Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Frank H. McCourt Jr. Wants To Buy TikTok & Change The Internet + More

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INTERVIEW: Frank H. McCourt Jr. Wants To Buy TikTok & Change The Internet + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. Breakfast Club, Good morning.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Everybody is the DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne the guy
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: we are to Breakfast Club law La Roses filling in
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: for Jess was on maternity leave, and we got a
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: special guest in the building.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: We have Frank mccaud welcome, thanks for having me. How
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: you feeling this morning?
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: Feeling good? And you pretty good?
• 0:20
  Speaker 4: Pretty much black and favored man. For those who don't
• 0:23
  Speaker 4: know Frank, te just tell them who you are.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: To Mike Frankon.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's start with the fact that I'm a father
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: of seven kids. Oh okay, fifth generation builder, born and
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: raised in a little place called Watertown, Massachusetts, right outside
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: of Boston. So you know, my my great grandfather came
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: here a long time ago as an immigrant and started
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: building roads when Henry Ford started building cars, and so
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: we've been building stuff ever since. And so yeah, I'm
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: I guess my work kind of identifies me in many
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: ways because I've worked hard for a long time. I've
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: had the privilege of owning some sports teams, which are
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: is fun, hard work, but fun. And yeah, that's a
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: little bit about me. Who else I own a football team?
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: Called Olympic there must say French football club. We just
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: had a massive win last night against Leon congrats. One
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: man down after the four and a half minute mark,
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: so we had to play the entire match with ten
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: guys and beat them in their house three to two.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: So that was massive for our club.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: How was owning the Dodges? I'm sure you were a
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Red Sox fan, I.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: Would assume, yeah, growing up, that's right.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: So how was that purchasing the Dodgers being a Red
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Sox fan?
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: It was, yeah, it was amazing actually to own the Dodgers,
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: you know, in credible franchise. So look, I I my
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: my grandfather was owned a small part of the Boston
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: Braves when they were in Boston, and but they left
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: Boston when I, you know, here I was born. Actually,
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: so anything I I knew about that was in a
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: scrap book. But I so, I grew up a Red
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: Sox fan, had eight times there with my family growing
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: up and then with my kids, you know, and so forth.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: And they went on the market, and after being in
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: a family for a long long time, and I had
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: the privilege of of bidding on the on the club.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: We were one of the three finals but didn't get it.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: It was like an inside job. It went to an
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: existing owner, which was fine. I mean, it's that that's
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: the game, right, I mean, it wasn't like when you're
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: buying a team, you're not just it's not like buying
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: another company. You have to get owners approvals and all
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: that stuff, so they they decide who's going to buy it.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: So anyway, it was disappointing, But on the other hand,
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: like massive privilege to to be bidding on my hometown team,
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean. Never did I think I
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: would be in a position to do that. And after
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: losing the bid, I went to New York here and
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: and met with the the the higher you know, the
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: leadership at MLB just wanted to make sure I hadn't
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: steped on anybody's toes in the process, because Boston is
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: pretty can get pretty rough when it comes to politics
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: and sports and all that. And they said no to
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: the contrary, would you like to buy another team? And
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: I said, yeah, I haven't even thought about it, but
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: I'll get back to you. And so I looked around
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: and Dodgers were on the market, Murdoch was selling them,
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: and the rest is history. We ended up buying it.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: So it's sometimes you know, one door closes, the other.
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: Opens when you sold it? Are you did you sell
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: it to the group that Maddie Johnson was with?
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, So it's magic And yeah, I was going
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: through the massive divorce, ugly, humiliating, embarrassing and all that
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: and very public. There's a lot of things are in LA,
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: uh and sold the club to move on with life.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Now you want to buy TikTok.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, tell us about that. Why would you love to
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: jump into the social media world?
