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Dark Money Invades Social Media | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer · The Nation Podcasts

• 0:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: The old world is dying, the new world struggles to reborn, now is the time of monsters.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: With those words from Gramsci, I welcome you to the time of monsters podcast.
• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm G.T.
• 0:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: here in National Affairs Corps, sponge for the nation.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: This podcast is sponsored by the nation and widely available on all
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: podcasting platforms, as well as a few radio stations.
• 0:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: So this week, we usually talk about Republicans, but I don't think there are the only monsters out there.
• 0:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: And in this particular case, there's a very good reported story from Wired by Taylor Lorenzo about the sort of dark money that is reshaping the social media landscape.
• 0:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that dark money is coming from Democratic Party donors, or people at least aligned with the Democratic Party.
• 0:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's story and in particular the kind of I would say bonkers and banana pants response of the people that were reported on in that story, it really opens up a lot of questions about what exactly is happening in social media with wider sort of implications for American democracy.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the talk about this, I'm very pleased to have on
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Taylor Lorenz, who's a freelance journalist, very well known for her writing on the world of tech and social media, no stranger to controversy, but I would say that this time she has really stirred up the hornets nest.
• 1:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: So first of all, Taylor, welcome to the program.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: So let's talk about this wired piece, just so listeners know where we're coming from, just basically describe what it is that you found and reported on.
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I broke the story of this basically secret political influence scheme, a big Democratic dark bunny group is funding.
• 1:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So there's this organization called Chorus, which is this big influencer collective that launched in the wake of Kamala Harris's loss.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: last fall after Kamala Harris lost the election.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think a lot of Democrats did some soul searching and realized that they needed a better media strategy, that they had sort of ignored the podcast content creator industry, youtubers, and they wanted to fix that problem, especially by working with internet content creators to get their message out.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: chorus sprung up in November of 2024 and it was always it launched initially as this public program.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: What was not public was this funding scheme that just recently launched in the past couple months.
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So chorus is described in documents that we got as a project of the 1635 which is a dark money group and they've been funneling thousands of dollars to influencers as part of this paid program
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: in secret, basically, these influencers sign somewhat, I would argue restrictive contracts that had specific restrictions on things that they could, you know, say in certain instances, people they could talk about, and also they weren't allowed to talk about the program itself.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I wrote about this program and basically argued that this sort of dark money, which is shaping our political media ecosystem is really corrosive.
• 3:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, so this is a lot to unpack there and I think one thing that we understand is a sort of the context and you know, this is a famous phrase that got her all the blood after the election, you know, like we need a liberal Joe Rogan.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Where's our video?
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Where's the liberal Joe Rogan?
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And one of us kind of ridiculous, but on another level, does actually reflect a real reality, which is that, you know, like there are many causes for Kamala Harris's election defeat.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: But one factor was that there were Republicans, particularly JD events and present from, were very good at cultivating social media and going on podcasts.
• 3:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And reaching a lot of sort of swing voters, particularly young voters, young man, that had actually like voted for Joe Biden in 2020, but we're receptive to this message.
• 3:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this was in contrast to the Democratic Party side where Kamala Harris,
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: was less and more reluctant to go on some of these podcasts, but also the hers campaign was much more controlling of her interactions with social media.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And this is actually something you wrote a lot about last year when it was actually happening.
• 4:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And also there's a conflict between the Democratic Party and social media influencers over politics.
• 4:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: So so I think that's a crucial
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: part of the story.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you want to like just explain that context?
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, the Democrats have for years struggled with the internet.
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ironically, you know, Barack Obama came to power in part because his ability to leverage the internet back in 2008.
• 4:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he did some early work with YouTubers in the 2010s, but
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: 2015 on it's been a real struggle and I think that that is due to a number of things like Democrats really did miss this massive shift in media where the content creator industry was emerging and booming throughout the 2010s and these online spaces especially radicalized online spaces were very effectively captured by the far right and that is part of what brought Trump to power.
• 5:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: 2016, I covered that election and was on the campaign trail and was in the Hilton, the night that Trump won.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I looked around that night at the election night party and it was a bunch of content creator like people, forum admins.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: The night before Trump's inauguration in 2017, there was the deplorable, where all the biggest right-wing influencers got together and, you know, Mike Surnivich even credited social media with Trump's win.
