WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.850 align:middle line:84% If I'm lifting my head because I'm drinking my coffee. 00:00:02.850 --> 00:00:05.430 align:middle line:84% And this wretched headset is too bulky for me 00:00:05.430 --> 00:00:07.530 align:middle line:84% to drink my coffee without moving the headset. 00:00:07.530 --> 00:00:11.370 align:middle line:84% So don't think I'm craning my neck weirdly. 00:00:11.370 --> 00:00:12.960 align:middle line:90% Yeah, some things we can't see. 00:00:12.960 --> 00:00:15.660 align:middle line:84% Nick Clegg was the leader of Britain's Liberal Democrats. 00:00:15.660 --> 00:00:18.240 align:middle line:84% In 2010 he formed a coalition with David Cameron's 00:00:18.240 --> 00:00:20.670 align:middle line:84% Conservatives and became deputy prime minister. 00:00:20.670 --> 00:00:22.980 align:middle line:84% Then that fell apart and the Brexit vote happened 00:00:22.980 --> 00:00:25.980 align:middle line:84% and Clegg took another bruising assignment at Facebook. 00:00:25.980 --> 00:00:27.883 align:middle line:84% Then Facebook became Meta and told us 00:00:27.883 --> 00:00:30.300 align:middle line:84% that the future of technology was immersive digital worlds 00:00:30.300 --> 00:00:32.049 align:middle line:90% known as the Metaverse. 00:00:32.049 --> 00:00:34.800 align:middle line:84% So I was asked to meet Nick Clegg in the Metaverse. 00:00:37.090 --> 00:00:37.840 align:middle line:90% Can I start off... 00:00:37.840 --> 00:00:40.995 align:middle line:84% and you're obviously now much more tech savvy. 00:00:40.995 --> 00:00:41.620 align:middle line:90% Hang on, Henry. 00:00:41.620 --> 00:00:42.970 align:middle line:84% Before we start, can we just turn around? 00:00:42.970 --> 00:00:44.770 align:middle line:84% Look, we have a logo for you, you see? 00:00:46.925 --> 00:00:50.680 align:middle line:84% I just wanted to check that you know that we've provided 00:00:50.680 --> 00:00:54.190 align:middle line:90% all corporate accoutrements. 00:00:55.780 --> 00:00:57.280 align:middle line:84% I mean, I think in your politics you 00:00:57.280 --> 00:00:59.350 align:middle line:84% had a sort of anti-establishment bent. 00:00:59.350 --> 00:01:01.338 align:middle line:84% And does the tech world fit into that? 00:01:01.338 --> 00:01:03.130 align:middle line:84% I think the British political establishment 00:01:03.130 --> 00:01:05.530 align:middle line:84% is in deep trouble and I think it's 00:01:05.530 --> 00:01:08.140 align:middle line:84% an unreformed set of institutions, 00:01:08.140 --> 00:01:10.570 align:middle line:84% which I think are really holding the country back. 00:01:10.570 --> 00:01:13.690 align:middle line:84% And I've long viewed social media 00:01:13.690 --> 00:01:16.090 align:middle line:84% as being something which in the end 00:01:16.090 --> 00:01:18.970 align:middle line:84% is enormously empowering because it allows billions of people 00:01:18.970 --> 00:01:21.490 align:middle line:84% to express themselves in a way they couldn't do before 00:01:21.490 --> 00:01:24.328 align:middle line:84% without being told what to say, what to think, and so on. 00:01:24.328 --> 00:01:26.620 align:middle line:84% What's the decision you found sort of hardest or that's 00:01:26.620 --> 00:01:28.570 align:middle line:90% most brought that home to you? 00:01:28.570 --> 00:01:30.215 align:middle line:90% Oh, I think the Trump decision. 00:01:30.215 --> 00:01:30.715 align:middle line:90% Right. 00:01:30.715 --> 00:01:33.070 align:middle line:84% Which Mark asked me to sort of lead on. 00:01:33.070 --> 00:01:37.180 align:middle line:84% And I really, really wrestled with that because on the one 00:01:37.180 --> 00:01:39.670 align:middle line:84% hand, it seemed entirely clear to me 00:01:39.670 --> 00:01:43.210 align:middle line:84% that what appeared on our platform in Trump's name 00:01:43.210 --> 00:01:46.450 align:middle line:84% transgressed some pretty basic principles. 00:01:46.450 --> 00:01:49.510 align:middle line:84% And there was a very strong case that he 00:01:49.510 --> 00:01:52.510 align:middle line:84% should no longer be entitled to express himself on a platform. 