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Brian Takes on Big Tech · Question Everything

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Oh boy, what a time to come back with a
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: show about free speech and journalism. The pace of news
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: right now has been knocking the wind out of me.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk's assassination and late night hosts like Kimmel getting
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: yanked and multi-billion dollar defamation lawsuits from the president and
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the FCC head acting like a mafioso. Plus we have
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the president now claiming that critical coverage of him is illegal.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm anxious. Well, gratefully. I have an idea.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: From KCRW and Placement Theory, this is Question Everything. I'm
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Brian Reed. Come with me for a moment as I
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: transport us back to a simpler time. Back, back, to
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: six weeks ago, when I made a visit, as I
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: do now and then, to Des Moines, Iowa, and the
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Iowa State Fair.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: It was the middle of August.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I had a trip planned to Iowa with my family
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: to clean out an old storage unit.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: My wife is from Des Moines.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: And I figured I should take the opportunity to get
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: out of the New York media bubble I live in
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: and talk to fair-going Iowans about how they're feeling about
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: the state of the free press. Are they worried about
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Trump's assault on the media? Iowans are some of the
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: most civically engaged people I know. These people know their
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: congressmen and women. They write them emails and deliver them
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: letters by hand. They're used to directly questioning their presidential candidates.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Unlike many of us, Iowans have been shown, and in
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: my experience, tend to believe, that their involvement in our
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: country's democracy matters. So here I come, mic in hand,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: hoping not to spoil people's wholesome, deep-fried, twinkie-munching good time
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: with a little civics quiz.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Excuse me, guys. I'm a reporter. My name's Brian. I'm
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: asking people questions about journalism. About journalism? Yeah, you seem skeptical.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: To remind you, because I know so much happens every day,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: in July, just before this, two big things had gone
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: down in the journalism industry.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: CBS's parent company, Paramount Global, will shell out $ 16 million
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: to President Trump.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Paramount, the corporation that owns CBS, paid Donald Trump millions
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: of dollars to settle a lawsuit over how 60 Minutes
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: had edited an interview.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: With Kamala Harris.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Any news work worth its salt should have fought this case.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: But Paramount made the deal with Trump just as it
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: was trying to close.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: An $ 8 billion merger.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: That it needed FCC approval for, approval which the FCC
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: gave them right after Paramount.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: Paid the president.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: What's the deal? Was this a payoff dressed up as
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: a settlement? Well, look, it certainly seems that way.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: The other thing that happened in July, Congress voted to
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: kill the entirety of federal funding for public media, as
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Trump demanded they do.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: In one fell swoop.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Stripping $ 1 billion from public media, impacting our local NPR
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: and PBS programming.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Now all that's next is a signature from President Donald Trump.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: I was on vacation during both these developments and had
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: somewhat tuned out social media.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: When I logged back in.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: After just two weeks away, mind you, I was hit
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: by the speed at which the president's attacks on the
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: press have been moving.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: These were just the latest.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: He'd already kicked the AP out of the White House
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: press pool, shut down Voice of America, sued the Pulitzer
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Prize board and ABC News and the Des Moines Register,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: very close to home here. Wandering around the fair in
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: the late summer heat, watching people smile and chuckle with
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: their families, it seemed possible that people may not have
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: been clocking all this like I'd been. Lingering under the
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: sky glider, I asked Rob Clausen, a guy with white hair, glasses,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: and Tevas. The press is being crushed, and I'm curious
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: if you've noticed that and if you care about it.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: I do care about it.
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: Personally, I feel like it's hard to know who to
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: trust in the press to get a straight answer on things,
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: especially political answers. The press is pretty right-wing or left-wing,
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: and I feel like I don't know who to go
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: to for a solid informational thing.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Sitting next to Rob on a stone bench was his daughter,
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: maybe in her late teens or early 20s.
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: I'm Sarah Clausen.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Sarah Clausen.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Do you care about the thing that I'm pointing out,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: about kind of the diminishment of the press, I guess?
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I would say that it really matters that there
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: are people who report the facts and who are nonpartisan reporters.
