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From the Fringe Web to Real Life: How Seriously Should We Be Taking Conspiracy Theories? · Question Everything

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Today on Question Everything, we drag an AI-powered sifter through
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: the mushy excrement of the internet and dig out the
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: conspiracy theories and wild ideas that are about to matter
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: in the real world. We did this episode back in December,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: maybe you remember it, about an AI software called Pura,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: which sucks in millions of posts from social media platforms
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  Speaker 1: each week, including a lot of fringy ones you may
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  Speaker 1: not know about. and runs AI on them to figure
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: out what prominent narratives are emerging across the internet. This
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: is beyond keywords and trending searches on Google. PIRA can
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  Speaker 1: figure out which ideas seem to be forming in real
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  Speaker 1: time as people are posting online. And a lot of
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  Speaker 1: times these are conspiracies that are gaining traction. The week
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  Speaker 1: we did this in December, the top narratives people were
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  Speaker 1: discussing had to do with Bill Gates trying to depopulate
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  Speaker 1: the earth, people saying that the Democratic Party should be ended,
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  Speaker 1: and that a far-right influencer named Nick Fuentes was working
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  Speaker 1: for the feds. I wondered back then, okay, so this
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  Speaker 1: seems like a lot of bros or incels shitposting, a
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  Speaker 1: lot of bizarre ideas and alt-facts. So what? Would that
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  Speaker 1: stuff have any impact out here in the real world?
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  Speaker 1: But the folks at PIRA, who track this online chatter
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  Speaker 1: day in and day out, said yes, sometimes these narratives
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  Speaker 1: do burst into the physical and political world and drive
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  Speaker 1: real events. Last time, as an example, the guy I
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  Speaker 1: was interviewing from the company pointed me to a bunch
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  Speaker 1: of talk he was seeing about a scandal that had
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  Speaker 1: just happened in the Romanian presidential election. A far-right candidate
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  Speaker 1: had won. Officials thought there'd been foreign election interference. A
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  Speaker 1: court ended up overturning the election. And Piro was flagging
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  Speaker 1: that in the far corners of the internet, when that happened,
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  Speaker 1: some people were outraged. They were pissed that the elite
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  Speaker 1: judges had tossed out their candidate, and they thought maybe
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  Speaker 1: even the CIA or somebody could have been behind it.
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  Speaker 1: I was kind of like, so what if people are
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  Speaker 1: letting off steam about this online, talking about deep state
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  Speaker 1: conspiracies or whatever? But the Pira guy told me that
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  Speaker 1: I should watch that online anger about Romania because they
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  Speaker 1: thought it could really end up mattering to the country's
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  Speaker 1: presidential election. And sure enough, it did. Just this week,
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  Speaker 1: there was a redo election in Romania, and people who
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  Speaker 1: were mad that their first guy's win was canceled voted
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  Speaker 1: for another far-right candidate who's allied with the first guy,
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  Speaker 1: and gave him a win by a huge margin that
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  Speaker 1: many people did not expect. It honestly all seems like
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  Speaker 1: a mess over there, and it could have big implications
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  Speaker 1: for Europe, and I never would have paid it any
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  Speaker 1: mind if Pira's AI platform hadn't told me to. This
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  Speaker 1: is why I keep an eye on what Pira is
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  Speaker 1: seeing on the web. Conspiracies and online fixations, as we
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  Speaker 1: know well by now, can infect the truth and cause
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  Speaker 1: real things to happen. Reading Pira is like reading the
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  Speaker 1: tea leaves of what might be to come So this week,
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  Speaker 1: we decided to go back to Pira and see what
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  Speaker 1: their software is finding right now. As we move just
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  Speaker 1: beyond the first hundred days of Donald Trump's second term,
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  Speaker 1: what are people talking about in strange nooks and crannies
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  Speaker 1: of the internet that could rise from the digital muck
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  Speaker 1: and lead to actual serious happenings in real life? And
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  Speaker 1: what we saw, it's not reassuring. The people who founded Pira,
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  Speaker 1: they actually made it specifically to track violent threats to
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  Speaker 1: people and organizations. Companies use it, for instance, to see
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  Speaker 1: if their executives might be in danger. And there's one
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  Speaker 1: particular group of people where the violent rhetoric about them
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  Speaker 1: right now is chart-topping.
