I was recently mesmerised, not for the first time, by a radio interview with Meredith Whittaker, President of the not-for-profit encrypted messaging app Signal. (You can listen for yourself at 22’07’’ whilst the link remains active).
It was in the context of coverage of AI discussions taking place in Davos. Whittaker famously doesn’t believe the ‘hype’ around AI and accuses US tech giants of being an oligopoly, marketing their products in ways that are going to give them increasing powers over our lives and institutions.
She is disappointed at the poor quality of journalists’ questions on this. How did you create these systems, she wants to know? How did you collect this data? How are you operationalising it? She therefore advocates for more effective enforcement of existing regulation of AI and the tech sector.
At the same time Whittaker vehemently opposes the UK Online Safety Bill, troubled by the ‘mass surveillance potential’ of allowing state authorities a backdoor in every type of encrypted communication in the name of online safety.
She is challenged on this in every interview and her answer is never evasive. She simply states time and again that her company would pull out of the UK if the Bill ever became an Act because ‘it undermines the core encryption technology of our app’.
You might think those two positions contradictory. I am not enough of a expert to work this out, nor were any of the presenters who have tried, and failed, to get her on the defensive on this. My guess is that she truly believes in the validity of her argument. It’s not just an excuse to oppose pesky regulation.
But regardless of any Machiavellian strategy that might be playing out in the background for all I know, I find Whittaker's open, clear style of answering interview questions very effective, and by that I mean very persuasive. She, how shall I put it...answers the damn questions. When she says ‘let me be very clear’ she proceeds to…be very clear.
Engaging in debate and being open to legitimate scrutiny is a winning PR (and life) hack. If an institution or company refuses debate, avoids answering questions, feigns offence, or deploys a zombie herd of dead cats to change the subject I can’t imagine any policy of theirs, shaped in the shadows of denial and obfuscation, to be remotely robust or worthwhile.
More importantly, in a communications context, I don’t see any such policy, campaign, product or viewpoint to meet with public/customer approval in the long term (and often in the short one).
You don’t persuade people to trust you, vote for you, buy your gadget, sign up to your scheme by shouting ‘nothing to see here’ till you’re red in the face or by sneeringly implying that facts are for the little people and that the little people know nothing anyway.
P.S. If anyone has come across an effective refutation of the validity of Whittaker's arguments against the Online Safety Bill, please do share. As you can tell I’m really fascinated by this topic.
CREDIT: Horacio Villalobos/Getty Images Europe