Good morning, Broadsheet readers! The Queen Consort ditches ladies-in-waiting, First Lady Jill Biden unveils the White House holiday decorations, and Signal president Meredith Whittaker is building an alternative tech business model. Have a lovely Tuesday.
– Sign of the times. If you ask Meredith Whittaker, Big Tech’s problems stem from its business model—one that incentivizes growth and revenue generation, often at the expense of user privacy.
The “surveillance business model,” as Whittaker calls it, is lucrative and low-hanging fruit. In her new job as Signal’s president, she’s figuring out an alternative.
In September, the longtime Google tech leader—and critic—was tapped to head the encrypted messaging app, monetize it, and develop a financially sustainable path forward.
“The surveillance business model that is underwriting most of the tech industry is not something we can participate in,” she says. “We have to figure out how to make money and how to exist to the standards set by the surveillance tech industry without participating in that surveillance.”
Signal launched in 2014 as a user-friendly form of encrypted messaging. The platform stores minimal user data or information other than which phone numbers sign up for Signal accounts. It’s since attracted millions of users, Whittaker says, who are concerned about Big Tech surveillance, looking for a secure communications tool, or have become disillusioned by competitor offerings, such as WhatsApp after its terms of service change. Whittaker says she almost exclusively uses Signal to communicate, though her therapist is the last holdout.
At Signal, she’s leaning toward a donor-funded model that asks users to chip in $3 or $5. (The platform is registered as a nonprofit.) But the platform’s refusal to collect user information makes basic tasks like establishing a payment system more complicated than they’d be at a typical tech company. One recent example is the company’s effort to build a payment system that won’t store names or credit card information instead of setting up a basic Stripe API. “It’s orders of magnitude harder to do normal things in a privacy-preserving way,” Whittaker says.
Her new role follows a long tech career. She started at Google in 2006 and eventually became the company’s Open Research Group leader. In 2018, she was an organizer of the Google Walkout, during which thousands of employees protested the company’s handling of sexual harassment claims and a contract with the Department of Defense. Reflecting on that time, Whittaker says she had to take action because her “integrity was at stake.” She was building a name for herself, championing ethics in A.I., while her employer was making decisions that she thought stood in opposition to that work.
Fixing Big Tech will require a system-wide approach rather than an individual one, Whittaker says. It’s a realization that’s become clearer since stepping into a leadership role herself. “You can have an enlightened CEO who says, ‘This feels wrong,’ but then the board is going to fire them because a board has a fiduciary duty,” she says.
Competing with Big Tech without adopting its practices will be a challenge for Signal. But Whittaker is adamant that the platform will not become a form of social media; it doesn’t have a feed, but it did introduce a stories feature earlier this month.
“People have conflated the progression of technological products created by private corporations with scientific innovation,” she says. “But they’re different things. What tech executives might choose to do to try to optimize for gross and profit does not necessarily have anything to do with an innovative approach.”
Emma Hinchliffe
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@_emmahinchliffe
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Waste of time. Anti-abortion activists are setting their sights on environmental regulations. They're pushing for the fetal tissue that passes when a person takes mifepristone and misoprostol to be treated as medical waste, not flushed down the toilet. Politico
- No more waiting. As Queen Consort, Camilla Parker-Bowles will not have ladies-in-waiting like her predecessors. Instead, she appointed five "Queen's companions" to serve as assistants and friends during some of her official duties in an effort to modernize the centuries-old role. Washington Post
- People's holidays. First Lady Jill Biden announced this year's White House holiday decorations theme: "We the People." The decorations include a Gold Star tree honoring military servicemembers, a room dedicated to National Parks, and a display highlighting small acts of kindness. ABC News
- Family affair. HBO will air a documentary titled Pelosi in the House next month, directed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's daughter Alexandra. Deadline
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Angie Klein, chief revenue officer of TracFone and Verizon Prepaid and CEO of the digital carrier Visible, will take on a new role as SVP and president of Verizon Value within the company's consumer group division. She'll continue to serve as CEO of Visible.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- March for a cause. Women across Latin America marched on Friday to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Protesters demanded an end to gender-based violence and better criminal investigations into murders and sexual assaults. Reuters
- Trouble at Balenciaga. Balenciaga is in hot water for running a controversial ad campaign featuring children holding bags shaped like teddy bears wearing BDSM accessories. Now Kim Kardashian has weighed in. Kardashian said she was "shaken by the disturbing images" as a mother of four and is reevaluating her future with the brand. NBC News
- Next generation. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently made two public appearances with his daughter, believed to be about 10 years old. The appearances have prompted speculation about Kim's succession plans because children of North Korean leaders are typically not seen alongside their parents until officially named a successor. Washington Post
ON MY RADAR
Are the men of The White Lotus OK? Vanity Fair
How to talk to a widow New York Times
Emma Thompson's third act The New Yorker
PARTING WORDS
"People always ask, 'Why don’t you shut up?' But there’s just too much at stake."
- Nobel Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa. Her new book is How to Stand Up to a Dictator.
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