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Speaker 1: What's an earth. I'm taking my pels in the vitamins.

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Speaker 1: You know, I gotta stay strong. You know what I'm saying.

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Speaker 1: Many of you all probably know. Leslie Jones is one

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Speaker 1: of the comedians on Saturday Night Live. She's also one

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Speaker 1: of the stars of the female version of Ghostbusters, and

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Speaker 1: earlier this summer, she was eviscerated, really abused mercilessly on

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Speaker 1: social media, particularly Twitter, with the most hateful, bigoted, disgusting comments.

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Speaker 1: She really got a lot of attention because she stood

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Speaker 1: up and she shared this with the world, which really

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Speaker 1: kind of I think unveiled what a cess pool social

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Speaker 1: media can be. Have you experienced much hate speech yourself? Oh,

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Speaker 1: I've I've been swimming in that cess pool. Actually, you know,

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Speaker 1: people don't really understand how it's like a sucker punch

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Speaker 1: when people say that such mean, nasty, negative, ugly things

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Speaker 1: about you, either about who you are, you know, your intelligence,

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Speaker 1: your appearance, and I think under the cloak of anonymity,

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Speaker 1: people feel emboldened to say all sorts of horrific things. Well,

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Speaker 1: and I've seen what people say about you online and

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Speaker 1: I know you, I'm your friend, and it's really upsetting

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Speaker 1: because I know that it isn't true, and thank you

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Speaker 1: for your support. You're welcome anytime. And I think that anonymity,

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Speaker 1: as you said, gives people an ability to say things

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Speaker 1: that they never would dream of saying if they actually

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Speaker 1: had to identify themselves or to be face to face

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Speaker 1: with somebody. We're going to talk with two people today

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Speaker 1: who are on the front lines of this issue. First,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Weissman. He's an editor for the New York Times,

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Speaker 1: and he quit Twitter over hate speech and he did

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Speaker 1: something very very brave, which will tell you about in

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Speaker 1: a moment. And will also be hearing from Richard Cohen,

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Speaker 1: who's president of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Now, Richard's

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Speaker 1: been mired in this stuff for decades. He'll tell us

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Speaker 1: that for every big win against hate speech, there is

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Speaker 1: inevitably a backlash. But there are still things that we

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Speaker 1: can all do to fight these hateful words and deeds.

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Speaker 1: I guess the question is our technology companies doing as

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Speaker 1: much as they could. Well, it's a tough issue because

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Speaker 1: you want people to be able to participate anonymously from

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Speaker 1: places like Syria and Iran where they have no choice,

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Speaker 1: but in this country people are sort of abusing that

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Speaker 1: privilege in order to be really nasty and inject a

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Speaker 1: lot of poison into the public discourse. Now, of course

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Speaker 1: I'm the target of some of this because I'm a

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Speaker 1: public figure or whatever. But we wondered if other people

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Speaker 1: experience that even in their small circles, even among their

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Speaker 1: followers on social media. So we decided to head out

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Speaker 1: to Times Square, the center of the New York universe,

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Speaker 1: of course, to find out what other people are experiencing online.

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Speaker 1: And here's what we discovered. Hi, can I show a

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Speaker 1: quick question? Sure, have you ever experienced hate speech or

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Speaker 1: somebody being abusive to you on social media or online? Yeah? Political? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: How does it make you feel when you get those

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Speaker 1: kinds of comments like, I don't want to be a

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Speaker 1: part of it. I mean, I just ignore it. To

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Speaker 1: be honest with you, when you see it online directed

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Speaker 1: at other people, what do you think? In general? I

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Speaker 1: don't like any kind of anybody that makes any adverse

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Speaker 1: comments to people online because it goes to everybody, and

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Speaker 1: I don't I don't agree with that. Leat haters hate Honestly,

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Speaker 1: They're going to talk about whatever they want to talk about.

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Speaker 1: Are you shocked sometimes when you see the level of

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Speaker 1: discourse online. Well, I'm I'm not shocked because that was

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Speaker 1: what the Internet was originally supposed to be, which was

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Speaker 1: supposed to be an area where it's democratizing opinion to

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Speaker 1: send and so forth. So unfortunately it matches up with

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Speaker 1: the spectrum of the world. I think there needs to

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Speaker 1: be some boundary of you know, what's appropriate and what's

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Speaker 1: not right. You sort of teach kids and people what's

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Speaker 1: appropriate what's not and you have to kind of practice

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Speaker 1: it in real life. I think have you ever experienced

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Speaker 1: online bullying or hate? You know you're talking to I'm

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Speaker 1: the Finnish dragon for men's health. So basically everything I

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Speaker 1: post is he skipped leg days, calves look terrible. I

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Speaker 1: hate his face. Um, I wish you would die. Do

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Speaker 1: you monitor your comments and do you ever remove them?

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Speaker 1: We often remove them. That's half my job. He's growing

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Speaker 1: to the Facebook feed particular. Yeah, Facebook definitely. So it

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Speaker 1: keeps you hate speech, keeps you very busy, It keeps

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Speaker 1: me employed. Yeah, definitely. There is rough out there, all right,

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Speaker 1: stay safe out there. A big thank you to everyone

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Speaker 1: willing to talk thus on a warm summer day in

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Speaker 1: the middle of Times Square, very warm now, Let's talk

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Speaker 1: about Jonathan Wiseman. Jonathan is a very fine writer for

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Speaker 1: the New York Times, and he confronted really something that

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Speaker 1: is so ugly that many of us believed, probably incorrectly,

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Speaker 1: had been put to bed a long time ago, which

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Speaker 1: is just blatant anti semitism. So he's here to talk

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Speaker 1: about that and what he did about it. Hey, Jonathan Wiseman, Hi, Katie,

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Speaker 1: how are you. I'm good, Brian, and I are really

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Speaker 1: delighted that you're here to talk about what happened to you,

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Speaker 1: because I think it's emblematic of the times we're living

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Speaker 1: in and how strange and surreal social media can be,

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Speaker 1: and how actually upsetting and dangerous it can be as well.

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Speaker 1: Let's start from the beginning. This all happened when you

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Speaker 1: posted an article about fascism. Tell us a little bit

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Speaker 1: about why you posted it and what it was about.

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Speaker 1: You know, if something catches your fancy, um, you tend

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Speaker 1: to tweet it out to your followers. It was something

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Speaker 1: that I do several times a day. And Robert Kagan,

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Speaker 1: kind of a neo conservative author uh supporter of a

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Speaker 1: lot of military interventions past um now at the Brookings Institution.

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Speaker 1: He had written a piece for the Washington Post on

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Speaker 1: how fascism is coming to the United States, and I

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Speaker 1: tweeted it out to my followers and I had gotten

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Speaker 1: a response back that I had never seen before. It

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Speaker 1: was just simply my name in three parentheses from somebody

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Speaker 1: who identified himself as Cybertrump. And I tweeted back to him,

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Speaker 1: I said, do you care to explain? And you know

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Speaker 1: that let loose this retuperative anti Semitic rant and it's

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Speaker 1: he said, I have belled the cat. Um. And with

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Speaker 1: the belling of that cat, the trolls, the neo Nazis,

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Speaker 1: the white supremacists started just day losing me with Holocaust imagery,

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Speaker 1: Nazi iconography, really really ugly stuff that I really thought was,

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Speaker 1: you know, things of the past. Tell us before I

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Speaker 1: ask you a little bit more about some of the

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Speaker 1: things that were tweeted at you how this sort of

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Speaker 1: three parentheses thing works, and how it's so called bells

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Speaker 1: the cat, because I know that a lot of news

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Speaker 1: organizations have since written about this. Yeah, I of course

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Speaker 1: knew nothing about this until I was sucked into it. Um.