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So,
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that the maga movement has always been tightly intertwined with the podcast, YouTuber, internet, influencer world.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Democrats have really, instead preferred to work with traditional media.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: They like the top-down structure, they generally support institutions, and so they've really struggled to kind of speak to the broader internet.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's also the problem of the fact that pretty much any culturally relevant popular content creator that's on the left is anti-establishment.
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they're not fans of Joe Biden, they're not fans of Kamala Harris, they're fans of, I reported on this in 2020 more of like Bernie Sanders and these sort of anti-establishment Zoroan, Mamdoni, you know, people that are a little bit further to the left.
• 6:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: So after Kamala Harris's last, like they really have just tried to supercharge these programs for they're like, all right, we've ignored these influencers for too long, we've tried this top-down control, we booted Hassan Picar out of the DNC last year, disastrously.
• 6:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's try to work with these people and so you saw a bunch of this sort of like consultant class come in and donor money come in and set up these, you know, various programs.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I, I mean, I guess the, the structural component of this is you have political strategist and a donor class that is very heavily invested in old media and in the sort of tight control that you can get an old media and what they know they need to get people in these new media spaces and I think in your reporting also mentioned Gaza was a major factor.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: in kind of like alienating, but a lot of social media influencers from the Democratic Party.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, like how do what happens when you get, you know, people who like a lot of traditional media and control, going into the space.
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: The little bullets, like layout, in terms of the type of money that we're talking about, and also,
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: maybe the type of control that can best be seen as their contracts.
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like what were people being paid and what were they expected to do?
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so this 1630 chorus program had about 90 influencers in it.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they were paid anywhere from as low as $250 a month to up to $8,000 a month for some of the bigger people and the most dedicated like defenders of
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: of the organization.
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what they had to do is attend daily messaging check-ins as they describe messaging check-ins, which were sometimes led by this big YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen who co-founded chorus.
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then they would have events with lawmakers.
• 8:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: They would use that $8,000 a month to produce certain content.
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know, ideally to promote specific messaging and the restrictions that they side were that they couldn't talk about it.
• 8:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: They couldn't badmouth other people in the program.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: So for instance, if somebody does give misinformation about a war or something like you couldn't criticize them theoretically according to this contract and just a number of other provisions.
• 8:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: For instance, they had to funnel the
• 8:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: lawmakers or with political figures or anyone sort of any content that's affiliated with course's policy agenda they had to filter through chorus.
• 8:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you got, for instance, one content creator told me, well, if I got an interview with Zauron, I have to now filter that through chorus.
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this.
• 8:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: program.
• 8:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, it just seems like a level of editorial control that's certainly I as a journalist would never give.
• 9:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I do think it's notable that some of the people in this program that are content creators, full-time content creators, have represented themselves as journalists while taking this dark money.
• 9:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: political, you know, as part of this political scheme.
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 9:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so that is the difference.
• 9:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: One thing I should point out, because I do think that there's been a lot of like a little bit of like misconstruing things online, nowhere in the article do we alleged that they are given specific talking points.
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they attend these messaging check-ins, they're given money, they're given access, and then it's like create the content that you want, right?
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they're not given these specific like things to read, but what I would explain to people is that's very rarely how political influence works like it is about sort of access and curation and being part of the in group, you know, we've seen some content creators attack any of these other creators that have spoken out criticizing this program.
• 9:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's about sort of like promoting Democrat party messaging.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, it seemed like the idea is to create a network.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: of people online who kind of broadly share the same politics.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so who are some of these people that are involved?
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I recognize some of the names, but not of others.
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it'd be kind of useful to have a sense of where their politics are, what sort of space they occupy in the media world.
• 10:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so these are very establishment, like, centrist Democrat people.
• 10:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have Olivia Giuliana, who's the, the right leaning sort of centrist, Gen Z influencer, who's done a bunch of abortion work as well in Texas.
• 10:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: She actually spoke at the 2024 Democratic National Convention.
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Lauren Petra, she's a former Playboy executive who turned to herself into a political influencer.
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: She hosts a podcast for Occupy Democrats.
• 10:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Barrett Adair, a content creator who runs an American girl doll pro DNC meme account.
• 10:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Can't believe this stuff is real.
• 11:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Suzanne Lambert, who has called herself a Regina George liberal, and she kind of makes these meme girls style videos like attacking, you know, people.
