Speaker 1: Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio and partnership
Speaker 1: with Reason Choice Media. Welcome home, everybody. This is the
Speaker 1: Tiffany Crass, the Angela Ray, and I'm Andrew Gillum. You're
Speaker 1: tuned into this week's minipod. Instagram has quietly limited political content.
Speaker 1: And I asked you know some of my co hosts,
Speaker 1: actually all of them, are we able to be seen
Speaker 1: on Instagram if they're limiting political content because we talk
Speaker 1: a lot of politics.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, we're curious to know how you have been
Speaker 1: experiencing this because there is a new default setting, whether
Speaker 1: you know it or not, on Instagram that limits the
Speaker 1: amount of political content shown in your feed. Now. Instagram
Speaker 1: promises that if you decide to follow accounts that post
Speaker 1: political content, we don't want to get between you and
Speaker 1: their post, But we also don't want to be proactively
Speaker 1: recommending political content from accounts that you don't follow. Could
Speaker 1: you also please not randomly allow ads to follow me
Speaker 1: all the way through my experience on Instagram too? That's
Speaker 1: an aside. A separate new default setting now limits content
Speaker 1: in your feed that has been reviewed by independent fact
Speaker 1: checkers in found to contain false or partially false information.
Speaker 3: What say, okay, can I this phrase this? So the
Speaker 3: parent company Meta introduced a policy in early February. Is
Speaker 3: just hitting the news now, but the situation is in
Speaker 3: early February, this was a policy that was introduced that
Speaker 3: would apply.
Speaker 4: Obviously.
Speaker 3: Meta is the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads,
Speaker 3: and their policy is to tamp down on the amount
Speaker 3: of political content that will show up in your feeds
Speaker 3: from accounts that users do not typically follow. So I
Speaker 3: know there's a lot of outrage about the but I
Speaker 3: think it's important to put this in context and why.
Speaker 3: So this is not necessarily a bad policy from Meta,
Speaker 3: but it does come around eight years too late. So
Speaker 3: if we can remember what happened in twenty sixteen, this
Speaker 3: is how foreign governments were able to infiltrate our election process.
Speaker 3: They did it by influencing opinions. So in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: the IRA this is the Internet Russia agency, purchased a
Speaker 3: lot of ads on Facebook. I think thirty five hundred
Speaker 3: ads to be exact. And this was not a time
Speaker 3: that Instagram was as popular, but they purchased Facebook and
Speaker 3: Instagram ads to influence the presidential election. So you remember
Speaker 3: at that time there are a lot of people posting
Speaker 3: about Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, and people were following these
Speaker 3: accounts and engaging with them. What we later found out
Speaker 3: is that a lot of those were Russian bots because
Speaker 3: they spent maybe two were three months here and to
Speaker 3: figure out how do we infiltrate this. Oh, I got it.
Speaker 3: They treat black people really shitty there, so let's make
Speaker 3: that our thing. It took them that long to do that.
Speaker 3: It wasn't the first time they did it, and so
Speaker 3: as a result, a lot of people real quick, I
Speaker 3: don't want you to I don't want to go, don't
Speaker 3: want you to get too far from this point.
Speaker 5: The IRA is Internet Research Agency. It was a troll farm.
Speaker 5: So I just wanted to correct one thing because you
Speaker 5: just said Internet Russian. I was like, that's not familiar
Speaker 5: Internet read We're just probably just moving fast.
Speaker 3: But I thought it was Internet Russia. But I think
Speaker 3: that makes more research research agency.
Speaker 2: It is a Russian entity.
Speaker 3: Yes, so it's an IRA, which is a Russian entity
Speaker 3: Internet research agency.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 3: I wrote in my book that came out four years ago,
Speaker 3: Internet Russian Agency.
Speaker 4: So now that.