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: It's interesting. So when I was in LA through that
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: tough period, I got a little taste of what social
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: media is. Was like, yeah, and that was think about
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: this for a second. Now. That was I got separated
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: in July of nine, So, uh, my divorce was a
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: matter of, you know, a public thing for three years
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: and tough. Yeah. I had four at the time. Uh
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: and but for those four it was very tough. And
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: uh it was tough all around and for everyone and
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: not just me and and but I I I watched
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: what was happening here and first of all, let me
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: is it don't feel don't feel bad for me. Okay,
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: I'm doing great. So that's that's not the point of
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: what I'm about to say here. But I I saw
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: this complete change in how we were communicating or or
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: sharing information. I'm not sure we were communicating. And you know,
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: Facebook had introduced a like button, smartphones were in everybody's hands.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: So all this, like this wild wild West was it
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: was appearing right before our eyes. And so I was,
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: as I said, I felt a sting of all that
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: because and you know what, I felt like a guy
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: with a watching my house burn down with a little
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: garden hose with low water pressure, Like I'm supposed to
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: put that fire out. It's impossible. So and I said,
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: you know to myself at the time, while this is
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: it in the direction it's going, this is going to
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: take us all down. This is going to just destroy
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: everything we love.
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: This is an nine when you felt it like that?
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. So it was a three
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: year period where I got a glimpse at something, and
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: little did I know that I'd be here ten plus
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: years later talking to you about this. But I saw that.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: My first move after selling the Dodgers was to help
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: start a public policy school in Washington, d c our
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: Nation's Capital with Georgetown, my alma mater. We started that school,
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: and you know, I hope that, you know, maybe we
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: could get the policy making apparatus up to speed here
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: and out in front of the problem, so that this
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: runaway you know, runaway machine wasn't going to, like I said,
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: destroy everything we love. And so I started that public
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: policy school in d c And in twenty thirteen, and
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: it's a great place. It will be the best public
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: policy school in this country. I'm certain of that. However,
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: I learned after two three years that policy making and
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: the whole policy making apparatus is no match for big tech.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: You know, technology is big, it's powerful. These companies are rich.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: They have people all over Capitol Hill, you know, donating
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: money and so on and so forth, and it moves fast.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: And tech could care less about democracy. Tech could care
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: less about truth or trust. Tech could care less about
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: our kids. It just optimizes for whatever. You know, some
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: technologist says, optimized for this. We have these algorithms optimizing
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: for crazy shit, and we're all suffering the consequences of
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: that right now. So it was five years ago, that
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: December of nineteen, that I had shifted my focus to
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: the actual infrastructure because we have an infrastructure problem we
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: have and I'm an infrastructure guy, and if we could
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: fix the infrastructure, fix the engineering problem, we could change
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: how this all works. So I launched something called Project Liberty.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: I was gonna ask are they selling TikTok because I
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: thought at one time the government was trying to force
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: the guy to sell it, but he didn't want to
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: sell it. So are are they actively selling TikTok for
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: you to purchase?
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Great question. They the government is it has passed
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: the law that the President's signed that TikTok must either
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: sell the US piece of TikTok and byte Dance as
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: the company, or shut it down. And byte Dance is
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: resisting that, and so there's litigation right now. There was
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: just a hearing last week. I think the government's case
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: is very very strong. I think they'll prevail and Bytance
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: will have to either shut down US TikTok or sell it.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: And our bed is they're going to sell it, not
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: shut it down. And we don't want to see it
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: shut down. There's one hundred and seventy million people using
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: it that enjoy it. It just shouldn't be wreaking havoc
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: on the world, you know, and you know creating the
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: harms it creates, and it doesn't have to. So I
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: don't want to be the CEO of a social media platform.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: Don't misunderstand me. What I'd like to do is see
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: the one hundred and seventy million TikTok users come over
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: to a new protocol where each of us own our owning,
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: control our identity, We own and control our data, we
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: permission its use. It's not just scraped up by these platforms.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: Aggregated algorithms apply to it, and then we have a
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: lot of crazy stuff going on. We need people, and
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: this is my strong opinion, we need technology where we
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: own us again and we're in control of us again,
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: because right now we are not in control of us.