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  Speaker 2: The level of violent rhetoric and chatter around this topic
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  Speaker 2: today is like at the highest level I think it's
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  Speaker 2: ever been. Like a 20-fold increase in the number of
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  Speaker 2: people utilizing violent language. It's huge. It's enormous.
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  Speaker 1: From KCRW and Placement Theory, I'm Brian Reed. This is
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  Speaker 1: Question Everything. Stick around. On Monday, I talked to Welton Chang.
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  Speaker 1: Welton's one of the founders of PIRA. He's been developing
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  Speaker 1: this technology and tracking threats online for the better part
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  Speaker 1: of a decade. He threw himself into this work after
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  Speaker 1: spending years as an Army intelligence officer, where he became
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  Speaker 1: concerned about online discourse and how it's affecting all of us.
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  Speaker 1: I asked Welton to take us through what the AI
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  Speaker 1: was surfacing in just the last seven days or so.
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  Speaker 1: This most recent week, what's the top narrative that you
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  Speaker 1: guys were finding?
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  Speaker 2: One was around the power outage in Spain and Portugal.
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  Speaker 1: Let's start with that one. What actually did happen? Just
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  Speaker 1: take us inside just the actual facts about what happened here.
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  Speaker 1: This was in France, Spain, Portugal, Andorra.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: It was a big blackout, right? Like large area. And
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  Speaker 1: when was this? April 28th. Is that right? Yes.
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  Speaker 2: And it's taken a long time to actually recover from it.
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  Speaker 2: And it was over the weekend and flights were canceled.
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  Speaker 2: There was not a lot of warning or really like
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  Speaker 2: any ability to respond, right? Because everything went out simultaneously.
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  Speaker 2: And it was over such a wide swath that I
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  Speaker 2: think a lot of people looked at the situation like
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  Speaker 2: quite understandably scared about what was going on.
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  Speaker 1: What's the kind of narrative you're seeing coalesce around that?
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  Speaker 2: That Users on the platforms that we collect data from
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  Speaker 2: don't trust the official government narrative and believe that the
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  Speaker 2: actual cause was some kind of cyber attack. And that's
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  Speaker 2: why also it has taken so long to recover, that
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  Speaker 2: there was some deliberate attack. Most of the posts don't
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  Speaker 2: mention who or how or what. It's just that, hey,
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  Speaker 2: it's taking so long to actually get services back up.
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  Speaker 2: That it has to have been a deliberate act and
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  Speaker 2: the best way, the easiest way of actually conducting this
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  Speaker 2: would be through a cyber attack and therefore it was
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  Speaker 2: a cyber attack. Lots of faulty logic there.
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  Speaker 1: What were officials saying about what happened, why it happened?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I haven't seen a great retrospective on what actually happened.
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  Speaker 2: In the absence of a satisfying official explanation, people are
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  Speaker 2: just going to fill in the blanks. and say whatever
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  Speaker 2: they want. It seems to be a very common but
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  Speaker 2: faulty explanation for things that happen that users jump to, oh,
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  Speaker 2: it's a nefarious thing, not the result of an accident,
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  Speaker 2: not the result of kind of natural circumstances, but it
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  Speaker 2: has to be some kind of cyber attack. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: one of the things I noted was that the way
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  Speaker 2: that this story evolved looked sort of similar to the
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  Speaker 2: Key Bridge.
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  Speaker 1: That's the bridge in Baltimore? Yeah, the bridge in Baltimore
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  Speaker 1: that collapsed. And the way it involved you mean on
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  Speaker 1: these platforms and the way you guys monitor it?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, folks thought that the reason why the Key Bridge
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  Speaker 2: collapsed was also the result of a cyber attack. That
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  Speaker 2: they said that the ship got hit with a cyber attack.
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  Speaker 2: And users on platforms would point to how quickly the
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  Speaker 2: lights went out in the ship. As evidence of it.
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  Speaker 1: Because in that case, a ship ran into the bridge basically.
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  Speaker 2: Yep.
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  Speaker 1: And collapsed it.
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  Speaker 2: Caused the whole thing to collapse. Yeah. Just hit it
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  Speaker 2: at a specific point that caused the rest of it
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  Speaker 2: to become unstable. It's like similar beats and rhythms to it.