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Speaker 1: It turns out that this group of neo Nazis and

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Speaker 1: white supremacists had come up with an actual piece of software,

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Speaker 1: a Google Chrome plug in that you can download, and

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Speaker 1: it puts these three parentheses around Jewish sounding names, which

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Speaker 1: allows them, if they have the right software, to search

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Speaker 1: social networks m for the three parentheses and then find

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Speaker 1: targets to go after, because oddly enough, most search engines

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Speaker 1: don't look for things like parentheses and that kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: They only look for numbers and and letters and set

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Speaker 1: things like the at sign. So they had come up

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Speaker 1: with an actual organized way to find and target certain

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Speaker 1: people with Jewish sounding names. That's just unbelievable to me.

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Speaker 1: How long has this been going on, by the way,

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Speaker 1: because I know it was recently discovered, but was this

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Speaker 1: a practice that had been in effect for years? Even?

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Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think it's been several months.

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Speaker 1: And I think the first targets were Jewish conservative writers

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Speaker 1: and pundits, people like Bill crystal Um, who had been

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Speaker 1: targets of what they called the alt right, and now

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Speaker 1: it's moved to more mainstream journalists like myself. I understand

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Speaker 1: that Google Chrome was made aware of this, then they

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Speaker 1: got rid of the software that enables this process. Is

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Speaker 1: that right? That's right, it was. It was labeled something

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Speaker 1: very generic that you would never ever recognize as some

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Speaker 1: kind of software targeted for anti semit So they had

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Speaker 1: no idea that it was there, and once they found

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Speaker 1: out about it, they yanked it off. What did it

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Speaker 1: feel like when you first got those tweets that showed

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Speaker 1: things like dead bodies in the Holocaust and other neo

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Speaker 1: Nazi symbols. Yeah, I mean the Holocaust. The concentration camp

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Speaker 1: imagery is such a shock in this context because it

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Speaker 1: turns your stomach and the first time you see an

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Speaker 1: image of like Donald Trump in Nazi garb, flipping the

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Speaker 1: switch on a gas chamber in your face inside that

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Speaker 1: gas chamber, it's a shock. Now the tenth time you

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Speaker 1: see it, you start thinking this is a joke. These

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Speaker 1: people are just sick um and you start imagining them

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Speaker 1: sitting in their parents basement in their pajamas. The shock

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Speaker 1: value does wear off. But you know, the goating, uh,

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Speaker 1: the anti semited goating, the constantly asking you, well, why

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Speaker 1: are Jews always oppressed? Why are Jews always thrown out

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Speaker 1: of these countries through the centuries. It's very, very frustrating,

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Speaker 1: And Trump is kind of a funny hero for these

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Speaker 1: neo Nazis because he hasn't made, to my knowledge, any

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Speaker 1: anti Semitic comments. He in fact has a Jewish daughter

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Speaker 1: and son in law. His daughter converted when he got married.

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Speaker 1: Why do you think he's become so celebrated and protected

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Speaker 1: by these people online? They in in his language on immigrants,

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Speaker 1: they see a kindred spirit. They think that he's sending

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Speaker 1: signals that that there's much more to it than he

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Speaker 1: would that he would like to say, but he can't

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Speaker 1: say it because he's running propresed it in. So. Wolf

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Speaker 1: Blitzer one time was talking to Donald Trump and brought

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Speaker 1: up the anti Semitic goating of of journalists and asked him,

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Speaker 1: what do you think about this? Do you were you

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Speaker 1: repudiate that? And he basically said, I don't speak from

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Speaker 1: my followers. I don't speak for all my voters. No,

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Speaker 1: I I think anti semitism is terrible. But he did

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Speaker 1: not overtly repudiate them, did not say I do not

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Speaker 1: want your vote, I do not want your support, the

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Speaker 1: way Ronald Reagan once did when the clan had endorsed him. Jonathan,

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Speaker 1: one interesting thing that you did was you didn't mute

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Speaker 1: these people. You didn't block them from your account. You

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Speaker 1: actually retweeted so all of your followers could see what

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Speaker 1: they were saying to you. Why did you want to

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Speaker 1: do that? Because if you, you know, just ignore them,

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Speaker 1: it's hard for somebody to go onto your Twitter feed

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Speaker 1: and and see what you're seeing. If you retweet, then

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Speaker 1: everybody who follows you seese it. At first, I would

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Speaker 1: make a little comments to make sure that nobody thought

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Speaker 1: that I was, you know, in endorsing them by retweeting, uh,

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Speaker 1: And then I just started just retweeting, retweeting, retweeting to

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Speaker 1: create a record, uh, and to show anybody who wanted

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Speaker 1: to see how ugly things were could just search for

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Speaker 1: at Jonathan Weissman and find all sorts of evidence right there.

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Speaker 1: What was the reaction when you were retweeting? Because I

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Speaker 1: was following your Twitter feed and I was looking at

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Speaker 1: how some people were coming to your defense. Did you

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Speaker 1: get much support from the journalistic community? And I've gotten

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Speaker 1: a ton of support. And when I decided to write

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Speaker 1: about it, it was actually then there was another reporter

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Speaker 1: for Air. It's one of the Israeli newspapers. He's the

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Speaker 1: one that came up with the idea that we should

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Speaker 1: all put those triple parentheses around our names, um, to

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Speaker 1: show that we're not cow, to show that we're not afraid,

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Speaker 1: but also to thwart the software. And I thought that

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Speaker 1: was an amazing moment of solidarity because now I if

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Speaker 1: you look on Twitter, you see a lot of people

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Speaker 1: with these triple parentheses. So yes, I do feel supported

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Speaker 1: and I do feel like I have accomplished something. But

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Speaker 1: you quit Twitter because you were upset with the reaction

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Speaker 1: you got from the company. Tell us what transpired? Who

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Speaker 1: did you call, what did they say, What were you

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Speaker 1: hoping to achieve, and what didn't you get? So as

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Speaker 1: as you said, Katie, I wanted to create this trail

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Speaker 1: of anti semitism so people could see what they were

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Speaker 1: what they were doing. And I thought, I'll leave all

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Speaker 1: this stuff out there for a little while. But now

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Speaker 1: I'm kind of growing sick of this. So I started

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Speaker 1: reporting the most vicious anti Semitic tweets coming at me

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Speaker 1: to Twitter. Because Twitter has something called the terms of service.

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Speaker 1: When you sign on to Twitter, nobody ever reads them, um,

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Speaker 1: but you click on something saying okay, I under stand

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Speaker 1: the terms of service, and those terms of service say

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Speaker 1: no harassment, no singling out people for ill treatment based

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Speaker 1: on race, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic origin. You're vowing to

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Speaker 1: to to follow Twitter's rules. So I started reporting them

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Speaker 1: to Twitter, and at first I would just get a

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Speaker 1: little acknowledgement saying, we got your report, we're looking into it.

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Speaker 1: We got your report, we're looking into it. Then one

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Speaker 1: of the New York Times social media people, we have

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Speaker 1: people who you know, we're hired to look after our

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Speaker 1: social media she's she decided to take upon herself too,

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Speaker 1: to put together a compendium of all the worst things

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Speaker 1: that had had come my way and send them in

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Speaker 1: a in a package to Twitter. And then she got

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Speaker 1: one of these notes back from Twitter saying we've looked

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Speaker 1: at what you've sent us and we see no violations

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Speaker 1: of our terms of service, which shocked me. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I mean honestly. And and then I remember, remember her

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Speaker 1: name is ari a. Re sent me this, and I

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Speaker 1: sent her a little frowny face back, saying this is ridiculous.