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: These these platforms are what's a comparable time of you said, well,
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: we own us again on the internet. When did we
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: owners our own info on the internet.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: Before what I'll call the app age. So when the
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: Internet started forty one years ago, it was decentralized and
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: nobody was scraping our data, surveying us twenty four to
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: seven and taking advantage of us. And in eighty nine,
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: the World Wide Web started, and that's when our data
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: was up for grabs. That's when it all started, right,
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: Suddenly the data was out in the in the ether,
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: so to speak. Right, and a few companies, you know,
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: they understood that if you own everybody's data, you own them,
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: and whoever was going to own the most data would
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: be the winner, quote un quote, right. And so you
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: had a winner in social that was Facebook, now meta,
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: you had a winner in search that was Google. You
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: had a winner in shopping that was Amazon, and so
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: on and so forth. And what happened was this data
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: is don't don't think of it as this like amorphous
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: thing that doesn't mean anything. Your data is you. These
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: platforms know everything about you, more than you know about
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: yourself because they have hundreds of thousands of data points
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: about you, and so they make judgments about you. So
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: it's not just like where you shop or what you know,
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: you know what what what your interests are and what
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: restaurants of this that. It's it's how you think, it's
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: how you feel. So they're predicting. They have a they've
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: made an assessment of your personality and mind, so that
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: means they can trigger us, right, Yeah, and that's not
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: that's not a good thing.
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: So who do these companies sell it to? And like,
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: how did they know that they should be farming people
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: with data?
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: Well, I think what they what they real essar is
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: that they had the data was going to be very
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: valuable and so let's collect the data and figure out
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: how to make money next. So they went into this.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: They built machinery to basically extract and collect data, and
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: then they needed a business model to keep the company going, right,
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: and that was that was the ad so called ad
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: tech model or the attention economy. Right. Oh, if we
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: know a lot about you, we can sell you shit, right,
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: we can sell you stuff. We can go ahead and
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: push ads on you to get you to buy things
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: in retrospect. That was that's like the benign aspect of this.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: And what I mean by that is what they realized
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: is that it's not just what you want to buy
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: or where you eat, or what you like to you
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: know this or that. It's like I said earlier, how
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: you think and how you feel. So you're profiled. We'd
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: call that micro profiling. Right, You're targeted. So if I can,
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: if I know everything about you, then I can feed
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: you news content that is going to reinforce how you're
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: already thinking. Right, If I can, if I know everything
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: about you, I can get you to do things. I
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: can manipulate you. You know, Jack Dorsey was the guy who
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: started Twitter. Earlier this summer, he was at a conference
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: in Ostlo. He said, we are talking way too much
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: about free speech and way too little about the loss
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: of free will. We're losing what makes us human. You know.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: I don't know about you guys, but when I was
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: at school, what I was taught was that the you know,
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: what separates us from all the other species, animal species
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: is free will. It's our ability to make judgments, to
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: make choices, to live our lives, to have freedom, to
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: have liberty, etc. That's what makes us human. You take
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: for our free will away from us, what's all going
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: to look like then? And so that's why I started
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: Project Liberty. That's why I've launched the People's bid to
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: go ahead and move not to shutdown TikTok. We don't
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: want to see it shutdown. Move the user base to
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: this new protocol where we where we each essentially own
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: ourselves again, own our personhood, and we get to decide
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: how to share information about us two trusted counterparties, and.
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: You know, so scary about people giving up day free
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: will in this era. They think that they're doing it
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: by choice, but they're not. Like they're really just giving
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: it up because they're being influenced to give it up.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: There's not a choice to it. It's a vicious circle. Yep,
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: exactly right, and it's self fulfilling it in that way.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: And I hear over and over again, you know this thing, Oh,
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: people don't care about their data. People don't care about
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: their privacy. And it's like, what what if you knew
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: how much about you was in the public domain. Of
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: course you would care about it if you knew how
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: valuable this data was. Of course you'd want a piece
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: of that action if you But right now there's only
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: one choice, right, we have these big plays forms that
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: dominate the By the way, when I talk about big
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: tech and all this, I'm talking about Internet technology. That's
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: what I'm talking about. I mean, technology is not a
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: bad thing inherently. Internet technology has has become a weapon,
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: and so we these these this evolution of how the
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: Internet worked from something that was decentralized, designed by really
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: smart people to make us all smarter share information, you
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: get smarter, advanced civilization, you know, and so forth has
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: become something just just the opposite. It's really making this
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: dumber and it's making us and it's it's amplifying bad
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: behavior and in amplifying meanness not goodness.
