalised group or somebody would be cut in half. I'm very much being the pessimists for Facebook. Like we've sat on this pod god knows how many times, and like talked about the harm and it's just not getting any better. Good luck Mozilla. Pat on the back, you know, onwards or that kind of stuff. But yeah, not holding out a lot of hope.

Becky: I do wonder if that will eventually be their downfall though. The fact that everything they do is not user-focused, is not about making the experience for the user the best thing to be, like on Tik Tok for example. It's about monetising everything. It's about making as much cash as they can off of those users and their data. And I wonder if that will eventually be their downfall in the sense that users will just get fed up and go to platforms where it is about their experience and that Facebook will eventually kind of die off because of that. Live in hope.

Greg: I think Meta will be their downfall. They've chosen the name of their own belt. They've named themselves their own downfall because what they've forgotten is their model is built on getting lots of people to sign up and the level of access for the meta verse is too high. Even if you bring it down, you're going to want to make it, so they're just turning themselves into a games company and the games are shit because the technology is not there. You're looking like decades ahead. So yeah. 

Becky: It's all theory. It's all theory that they’re trying to sell us. And there's nothing tangible that people can, other than kind of imagining themselves in some kind of new version of second life, there's nothing tangible there. I think you're absolutely right.

Fay: Stupid things that they're doing. Greg, is that your second story? Like, don't get me started on this, but anyway. 

Greg: So alongside meta mates, they've decided to rename the 15 year old newsfeed, 'feed' because they've realized now that actually the newsfeed implies that there's news in there and they've realized that there's not so they're going to call it feed, and then that way, if the government says you need to be acting like a publisher, they're gonna go but we're not publishing any news. It's just called Feed.

Greg: In the same way that no one is going to call them Meta. They will always call them Facebook. No one is going to call it feed. Everyone will call it. 

Fay: I saw a couple of people tweeting about this and they're like, oh yeah, I call it my feed anyway. And I'm like, who are you? It's always been newsfeed. This is the thing that is getting me about Facebook and that kind of going back to what you just said, Greg, it's like, they're trying to rebrand to get away from the shady, like, oh, you know, Meta, feed, look at us, we're a brand new company. We don't do any harm. And it's just like bullshit. Yes, you do. They have created such, you know, society is so dependent on Facebook that it's always going to be referred to as Facebook. It's always going to be called the newsfeed and this rebranding and trying to kind of shift all of that, just plays in my mind anyway, just plies into this, you know, we're shady and we're trying to run from it and these are the reasons why.

Greg: I think they've shot themselves in the foot a little bit, because there is a secondary meaning to that name change. And I think if I say it in a different way, it might come across a little bit more. Feed. It literally sounds like an instruction. Feed. Feed. Feed. 

Fay: Yeah. It is . You know, Becky, I don't know if you get like this as well, but like working in social it's such like, you sometimes feel that you're walking kind of like a bit of a trapeze wire, because it's just like on one side, it's like social media causes harm, look at all the dangerous stuff that it does or how Facebook, like, when it stormlight the Capitol building and like all this kind of stuff. And then on the other side, you know, if you work in social professionally, it's like you constantly having to juggle all that ethical kind of like, oh, well, I'm working with platforms that cause a lot of harm. But on the flip side, do a lot of good.

Becky: Yeah. Absolutely. 

Fay: And that is something that I struggle with, but yeah, what's your take on that? 

Becky: Facebook in particular, I remember going to the conference last year or a webinar or something last year, which was all about how do charities do away with, or work against an over-reliance on Facebook. And I ultimately we all came away with it at the end kind of thing, we can't. We can diversify our other kind of income streams and ways of talking to some potential supporters on social media as much as we can. But ultimately, it's something like 70% of the UK population now has a Facebook account. You can't get away from that. And it's really, really difficult. And I think we have to make sure that our kind of advertising practices are as ethical as possible. And we've gone over all that over all the fact with a fine tooth comb, but ultimately you cannot get away from the fact that Facebook has this kind of penetration into our audiences that nowhere else does. And you're turning your back on a massive means of communication and driving income with supporters if you don't. 

Fay: Yeah.