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: And I think that's really been lost, and I think
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: it's hurting the public as well because people don't want
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: to listen to news, and there's no, like, good place
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: to get good news.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Is there any... outlet or type of journalism that you
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: do still trust? I don't know if there is, actually.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I wasn't focusing on Donald Trump in these conversations. Sometimes
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: people's politics came up, sometimes they didn't. What I wanted
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: to know, without falling into some kind of knee-jerk political response,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: was were people supportive of these attacks on the press?
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Apathetic?
• 5:35
  Speaker 6: Upset?
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: And if they were upset, how much interest did they
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: have in trying to keep things from continuing in this direction?
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: I had a producer join me at the fair, Sam Egan.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: I'm partial to the cotton candy.
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: So we could split up and canvas the place. We
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: talked to Billy outside the Cultural Arts Center.
• 5:51
  Speaker 7: My name's Bill Blank.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Mary lounging in a pen with her ribbon-winning sheep. Pam
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: next to a fountain. Kate while she was making cherry lemonade.
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: I'm 26.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Doug near the livestock pavilion. Lori catching some shade near
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: the beer tent.
• 6:04
  Speaker 8: Everything is political.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: And Stephanie after taking a spin with her on her
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: golf cart.
• 6:07
  Speaker 8: You have a dead cat tail in my mouth.
• 6:10
  Speaker 6: I do.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: The people we spoke to told us they do care.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: They care that the media is getting battered. Or at
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: least they said they did when they were talking to
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: a couple of reporters. But I also noticed, and this
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: was pretty much across every single one of these conversations,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: every person we talked to, left, right, in between, was
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: worn out.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Defeated.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Scared about the future and about the state of our country.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: They were at a loss for how to make things better.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: You could hear it in their voices. A chorus of weariness.
• 6:39
  Speaker 6: It's exhausting. Like every time you turn around, nobody knows
• 6:42
  Speaker 6: what's true.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: Nobody knows what to believe.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: So while I do care, I also feel helpless.
• 6:49
  Speaker 8: The most I can ever do is tell people on
• 6:51
  Speaker 8: Facebook that Trump's a scumbag or something.
• 6:54
  Speaker 9: I mean, there's not much else.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: People are tired.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: People are.
• 6:58
  Speaker 7: And, you know, it's been ongoing for several years, but
• 7:02
  Speaker 7: in the past seven months, it seems as though that exhaustion, that.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, can we stop now?
• 7:09
  Speaker 7: Can we.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Be kind to one another?
• 7:13
  Speaker 9: It's like you can get in a group of people
• 7:16
  Speaker 9: and everybody will be so one-sided. You say the wrong
• 7:20
  Speaker 9: thing and this person's all upset. And then we know family-wise,
• 7:25
  Speaker 9: we don't talk politics because it turns into a total nightmare.
• 7:30
  Speaker 7: It's actually just gotten to the point where I just
• 7:31
  Speaker 7: have to say, we're not talking about this, we're not
• 7:33
  Speaker 7: having this conversation, and I have to shut down every
• 7:35
  Speaker 7: single political conversation because it just ends.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: In a fight. Is that tiring? Exhausting. What do you
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: think can be done? I'm not sure. That's the scary part.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure. Is there any way to fix it?
• 7:50
  Speaker 7: Probably not.
• 7:51
  Speaker 9: The world's got too corrupted. Nobody can be friends anymore, and.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: I don't know what we do about it. I really
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: don't know what we do about it. It's very troubling.
• 8:03
  Speaker 8: I get frustrated because I don't know how to fix it.
• 8:05
  Speaker 8: So me, I'd rather put the blinders on, even though
• 8:08
  Speaker 8: we all hate when people do this, but I'm getting old.
• 8:11
  Speaker 8: My mom said I might be getting a little cynical.
• 8:15
  Speaker 8: I just can't figure out who's going to fix it
• 8:17
  Speaker 8: or how we fix it.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: It's exhausting.
• 8:20
  Speaker 8: It's really exhausting.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: One guy I talked to, Chad Busick, was at the
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: fair with his mom to see Rascal Flatts for his birthday.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: They told me they're Trump supporters because Chad got leukemia
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: as a teenager and the Trump family has raised money
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: for the hospital that saved his life, St.
• 8:42
  Speaker 6: Jude.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Chad's now in his 30s.