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: What is Project liberty? You put you put up five
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: hundred million.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: Right, yes, so yeah, that's the seed capital. Get this
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: show on the road, and it's to put to let
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: people know that it does not have to be this way.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: The Internet could operate differently and we could each own ourselves,
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: our identity, our data, can control who gets to see what,
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: just like we used to do in the world pre internet. Right,
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: there was a world before the Internet where people got
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: to decide what information they shared about themselves with other
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: human beings. And so you know, you you didn't share
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: a lot with a stranger. You shared a whole lot
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: with your most intimate relationships. Right, So we have an
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: Internet that doesn't operate like that at all. As a
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: matter of fact, you don't even know if it's another
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: person on the Internet because it could be a machine,
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: a fake person. You know this, and that, so we
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: need to get it, get the Internet to operate like
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: the world. The world operates when it's coherent, which is,
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: you know, restore truth it, let people, let people be
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: in control of their lives, have real people using the Internet,
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: not a bunch of fake in phoniness. And then we,
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: by the way, this still be bad behavior. They'll still
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: be bad actors. Tech, better tech is not going to
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: take care of all the problems in the world. But
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: better tech that puts us in charge of our own
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: all of our own data and our being and our personhood,
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: then puts us in charge of us again, and we're
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: accountable for our own bad behavior.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Or realistically? Is that real though?
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: You know, because let's say, you know, let's say you
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: purchase TikTok and you do that with TikTok, with all
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: these other platforms, whether it's Facebook, whether it's Instagram, whether
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: it's elon chs, elon musks X, is it realistically can
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: get back to a place where we have our privacy back.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: I mean it's to the point now where everything is open.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: I mean you can pull up court cases, you can
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: pull up somebody's house address, you can pull up so
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: many different things.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Way before you absolutely positively couldn't. But is that real?
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, totally real. I'll tell you why. You know, five
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: years ago when we started this project, if I was
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: having this conversation with you, I guarantee you when I
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: left this room, you'd say, out of his mind, not
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: gonna happen. Right, impossible? Uh three years ago, two and
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: a half years ago. And by the way, you say
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: it was impossible because it's too complicated the tech and
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: nobody's ever going to change. Who gives a shit anyway,
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: right because five years ago people weren't focused the way
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: they are now. Two and a half years ago we
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: were able to actually push the tech out and say,
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: see it works. So we have over a million, almost
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: moving towards a million and a half people on this
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: new Internet. I'm talking about this upgraded Internet using it.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: So what does that say to me? The tech works?
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: We can have better technology. The Internet only works the
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: way it works now because of some engineering decisions. It
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: can work differently, and if we decide to go to
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: that alternative, to that upgraded version, then it works. It's
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: just all a matter scale, right, So now we know
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: the tech can work. So what we're left with is
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: this issue of how do you get people to migrate? Okay,
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: and I think people don't migrate until they realize there's
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: a problem. And the other thing that's happened in the
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: last couple of years is the problem is now surfaced,
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: hasn't it. People are seeing how bad this technology is.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: They're seeing the harm to you know, you pick your problem.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: You know, how are we doing with democracy right? How
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: we doing with our our ability to govern ourselves? How
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: are we doing with the information ecosystem? How we doing
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: with real information versus fake shit? How we doing with
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: a trust and truth? How are we doing with protecting kids.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: It's just people are seeing it because they're hearing ten
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: stories a day about the the the harms. So are
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: we going to just sit here and say, well, yeah,
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: I got my phone, I'm addicted to it. It's free,
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: so whatever. Or do we kind of show up and say,
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: you know what, this is madness, it doesn't have to
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: be this way. Let's fix it and get people to
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: migrate to a new place. And so the TikTok thing,
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: for me, look, I've been working on this for a
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: long time. I didn't know TikTok was going to have
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: to be sold or you know. And I wrote a
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: book on this called Our biggest came out a few
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: months ago. I didn't know TikTok was going to be
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: you know, legislation was going to be passed. It's to me,
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: it's an opportunity, a fantastic one, to take a problem
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: to turn it into a solution.
