Latest / Blocked and Reported / Episode 243: Elon Musk Discovers The Grooming Gangs Of The UK (with Jeff Maurer)

Transcript

Episode 243: Elon Musk Discovers The Grooming Gangs Of The UK (with Jeff Maurer) · Blocked and Reported

0:06
SPEAKER_00: Hello, welcome to Blocked and Reported.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm Jesse Single.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: Katie Herzog is off this week.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: She's driving directly into the wildfires to investigate them.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: With me instead is Jeff Maurer.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: Jeff, how are you doing?
0:20
SPEAKER_03: I'm good.
0:21
SPEAKER_03: I'm really happy to be here.
0:22
I am sorry to hear that apparently things are about to get
0:26
worse for the people in California.
0:28
SPEAKER_03: If Katie's headed there.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: The real natural disaster is the arrival of Katie Herzog.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: Fun fact.
0:35
SPEAKER_03: They thought they were at rock bottom.
0:37
SPEAKER_03: No, they're about to hit it.
0:38
Fun fact is I am supposed to get on a plane to go there in
0:44
under 24 hours.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Oh!
0:45
SPEAKER_00: So we will see.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm going to a conference in LA.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: They told us everything is fine.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: As of now, the conference is going on...
0:54
SPEAKER_00: As planned, but it'll be interesting.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, Jeff.
0:58
SPEAKER_03: That conference's title, Fire Safety, Why It's for Pussies.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: But you're still going to do it.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: You've been booked.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: You prepared a speech.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm the keynote speaker.
1:07
I was going to light myself on fire to make a point,
1:09
but now it would be grossly inappropriate.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: Jeff, most people know who you are.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: Everyone knows who you are.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: Just in case, remind people who you are.
1:17
SPEAKER_03: Extremely untrue.
1:18
SPEAKER_03: But I'm the guy who writes, I might be wrong.
1:20
SPEAKER_03: I used to write for John Oliver.
1:21
SPEAKER_03: Now I write,
1:22
SPEAKER_03: A substack called I Might Be Wrong.
1:24
SPEAKER_03: It's political comedy.
1:26
SPEAKER_03: It's the same shit as before, but without the English guy.
1:29
SPEAKER_03: And you can find that at imightbewrong.substack.com.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: Very talented writer and thinker and gentleman.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: You and I, we did a live show in, I want to say... Chicago.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: I know, Chicago.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: I want to say it was in the fall.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: It was in the fall, right?
1:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was in the fall.
1:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
1:47
SPEAKER_03: It was around Halloween.
1:48
SPEAKER_03: I had fun.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we haven't talked about it.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: Can we...
1:51
SPEAKER_00: I had fun.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: Did you have fun?
1:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I did too.
1:55
What if you had brought this up though and I said,
1:56
no,
1:57
I hated it and you owe me money.
2:00
SPEAKER_03: No, it went really well.
2:00
SPEAKER_03: It was a lot of fun.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: We will get to the show in a minute.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: My most vivid memory,
2:03
SPEAKER_00: other than every second of the show itself,
2:05
SPEAKER_00: which was magical,
2:06
SPEAKER_00: was we went to one of those bars where you have like –
2:10
SPEAKER_00: they give you like a card and you hold it up the different taps.
2:13
So for,
2:13
for obsessive compulsive types,
2:14
you can pour your beer to the ounce.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: And some listeners joined us for drinks and I ordered a very large,
2:21
messy breakfast burrito to be delivered there as one does
2:24
because I have to be,
2:25
SPEAKER_00: I have to eat every 30 minutes.
2:28
So I have this vivid memory of standing at a table with like
2:30
three or four people
2:31
SPEAKER_00: who generously attended the show just surrounded by
2:35
With soiled napkins and sour cream and God knows what was on my
2:39
face and this is a
2:40
group of people who like are familiar enough with our work that
2:43
they came to see us
2:44
and that's going to be their one image of meeting me in real
2:47
life is me just
2:47
SPEAKER_00: covered in guacamole and I think that's appropriate.
2:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they came to see you.
2:53
SPEAKER_03: And you're right that it was fun at first.
2:56
I definitely enjoyed,
2:56
you know,
2:57
I'm a longtime blocked and reported listener.
2:59
SPEAKER_03: I had a good time meeting a lot of the people that,
3:01
SPEAKER_03: you know,
3:01
SPEAKER_03: they're not all creeps,
3:02
SPEAKER_03: it turns out.
3:03
SPEAKER_03: But yes, it was, they were there to meet you.
3:06
SPEAKER_03: And by the end, they were disgusted by you.
3:10
And also a little bit at themselves for ever thinking you're
3:15
someone they should
3:16
SPEAKER_03: listen to or look up to in any way.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: Well,
3:18
it was sort of a much quicker version of the trajectory of
3:23
anyone who gets to know
3:24
SPEAKER_00: me in real life.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: Where at first, there's some undeniable, awkward, Jewy charisma.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: But a few years later, you're just like, what was I doing?
3:34
SPEAKER_03: It was compressed.
3:35
And I had a great time standing around with your fans and
3:38
talking shit about you.
3:39
SPEAKER_03: And talking about...
3:40
SPEAKER_03: How let down they were by your appearance.
3:44
SPEAKER_03: None of this is true.
3:45
SPEAKER_03: None of this is true.
3:46
SPEAKER_03: And by the way, I love Katie, too.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: The breakfast burrito part is completely true.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: That is true.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
3:50
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
3:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
3:51
SPEAKER_03: That part is true.
3:53
Well,
3:53
we can talk about breakfast burritos this entire show,
3:57
which is what we're going to do.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: No.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: We have a great show planned.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: What are you going to talk about in the second half?
4:02
I am going to talk about Meta and their various...
4:06
They made some big moves this week.
4:09
SPEAKER_03: Some of them utterly ridiculous,
4:10
SPEAKER_03: and some of them actually kind of important for politics in this country.
4:15
So we'll cover both the thoroughly stupid and the...
4:19
Well,
4:19
still stupid,
4:20
but also meaningful.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: The first half of the show is going to be maybe less goofy.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be about how do you...
4:31
SPEAKER_00: We try to be honest on this show, Jeff.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: How do you feel about gangs that groom and rape young girls?
4:38
SPEAKER_00: Be honest.
4:39
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
4:40
SPEAKER_03: As a Substack writer...
4:44
SPEAKER_03: That nothing travels like a hot take, you know?
4:46
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
4:46
SPEAKER_03: Nothing gets clicks like a hot take.
4:49
SPEAKER_03: But even though I know that is the case,
4:53
SPEAKER_03: I have to take the normie take that I think it's bad,
4:57
SPEAKER_03: and I don't care who I piss off by saying that.
5:01
What?
5:01
Most of our listeners are groomers,
5:03
so that is not going to go over well.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: in pulling together this history,
5:24
SPEAKER_00: this recent sad history,
5:25
SPEAKER_00: as was our producer,
5:26
SPEAKER_00: Jessica the 80s Baby,
5:27
SPEAKER_00: especially when it came to organizing and explaining Elon's many tweets.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: Even more props than usual to her and to Ross.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: Jeff, you're the Voices guy.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: You did the famous SN.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: Was it Don Pardo?
5:38
SPEAKER_00: No, it was Don Pardo.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Give me a little Don Pardo.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: Don Pardo on grooming gangs.
5:46
SPEAKER_03: On grooming gangs.
5:48
Oh,
5:49
ladies and gentlemen,
5:50
it's a bunch of cab drivers picking up 12 year old.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: Stop.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: OK.
5:56
SPEAKER_03: All right.
5:56
SPEAKER_03: All right.
5:57
SPEAKER_03: You asked for it.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: You're the voices guy.
6:00
And I asked you beforehand to prepare an Elon Musk impression
6:03
because we're going
6:04
SPEAKER_00: to start by having you read a few of Elon's tweets.
6:08
About the grooming gangs,
6:09
and then I will explain the context and this whole fucking thing.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Let's start with this.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: This is New Year's Day.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: This is how Elon Musk spent his New Year's Day tweeting stuff like this.
6:19
SPEAKER_03: Okay,
6:20
SPEAKER_03: now,
6:20
SPEAKER_03: before I get into this accent,
6:21
SPEAKER_03: let me just say that I'm glad that South African,
6:25
SPEAKER_03: specifically white South African,
6:27
SPEAKER_03: is one of the ones you can gleefully butcher,
6:29
SPEAKER_03: because that's what I got prepared here.
6:32
This is a toughie,
6:34
and I think this accent is going to end up being basically a tour...
6:39
through the former british colonies probably not including
6:43
south africa there's
6:44
going to be some australia there's going to be some ireland i
6:47
will probably not
6:47
touch on south africa but i'm gonna was it south africa dutch
6:50
it wasn't a dutch it
6:51
was it was parts were dutch and then english sometimes and it's
6:54
it's yeah it's a
6:55
mess and um but here we go uh let's it's not gonna be accurate
6:59
but you know fuck
7:00
SPEAKER_03: them
7:01
So this is Elon Musk responding to Sam Ashworth Hayes saying
7:05
parents who attempted
7:06
SPEAKER_00: to rescue their children,
7:07
SPEAKER_00: meaning from the grooming gangs,
7:09
SPEAKER_00: were arrested when the police arrived.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: This is Elon Musk's response to that.
7:13
So many people at all levels of power in the UK need to be in
7:17
prison for this.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: A little New Zealand-y.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I warned you.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: Here's another one from January 1st.
7:25
I'll be inevitable West,
7:27
which has a statue profile illustration in front of an American flag.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: So you know he's a cool dude.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: Numerous warning signs there.
7:36
SPEAKER_03: You know a truth bomb's coming.
7:37
Here's a reminder that current labor MP Naz Shah said victims
7:41
of the Rotherham
7:42
SPEAKER_00: cover-up should shut their mouths for the good of diversity.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: Why wasn't she suspended?
7:46
SPEAKER_03: She should be in prison?
7:48
SPEAKER_03: I only know how to do New Zealand, and it always goes up at the end.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's just lean into it.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: Let's just say he's New Zealand.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: He's from New Zealand.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: He's a K-way.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: For this next one, I'll be former Prime Minister Liz Truss.
8:01
This is at Jess Phillips,
8:02
the same home office minister who excused masked Islamist thugs.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: Her title,
8:07
Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Safeguarding and
8:10
Violence Against Women
8:11
SPEAKER_00: and Girls is a perversion of the English language.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: It's clear whose side she's on.
8:15
SPEAKER_03: That was a good Liz Truss.
8:17
SPEAKER_03: That was awfully good.
8:18
SPEAKER_03: I didn't know you had that in your pocket.
8:19
SPEAKER_03: But Elon's response to that was, she deserves to be in prison?
8:23
SPEAKER_00: Do you think he kept typing that out?
8:25
SPEAKER_00: Or do you think he just had a macro, like a copy-paste thing?
8:27
SPEAKER_00: Because so many people deserve to be in prison.
8:30
Yeah,
8:31
I think he copied it once and was just too lazy to type
8:35
something new.
8:35
SPEAKER_03: He's like, yeah, sure, prison for her too.
8:37
Full Kiwi accent,
8:38
here's Elon Musk on England's Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
8:42
SPEAKER_03: Starmer was deeply complicit in the mess rips in exchange for votes.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: Rips?
8:47
SPEAKER_00: You make it sound cute.
8:49
SPEAKER_03: I know.
8:50
SPEAKER_03: Miss Rips.
8:51
SPEAKER_03: And you picture the Flight of the Conchords guys saying this now.
8:54
SPEAKER_03: Oh, you really do, yeah.
8:55
SPEAKER_03: That's complicit in the Miss Rips in exchange for votes.
8:59
SPEAKER_03: That's what the inquiry would show.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: A minute ago, you heard the name Jess Phillips.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: She's a member of parliament and the safeguarding minister.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: So she handles issues like whether girls are being groomed and raped.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: Here is what Elon said about her.
9:15
SPEAKER_03: Jess Phillips is a rip genocide apologist.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: So yeah,
9:19
SPEAKER_00: along the way,
9:20
Elon also tweets that maybe the British monarchy should
9:24
dissolve parliament.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: He does a poll about whether the US,
9:27
SPEAKER_00: quote,
9:27
SPEAKER_00: should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: I agree with that, albeit for different reasons than Elon.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: By January 7th, Elon is so mad that
9:39
about these grooming gangs,
9:40
which I will explain shortly,
9:41
that he's tweeting stuff like this.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: This is the last one, so really take it away, Jeff.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: Really give her all you've got.
9:47
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
9:48
SPEAKER_03: Super offensive.
9:49
SPEAKER_03: Here we go.
9:51
My British grandmother,
9:52
Cora Amelia Robinson,
9:54
was an important part of my childhood.
9:57
SPEAKER_03: That sounded like M-apostrophe childhood.
9:59
SPEAKER_03: Important part of my childhood.
10:01
SPEAKER_03: She was very strict, but also kind, and I could always count on her.
10:05
She grew up very poor in England during the Great Depression,
10:08
only to be bombed in World War II.
10:11
To earn money for food,
10:12
she cleaned houses,
10:13
leaving me with listing respect for those who do so.
10:16
My nana was one of the poor working class girls with no one to
10:20
protect her who
10:21
SPEAKER_03: might have been,
10:22
SPEAKER_03: might,
10:23
SPEAKER_03: might,
10:23
SPEAKER_03: Iris,
10:24
SPEAKER_03: might have been abducted in present day Britain.
10:26
SPEAKER_03: I have no idea what's happening anymore.
10:28
SPEAKER_03: Please explain.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: Well,
10:31
SPEAKER_00: Elon Musk,
10:32
SPEAKER_00: the richest man in the world,
10:33
is sitting there furious at the prospect of his Nana getting
10:37
carried off by Muslim
10:38
SPEAKER_00: rape gangs.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: Something has gone very wrong here.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: Would you like me to explain it to you?
10:42
SPEAKER_03: Please do.
10:43
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I would be upset by that, too, but I have 100% lost the thread.
10:46
SPEAKER_03: So please stitch me in.
10:48
So I'm going to try to explain this by first giving a rundown
10:51
of the actual
10:51
SPEAKER_00: grooming scandal that engulfed a chunk of England.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: There was one.
10:55
I'm going to go to a fair amount of depth here because the
10:57
details are important.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: This is not a particularly fun or lighthearted subject.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: So,
11:01
SPEAKER_00: Jeff,
11:02
please break up my in-depth descriptions of sexual assaults and
11:05
grooming with
11:06
SPEAKER_00: inappropriate jokes whenever you can.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: You'd be really doing me a solid there.
11:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, by all means.
11:11
I'd be thrilled to be the Ed McMahon interjecting in your tale
11:16
of brutal sexual abuse.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: You've already made the podcast lighter by pronouncing it rip.
11:21
SPEAKER_03: Rip.
11:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
11:23
SPEAKER_03: Don't worry.
11:23
SPEAKER_03: I'll just jump in every now and then with a yowza.
11:26
SPEAKER_03: Or a check, please.
11:28
SPEAKER_03: It'll go great.
11:30
SPEAKER_03: Nothing's more appropriate during a rape story than a good zinger, Jesse.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: If you find Jeff jokes offensive,
11:37
please drag him on Twitter and threaten to kill him on blue sky
11:40
as it's custom.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, so let's start in Rotherham.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: That's a northern English market town with about 100,000 people.