Speaker 3: Different Internet research She was making a point, which is
Speaker 3: it's the point is, but thank you for correcting me,
Speaker 3: because that's an important point, and this is an arm
Speaker 3: of the Kremlin. And so at that time, a lot
Speaker 3: of black folks felt, well, if the only time I'm
Speaker 3: seeing outrage is from one of these Russian bots, well
Speaker 3: then I'm going to follow and engage because the mainstream
Speaker 3: media has summarily dismissed our experience here and our pain.
Speaker 3: So by as a result of purchasing these ads, the
Speaker 3: IRA was able to reach over one hundred and forty
Speaker 3: six million people.
Speaker 4: Most of those people were black people.
Speaker 3: So I just want to put that in context as
Speaker 3: we talk about why this happened and why this is
Speaker 3: happening now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, except that we didn't get to opt out before, right,
Speaker 1: So in this case, the company has opted us out
Speaker 1: and we have to go back and opt in to
Speaker 1: receiving ads that would have normally showed up in our algorithm.
Speaker 4: Well, because they're saying you accounts that you don't.
Speaker 1: Already follow, I right, But there are a lot of
Speaker 1: accounts I don't follow. There are a lot of counts
Speaker 1: that I don't follow that populate right inside my feed.
Speaker 1: All I'm saying is why not give the viewer the
Speaker 1: choice to opt out rather than us having to opt in.
Speaker 1: Almost every other default setting opts us into something. They
Speaker 1: opt me into location, they opt me into tracking, they
Speaker 1: opt me into this, they op me into that. But
Speaker 1: then I've got to then opt out when it comes
Speaker 1: to political content.
Speaker 5: I am concerned about this for a number of reasons.
Speaker 2: Andrew ld with this.
Speaker 5: Our podcast is political, and I will tell you that
Speaker 5: it's been interesting to see there's been a tremendous shift
Speaker 5: in our likes and our engagement over the course of
Speaker 5: the last month. So when I saw this, I was like,
Speaker 5: oh my god, no wonder. So for people who don't know,
Speaker 5: when you go into Instagram and you click on your settings,
Speaker 5: this is my tutorial day, click on those little three
Speaker 5: lines and you click on those three lines and you
Speaker 5: scroll down to content preferences. There are several videos on this,
Speaker 5: but I just want to walk through this preferences and
Speaker 5: there's literally an item here now that says political content.
Speaker 5: It doesn't say ads is political content. When you click
Speaker 5: on that, you get two options. Limit political content from
Speaker 5: people you don't follow. You might see less political or
Speaker 5: social topics in your suggested content. That's that search bar
Speaker 5: when you click on search, Mine is all babies, Tips
Speaker 5: is all dogs. I don't know Andrew wist in your search,
Speaker 5: then it probably all books. Then it says or don't
Speaker 5: limit political content from people you don't follow. You might
Speaker 5: see more political or social topics in your suggested content.
Speaker 2: So I clicked on.
Speaker 5: Don't limit political, and that's the second option. It says
Speaker 5: this affects suggestions and explore reels, feed recommendations, and suggested users. Allegedly,
Speaker 5: it says it does not affect the content from accounts
Speaker 5: you follow. This setting also applies to threads. I think
Speaker 5: that my issue here is and again I was raised
Speaker 5: by an activist.
Speaker 2: I am very.
Speaker 5: Concerned and I am skeptical that they have some independent
Speaker 5: fact checkers on.
Speaker 2: Things that I should and should not be receiving.
Speaker 5: I get why it's important to like, I love now
Speaker 5: that Twitter will formally the artist formally known as Twitter
Speaker 5: has the thing that'll say like, this content is false
Speaker 5: because of x y Z. I think that's great, and
Speaker 5: to Tip's point, it is several years too late. But
Speaker 5: also like, I want to be able to make my
Speaker 5: own decision about whether or not I want to engage
Speaker 5: in something and as you all both know, during the
Speaker 5: unrest around George Floyd's murder, they were limiting contents. They
Speaker 5: were black bawling BLM pieces and the BLM hashtag. I
Speaker 5: don't want them to do that for me, especially in
Speaker 5: a year like now. We know this is not just
Speaker 5: a typical election year. We're in a political war. I
Speaker 5: don't want them that content for me. I want to
Speaker 5: decide for myself. And it's just interesting that we are now.