• 11:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sandra Jennings, who's a former TLC reality star, David Pakman, who hosts this
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: This guy too raw to real, who actually collaborated extensively with Kamala Harris on the campaign and has been very aggressive.
• 11:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Several of these, many of these creatures have been very aggressive in their attacks on the left.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's, you know, this is some of them.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was able to confirm a couple dozen of them and we mentioned some of the more notable ones in the story, but there are a lot, you know, since my story came out, chorus and the 1635 have still not released the full roster of all the 90 influencers.
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: So there are still influencers out there getting paid this democrat dark money that, you know, we don't we that have not disclosed it.
• 11:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and in terms of the money, my understanding from your article is that there's a spectrum, like some people got paid a little bit more and some people last with what is the range that we're talking about here.
• 12:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's about $250 a month, which is extremely low to $8,000 a month, which is, you know, it's quite a decent amount of money, certainly not for like these some of these
• 12:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's like a middle class salary in the United States, that is for a very big social media for making a total, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And as you mentioned, I mean, I think one thing to the way to think about this is that it's not so much, you know, you want to influence these people, give them talking points, which is not something that you kind of say, but you're creating a network with a particular kind of flat, this is, um,
• 13:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: like a social network within the media world of people who are like aligned aware of each other and see each other as a kind of a group with a shared identity.
• 13:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And as you mentioned, they're already kind of coming in with, I say, broadly centrist politics.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think in the reaction to your recipes, some people said, well, no, I've criticized Chuck Schumer or I've said stuff about Gaza.
• 13:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mary, yeah, you would do like, you think, perhaps true in some cases, but I don't think that that is the critical being critical of texture where, and as we go and Gaza are not like the main, you know, I didn't think.
• 13:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Also, I think it's about how you speak out on Gaza too, right, like there's certain criticisms that are allowed and I think certain, you know, what what the left is argued is.
• 13:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: it hasn't gone far enough.
• 13:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think though like the one big problem is that not to interrupt, but like we don't actually know, like there's a lot of people looking at these clots, this class of influencers, looking at who's been, you know, outed basically, and making a lot of inferences saying, well, these all these people have not spoken on this issue, or here's how they spoken on this issue.
• 14:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I know that, you know, chorus is tried to refute that and stuff and what I would say to them is that if you feel like those characterizations are wrong, release the full roster so that we can accurately judge the commonalities between everyone in the program, are there 30 secret leftists in the program?
• 14:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: We haven't heard of it, you know, we haven't seen them, but maybe they're there, so why don't you meet transparent?
• 14:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, no, I didn't actually get to, I think what is the, I think the main finding of your piece or the main reason why this is troubling, which is a secrecy, right?
• 14:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like the fact is that this is like a fair amount of money that's being pumped into the media space.
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, people like making, are like decent salaries or, you know, like the equivalent of decent salary in addition to all the other money that they make.
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we have like no idea.
• 14:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: who they are and also who's funding them and like this is like a bit different point of view like you know like you know we all consume media like you know someone's advertising in the New York Times or the New Yorker then I know who's like advertising there right and if these are like public companies I know who the owners are if the you know like
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: The New Yorker had a program where like it's writers were being paid by like a secret political dark money group who we don't know who's funding it for doing additional reporting like I think that would like raise questions and as you said the people who are doing this some of them are presenting themselves as a world as a journalist.
• 15:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
• 15:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's quite concerning, like, I mean, aside from the criticism, even if this was the most centrist neoliberal program, whatever, right?
• 15:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, there are centrist neoliberal voters, maybe that are not served by the entire rest of the establishment.
• 15:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
• 15:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever.
• 15:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's their prerogative to run that type of program.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: What I would say is that it needs to be done in a more transparent way, because not only is the money not transparent,
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I personally would feel uncomfortable taking money, not knowing where it comes from and kind of what the agenda is behind that money.
• 16:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: But also that we don't have transparency, as you mentioned in the political media ecosystem.
• 16:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: So people are watching these people's videos, believing that they're covering the news as journalists, while they're part of a political influence operation and getting daily messaging check-ins and all of this other stuff.
• 16:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: That to me, as somebody that covers a lot
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: sort of the erosion of trust and media and stuff like that, it is very concerning.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's important to note that it's not illegal.
• 16:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of people since my article came out, Well, isn't the FCC like can't they regulate this?
• 16:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Aren't they violating by not having like sponsored disclosure things?