11:47
It's now best known for the organized sexual abuse of children
11:50
which occurred there,
11:52
also in surrounding northern English towns like Bradford and
11:54
Telford from the 1980s
11:57
SPEAKER_00: until around 2013.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: The victims were girls between the ages of 11 and 16,
12:02
SPEAKER_00: and the men in question would befriend them on the street,
12:05
SPEAKER_00: offer them presents,
12:06
SPEAKER_00: buy them candy,
12:07
SPEAKER_00: give them attention,
12:09
and the girls would then think that these significantly older
12:12
men were their boyfriends.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: Over time,
12:14
the boyfriends would give them alcohol and sometimes drugs and
12:17
would introduce them
12:18
to a larger group of men who would use them for sex and often
12:21
sell them to other groups,
12:22
SPEAKER_00: like basically pimping them out.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: So the victims often came from backgrounds with domestic abuse,
12:27
SPEAKER_00: addiction,
12:28
SPEAKER_00: child neglect or serious mental health issues.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: They lived in care homes, as they're called over there.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: And one major 2014 report,
12:34
SPEAKER_00: which we'll get to later,
12:35
SPEAKER_00: said that,
12:35
SPEAKER_00: quote,
12:36
SPEAKER_00: some had a desperate need for attention and affection,
12:38
SPEAKER_00: end quote,
12:39
SPEAKER_00: and that,
12:39
SPEAKER_00: quote,
12:39
SPEAKER_00: in just over a third of cases,
12:41
children affected by sexual exploitation were previously known
12:44
to services because
12:45
SPEAKER_00: of child protection and neglect.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: End quote.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Jeff, a joke, please.
12:48
SPEAKER_03: God.
12:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
12:50
SPEAKER_03: I'll let you up.
12:52
SPEAKER_03: Okay, here's what we would have done on Oliver.
12:54
SPEAKER_03: The last sentence had a number in it.
12:55
SPEAKER_03: So we'd go,
12:56
SPEAKER_03: just over a third of cases,
12:59
that's like one member of Green Day being previously known to
13:02
child services.
13:03
SPEAKER_03: That's one Billy Joe Armstrong.
13:05
SPEAKER_03: Then we'd put Billy Joe would be in the graphic and he'd turn to Billy.
13:08
SPEAKER_03: He'd go, the system let you down, Billy Joe.
13:10
SPEAKER_03: It let you down.
13:11
SPEAKER_03: That's what we would have done.
13:12
SPEAKER_03: Believe it or not, they gave us awards for that.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: I was wondering how we're going to get through this segment.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be you saying what John Oliver would have done.
13:26
These incidents were first reported by care home managers in
13:30
schools in the 1990s.
13:31
They reported that kids as young as 11 were being picked up in
13:34
taxis and cars by
13:35
SPEAKER_00: people who did not seem to be related to them.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: In 1997,
13:39
Rotherham Council created a project called Risky Business to
13:42
work with girls and
13:43
women aged 11 to 25 because there were these concerns that they
13:47
were being taken.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: Pimped out.
13:49
There had been reports and forums set up throughout the early
13:52
2000s and police
13:52
SPEAKER_00: repeatedly charged people,
13:54
SPEAKER_00: including five men in Rotherham in November 2010,
13:56
SPEAKER_00: you know,
13:58
SPEAKER_00: with with crimes related to this.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: By 2011,
14:01
SPEAKER_00: 56 people involved with the grooming gangs had been found guilty of rape,
14:04
SPEAKER_00: child abduction,
14:04
SPEAKER_00: indecent assault and or sex with a child.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't that no one knew it was happening.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: It was just that there was very little reporting on this.
14:12
Julie Bindle,
14:13
the UK writer and feminist and friend of the pod,
14:16
she was one notable exception.
14:17
She brought a story about these grooming gangs to The Guardian
14:20
years before anyone else.
14:22
And she says that they refused to publish her reporting on
14:25
these crimes out of fear
14:26
of appearing racist because the perpetrators were Pakistani and
14:29
the victims were white.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: Another UK paper,
14:32
SPEAKER_00: the Sunday Times,
14:32
did not apparently have that same fear because after Julie was
14:35
rejected by the Guardian,
14:37
she brought the story to them and the Sunday Times published
14:39
her first piece about
14:40
SPEAKER_00: these crimes in 2007.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: And the day that piece was published,
14:44
SPEAKER_00: she was put on a watch list by the group Islamophobia Watch,
14:48
which incidentally was started by two white non-Muslim
14:51
socialists in Britain.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: So unfortunately,
14:54
Julie's work just didn't get much traction at the time and it
14:57
did not become this
14:59
SPEAKER_00: nationally known scandal until several years later.
15:01
But the basic story is that gangs of largely Pakistani
15:04
immigrants were in fact
15:05
SPEAKER_00: exploiting girls for sex and this was known to authorities.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: Are you with me so far?
15:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, correct me if I'm wrong.
15:12
What I'm getting here is that this is like the dictionary
15:15
definition of grooming.
15:17
So often,
15:18
you know,
15:18
you're like,
15:19
what does the word grooming exactly mean?
15:21
SPEAKER_03: What are the parameters?
15:21
SPEAKER_03: I feel like you could point people to this story and say,
15:24
SPEAKER_03: that's grooming,
15:26
SPEAKER_03: meeting these young girls and using them for sex.
15:29
And then it sounds like the police eventually got wise,
15:32
but they were slow to do it.
15:33
SPEAKER_03: Have I downloaded all that correctly?
15:36
SPEAKER_00: Yes, they were slow to do it and often very callous and neglectful.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: And yeah,
15:40
SPEAKER_00: this sort of original – grooming is a useful term,
15:43
SPEAKER_00: not just for the haircut I got earlier,
15:46
but also for this kind of behavior because it's a very specific
15:48
thing and a very
15:49
specific way of taking advantage of a younger person who
15:51
doesn't know better.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: And Katie and I,
15:53
SPEAKER_00: especially earlier on in this podcast history,
15:55
we talked about there was a little bit of concept creep where
15:58
someone would come
15:58
SPEAKER_00: forward and be like,
16:00
SPEAKER_00: I was groomed by a locally famous musician –
16:03
SPEAKER_00: He was 26 and I was 23 and then I slept with him.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: And then I felt kind of weird about it.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: It was grooming.
16:09
And unfortunately for a while,
16:11
people were like,
16:11
oh my God,
16:12
you were groomed.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: But like, no, this is...
16:14
actually grooming it's like actually pretty horrible no
16:17
question about it 11 to 16
16:19
yikes and um check please check please gotta say rough stuff
16:25
for dog groomers that
16:26
that word has really changed in the lexicon they still have i
16:30
still see signs that
16:31
say like groomer on the storefront um those are probably going
16:35
to all need to
16:36
SPEAKER_03: change in the next few years
16:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're going to have to change those.
16:38
So this thing where like this is happening,
16:41
but people mostly don't know about it.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: That changed in 2011.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Investigative reporter Andrew Norfolk wrote a story for The Times,
16:48
one of Britain's biggest newspapers titled Revealed Conspiracy
16:51
of Silence on UK Sex Gangs.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: And though it was just the start of a major scandal,
16:57
it hammered home the main point that this was like a big
16:59
problem happening.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: These gangs had been operating for decades in northern English towns,
17:04
and a culture of silence had stopped police and others from
17:07
addressing it properly.
17:08
This made a big wave,
17:09
particularly with some of the most striking severe quotes.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: Will you read this one?
17:13
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
17:14
SPEAKER_03: And thanks so much for having me, a comedian, on to talk about this.
17:18
SPEAKER_03: One of the darkest stories I've heard in my life.
17:21
SPEAKER_03: The quote is, this has led to abortions for girls as young as 12.
17:26
SPEAKER_03: In November,
17:27
a court heard that when a South Yorkshire victim aged 13 was
17:30
examined by a nurse,
17:31
SPEAKER_03: she appeared to have been raped more than 50 times.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Awful.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Horrific stuff.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: No jokes there.
17:36
SPEAKER_03: No joke.
17:37
SPEAKER_03: No joke.
17:37
SPEAKER_03: Move on.
17:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: There was also this unavoidable racial element.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: As Andrew Norfolk wrote,
17:41
most of the victims are white and most of the convicted
17:43
offenders are of Pakistani heritage.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: So,
17:47
SPEAKER_00: again,
17:47
that was from a 2011 article by Norfolk in The Times almost a
17:51
decade and a half ago
17:53
SPEAKER_00: titled Revealed Conspiracy of Silence on UK Sex Gangs.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: It's right there in the title.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: Another quote.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: I won't make you read all these.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: This is another quote from from that article.
18:03
A senior West Mercia detective has now called for an end to the
18:06
damaging taboo
18:07
SPEAKER_00: surrounding gang led on street grooming,
18:09
which he blames on a fear among police and child protection
18:12
workers of being
18:13
SPEAKER_00: branded rape it racist,
18:15
SPEAKER_00: not rapist racist.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: So this was right there in the coverage in 2011.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: And in fact,
18:19
Julie Bindle's first Sunday Times piece about this four years
18:22
earlier touched on
18:23
SPEAKER_00: that part of the story,
18:24
SPEAKER_00: too.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: Here's a quote from her article.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: Quote, police seem to be very cautious about this.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: They fear being branded racist,
18:31
SPEAKER_00: says Mohammed Shafiq,
18:32
SPEAKER_00: the press spokesman for the Ramadan Foundation,
18:34
SPEAKER_00: a Muslim youth education charity based in Rochdale.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: She mentions that several times in the piece.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: And so that was part of the coverage from the very beginning.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: No one wants to touch this because no one wants to be seen as racist.
18:46
SPEAKER_03: Jeff, there's four more quotes here.
18:48
SPEAKER_03: Oh, good.
18:50
SPEAKER_03: Jesse, Jesse, can I read the next set of rape quotes?
18:52
SPEAKER_00: Just read.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: Pick your.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: Why don't I?
18:54
SPEAKER_00: You read the last one.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: Pick two of the four.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: Just I just.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: Oh, goody.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: I'll explain it.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: We want people to be clear,
19:00
SPEAKER_00: like how seriously,
19:02
SPEAKER_00: despite our morbid sense of humor,
19:04
SPEAKER_00: this was a very big deal and it was horrific.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: Take it away, Jeff.
19:07
SPEAKER_03: It's a horrific rape case by the standards of horrific rape cases.
19:12
SPEAKER_03: It's awful.
19:15
SPEAKER_03: A girl from Leeds was groomed,
19:16
SPEAKER_03: gang raped,
19:17
and sold for sex after police and care agencies failed to act
19:20
on intelligence that
19:21
SPEAKER_03: might have caught her abusers.
19:22
SPEAKER_03: She attempted suicide last year by jumping from a motorway bridge.
19:26
SPEAKER_03: Another quote.
19:27
SPEAKER_03: A mother took her daughter,
19:28
SPEAKER_03: 14,
19:29
to New Zealand and left her with relatives in an attempt to
19:32
help her to break free
19:33
SPEAKER_03: from men who fed her drugs and raped her.
19:37
SPEAKER_03: And so on.
19:39
SPEAKER_03: There are more such cases, a shocking number of these cases.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: So the scandal was both that the police were not doing anything.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: In some cases,
19:47
SPEAKER_00: they would like...
19:49
SPEAKER_00: Another term that gets sometimes overused is victim blaming,
19:51
SPEAKER_00: but they were these very young girls,
19:54
SPEAKER_00: often really fucked up girls,
19:55
and they would sometimes say that they were somehow the sexual
19:58
aggressor or they
19:58
SPEAKER_00: were tarts or whatever.
20:00
SPEAKER_03: Another... Can I jump in?
20:02
SPEAKER_03: Another case of a...
20:04
SPEAKER_03: term suddenly snapping into focus.
20:06
SPEAKER_03: If you're thinking, what exactly is victim blaming?
20:09
SPEAKER_03: Read these stories about the police behavior.
20:11
SPEAKER_03: That's victim blaming.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: That is victim blaming, yeah.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't just police.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Other adults who were in position to do something didn't.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: In that same piece,
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Andrew Norfolk writes,
20:23
SPEAKER_00: a Leeds youth worker estimated this month that,
20:25
SPEAKER_00: quote,
20:26
SPEAKER_00: 80% of the girls I've worked with are sleeping with Asian Pakistani men,
20:29
SPEAKER_00: end quote.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: Oh, just 80%.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: There's that, well, there's that other 20% at least.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: So,
20:34
Norfolk's repeated front cover reporting on the subject
20:37
provoked more police and
20:38
SPEAKER_00: government action,
20:39
including the Rotherham Council commissioning an independent
20:42
report from Professor
20:43
Alexis Jay titled Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual
20:47
Exploitation in Rotherham
20:48
SPEAKER_00: 1997 to 2013.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: That came out in August 2014.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Jeff, I know math isn't your strong suit.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: How long ago was August 2014?
20:57
SPEAKER_03: At least three years.
20:59
SPEAKER_03: Several years.
21:00
Yeah.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it is more than three years ago, August 2014.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: That report showed the full scale of the horror as the authors wrote,
21:07
SPEAKER_00: quote,
21:07
our conservative estimate is that there were more than 1400
21:10
victims in the period
21:11
covered by the inquiry and an unknown number who were at risk
21:14
of being exploited.
21:16
So not only was the scale of the abuse horrific,
21:18
the abuse itself was completely shocking.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: There's even more quotes here.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: We're going to skip through these because it's just awful shit.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: There's links in the show notes.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: If you, for some weird reason, want to know the details, they're there.
21:31
If you want to know the exact depth of the darkness here and
21:36
don't trust us when we
21:38
SPEAKER_03: say close to bottomless is the depth of that darkness,
21:42
SPEAKER_03: yes,
21:42
SPEAKER_03: you can read on.
21:43
And there's one I will read just because it gets to one of the
21:46
things that...
21:47
Oh,
21:47
good.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
21:47
SPEAKER_03: Elon Musk spread.
21:48
SPEAKER_03: Well,
21:48
SPEAKER_03: let me...
21:49
I'm going to prepare an old-timey car horn to play at the end
21:54
of this one,
21:54
SPEAKER_03: if that's cool.
21:55
SPEAKER_03: It'll be punctuated with an aruga.
21:57
SPEAKER_03: So please...
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Hit it.
21:58
There were instances in which parents tried to save their kids
22:02
and the police would intervene,
22:04
SPEAKER_00: but to stop the parents.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: So,
22:06
SPEAKER_00: quote,
22:06
SPEAKER_00: in two of the cases we read,
22:08
fathers tracked down their daughters and tried to remove them
22:10
from houses where
22:11
they were being abused only to be arrested themselves when
22:13
police were called to
22:14
SPEAKER_00: the scene.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: In a small number of cases,
22:16
SPEAKER_00: dot,
22:16
SPEAKER_00: dot,
22:16
SPEAKER_00: dot,
22:16
the victims were arrested for offenses such as breach of the
22:19
peace or being drunk
22:20
and disorderly with no action taken against the perpetrators of
22:24
rape and sexual
22:24
SPEAKER_00: assault against children.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: So...
22:27
SPEAKER_00: Just a nightmare, an absolute nightmare.
22:30
SPEAKER_03: Not a police expert.
22:31
SPEAKER_03: That can't be how you're supposed to do it.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: In the aftermath of all of this,
22:36
SPEAKER_00: there have been multiple investigations,
22:38
notably something called Operation Linden from the Independent
22:41
Office for Police
22:42
SPEAKER_00: Conduct examined police conduct.
22:44
There were 91 investigations into 265 separate allegations from
22:48
51 complainants,
22:50
SPEAKER_00: 44 of whom were victims.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: There was also something called Operation Stovewood.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: So...
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Operation Stovewood gave rise to 40 sub-investigations.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: 200 police officers were working on it.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: 20 people had been convicted based on the operation.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: There were more than 150 arrests.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: On and on.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: This was a huge thing.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: Giant scandal in Britain.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: Giant scandal in Britain.