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  Speaker 2: A lot of these conspiracies are almost like Mad Libs
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  Speaker 2: where you can take one thing out, right? Spain and
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  Speaker 2: Portugal and insert a different country and then take the
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  Speaker 2: thing that happened out, right? You know, massive power outage
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  Speaker 2: or bridge collapse, right? And then just insert, the reason
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  Speaker 2: why is cyber attack, right? And you can just do
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  Speaker 2: that for any number of things and get people up
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  Speaker 2: in arms about it.
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  Speaker 1: And just so I have a sense, how prevalent– like
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  Speaker 1: can you give me a sense quantifiably how I– you know,
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  Speaker 1: the fact that this is a top narrative, the power
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  Speaker 1: outages or these theorizing about the power outages in Europe?
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  Speaker 1: What does that mean kind of in a quantifiable– in
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  Speaker 1: terms of numbers or volume or just like how prevalent?
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  Speaker 1: How should I think about it?
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  Speaker 2: To kind of pierce through to being the top narratives,
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  Speaker 2: you're looking at somewhere in the order of like thousands
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  Speaker 2: and tens of thousands of users saying the same thing
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  Speaker 2: or similar things in order to rise up to that level.
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  Speaker 2: I mean I think even more surprising were the number
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  Speaker 2: of people talking about her name is Virginia Giuffre and
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  Speaker 2: her reported suicide.
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  Speaker 1: Virginia Giuffre was a victim of Jeffrey Epstein's. She was
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  Speaker 1: trafficked by him as a teenager and later became vocal
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  Speaker 1: about the abuse she suffered, filing lawsuits, pursuing charges against
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  Speaker 1: him and his conspirators, and organizing other victims. At the
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  Speaker 1: end of April, she died at her home outside of Perth, Australia.
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  Speaker 1: She was 41 with three children. Her family said it
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  Speaker 1: was suicide. So this is the number two narrative, top
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  Speaker 1: narrative of the last week or so. The main thrust
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  Speaker 1: here is like people not believing. that her death was
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  Speaker 1: actually a suicide. Yes. Can I ask you, are you
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  Speaker 1: able to log into the platform and read me some
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  Speaker 1: specifics of what's being said about Virginia Giuffre?
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  Speaker 2: Sure, yeah. We're just going to do this because it's
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  Speaker 2: probably going to capture.
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  Speaker 1: Just to kind of explain what we're looking at here,
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  Speaker 1: we're inside of the platform, Pira, the technology that you've created.
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  Speaker 1: And this is what kind of sucks up all of
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  Speaker 1: the many millions of posts each week across like a
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  Speaker 1: bunch of social media platforms. And runs AI across them
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  Speaker 1: and then kind of helps make sense of them. So
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  Speaker 1: right now we're just looking at different squares of different
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  Speaker 1: posts that have to do with this narrative about Virginia Giuffre.
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  Speaker 2: Yep. Here, the deep state killed Virginia Giuffre. Giuffre gone,
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  Speaker 2: others silenced, and this kind of keeps going on. This
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  Speaker 2: just looks like a lot of conspiracy. pablum. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Deep state pedo cult killed Virginia Giuffre to silence victim
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  Speaker 1: ahead of 14 terabyte Epstein evidence. So it's a lot
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  Speaker 1: of committed suicide, dies by suicide in quotes is what
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  Speaker 1: I'm seeing.
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  Speaker 2: And a number of different users keyed in on the
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  Speaker 2: fact that I think– Years ago, she had posted on
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  Speaker 2: social media that if there were ever any news that
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  Speaker 2: she had committed suicide, for folks to know that she
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  Speaker 2: didn't commit suicide. Oh, this is interesting. VTForumPolicy.com. What's that?
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  Speaker 2: So VTForumPolicy.com is a site called Veterans Today. And I
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  Speaker 2: believe the U.S. State Department put out a report at
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  Speaker 2: one point that said that VTForumPolicy.com was actually a disinformation effort.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, it's an independent site that caters to veterans?
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  Speaker 2: It says it does.
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  Speaker 1: You're a veteran, right?
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  Speaker 2: I am, yes. Here, I'll show you.
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  Speaker 1: Wilton Reeds from Wikipedia.
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  Speaker 2: Veterans Today is an American anti-Semitic and conspiracy theory website.