• 16:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And unfortunately, I reach out to the FEC and the FCC.
• 16:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: The FCC does not regulate like political speech on Instagram and things like that.
• 17:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the FEC also is just like worlds behind.
• 17:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the Brennan Center for Justice put out a great report on this.
• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think a year or two ago about just like the lack of regulation in the political influence space.
• 17:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is sort of the wild west, and a lot of political forces on the right have exploited that for years now Democrats are trying to exploit it, but I think we could use more
• 17:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, and I think that's actually a fairly big kind of media story going back to the 80s of sort of like the deregulation of media and the, you know, coupled with the sort of deregulation of campaign financing.
• 17:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you do get, there's a lot of spaces for dark money.
• 17:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the fact that it's legal is in some ways, you know, as the old saying goes, you know, the scandal is what's legal.
• 17:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: But also I had one of the things in terms of context,
• 17:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because it has been raised, this is not unique to the Democrats and there's in some ways they're responding to this pre-existing condition where their Republicans spend a lot of time and I think money and not just the Republican Party, but other forces, it was a scandal months ago where what looks to be people working on behalf of the Russian government or perhaps partially financed by you.
• 18:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: people in Russia giving money to influencers who are largely like right-wing populist in the United States.
• 18:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, like this is like a much broader problem, but I have to say,
• 18:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you think it's a problem, that like the Koch brothers are, you know, secretly funding political activity, and that people should open it, then you should also be concerned about this, like it cuts all ways.
• 18:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I've heard this argument, and I talked to a fellow journalist who covers dark money, and we talked about this on my podcast this week, but, you know, that, oh, we've got a fight fire with fire, you know,
• 18:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you know what she argues and what I would argue as well is that's a very losing game when the entire system is stacked against you Democrats just simply do not have the level of billionaire funding that is on the right and so they're sort of what they're doing is they're eroding trust in the media institutions they're eroding trust among democracy and we spoke to a couple experts.
• 19:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: for this story in politics and ethics and things.
• 19:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And one thing that they brought up is that like when you run these sort of secretive influence schemes and they get exposed, which they inevitably do, people lose trust in media.
• 19:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: They don't know what to believe.
• 19:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And now they know they sort of
• 19:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: can't believe some things that they start to question everything and it just erodes trust in our democratic system more generally.
• 19:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: We should be working to get money out of politics.
• 19:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: We should be working to and this dark money system.
• 19:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's actually something that the Democrats should prioritize in order to stop giving their Republicans this unfair advantage.
• 19:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Another thing that the Republicans learned years ago is that it's better to do these programs out in the open.
• 20:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's a big open program, right?
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like the influencers that are part of it put it turning point in their bio, they have these big hyped up like America fast type events.
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I really, it's kind of strange to me that this program wasn't done in the open because I actually think if these influencers had come out and said listen, hey guys, I got a lot of money.
• 20:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I got some money to talk about the things I care about, we're gonna be trying to, like I think some of their fans would have been supportive.
• 20:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think it's this like misleading the audience thing
• 20:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: not good for our media trust in media.
• 20:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no, actually that gets me like the next point I kind of wanted to make because I mean, like, you're in this article, like, you broke news and this is like, you know, well worth knowing about, but I thought when I first read it, that, you know, well, there's a very simple response that chorus and these influencers could make, which is, oh, you know, we made a mistake.
• 20:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: The lawyers were too active.
• 20:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, our lawyers got with the non-disclosure
• 20:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: We should have been on the opening and yeah, we're doing this, we're fighting fireworks fire that Republicans are doing this, we actually do need to have a network of people that support the Democratic Party on social media and we've corrected the one problem with us and let's move on.
• 21:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I honestly think like if we had done that, you know, your story is good as it was, what have just like died.
• 21:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: It would have been like a, you know, like a two, three day thing.
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that was not the response.
• 21:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's so crazy to me that I still cannot figure out and it boggles my mind is that I've been working on the story for a couple of months I reached out to chorus and the 1630 fund and every single influencer mentioned in the story multiple times and I reached out and chorus and 1630 new Everything in this story.
• 21:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: They knew everything.
• 21:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: They knew it was going to be a very critical story
• 21:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: a month ago.
• 21:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I assumed that and I actually was like planning for this, that they would call up the Washington Post or the New York Times and say, hey, we want to make an announcement about this exciting new funding program that we have that we're going to announce because we're so excited to talk about this and we'll give you access to some of these content creators, whatever there's reporters that would happily run that story.