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Speaker 1: The next morning I woke up and there was somebody

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Speaker 1: I would have sent her something more than a frown face,

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Speaker 1: but you were very polite. I was. I was much

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Speaker 1: more angry at Twitter than I was by this point

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Speaker 1: at the neo Nazis because I've got grown used to them,

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Speaker 1: um and and I went on to Twitter. I said,

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Speaker 1: this is a brief rant, and I said I'm getting

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Speaker 1: off Twitter because Twitter will not follow its own rules

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Speaker 1: and will not police itself. And almost immediately as soon

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Speaker 1: as I did that, I started getting notes back saying

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Speaker 1: We've looked at this count and we've suspended it. We've

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Speaker 1: looked at that account, we've suspended it. We've looked at

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Speaker 1: some of the accounts, and they said, we don't see

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Speaker 1: we still don't see, um a violation of our terms

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Speaker 1: of service. And I, honestly I went back and I

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Speaker 1: could not figure out what criteria Twitter was using to

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Speaker 1: decide that this guy's account is going to be suspended

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Speaker 1: and this guy's account was fine. I honestly didn't see

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Speaker 1: any difference between them. What about this argument that the

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Speaker 1: conundrum that some of the social media outlets ostensibly find

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Speaker 1: themselves in Jonathan withdrawing the line between free speech and

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Speaker 1: hate speech. It's a question that I've gone over in

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Speaker 1: my own head for a long time now, a lot,

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Speaker 1: well the last few few weeks, and my attitude at

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Speaker 1: this point is if Twitter wants to make an announcement

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Speaker 1: saying we're doing away with our terms of service. We

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Speaker 1: don't care. We can have a wild West. We're gonna

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Speaker 1: have open free speech. Say what you want. You know,

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Speaker 1: if they did that, I'd probably signed back up. At

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Speaker 1: least they were being honest. Or I find offensive is

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Speaker 1: that Twitter can wear the halo of the terms of

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Speaker 1: service that says we don't put up with harassment, we

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Speaker 1: don't put up with racism or anti semitism or homophobia,

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Speaker 1: we don't put up with these things, but then don't

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Speaker 1: do anything to police it. So they have to make

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Speaker 1: a decision. Asian, they are either one thing or another,

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Speaker 1: but they can't have it both ways. And the suspensions

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Speaker 1: you talked about are meaningless because you're suspending the accounts,

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Speaker 1: but not the people behind. All of those people can

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Speaker 1: just set up additional hate spewing accounts. So what do

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Speaker 1: you think Twitter actually ought to do to fix this

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Speaker 1: problem short of turning it into a wild West. It's

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Speaker 1: it is a conundrum. It is very hard to puzzle out.

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Speaker 1: And a lot of people have said, well, who cares,

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Speaker 1: are just a bunch of trolls, And my answer is

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Speaker 1: you're right, who cares? Why do I why do I

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Speaker 1: need Twitter? So I just my attitude was why if

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Speaker 1: if I'm offended by the way Twitter is policing itself,

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Speaker 1: then I will just say goodbye to Twitter for a while.

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Speaker 1: Did you hear from anyone like Jack Dorsey or any

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Speaker 1: executives at Twitter after this whole bruhaha? Because I think

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Speaker 1: you put them in a terrible light. I've been expecting

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Speaker 1: to hear from somebody and I haven't. They've really been

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Speaker 1: remarkably quiescent about this whole thing. They don't seem to

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Speaker 1: want to engage. What do you think this says about

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Speaker 1: the state of our country? You know, I wonder did

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Speaker 1: these people always exist? Are we just now seeing them

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Speaker 1: because they have a platform they can express their views.

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Speaker 1: Is there something going on that the numbers are multiplying? Um?

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Speaker 1: What's your take on what this says about us as

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Speaker 1: a country? When Katie to jump in, I mean, the

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Speaker 1: polling does show that deeply entrenched anti Semitic views, at

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Speaker 1: least according to the A d l S poelling, have

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Speaker 1: have gone down from about twenty nine percent of Americans

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Speaker 1: in n twelve percent. But it's still twelve percent of

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Speaker 1: the American people anyway, And that surprises me. Surprises you

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Speaker 1: that it's gone down. No, it surprises me that it's

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Speaker 1: at twelve percent. I mean, remember in Washington, especially where

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Speaker 1: where you see this high partisan uh commitment to Israel

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Speaker 1: and politicians of every conceivable stripe from from very liberal

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Speaker 1: to very conservative tumbling over each other to get to

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Speaker 1: to get to the right side of Jewish voters. I

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Speaker 1: would never have thought it was twelve franc I would

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Speaker 1: have thought it was considerably lower now. But we've seen

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Speaker 1: if you look on a newspaper website, if the comments

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Speaker 1: sections under articles allow anonymity, the tone of the discourse

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Speaker 1: is horrific. It degenerates so quickly. But if you have

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Speaker 1: to use a real name, it stays at a certain level.

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Speaker 1: It just it's like road rage. If you don't have

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Speaker 1: an identity, I don't know. I guess it's as old

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Speaker 1: as Lord of the Flies or older than that. Um.

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Speaker 1: But I do think that the tone of this presidential

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Speaker 1: campaign and the tone set by Donald Trump have empowered

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Speaker 1: people to bring out views that they used to only speak,

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Speaker 1: you know, in the privacy of their home. Around there,

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Speaker 1: around the angry dinner table or something. I mean, people

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Speaker 1: seem willing to speak in public the way they used

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Speaker 1: to never. I mean, I get your point about Trump

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Speaker 1: not being strong enough in condemning David Duke or anti

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Speaker 1: Semitic pronouncements, But are there elements of his campaign, of

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Speaker 1: his platform that you think are attracting white nationalists anti

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Speaker 1: Semites even though white supremisists and yeah, even though what

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Speaker 1: he's saying of the time is not anti Semitic. But

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Speaker 1: I think if if you call for a blanket ban

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Speaker 1: on Muslim immigrants, if you call for a giant wall

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Speaker 1: on the southern border, if you talk about Mexicans as

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Speaker 1: rapists and thieves, I think you're sending a signal that

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Speaker 1: exclusionary politics are now mainstream. Do you think that. I

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Speaker 1: know that a number of newspapers have done away with

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Speaker 1: the comments section, or they're monitoring them more carefully, because

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Speaker 1: you look at them. It is so depressing to see

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Speaker 1: how the discourse quickly devolves into basically a verbal fist

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Speaker 1: fite between respondents, and the kind of vitriol and nastiness

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Speaker 1: that is so pervasive. Then I read the letters to

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Speaker 1: the editor in the New York Times, and I think, Wow,

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Speaker 1: my faith in America has been restored because people have

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Speaker 1: different opinions, but they're all sort of thoughtful and well written,

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Speaker 1: and it's just it's it's like they're two America's. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, the Wall Street Journal did a great exercise

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Speaker 1: where they created a blue Facebook and a red Facebook

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Speaker 1: and if you are a conservative you're tending to see

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Speaker 1: on Facebook, and if you're a liberal, what you're tending

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Speaker 1: to see on Facebook? And they made a very very

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Speaker 1: compelling illustration of how different and how divided the country

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Speaker 1: is along political grounds. I mean, if you look on

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Speaker 1: the on the New York Times comments, now, they're curated.

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Speaker 1: There are editors picks, there are readers picks, and so

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Speaker 1: we we empower certain readers to actually go through and

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Speaker 1: select the best ones you can click on, you know,

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Speaker 1: see all as well, but those are policed. I mean,

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Speaker 1: we actually employ people to go through them. So what's

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Speaker 1: the solution, Jonathan, I mean, what have you learned from

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Speaker 1: this whole bizarre and really upsetting experience. I think that

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Speaker 1: part of the solution is to not care so much

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Speaker 1: about social media. You know, since writing off Twitter, I've

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Speaker 1: been spending a lot more time actually reading the whole

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Speaker 1: article off of you know, off of the New York

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Speaker 1: Times in the Washington Post apps and not becoming almost

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Speaker 1: like an automaton consulting my social media feed. Um. I

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Speaker 1: actually feel like it's been good to pull back from

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Speaker 1: that world, and I think we could all do with

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Speaker 1: a little less time on social media, right. And it's

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Speaker 1: kind of narcissistic, don't you think, because it makes you

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Speaker 1: obsessed with what people are saying about you instead of

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Speaker 1: looking outward and saying what you think is going on

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Speaker 1: in the world. It's a weird inversion, isn't it. I

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Speaker 1: have teenage daughters and they measure, you know, their self

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Speaker 1: worth by their Instagram following and their life. It's crazy.