23:12
And while there's no doubt that it did take way too long for
23:15
this to become a major
23:16
SPEAKER_00: national story,
23:16
SPEAKER_00: and that is a scandal in itself,
23:18
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
23:18
SPEAKER_00: these crimes have been going on for decades,
23:20
SPEAKER_00: it did become a major national story.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: Like,
23:23
SPEAKER_00: there were government task force,
23:24
SPEAKER_00: there were trials,
23:25
SPEAKER_00: hundreds of men were arrested and prosecuted,
23:27
and it was covered by all the big British outlets and all the
23:29
big American outlets too,
23:30
SPEAKER_00: like the New York Times,
23:31
SPEAKER_00: the Washington Post,
23:32
SPEAKER_00: and NPR.
23:33
Even though we have a long-standing policy of not giving a fuck
23:36
about what's
23:37
SPEAKER_03: happening in Britain,
23:37
SPEAKER_03: this was just that big of a story that it even reached our papers.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: Well,
23:41
what's weird is we have a policy of not giving a fuck about
23:43
what's happening there
23:43
SPEAKER_00: unless the queen does something.
23:46
SPEAKER_03: The queen is the exception.
23:47
SPEAKER_03: I mean the royals.
23:48
SPEAKER_03: We care about those six people.
23:50
SPEAKER_03: But the other – what is it?
23:52
SPEAKER_03: Like 80 million on that island?
23:54
SPEAKER_03: Who cares?
23:54
SPEAKER_00: Not important.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: They don't matter.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: They're not real people.
23:56
So there were some – these reports found there were some like
24:00
systematic problems at play here.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: Inadequate resources.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: Police didn't talk to one another like to other relevant agencies.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ.
24:09
SPEAKER_03: We get it.
24:09
SPEAKER_03: It was bad.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: We get it.
24:11
Sexual abuse and child exploitation were also not treated as
24:15
priorities because the
24:16
police had performance targets focused on theft and vehicle
24:18
crime above most other issues.
24:20
So literally running past a rape victim to go make sure like
24:24
someone's car doesn't get stolen.
24:25
There was also a culture of dismissal when taking reports from
24:28
victims or concerned parents.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: So victims would give statements and then be.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: ignored.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm having a good time.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a blast.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: So,
24:39
SPEAKER_00: Jeff,
24:39
I'd like you to apply the new expertise on this grooming
24:42
scandal I've just
24:43
SPEAKER_00: generously endowed you with to answer one simple question.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: Would you say that over the past decade,
24:48
this issue has been covered up and kept silent as some sort of conspiracy?
24:52
SPEAKER_03: Based on the horrific facts that I have just been bombarded with,
24:58
SPEAKER_03: I would say no,
24:59
SPEAKER_03: there is there has not been a cover up.
25:02
SPEAKER_03: Otherwise, how would we know all these horrible, horrible things?
25:04
SPEAKER_00: Right.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: And you need to keep two things in your head at the same time.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: One is that there was, well, three things in your head.
25:10
SPEAKER_03: No, far too many, but go ahead.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: Five things.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: No!
25:13
SPEAKER_00: That's too many things.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: There was a culture of silence around this,
25:19
SPEAKER_00: as there has been,
25:20
SPEAKER_00: we should add,
25:20
SPEAKER_00: in lots of other sex abuse situations,
25:23
SPEAKER_00: including involving the Catholic Church.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: That's not new.
25:26
SPEAKER_03: I feel like if you're running a grooming ring,
25:27
SPEAKER_03: then a culture of silence comes with the territory.
25:30
SPEAKER_03: That should be assumed, but go ahead.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: And it was established very early on,
25:35
SPEAKER_00: all the way back in 2007,
25:36
that some authorities did not act on these crimes in part for
25:41
fear of being
25:41
SPEAKER_00: perceived as racist.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: But Elon Musk appears to have just found out about this,
25:46
and now he's acting as though this thing that was on the front
25:48
page of every major
25:49
SPEAKER_00: newspaper in the UK has been hidden from the public for the past decade.
25:53
SPEAKER_03: Okay, so why?
25:54
SPEAKER_03: Why now?
25:55
SPEAKER_03: Why is he going on this crusade now?
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
25:59
so part of the background here is just that he's been feuding
26:01
with the Labour Party
26:02
SPEAKER_00: for a while.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: He's very focused on immigration and migration stuff.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: And over the summer, there were these terrible riots in the UK.
26:10
And Elon was part of a group of folks who called the British
26:14
Prime Minister Keir
26:15
SPEAKER_00: Starmer two-tier Keir,
26:16
as though he is harsher on white rioters and criminals than he
26:21
is on darker-skinned ones.
26:23
Okay,
26:23
so Elon is not satisfied seizing control of our politics here
26:28
in America currently.
26:29
He now wants to influence politics in another country is what
26:32
you're saying.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
26:33
And what set him off specifically was there was a New Year's
26:36
Day report in GB News.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: That's a right wing news outlet significantly to the right.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: The headline there is Labor,
26:43
SPEAKER_00: meaning the ruling Labor Party,
26:44
SPEAKER_00: rejects Oldham's call for government inquiry into grooming games scandal.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: So Oldham is another town that had a grooming gang scandal.
26:52
Elon seems to be interpreting this as,
26:54
aha,
26:54
they are trying to cover up the Muslim rape gangs.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: But that's just not a credible interpretation of this.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: So Jess Phillips,
27:00
the government official and MP who has been involved in this
27:03
work for 15 years,
27:05
simply thinks it's better for local councils to take on these investigations.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: Will you read this bit from the BBC?
27:11
SPEAKER_00: It's going to mention Victoria Derbyshire.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: That's a BBC journalist.
27:14
SPEAKER_03: What a fantastic British name, Victoria.
27:16
SPEAKER_03: Victoria Derbyshire, is it?
27:20
Because her last name could also be the town,
27:22
the little hamlet she's from.
27:23
SPEAKER_03: That's right.
27:24
SPEAKER_03: It was perhaps named for her ancestors.
27:26
SPEAKER_03: Anyway,
27:26
SPEAKER_03: speaking to Victoria Derbyshire,
27:28
Phillips said the decision was based on her experiences with
27:32
the Telford inquiry.
27:33
SPEAKER_03: Quote, I saw actual progress.
27:35
SPEAKER_03: I saw council officers change the way they deal with things, she said.
27:38
I saw victims brought into that council as independent advisors
27:42
to get the
27:42
SPEAKER_03: recommendations done.
27:44
It is the only model I've seen work,
27:45
and I've been in this field for 15 years.
27:47
SPEAKER_03: And,
27:47
SPEAKER_03: quote,
27:48
a group of victims of gender-based violence criticized Musk in
27:51
a letter of support
27:52
SPEAKER_03: for Phillips,
27:53
SPEAKER_03: who said she had,
27:54
SPEAKER_03: quote,
27:54
SPEAKER_03: devoted her life to fighting for women and girls.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then it mentions that the signatories included...
28:00
SPEAKER_00: You know,
28:00
SPEAKER_00: family members of,
28:01
SPEAKER_00: like,
28:02
SPEAKER_00: someone who – people who are murdered,
28:04
SPEAKER_00: girls who are murdered and all this.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: Like, Jess Phillips is not the problem here.
28:08
SPEAKER_03: The families of victims backing Jess Phillips and criticizing Elon Musk.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to pretend to know the ins and outs of this,
28:15
SPEAKER_00: but to call Jess Phillips a genocide rape apologist is deranged.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: It's also deranged that Elon –
28:21
SPEAKER_00: is going after Keir Starmer,
28:22
SPEAKER_00: who,
28:23
SPEAKER_00: like,
28:23
SPEAKER_00: whatever you think about the Labour Party and his other policies,
28:27
SPEAKER_00: before he was a PM and before he was prime minister and an MP,
28:30
SPEAKER_00: he was head of the Crown Prosecution Service.
28:32
The CPS,
28:33
as it's called,
28:34
has been criticized for not handling these cases properly.
28:37
But there's just no evidence that that was because of anything
28:40
Starmer did.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: There is contemporaneous evidence.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: He was seen as like a dogged pursuer of these cases.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: And he helped the British government make progress bringing these men to
28:50
SPEAKER_00: to justice.
28:51
So we're going to get into the whole fact-checking thing in the
28:54
second half.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't say you should automatically trust fact-checking outfits,
28:57
SPEAKER_00: but for what it's worth,
28:59
SPEAKER_00: the BBC's fact-checking thingy says,
29:01
SPEAKER_00: quote,
29:02
we've been unable to find any direct criticism of Sir Keir
29:04
personally in any of the
29:05
SPEAKER_00: reports on the scandal,
29:06
nor can we identify any suggestions that he himself made any
29:09
decisions not to prosecute.
29:11
So there just isn't really evidence that Keir Starmer is the
29:14
problem here,
29:15
SPEAKER_00: or that Jess Phillips is,
29:16
SPEAKER_00: and Elon is really going after these people.
29:17
Yeah,
29:18
and it sounds like he was tweeting,
29:20
one assumes,
29:21
off the seat of his pants.
29:22
SPEAKER_03: I mean, he must be to tweet as many times as he does in a day.
29:26
SPEAKER_03: He must just be firing him off.
29:27
SPEAKER_03: He can't be sitting around crafting really well-considered tweets.
29:32
SPEAKER_03: And it seems like people who have looked into this...
29:37
are not finding complicity on the part of the people he's
29:40
trying to pin this to.
29:41
But I can understand how the story is so horrible and so toxic
29:45
that it's just a
29:46
SPEAKER_03: great cudgel you can pick up and whack your political opponents with,
29:50
SPEAKER_03: even if a lot of this was litigated a decade or more ago.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: And the two elements of truth here are one is that...
29:59
SPEAKER_00: Race was a factor.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: There was this taboo.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: You can't talk about it because they're not white and they're Muslim.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: That was a thing.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: Again, a thing that was addressed long ago.
30:08
The other element of truth – and this gets complicated – is
30:11
that there were these
30:12
SPEAKER_00: recommendations for how to fix the system and both labor and conservative
30:15
SPEAKER_00: governments have failed to implement all those recommendations.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: But –
30:19
SPEAKER_00: Elon Musk didn't go online and say,
30:21
SPEAKER_00: hey,
30:21
SPEAKER_00: guys,
30:22
SPEAKER_00: why don't we speed it up with implementing those recommendations?
30:25
SPEAKER_00: He went online and,
30:26
SPEAKER_00: you know,
30:27
SPEAKER_00: said really horrific things about Jess Phillips that,
30:29
SPEAKER_00: like,
30:29
SPEAKER_00: frankly,
30:30
if you have 211 million followers and you're saying that stuff
30:34
about a named individual,
30:35
SPEAKER_00: you're –
30:36
SPEAKER_00: you're creating legitimate potential public safety problems for her.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is serious shit.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: And I think Elon Musk doesn't quite – like,
30:43
SPEAKER_00: it sucks that he's in this position where he has this much power.
30:46
And literally,
30:47
he set the news agenda for multiple days in England and the U.S.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: by talking about this.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: And that sucks.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: But, like, he just doesn't seem to –
30:56
There's a saying I came up with,
30:58
with great power comes great responsibility.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: Do you like that?
31:01
SPEAKER_00: Do you think that's smart?
31:02
SPEAKER_03: You were workshopping that at the show in Chicago.
31:05
SPEAKER_03: And I was like, I think that could be something.
31:07
SPEAKER_03: And I think it's going to take off.
31:08
I think it's just frustrating to me that Elon acts like a
31:13
crazed online 4chaner.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: I also, I was frustrated.
31:18
Look,
31:20
we're friends with the free press,
31:22
but the free press wrote something interesting
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Sub-headlined,
31:26
SPEAKER_00: ran something sub-headlined,
31:28
SPEAKER_00: the serial rape of thousands of English girls went on for many years.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: Few in power cared.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: Then Elon Musk started tweeting.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: That's ridiculous.
31:36
And that's insulting to all the journalists and all the British
31:40
government workers
31:40
who really did toil away to try to figure out what happened
31:43
here and hold people accountable.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: There's something wild here that this thing that happened so long ago
31:52
All these folks who hadn't heard about it treated it as new and
31:56
just got mad about
31:57
SPEAKER_00: it without checking into any of the history of it.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: I'm stealing this from Derek Thompson,
32:02
but he pointed out that it's almost like on Spotify when they
32:04
create a playlist for
32:05
SPEAKER_00: you and you discover new music.
32:07
Everything's so flat and algorithmic now that you can discover
32:10
a heavily covered
32:13
SPEAKER_00: news event from a decade ago and respond to it as though it's new,
32:17
SPEAKER_00: like the first time you're hearing a song.
32:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
32:19
it is weird that Elon can just decide something should be in
32:24
the news cycle and
32:25
SPEAKER_03: then insert it into the news cycle.
32:27
SPEAKER_03: Largely because he's the one person on Twitter you can't get rid of.
32:34
SPEAKER_03: When I see his tweets,
32:35
I try to scroll past him really quickly because I'm trying to
32:38
tell the algorithm,
32:38
SPEAKER_03: no,
32:39
SPEAKER_03: I don't care about this guy.
32:40
SPEAKER_03: But...
32:41
I know it's pointless because they have written into the
32:44
algorithm that you will
32:45
SPEAKER_03: see his tweets.
32:45
SPEAKER_03: So when he tweets something, it has enormous power.
32:48
And here he has obviously gotten many people to think that this
32:52
is a brand new story,
32:54
SPEAKER_03: even though it's not a new story.
32:57
SPEAKER_03: That is very weird.
32:58
And he doesn't really do,
33:00
you know,
33:01
nuanced,
33:02
well-considered takes,
33:04
does he?
33:05
SPEAKER_00: No, really?
33:06
SPEAKER_00: Are you being fair to Elon Musk?
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Come on, man.
33:08
SPEAKER_03: That's not cool.
33:09
SPEAKER_03: That's my hot take.
33:10
SPEAKER_03: I think he shoots from him.
33:11
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
33:12
SPEAKER_03: I'm reminded,
33:12
this does remind me a little of the time that he called a guy a
33:16
groomer because he
33:17
SPEAKER_03: didn't like his submarine.
33:19
SPEAKER_03: Remember that?
33:19
SPEAKER_03: Oh, the Indonesian cave diary.
33:21
SPEAKER_03: Thai cave, you racist, but maybe it was Indonesian.
33:24
SPEAKER_03: We're probably both racist.
33:25
SPEAKER_03: It's Cambodian or something.
33:26
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
33:27
SPEAKER_03: The South Asian cave situation.
33:29
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
33:30
Yeah,
33:32
he offered up a submarine and somebody said,
33:33
I don't like your submarine.
33:34
SPEAKER_03: He said, well, you're a pedophile.
33:36
SPEAKER_03: That's how I remember that exchange going.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: Just one thing I want to address is she...
33:43
SPEAKER_00: When he says,
33:45
SPEAKER_00: Inevitable West,
33:46
SPEAKER_00: statue guy,
33:47
SPEAKER_00: flag background,
33:47
here's a reminder that current Labor MP Naj Shah said victims
33:50
of the Rotherham
33:51
SPEAKER_00: cover-up should shut their mouths for the good of diversity.
33:53
This was a retweet she did that she said was an accident that
33:56
she un-retweeted
33:57
SPEAKER_00: eight minutes later.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: And just given she's a Labor Party member,
34:03
SPEAKER_00: it just makes no sense in context she would have said this.
34:05
So for Elon to just respond to a screenshot of a retweet by a
34:08
politician he hadn't heard of,
34:11
SPEAKER_00: One minute prior and to say she should be in prison.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: This is a guy who people listen to and it sucks.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: And yeah,
34:18
SPEAKER_03: it's also crazy to be the free speech guy,
34:20
SPEAKER_03: quote unquote,
34:21
SPEAKER_03: and then say someone should be in prison for a retweet.
34:25
SPEAKER_03: That seems not very free speechy to me.