• 22:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, wow, look this new Democratic funding initiative.
• 22:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it would have effectively sort of killed my story, and they didn't do that, and then the response since the story came out, they also haven't been transparent.
• 22:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it just makes me wonder, why are they so allergic to transparency?
• 22:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's shocking.
• 22:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: It is really starting to start, I mean, you know, as the cliché is, you know, the cover-ups worse than the crime.
• 22:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I don't think there's so much a cover-up here, but I think the attempted cover-up for any attempt is... It's so hard.
• 22:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 22:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no.
• 22:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I would not do, like, reverse some of what the response is just so people know what we're talking about.
• 22:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: One of which is that you suddenly saw some of these people, like, releasing statements, which are all, like, very similarly worded.
• 22:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I say, you know, well, this is the story has been debunked and so are thoroughly debunked or you know, like it's like, it's actually, it's weird, right?
• 23:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: the story is not in the back.
• 23:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: The other aspect, the one thing that they did was some of the people involved with the story did not give statements or talk to you at the time, but afterwards, release statements to you and to why you're in.
• 23:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And those were integrated into the piece.
• 23:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that was you.
• 23:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: We added comment.
• 23:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's all we did.
• 23:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: But this is a fight.
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: We acted.
• 23:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a fight.
• 23:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, to refuse comment for weeks and weeks and weeks.
• 23:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then the minute the story goes up send your comment through so that you know that the journalist is going to be act ethically and incorporate that comment into the piece.
• 23:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then miss represent that comment update as a correction.
• 23:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are zero corrections on that story.
• 23:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is a that is like a mega thing.
• 23:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, it is exactly the sort of fake news of the tactic that but but that the only Trumpian thing and I think there have been I think people not only crystal ball and Emma Vickland who I've basically described.
• 24:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: the response to your piece as Trumpian, and I think that is exactly right.
• 24:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: That it is, you know, using the tactics of the rights.
• 24:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: So so we have the, you know, the pretense that it was debunked when it was not debunked.
• 24:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: The addition of additional comments as a claim,
• 24:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: of correction when that's on the claim.
• 24:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: There was the, oh, the linkage, the attempt of linkage which I say I also found particularly obscene was I think it was like a colon was a corner Pacsman who claimed that Candace Owen and Tucker Carlson were big fans of yours and they took this quote out of context where they were sarcastic you saying, well, you gotta end it.
• 24:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: to the pillar of the rents, you know, at least she's honest with them, but she believes.
• 24:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And for listeners, I thought this was particularly bad because Tucker Carlson has, you know, like targeted you in very ugly ways in terms of doxing.
• 24:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, so, so, so, again, this sort of guilt by association with people that you're not even associated with, you know, but, but, but, but I would even have, like, even if you and Tucker Carlson were best friends and you were a
• 25:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: had, you know, all the right information, then you know, like none of that would matter, right?
• 25:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, so, again, like just an absurd, Trumpian type tactic.
• 25:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm also doing a very public, very reputable investigative journalism fellowship right now.
• 25:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they tried to compare my, like, again, very public, very well disclosed investigative journalism fellowship to, like, their dark bunnies came despite the fact that my,
• 25:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Journalism fellowship is funded by one person and not dark money.
• 25:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like there's nothing that you like it's apples and oranges.
• 25:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: The the Tucker Carlson thing was especially a greatest to me because like you mentioned, he's targeted me so aggressively and I've also reported quite critically on Candace Owens.
• 25:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm primarily known for reporting really critically on right wing influencers.
• 25:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like some of my biggest stories have been on the right and the far right especially.
• 25:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: So,
• 25:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: for these people to turn around.
• 25:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I thought because of what I heard was that you're a friends with Thacker Carlson.
• 26:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right, yeah, the person who got my parents swatted, you know, many times.
• 26:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I, it's very absurd and also it's this thing where they, they also were accusing me of being a Russian plant and secret maga.
• 26:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I just, I think some of these liberals, like,
• 26:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I get that they are like, I Trump is a threat to democracy.
• 26:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody wants Trump to power on the left, right?
• 26:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, we all can agree on that.
• 26:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: But this idea that anyone who writes anything even slightly critical of the Democrats is like helping maga is very delusional.