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Speaker 1: It's weird that they can quantify their popularity on social media.

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Speaker 1: But I really wish they would just leave it alone.

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Speaker 1: You know. Do you think, Jonathan, that there's a broader

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Speaker 1: challenge for the mainstream press this election cycle? Um, when

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Speaker 1: it seems like some reporters have crossed the line from

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Speaker 1: just covering the campaign to describing Trump and his candidacy

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Speaker 1: and his supporters in ways that might have seemed too

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Speaker 1: much like advocacy, UM for the other side or against

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Speaker 1: one side. Do you think that the mainstream press reinforces

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Speaker 1: this narrative of a liberal bias based on the way

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Speaker 1: some are covering Donald Trump. I think I and a

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Speaker 1: lot of journalists involved in watching this campaign are wrestling

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Speaker 1: with this because on the one hand, we have an

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Speaker 1: obligation to fact check and to cover any candidate with

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Speaker 1: a jaundiced eye, with a sense that they can't just

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Speaker 1: get away with the big lie saying something over and

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Speaker 1: over until we all accept it. It's our responsibility to

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Speaker 1: point out when something is just factually in accurate, untrue.

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Speaker 1: I think that you know, famously, the Huffington Post declared

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Speaker 1: that they weren't going to cover Donald Trump as a

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Speaker 1: true candidate that we're gonna keep, They're going to relegate

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Speaker 1: him to the entertainment section. And I remember arguing at

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Speaker 1: that point, we need to cover Donald Trump like a

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Speaker 1: like we would cover any other candidate. We need to

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Speaker 1: scrutinize this policy proposals. It's very difficult, and I do

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Speaker 1: think that that that reporters, I think in this campaign

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Speaker 1: are faced with a candidate that is unprecedented that nobody's

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Speaker 1: we We have ways that we cover candidates. There's a

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Speaker 1: rhythm of a campaign, but with with Trump, uh, much

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Speaker 1: of that rhythm has just been thrown off because he's

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Speaker 1: not running what what most people would call a campaign.

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Speaker 1: You know, there's no yard signs, Um, there is, there

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Speaker 1: is no advertising. How do we we have to we

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Speaker 1: actually do have to rethink the way we cover a

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Speaker 1: presidential campaign when the candidate himself is not behaving like

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Speaker 1: a candidate. Not only not behaving like a candidate. But

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Speaker 1: of course, Walter Cronkite had that famous moment when he

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Speaker 1: spoke out against the Vietnam War. When do you have

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Speaker 1: a moral imperative to speak out against something that is

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Speaker 1: seems so contrary to the principles upon which this country

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Speaker 1: was founded. It took Walter Cronkite a long time to

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Speaker 1: get to that point, right. So, um, I think that

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Speaker 1: a lot of people might say that, you know, a

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Speaker 1: blanket ban on Muslim immigrants already cross that line. But

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Speaker 1: I think that you can point out where Trump or

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Speaker 1: Clinton I've gone through the lines of what is constitutional

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Speaker 1: and what is democratic without necessarily denouncing them. One of

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Speaker 1: the Times reporters he's are our Supreme Court reporter wrote

429
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:06,200
Speaker 1: a story about all of the ways that Trump's proposals

430
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 1: are anti democratic and anti constitutional, and in so doing

431
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 1: he spoke only to conservative constitutional scholars. He didn't speak

432
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:19,480
Speaker 1: to one liberal in the entire story. And that story

433
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 1: was incredibly widely read. It was extremely successful in getting

434
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 1: its message out. But I don't think anybody would read that,

435
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 1: as you know, Walter Cronkite creed a cour It was

436
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:34,640
Speaker 1: just at LIPTOC going through the proposals and measuring them

437
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:38,399
Speaker 1: up against what we know to be what the the

438
00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 1: tenets of the of the Bill of Rights. But of

439
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:45,200
Speaker 1: course Lyndon Johnson said famously, if we lost Walter Cronkite,

440
00:27:45,359 --> 00:27:50,080
Speaker 1: We've lost the war. And today, does any institution have

441
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:55,359
Speaker 1: sort of the moral heft to be able to say

442
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:59,440
Speaker 1: something and have it really affect public opinion, because so

443
00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:02,720
Speaker 1: far it doesn't seem to. You know, I I actually

444
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:04,879
Speaker 1: think it would have to be kind of a truth

445
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 1: power moment where a conservative came out against Trump. But

446
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:12,960
Speaker 1: then again, so many conservatives. Someone was going to say,

447
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:17,440
Speaker 1: Bill Crystal, hello, No, I mean well, then Robert Kagan story,

448
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:22,040
Speaker 1: uh that that came out, and and Max Boot It's

449
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:26,040
Speaker 1: so in fact, some of the most eloquent writing against

450
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 1: Trumpism has come from conservatives. All those have done is

451
00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 1: show just how far apart the Republican power structure. The

452
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 1: Republican intelligentsia is from so much of the Republican base. Um.

453
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:43,640
Speaker 1: What we have seen is people that we used to

454
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 1: you know, routinely call up to get a sense of

455
00:28:46,920 --> 00:28:49,719
Speaker 1: where are conservatives these days? We found out that they

456
00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:52,760
Speaker 1: have no influence whatsoever. And I would argue it's not

457
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:57,400
Speaker 1: just the Republican base, it's this new base of populism

458
00:28:57,440 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 1: that we've seen bubbling up throughout this camp paint. What

459
00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:02,840
Speaker 1: we learned in the rise of Donald Trump is that

460
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 1: there is a whole new quadrant. It's the socially conservative,

461
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 1: economically liberal voter. The person who feels like a white

462
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:16,880
Speaker 1: working class is besieged and they don't want special treatment

463
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 1: going to Gaze and African Americans and Latinos, but they

464
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 1: do want their social security, and they do want their Medicare,

465
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 1: and they don't particularly uh, you know, want government to

466
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 1: shrivel up and die. So it is the populist quadrant,

467
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 1: the social conservative economic liberal. Um. Uh that Donald Trump's

468
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 1: candidacy is unearthed when make America Great Again is fundamentally

469
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:46,440
Speaker 1: a nostalgic, backward looking sort of message. Let's take America

470
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 1: back to when it was last great, and presumably that

471
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 1: means when they were you know, when the demographics were different,

472
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 1: when they was different. A friend of mine said, when

473
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 1: he sees that on a on a baseball hat, he

474
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 1: sees make America white again. Well, you know when, um,

475
00:30:03,720 --> 00:30:06,479
Speaker 1: when Donald Trump sat down with one of the Times

476
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 1: as UH diplomatic reporters, UM foreign policy reporters David Sanger,

477
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:15,000
Speaker 1: and David Sanger mentioned, so you would say that your

478
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:18,880
Speaker 1: policies are kind of America First, and he said yes, yes,

479
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 1: And now ever since then that interview, he's been using

480
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:25,760
Speaker 1: the term America First. Never once has he googled America

481
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 1: First to understand the historic context. We still have no

482
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 1: evidence that he understands, you know, Charles Lindbergh and the

483
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 1: America First Committee that tried to keep the United States

484
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:38,200
Speaker 1: out of World War Two. He seems to be a

485
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 1: historic in his sloganeering, at least in a sense that

486
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 1: maybe the most anti Semitic thing he ever says exactly

487
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,080
Speaker 1: it is. But I'm not sure if he has any

488
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 1: idea the anti Semitic undertones of of America First. Well,

489
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:58,479
Speaker 1: fascinating conversation. Jonathan Weissman. I guess I won't see on Twitter,

490
00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 1: but I'll see on Facebook. That's right, I am on

491
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 1: I'm on Facebook. Thanks so much for talking with us.

492
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: It's uh, it's it's it's upsetting, but but a really

493
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:12,280
Speaker 1: important conversation. So thanks, thanks so much, Jonathan, Well, thank

494
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 1: you for having me. So after we recorded this interview,

495
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 1: we were surprised to see Jonathan Wiseman started tweeting again.