• 8:45
  Speaker 7: News affects everybody, right? Nowadays you have social media and,
• 8:50
  Speaker 7: you know, you're kind of quick to jump, you know,
• 8:54
  Speaker 7: off of that. And I think people just, they don't
• 8:57
  Speaker 7: take the time to understand people.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Chad mostly gets his news on social media. But over
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: the years, he tells me, his skepticism about the information
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: he's getting there has grown a lot. He says recently
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: he's seen his dad get tricked by some articles that
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: were actually AI-generated.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Total crap.
• 9:13
  Speaker 7: Sometimes it's kind of hard to trust things because how
• 9:16
  Speaker 7: do you know what's real and what's fake sometimes, you know?
• 9:18
  Speaker 7: Because sometimes you get these fake news articles and people
• 9:22
  Speaker 7: will go, oh, yeah, that's real, so let's all believe
• 9:25
  Speaker 7: it and spread it out there. When in reality, it's
• 9:28
  Speaker 7: not true. You don't get to understand people as good
• 9:31
  Speaker 7: as you used to, I don't feel like.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or it's like a more two-dimensional understanding. Like, we
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: hear a lot more from people, but it's not as deep.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:40
  Speaker 7: You could be the best person in the world, but
• 9:42
  Speaker 7: you have a different belief than someone, and they just
• 9:44
  Speaker 7: want nothing to do with you after that. And I
• 9:46
  Speaker 7: think that's kind of what's wrong.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: It's interesting.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: It's like I came here with kind of a narrow
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: question about reporting and news, and you guys are talking
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: about how everybody treats each other.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: It's our question for regular Americans, not journalists.
• 10:08
  Speaker 9: Do you care?
• 10:09
  Speaker 7: Yes, I do.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Nancy Denton talked to Sam in front of the grandstand.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: She cared a lot that the media is getting kneecapped.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: Why?
• 10:18
  Speaker 10: Because they're trying to influence what we think. They're trying
• 10:22
  Speaker 10: to put their views onto us. Shut down, you know,
• 10:27
  Speaker 10: stations and shows that we watch and trust.
• 10:32
  Speaker 9: And when you say that, who's that?
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Washington.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:39
  Speaker 10: My husband's a big Stephen Colbert fan. And we were
• 10:43
  Speaker 10: just crushed when we heard that he was going to
• 10:45
  Speaker 10: be canceled. And it's all just fun and, you know,
• 10:51
  Speaker 10: joking and everything, but I think he's kind of hurt
• 10:53
  Speaker 10: someone's toes stepping on him, and it's not right. We've
• 10:59
  Speaker 10: got kids, and they have kids, and it's turning into
• 11:04
  Speaker 10: something that we don't want them to face. We have
• 11:08
  Speaker 10: grandkids that watch PBS, and when we have them at
• 11:12
  Speaker 10: our house, you know, we turn that on. And if
• 11:15
  Speaker 10: that's not going to be there anymore, how are they
• 11:17
  Speaker 10: going to learn? And how are we going to be
• 11:22
  Speaker 10: a group and still stay together if some of these
• 11:25
  Speaker 10: outlets are taken away from us? You know, what we're
• 11:30
  Speaker 10: seeing happening is just like a big snowball, and it's
• 11:36
  Speaker 10: just going to get worse, I have a feeling.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: That day at the fair, that was a snapshot from
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: the center of America on August 12th, 2025. And Nancy Denton,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: she was right. I think it's reasonable to say things
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: have already gotten much worse.
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: In just the month and a half since then, Donald
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: Trump sued the New York Times for.
• 12:03
  Speaker 9: $ 15 billion.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: A judge threw out the suit, but the president can refile.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: The attorney general has said her department....
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Would criminalize quote-unquote hate speech. Trump and his FCC head
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Brendan Carr have been overtly threatening to pull broadcast.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Licenses from outlets whose coverage they don't like.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Carr literally said on a podcast about ABC, we can
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: do this the easy way or we can do this
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: the hard way. Hours later, ABC pulled Kimmel off the air.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Now Kimmel's back, but Trump's still making threats. Meanwhile, the
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Trump-friendly Ellison's, one of the richest families in the world...
