On March 11, 2016 at 3 PM local time, President Obama gave a Keynote speech at South by Southwest 2016 in Austin, Texas.
After walking out on stage and being greeted by cheers and applause, he was asked about his stop at a Torchy’s Tacos location on the way to his interview. He explained that he had ordered a Democrat, a Republican, and an Independent taco because he was “bipartisan”.
Moving on, he explained that he was in Austin because he likes the town and he wants to discuss change. The world is changing, and change can be both good and bad. It can be disruptive, but at the same time it can advance society. He wants to make sure that the federal government can be part of the positive change. It can do this in three ways: the government and technology need to work together, like the new online FAFSA forms; the government needs to tackle problems in new ways, like precision medicine based on an individual’s genome; and big data needs to make civic participation easier, like voting. This is why President Obama has appeared at SXSW. He wants to recruit citizens to solve problems because the only way problems can be solved is through citizen participation.
When asked about the government and technology seeming to not get along, President Obama drew laughter from the audience when he brought up the Affordable Healthcare Act’s website, which crashed. He described the tech offices inside the government called the US Digital Services, where tech people from companies like Google work for the government to help bring the government to the internet. He expressed the importance of the next president to keep working with the federal government to improve citizen involvement.
He then gave a few examples of what involvement in government can do. Government cannot really get involved and stop ISIS’s recruitment of vulnerable young Americans, but the heads of social media can. They can work with the government to counteract violent extremism. Another example is voting. It is ironic that the US prides itself on rights and individual say in the government, but it is hard to vote in America. “Ordering a pizza online is easier than using your right to vote,” said President Obama. Easier voting will lead to higher voter turnout, as well.
When asked about the distrust of government, President Obama attributed it to cold interaction with the government. When people think of government, they think of the IRS and the DMV. This gives government a bad reputation. People tend to think more about the bad aspects of government like the IRS and the DMV more than the good aspects like the weather service. He believes that easier interaction with the government will increase trust in it.
When asked about the digital divide (access to internet) between most white households and most non-white households, President Obama responded that the federal government is working to increase that. He gave an example of two children that stayed outside of their school into the night doing their work on their phones because the school had wifi and their house did not. Opportunity networks are being incorporated into homes to give the residents internet access. ConnectEd networks are being put into classrooms to connect the class to the internet.
He believes that all the problems are solvable if people do not wait for somebody else to solve the problems. Referring to his 2008 campaign, he said “the slogan was not ‘Yes, I Can’, it was ‘Yes, WE Can’.” The government seems to not be solving problems well for two reasons. One, the government works well in many areas that we won’t give it credit for. Two, the government is trying to solve the hardest problems. The private sector, nonprofit, and the government must join forces. Then, it will be possible to solve all the problems.
When being asked about the recent Apple vs. FBI case, he responded that he cannot talk specifically about that case, but he did talk about how to balance privacy and security. Before smartphones, the government could get a warrant to search a home. It was as simple as that. But after the invention of smartphones, there is now a way to ultimately protect data from the government. However, this is also a threat to security. Individuals want strong encryption, but the police can’t get in if they really need to. He says that people must make decisions about privacy versus security. People must have their privacy, but the government can’t get into the phones “willy-nilly”.
The interviewer informed the president that they were out of time, to which the president responded, “I’m the president, so I’m going to take one more minute.” The crowd laughed. The president used the extra minute to remind the people attending and the viewers at home that if they were interested in becoming involved, they could go to whitehouse.gov, check out the US Digital Services, and ConnectEd. Whatever your passion is, we need you. After Barack Obama is no longer president, he will not stop being involved. He said that he will be in the crowd with the audience next time. “Step up and get involved because the country needs you.”