496
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 1: We asked him about his change of heart, and he

497
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 1: told us that a recent piece about the Iran nuclear

498
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 1: deal in the Wall Street Journal had him itching to

499
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:35,040
Speaker 1: communicate online with other journalists, and Facebook just wasn't doing

500
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:38,400
Speaker 1: the trick. He wrote to us that Twitter in Washington

501
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:41,520
Speaker 1: is much more of a conversation between journalists and that

502
00:31:41,520 --> 00:31:44,959
Speaker 1: that was the audience he was seeking. His one tweet

503
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:47,800
Speaker 1: about the Iran deal got a hundred and eighty six

504
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:51,200
Speaker 1: thousand impressions and reminded him that Twitter is still a

505
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 1: powerful medium of communication. And also, to his surprise, he

506
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 1: says that his Twitter bullies had nothing to say. He's

507
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:01,600
Speaker 1: tried to be more judicious in his use of Twitter,

508
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:05,400
Speaker 1: he told us, but he still hasn't heard anything from

509
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:09,480
Speaker 1: the higher upsite Twitter about what he went through Jonathan said,

510
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:13,960
Speaker 1: Twitter can root out hate speech, but it chooses not to. Also,

511
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:16,800
Speaker 1: don't forget to pick up a copy of Jonathan Wiseman's

512
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:20,760
Speaker 1: excellent novel Number four, Imperial Lane, which comes out in

513
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:24,880
Speaker 1: paperback in January. How big is this problem? Is it

514
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 1: simply an isolated incident a pack of anti Semites getting

515
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 1: ahold of one person on social media? Or is it widespread?

516
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:37,640
Speaker 1: And what other kind of bigotry is being unleashed online?

517
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:53,520
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about that coming up. By the way,

518
00:32:53,560 --> 00:32:57,400
Speaker 1: if anybody out there is wondering who this disembodied voices,

519
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 1: this guy named Brian Goldsmith, let me ex plane briefly.

520
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:02,920
Speaker 1: Brian and I have known each other for a very

521
00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 1: long time, gosh, maybe ten or fifteen years. Brian I

522
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:10,600
Speaker 1: started working for you in two thousand four as a

523
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:14,040
Speaker 1: summer intern on the Today Show. Wow. Brian, by the way,

524
00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:17,400
Speaker 1: is only thirty four years old. But the reason why

525
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 1: he's here is he's got one of the sharpest political

526
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:23,560
Speaker 1: minds I know. Plus I happened to find him really

527
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 1: amusing sometimes you and three or four other people, and

528
00:33:28,800 --> 00:33:31,680
Speaker 1: so that's why he is my ED McMahon, Can you

529
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 1: do an ed McMahon laugh. Ha ha ha, No, not

530
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:37,880
Speaker 1: so good. I think you need to go home and

531
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:40,600
Speaker 1: work on that. I hadn't practiced my Ed McMahon laugh.

532
00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:46,760
Speaker 1: Boy started almost as genuine as the real Ed mcman laugh.

533
00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:49,280
Speaker 1: If we were Ed mcman and Johnny, we would go

534
00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:52,280
Speaker 1: out and have like ten martinis after this each. Sounds

535
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:59,760
Speaker 1: good to me. Yeah, now let's get back to the show. Obviously,

536
00:33:59,840 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 1: the story about Jonathan Weissman is so upsetting, and we

537
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:07,560
Speaker 1: wanted to get a broader perspective on what's happening visa

538
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:11,760
Speaker 1: vi anti Semitism and social media and also just around

539
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:15,759
Speaker 1: the country and around the world. So Richard Cohen is

540
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:20,400
Speaker 1: president of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama. Hey, Richard,

541
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:23,720
Speaker 1: thanks so much for talking with us. Sure, Katie, Hey Richard,

542
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:26,239
Speaker 1: it's Brian Um. I'm sure a lot of people have

543
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:29,520
Speaker 1: heard of the Southern Poverty Law Center but may not

544
00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:31,680
Speaker 1: want to admit that they don't know what it actually

545
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:35,640
Speaker 1: does or why it exists. Can you share a little

546
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:39,000
Speaker 1: bit about the history of that organization and and what

547
00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:42,480
Speaker 1: you do today. I appreciate the opportunity to you know,

548
00:34:42,520 --> 00:34:46,319
Speaker 1: the Southern Partarty Law Center is founded in nineteen seventy one,

549
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:50,680
Speaker 1: forty five years ago. Uh, really to make the promise

550
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:54,600
Speaker 1: of the newly enacted civil rights laws, the Voting Rights Act,

551
00:34:55,120 --> 00:34:58,720
Speaker 1: the Civil Rights Act a reality in the Deep South,

552
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:01,720
Speaker 1: you know nowadays is you know, kind of organizational motto

553
00:35:01,880 --> 00:35:06,800
Speaker 1: is fighting hate, teaching tolerance, and seeking justice. The project

554
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:10,560
Speaker 1: that monitors white supremacist activity. That's kind of our arm

555
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:14,600
Speaker 1: that fights hate. Right now, we focus primarily on issues

556
00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:19,200
Speaker 1: of recent immigrants, the rights of children. Uh, we have

557
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:22,799
Speaker 1: a lot of work trying to push back against the

558
00:35:22,920 --> 00:35:26,840
Speaker 1: problems of mass incarceration. Really the full gamut of civil

559
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 1: rights issues. Richard, was there an aha moment when you said,

560
00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:33,280
Speaker 1: this is my calling, this is what what I want

561
00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:36,400
Speaker 1: to dedicate my life to. You know, when I was

562
00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:40,279
Speaker 1: a junior in high school, way back when my my

563
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:45,560
Speaker 1: Civics teacher, you know, challenged me, he um, he made

564
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:50,200
Speaker 1: me read in brief Supreme Court cases. This is in

565
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:55,000
Speaker 1: the eleventh grade. What year was that? Killing me? Katie?

566
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 1: Stop it stop. I think I'm probably older than you are. No, No,

567
00:35:59,760 --> 00:36:02,120
Speaker 1: I'm I'm sixty one. So that would have been in

568
00:36:02,200 --> 00:36:07,200
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one, seventy two. So really sort of a

569
00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:10,880
Speaker 1: very tumultuous time in our nation's history. I mentioned one

570
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:13,160
Speaker 1: of the things too, you know, the first democratic the

571
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:17,160
Speaker 1: first uh uh convention that I watched was the nineteen

572
00:36:17,200 --> 00:36:20,200
Speaker 1: sixty eight convention. I was thirteen years old, and of

573
00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:23,080
Speaker 1: course that was the convention where the police are rioting

574
00:36:23,160 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 1: in the expression whole world of watching, and you know

575
00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 1: I was. I was mesmerized by it even as a

576
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:31,799
Speaker 1: little kid. And you know, one of the things that

577
00:36:31,800 --> 00:36:33,719
Speaker 1: stood out of the person who stood out the most

578
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:37,760
Speaker 1: for me was Julian Bond, who really came to national

579
00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:40,799
Speaker 1: attention then. And you might remember, although he was too young,

580
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:43,319
Speaker 1: his name was placed into nomination, you know, in the

581
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:47,480
Speaker 1: Supreme Court it excuse me, for the vice presidency. And

582
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 1: of course Julian was the first president of the Southern

583
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 1: Poverty Law Center. I think about those days when I

584
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:56,360
Speaker 1: was thirteen years old and think about it today, and

585
00:36:56,400 --> 00:36:59,000
Speaker 1: of course I'll think about Julian's legacy. He was such

586
00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:01,799
Speaker 1: a close friend and we lost him last year. You know,

587
00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:05,120
Speaker 1: I suppose that was as much in a moment for

588
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:08,839
Speaker 1: me as anything else. Do you have any trouble attracting Wait, wait, wait, wait,

589
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:11,000
Speaker 1: I want to know if Katie's older than me. I'm

590
00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:17,160
Speaker 1: two years younger. I'm younger. Richard. You're killing me. Hey, listen,

591
00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:19,360
Speaker 1: you know I would have dated you in high school.