Speaker 5: It feels like talking about social media platforms every week.
Speaker 5: Last week it was the TikTok ban and what that
Speaker 5: could mean. It sounds more like a forced sale to
Speaker 5: a rich billionaire in America, maybe even the Department of
Speaker 5: Treasury secretary, former Department Treasury Secretary Manuchin, a Trump guy.
Speaker 5: But the thing is, we have to be very cognizant
Speaker 5: of these things. For some of the young people in
Speaker 5: our community, even some of the older folks, the primary
Speaker 5: source of news where they read a headline is on
Speaker 5: social media. We're starting to put headlines on our page
Speaker 5: because we know I know, Tip, but it's true.
Speaker 2: We're starting to put.
Speaker 5: Headlines on our page because people aren't hearing about these things.
Speaker 5: And Tip, as you say, often before you do this
Speaker 5: all the way. Sometimes we're talking about things that you're
Speaker 5: not able to see on mainstream media outlets. So for example,
Speaker 5: sessiona's office being shut down, the Office of Diversity and
Speaker 5: Inclusion in the House. We put that up pretty early.
Speaker 5: We got a lot of engagement around that because people
Speaker 5: didn't know that that was happening.
Speaker 2: We have to figure out a way to reach people.
Speaker 5: But if we can't because they're limiting the content because
Speaker 5: they decided that it wasn't factually accurate. What if they
Speaker 5: decided that our post wasn't accurate because the Republicans eventually
Speaker 5: are first talked about it in the rules package instead
Speaker 5: of when they defunded it, when the money was actually
Speaker 5: stripped from that office last week, or because it was
Speaker 5: a rebrand, it's not really the elimination of it. Like,
Speaker 5: I don't want them subjectively choosing that for us. So
Speaker 5: I got some serious feelings about this, and I'm worried
Speaker 5: about it because I've been thinking and been concerned that
Speaker 5: they've been black boweling activists and silencing people with voices
Speaker 5: that matter around issues that could you know, really gen
Speaker 5: people up on issues that we care about, getting folks
Speaker 5: mobilized I don't want them deciding that for us. If
Speaker 5: they're like, well, this isn't really a voter suppression bill,
Speaker 5: it's a voter id buill, don't decide that for me.
Speaker 2: Let me decide that.
Speaker 1: They need to be regulated more intensely. I'm saying that
Speaker 1: we were out here spewing that which I am. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that they have run away with the whole barn.
Speaker 1: Is that too political? And do I get devalued? And again,
Speaker 1: when you're talking abou platforms like Hours that are attempting
Speaker 1: to grow an audience, to introduce ourselves, we're only twelve
Speaker 1: episodes old, right, and the pantheon of of lifespans and
Speaker 1: now we can't enter. We can't pierce anybody's curiosity with
Speaker 1: what it is that we have to say that likely
Speaker 1: happens to be showing up in their feed because they
Speaker 1: said a word, or engage in an action or like
Speaker 1: another thing that might be similar to what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: So even though I don't know follow us, the reason
Speaker 1: why it's popping up for me is because based off
Speaker 1: the other things that I follow, the types of people
Speaker 1: that I follow, and the types of sources that I consult,
Speaker 1: this might be a good option for me. So that
Speaker 1: goes away when somebody in some box somewhere who I
Speaker 1: don't know, can't call name of it, and certainly can't
Speaker 1: reach on the phone or in an email, decides that
Speaker 1: what I have to say is too political, discomforting, disquieting,
Speaker 1: that's not right. And we were talking about China running
Speaker 1: away with a misinformation war. What about the misinformation that's
Speaker 1: been perpetrated right here at home. We have got to
Speaker 1: take a quick break, pay some bills, and we'll be
Speaker 1: right back.