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: How's my ask? So all that is great, and in
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: the perfect world it would be amazing. But you know,
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: the data is being moved around the way it is
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: because they make money, right, So as a business person,
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: how do you speak to the money that isn't going
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: to be made? Or is there a way to still
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: make money even though we would own our own data
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: and I get to pick and choose when you can
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: put it where, Like, how does the how's money made?
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm going to tell you that more money will
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: be made because more people will be making money. And
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: so it's not like the data isn't valuable, and it's
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: not like we're not going to use data to solve
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: big problems. And to you know, they'll still be shopping
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: and searching and social on this internet. The difference will
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: be you'll decide who to share your information with and
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: on what terms. So imagine an internet we're rather than
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: clicking you know, stupidly on the terms and conditions of
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: use of these big platforms. You know, the cookies that
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: we all just click on because they're annoying. Okay, imagine
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: an Internet where the new apps and there'll be millions
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: of them, click on your terms of conditions of use
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: you say, sure, you could use my data, but pay me, right,
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: So we're what we're saying is that there will be advertising,
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: there will be commerce, there will be business. There has
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: to be for this to be realistic. Otherwise it's just
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: like sounds good but will never happen type of projund Right, So,
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: but don't once you prefer an Internet where, rather than
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: being targeted all day long and have stuff pushed on,
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: you have an Internet where you signal that you want
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: to buy something. You say, I'm this person, I'm a
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: real person. You could be anonymous until you contract, right,
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: and I want to buy something. That's more valuable to advertisers.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: That's more valuable to companies selling things than just surveilling
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: all of us and guessing that you want something and
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: hoping that you want something. Do you know a third
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: of all the money that spent on the Internet in
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: the advertiser economy is complete wasted. It's either scam scam
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: artists or just misdirected or not. Why are we doing this?
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: Why are we in what world do we think that
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: being surveiled twenty four hours a day is a is
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: a reasonable thing. It's it's not so there's going to
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: be business. Last thing, I'll just say, you know, I
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: tell this story all the time. I said, Pretend I'm
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: the Postmaster General, I'm in charge of the post office,
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: and I say to you, I'm going to deliver your
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: mail from now on for free, no stamps. Say okay,
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: what's the deal. All right, I'm going to put a
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: camera and a listening device in every room of your house,
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: in your car, in your place of business, and I'm
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: going to surveil you twenty four seven. You say, well,
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: that is super creepy. You say one other thing. I'm
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: going to open your mail. I'm going to read it,
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: and everything I learn is now mine. Your relationships, your thoughts,
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: your ideas, your feelings, even your most intimate ones, they're
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: now mine. You say, that's it's creepy and unfair. Oh
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: and while I'm at it, I'm gonna read your fourteen
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: year old daughter's diary. And when I see she's a
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: little bit concerned about her weight, I'm gonna send her
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: stuff to make her feel worse. I'm gonna send her
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: stuff that she can buy so I can profit from
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: making her feel worse. And I'm gonna send her stuff
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: to show her how to hurt herself, wow and cut herself. Right,
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: that's the Internet we have today. I think you'd say,
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: you know, keep your idea. I'll pay for my stamps.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: And so the point is, we have something that's incredibly predatory,
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: incredibly exploitive, and we need to get it back under
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: control so that we can go and lead our lives
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: and protect our kids and like have some sense of
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: what's what's fact, what's fiction, what's truth? Without truth, there's
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: no trust without trust, there's no society as we know it.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: And it's so it's all pretty basic stuff.
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: I got three final questions if you've got time, I'm one, Uh,
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: what's the first thing you would do if you acquire
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: TikTok to make it safe for people?
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: Move the users to a new protocol, which is simple protocol.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: We own and control your identity and your and your data.
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: So it's a permission based Internet. Now, all of the
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: good stuff of TikTok still happens. The user experience is
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: very similar.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: So you won't take away to dance, and you won't
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: take away to the thing.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: People can dance all day long. It's all good. It's
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: just it's just not. I don't want people think they're
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: just dancing and having fun. But at the same time,
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: somebody's scraping all that information about them and using it
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: in harmful ways. Right, So that's the the that's the
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: thing here that we want to eliminate. So that that's
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: that's the first thing.