592
00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:21,320
Speaker 1: You would have been a senior when I was a sophomore.

593
00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:25,200
Speaker 1: What can I say? Yeah? I think that's probably a lie,

594
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:29,719
Speaker 1: but we'll move on. Why were you were a cheerleader

595
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:31,600
Speaker 1: in high school? Why? Yeah? What do you? What do you?

596
00:37:31,680 --> 00:37:33,720
Speaker 1: What does that say? Is that? Is that an indictment

597
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:36,759
Speaker 1: of me or Richard? Because Richard went to Columbia First

598
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:38,840
Speaker 1: of all, I like smart guys. He went to Columbia

599
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:43,200
Speaker 1: and he went to UV A law school. Richard, Okay,

600
00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 1: I'm sure you would have dated in high school. Um,

601
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:50,560
Speaker 1: do you have any trouble attracting really smart, ambitious lawyers

602
00:37:50,640 --> 00:37:54,440
Speaker 1: to Montgomery, Alabama and work for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

603
00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:57,400
Speaker 1: You know, we're lucky. There are a lot of people

604
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:00,160
Speaker 1: who have a lot of passion, you know, who go

605
00:38:00,239 --> 00:38:03,359
Speaker 1: to great schools and want to join our cause. So

606
00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:05,520
Speaker 1: you know, we don't have a hard time recruiting people.

607
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:09,719
Speaker 1: Sometimes we have a hard time keeping them for very long, uh,

608
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:11,720
Speaker 1: just because they want to move to a big city.

609
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 1: But you know, we've been incredibly lucky to be able

610
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 1: to draw new talent to our cause. And you know,

611
00:38:17,080 --> 00:38:19,600
Speaker 1: we don't have any secret formulas at the Southern Privorty Loss,

612
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:22,719
Speaker 1: and we have any patents or copyrights. All we have

613
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 1: is talented and passionate people. It's really what's sustained us

614
00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:30,360
Speaker 1: for forty five years. I guess you sometimes wish business

615
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:32,920
Speaker 1: weren't so good, right in terms of the kind of

616
00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:36,080
Speaker 1: things that you're dealing with. Yeah, we've seen a real

617
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:40,200
Speaker 1: explosion of extremism in in recent years, and you know,

618
00:38:40,280 --> 00:38:44,600
Speaker 1: unfortunately the rhetoric surrounding you know, this year's presidential campaign

619
00:38:45,160 --> 00:38:48,640
Speaker 1: has amplified it. Brian Goldsmith is here. I know that

620
00:38:48,680 --> 00:38:51,719
Speaker 1: you all have talked on the phone together and we

621
00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 1: both talked to Jonathan Weisman. What did you make of

622
00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:58,759
Speaker 1: the whole Jonathan Weisman Twitter story. Well, it's an example

623
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:01,719
Speaker 1: of the fact that at so much on Twitter as

624
00:39:01,760 --> 00:39:04,799
Speaker 1: like a drive by shooting. You know, they're very, very

625
00:39:04,880 --> 00:39:08,480
Speaker 1: few barriers to entry to get a Twitter account. You know,

626
00:39:08,520 --> 00:39:12,640
Speaker 1: it's not no real systems of verification and whatnot, and

627
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:19,880
Speaker 1: so that anonymity breeds you know, ugly conduct. Why do

628
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:23,880
Speaker 1: you think Twitter doesn't follow its terms its own terms

629
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:27,359
Speaker 1: of service on hate speech. Look, we have a lot

630
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:31,719
Speaker 1: of experience with the digital industry, and you know, they

631
00:39:31,760 --> 00:39:35,440
Speaker 1: like to pay lip service to their terms of service.

632
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:38,920
Speaker 1: So we're opposed to hate. We don't like misogyny. But

633
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 1: the reality is that, you know, it's a pain in

634
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:44,680
Speaker 1: the butt for them to enforce those terms. Well, when

635
00:39:44,680 --> 00:39:47,360
Speaker 1: you've talked to executives at Twitter, or you've you reached

636
00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:51,680
Speaker 1: out to various social media platforms, I mean, are they embarrassed?

637
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:55,960
Speaker 1: What what's their explanation for for not policing it. I

638
00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:59,400
Speaker 1: think they have no good explanation for it. Sometimes it

639
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:04,000
Speaker 1: takes you know, the media to expose them. Uh, you know,

640
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:06,600
Speaker 1: we want one time wrote a story about iTunes that

641
00:40:06,719 --> 00:40:09,799
Speaker 1: caught their attention and led them to pull all of

642
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:12,600
Speaker 1: their hate music off their site, which is really important.

643
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:17,319
Speaker 1: I commend you know, Tim Cook for doing that. I

644
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 1: know that you use the term hate speech or hate music.

645
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:25,160
Speaker 1: How do we define what that means? What's protected but

646
00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:29,799
Speaker 1: offensive speech under the First Amendment, and what crosses the

647
00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:35,800
Speaker 1: line to a point where the content should be removed? Well, look,

648
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:39,120
Speaker 1: none of this, none of the speech that we're talking about,

649
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:44,719
Speaker 1: is illegal. But of course these are private companies. They

650
00:40:44,760 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 1: can remove speech that they find offensive if they want to.

651
00:40:49,200 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 1: It's not like the government doing it that would that

652
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:55,840
Speaker 1: would amount to censorship. So we're not talking about illegal speech.

653
00:40:56,040 --> 00:40:59,759
Speaker 1: We're talking about ugly speech, offensive speech that violates the

654
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:02,920
Speaker 1: term terms of service of these of these organizations. And

655
00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:05,680
Speaker 1: typically the kind of speech that we're talking about is

656
00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:09,560
Speaker 1: that which, you know, vilify someone for their race, their religion,

657
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:14,840
Speaker 1: their sexual orientation or not or vilifies entire groups. So again,

658
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:18,040
Speaker 1: it's not a question of whether the speech is illegal,

659
00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 1: because it's not. The question is is it ugly enough

660
00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:25,640
Speaker 1: to violate the terms of the service of these private organizations.

661
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:28,839
Speaker 1: But it sounds like you are making some progress that

662
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:34,240
Speaker 1: you are exposing some of this hateful behavior or speech

663
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:37,319
Speaker 1: or the use of these platforms to the companies that

664
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:42,279
Speaker 1: oversee them or own them. And they've been fairly responsive

665
00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:47,239
Speaker 1: except for Twitter. Well, you know, Twitter hasn't moved as

666
00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 1: quickly as some of the others. Most of these, you know,

667
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:54,200
Speaker 1: high tech companies are run by liberal minded people, and

668
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:56,400
Speaker 1: you know, if you can get their attention, you know

669
00:41:56,480 --> 00:41:58,920
Speaker 1: you can make progress. You know, we've gone to the

670
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:02,760
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley and with people from Google, from Amazon, from

671
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:06,719
Speaker 1: from PayPal, and you know, we're making some progress there,

672
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:09,759
Speaker 1: but you've got to get on their radar. These are big,

673
00:42:09,800 --> 00:42:14,279
Speaker 1: giant companies, and uh, you know this is oftentimes not

674
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:17,960
Speaker 1: a high priority for them. Tell us about a personal

675
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:22,920
Speaker 1: experience you've had where you have been so discouraged or

676
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 1: hurt or depressed about language, or a situation that you've

677
00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:36,080
Speaker 1: witnessed and wanted to wanted to fix, you know, Katie,

678
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:39,759
Speaker 1: To be honest with me, sometimes it's a little bit

679
00:42:39,880 --> 00:42:45,279
Speaker 1: like blood on the operating room floor. Uh. Sometimes I

680
00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:49,360
Speaker 1: hear so much hate speech that I don't want to

681
00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:52,320
Speaker 1: say I'm used to it, but I guess what I

682
00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:56,560
Speaker 1: would say is nothing particularly shocks me at this point, unfortunately.