Becky: It doesn't sit well with me but I don't think there's an answer at the moment. I think maybe in a couple of years time, hopefully the landscape might be slightly different and some of the other platforms might have more prominence and more market share.

Fay: Yeah, it's an interesting one. What's your take on that, Greg? 

Greg: Yeah, I think the only way you're going to really shift it is, you're either going to see a long tail of people just slowly drifting away from Facebook or less people joining it. So your numbers are spread across some of the newer sites. And then charities have to make a decision about where they're going to have a presence. You can't do all of them all. 

Fay: Nope.

Greg: Or and I love this side there, we have a pandemic style kind of big event that means that suddenly we have to adapt very quickly, you know, recently in the investor call, they mentioned that if certain things go ahead in Europe, that they would just turn off Facebook in Europe. I'm not sure whether that included the UK, but we were certainly threatening suddenly, you know, investigations into the way that they handle data. I don't think they would ever do that, but I would love it if they did. 

Fay: Can you imagine? Holy fuck, can you imagine if like you were, yeah, you were logging on facebook.com. Sorry. This domain does not work in your country .To tick tock, quickly to Tik Tok. 

Greg: I do think, I think it will be panicking and I think things would happen. But I think that would drive a lot of people to rally around charities and to support them in other ways and hopefully they'd be able to carry that on after the inevitable turn back on of Facebook. But I think that little break would, cause one of the reason charities won't do it is cause it's a risk. It's a big risk. Even if you know that it's causing harm, you can't turn around as a charity and say, we're going to risk losing a ton of money because of unethical questions. You can't do that. So I think removing that choice from their options and just forcing it on them. My app. You know, give them the opportunity to break that addiction 

Fay: I love it. It feels like Black Mirror shit.

Becky: It'll take something radical , I think, unless we see this gradual decline of Facebook and Meta. Yeah. Some kind of radical shift. We have to rethink what platforms we're investing in. 

Fay: Yeah, no, I agree. And I honestly think, I think Tik Tok in particular, it has like, don't get me wrong, we could sit here and chat for hours about like the dodgy dealings of tech as well, because nobody's perfect. But that for me is probably, in all of the like 12 plus years I've been doing social media, is the one channel that really is a disruptor. In a way that we haven't seen before. Like yes, we've seen Snapchat. Yes. We've seen like, you know, everything from Clubhouse to Twitter spaces. Vine. RIP Vine. I miss Vine. For 

Greg: It's for the new generation.

Becky: Yeah.

Fay: But Tik TOK just has a way I think of, you know, as you sort of said, Becky, of penetrating society. Specifically younger generations that I haven't seen since Facebook. And that was really exciting and don't get me wrong. There's like a ton of shit wrong with Tik Tok as well. Nobody's perfect, but it's interesting to see how social media has shifted generally, just over the past two years with the pandemic and with the rise of Tik Tok. 

Becky: The thing for me was seeing when, cause obviously when Snapchat came around and then Facebook and Instagram copied stories and for a while it seemed like, you know, that was the new big thing and they had really kind of won over that model and incorporated that into business as usual on their platforms. And then when Tik Tok came along, I thought very slowly they've copied with the reels format and it just hasn't had the same impact on Tik Tok the way that copying stories did with Snapchat and the fact that Tik Tok have kind of riden that storm and are still very on top, for me, shows a kind of, like you say, shows them as a disruptor and shows a longevity there that I think is very unique. And we haven't seen for quite a while in terms of new platforms. So I'm really interested to see what happens is Tik Tok over the next couple of years. 

Fay: Exciting. Exciting. 

Becky: I love it.

Fay: I love it. That was good ole social media chat. Rant or nice of the week. Becky, we're going to put you on the spot. Have you got anything that's pissed you off, anything that's made you smile? 