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  Speaker 2: It describes itself as a pro-military veterans and foreign affairs journal,
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  Speaker 2: while multiple sources describe it as a pro-Kremlin propaganda outfit.
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  Speaker 1: So how did that come up in reference to Virginia
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  Speaker 1: Dufresne's death?
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  Speaker 2: So the story here is that Her death actually is
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  Speaker 2: part of an Epstein-Maxwell-Israeli blackmail operation. And they have a
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  Speaker 2: whole story about this. Deep, deep waters. The death of
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  Speaker 2: Virginia Jafri is weird. Did she really kill herself? This
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  Speaker 2: is from the Post.
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  Speaker 1: The New York Post, okay.
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  Speaker 2: The New York Post. Yeah, and I think I would
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  Speaker 2: have found it predictable that people on the online spaces
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  Speaker 2: that we look at have a reaction to this story
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  Speaker 2: for one thing many of these corners have been i
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  Speaker 2: would call it obsessed with the whole epstein story and
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  Speaker 2: epstein saga to the point where epstein is now a
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  Speaker 2: it's a verb right to get epsteined so what does
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  Speaker 2: that mean okay so recall kind of what happened to
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  Speaker 2: jeffrey epstein right he dies in prison i see by
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  Speaker 2: supposed suicide reported suicide right um And I'll say that
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  Speaker 2: I generally trust what the official narrative is on this.
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  Speaker 2: But there are lots of users online who basically said,
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  Speaker 2: why did the surveillance footage disappear?
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  Speaker 1: Because it was found after like the prison agency did
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: find that there were irregularities. Basically like the people watching
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  Speaker 1: him didn't do their jobs properly in terms of keeping
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: an eye on him. Sure.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Which allowed him to supposedly kill himself. I noticed he
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  Speaker 1: used the word supposedly.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, listen, I try not to fall for conspiracy theories,
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  Speaker 1: but that one was tough because it was just like
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  Speaker 1: how this high-profile, incredibly high-profile criminal, he wasn't watched properly.
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  Speaker 2: Who could implicate all of these very powerful people.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really a hard one to swallow, frankly.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so as a result of, I think, folks
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  Speaker 2: looking at that going, oh, here's another example of how
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  Speaker 2: the rich and famous are getting off again. That, oh,
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  Speaker 2: they got to Epstein in prison. How convenient. I think
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  Speaker 2: some people looked at what happened here and said, she's
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  Speaker 2: one of the most vocal victims advocates against Epstein. How convenient.
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  Speaker 1: I get it, especially with just a situation like Jeffrey Epstein,
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  Speaker 1: where it feels like there is stuff we still don't know.
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  Speaker 1: And more like kind of more deeply, like there's not
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  Speaker 1: resolution about what happened and why it was allowed to
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  Speaker 1: happen for so long. I feel like we don't have
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  Speaker 1: resolution there. And so, I mean, I think that's reflected
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  Speaker 1: in the terrible tragedy of what just happened where Virginia
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  Speaker 1: Dufri took her life. But I think a lot of
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  Speaker 1: people feel that, which is there's not closure here. Like
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  Speaker 1: why was this allowed to happen? Something else has to
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  Speaker 1: be up for this to have been allowed to flourish.
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  Speaker 1: And what was it? Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Now we sound like conspiracy theorists.
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  Speaker 1: Because, I mean, with Jeffrey Epstein– There was– I guess
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  Speaker 1: we don't have evidence the degree to which there was
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  Speaker 1: a conspiracy, but there is a conspiracy. You know, like
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  Speaker 1: he was running a sex trafficking ring among the most
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  Speaker 1: powerful people in the world.
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  Speaker 2: Right. Yes.
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  Speaker 1: That's facts.
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  Speaker 2: Yes. Those are facts.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: The thing about these that kind of to me puts
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  Speaker 1: the light of these conspiracies about Virginia Giuffre and her death.
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  Speaker 1: is that she was so outspoken for many years about
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  Speaker 1: what happened to her and other people and helped support
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  Speaker 1: others speaking out. It's like to think that she'd have
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  Speaker 1: to be killed to be silenced. It's like you'd have
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  Speaker 1: to imagine that there was a lot she didn't say
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  Speaker 1: somehow or something. But she really did put herself out
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  Speaker 1: there at great personal cost and with a lot of courage.