683
00:42:57,239 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 1: Let me ask you about the role, Richard, of social

684
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:05,440
Speaker 1: media in kind of empowering or fueling this kind of

685
00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:09,239
Speaker 1: hate speech or these kinds of organizations or movements. I

686
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:12,520
Speaker 1: know that Stormfront, which is a leading neo Nazi portal,

687
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:15,680
Speaker 1: had a hundred and forty thousand registered members in two

688
00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:18,960
Speaker 1: thousand eight and now it has over three hundred thousand.

689
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:22,520
Speaker 1: I mean, what role does social media have and expanding

690
00:43:22,640 --> 00:43:26,680
Speaker 1: the numbers and the intensity of some of these individuals.

691
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:30,640
Speaker 1: I think it has multiple roles First, you know, it

692
00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:36,839
Speaker 1: makes it easier to find kindred souls. Second, you know,

693
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:40,320
Speaker 1: the people you're talking to, most of them share your views,

694
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:44,800
Speaker 1: and you know, you you get encouragement, you get validation,

695
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:48,120
Speaker 1: and I think that, you know, kind of ramps up

696
00:43:48,160 --> 00:43:53,360
Speaker 1: the intensity. Some of these people eventually get frustrated, uh

697
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:57,000
Speaker 1: and enough talk and act out. Dylan Ruth was an

698
00:43:57,000 --> 00:43:59,919
Speaker 1: example of that, you know, in his manifesto he said,

699
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:03,440
Speaker 1: and someone needs to take action. I guess it's me.

700
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:08,160
Speaker 1: And you know, so that was the final step. Who

701
00:44:08,239 --> 00:44:13,759
Speaker 1: are these people? Do they feel disenfranchised? Alienated? Are they

702
00:44:14,120 --> 00:44:17,600
Speaker 1: workers who have been sort of laid off? I mean,

703
00:44:18,320 --> 00:44:21,160
Speaker 1: are there is there a common thread among some of

704
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:25,719
Speaker 1: these people in terms of what's binding them together other

705
00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:30,239
Speaker 1: than just hate and intolerance. Well, you know, I think

706
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:32,760
Speaker 1: that most of the people in the white supremacist movement,

707
00:44:32,880 --> 00:44:35,520
Speaker 1: most of the people who are foot soldiers at least,

708
00:44:36,239 --> 00:44:41,440
Speaker 1: tend to come from somewhat marginalized backgrounds. They look for reasons,

709
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:46,399
Speaker 1: perhaps outside of themselves, to explain their failures, and they

710
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:50,440
Speaker 1: glom onto a powerful narrative. You know, you're here, you

711
00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:55,560
Speaker 1: are You're Dylan Roof, You're an unemployed kid with no

712
00:44:55,760 --> 00:44:59,640
Speaker 1: future you can you can think about that, or you

713
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:03,200
Speaker 1: can suddenly decide that you're a warrior for the white

714
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:06,680
Speaker 1: race and you're going to strike a blow for freedom.

715
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:09,000
Speaker 1: I think that some of the people who were attracted

716
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:13,279
Speaker 1: in this country to the siren song of Isis are

717
00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:16,560
Speaker 1: in the same position. There's kind of a lack and

718
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:20,520
Speaker 1: that they they're they're searching for an identity, uh, and

719
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:29,080
Speaker 1: suddenly they're offered one by this seemingly invincible, powerful group

720
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 1: that is going to you know, change their lives and

721
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:36,120
Speaker 1: give it meaning. You said earlier that you thought extremism

722
00:45:36,120 --> 00:45:40,359
Speaker 1: has exploded and hate speeches on the rise. Is that

723
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:45,160
Speaker 1: just because technology and access to technology is more widely

724
00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 1: available or do you think that says something deeper about

725
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:52,799
Speaker 1: our society and the direction that we're moving in. I

726
00:45:52,840 --> 00:45:57,000
Speaker 1: think it says something about global trends. Really, Um, what

727
00:45:57,040 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 1: we've seen over the past decade has been you know,

728
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:05,880
Speaker 1: the increasing diversity of the United States. We've seen the

729
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:10,400
Speaker 1: same thing in Europe, increased immigration, and our country is

730
00:46:10,480 --> 00:46:13,759
Speaker 1: having has had a backlash to that. You know, President

731
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:17,040
Speaker 1: Obama in many ways is the symbol of the country's

732
00:46:17,160 --> 00:46:20,239
Speaker 1: changing diversity, but he's also been you know, kind of

733
00:46:20,239 --> 00:46:24,080
Speaker 1: a ferocious target of its backlash. Also, I would say

734
00:46:24,160 --> 00:46:26,640
Speaker 1: in the past you know, half dozen years, at least

735
00:46:27,120 --> 00:46:30,880
Speaker 1: past seven or eight years. You know, the dislocations in

736
00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:37,719
Speaker 1: the economy caused by globalization, the worldwide recession has has

737
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:41,480
Speaker 1: pushed people to look for answers and has increased stereotyping.

738
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:45,160
Speaker 1: So I think we're looking at some some real global trends,

739
00:46:45,160 --> 00:46:49,360
Speaker 1: some macro trends, and you know, and those things are exacerbated,

740
00:46:49,600 --> 00:46:53,800
Speaker 1: you know, by the ease of communications that that exists

741
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:56,680
Speaker 1: in the modern world. So you see it happening all

742
00:46:56,719 --> 00:47:00,960
Speaker 1: over Europe obviously and here in the Iided States. I

743
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:07,000
Speaker 1: think possibly exacerbated or probably exacerbated by Donald Trump's candidacy.

744
00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:10,840
Speaker 1: Have you seen a correlation between his popularity and the

745
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:14,480
Speaker 1: amount of hate speech that you're seeing either online or

746
00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 1: in other forms. Absolutely? Uh. You know. First, you know,

747
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:23,799
Speaker 1: usually in the white supremacist world, you know, they don't

748
00:47:23,840 --> 00:47:26,560
Speaker 1: get involved in politics. It's like a pox on both

749
00:47:26,600 --> 00:47:30,759
Speaker 1: their homes. Both parties are irredeemably corrupt. Trump, on the

750
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:34,200
Speaker 1: other hand, hasn't been embraced by the white supremacist you know,

751
00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:36,480
Speaker 1: people like David Duke have called him, you know, the

752
00:47:36,480 --> 00:47:39,880
Speaker 1: glorious leader. So you know we're having that. You know,

753
00:47:39,920 --> 00:47:42,799
Speaker 1: suddenly he's their champion. Another thing, you know, we did

754
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:47,160
Speaker 1: a survey Katie. Uh. You know our schools around the country,

755
00:47:47,160 --> 00:47:49,280
Speaker 1: teachers around the country. You know, we have a program

756
00:47:49,320 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 1: that provides free educational resources to every school in the nation.

757
00:47:53,160 --> 00:47:56,440
Speaker 1: We asked the teachers, you know, what impact had the

758
00:47:56,480 --> 00:48:00,280
Speaker 1: election had in your school. More than half the teachers,

759
00:48:00,800 --> 00:48:04,440
Speaker 1: two thousand of them responded and talked about you know,

760
00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:07,880
Speaker 1: Mr Trump talked about how they had been increase in

761
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:10,920
Speaker 1: bullying in their classroom and increase in in kind of

762
00:48:11,080 --> 00:48:15,279
Speaker 1: ugly rhetoric. Uh, kids who were scared, kids who thought

763
00:48:15,280 --> 00:48:18,440
Speaker 1: they would be deported. One of the things most depressing

764
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:21,200
Speaker 1: to me, and this this was depressing, I would say.