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: have been making moves to buy up a ton of
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: big media companies really fast. They bought CBS News or
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: going after the company that owns CNN. And as of
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: this week, they're getting in on TikTok. In the middle
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: of all this, a gunman shot conservative commentator Charlie Kirk
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: in the neck and killed him while he was speaking
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: in front of an audience of thousands at a college
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: in Utah. In the days since, the governor of Utah,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Spencer Cox, a Republican, has been a huge presence on
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: TV and elsewhere. And of all the things he could
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: choose to say, with national attention fixated on him, with
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: millions of Americans looking to him for answers and for leadership,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: what he has decided to tell us is this.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: Social media is a cancer on our society right now.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: And I would encourage... Again, I would encourage people to
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: log off, turn off, touch grass, hug a family member,
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: go out and do good in your community.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: This is our moment.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: Do we escalate or do we find an off ramp?
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: And again, it's a choice. It's a choice.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: I've been thinking about social media a lot since long
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: before Charlie Kirk's murder, before I went to Iowa. When
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: I created this show, the goal was to figure out
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: how to fix journalism's problems. But really what that meant,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: what my underlying hope was, and still is, I want
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: us to be less consumed by lies. I want there
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: to be more easily accessible, solid, reliable information. I want
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Americans to trust each other more when trust is warranted,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: to understand each other better, and to talk to and
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: about each other more healthily. And while improving journalism is
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: absolutely a part of this, You just can't accomplish any
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: of those things in any systemic way without really looking
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: hard at social media and the way information moves online.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, this was all throughout my conversations in Iowa too. Remember,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Chad pointed to social media and now AI as the
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: culprit for many of our troubles, but others did too.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: For Christ's sakes, my producer talked to one woman who
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: spent her whole childhood believing the school shooting at Sandy
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Hook was a hoax because her dad got convinced of
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: it online. In the wake of Charlie Kirk's killing, Governor
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Cox has been on a crusade against social media. Here
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: he is on Meet the Press, pleading for us to
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: get offline.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: I can't emphasize enough the damage that social media and
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: the internet is doing to all of us. Those dopamine hits,
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: these companies, trillion dollar market caps, the most powerful companies
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: in the history of the world have figured out how
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: to hack our brain's Get us addicted to outrage, which
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: is the same type of dopamine, the same chemical that
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: you get from taking fentanyl. Get us addicted to outrage
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: and get us to hate each other. I'm seeing it
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: in real time since the tragic death of Charlie Kirk.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: I'm seeing it in every corner of our society. The
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: conflict entrepreneurs are taking advantage of us. And we are
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: losing our agency and we have to take that back.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: We have to turn it off. We have to get
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: back to community, caring about our neighbors, the things that
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: make American great, serving each other, bettering ourselves. I believe
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: that social media has played a direct role in every
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: single assassination and assassination attempt that we have seen over
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: the last five, six years. There is no question in
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: my mind that cancer probably isn't a strong enough word.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: What we have done, especially to our kids, it took
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: us a decade to realize how evil these algorithms are.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Something feels different to me in the weeks since Charlie
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Kirk's killing. The criticism of social media is growing, yes.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Cox and others have been calling out these platforms for
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: stoking our divisions and distrust. It's not a consensus yet,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: but I could see it getting there. The same way
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: we just recently reached what I'd call a consensus on
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: schools needing to ban kids' cell phones. But the nature
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: of the criticism also feels new. It strikes me as
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: more precise and intense than previous versions of people complaining
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: about social media rotting our brains or whatever. People are
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: talking specifically about algorithms, amplification, AI, and corporate accountability. And
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: people are capturing the way social media pollutes the very
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: political air we breathe. One writer I follow, an anti-corporate
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: leftist named David Sirota, put it in a way I
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: found powerful. He wrote in a post on Substack's social app,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: of course, quote, Here's something I'm struggling with right now.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: It has become a bit of a spiritual crisis for me.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: The work I've done for my entire adult life has
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: been predicated on one belief, that there is value in
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: the pursuit of truth and compassion for our fellow human beings.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: But lately, my faith has been shaken by the fear
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: that even trying to do this work is actually the
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: opposite of good, that unintentionally, even the best, most earnest
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: journalism and media participation contributes to the larger problem destroying
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: our society. Because the discourse has changed. The discourse is
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: now algorithmically manipulated. to make us hate each other. Meanwhile,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: the leaders of the tech companies who profit from this mayhem,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: they're increasingly buddy-buddy with the president.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: In the most generous.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Interpretation, they're tacitly enabling his attack on fact-based reporting and
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: free speech. Last week, a bunch of those guys, executives
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: from Google and Microsoft and Apple and OpenAI, joined Trump
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: at his state dinner with the King of England, the
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: same day Trump's head of the FCC was bullying ABC
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: and Disney to pull Jimmy Kimmel. These guys were with
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: the president, nibbling on quail egg salad and chicken valentine.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: What if I told you there is a real bipartisan
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: effort to try and fix the horrible effects of social media?