00:01:52.510 --> 00:01:55.630 align:middle line:84% On the other hand, whatever you think of Donald Trump, 00:01:55.630 --> 00:01:58.000 align:middle line:84% he's the former president of the greatest democracy 00:01:58.000 --> 00:01:58.870 align:middle line:90% on the planet. 00:01:58.870 --> 00:02:03.500 align:middle line:84% And it is an exercise of considerable power 00:02:03.500 --> 00:02:05.718 align:middle line:84% on the part of then Facebook to say, no, 00:02:05.718 --> 00:02:07.760 align:middle line:84% you're not welcome on our platform for two years. 00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:10.910 align:middle line:84% And what was interesting was that we got roundly criticised, 00:02:10.910 --> 00:02:14.450 align:middle line:84% interestingly, by people like Angela Merkel and Macron 00:02:14.450 --> 00:02:15.890 align:middle line:84% and others who were saying how... 00:02:15.890 --> 00:02:20.120 align:middle line:84% so it's a classic dilemma, which was that if we had not taken 00:02:20.120 --> 00:02:22.700 align:middle line:84% that decision we would have been roundly criticised probably 00:02:22.700 --> 00:02:25.250 align:middle line:84% by the same people for not acting. 00:02:25.250 --> 00:02:29.090 align:middle line:84% Because, remember, Twitter had said that he 00:02:29.090 --> 00:02:32.360 align:middle line:90% was sort of forbidden for life. 00:02:32.360 --> 00:02:34.912 align:middle line:84% And yet, in taking the action, we're 00:02:34.912 --> 00:02:37.370 align:middle line:84% accused of deploying too much sort of private sector power. 00:02:37.370 --> 00:02:40.070 align:middle line:84% And interestingly, by the way, not that you've asked, 00:02:40.070 --> 00:02:44.690 align:middle line:84% the most difficult one decision I feel we took in government, 00:02:44.690 --> 00:02:47.298 align:middle line:84% which is quite different to what people often expect me to say 00:02:47.298 --> 00:02:49.340 align:middle line:84% and it's also the one I probably regret the most, 00:02:49.340 --> 00:02:52.490 align:middle line:84% was the military intervention in Libya. 00:02:52.490 --> 00:02:55.043 align:middle line:84% I found that absolutely agonising. 00:02:55.043 --> 00:02:56.210 align:middle line:90% And I think we got it wrong. 00:02:56.210 --> 00:02:57.830 align:middle line:84% I thought we got it really wrong. 00:02:57.830 --> 00:02:59.600 align:middle line:84% And it's the one I regret most, actually. 00:02:59.600 --> 00:03:01.070 align:middle line:90% Not interestingly enough. 00:03:01.070 --> 00:03:03.410 align:middle line:84% When did you become convinced it was wrong? 00:03:03.410 --> 00:03:04.890 align:middle line:90% Quite a long time afterwards. 00:03:04.890 --> 00:03:07.432 align:middle line:84% So I'm not going to pretend it was an instant sort of wisdom, 00:03:07.432 --> 00:03:09.350 align:middle line:84% but maybe about a year or so later. 00:03:09.350 --> 00:03:11.300 align:middle line:84% And, of course, at that time, I remember, 00:03:11.300 --> 00:03:13.580 align:middle line:84% oddly, I remember speaking to Biden about it a lot. 00:03:13.580 --> 00:03:16.460 align:middle line:84% And Cameron, obviously, was speaking to Obama a lot. 00:03:16.460 --> 00:03:20.293 align:middle line:84% And they were very, very wary of what we were... the French... 00:03:20.293 --> 00:03:22.460 align:middle line:84% I mean, gosh isn't that an interesting thing, Henry? 00:03:22.460 --> 00:03:25.880 align:middle line:84% To think back to a day where the French and the British 00:03:25.880 --> 00:03:29.360 align:middle line:84% take a joint military decision where now we can't even 00:03:29.360 --> 00:03:30.710 align:middle line:90% agree on fishing licences? 00:03:30.710 --> 00:03:32.960 align:middle line:84% I mean, it's just an amazing illustration 00:03:32.960 --> 00:03:34.620 align:middle line:90% of how the world has changed. 00:03:34.620 --> 00:03:36.632 align:middle line:84% I think when you first met Mark and Sheryl, 00:03:36.632 --> 00:03:38.090 align:middle line:84% you said the problem is that people 00:03:38.090 --> 00:03:40.980 align:middle line:84% think you're too powerful and you don't care. 00:03:40.980 --> 00:03:41.630 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:03:41.630 --> 00:03:42.850 align:middle line:90% And that remains the case. 00:03:42.850 --> 00:03:45.183 align:middle line:84% But at the same time Facebook wants to be more powerful. 