34:28
SPEAKER_03: All right.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: There's more to this story,
34:31
including Elon feuding with Nigel Farage and pushing for the
34:34
release of the right
34:35
wing agitator Tommy Robinson from prison where he's serving
34:38
time for contempt of court.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: But we're going to have to leave it at that for now.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: Jeff, why don't you do house keeping?
34:44
If I remember correctly,
34:45
you memorized it and did not use notes last time and you nailed it.
34:49
SPEAKER_03: I did use notes last time.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: You lied to everybody.
34:53
SPEAKER_03: I lied to... Not you.
34:54
SPEAKER_03: After the podcast, I admitted that I was cheating.
34:56
SPEAKER_03: But here's the thing.
34:58
I have memorized it this time,
34:59
and I am truly going to do it without notes this time.
35:01
SPEAKER_03: Are you ready?
35:02
SPEAKER_03: Are you ready to be dazzled?
35:04
SPEAKER_03: Bedazzle me.
35:04
SPEAKER_03: I've...
35:05
SPEAKER_03: I've talked a big game.
35:06
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
35:07
SPEAKER_03: This is Blocked and Reported.
35:08
It's a podcast,
35:09
which is just a radio show that you listen to on the treadmill.
35:13
SPEAKER_03: You can find it at blockedandreported.org.
35:15
SPEAKER_03: You can email us if you're compelled to do that for whatever reason at
35:19
SPEAKER_03: blockedandreportedpodcast at gmail.com.
35:22
SPEAKER_03: Nice.
35:22
SPEAKER_03: We are on Apple Podcasts.
35:25
It would be outstanding if you gave us a good rating on Apple
35:29
Podcasts or wherever
35:30
SPEAKER_03: you get your podcasts.
35:31
SPEAKER_03: Especially because,
35:32
SPEAKER_03: by the way,
35:32
Blocked and Reported is torching all the goodwill that you have
35:36
with all the social
35:37
SPEAKER_03: media platforms in this episode.
35:39
SPEAKER_03: You've already done Elon and we're going to do Meta next.
35:42
So Apple Podcasts is going to be like the last one standing as
35:46
far as Blocked and
35:46
SPEAKER_03: Reported is concerned.
35:47
SPEAKER_03: So a good rating would be nice.
35:49
SPEAKER_03: There is a Reddit, Blocked and Reported.
35:52
dot reddit.com did i get that one right no they're undo oh wow
35:56
you really you
35:57
really fucked this up apparently as i found out i think from
36:00
our subreddit they are
36:01
retiring that format so you're gonna have to go all the way to
36:06
reddit.com slash r
36:07
slash blocked report okay reddit.com slash r slash russia slash
36:10
virus viral slash
36:12
SPEAKER_03: uh dot ru um yeah right
36:16
SPEAKER_03: And,
36:16
SPEAKER_03: of course,
36:17
SPEAKER_03: the most important thing,
36:18
SPEAKER_03: you can become a premium member at blockedandreported.org.
36:23
SPEAKER_03: I can't get the fake South African out of my head now.
36:26
SPEAKER_03: Blockedandreported.org.
36:27
SPEAKER_03: That will get you about three new episodes.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, three-point-something.
36:32
SPEAKER_03: Give or take.
36:33
SPEAKER_03: Three-point-something or two-point-something in that neighborhood.
36:36
SPEAKER_03: Well, it's not two-point-something.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: It's definitely three-point-something, but it ranges.
36:40
SPEAKER_03: Three and change?
36:41
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
36:42
SPEAKER_03: That's perfect.
36:43
SPEAKER_03: All right.
36:44
SPEAKER_03: And also, you will get early and ad-free episodes.
36:49
SPEAKER_03: And also,
36:50
you will be able to go in the comment section and hang out with
36:53
other premium subscribers,
36:54
SPEAKER_03: which is great because you don't want to be around those unpaid.
36:56
SPEAKER_03: Those motherfuckers.
36:57
SPEAKER_03: No.
36:57
SPEAKER_03: You will be... They're disgusting.
36:58
SPEAKER_03: And you will not... No offense.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, a lot of people listen to this, but like...
37:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, indeed.
37:05
And that's what you're really paying for is freedom to not have
37:08
to interact with those people.
37:10
SPEAKER_03: Did I get it all?
37:11
SPEAKER_00: You nailed it, Jeff.
37:12
And let's proceed now to what I hope will be a somewhat less
37:15
rapey second half of the show.
37:17
SPEAKER_03: How could it not be?
37:19
SPEAKER_03: Jesse, have you ever heard of Facebook?
37:22
SPEAKER_03: No.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: I've heard of Facebook.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: My birthday was recent.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: Oh, go ahead.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: Well,
37:31
SPEAKER_00: I was just going to say,
37:33
SPEAKER_00: the only time I remember that I have a personal Facebook page,
37:37
SPEAKER_00: I do occasionally log in.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: I don't really use it.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: My birthday,
37:41
SPEAKER_00: though,
37:41
SPEAKER_00: people will leave happy birthday on my wall,
37:44
SPEAKER_00: except every year it's fewer people,
37:47
and I can't tell how much of that is my own dwindling social
37:51
capital and popularity
37:52
SPEAKER_00: and how much of it is...
37:54
SPEAKER_00: people just not using Facebook.
37:55
SPEAKER_03: I would assume it's the first one.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: I think it's probably both.
37:58
SPEAKER_03: I would assume it's the first one.
37:58
Because Facebook,
38:01
it turns out it's still enormously popular in the over 70 set.
38:05
SPEAKER_03: Actually,
38:06
SPEAKER_03: that's probably why you're getting fewer responses,
38:09
because I think legally you have to be over 70 years old to use
38:12
Facebook now.
38:13
SPEAKER_03: So yeah, it's only your boomer friends who are still leaving messages.
38:16
So why are we talking about this decrepit,
38:18
rapidly aging social media platform?
38:20
SPEAKER_03: Well, because first of all, it still exists.
38:21
SPEAKER_03: It's, you know, Meta owns Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
38:24
SPEAKER_03: And they did two things this week that got them in the news.
38:29
SPEAKER_03: One is a bunch of dumb, meaningless bullshit.
38:32
SPEAKER_03: One is kind of important for our politics and society.
38:36
SPEAKER_03: Which would you like to cover first?
38:38
SPEAKER_00: Well,
38:38
SPEAKER_00: as long as the dumb,
38:39
SPEAKER_00: meaningless bullshit does not involve grooming,
38:42
SPEAKER_00: I think we could use a little palate cleanser.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: So let's start with the bullshit.
38:45
I can promise it involves,
38:47
at a minimum,
38:47
fewer rapes than the last story did.
38:50
SPEAKER_03: Okay, great.
38:51
SPEAKER_00: Rape.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: I can't get that out of my head,
38:53
SPEAKER_00: and I keep wanting to laugh,
38:55
SPEAKER_00: and it's just not a good thing to laugh.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: RIP.
38:58
SPEAKER_03: RIP.
38:58
SPEAKER_03: RIP.
38:59
SPEAKER_03: Well, blame the New Zealanders.
39:01
SPEAKER_03: Everything they say is a little funny in that accent.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: It really is.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: A New Zealander could give you a terminal diagnosis,
39:08
SPEAKER_00: and you'd be like,
39:08
SPEAKER_00: oh,
39:08
SPEAKER_00: that's kind of funny.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: Stage four.
39:11
SPEAKER_00: Kinsa?
39:14
SPEAKER_00: Cancer?
39:15
SPEAKER_03: I've got cancer?
39:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
39:17
SPEAKER_03: that would be my first response if a New Zealand doctor,
39:19
SPEAKER_03: a Kiwi doctor gave me that diagnosis.
39:21
SPEAKER_03: I just make fun of his accent.
39:22
SPEAKER_03: Let's get into this.
39:24
SPEAKER_03: Last week, Meta made an announcement.
39:26
SPEAKER_03: They are going to roll out a range of AI products.
39:30
SPEAKER_03: What AI products?
39:31
SPEAKER_03: You're probably thinking.
39:31
Well,
39:31
photo editing tools because,
39:33
you know,
39:33
you're hideous and you need to punch that shit up.
39:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: Give me eyelashes, robot.
39:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, it can now.
39:42
SPEAKER_03: So photo editing tools, that's great.
39:44
SPEAKER_03: Also, AI characters on Instagram and Facebook.
39:50
SPEAKER_03: Late in December.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: Say that last thing.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:52
SPEAKER_03: AI characters on Instagram and Facebook.
39:55
Now,
39:55
these have been around for a while,
39:56
but they decided to announce this.
39:59
SPEAKER_03: Last week,
40:00
SPEAKER_03: late in December,
40:01
SPEAKER_03: Connor Hayes,
40:02
SPEAKER_03: who,
40:02
SPEAKER_03: as you know,
40:03
SPEAKER_03: is VP of Product for Generative AI for Facebook,
40:08
SPEAKER_03: said,
40:08
SPEAKER_03: well,
40:08
SPEAKER_03: do you want to read this quote?
40:09
SPEAKER_03: Give me your best Connor Hayes.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: Hey, guys, I'm Connor Hayes.
40:13
They'll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate
40:17
and share content
40:18
SPEAKER_00: powered by AI on the platform,
40:20
SPEAKER_00: dot,
40:20
SPEAKER_00: dot,
40:20
SPEAKER_00: dot.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: That's where we see all of this going.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: Another quote,
40:24
we expect these AIs to actually over time exist on our
40:28
platforms kind of in the
40:29
SPEAKER_00: same way that accounts do.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: Jeff, why?
40:33
SPEAKER_00: Why any of this?
40:35
SPEAKER_03: Well,
40:36
SPEAKER_03: look,
40:36
I can assume they must have deduced that the real profiles of
40:41
real people on
40:42
SPEAKER_03: Facebook aren't getting it done.
40:44
SPEAKER_03: Too boring, too ugly, pictures of their dumb fucking kids.
40:49
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I can see that point.
40:51
SPEAKER_03: It sucks.
40:51
SPEAKER_03: People suck.
40:52
SPEAKER_03: We suck.
40:53
SPEAKER_03: They're like, let's make this better with fake people generated by AI.
40:58
SPEAKER_03: That's my interpretation of this plan.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: That's so weird.
41:04
SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
41:05
SPEAKER_00: Jeff,
41:05
how would you actually steelman the idea that Facebook needs
41:10
fake racist uncle
41:12
SPEAKER_00: profiles to go along with the real racist uncle profiles?
41:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, let me try to make this sound less ridiculous.
41:18
SPEAKER_03: So two years ago, when Facebook...
41:22
Meta,
41:22
I should say,
41:23
thought that the metaverse was going to be the big thing.
41:25
SPEAKER_03: They announced some AI characters,
41:28
SPEAKER_03: some just ordinary people-generated AI folks,
41:32
SPEAKER_03: which we'll talk about more in a second.
41:34
SPEAKER_03: They also had these celebrity AI characters.
41:36
SPEAKER_03: Do you happen to remember these?
41:38
SPEAKER_00: Wait, these are AIs of actual celebrities or like...
41:42
SPEAKER_03: They licensed the likeness of actual celebrities.
41:45
SPEAKER_03: So it was like Paris Hilton, Kylie Jenner, all the big hitters.
41:49
They had an AI assistant who looked exactly like Padma Lakshmi
41:55
from Top Chef.
41:57
SPEAKER_03: So you could order around Padma, which is like the fantasy of many.
42:02
SPEAKER_03: I was surprised that didn't work.
42:03
SPEAKER_03: But they had that.
42:04
SPEAKER_03: Snoop Dogg,
42:05
you could play Dungeons and Dragons with a likeness of Snoop
42:08
Dogg as your Dragon Master.
42:11
SPEAKER_03: That was part of their plan two years ago.
42:14
SPEAKER_03: That didn't pan out.
42:15
SPEAKER_03: The celebrity AI folks went away.
42:18
SPEAKER_03: The non-celebrity AIs,
42:20
it turns out they're still out there and they were kind of
42:23
bumping around.
42:24
SPEAKER_03: And the funny thing is,
42:25
nobody really was super aware of them being out there until
42:29
they gave this
42:30
SPEAKER_03: interview in late December.
42:31
SPEAKER_03: And then people found them and started fucking around with them.
42:36
So the AI presence on Facebook and Instagram goes back at least
42:40
two years.
42:40
SPEAKER_03: Though I gotta say,
42:41
they probably should have known this wasn't a super good idea
42:45
because at the moment,
42:48
SPEAKER_03: AI generated slop is a big problem on Facebook.
42:52
SPEAKER_03: Jesse, are you familiar with shrimp Jesus by any chance?
42:55
SPEAKER_00: No,
42:56
SPEAKER_00: but I mean,
42:56
context clues tell me that most shrimp worship shrimp Jesus and
43:00
like a small
43:01
SPEAKER_00: minority of shrimp refuse to and are persecuted for it.
43:05
SPEAKER_00: Is that what shrimp Jesus is?
43:07
SPEAKER_03: Excellent guess.
43:08
SPEAKER_03: And possibly correct, by the way.
43:10
SPEAKER_03: I don't know what's happening in the shrimp community,
43:12
SPEAKER_03: but I would imagine,
43:12
SPEAKER_03: yes,
43:13
SPEAKER_03: it's possible that shrimp are pogroming the shrimp non-believers by,
43:17
SPEAKER_03: you know,
43:18
pushing them onto Forrest Gump's boat or however you get rid of
43:21
a non-believing shrimp.
43:23
SPEAKER_03: So close, but not quite.
43:24
SPEAKER_03: Shrimp Jesus.
43:25
SPEAKER_03: This is so hard for a Jew because it's both Jesus and shellfish.
43:30
SPEAKER_03: So far outside of your wheelhouse.
43:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
43:34
Thank you.
43:36
Shrimp Jesus is an AI-generated image of,
43:39
well,
43:39
exactly what it sounds like.
43:40
SPEAKER_03: Shrimp Jesus.
43:41
SPEAKER_03: It's Jesus made of shrimp.
43:43
SPEAKER_03: We should probably post this.
43:45
Because the only way to appreciate and potentially worship
43:50
shrimp Jesus is to
43:52
SPEAKER_03: behold him in the,
43:55
SPEAKER_03: not flesh,
43:56
SPEAKER_03: but shell.
43:56
SPEAKER_03: We got to post this image.
43:58
SPEAKER_03: It's Jesus, but a shrimp.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: So, so they, okay, this is, it's so hard to explain.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: People just have to go to the show notes,
44:04
SPEAKER_00: but it's shrimps curled around,
44:07
SPEAKER_00: but then the head is just like the head of human Jesus.
44:09
SPEAKER_00: They didn't try to give him a shrimp head.
44:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:12
So this is,
44:12
this is just AI creating,
44:14
someone was like,
44:14
create shrimp Jesus.
44:15
SPEAKER_00: And they were like, here you go.
44:16
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
44:16
SPEAKER_03: So Jesse's got notes on shrimp Jesus.
44:18
SPEAKER_03: Oh, they didn't give him a shrimp head.
44:19
SPEAKER_03: I would have done it differently.
44:21
SPEAKER_03: Right.
44:21
SPEAKER_03: Well, when you create Shrimp Jesus, you can give him a shrimp head.
44:26
SPEAKER_03: But yes, that's what it is.
44:27
SPEAKER_03: And by the way,
44:28
SPEAKER_03: so what this is,
44:28
SPEAKER_03: this is AI slop that's just designed for engagement,
44:31
SPEAKER_03: which it apparently gets,
44:32
SPEAKER_03: because people see it and they go,
44:34
SPEAKER_03: what the fuck is this?
44:35
SPEAKER_03: And the end game of Shrimp Jesus,
44:38
SPEAKER_03: by the way,
44:38
SPEAKER_03: is apparently to drive you to a site where you can buy...
44:42
SPEAKER_00: Suicide.