Speaker 3: I hear both your points, and I think those are
Speaker 3: legitimate points, because I've certainly seen a decrease in our
Speaker 3: engagement too. I don't know the solution here, but in
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen, if Russia were trying to or we know
Speaker 3: that Russia was trying to infiltrate our election process, for
Speaker 3: sure they have company. In twenty twenty four, I'd imagine
Speaker 3: Iran has a vested interest in how this election turns out.
Speaker 3: I'd imagine China most certainly has a vested interest in
Speaker 3: how this election turns out. Well, I think yeah, I
Speaker 3: think China and Iran. I don't think there's been any
Speaker 3: US intel evidence that Israel has has ever tried to,
Speaker 3: so I don't actually.
Speaker 2: Said vested interest in sorry how it turns out.
Speaker 3: I mean, though, people who would join Russia and trying
Speaker 3: to influence the outcome of the election. So I would
Speaker 3: say China, Iran, and who knows what other hostile governments
Speaker 3: in the United States. So I do think this does
Speaker 3: require some attention. I think social media can certainly not exacerbate,
Speaker 3: but put on a under a microscope the political polarization
Speaker 3: that happens in the country. I don't think it introduces it,
Speaker 3: and I don't think it influences somebody to.
Speaker 4: Feel the way they don't already feel.
Speaker 3: So I don't know the solution, but I can't say that,
Speaker 3: you know, they should just let it be a free
Speaker 3: for all. I think it might be a regulatory issue.
Speaker 3: It is a huge regulatory issue.
Speaker 1: The success of foreign actors playing in our election actions
Speaker 1: happened to be then playing on the sympathies, real life
Speaker 1: sympathies of people who were expressing what they legit felt,
Speaker 1: except it was being multiplied, right, so you saw it
Speaker 1: more often, more fiercely. If you were into it before,
Speaker 1: then you're going to hear those voices. You know that
Speaker 1: many more times. But they were using grievances and contents
Speaker 1: generated by us and selling it back to us, just
Speaker 1: as political parties do and just as others do. But
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the point I would rest on
Speaker 1: is one get information from a whole variety of different sources, right.
Speaker 4: And reading.
Speaker 1: Secondly, we all ought to be fighting fiercely for liberties
Speaker 1: that we once held sacri saying, which now we're just
Speaker 1: willing to flip over and turn over in the name
Speaker 1: of national security. Anytime I hear the national security state
Speaker 1: warning me off of something, I'm going the opposite direction
Speaker 1: because I'm not sure what they're motivated by. I know
Speaker 1: a defense budget exists that I don't get to see.
Speaker 1: I know that there are other clandestine operations that occurred
Speaker 1: not just here, but abroad and within our hemisphere and
Speaker 1: outside of it. And I don't want anybody censoring.
Speaker 5: Me, And I don't want anybody like censoring for me either,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Like I'm not a child, I don't want.
Speaker 5: I want to be able to have some independence in
Speaker 5: what I consume. I also think that what is scary
Speaker 5: to me is the number of folks I'm about to
Speaker 5: I'm just warning, I'm about to completely contradict myself. But
Speaker 5: there are also some instances where people rely on some
Speaker 5: accounts that they really shouldn't. It really is not good information.
Speaker 5: It's not just political. It's information that's bad and not
Speaker 5: true about your health. It's information that's bad and not
Speaker 5: true about different herbs that you should consume or different
Speaker 5: foods that you can eat. And they turn into this
Speaker 5: or they do that. There was a whole piece the
Speaker 5: other day that I saw where this guy was trying
Speaker 5: to argue that you should not drink water as a human.
Speaker 5: You should get your water from other places because you
Speaker 5: don't stand on all.
Speaker 2: Fours drink the water.
Speaker 5: That is not a limitation of political content, but it
Speaker 5: is limitation of bullshit.
Speaker 2: Can you please not on? It's outrageous.
Speaker 5: And the thing that I worry about now is young
Speaker 5: folks were kind of raised in this era where they
Speaker 5: weren't necessarily told that Wikipedia, for example, is not a
Speaker 5: primary source you know.
Speaker 4: To it's not a research tool.