00:03:45.183 --> 00:03:49.595 align:middle line:84% And Meta, the Metaverse, if successful, 00:03:49.595 --> 00:03:52.610 align:middle line:84% will lead to an increase in Facebook's power 00:03:52.610 --> 00:03:54.480 align:middle line:90% over people's lives. 00:03:54.480 --> 00:03:57.530 align:middle line:84% I think the answer as ever with power is to hold it to account. 00:03:57.530 --> 00:03:59.570 align:middle line:84% One of the things I would love us to do, 00:03:59.570 --> 00:04:01.730 align:middle line:84% and I think we will do this and this is something 00:04:01.730 --> 00:04:04.220 align:middle line:84% that I think many people in the company believes is right, 00:04:04.220 --> 00:04:07.640 align:middle line:84% is just give users much, much, much more control 00:04:07.640 --> 00:04:10.340 align:middle line:84% so the power relationship between the platform 00:04:10.340 --> 00:04:12.823 align:middle line:84% and the user shifts much more to the latter. 00:04:12.823 --> 00:04:14.240 align:middle line:84% That's the first thing you can do. 00:04:14.240 --> 00:04:16.760 align:middle line:84% Second thing you can do is, obviously, regulate. 00:04:16.760 --> 00:04:18.709 align:middle line:84% Put rules in place about elections, 00:04:18.709 --> 00:04:21.200 align:middle line:84% about privacy, about data portability, 00:04:21.200 --> 00:04:22.580 align:middle line:90% about content moderation. 00:04:22.580 --> 00:04:24.205 align:middle line:84% And then the third thing you need to do 00:04:24.205 --> 00:04:28.392 align:middle line:84% is devolve things from decision-makers 00:04:28.392 --> 00:04:29.850 align:middle line:84% in the company where you can, which 00:04:29.850 --> 00:04:32.080 align:middle line:84% is why I think the Oversight Board is so important. 00:04:32.080 --> 00:04:33.538 align:middle line:84% And then the final thing I'd say is 00:04:33.538 --> 00:04:35.880 align:middle line:84% I do think there's a considerable potential 00:04:35.880 --> 00:04:40.110 align:middle line:84% for the kind of fundamentals of blockchain technology, 00:04:40.110 --> 00:04:42.600 align:middle line:84% such that you have a trusted system, 00:04:42.600 --> 00:04:45.090 align:middle line:84% but you have no central authority running 00:04:45.090 --> 00:04:49.350 align:middle line:84% that system, which is in essence the kind of governance 00:04:49.350 --> 00:04:52.550 align:middle line:90% insight of blockchain. 00:04:52.550 --> 00:04:54.300 align:middle line:84% I wonder whether that's something actually 00:04:54.300 --> 00:04:56.970 align:middle line:84% you could start instilling in the Metaverse. 00:04:56.970 --> 00:04:59.070 align:middle line:84% In other words, that you have in the Metaverse 00:04:59.070 --> 00:05:03.720 align:middle line:84% forms of governance where precisely the company is not 00:05:03.720 --> 00:05:06.390 align:middle line:84% in control and is not appearing like Big 00:05:06.390 --> 00:05:08.250 align:middle line:90% Brother over your shoulders. 00:05:08.250 --> 00:05:10.752 align:middle line:84% Do you have an idea of what safety looks like 00:05:10.752 --> 00:05:11.460 align:middle line:90% in the Metaverse? 00:05:11.460 --> 00:05:17.280 align:middle line:84% I.e. will I be allowed to in some kind of Meta environment 00:05:17.280 --> 00:05:20.820 align:middle line:84% walk over and sort of and push you and maybe slap you, 00:05:20.820 --> 00:05:22.140 align:middle line:90% like I might do in a pub? 00:05:22.140 --> 00:05:24.420 align:middle line:84% If you're in Horizon as you are now, right? 00:05:24.420 --> 00:05:28.500 align:middle line:84% That's run by Meta, that's owned by Meta, it's designed by Meta. 00:05:28.500 --> 00:05:31.110 align:middle line:84% Clearly, Meta then has a responsibility 00:05:31.110 --> 00:05:34.200 align:middle line:84% to make sure that you and I have got the controls we 00:05:34.200 --> 00:05:35.700 align:middle line:90% need to keep ourselves safe. 00:05:35.700 --> 00:05:37.950 align:middle line:84% And we have those already, you can literally 00:05:37.950 --> 00:05:41.160 align:middle line:84% at the press of a button you can sort of 00:05:41.160 --> 00:05:44.377 align:middle line:84% make yourself invisible, you can abstract yourself from a space 00:05:44.377 --> 00:05:45.460 align:middle line:90% where you don't feel safe. 00:05:45.460 --> 00:05:48.990 align:middle line:84% You can report to content moderators. 