Becky: I feel like this is a bit of both because I've seen niceness that makes my heart sing and I've also seen very poor examples of this that makes me really cross. And the thing for me that I'm seeing a lot of, particularly on Twitter being talked about a lot at the moment is, inclusive or not, recruitment practices across sectors in general. And I've seen some examples of really exciting kind of changes. And it feels like it's a time of change. And obviously a lot of that has been brought about by the pandemic where, you know, roles are kind of being reviewed and looked at whether they can be remote or at least hybrid and interviews are taking place online, which is much more inclusive, particularly for people who are neurodiverse or for whatever reason feel more uncomfortable, more comfortable should I say, doing an interview online. Interview questions being shared in advance. Just lots of more inclusive practices and then campaigns like, Show The Salary and Non-graduates Welcome doing really brilliant work. But then I guess also kind of rant to the week is just being really disappointed to see organisations that I hoped would do better than that. Just not changing anything or being really, really resistant to change. Maybe they have really good reasons, but on the surface it looks like we're just reluctant to change because this is how we've always done it and it's more convenient for us. And I just think that is so shortsighted. So a bit of a nice and a bit of a rant for me this week.

Fay: Love it. 

Greg: I think they have to change as well. Cause I'm seeing across various sectors, usually tech roles are really hard to fill at the moment. There's a lot of competitionand I think having those, presenting that aspect, you know, we're inclusive and not just saying it, actually showing it. There's a lot of people who say a lot of shit in the job ad. Well, yeah, it's easy to say, oh yeah, we're really friendly. You're not fucking friendly. You're all a bunch of arseholes. Same we're inclusive and then just not doing the basics in the run-up to that person being employed.. Yeah. I think that is your first, a good kind of vacancy filling experience should be, you know, should give people a good indication of what the place is going to be like to work for. 

Fay: A hundred percent, a hundred percent. And finally Greg, what's up?

Greg: Yeah. So we're doing a follow-up from a previous story, which I very rarely do. But this happened so quickly, which was fantastic as well. So it was a stat of the week where we were talking about price indexing and poverty and a campaigner and writer, Jackman Row was talking about creating a new price index for poverty to look at things like the affordable ranges within supermarkets and things like that, because Jack's view was that the current price index was not inclusive, didn't give the real picture. And has now had the permission from the Pratchett's estate to use the term vimes boots, which isn't a n economic theory that he came up with. He borrowed it from an economist, I think, but basically it's this whole idea that rich people can afford to buy the things that will last for longer, so end up spending less than poor people who have to buy the cheapest things, but then don't last. And it was a pair of boots. So had that permission, but even better than that, Asda in the space of a week, I think, a month or a week, a very short space of time responded and Jack was able to go into an Asda and see the price reductions and see that the prices had been pulled back to last year's prices. And they've committed to keeping them low and to adding new lines in there. And so, you know, still a long way to go on that, I think, but yeah, really, really good news. 

Fay: Yeah. Nice to have a follow-up. We don't do that.

Greg: No.

Fay: That's nice isn't it?

Greg: You know, I'm like, this is really interesting, I'll talk about it for ages and then my attention gets drawn elsewhere and I forget..

Fay: [laughs] 

Greg: Whenever I promise to do a follow-up, you're never going to get one because I don't keep track of it. Yeah. 

Fay: But that’s the reason people keep tuning in Greg. Anyway, that’s all we have time for today.  Becky, thanks for joining us. Did you enjoy it?

Becky: I did. Thank you for having me. It was lovely.

Fay: Absolute treasure pleasure.  Anything to plug? Where can people find you online? Where are on Twitter, where can they stalk you, not stalk you. I don’t mean that.

Becky: [laughs]

Fay: Where can we find you?

Becky: I mean, on Twitter I’m rusty underscore steed. I can plug the fact that I’m leaving the RNLI at the end of April, which means my job is up for grabs. So if anyone is interested, it’s live on the RNLI website until I think it's the 24th of this month. 

Fay: Oooohhh.  Listeners, get in quick. Get in quick. I’ll be sure to put a link to that in all the socials that we publish around this podcast as well. Listeners, what are your thoughts?  We'd love to hear your thoughts. Get in touch with us on Twitter at tech for good live or you can email us, if anyone emails anymore at hello at tech for good dot live. We'd love it if you'd give us a nice iTunes review and tell all your friends about this podcast as well. Thank you to Podcast.co for hosting our podcast and thank you to all of our many offscreen volunteers who you can find on our team page at our website tech for good dot live.