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: A rare issue where a bunch of people who are
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: otherwise at each other's throats agree. It still faces plenty
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: of opposition, and even people who agree on the proposal...
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: agree for vastly different reasons, so that makes it fractious
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: and a delicate situation. But it is a real plan,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: a big idea, that could actually happen.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Democrats and Republicans agree. Leaders in both parties are behind it.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: And make no mistake, it's how these companies have gotten big,
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: it's how they've gotten powerful, it's how they've gotten rich.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: One big reason that we live in a world now
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: where lies rocket across the internet, spreading hate and division,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: is that you can't sue social media companies. You can't
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: sue them for what people post on their platforms, even
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: if those platforms use powerful, AI-driven algorithms to pick out
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: the most incendiary, defamatory posts, spread them far and wide,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: and rake in profit.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: Still can't sue them.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: In the 90s, before social media as we know it existed,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Congress gave internet companies a special immunity, a kind of
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: get-out-of-jail-free card.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: No other industry gets this protection.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: In the 1990s, at the birth of the internet, Congress
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: basically said that the social media corporations couldn't be sued
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: for anything that happened on their platforms.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: That was a really bad idea. Congress said, oh, and
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: nobody can sue you.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: So basically, if you go on my podcast and say,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know, Brian's mom is a murderer, and she's
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: not a murderer, which she's not, my mom, she could
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: sue you.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: And she could sue this.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Podcast for defamation. We bear responsibility for what we put
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: out there. And it's a big incentive for us to
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: make sure what we're amplifying is factual. But if you
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: posted the same statement on Facebook, if you said Paula
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Reid is a murderer and Facebook's algorithm thought it was
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: juicy and made it go viral and sold a lot
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: of ads against it, made a lot of money, my
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: mom would not be able to sue Facebook.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: She'd still be able to sue you, by the way.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: You'd still be on the hook.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: But not the giant corporation that was really pulling in
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: dough from your lie. meaning there is very little incentive
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: for Facebook to prioritize facts. This protection, it's called Section 230.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: It's just 26 words long, buried in a much bigger
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: act from 1996. They've been called the 26 words that
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: created the internet.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: These companies have been granted a special writ from the king.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: In a study of Twitter, lies were found to travel
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: six times faster and reach far more people than factual
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: posts do. I've come to believe that changing this provision,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: reimagining Section 230, could profoundly alter how the internet and
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: social media shape our lives and our democracy.
• 21:18
  Speaker 11: Critics of the law say that it leaves social media
• 21:21
  Speaker 11: free to ignore lies, hoaxes, and slander.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: After a year and a half of my team reporting
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: on how we get information, on how journalism is getting
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: swallowed in our current media world, I think it's time
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: to get rid of this powerful immunity. You and I
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: should be able to sue Internet companies the way you
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: can sue a news outlet if one of them defames you.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: It's not a cure-all, but focusing on this one law,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: it's the most concrete, doable thing I've come across that
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: could have the widest impact, that could improve our information ecosystem,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: as they say in Silicon Valley, at scale. And so
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: I want to argue for reforming it. As a reporter
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: from the mainstream world of journalism— Pushing for a policy
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: change is not something that we usually do. Places I've
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: worked for have rules against it. But the whole point
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: of Question Everything is to come up with new ways
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: for journalists to do things. And in this case, the
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: reporting I've done shows that social media companies are undermining
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: journalism and democracy on a massive scale and without repercussions.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: It is in line with our mission to push for
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: this change. And so, with this one issue, I'm going
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: to go for it.
• 22:32
  Speaker 6: Record your message at the tone.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Hi, my name is Brian Reed. This message is for
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Senator Lindsey Graham. Hi, how are you, ma'am? I'd love
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: to set up a meeting with Senator Durbin to discuss...