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  Speaker 1: And so these conspiracy theories kind of almost undermine– the
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  Speaker 1: admirable way she lived her life in the wake of
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  Speaker 1: this terrible thing that happened to her.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you choose to believe the conspiracy theories rather
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  Speaker 2: than to understand what happens psychologically to people who have
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: experienced something like what she experienced.
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  Speaker 1: I do want to ask you, has any narrative emerged
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  Speaker 1: in recent days where you're like, this is the one
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  Speaker 1: I'm paying attention to or I think we should? This
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  Speaker 1: is one that could really move the needle in the
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: real world in politics. you know, markets, whatever.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the one that I've been paying a
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  Speaker 2: lot of attention to is.
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  Speaker 1: The narrative that's burgeoning right now that most concerns Welton,
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  Speaker 1: who tracks this stuff every day. After a quick break.
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  Speaker 2: Let's see.
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  Speaker 1: The narrative that Welton Chang has seen explode lately and
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  Speaker 1: which troubles him the most, that he most worries could
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: start driving harmful actions in the real world.
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  Speaker 2: Just look at this.
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  Speaker 1: Is this.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: The number of people who are echoing calls for violence
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: against judges and the judiciary. Really? Yes.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: So I'm typing in judges, judiciary.
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  Speaker 1: Welton did a couple searches on PIRA to show me. Okay.
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  Speaker 2: So how our system works, right? We classify judges. The
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: content that we bring in along several different categories, including
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: if it's a violent threat, if it's hateful, if it's
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: offensive language, or if it's highly negative in terms of sentiment.
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  Speaker 1: The AI can kind of classify the type of language
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  Speaker 1: that's used.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, out of 21,000 posts the last seven days,
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: there's 3,000 of them that the system classifies as violent.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: And I can just click that, and I can come
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  Speaker 2: in here, and I can show you what people are saying.
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  Speaker 2: about judges. Lock them up in these radical judges.
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  Speaker 1: Another reason why we need to burn the traitorous pigs, judges, politicians,
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  Speaker 1: and puppet master dark cult bankers.
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  Speaker 2: Burn them all. Oh yeah, that's tame compared to what
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  Speaker 2: we typically see.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Show me what you typically see.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, here we go. Just say no to the judges.
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  Speaker 2: Then execute these traitors. In all caps.
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  Speaker 1: Right. Execute them. Should be executed in a public square
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: as an example to the other activist judges. Can you
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  Speaker 1: tell me how you've seen this tie to the news,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: like what's been happening in the news and how you've
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: seen it show up on the platform? Is there one
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: moment that jumped out at you where it's really kind
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  Speaker 1: of picked up?
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  Speaker 2: One of the big spikes was related to rulings around deportations.
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  Speaker 2: But I have been looking at threats to judges for
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: quite some time. And the level of violent rhetoric and
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: chatter around this topic today, it's like at the highest
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  Speaker 2: level I think it's ever been.
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  Speaker 1: Wow. Since you've been measuring it?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Since I've been looking at it, I mean, on
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: a typical topic, right, the level of violent discussion about
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: a video game, it's probably somewhere in that half a
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  Speaker 2: percent to one percent range. It's kind of like normal.
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  Speaker 1: Okay. And that's half a percent or one percent of
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  Speaker 1: all the discussion of that video game is violent.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I just showed you the violent content around people
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: talking about judges, it was close to and over like 10%
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: of the content. So if half a percentage is your
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: baseline and you're looking at 10%, then you're talking about
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: like a 20-fold increase in the number of people utilizing
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: violent language to talk about judges. It's huge. It's enormous.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: And this is new. The level of violence is new
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: to you?
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, percentage-wise. Let's see if I can show you. I'll
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: go language type. And here's negative. So there's a lot
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: of negative in here.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: So you have four types of speech that it categories
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: as negative, hateful, offensive, and violent.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: Let's go back 30 days. The violence line here, the
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: black line, that's not usually above offensive or hateful, right?