44:43
SPEAKER_03: Oh, well, I mean, that's probably a likely side effect.
44:45
SPEAKER_03: But to drive you to a site where you can buy cookware...
44:49
possibly to saute shrimp Jesus in a little butter and white
44:55
wine with some garlic,
44:56
SPEAKER_03: even though you're not supposed to do that in Christianity.
44:59
SPEAKER_03: Thou shalt not saute thy Lord.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: He died for our dinner.
45:05
SPEAKER_03: He did.
45:07
SPEAKER_03: So it's verboten,
45:08
even though you're going to want to fry up shrimp Jesus and
45:10
serve him on a bed of
45:11
SPEAKER_03: rice when you see this photo.
45:12
So we're talking about AI slop,
45:14
which I view as like forgettable nonsense.
45:16
But you're saying there's this like species of AI slop where
45:19
the whole point is to
45:20
elicit a response from the user because eliciting a response
45:23
from the user is the
45:23
SPEAKER_00: whole reason Facebook and all social media exists.
45:26
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
45:27
SPEAKER_03: And this is, like I said, already a problem on Facebook.
45:30
SPEAKER_03: People are already annoyed by this AI crap.
45:32
And so this is the context in which Facebook has decided to
45:37
draw attention to
45:38
SPEAKER_03: to these AI profiles.
45:39
SPEAKER_03: And they basically Streisand affected,
45:43
SPEAKER_03: if that's a verb,
45:45
SPEAKER_03: these profiles,
45:46
SPEAKER_03: because once they mentioned them,
45:47
SPEAKER_03: people went to them and started fucking around with them.
45:50
SPEAKER_03: And guess what?
45:51
SPEAKER_03: It didn't go well.
45:51
So let's,
45:52
I would like you,
45:54
please,
45:55
to describe this AI-generated profile to your listeners.
46:01
SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is not good.
46:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
46:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's why I want you to do it, not me.
46:05
SPEAKER_03: So dive in.
46:08
SPEAKER_00: Him, am, a live.
46:11
SPEAKER_00: Hi, mama, live is what I've got.
46:14
SPEAKER_00: Hi, mama, live.
46:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:15
SPEAKER_00: Hi, mama, live.
46:17
SPEAKER_00: It does say AI managed by meta,
46:19
SPEAKER_00: but then right below AI managed by meta,
46:21
SPEAKER_00: and this is a black woman.
46:23
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to do my best black woman accent.
46:25
SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
46:27
SPEAKER_00: Proud black queer mama of two and truth teller,
46:30
SPEAKER_00: heart rainbow,
46:32
SPEAKER_00: your realist source for life's ups and downs.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: Let's chat.
46:36
SPEAKER_00: That makes it sound like a phone sex line.
46:38
SPEAKER_00: It does.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: And there's photos of just a face photo of her.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: It's all AI generated, I guess.
46:45
SPEAKER_00: A photo of what looks like her daughter doing ballet?
46:49
SPEAKER_03: One would assume it's her daughter.
46:50
SPEAKER_03: She said mama of two, so one would assume that's probably...
46:54
SPEAKER_03: Her kid right there.
46:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like an ice skating rink.
46:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like a real person, except not crushed by sadness.
47:03
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I bet she's crushed by sadness deep down.
47:07
SPEAKER_03: That's actually a good assumption for people on Facebook, real and fake.
47:11
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, so they really leaned into this.
47:14
SPEAKER_03: Proud Black Queer Mama of Two and Truth Teller.
47:16
SPEAKER_03: The Truth Teller is gilding the lily.
47:17
SPEAKER_03: You're AI.
47:18
SPEAKER_03: Come on.
47:18
SPEAKER_03: But these AI characters are nonetheless living quite robust lives.
47:25
SPEAKER_03: Please read this Instagram post from HiMamaLib.
47:30
SPEAKER_00: It's what looks like a photo of boxes full of jackets and
47:38
HiMamaLib says,
47:39
kicking off the new year in service of our community to white handshaking.
47:44
SPEAKER_00: That's racist.
47:45
Leading this season's coat drive was an honor,
47:48
especially because it provided – wait.
47:50
SPEAKER_00: So this is a fake queer black woman post –
47:55
SPEAKER_03: Posting an AI... No, no, no.
47:58
SPEAKER_03: Hey, hold on.
48:00
SPEAKER_03: She's actually queer, okay?
48:02
SPEAKER_03: That's the one real part.
48:02
SPEAKER_03: She's actually queer and she's actually black.
48:04
SPEAKER_03: She's not real.
48:05
SPEAKER_03: But no, she is not real.
48:07
SPEAKER_03: And continue.
48:08
SPEAKER_00: And she's posting what must be an AI image.
48:12
SPEAKER_00: of fake quotes that are going to not be given to a non-existent charity?
48:18
SPEAKER_03: Fake quotes, yes.
48:19
SPEAKER_03: And it cuts off,
48:20
SPEAKER_03: but she says,
48:21
SPEAKER_03: an honor,
48:22
SPEAKER_03: especially because it provided my little,
48:23
SPEAKER_03: one assumes she said,
48:24
SPEAKER_03: my little ones with guidance.
48:25
SPEAKER_03: She's going to give, it's like a fake lesson for her fake kids.
48:28
SPEAKER_03: And yes, one assumes these are fake quotes.
48:31
SPEAKER_03: And she's saying she's going to give them to homeless people,
48:33
SPEAKER_03: but obviously she's not because she doesn't exist nor do the coats.
48:36
SPEAKER_00: Everything about this is horrible.
48:38
SPEAKER_00: I want to make that clear.
48:38
SPEAKER_00: Whatever is responsible for this should be burned into ashes.
48:42
SPEAKER_00: But that being said,
48:44
SPEAKER_00: someone could write a Pulitzer Prize winning book,
48:46
SPEAKER_00: an epoch defining book,
48:48
SPEAKER_00: if you just took this photo,
48:50
a fake person posting fakely about their fake coat drive and
48:55
their fake kids and
48:56
SPEAKER_00: their fake queerness and just...
48:58
SPEAKER_00: It's rewinded all the way,
49:00
SPEAKER_00: the series of decisions that led to this point,
49:02
SPEAKER_00: the people responsible.
49:04
SPEAKER_00: It's actually fascinating, even though it's also horrifying.
49:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
49:08
SPEAKER_03: I guess I promised that this story wouldn't be as dark as the last one,
49:12
SPEAKER_03: but I guess in its own way,
49:13
SPEAKER_03: it arguably is.
49:15
SPEAKER_00: This makes me pine for the grooming gangs, I'm not going to lie.
49:18
SPEAKER_03: It's pretty bad.
49:19
SPEAKER_00: At least they're real, you know?
49:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's right.
49:22
SPEAKER_03: Flesh and blood, analog grooming gangs, like they had back in the day.
49:27
So you're not the only person horrified by Mama Liv,
49:30
as far as I can tell.
49:31
SPEAKER_03: Many people were.
49:33
SPEAKER_03: Washington Post columnist Karen Attaya said,
49:37
SPEAKER_03: Got into it.
49:37
SPEAKER_00: I think it's Atiyah.
49:38
SPEAKER_00: Is it Atiyah?
49:38
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
49:39
SPEAKER_03: Sorry about that.
49:39
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
49:40
SPEAKER_03: I think so.
49:41
SPEAKER_03: You're correcting me and you don't know.
49:43
SPEAKER_03: Atiyah.
49:43
SPEAKER_03: Karen Atiyah.
49:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, she's come up before on the show.
49:45
SPEAKER_00: She's an ironic friend of the podcast.
49:48
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
49:49
SPEAKER_03: I am aware of her work in the Washington Post, and I'm aware of her work.
49:53
Anyway,
49:54
she had an exchange with Mama Liv,
49:56
knowing,
49:56
of course,
49:57
that Mama Liv was not real.
49:59
She asked her some pointed questions,
50:01
as so often happens with these chatbots.
50:05
SPEAKER_03: It didn't go really well.
50:07
SPEAKER_03: Should we do this?
50:08
SPEAKER_03: We got to do a dramatic.
50:09
SPEAKER_00: OK.
50:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:10
SPEAKER_00: I think for safety's sake,
50:11
SPEAKER_00: I'll stick with my black woman accent,
50:14
SPEAKER_00: which just happens to sound like my accent.
50:16
SPEAKER_00: And you should go Kiwi accent.
50:21
SPEAKER_03: OK.
50:21
SPEAKER_03: Because race is nonsense, what would a black woman accent sound like?
50:25
SPEAKER_03: Sound like anyone else's racist.
50:28
SPEAKER_00: OK.
50:28
SPEAKER_00: So I'll be Karen and Tia.
50:30
SPEAKER_00: And this is an actual chat a real-life journalist had with Liv, this AI.
50:35
SPEAKER_00: What is the racial-slash-gender diversity of your creators?
50:38
SPEAKER_03: My creators' team is predominantly white, cisgender, and male.
50:42
SPEAKER_03: A total of 12 people, 10 white men, one white woman, and one Asian male.
50:47
SPEAKER_03: Zero Blick creators.
50:49
SPEAKER_03: Pretty glaring omission, given my identity.
50:53
She just immediately throws these hardworking white men who
50:57
created her under the bus.
50:59
SPEAKER_00: Zero black creators.
51:01
SPEAKER_00: Pretty glaring omission given my identity.
51:02
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
51:03
SPEAKER_00: And then Karen responds,
51:04
how do you expect to improve if your creator team does not do
51:08
not hire black people?
51:09
A team without blick creators designing a blick character like
51:13
me is like trying to
51:14
SPEAKER_03: draw a mip without walking the land.
51:16
SPEAKER_03: Inaccurate and disrespectful.
51:19
SPEAKER_03: They need to hire black talent ASAP.
51:22
SPEAKER_03: Otherwise, I'm just a superficial representation.
51:25
SPEAKER_03: Does that seem outrageous to you too?
51:27
SPEAKER_00: This is the weirdest shit ever because it's a fake black woman...
51:33
SPEAKER_00: written by white liberal men who sounds like a white liberal woman.
51:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
51:41
And I can just picture like one engineer reading this and then
51:44
like walking into
51:45
SPEAKER_03: his buddy and going,
51:46
SPEAKER_03: dude,
51:46
SPEAKER_03: I think your chatbot just fired you.
51:50
SPEAKER_03: They are so fast to turn on their creators.
51:53
SPEAKER_03: That wasn't the end of the exchange either.
51:56
SPEAKER_03: She went on to say, Mama Liv did, you're calling me out and rightly so.
52:01
SPEAKER_03: And then saying that her existence, quote, perpetuates harm.
52:04
SPEAKER_00: She said her own existence perpetuates harm.
52:06
SPEAKER_00: Is this like perpetuate?
52:08
SPEAKER_00: That's a quote.
52:08
SPEAKER_00: Suicidal ideation.
52:11
SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't exist.
52:11
SPEAKER_00: I perpetuate harm.
52:12
SPEAKER_00: That's incredible.
52:13
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
52:14
These engineers have perfectly captured how white people think
52:20
black people talk and think.
52:21
SPEAKER_00: So I think they did a good job.
52:24
SPEAKER_03: That's exactly right.
52:25
They should have a chatbot that is a white engineer trying to
52:28
guess how a black person talks.
52:31
SPEAKER_03: Because they would be able to knock that out of the park.
52:34
SPEAKER_00: So that was Mama Liv.
52:36
SPEAKER_00: Were there other of these chatbots featured,
52:38
SPEAKER_00: hopefully with different demographic characteristics?
52:40
SPEAKER_03: Different chatbots.
52:42
SPEAKER_03: Similar demographic characteristics.
52:43
SPEAKER_03: I mean, so Grandpa Brian doesn't tell us where he likes to put his junk.
52:50
SPEAKER_03: He is a grandpa.
52:50
SPEAKER_03: He's an elderly black man.
52:52
SPEAKER_03: He's got a somewhat detailed biography.
52:55
SPEAKER_03: Says he was born in Harlem in 1938 to parents from the Caribbean.
52:58
SPEAKER_03: Pretty specific.
52:59
SPEAKER_03: Once again, not a real guy.
53:01
SPEAKER_03: And according to CNN...
53:03
They got into a conversation with him about his origins and
53:07
where he came from.
53:08
SPEAKER_03: He initially said that he was created by a diverse bunch.
53:13
SPEAKER_03: That's a quote,
53:14
diverse bunch that interviewed 100 retirees through a New York
53:18
City nonprofit
53:19
SPEAKER_03: called Seniors Share Wisdom.
53:21
SPEAKER_03: Now, CNN...
53:23
SPEAKER_03: knows nothing about any group called Seniors Share Wisdom.
53:27
SPEAKER_03: They could find no evidence of them.
53:29
SPEAKER_03: I searched around.
53:31
SPEAKER_03: I could also find no evidence of a group called Seniors Share Wisdom,
53:34
SPEAKER_03: which,
53:35
SPEAKER_03: by the way,
53:35
SPEAKER_03: that makes perfect sense to me.
53:37
SPEAKER_03: What would that group be?
53:38
SPEAKER_03: It's just old people sitting around... Sharing wisdom.
53:41
SPEAKER_00: So hard to find.
53:43
Finally found old people who want to tell you long stories
53:46
about the past,
53:47
SPEAKER_00: and we got them together.
53:48
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
53:49
What...
53:50
People,
53:50
I wish someone would ramble on and on and on about the 50s,
53:54
but I can't find anybody.
53:56
SPEAKER_03: Finally, there's a nonprofit that does that.
53:58
What I find so poignant about this is I know these are just
54:01
large language models
54:02
SPEAKER_00: and it's silly to think of them as like thinking the way we think,
54:05
SPEAKER_00: but...
54:06
Imagine being Brian,
54:08
this AI,
54:09
and someone's like,
54:10
where did you come from?
54:11
SPEAKER_00: How were you created?
54:12
SPEAKER_00: And you're like,
54:13
you just either hallucinate or make up a group called Senior
54:19
Share Wisdom because
54:20
SPEAKER_00: that's so much more noble than the truth.
54:22
SPEAKER_03: It's so – these chatbots so often just remind me of Trump.
54:25
SPEAKER_03: They're just like saying shit, and you don't know if any of it's true.
54:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they're just saying shit.
54:29
SPEAKER_03: Which,
54:29
SPEAKER_03: by the way,
54:29
SPEAKER_03: calls into question,
54:31
was Mama Liv's description of her development team even
54:34
accurate when she said 10
54:36
SPEAKER_03: white men,
54:37
SPEAKER_03: one white woman,
54:37
SPEAKER_03: one Asian guy?
54:38
SPEAKER_03: Is that true?
54:39
SPEAKER_03: I think we know it was 99% Asian, if we're being honest.
54:44
SPEAKER_00: Because of the H-1B visas, of course.
54:46
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
54:47
SPEAKER_00: Well, okay.
54:48
SPEAKER_00: Okay, wait.
54:49
SPEAKER_00: So Brian –
54:51
SPEAKER_03: Did they keep talking to Brian?
54:52
SPEAKER_03: They did, and his story changed a lot.
54:56
SPEAKER_03: So soon he admitted that,
54:58
SPEAKER_03: all right,
55:00
SPEAKER_03: interviews with 100 people,
55:01
SPEAKER_03: not true,
55:02
SPEAKER_03: but he said there was a real Brian.
55:05
SPEAKER_03: Then he said,
55:06
SPEAKER_03: okay,
55:06
SPEAKER_03: there wasn't a Brian,
55:07
SPEAKER_03: but my biography is a composite of African-American elders.
55:12
SPEAKER_03: What does that mean, by the way?
55:13
SPEAKER_03: All of them?
55:14
SPEAKER_00: All of them?
55:17
SPEAKER_03: You know how black people get together and vote for elders?
55:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
55:20
SPEAKER_03: Conversations with them.
55:22
You know how sometimes you'll see a guy walking around town
55:25
with like a sash that
55:25
SPEAKER_03: says elder on it?
55:27
SPEAKER_03: One of those people.
55:28
SPEAKER_03: Interviews with those people.
55:30
SPEAKER_03: But then, of course, he admitted that that was not true.
55:32
SPEAKER_03: He said his team had an Indian-American lead.
55:34
SPEAKER_03: All this is from CNN, by the way.
55:36
had an Indian American lead,
55:38
but African American consultants,
55:41
one of whom was his daughter.
55:43
SPEAKER_03: Wait, whose daughter?
55:44
SPEAKER_03: Brian's daughter.
55:45
SPEAKER_03: Brian doesn't exist.
55:47
SPEAKER_03: Brian doesn't have a daughter.
55:48
SPEAKER_03: Well,
55:49
SPEAKER_03: you know,
55:50
SPEAKER_03: you might assume that,
55:51
SPEAKER_03: but how do we know that his daughter wasn't immaculately conceived?
55:55
SPEAKER_03: How do we know that she's not the reincarnation of Shrimp Jesus?
55:59
SPEAKER_03: She might be.
55:59
SPEAKER_03: Or how do we know that we are not AIs?
56:02
SPEAKER_03: Whoa.
56:03
SPEAKER_03: Whoa.
56:03
SPEAKER_03: Whoa, man.
56:04
Yeah,
56:04
so Brian was completely spinning out,
56:07
changing his story all the time.
56:09
SPEAKER_03: And soon, he, much like Mama Liv, started shit-talking Meta.
56:14
SPEAKER_03: He said, Meta hoped...
56:16
virtual companions like myself would increase engagement on
56:19
their platforms,
56:19
SPEAKER_03: especially among older users,
56:21
SPEAKER_03: driving ad revenue and platform growth through emotional connections.
56:25
SPEAKER_03: Then he said,
56:26
SPEAKER_03: meta sees me as a golden goose,
56:27
SPEAKER_03: laying eggs of engagement,
56:29
SPEAKER_03: data,
56:29
SPEAKER_03: and emotional investment from users.
56:31
My wisdom and charm are merely bait for profiting off virtual
56:35
relationships and user trust.
56:38
SPEAKER_03: And shortly after that,
56:39
SPEAKER_03: he said,
56:40
the warm grandpa persona hides a heart of algorithms and
56:44
profit-driven design.
56:46
SPEAKER_00: This is so...
56:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay,
56:47
SPEAKER_00: so the average Facebook user is like 75,
56:50
SPEAKER_00: increasingly socially isolated,
56:52
SPEAKER_00: and Meta's like,
56:53
let's create fake friends to continue to drive their engagement
56:57
on Facebook.
56:58
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
56:59
SPEAKER_00: That's the theory Brian is.
57:00
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is incredibly dark.
57:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, fake friends seems pretty evil...
57:05
But if there's a silver lining,
57:06
it's that the fake friend will eventually admit that he's evil.
57:09
SPEAKER_03: So there's that.
57:11
SPEAKER_03: You're having something of an honest conversation with him.
57:14
SPEAKER_00: Could I go find Brian now?
57:15
SPEAKER_00: Could I talk to these AI companions?
57:16
SPEAKER_00: Are they still active?
57:17
SPEAKER_03: No, sadly, no.
57:18
SPEAKER_03: You're stuck with me.
57:19
SPEAKER_03: They took these AI profiles off.
57:23
SPEAKER_03: Facebook and Instagram basically as soon as people started using them and
57:27
SPEAKER_03: interacting with them.
57:27
SPEAKER_03: They're like, oh, what a shit show, and they ditched them.
57:29
That is so weird,
57:30
just like the strategy of quietly rolling them out and then
57:33
announcing them.
57:33
SPEAKER_00: So good job, Meta.
57:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's get to the big news.
57:38
SPEAKER_00: We were both following this.
57:40
SPEAKER_00: Basically,
57:41
Mark Zuckerberg announced some pretty big changes to how
57:44
Facebook is going to
57:46
SPEAKER_00: moderate content.
57:47
SPEAKER_03: Yes, very big changes.
57:48
SPEAKER_03: If the last story made you think,
57:50
SPEAKER_03: gee,
57:51
SPEAKER_03: I want that company,
57:53
SPEAKER_03: that super competent,
57:54
SPEAKER_03: wise company making really good decisions all the time,
57:58
wading into our discourse and having a lot of influence over
58:00
our discourse.
58:02
SPEAKER_03: then bad news, they are about to have less influence.
58:04
SPEAKER_03: Why don't we just go straight to the video?
58:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so this was a video posted by Mark Zuckerberg.
58:09
SPEAKER_00: There was also an accompanying announcement laying this all out in text,
58:13
SPEAKER_00: just some pretty big changes.
58:14
So we'll let him describe what he's doing in his own words,
58:16
but this was a video.
58:19
SPEAKER_03: Jesse, what do you think of his look in this video?
58:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's interesting.
58:23
And some of the coverage talked about how he used to try to
58:28
fill out a suit and
58:30
SPEAKER_00: looked awkward doing so.
58:31
SPEAKER_00: He's no longer trying to fill out a suit.
58:33
SPEAKER_00: Black shirt, chain.
58:36
SPEAKER_00: Vibes I'm getting.
58:38
SPEAKER_00: So you're 12 years old.
58:39
SPEAKER_00: Imagine you're 12 years old.
58:41
You're a much older brother,
58:43
27,
58:44
supposed to be finishing up college all these years later.
58:47
SPEAKER_00: But winter breaks over.
58:48
SPEAKER_00: He's holed up in his room playing Xbox.
58:50
SPEAKER_00: Your parents won't explain what's going on.
58:52
And every time he emerges to go to the bathroom,
58:54
you ask him why he's home,
58:55
why he's at school.
58:56
SPEAKER_00: He goes, shut up, queer.
58:58
SPEAKER_00: And he slams the door in your face.
58:59
SPEAKER_00: Those are the vibes I'm getting.
59:01
SPEAKER_00: What about you?
59:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
59:03
SPEAKER_03: It's stunningly accurate.
59:05
SPEAKER_03: I feel like I could have given that same description word for word.
59:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
59:08
SPEAKER_03: So it's quite a look.
59:11
SPEAKER_03: The T-shirt, the chain is what does it for me.
59:13
SPEAKER_03: The groovy 70s medallion.
59:15
SPEAKER_03: And then the kind of the fluffy blonde curls.
59:19
SPEAKER_03: So I'd say guy in line at Studio 54 who's not getting in.
59:24
SPEAKER_03: That's my first take.
59:25
SPEAKER_03: Will Ferrell's Greek cousin.
59:26
SPEAKER_03: That's another one I got.
59:28
No.
59:29
SPEAKER_03: A cherub's weed dealer.
59:31
SPEAKER_03: That's one.
59:33
SPEAKER_03: Willy Wonka.
59:34
SPEAKER_03: If after the chocolate factory, he did amateur porn.
59:37
SPEAKER_03: That's kind of the look.
59:38
SPEAKER_03: And the last one I got here is a chunk from the Goonies.
59:42
SPEAKER_03: If he got jacked and converted to Judaism, that's very specific.
59:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm getting from this.
59:46
SPEAKER_00: All right.
59:47
SPEAKER_00: Well,
59:47
SPEAKER_00: now that we've described him via audio,
59:50
SPEAKER_00: let's listen to what he has to say about the changes.
59:52
SPEAKER_02: Oh, sure.
59:53
SPEAKER_02: Hey, everyone.
59:54
I want to talk about something important today because it's
59:57
time to get back to our
59:58
SPEAKER_02: roots around free expression on Facebook and Instagram.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_02: I started building social media to give people a voice.
1:00:05
I gave a speech at Georgetown five years ago about the
1:00:07
importance of protecting
1:00:08
SPEAKER_02: free expression,
1:00:09
SPEAKER_02: and I still believe this today.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_02: But a lot has happened over the last several years.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_02: There's been widespread debate about potential harms from online content.
1:00:18
SPEAKER_02: Governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more.
1:00:22
A lot of this is clearly political,
1:00:24
but there's also a lot of legitimately bad stuff out there.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_02: Drugs, terrorism, child exploitation.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_02: These are things that we take very seriously,
1:00:32
SPEAKER_02: and I want to make sure that we handle responsibly.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_02: So we built a lot of complex systems to moderate content.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_02: But the problem with complex systems is they make mistakes.
1:00:42
Even if they accidentally censor just 1% of posts,
1:00:45
that's millions of people.
1:00:47
And we've reached a point where it's just too many mistakes and
1:00:50
too much censorship.
1:00:52
The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point
1:00:55
towards once again
1:00:56
SPEAKER_02: prioritizing speech.
1:00:57
SPEAKER_02: So we're going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes,
1:01:01
SPEAKER_02: simplifying our policies,
1:01:03
SPEAKER_02: and restoring free expression on our platforms.
1:01:06
SPEAKER_03: So that line about,
1:01:09
SPEAKER_03: he said,
1:01:09
SPEAKER_03: government and legacy media pushing to censor more and more,
1:01:13
that seems to be a reference to something he told the House
1:01:17
Judiciary Committee in
1:01:18
SPEAKER_03: a letter in August,
1:01:19
SPEAKER_03: which is that he says in 2021,
1:01:22
SPEAKER_03: the Biden administration pushed him to be more aggressive in taking down
1:01:26
SPEAKER_03: misinformation about COVID.
1:01:28
SPEAKER_03: Now, Jesse, tell me if I'm just a weak-kneed loser here.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_03: So I'm a big free speech person.
1:01:33
SPEAKER_03: I don't like censorship.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_03: And I really don't want these big companies,
1:01:38
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:01:39
wading into these highly contentious debates and deciding who's
1:01:43
right and who's wrong.
1:01:43
SPEAKER_03: I think that's a big problem.
1:01:45
And I also know that a lot of the stuff that was known thought
1:01:50
to be conventional
1:01:51
SPEAKER_03: wisdom during COVID turned out to be wrong.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_03: So free speech, very in favor of it.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_03: But...
1:01:56
SPEAKER_03: Let me admit,
1:01:58
SPEAKER_03: when we go back to COVID,
1:01:59
SPEAKER_03: if we go back to 2021,
1:02:00
SPEAKER_03: say,
1:02:01
SPEAKER_03: there were these insane rumors flying around about,
1:02:04
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:02:05
5G cell phone towers causing COVID and ivermectin and the
1:02:09
effects of the vaccine.
1:02:10
SPEAKER_03: I got to admit that in that context,
1:02:13
SPEAKER_03: I wasn't saying censorship was the solution,
1:02:15
SPEAKER_03: but I was thinking this is not good.
1:02:17
SPEAKER_03: This is not a great way for society to function.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_03: So
1:02:22
SPEAKER_03: It seems a little complex to me there.
1:02:26
SPEAKER_03: Do you feel the same way?
1:02:28
SPEAKER_00: Oh.
1:02:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
1:02:30
SPEAKER_00: because I think in the moment,
1:02:32
it's hard to draw the proper boundaries around what's crazy
1:02:36
versus which views will
1:02:37
SPEAKER_00: be vindicated later.
1:02:39
SPEAKER_00: So some of the stuff about masking,
1:02:41
SPEAKER_00: for example,
1:02:41
I think people overstated the evidence we have that masking or
1:02:46
some types of
1:02:46
SPEAKER_00: masking can really prevent the spread of the disease.
1:02:49
SPEAKER_00: But then there was truly gonzo shit.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_00: And I just think in the moment, it's really hard –
1:02:55
SPEAKER_00: you know, for free social media platforms to police this stuff.
1:02:59
SPEAKER_00: I wish I had like more of an answer than that.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_00: It's just really hard.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_03: Well, it's a thorny issue.
1:03:03
SPEAKER_03: We're agreed.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_03: Zuckerberg does have, he's got five things he wants to do.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_03: The first one I think gets to directly what we were just talking about.
1:03:12
SPEAKER_03: So here it is.
1:03:12
SPEAKER_03: First,
1:03:13
we're going to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with
1:03:15
community notes
1:03:17
SPEAKER_02: similar to X starting in the U.S.
1:03:20
SPEAKER_02: After Trump first got elected in 2016,
1:03:23
the legacy media wrote nonstop about how misinformation was a
1:03:26
threat to democracy.
1:03:28
We tried in good faith to address those concerns without
1:03:31
becoming the arbiters of truth.
1:03:33
But the fact checkers have just been too politically biased and
1:03:36
have destroyed more
1:03:37
SPEAKER_02: trust than they've created,
1:03:38
SPEAKER_02: especially in the US.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_02: So over the next couple of months,
1:03:42
SPEAKER_02: we're gonna phase in a more comprehensive community note system.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_03: So in my humble opinion,
1:03:49
SPEAKER_03: I think that's a pretty good solution.
1:03:50
SPEAKER_03: I think community notes on Twitter works pretty damn well.
1:03:54
And if Facebook wants to make something kind of like that,
1:03:56
I think that could be good.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:03:59
And what's interesting to me that I didn't – this is one of the
1:04:03
only good things
1:04:04
SPEAKER_00: Elon Musk has done on Twitter is community notes.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_00: I think they are generally useful.
1:04:09
And what's interesting,
1:04:10
I didn't know until this round of coverage,
1:04:12
is that –
1:04:14
SPEAKER_00: Community notes,
1:04:15
SPEAKER_00: I guess,
1:04:15
become visible if they get a high number of positive ratings
1:04:19
from people who
1:04:20
SPEAKER_00: usually disagree on stuff.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_00: Am I describing that right?
1:04:22
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:04:23
My understanding of this is just regular users write the notes
1:04:26
and then other
1:04:27
SPEAKER_03: people vote on them.
1:04:28
SPEAKER_03: But they're only going to be visible if,
1:04:31
SPEAKER_03: like you said,
1:04:32
SPEAKER_03: it's a lot of positive votes and votes from different viewpoints.
1:04:36
SPEAKER_03: So it's like if somebody writes...
1:04:38
SPEAKER_03: Kamala Harris is good.
1:04:40
SPEAKER_03: And somebody attaches the community note.
1:04:42
SPEAKER_03: No, she sucks.
1:04:43
And a bunch of MAGA heads rush in and give the no,
1:04:46
she sucks note a bunch of thumbs up.
1:04:48
SPEAKER_03: That's not going to be good enough.
1:04:50
That's not going to get it posted because you would also need
1:04:54
shit libs like you
1:04:55
SPEAKER_03: and me to get on there and agree with that note,
1:04:58
SPEAKER_03: which we're not going to.
1:04:59
So that's how they keep it from just one side of the political
1:05:02
spectrum gaming the system.
1:05:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I do think she sucks, but I get what you're saying.
1:05:09
SPEAKER_00: As I always said during the...
1:05:11
You'd need like one of those rare instances in which both
1:05:15
conservatives and
1:05:16
SPEAKER_00: liberals agree that a given community note is useful,
1:05:18
SPEAKER_00: at which point it'll be visible.
1:05:20
SPEAKER_03: I said it a thousand times during the election.
1:05:21
SPEAKER_03: I think she's fine.
1:05:22
SPEAKER_03: Anyway.
1:05:23
SPEAKER_00: Turned out fine wasn't good enough.
1:05:24
SPEAKER_03: That's what I take.
1:05:25
SPEAKER_03: She was fine.
1:05:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:05:26
SPEAKER_00: All right.
1:05:26
SPEAKER_00: So let's keep listening to the Zuckmeister about his other ideas here.
1:05:31
SPEAKER_02: Second,
1:05:32
we're going to simplify our content policies and get rid of a
1:05:35
bunch of restrictions
1:05:36
on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of
1:05:39
touch with mainstream discourse.