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: The legal immunity to big tech has been on the
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: books since 1996.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: We've got to stop this. This is long overdue.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping to set up a meeting to speak with
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the senator. I'd be happy to come to D.C. or
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: to Tennessee, wherever is most convenient.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Energy and Commerce, Democratic staff, how can I help you?
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: That would be down here in D.C., right? I'm happy
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: to go to D.C. or New Jersey.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Some ground rules. First and foremost, I do have an opinion.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Based on my reporting, I think changing Section 230 is
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: a good idea. We'll get into specific thoughts about how
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: that could look. It's a complicated issue, but I want
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: to be upfront about that. Second, this is my position.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: It's not KCRW's position. So if you think it's a
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: terrible idea, take that up with me.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: No one else.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Third, and maybe most importantly, I will approach this project
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: as a journalist. I'm reporting on this topic every day,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: learning new things, having my assumptions challenged. I'll be sharing
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: my reporting and research with you, and I'll explore all
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: sides of the issue. I'll share counterarguments and evidence, even
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: if it hurts my case. There are good reasons, many
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: having to do with free speech— to be worried about
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: removing Section 230. I'm open to being wrong. And above all,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: I'll be transparent with you, just like I am in
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: all my reporting. I don't want you to feel like
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: you don't have the information you need to make up
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: your own mind about this.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: That's the promise I'm making. And right now, in transparency,
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: this is where I'm at.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: I want to use my reporting to take action at
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: a time when we desperately need it. Join me as
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: I take on big tech. in real time on this show.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: It's not the only thing we'll be doing. We're still
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: turning journalism on itself, trying to root out the problems
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: in our field, tell stories that help us see it anew,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: spotlight good ideas and figure out better ways to do things.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: There is plenty to excavate there. In fact, in your
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: feeds right now, we have another episode where we got
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: together a group of the top reporters who have covered
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein for years, along with one of their MAGA producers,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: to compare notes and dig into what it's been like
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: to report that sordid and shocking tale It's one of
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: the most confronting conversations about journalism and truth that I've
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: ever been a part of, so check it out. But
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: I've come to the realization that no effort to actually
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: improve the way we communicate and report on the world
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: is serious unless we focus on the powerful technologies and
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: corporations behind them that are influencing both, and the relatively
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: unknown law that allows them to operate with impunity. Question
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Everything's back with a plan. I hope to see you
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: next time.
• 25:23
  Speaker 6: Hi, this is Senator Graham's office. And I was just
• 25:26
  Speaker 6: calling to reach back out to Brian Reed regarding setting
• 25:29
  Speaker 6: up a meeting with the senator. Please call our office
• 25:33
  Speaker 6: back as soon as possible and I can help get
• 25:34
  Speaker 6: that set up for you. Thanks.
• 25:36
  Speaker 7: Bye.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Today's episode was produced by me and Sam Egan and
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: edited by our executive producer, Robin Simeon, and our managing editor,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Kevin Sullivan. Our producers are Sophie Kazis, Zach St. Louis,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: and associate coordinating producer Emily Maltare. Jen Kinney is a
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: contributing editor. Brendan Baker is our sound designer. Our music
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: is by Matt McGinley. This episode was fact-checked by Annika
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Robbins and mixed by Sean Cole. Our partners at KCRW
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: include Arnie Seipel, Tejal Ajmera, Natalie Hill, and Jennifer Farrow.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: We're pumped to be back, y'all. Please rate and review
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: the show. Recommend us to your friends. Subscribe to our
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: newsletter on Substack for free, where I'm digging into a
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: lot of the issues we explore here, questions of truth
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: and free speech. And check out another new episode right
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: now with a very lively and loose debate about how
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: to report the Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump story.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: This is a real story.
• 26:30
  Speaker 11: We care about this. We don't listen to you journalists
• 26:34
  Speaker 11: when you tell us that Trump is in a bad
• 26:36
  Speaker 11: situation on this. We are telling you that we actually
• 26:39
  Speaker 11: really care about this and that Trump is in trouble
• 26:41
  Speaker 11: with us.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: We are telling you it's a problem. That's in your
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: feed at this very moment. See you next Thursday.