• 26:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want the Democrats to run more effective influencer programs.
• 26:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want more transparency in the political media space so that we can all trust our media and that we don't see the complete erosion of journalism.
• 26:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: If people can't tell the difference between journalists and influencers like content creators who are doing political schemes, that is not something that is going to help democratic norms.
• 27:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know what to tell these people other than like sometimes I criticize the Democrats and that's not even criticizing like all Democrats.
• 27:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's really just this like one democratic scheme.
• 27:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no, no, no, I mean, it is a very curious again.
• 27:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we can only speculate like what's going on, like if the intensity and I say the absurdity of the response.
• 27:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: On the one hand, you could say, well, maybe it reflects that there's something more going on there and I certainly hope this is more investigation of this.
• 27:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it could also be like I just have very brittle mindset.
• 27:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think we saw some of this over the last few years.
• 27:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Mike's French was like, if you wrote about, say, Joe Biden's health,
• 27:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: or we're about Gaza, certainly you do get a certain segment of the party establishment that have a kind of brittle response which is like, you know, while you're helping Trump, you're helping Magga or, you know, on the workstream cases, you're a Russian asset, you're, you know, how much money is put and thank you for the nation, is that all the
• 28:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think what they're doing is so dangerous too, especially the way that they're attacking Wired, because most of their attacks are personal about me, but the reason I wrote this story for Wired is because Wired has done some of the best journalism out there on the intersection of technology and politics.
• 28:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they're reporting on Doge has been phenomenal.
• 28:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: They've broken major, major stories about the administration, and then you have these influencers getting online
• 28:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Really, I can't explain enough like how harmful that is.
• 28:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I have a big critic of the mainstream media huge, but to accuse these very journalistic outlets, especially when like wired, which is pretty unimpeachable of just lying, especially when they've provided zero evidence to counter it, they have not gotten a single correction on that story.
• 28:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I tell them they don't have to put out their contracts publicly if they don't want to although I think they should.
• 29:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: They could just provide any evidence to wired, just proving any fact in my story.
• 29:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they have been unable to do that.
• 29:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: They have not provided a single piece of evidence that debunks even a single fact of the story.
• 29:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no.
• 29:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it is a very bad for all the reasons that you mentioned.
• 29:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I also want to like, you know, it's something you have raised after your story and some of the
• 29:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: like how effective this is going to be.
• 29:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: As I think, I think we're at the region.
• 29:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think.
• 29:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like everything that you say about like, you know, how it's bad for media, it's bad for democracy.
• 29:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's also just ineffective.
• 29:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's easy.
• 29:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's accurate.
• 29:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 29:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I think it's easier to, like, back to your belly and, you know, Flick us, right?
• 29:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, okay.
• 29:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: You, you care about those things.
• 29:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: We want to, like, defeat the focus.
• 29:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: We want to defeat Trump.
• 29:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, this will help us win.
• 29:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, I see, like, you know, like, you, like, to be, like, looking at it, like, like, I don't know how to see how this helps you.
• 29:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's maybe, um, unpack that.
• 29:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, what, why are we skeptical of this?
• 29:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, again, it's just like the people that they chose for the program.
• 30:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are people that are already speaking to the base and did so ineffectively throughout the entire campaign or like rather, I guess they spoke very effectively to like this specific like hyperloyal strain of people but the Democrats have a problem, right?
• 30:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: They have a problem reaching young men, they have a problem reaching like all these different demographic groups that have moved away from the Democrats in this most recent cycle.
• 30:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is so unclear to me how any of this content, which is essentially just like sort of pro Democrat establishment slop like here I am with Chuck Schumer on my American girl doll meme page like we're besties which is so crazy because she made that girl made this one video about Chuck Schumer stuff and then I see in the comments he actually voted against the policy like he turned he made this promotional video and he turned around and voted against whatever was that she was running it.
• 30:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's so silly.
• 30:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, it's access journalism, but without the journalism.
• 30:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's just sort of like weird PR slop for the Democrats.
• 31:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that just does not resonate.
• 31:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Doesn't resonate with independent voters.
• 31:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't resonate with some of these other groups that have moved away from the Democrats.
• 31:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's just not effective.
• 31:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you look at the content that they've been putting out as well, it's getting like no engagement.
• 31:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just, it's not performing well.
• 31:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that there
• 31:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: It would be more effective to use it like there are a million more effective ways to use their money than running a program like this.