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: And what can everyday people do right now to support
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: or help make the change you're trying to make.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: Go to the go to the people's bid dot com,
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: the people's bid dot com and join the fight, Get
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: involved and just in in that involvement. May be that
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: you want to invest that involvement. May be you can
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: socialize it at your church. It may be socialized it
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: at your kid you know, at your kids school on
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: the on the sideline of the football field. It may
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: be that you want to volunteer and get involved because
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: we eventually we're gonna have to have a million people
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: show up and washing it right and say, you know,
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: you've got to stop this nonsense. And because the CEOs
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: of these tech companies, we now know and they know
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: that there's a problem here, right, how many more, how
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: many more conversations that we're going to have where they
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: go in front of Congress and they testify and lie
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: about this, and so if they were going to fix it,
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: they would have fixed it, right. So that's that we can't.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: We can't rely on them at the moment. The next
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: place you go is to elected officials and say, hey,
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: please fix this. It's hurting my kid, it's hurting you know,
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: my business, it's hurting whatever, it's hurting my life. And
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: you go to But sadly, these companies are all over
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: all over our elected officials. They're giving them donations, they're
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: they have lobbyists and all that stuff, and so nothing's
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: getting done. And and by the way, worse, our elected
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: officials are using the same social media platforms that are
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: killing us, right, they're using them to get elected and
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: all that. So what are we left with? Well, left
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: with us, we're left with people. And that's what we
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: call it. The people's bid. Let's green Bay packer, this
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: thing let you know how the fans own the Green
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: Bay Packers.
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: That's my last question. What do that people's bid look like?
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's let's have people. Let's have people fix the
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: problem that others have creative rather than sitting near bitching
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: and morning about it. You know, we can sit here
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: all day long and talk about the problems. I am
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: not I didn't say a single word today that on
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: the problem side that you don't already know. Okay, And
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: this is this is progress because everybody's now known there's
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: a problem. You can't change something until people look at
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: it and say we have a problem, then they're open
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: to change. So now the idea of the people's bid
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: is let's get people involved and create the future we want.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: And again I want to emphasize better tech doesn't solve
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: all of our problems overnight. You know what I mean,
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: You still have people, and people do Some people do
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: bad stuff, some people do crazy stuff, But you know what,
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of people that do good stuff, a
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: lot of people that really want things better. A lot
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: of parents particularly, I think, are going to be the
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: change agents here because they've had enough. They're there. This
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: is like you know, mother's against drunk driving type of
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: deal you know where sadly, you know, some parents lose
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: a child and they step forward because they can't stand
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: you know, that's they do it in honor of that child,
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: and that other parents who are scared of losing a
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: child to step forward. And then you have a movement, right,
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: and then other people step in and say, you know what,
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: I'm I'm for this too, because you know, I'm concerned
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: about the lack of you know, the lack of trust
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: in truth in our in our world and in the
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: miss and disinformation. So you just you start building different
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: cohorts and people jumping on the bandwagon, and that's what's
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: going to cause change. And you know, you know again
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: they'll still be bad behavior and this and that. But
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: why why have an internet that amplifies all the bad
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: shit and doesn't make it at least make it a
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: level playing field for good people to do good things.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: And the Internet is not the problem. It's designed so
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: poorly that it amplifies this bad stuff because it was
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: never designed for billions of people to be using it.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: I know you got one other question, but one last question.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: You know they're making TikTok sell because of the Chinese
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: government having our information, right, But they don't care about
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: all the other people here in the US with bad
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: intentions with the bad information without information as well.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: But sounds kind of crazy, you know.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, it just seems like they should be stopping
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: everybody having access to our information, not just the Chinese government.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: I'm with your thousand percent. That's project liberty right there.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: You just described it's it's look the Chinese government, the
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: Chinese Commist Party, which is built on a different ideology
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: than free societies like America, where individual rights matter. In
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: China and they don't matter all right. So if you
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: have a government that is surveillance based, that is centralized,
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: that that is autocratic like China, centralized surveillance based autocratic
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: technology is pretty awesome because it's in harmony with what
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: you want to achieve. In China, the Chinese Communist Party
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: wants to know everything about every person, right because if
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: you get off their reservation, you're going to get punished. Right,
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: So everybody tows the line. We supposedly have a country
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: built on individual rights, human rights, right, and we need
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: yet we have this, as you point out, the centralized
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: autocratic surveillance based technology. Something's going to give here. You
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: can't have a set of principles that respects individuals and
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: freedom and liberty and choice and autonomy and permission and
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: all that and have technology which is, as it turns out,
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: more powerful than our democracy, and think our democracies going
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: to bend to be more autocratic centralized surveillance space. What
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: I want to do is see the tech bend to
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: respect the human rights. Think of your your data as
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: a human right, because it is. It is everything about you,
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: everything about you, and I can't emphasize that enough. It's
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: not just who gives a shit where I am right now,
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: or what I buy or what I eat. It's everything
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: about you, hundreds of thousands of data points. So you
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: and I have been micro profiled. Are you kidding me?