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Like it's usually below that. In this case, it's higher
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: than two of the others. Yeah.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Right now.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: And Welton, is this– I know a lot of what
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: I've seen as you've been scrolling is– not to say
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: this is justifiable, but it's kind of general violent language
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: about judges. So it's like execute the judges. Judges are traitors.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Go after them. Are you also seeing specific language about
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: specific judges? Can I give you the name of the
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: judge who's been doing a lot of the rulings in
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: the Venezuela case? James Boasberg, the chief judge in the U.S.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: District Court in Washington, D.C., He's been responsible for a
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: number of rulings against the Trump administration after they deported
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: plane loads of migrants to El Salvador without due process.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: And he's also indicated that the administration might be in
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: contempt of court.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Boasberg.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Here we go. Let's make a new project.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: The first thing we see come up is a post
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to repeat verbatim because it's a really
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: specific violent threat against Judge Boasberg. And that's precisely what's
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: so frightening about it. The poster describes how Boesberg should
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: be killed and the date it should happen, which is
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: the date of an upcoming news event. Yep. That seems
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: very specific, actually, in a really, really scary way. Judge
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: James Boesberg.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Must be arrested.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Fitted with an orange jumpsuit and said to get Mo.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: A lot of calls for his impeachment. Yep.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: And this is just the last seven days.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I was going to ask you just because
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: you're on, you know, you're looking at what's being said
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: online in this very kind of forensic way every day.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: You know, we're about. a little more than 100 days
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: into Trump's term, second term, I was wondering what kind
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: of trends or things you've seen that have jumped out
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: at you. Is it fair to say that this is
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: a big one?
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Huge.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Threats against judges?
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Yes. And it should concern both the authorities as well
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: as just what passes for discourse, right? I mean, here,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: arrest all judges, remove her and all biased judges, then
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: execute them. I mean, you can disagree with anything the rulings.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: You can disagree with the reason why we're even in
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: this situation in the first place. That is our responsibility
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: in a democracy, right? To have civil disagreements. But you
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: cross the line when you start to advocate for violence
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: against people. Why I'm concerned and paying attention to this
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: specific narrative is that we are crossing the line more
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: and more when it specifically comes to what's happening with judges.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: I'm also thinking about, I mean, obviously I hope there's
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: no actual, you know, action taken against a judge, violent action,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: but like just the fact that this is out there,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: it's making me think about what it's like to be
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: a judge right now and how the fear might influence
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: you in some way or another. You have to be
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: pretty brave to make a ruling that would fly against
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: some of these, the people making these threats.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Yes. I hope that, The judges who are involved are
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: getting appropriate support and also maybe some advice of like,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: sometimes it's better not to read all of this stuff.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: I hope that there are people in positions of power
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: who are looking at this and saying, we need to
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: increase security for these folks and make sure that their
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: public data isn't just floating around online, taking those appropriate
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: measures to And make sure that they're not going to
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: get doxxed or their kids go to school at XYZ
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: location and that's public knowledge for some reason. And then
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: that gets posted somewhere. But yeah, I mean this is all,
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: for one thing, very predictable. But also just– it does
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: keep me concerned, right? I have been looking at this for, man,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: now close to a decade. I'm still appalled and it
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: still hurts me to read all of this stuff.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Welton Chang of Pira Technologies and Alert Media. I hope
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: that unlike with the story about the Romanian election, Pira's
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: wrong about this last narrative becoming reality. This episode was
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: produced by Zach St.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Louis.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: It was edited by me. If you haven't heard our
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: last few episodes, I really encourage you to go catch up.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: We've been digging into some high stakes, interesting and frankly
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: infuriating stories. One about the growing movement to take down
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court precedent that most protects journalism in America.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: You'll find those episodes in your feed. One is called
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Freedom of the Press is Great Until You're the Target.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: The other is Pounding Beers in a Shed and other
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: dispatches from the War on Free Speech. And check out
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: also the event we held just last week at Tufts
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: University with the student newspaper there in the wake of
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: one of their op-ed writers being abducted on the street
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: by masked ICE agents. and held in detention in Louisiana,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: apparently for nothing more than an op-ed she co-authored for
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: this student paper. We had Marty Baron from the Washington
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Post join us. It was really a memorable time. Check
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: that out, too. This show is executive produced by me
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: and Robin Simeon. Our team includes producer Sophie Kazis, associate
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: producer Emily Malterre, and contributing editors Neil Drumming and Jen Kinney.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Annika Robbins fact-checked this episode, and Brendan Baker sound-designed it.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Our music is by Matt McGinley. Our KCRW partners include
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Arnie Seipel, Tejal Ajmera, Natalie Hill, and Jennifer Farrow. We'll
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: see you next time.