• 31:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I do think it's also interesting that some of these influencers that truly have zero cultural impact, they're like failed, you know,
• 31:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: stand-up comedians and things like that like that just and no hate to anybody doing a creative creation.
• 31:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I shouldn't frame it that way.
• 31:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I should say you're either like, you know, just, that if maybe failed to like really make an impact online even, right?
• 31:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like some of them are quite small.
• 31:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe then we have a couple hundred thousand dollars.
• 31:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And yet they're getting the most amount of money.
• 31:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like they're in the maximum program with these big YouTubers.
• 31:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know why they're in that program other than they are some, some of the most vocal defenders of chorus.
• 32:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so it seems like they're creating this ecosystem of people that are think of fans.
• 32:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're rewarding them by accepting them into these paid programs.
• 32:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I have yet to see it do anything effective.
• 32:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, look at someone like Zoron, right, who's generated such a massive online movement.
• 32:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: so much excitement.
• 32:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's left leaning people across the country that are excited and energized by him and content creators that are just making free content for him all day.
• 32:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: They want to have them on his the podcast.
• 32:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: They want to have him on their shows.
• 32:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: They want him on YouTube.
• 32:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: They want to tip talk with him.
• 32:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's not paying them.
• 32:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't have to run some influence.
• 32:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: He just has popular policies and he's authentic and I guess that's also what gets to the root of the issue which is that the Democrats think that they have a messaging problem and I would argue that they have a policy problem.
• 32:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I'm so glad you said that because I actually do think that that is the root issue here that, like, you know, like, if you have, you know, if you build that they will come, well, if you if you have popular policies, then you'll get people excited.
• 33:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's been a thing more broadly.
• 33:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, something you said earlier about the anti establishment.
• 33:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: edge of the new social media.
• 33:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it is really important to think about.
• 33:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, basically going back to at least the global war on terror and the 2008 financial meltdown, you've had, like, you know, this powerful turn of anti system politics in the United States and throughout the world really.
• 33:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the media component of this has been a turn away from, you know, what is called old media, this sort of like a establishment media that has the view from the where that is, you know, like based on an idea of a shared objectivity that came from a consensus culture towards these sort of like new social media, which are based on like, you know, like personal relationship, authenticity, voice, and often have an anti-establishment edge.
• 33:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And as you mentioned,
• 33:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: sometimes Democrats can harness that.
• 34:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean certainly Barack Obama was able to do so by presenting himself as a break in the system and then also like you know like it's kind of forgotten but like you know one of the first politicians to go on podcast was Obama and he will go on Yomark Meron and the sports podcast.
• 34:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: But the other aspect is that a lot of these podcasts
• 34:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: like they're not partisan in a narrow way, like they have a broader anti system politics, but you know, like appeal to other things that people are interested in, you know, and a lot of the worry on the right also made by failed stand-up comedians.
• 34:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've got a lot of failed entertainers all over the media.
• 34:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think that's a big part of
• 34:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we should write a book about this.
• 34:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, feel theater kids have like changed the American politics like this just the but that yes, I like Joe Rogan like you listen to that a lot of that is about like he's not about politics is about like UFOs and each of the astronauts and weirdo conspiracy theories and
• 35:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And bodybuilding and you know like the rub against we're able to you know go to these things that are popular for other reasons reaching people that don't pay attention to politics Because they're talking about UFOs and bodybuilding and the field of them That's very different than like having you know like a checks you wear panic count podcasts You know like which is not gonna like reach anyone other than
• 35:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: people already love that you have funded for the Democrats for the last 50 years.
• 35:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
• 35:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just it's so toned up in this era too.
• 35:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that's what really like rubbs people the wrong way.
• 35:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like this is what the money is going to.
• 35:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there are more effective projects out there.
• 35:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like there are other people.
• 35:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's so much interest in a do thing from the donor class Teddy Schleifer at the New York Times at a great piece.
• 35:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: a little while ago about kind of some of these efforts, I think the thing is that most of the people engage in these efforts are not media and entertainment people.
• 36:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're not from the content creator industry.
• 36:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: They've never worked in like,
• 36:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: online attention economy.