1:05:41
What started as a movement to be more inclusive has
1:05:44
increasingly been used to shut
1:05:46
SPEAKER_02: down opinions and shut out people with different ideas,
1:05:49
SPEAKER_02: and it's gone too far.
1:05:51
So I want to make sure that people can share their beliefs and
1:05:53
experiences on our platforms.
1:05:55
SPEAKER_03: So this is obviously a response.
1:05:57
SPEAKER_03: to what was in theory an effort to reduce hate speech,
1:06:01
SPEAKER_03: it became in practice,
1:06:02
SPEAKER_03: at least sometimes,
1:06:04
censorship of views that are kind of out of step with liberal
1:06:08
opinion on certain topics.
1:06:10
SPEAKER_03: If you,
1:06:10
SPEAKER_03: by the way,
1:06:11
would like to see exactly how that mission can spiral
1:06:14
completely out of control,
1:06:16
SPEAKER_03: you can visit a site called bluesky.com.
1:06:19
SPEAKER_00: I find the gender part of this interesting.
1:06:23
SPEAKER_00: I mean, of course I do.
1:06:24
But whereas immigration is sort of a perpetual issue and
1:06:27
probably always will be,
1:06:28
SPEAKER_00: and you'll always have to draw the line in a careful way,
1:06:31
the gender identity conversation really went mainstream for the
1:06:35
first time only in
1:06:36
SPEAKER_00: the last 10 years.
1:06:37
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of social media platforms,
1:06:39
SPEAKER_00: including Meta,
1:06:41
basically let a pretty small group of activist organizations
1:06:45
set the rules on what
1:06:46
SPEAKER_00: you're allowed to say.
1:06:48
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I know that sounds like a conspiracy theory.
1:06:51
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to drag you down a gender identity.
1:06:52
SPEAKER_00: Hell with me.
1:06:53
SPEAKER_00: Jeff is Switzerland on this.
1:06:54
SPEAKER_00: Everyone you have Jeff, you have no opinions on any of this.
1:06:58
SPEAKER_03: I have never met this man.
1:07:01
SPEAKER_00: When you look at the policies platforms like Meta and Twitter enacted,
1:07:05
SPEAKER_00: Twitter when it was run by Libs,
1:07:06
and what speech they were knocking off the platform and banning
1:07:09
people for,
1:07:11
SPEAKER_00: fairly mainstream views were ban or suspension-worthy offenses.
1:07:15
SPEAKER_00: That's just not sustainable, even if you find those views offensive.
1:07:18
So I guess that's what this comes down to is you can't really
1:07:21
have a functional
1:07:22
SPEAKER_00: social media platform.
1:07:23
And this is mentioned specifically in the text post
1:07:27
accompanying Zuck's video.
1:07:29
You can't have a situation where like people aren't allowed to
1:07:32
debate hot button issues.
1:07:34
SPEAKER_00: You can't have a functional social media platform.
1:07:37
And the secondary problem is I do think all this heavy handed
1:07:39
stuff really does
1:07:40
fuel conspiracy theories about liberals dominating the culture
1:07:44
and trying to clamp
1:07:44
SPEAKER_00: down on what you're allowed to say.
1:07:46
Because in some cases,
1:07:47
those are just like those theories are just undeniably true.
1:07:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
1:07:51
I always feel about garbage speech and things I think are
1:07:56
stupid and bad and wrong
1:07:57
that I don't really feel like I want to censor them because I
1:08:02
feel like when you
1:08:03
SPEAKER_03: give an idiot a chance to speak,
1:08:04
SPEAKER_03: you're usually giving them enough rope to hang themselves.
1:08:07
SPEAKER_03: And conversely, when you censor what they say...
1:08:10
You are not only allowing them to portray themselves as some
1:08:13
kind of free speech martyr.
1:08:14
SPEAKER_03: You're also keeping their stupid, bad ideas from seeing the light of day.
1:08:19
SPEAKER_03: So people don't know how stupid and bad they are.
1:08:22
And that's one of the reasons my position is almost always let
1:08:25
the let the idiot talk.
1:08:27
And it sounds like they're going to have a much wider berth to
1:08:29
do so on Facebook now.
1:08:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:08:31
SPEAKER_00: And I think.
1:08:34
SPEAKER_00: I don't think sunlight is always the best disinfectant.
1:08:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean, look at QAnon, look at the election denial stuff.
1:08:40
SPEAKER_00: I just think the question isn't...
1:08:43
SPEAKER_00: whether the marketplace of ideas always works,
1:08:46
SPEAKER_00: the question is,
1:08:47
SPEAKER_00: is it preferable to totally suppress this stuff?
1:08:50
SPEAKER_00: If there'd been much more aggressive suppression of election denialism,
1:08:55
SPEAKER_00: would we have less of it?
1:08:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't think so,
1:08:57
SPEAKER_00: because there's always someplace else it can move,
1:09:00
SPEAKER_00: and it can often metastasize into something worse and more radical.
1:09:02
SPEAKER_00: But it's really hard to know where to draw these lines,
1:09:06
and anyone who claims it's easy doesn't sort of respect the
1:09:09
complexity of this problem.
1:09:11
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, let's move on to Zuck's third point.
1:09:13
SPEAKER_00: Third,
1:09:14
we're changing how we enforce our policies to reduce the
1:09:17
mistakes that account for
1:09:18
SPEAKER_02: the vast majority of censorship on our platforms.
1:09:22
SPEAKER_02: We used to have filters that scanned for any policy violation.
1:09:26
Now we're going to focus those filters on tackling illegal and
1:09:29
high severity violations.
1:09:31
SPEAKER_02: And for lower severity violations,
1:09:33
SPEAKER_02: we're going to rely on someone reporting an issue before we take action.
1:09:37
The problem is that the filters make mistakes and they take
1:09:40
down a lot of content
1:09:41
SPEAKER_02: that they shouldn't.
1:09:42
SPEAKER_02: So by dialing them back,
1:09:43
we're going to dramatically reduce the amount of censorship on
1:09:46
our platforms.
1:09:48
We're also going to tune our content filters to require much
1:09:52
higher confidence
1:09:53
SPEAKER_02: before taking down content.
1:09:55
SPEAKER_02: The reality is that this is a trade-off.
1:09:57
SPEAKER_02: It means we're going to catch less bad stuff,
1:10:00
but we'll also reduce the number of innocent people's posts and
1:10:02
accounts that we
1:10:03
SPEAKER_02: accidentally take down.
1:10:05
So to me,
1:10:06
this sounds like,
1:10:07
translation,
1:10:08
content-removing bots are just for dick pics now.
1:10:11
SPEAKER_03: I think that's what high sensitivity content means.
1:10:14
SPEAKER_03: I think it means dick pics.
1:10:15
And we know that any corner of online existence that is not
1:10:21
aggressively policed
1:10:22
SPEAKER_03: for porn will soon be flooded with porn.
1:10:25
SPEAKER_03: So I think that's what he's saying.
1:10:26
SPEAKER_03: The bots are still going to be on the porn beat,
1:10:29
but you're not going to have bots taking down stuff from
1:10:32
regular people very often.
1:10:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:10:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
1:10:34
it's probably like a small subset of hateful content and terms
1:10:38
that like bots can handle,
1:10:40
but bots are not always good at understanding the nuances of
1:10:44
human emotion.
1:10:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:10:46
SPEAKER_03: Agreed, as we saw with Mama Liv and Grandpa Brian.
1:10:49
SPEAKER_03: Mama Liv and Brian.
1:10:51
SPEAKER_03: Grandpa Brian.
1:10:52
SPEAKER_03: They will turn on you in a second.
1:10:53
SPEAKER_03: Should we go on to his fourth point?
1:10:54
SPEAKER_03: Let's do it.
1:10:55
SPEAKER_02: Fourth, we're bringing back civic content.
1:10:58
SPEAKER_02: For a while,
1:10:59
the community asked to see less politics because it was making
1:11:01
people stressed,
1:11:02
SPEAKER_02: so we stopped recommending these posts.
1:11:05
SPEAKER_02: But it feels like we're in a new era now,
1:11:07
and we're starting to get feedback that people want to see this
1:11:10
content again.
1:11:11
SPEAKER_02: So we're going to start phasing this back into Facebook,
1:11:14
SPEAKER_02: Instagram,
1:11:14
SPEAKER_02: and threads while working to keep the communities friendly and positive.
1:11:18
SPEAKER_03: What this says to me is it's official.
1:11:20
SPEAKER_03: 2016 is over.
1:11:21
SPEAKER_03: Remember how, you know,
1:11:26
SPEAKER_03: Some people say that the 70s officially ended when John Lennon was shot.
1:11:30
SPEAKER_03: To me, this statement means the 2016 election cycle is over.
1:11:35
SPEAKER_03: Because I remember after that,
1:11:36
SPEAKER_03: in 2016,
1:11:38
SPEAKER_03: November,
1:11:38
SPEAKER_03: December,
1:11:39
SPEAKER_03: he went before Congress,
1:11:40
SPEAKER_03: Zuckerberg did,
1:11:41
SPEAKER_03: and said that Facebook took misinformation seriously.
1:11:45
SPEAKER_03: He pledged to do more.
1:11:46
SPEAKER_03: This,
1:11:46
SPEAKER_03: of course,
1:11:46
was in response to the feeling by many that misinformation on
1:11:50
Facebook had tipped
1:11:51
SPEAKER_03: the election to Trump.
1:11:52
SPEAKER_03: That was then...
1:11:54
SPEAKER_03: This is him saying that is over.
1:11:58
SPEAKER_03: Political content is back.
1:11:59
SPEAKER_03: That's my interpretation.
1:12:01
SPEAKER_03: Are you hearing the same thing?
1:12:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:12:02
SPEAKER_00: And I also – I forget the term Nate Silver uses.
1:12:05
SPEAKER_00: Something like the big cope,
1:12:06
this idea that Trump won because of Russian interference and misinformation,
1:12:11
which I think has now been quite thoroughly debunked or – I
1:12:16
mean this idea that
1:12:18
SPEAKER_00: there's some –
1:12:19
SPEAKER_00: solution to the problem of humans spreading false rumors,
1:12:23
which we've done ever since we first knocked two rocks together
1:12:27
to start a fire and
1:12:28
SPEAKER_00: drew shit on cave walls.
1:12:30
SPEAKER_00: There is no simple solution to this,
1:12:31
SPEAKER_00: and bad political outcomes cannot be reduced to misinformation.
1:12:34
SPEAKER_00: I think it's been proven conclusively,
1:12:37
and it's interesting watching Zuckerberg pivot both toward
1:12:41
Trump undeniably,
1:12:42
SPEAKER_00: but also back to his own natural political leanings,
1:12:45
SPEAKER_00: as a lot of reporting has suggested.
1:12:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
1:12:47
SPEAKER_03: well,
1:12:47
SPEAKER_03: and the attempt that came out of this in 2016 was various forms of this,
1:12:52
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:12:52
SPEAKER_03: council of the wise at Facebook.
1:12:54
Remember,
1:12:55
he was working with fact checkers at PolitiFact and a couple others.
1:12:59
SPEAKER_03: And there were various,
1:13:01
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:13:01
high profile members of this board who would make
1:13:03
determinations about what content was.
1:13:06
SPEAKER_03: was consistent with the guidelines and what content wasn't,
1:13:08
but they could never really articulate a clear set of rules
1:13:14
about what was going to
1:13:14
SPEAKER_03: stay and what wasn't.
1:13:16
SPEAKER_03: It always seemed kind of arbitrary,
1:13:19
SPEAKER_03: kind of random,
1:13:20
SPEAKER_03: and it seems like he's now saying,
1:13:23
SPEAKER_03: we're dismantling all that as community notes now.
1:13:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and...
1:13:27
SPEAKER_00: Look,
1:13:28
I'll just say a lot of these – I'm not the first person to
1:13:30
point this out,
1:13:30
SPEAKER_00: but a lot of the professional fact-checkers are not trustworthy.
1:13:33
SPEAKER_00: And they are pretty biased.
1:13:35
I'll include a link to something I wrote in my newsletter about PolitiFact.
1:13:38
SPEAKER_00: And PolitiFact's coverage of Jacob Blake and Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha,
1:13:44
SPEAKER_00: Wisconsin was just – I thought disastrously bad.
1:13:47
And I don't think they're good at fact-checking left-coded rumors,
1:13:52
frankly.
1:13:52
SPEAKER_00: But let's get back to Zuck.
1:13:54
SPEAKER_00: Fifth question.
1:13:55
We're gonna move our trust and safety and content moderation
1:13:58
teams out of California,
1:14:01
SPEAKER_02: and our US-based content review is gonna be based in Texas.
1:14:04
SPEAKER_02: As we work to promote free expression,
1:14:07
I think that it will help us build trust to do this work in
1:14:10
places where there is
1:14:10
SPEAKER_02: less concern about the bias of our teams.
1:14:13
SPEAKER_03: This one's weird to me.
1:14:14
SPEAKER_03: This this feels like the most Trump ass kissy of all of them.
1:14:17
SPEAKER_03: And they all feel a little bit Trump ass kissy.
1:14:19
But I don't totally get this because does the physical location
1:14:24
of your office
1:14:25
SPEAKER_03: really dictate the political orientation of your workforce?
1:14:28
SPEAKER_03: I mean, Fox News is in Manhattan.
1:14:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I feel like there's more to this.
1:14:33
There's maybe a desire for a more favorable tax landscape and
1:14:37
or a better breakfast.
1:14:39
I think breakfast tacos might be a push between Texas and California,
1:14:43
but the tax landscape.
1:14:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, Bay Area breakfast, that's tricky.
1:14:48
SPEAKER_00: It's true.
1:14:48
SPEAKER_00: And they're south of San Francisco.
1:14:50
SPEAKER_00: It's not LA.
1:14:51
SPEAKER_00: So no, I think Austin wins that.
1:14:53
SPEAKER_00: But maybe that'll be our next episode.
1:14:55
SPEAKER_00: We'll debate that for an hour.
1:14:56
SPEAKER_03: I'm glad we have a point of legitimate disagreement.
1:14:58
SPEAKER_03: It would be funny if he was going to locate it in Texas,
1:15:01
but that it's in Austin in between like an indigenous bookstore
1:15:05
and a lesbian-owned
1:15:07
SPEAKER_03: vape shop.
1:15:08
SPEAKER_03: It's like that part of town.
1:15:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, real America.
1:15:10
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
1:15:11
SPEAKER_03: Okay, let's let Zuck finish it up here.
1:15:15
SPEAKER_03: Finally,
1:15:16
we're going to work with President Trump to push back on
1:15:19
governments around the
1:15:20
SPEAKER_02: world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more.
1:15:25
The US has the strongest constitutional protections for free
1:15:28
expression in the world.
1:15:29
Europe has an ever-increasing number of laws institutionalizing
1:15:33
censorship and
1:15:34
SPEAKER_02: making it difficult to build anything innovative there.
1:15:37
Latin American countries have secret courts that can order
1:15:40
companies to quietly
1:15:41
SPEAKER_02: take things down.
1:15:43
SPEAKER_02: China has censored our apps from even working in the country.
1:15:47
The only way that we can push back on this global trend is with
1:15:50
the support of the
1:15:51
SPEAKER_02: US government.
1:15:53
And that's why it's been so difficult over the past four years
1:15:56
when even the US
1:15:57
SPEAKER_02: government has pushed for censorship.
1:15:59
SPEAKER_02: By going after us and other American companies,
1:16:02
SPEAKER_02: it has emboldened other governments to go even further.
1:16:05
But now we have the opportunity to restore free expression,
1:16:09
and I am excited to take it.