Speaker 5: Right right, You have to still cite yours. That's why
Speaker 5: I love that tip. Will hate somebody up about it,
Speaker 5: like what was your source? Though, I'm glad that you
Speaker 5: looked it up. What was the source, because it could
Speaker 5: have got that from booboo tofood dot com. We're not
Speaker 5: here for booboodofood dot com. Like, were not trying to
Speaker 5: amplify booboo food dot com. We don't want to cite
Speaker 5: statistics from boobootofood dot com. And we're definitely not trying
Speaker 5: to see that in our Instagram search. So Instagram, you
Speaker 5: want to do me a favorite, limit some stuff. Look
Speaker 5: at the people that's touting this other stuff, Like I
Speaker 5: can figure out the politics.
Speaker 2: Maybe everybody can't believe me alone. Give me an exemption.
Speaker 3: The reporting on this. This is according to the AP
Speaker 3: that ninety seven percent of the misinformation that they fact
Speaker 3: checked was targeted towards conservatives, which makes a lot of sense,
Speaker 3: makes so much.
Speaker 1: Sense innative reality.
Speaker 4: Sure, when you think about some of the nonsense that
Speaker 4: they say.
Speaker 2: Wait TIF, wait TIF, what is it?
Speaker 5: Tiff?
Speaker 4: What is it? The nonsense?
Speaker 5: Nonsense spouts I don't understand how I'm saying it wrong
Speaker 5: nonsense nonsense?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's just it's nonsense. Give me a
Speaker 1: different affect.
Speaker 2: What's you? What's the non pieces do they wear? What's
Speaker 2: the head piece they wear?
Speaker 4: Hobbit? Is it a hobbit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, give me one of those. I want one of those.
Speaker 4: For this part of the nonsense, Albert says, I say everybody, we.
Speaker 5: Should say we should use nonsense instead of nonsense, because
Speaker 5: if we use nonsense, maybe become smarter.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 4: Nonsense and nonsense.
Speaker 1: Start checking anyway, Start filtering those horrible commercials and ads
Speaker 1: and shoes and all that stuff.
Speaker 4: And just read. Young people read, but don't read everything.
Speaker 5: Can we give them some sources we need to give
Speaker 5: credible book Let's start with some books because those are
Speaker 5: typically vetted well, those are even if you're reading something
Speaker 5: that you disagree with, those are typically fact checked and
Speaker 5: vetted through publishing houses.
Speaker 3: So I always recommending even Bill O'Reilly's book, I believe.
Speaker 3: I don't know because I don't know who his publisher is.
Speaker 3: But I think the point I'm making about reading books
Speaker 3: is you can question it, question everything, question what you
Speaker 3: read in the times. But getting something on social media
Speaker 3: is not engaging in any kind of reputable political discourse.
Speaker 3: And I can't tell you how many young people will
Speaker 3: come to me and say they want to do what
Speaker 3: I do or what what all of us do? And
Speaker 3: I always ask them. You want to be a journalist,
Speaker 3: tell me about the papers you read every morning, and
Speaker 3: you can't tell you can't cite me a single paper
Speaker 3: you read. You don't want to be a journalist. You
Speaker 3: want to be on TV, and that's something different. If
Speaker 3: you want to work on Capitol Hill, but you can't
Speaker 3: tell me who your member of Congress is, then you
Speaker 3: it's hard to take you seriously. So I just would
Speaker 3: encourage young people to have some intellectual curiosity that extends
Speaker 3: beyond hashtag activism and Instagram and read something, read something
Speaker 3: and question everything.
Speaker 1: Is even with the legitimate primary sources you read, there
Speaker 1: are writers who show up with various perspectives, just.
Speaker 2: My textbooks. That's why I was like, they didn't fact
Speaker 2: check some.
Speaker 1: Of the text to the ether on this whole fact
Speaker 1: check thing, because people are going to pursue the sources
Speaker 1: that re emphasize and legitimize what they already think facts
Speaker 1: be damned, how.
Speaker 5: Do we get out of that? Like, I don't even
Speaker 5: want to do that. I don't even want to do that.