• 36:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're fundamentally political consultants and political marketers are people that do sort of like political campaigns and they're sort of trying to come in and then do these like media projects and they just don't understand the media landscape and they don't understand online attention and clearly I would argue that it shows that they're not effective messengers when they've they had a critical article come out and they've made a
• 36:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was making everything worse, like, truly pouring gasoline on the fire, like how, you know, and your whole thing is that you're supposed to be effective messenger is like, and doing effective media like you just this is this is kind of a case study and how poorly you managed media so you know, I don't know.
• 36:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I mean, this couldn't, like, sort of competence issue.
• 36:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I think, really, your piece, you know, thinking about this a bit more, there's a more fundamental structural thing, which goes to your point about, you know, the problem is in the message, it's the policy.
• 37:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, if you have pro establishment policies, if you have a pro establishment worldview and, you know, pro establishment,
• 37:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: agenda, then, you know, like, you know, like, I don't care how many memes you do, you know, like, how many people you pay on YouTube.
• 37:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's not going to resonate, you know, with a popular route that is very anti-establishment.
• 37:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I would say, you know, like, you in terms of fighting Trump, the anger against Trump is also an anti-establishment anger.
• 37:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I mean, I mean, the best argument against Trump at this point is that this guy is the establishment.
• 37:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 37:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Please look at it like a Harvard and the big law and the pentagon and everyone's covering before them.
• 37:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So if you want to fight the man, Donald Trump is the man.
• 37:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: But like, you know, they don't want to argue Trump is the man.
• 37:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: They want to say, like, Trump is a Russian acid or whatever.
• 37:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 37:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if you have people that are so committed to like preserving the establishment or some sort of online regime restoration, like you're going to be able to get any sort of message that resonates with people.
• 38:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know what really concerns me, because I'm a tech reporter, right?
• 38:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so like in addition to covering the influencer industry, cover a lot of tech policy stuff.
• 38:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this is, this strain is, it goes further than just their influencer media strategy.
• 38:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, the Democrats have actually backed very right-wing legislation recently, and continue to back these legal efforts to actually crack down on speech online.
• 38:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, there are Republicans that have never been the party of free speech.
• 38:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, this idea that Trump is free speech is a lie.
• 38:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, Elon Musk is certainly also not free speech.
• 38:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, this is the term that they co-opt and leverage.
• 38:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what we've seen is the Democrats also basically get annoyed about people online and sort of speaking online and they've been supporting laws like the kids online safety act or these state age verification laws that would basically establish this top down control of the internet that wouldn't allow for free and open media ecosystem that would actually devastate the careers of all these content creators.
• 39:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's really regressive policy.
• 39:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's really an effective policy.
• 39:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't.
• 39:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: protect children.
• 39:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't crack down on big tech.
• 39:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: It actually trenches big techs power.
• 39:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: These laws are bad.
• 39:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: These child's, child's safety is how they frame them.
• 39:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, that's not what they do.
• 39:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: These are really scary legal efforts that are brewing in the background.
• 39:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so when I see the Democrats sort of messaging, like PR, machine people, like these dark money people, funding like in one sense, they want to have this top-down control over the influencer space.
• 39:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then on the back end, they're trying to regulate the internet in a way where
• 39:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: where they have more and more control.
• 39:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I just think it's scary, like I, you know, no one wants some free from the internet, right?
• 39:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like we, we want to have safety precautions and things, but but the laws that they're backing are really bad.
• 39:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there are things that the Heritage Foundation, especially the Kids Online Safety Act.
• 39:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is something that the Heritage Foundation has come out and said, we will use this.
• 39:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you pass this to censor LGBTQ people, we're already seeing reproductive justice content censored under this.
• 40:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: proactive age verification nonsense and places like Texas.
• 40:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we should fight against and I know no one wants to hear about bad.
• 40:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I try to make everything about tech policy, but like it is it is right in with this bigger problem.
• 40:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's absolutely, yeah, absolutely tied in exactly with the with people who are you know basically trying to shore up you know a failing establishment.
• 40:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 40:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And like you know regain a control which they're not going to get and then in the process
• 40:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And fundamentally eroding our civil liberties potentially as well.
• 40:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, and in creating a legal grounds for things getting much more repressive.
• 40:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, no, it's exactly on point.
• 40:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, this much where we could talk about this, but is a really rich conversation.
• 40:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I want to thank Taylor.
• 40:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want to get close for her article.
• 40:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And for being on the program.
• 40:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, thank you so much for having me.
• 40:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was great chatting.