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: Would we ever let this government profile us to this degree?
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: We say, out of your mind, no way. Why are
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: we letting these companies? So you're one hundred percent right.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: We should be talking about this more broadly, not just
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: about TikTok, but let's but it's good at least that
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: TikTok is in play because and that people understand we
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: don't want one hundred and seventy million Americans data going
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: to the Chinese Communist Party. Everybody gets that, but I'm
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: with you one percent. We don't want that information going
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: to Silica Valley either.
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: This is going to start somewhere.
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: That's exactly right now.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Now what political season around the corner.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: Is there any I guess politician that's that's supporting what
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: you're doing, whether it's the Democrat or Republican side.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Is there anybody saying this is wrong or not at all?
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: No? Well, this, this this move to get TikTok to
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: sell or shut down was started by Trump and then
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: it was continued by Biden. The legislation was by partisan
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: signed on by which is pretty amazing when you look
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: at how dysfunctional are our Congress has been right and
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: then signed by Biden. So this has been a bipartisan
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: effort to get because you know why, they know the
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: harms that this this technology has. And and I had
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: the privilege of seeing a portion of what was sent
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: to the US Congress as part of the briefing. I
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: I didn't think I could be more concerned about this issue.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: It's pretty obvious I'm concerned about it. I've been working
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: on it for a long time. I saw that briefing.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: The hair in the back of my neck stood up.
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: I I it was frightening.
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: Were you at that Texteo hearing back in January?
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: No? O, But but I saw this, this briefing that
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: was given to Congress, and it is it is amazing
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: how powerful this technology is to affect people's thinking. And
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: that's that's that's the part of it that I want
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: to get across here. It's not just that China has
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: our data. It has it it we're all profiled. So
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: China can get you to think a certain way about
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: things that are in their best interest, to get you
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: think think that way, and think you and get you
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: to think differently about things. For instance, a pro America.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: Maybe they want to get you to think things, think
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: positively about the things that are on their agenda. Right,
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: maybe making us completely you know, a chaotic society where
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: people can't tell fact from fiction and truth is gone.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: That's probably a good thing for China if you're out
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: to elevate your own ideology, right, which is centralized communist
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: type of If we want freedom and liberty and individual rights,
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: we need to start looking at our data as a
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: human right. This is who you are, and we should
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: we should own us. Right, Even our DNA, by the way,
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: our biological DNA is now digitized, So what could get
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: more more you than your DNA? Right? So this this
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: is really, really, I think a key issue. And like
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: I said earlier, I didn't realize ten years ago I'd
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: be sitting here talking to you all about this. It
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: was just I had had an experience, open my eyes,
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: try to do something about it. And here we are.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: And I'm actually becoming more and more optimistic every day
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: because you know, people like you are on this and
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: you're doing your own things aright to get people to
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: understand that how social media is just killing us and
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: so let's fix it. It doesn't have to be this way.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, Thank you for joining us this morning, ladies and gentlemen.
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: Frank McCourt check out his book to Our Biggest Fight,
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the In and thet Age.
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: And if they want to know more about Project Liberty,
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: where did they.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: Go Projectliberty dot io or go directly to the peoplespid
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: dot com.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: All right, it's the Breakfast Club.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: Good morning, Thanks for your time, guys.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club,