Speaker 5: I don't want to be the type of person that
Speaker 5: will only read something that will support my point. I
Speaker 5: want to read something from the other side. I want
Speaker 5: to know that what I'm saying is accurate. I don't
Speaker 5: want to just come in and convince people. I want
Speaker 5: to be able to rely on a fact based argument.
Speaker 5: I used to say that I'm seeing it all the time,
Speaker 5: like I don't want to be engaged in a fact
Speaker 5: free debate, Like that's a waste of time.
Speaker 1: But that's what we are, that's what we are as
Speaker 1: a society.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't want to stay there, no, but you can,
Speaker 3: and I think that you do. I think you do
Speaker 3: a good job of engaging opposition. But there are are outlets.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: There is the Washington Post, and there's the Washington Times.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying the Washington Post is liberal. Some people
Speaker 3: may argue that, but we know the Washington Times is
Speaker 3: a conservative paper. There is the Wall Street Journal. They
Speaker 3: skew conservative. I read the op ed pages of a
Speaker 3: journal almost every day.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 3: I won't do Fox News because there I don't consider
Speaker 3: them a news outlet. But there are conservative papers all
Speaker 3: across the country that lay out their arguments with at
Speaker 3: least some intellect. I mean the Walstaed pages. They're conservative,
Speaker 3: but it's at least an intellectual argument in exchange of
Speaker 3: ideas well, at least.
Speaker 1: They tell you up front that it's an opinion, and it's.
Speaker 5: An opinion, but what about like like, so I know
Speaker 5: this is probably a whole other podcast, and we would
Speaker 5: tippy this one. You should lead on news sources because
Speaker 5: you really do read a ton every single day, Like
Speaker 5: I admire it. The thing that's been driving me nuts again,
Speaker 5: you guys know, I'm in like this loop around Maryland,
Speaker 5: Like that's all I read all weekend is like thousands
Speaker 5: of court transcript pages. Looking at I had by our
Speaker 5: professional development program do a deep dive on articles. Baltimore's
Speaker 5: Baltimore Sun was engaged in a strategic hit job, like
Speaker 5: article after article after article, and I think some folks
Speaker 5: would think that Baltimore Sun, the Baltimore Sun would be
Speaker 5: a neutral piece. Andrew, you experienced this as well in
Speaker 5: your trial with the Tallahassee Democrat. Like, there are some
Speaker 5: papers that don't just skew conservative, they also skew very racist.
Speaker 5: My dad was attacked in our hometown paper to hometown
Speaker 5: papers for years.
Speaker 2: So it's like you you were trying to get.
Speaker 5: Trying to be conservative, to be racist, but I'm saying
Speaker 5: you also could be you could be both, and like,
Speaker 5: what do we how do we teach or train not
Speaker 5: even young people, but the older folks who relied on
Speaker 5: them to read with that type of strategic eye as well.
Speaker 2: I think I think that.
Speaker 4: Shapes their their worldview.
Speaker 3: But there are liberal or I would say, to the
Speaker 3: left of center outlets that I read, and I'm very
Speaker 3: offended by.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we know there are you know, white liberal people.
Speaker 3: That's true, who say racist things all the time. Right,
Speaker 3: So some of these newspapers fall in that category. But
Speaker 3: we're getting to a whole other.
Speaker 1: Pologist all the more reason why we've got to be
Speaker 1: diligent and continuing to expand our listenership so that you
Speaker 1: can hear these wild, sometimes wacky, sometimes extremely relevant off
Speaker 1: the times topics that we get to dive into and
Speaker 1: discuss most of them at your request, So be sure
Speaker 1: to download, subscribe, please please please review. That's how we
Speaker 1: get to be put higher in the algorithm and be
Speaker 1: exposed to more people, so that more people can be
Speaker 1: exposed to our truth, our reality, what we consider to
Speaker 1: be news. Thanks again for listening to us. This has
Speaker 1: been another mini pod that wasn't so many, but we
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Welcome y'all.
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