765
00:48:21,440 --> 00:48:23,839
Speaker 1: A teacher wrote us and said, look, you know when

766
00:48:23,880 --> 00:48:26,120
Speaker 1: people said stuff in the past, my kids in the

767
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:28,239
Speaker 1: past said things that were out of line, they were

768
00:48:28,239 --> 00:48:31,960
Speaker 1: off color. I'd rebuke them and they shut up. Now

769
00:48:32,239 --> 00:48:34,960
Speaker 1: when they say things. They asked me, Hey, why can't

770
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:37,640
Speaker 1: I say that the future president of the United States

771
00:48:37,680 --> 00:48:41,759
Speaker 1: is saying that? Wow? When you told me sort of

772
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:45,040
Speaker 1: the Raison Detra of the Southern Poverty Law Center to

773
00:48:45,080 --> 00:48:47,719
Speaker 1: make sure the Civil Rights Act the Voting Rights Act

774
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:52,400
Speaker 1: were implemented and followed. I couldn't help but wonder, Richard,

775
00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:57,359
Speaker 1: where we are now compared to back then, Because, as

776
00:48:57,400 --> 00:49:00,520
Speaker 1: you know, the Voting Rights Act has been old back

777
00:49:00,560 --> 00:49:05,040
Speaker 1: in certain ways, and it seems like the race relations

778
00:49:05,239 --> 00:49:08,640
Speaker 1: in this country are as fraught as ever. So when

779
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:12,560
Speaker 1: you look back from n to two thousand sixteen at

780
00:49:12,600 --> 00:49:16,480
Speaker 1: the trajectory of these things, what do you what do

781
00:49:16,520 --> 00:49:20,799
Speaker 1: you come up with? Well, it's remarkable, frankly, how much

782
00:49:21,080 --> 00:49:25,719
Speaker 1: progress the country has made since those days. And it's

783
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:31,680
Speaker 1: depressing also that we see so often, especially in recent years,

784
00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:36,160
Speaker 1: to be taking a giant step backwards. Uh. You know,

785
00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:40,600
Speaker 1: the fight for justice is one that every generation has

786
00:49:40,680 --> 00:49:45,400
Speaker 1: to wage. Uh. And you know, it's it's it's it's nothing.

787
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:49,480
Speaker 1: It's not anything where people of goodwill can rest on

788
00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:51,960
Speaker 1: their laurels. There are always new battles to fight, and

789
00:49:51,960 --> 00:49:54,520
Speaker 1: there are always forces that are trying to hold us back.

790
00:49:55,600 --> 00:49:58,480
Speaker 1: Let me ask you, you gave us some very depressing

791
00:49:58,800 --> 00:50:03,160
Speaker 1: sort of statistic trends. So what do you do about this?

792
00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:07,279
Speaker 1: What do you do about the increase in hate speech? Is?

793
00:50:07,320 --> 00:50:10,000
Speaker 1: How do you counter it? I know that the state department,

794
00:50:10,040 --> 00:50:15,239
Speaker 1: has a whole Countering Violent Extremism department to try to

795
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:20,879
Speaker 1: come up with alternative narratives for people online. But how

796
00:50:20,880 --> 00:50:22,840
Speaker 1: do you how do you nip this in the bud

797
00:50:24,480 --> 00:50:27,400
Speaker 1: and look, it takes a full court press, right you

798
00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:31,600
Speaker 1: have to. It takes, you know, work by people in schools,

799
00:50:31,840 --> 00:50:36,080
Speaker 1: people in churches, community leaders are political leaders. There's not

800
00:50:36,280 --> 00:50:40,719
Speaker 1: one magic bullet, you know. For us, again, it's reflected

801
00:50:40,760 --> 00:50:44,320
Speaker 1: on our organizational motto. We try to expose the people

802
00:50:44,400 --> 00:50:47,160
Speaker 1: who are who who who have hated their heart. And

803
00:50:47,239 --> 00:50:49,000
Speaker 1: I think that some of the things I'm talking about

804
00:50:49,000 --> 00:50:52,480
Speaker 1: our pollyanish. But we're people who have hope and people

805
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:55,319
Speaker 1: who believe that, you know, as Dr King said, the

806
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:57,440
Speaker 1: moral ark of the universe may be long, but it

807
00:50:57,480 --> 00:51:01,239
Speaker 1: bends towards justice. That doesn't mean that justice is inevitable.

808
00:51:01,280 --> 00:51:03,880
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that it's going to happen without our efforts.

809
00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:06,600
Speaker 1: But I think, you know, I think you have to

810
00:51:06,640 --> 00:51:08,880
Speaker 1: have hope in order to continue this kind of struggle.

811
00:51:09,520 --> 00:51:11,680
Speaker 1: Richard Cohen, thanks so much for talking with us, and

812
00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:13,960
Speaker 1: thank you for the great work that all of you

813
00:51:14,040 --> 00:51:21,120
Speaker 1: do with the Southern Poverty Law Center. Thank you, Katie.

814
00:51:23,160 --> 00:51:27,439
Speaker 1: It's so nice to end such a depressing topic on

815
00:51:27,480 --> 00:51:30,920
Speaker 1: a positive note, because I do think people are basically

816
00:51:30,960 --> 00:51:33,680
Speaker 1: good and kind. They're just some bad apples that give

817
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:40,279
Speaker 1: us all a bad name. Thanks to the whole team

818
00:51:40,280 --> 00:51:43,640
Speaker 1: at Your Wolf, including Chris Bannon, Bretta Cone, and the

819
00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:47,600
Speaker 1: Reverend John Delore for helping to produce our show. Thanks

820
00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:50,839
Speaker 1: to Mark Phillips for our theme music, and thank you

821
00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:55,600
Speaker 1: for listening. So maybe you think we're kidding when we

822
00:51:55,680 --> 00:51:57,839
Speaker 1: say we want you to leave a message and tell

823
00:51:57,880 --> 00:52:00,640
Speaker 1: us what you think about the show, We're actually not kidding.

824
00:52:00,760 --> 00:52:04,919
Speaker 1: Katie has me here chained to the old fashion style

825
00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:07,719
Speaker 1: answering machine, so it would just make my life a

826
00:52:07,800 --> 00:52:11,600
Speaker 1: lot better if you would call and leave a message

827
00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:15,560
Speaker 1: at nine to nine two two four four six three

828
00:52:15,640 --> 00:52:18,480
Speaker 1: seven and let us know what you think about anything

829
00:52:18,480 --> 00:52:20,360
Speaker 1: you've heard on the show, anything you want us to

830
00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:24,120
Speaker 1: talk about, questions for Katie, really, anything you want to

831
00:52:24,160 --> 00:52:26,880
Speaker 1: talk about it all. So give us a call again

832
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:29,720
Speaker 1: nine to nine to two four four six three seven,

833
00:52:30,080 --> 00:52:33,960
Speaker 1: and also please subscribe, rate and review the show. Number one,

834
00:52:34,000 --> 00:52:37,000
Speaker 1: it helps us to learn what you think, and number two,

835
00:52:37,120 --> 00:52:44,880
Speaker 1: it helps other listeners find the show. If it helps

836
00:52:45,200 --> 00:52:48,080
Speaker 1: to make fun of my calves so you can get

837
00:52:48,080 --> 00:52:49,719
Speaker 1: through the day and it's a tough day. I'll be

838
00:52:49,800 --> 00:52:51,880
Speaker 1: that for you today. I know you're a good person.

839
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:54,040
Speaker 1: And the other thing it does, too is it makes

840
00:52:54,080 --> 00:52:56,200
Speaker 1: you want to train a little bit harder. So I

841
00:52:56,239 --> 00:52:58,640
Speaker 1: don't skip leg day even though they think I do.

842
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:05,800
Speaker 1: I'm Trayvon Freed. You're now in the room where it's happening,

843
00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:09,080
Speaker 1: where we get out about the best musical of all time, Hamilton,

844
00:53:09,480 --> 00:53:13,840
Speaker 1: Hamilton's We'll be talking about the lyrics, the history, the production,

845
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Speaker 1: and we've got some amazing guests. We have actress Christian

846
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847
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:25,080
Speaker 1: said to my wife and two children, you have to

848
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849
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850
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