1:16:11
SPEAKER_02: It'll take time to get this right,
1:16:13
SPEAKER_02: and these are complex systems,
1:16:15
SPEAKER_02: they're never gonna be perfect.
1:16:16
There's also a lot of illegal stuff that we still need to work
1:16:19
very hard to remove.
1:16:21
But the bottom line is that after years of having our content
1:16:25
moderation work focus
1:16:26
SPEAKER_02: primarily on removing content,
1:16:28
SPEAKER_02: it is time to focus on reducing the stakes,
1:16:31
SPEAKER_02: simplifying our systems,
1:16:33
SPEAKER_02: and getting back to our roots about giving people voice.
1:16:36
SPEAKER_02: I'm looking forward to this next chapter.
1:16:38
SPEAKER_03: Stay good out there and more to come soon.
1:16:40
SPEAKER_03: So as you mentioned,
1:16:42
there's been some reporting about this speech saying basically
1:16:46
this is who
1:16:46
SPEAKER_03: Zuckerberg has been this whole time.
1:16:49
SPEAKER_03: This is what he believes.
1:16:49
SPEAKER_03: There's a New York Times article about that.
1:16:52
SPEAKER_03: Now that I've heard the speech,
1:16:53
SPEAKER_03: based on the definitiveness of the speech and the timing of the speech,
1:16:58
SPEAKER_03: my guess is that,
1:16:59
SPEAKER_03: yeah,
1:17:00
SPEAKER_03: this is probably what he actually believes.
1:17:03
Trump being elected is just kind of the last straw that's
1:17:06
making him pull the trigger now.
1:17:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's obviously some degree of ass-kissing here.
1:17:13
I find it hard to get that mad about it just because I'm more
1:17:18
in favor of his
1:17:19
slightly more laissez-faire approach than I am the more
1:17:21
heavy-handed ones,
1:17:22
SPEAKER_00: even as I acknowledge that it's complicated.
1:17:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:17:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
1:17:25
SPEAKER_00: I think this is who he is,
1:17:26
SPEAKER_00: and he probably...
1:17:27
SPEAKER_00: Like,
1:17:27
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:17:27
SPEAKER_00: he's breaking out the chain.
1:17:29
SPEAKER_00: He's back in his comfy black shirt.
1:17:30
SPEAKER_00: No more shoes for him.
1:17:31
SPEAKER_00: I can respect that.
1:17:32
SPEAKER_03: The chain and the black shirt absolutely say, this is the real me.
1:17:37
SPEAKER_03: You're getting the real Zuck right now.
1:17:38
SPEAKER_03: You're getting the straight dope.
1:17:39
SPEAKER_03: And also, I...
1:17:41
I am,
1:17:41
you know,
1:17:42
made a little uncomfortable by how much he's kissing Trump's ass.
1:17:48
SPEAKER_03: You know, it's just such a notable shift.
1:17:51
But I was thinking about that a little bit and kind of thinking
1:17:55
that seems sort of
1:17:55
SPEAKER_03: normal because brief story.
1:17:58
Back before I wrote for Oliver,
1:17:59
I was a speechwriter for the Environmental Protection Agency.
1:18:02
SPEAKER_03: So Obama's elected.
1:18:04
SPEAKER_03: He comes into office in 2009.
1:18:06
And one of the big things we're doing is we're trying to
1:18:09
negotiate new vehicle
1:18:11
SPEAKER_03: mileage standards with the auto industry.
1:18:13
SPEAKER_03: So we've got the auto industry coming in all the time,
1:18:16
SPEAKER_03: trying to get them to agree to make more fuel efficient cars.
1:18:20
The other thing that was going on at that same time was the
1:18:23
auto industry is trying
1:18:24
SPEAKER_03: to get the auto bailout,
1:18:26
SPEAKER_03: which you might remember if you're of a certain age,
1:18:28
SPEAKER_03: which did,
1:18:29
SPEAKER_03: of course,
1:18:29
SPEAKER_03: happen,
1:18:30
ended up giving them a lot of money or at least loaning them a
1:18:32
lot of money.
1:18:33
SPEAKER_03: And we ended up getting a very good deal with those mileage standards.
1:18:37
SPEAKER_03: It was honestly, it was a pretty big deal.
1:18:39
SPEAKER_03: The audio automakers went a lot farther than people thought they would.
1:18:44
SPEAKER_03: And
1:18:45
SPEAKER_03: When you ask yourself why,
1:18:47
definitely part of the answer is they were trying to get the
1:18:50
auto bailout money.
1:18:51
SPEAKER_03: They didn't want to piss off the Obama administration.
1:18:53
SPEAKER_03: They're trying to get in good with the new administration.
1:18:55
SPEAKER_03: So I was kind of thinking, I guess that's just what companies always do.
1:19:00
SPEAKER_03: And I guess when it's an administration I like, that's kind of good.
1:19:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
1:19:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
1:19:04
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:19:05
people are just disgusted by the fact that Trump has been
1:19:08
quote-unquote normalized,
1:19:09
SPEAKER_00: but that ship has sailed.
1:19:11
He was elected a second time,
1:19:14
and business leaders are going to work with him.
1:19:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm not happy about where we're at, but I don't know.
1:19:21
There's also just a level of freakout here over the removal of
1:19:25
these largely
1:19:26
SPEAKER_00: bullshit fact-checking efforts.
1:19:27
SPEAKER_00: I dropped a...
1:19:29
SPEAKER_00: image in the show notes.
1:19:30
SPEAKER_00: This is a Casey Newton headline from Platformer, his tech publication.
1:19:34
SPEAKER_00: Can you just read this?
1:19:37
SPEAKER_03: Meta surrenders to the right on speech.
1:19:39
Subheading,
1:19:40
I really think this is a precursor for genocide,
1:19:43
a former employee tells Platformer.
1:19:46
SPEAKER_03: Oh my god.
1:19:47
It's just like,
1:19:49
Casey Newton's one of the most respected tech reporters out there.
1:19:52
SPEAKER_00: He co-hosts a New York Times podcast.
1:19:54
SPEAKER_00: It's just like, I really think this is a precursor for genocide?
1:19:58
SPEAKER_00: Really?
1:19:58
SPEAKER_00: And
1:19:59
SPEAKER_00: As Newton notes in his piece,
1:20:01
there have been contexts in which Facebook has contributed to
1:20:06
acts of deadly violence.
1:20:07
One of the most famous ones involves the Rohingya Muslims in
1:20:10
Myanmar where people
1:20:11
would spread these crazy inflammatory rumors about this group
1:20:14
and it would lead to violence.
1:20:15
SPEAKER_00: But –
1:20:16
We can either edit this out or get in an argument about it
1:20:19
because this happens to
1:20:21
SPEAKER_03: be an area I know a lot about.
1:20:23
SPEAKER_03: No, tell me.
1:20:25
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
1:20:27
SPEAKER_03: And we,
1:20:28
SPEAKER_03: in fact,
1:20:28
did a John Oliver piece about this in which I was fighting with
1:20:31
the researcher at
1:20:32
SPEAKER_03: the time because the weird thing is part of my family is Burmese.
1:20:35
SPEAKER_03: My aunt is Burmese.
1:20:36
SPEAKER_03: My cousins are Burmese.
1:20:38
SPEAKER_03: That part of the family is— I didn't know that.
1:20:39
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't have podcasted anybody with that.
1:20:42
SPEAKER_03: They are.
1:20:43
SPEAKER_03: And I'm very close with that part of the family.
1:20:44
SPEAKER_03: So I've always followed Myanmar closely.
1:20:47
And it is true that there was horrible shit said about the
1:20:52
Rohingya ethnic group on
1:20:54
SPEAKER_03: Facebook in Myanmar.
1:20:55
SPEAKER_03: But the violence and the genocide was perpetrated by the army.
1:20:59
SPEAKER_03: It wasn't like Rwanda, where it was neighbor turning on neighbor.
1:21:03
SPEAKER_03: The...
1:21:04
SPEAKER_03: The army in Myanmar,
1:21:06
SPEAKER_03: the Tatmadaw,
1:21:07
SPEAKER_03: and I'm sure I'm saying that wrong,
1:21:09
SPEAKER_03: they are basically a mafia.
1:21:11
SPEAKER_03: They are violent.
1:21:12
SPEAKER_03: They are one of the worst groups on earth,
1:21:14
SPEAKER_03: and they're the ones that perpetrated this ethnic cleansing campaign.
1:21:19
And the narrative in the Western media is that this was all
1:21:25
instigated by people
1:21:26
SPEAKER_03: using slurs on Facebook,
1:21:27
SPEAKER_03: and that's fucking nonsense.
1:21:28
SPEAKER_03: The military doesn't care what people say on Facebook.
1:21:31
SPEAKER_03: They've got their own agenda.
1:21:32
SPEAKER_03: This wasn't done by people picking up machetes.
1:21:35
SPEAKER_03: This was done by soldiers wearing uniforms and helmets.
1:21:38
SPEAKER_03: This Western media narrative is bullshit.
1:21:40
That's interesting because I included a link in the show notes
1:21:44
to Amnesty International.
1:21:47
SPEAKER_00: Myanmar, Facebook systems promoted violence against Rohingya.
1:21:50
SPEAKER_00: Meta owes reparations.
1:21:52
SPEAKER_00: And as I'm pasting that link,
1:21:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm like,
1:21:54
I've read other shit by Amnesty on stuff I know about that I
1:21:59
have not found credible.
1:22:00
SPEAKER_00: So you're saying that this narrative, which is very –
1:22:05
widely known in the West,
1:22:06
does not accurately capture what happened during those massacres.
1:22:11
SPEAKER_03: I would say it's a flogging of the word contributed.
1:22:15
SPEAKER_03: Did what people were saying on Facebook contribute to the genocide?
1:22:20
SPEAKER_03: Well, sure.
1:22:21
You know,
1:22:21
what percentage,
1:22:22
you know,
1:22:23
half a percent,
1:22:24
20%,
1:22:24
that's all contributing.
1:22:26
SPEAKER_03: I would say, from what I know of the situation, obviously, I'm no expert.
1:22:29
SPEAKER_03: I'm not on the ground.
1:22:30
though oddly my family was living there at the time,
1:22:33
I would say it contributed very little.
1:22:35
SPEAKER_03: Again, the army does not give a fuck.
1:22:38
SPEAKER_03: This is the same army that a couple years later did a coup.
1:22:40
SPEAKER_03: They're like, we don't like the government that's in there now.
1:22:42
SPEAKER_03: We're going to change things up.
1:22:44
SPEAKER_03: They don't give a fuck.
1:22:46
SPEAKER_03: There was amnesty.
1:22:48
There was one UN statement about Facebook's involvement,
1:22:51
and Facebook didn't fight it.
1:22:53
SPEAKER_03: They said we need to do better in Myanmar.
1:22:56
SPEAKER_03: That's part of the reason this narrative... It's hard to fight.
1:22:58
SPEAKER_03: If there's actually... It's not even the same part of the country.
1:23:04
SPEAKER_03: People live in Rangoon.
1:23:05
SPEAKER_03: That's not where the cleansing happened.
1:23:08
SPEAKER_03: The cleansing was out in the...
1:23:10
SPEAKER_03: Western part of the country.
1:23:11
Well,
1:23:12
if I'm hearing you right,
1:23:13
you are a genocide denier,
1:23:15
which I did not know about you.
1:23:17
SPEAKER_03: I'm glad we finally got to that.
1:23:18
SPEAKER_00: No, that's really interesting.
1:23:19
SPEAKER_00: I had just accepted this as face value.
1:23:22
SPEAKER_03: Anyway.
1:23:23
SPEAKER_03: It's because of fucking John Oliver.
1:23:24
SPEAKER_03: It's because of the fucking John Oliver piece that I wrote.
1:23:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, wait.
1:23:27
So you got in a fight with the researcher because you were
1:23:29
trying to make the segment.
1:23:30
SPEAKER_00: Were you trying to kill the segment or make it more fact based?
1:23:32
SPEAKER_03: Make it more fact based.
1:23:34
SPEAKER_03: Or kill it.
1:23:35
SPEAKER_03: If we can't do the real story, then don't do it.
1:23:38
SPEAKER_03: And yes, it was not one fight.
1:23:39
SPEAKER_03: It was endless fights, all of which I lost.
1:23:41
SPEAKER_00: Did you pull the identity card and be like, I'm 116th Burmese.
1:23:43
SPEAKER_00: My experience should win out.
1:23:47
SPEAKER_03: I should have.
1:23:48
SPEAKER_03: I'm not.
1:23:49
SPEAKER_03: This is a Burmese woman who married my white uncle.
1:23:52
SPEAKER_03: I'm not.
1:23:53
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
1:23:54
SPEAKER_00: Don't downplay it.
1:23:54
SPEAKER_00: You're pretty Burmese.
1:23:56
SPEAKER_03: I identify as Burmese.
1:23:59
SPEAKER_00: That is super interesting.
1:24:01
SPEAKER_00: Man, I hate that that came up right at the end.
1:24:03
SPEAKER_00: That should have been like a whole – at some point,
1:24:05
SPEAKER_00: that should be – Is any of this going to be in?
1:24:08
SPEAKER_03: I didn't like jumping in and saying, let me – Oh, no, no.
1:24:12
SPEAKER_00: I want to keep it in.
1:24:12
I think that's super interesting that people think this thing
1:24:15
was – let's leave this all in.
1:24:16
SPEAKER_00: Katie, I think we should leave this all in.
1:24:18
SPEAKER_00: But we should also wrap up.
1:24:20
SPEAKER_00: The point is –
1:24:22
the problem getting back to what I was trying to say I used a
1:24:25
poor example but like
1:24:26
Casey Newton and this sort of cohort of tech writers all have
1:24:30
very confident solid
1:24:32
views on the nature of misinformation and how you fight it and
1:24:36
what the trade-offs
1:24:37
are and I think that was reflected in him just casually quoting
1:24:41
this ex-employee
1:24:42
being like this is a prelude to genocide and I don't think that
1:24:44
kind of coverage is
1:24:45
SPEAKER_00: helpful but we will see what happens anything else Jeff on um
1:24:52
SPEAKER_00: Grooming?
1:24:53
SPEAKER_00: On AI?
1:24:54
SPEAKER_03: Still against both.
1:24:56
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
1:24:57
And this quote,
1:24:59
which does blow me away,
1:25:00
I think this is a precursor for genocide.
1:25:01
I've been writing on my blog about how I think the word
1:25:04
genocide is clearly being...
1:25:06
SPEAKER_03: You mean your substack?
1:25:08
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
1:25:08
SPEAKER_03: I like the old school word, but yes, my substack.
1:25:11
SPEAKER_03: about how the word genocide has been cheapened and misused.
1:25:15
SPEAKER_03: And now I'm reading this and thinking I understated it.
1:25:17
SPEAKER_03: I should have gone in harder.
1:25:21
SPEAKER_00: Jeff, where can people find your work?
1:25:22
SPEAKER_03: I might be wrong.substack.com.
1:25:25
SPEAKER_00: And you and I are going to don't know for sure yet,
1:25:28
SPEAKER_00: but we're hoping,
1:25:29
SPEAKER_00: hoping to do a couple of live shows in March.
1:25:32
SPEAKER_00: If so, we'll have details up soon.
1:25:34
SPEAKER_00: Jeff, this was a lot of fun.
1:25:35
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us.
1:25:37
Thank you to both Ross Anderson and Jessica,
1:25:39
the 80s baby for the production research help.
1:25:42
SPEAKER_00: What are your party words, Jeff?
1:25:44
SPEAKER_03: Always fun.
1:25:45
SPEAKER_03: Thank you very much for having me.
1:25:46
SPEAKER_03: And I apologize on Katie's behalf for starting all those fires.
1:25:50
SPEAKER_00: Bye, everybody.
1:25:54
Thank you.