00:05:48.990 --> 00:05:52.980 align:middle line:84% But remember, the Metaverse is far, far bigger 00:05:52.980 --> 00:05:56.190 align:middle line:90% than the Meta Metaverse. 00:05:56.190 --> 00:05:57.690 align:middle line:90% It's far bigger than Horizons. 00:05:57.690 --> 00:06:00.990 align:middle line:84% You will move from this space to a different space, maybe run 00:06:00.990 --> 00:06:03.750 align:middle line:84% and designed by Microsoft, or by Roblox. 00:06:03.750 --> 00:06:05.460 align:middle line:84% The technology of the Metaverse means 00:06:05.460 --> 00:06:07.127 align:middle line:84% that you and I will be able to literally 00:06:07.127 --> 00:06:10.890 align:middle line:90% create rooms ourselves. 00:06:10.890 --> 00:06:13.530 align:middle line:84% We will need to think really hard about the different layers 00:06:13.530 --> 00:06:14.760 align:middle line:90% of responsibility. 00:06:14.760 --> 00:06:16.620 align:middle line:84% It's obvious to me that if you're 00:06:16.620 --> 00:06:20.790 align:middle line:84% a company that is designing the basic operating system, 00:06:20.790 --> 00:06:23.700 align:middle line:84% you have a heavy responsibility for how that operating 00:06:23.700 --> 00:06:24.300 align:middle line:90% system works. 00:06:24.300 --> 00:06:26.100 align:middle line:84% In the same way that Apple and Google 00:06:26.100 --> 00:06:28.770 align:middle line:84% have a heavy responsibility for the way in which Android 00:06:28.770 --> 00:06:30.175 align:middle line:90% and iOS work at the moment. 00:06:30.175 --> 00:06:31.800 align:middle line:84% Could you stay another five years here? 00:06:31.800 --> 00:06:33.810 align:middle line:90% Another 10 years in California? 00:06:33.810 --> 00:06:35.130 align:middle line:90% No, no, no, no, no. 00:06:35.130 --> 00:06:36.585 align:middle line:90% I don't think so. 00:06:36.585 --> 00:06:38.340 align:middle line:90% Not another five years? 00:06:38.340 --> 00:06:44.790 align:middle line:84% I don't know, but I'm such a European at heart. 00:06:44.790 --> 00:06:50.840 align:middle line:84% But through the work, I've got no sell-by date, not least 00:06:50.840 --> 00:06:53.345 align:middle line:84% because I actually think there's some really big things 00:06:53.345 --> 00:06:54.970 align:middle line:84% that I've been working on, particularly 00:06:54.970 --> 00:06:56.770 align:middle line:84% this whole new kind of generational regulation 00:06:56.770 --> 00:06:57.895 align:middle line:90% that I want to see through. 00:06:57.895 --> 00:06:59.260 align:middle line:90% I want to see how this pans out. 00:06:59.260 --> 00:07:00.610 align:middle line:90% It fascinates me. 00:07:00.610 --> 00:07:03.803 align:middle line:84% How's the meeting worked out in the Metaverse? 00:07:03.803 --> 00:07:04.510 align:middle line:90% It's fine. 00:07:04.510 --> 00:07:06.760 align:middle line:90% Was this as good as Zoom? 00:07:06.760 --> 00:07:07.870 align:middle line:90% Well, you tell me, Henry. 00:07:07.870 --> 00:07:12.820 align:middle line:84% I mean, I run my team meetings every Monday morning here 00:07:12.820 --> 00:07:19.570 align:middle line:84% and I like it because I do feel I'm sitting next to you. 00:07:19.570 --> 00:07:20.710 align:middle line:90% How do you feel about it? 00:07:20.710 --> 00:07:22.550 align:middle line:90% I feel... 00:07:22.550 --> 00:07:23.050 align:middle line:90% yeah. 00:07:23.050 --> 00:07:25.330 align:middle line:84% I think as you say, very early, I 00:07:25.330 --> 00:07:27.580 align:middle line:84% don't want to use the word prototype, but rudimentary, 00:07:27.580 --> 00:07:28.150 align:middle line:90% as you say. 00:07:28.150 --> 00:07:30.670 align:middle line:84% I mean, you can see what you're building towards. 00:07:30.670 --> 00:07:32.390 align:middle line:90% That's right, that's right. 00:07:32.390 --> 00:07:34.277 align:middle line:90% That's very well put. 00:07:34.277 --> 00:07:35.860 align:middle line:84% It's by no means the finished product. 00:07:35.860 --> 00:07:40.560 align:middle line:84% Look, we don't even have legs or feet.