Speaker 1: So the big question is this, how do investors like
Speaker 1: us get access to the ideas, information, and most importantly,
Speaker 1: the right people that give us the tools and information
Speaker 1: we need to make informed and educated decisions to have success.
Speaker 1: That is the question, and this podcast will give us
Speaker 1: the answers. This is Mark Moss, your host. Let's get
Speaker 1: this started. Hey, welcome back everybody to another episode of
Speaker 1: the Market Disruptors podcast. We like to talk about disruptive
Speaker 1: technology and people who are constantly disrupting the status quo
Speaker 1: finding new solutions to old problems. And today we have
Speaker 1: a new guest that I'm super excited to talk about,
Speaker 1: Ben Swan. He has been in the media for over
Speaker 1: a decade or maybe even twenty years, pushing media. However,
Speaker 1: he noticed that the way media was going was not good.
Speaker 1: It was there was a lot of fake media coming out.
Speaker 1: They're trying to sensationalize headlines, bearing stories and really just
Speaker 1: not bringing the truth. So he started as own company
Speaker 1: called Truth and Media to bring the truth and he's
Speaker 1: been doing a great job. And he's and he's found
Speaker 1: a way to use blockchain technology to help bring even
Speaker 1: more true to the space to the space, and so
Speaker 1: I'm super excited to talk to him today, so let's
Speaker 1: get right into it. Cool. So, hey everyone, thanks for
Speaker 1: tuning in. I am here today with Ben Swan. He's
Speaker 1: been in the news and media for like the last decade,
Speaker 1: asking tough questions, really looking for the truth and and
Speaker 1: disrupting the traditional media you know that we all consume.
Speaker 1: And and now he's harnessing the technology blockchain technology to
Speaker 1: even further disrupt and the kind of helped fight censorship,
Speaker 1: protect privacy, build trust. Uh. And I'm super excited. So
Speaker 1: welcome Ben Mark. I might have summed it up good enough,
Speaker 1: but why don't you give everyone listening just a better
Speaker 1: idea of who you are, what you're doing, and maybe
Speaker 1: why you're so passionate about it. Sure, absolutely so. UM.
Speaker 1: Twenty years I've been a broadcast journalist. UM. Started out
Speaker 1: as a as a news photographer UM, living in Texas
Speaker 1: and New Mexico, my hometown of El Paso. UM, and
Speaker 1: then spent, like I said, twenty years kind of moving
Speaker 1: up the ranks. I've been a morning anchor of Eurouchief,
Speaker 1: primetime ancor iver, work for NBC, CBS, Fox News, most
Speaker 1: recently CBS News in Atlanta. UM. Have you know won
Speaker 1: tons of awards. I've just kind of run the gamut
Speaker 1: of what it means to be a broadcast journalist. UM.
Speaker 1: But I've also found throughout my career that there's an
Speaker 1: enormous amount of censorship that takes place as a journalist
Speaker 1: in the United States UM and really got tired of it,
Speaker 1: UH and saw an opportunity a year ago, a little
Speaker 1: over a year ago, about a year and a half ago,
Speaker 1: to move completely independent with the help of a couple
Speaker 1: of cryptocurrencies, um dash and smart cash. So I was
Speaker 1: actually able to do that, moved it offline away from
Speaker 1: these networks, and then realized beyond that the the opportunity
Speaker 1: to combine the power of blockchain and cryptocurrency with the
Speaker 1: need for independent media and to make those two things
Speaker 1: kind of coexist. And to me, they're they're an incredible
Speaker 1: um synergy between those two things, simply because UM, disruption
Speaker 1: in the news media has to come from independent media.
Speaker 1: It's never gonna come from corporate media. There is so
Speaker 1: much disruption being created on the financial side in terms
Speaker 1: of blockchain right now, in cryptocurrency, and so these two
Speaker 1: forces together I think are actually kind of married in
Speaker 1: terms of intent and idea, and so the question is
Speaker 1: how do we how do we make it all fit together?
Speaker 1: And that's what we're working to do. Great. So, Um,
Speaker 1: I like to talk about disruptive things. The channel is
Speaker 1: called market disruptors, and I believe there's a lot of
Speaker 1: opportunity by going against the status quote and I love this.
Speaker 1: You know, new things are created and kills the old way,
Speaker 1: and you're obviously disrupting the market or the media industry
Speaker 1: as you said, it kind of has to be independent
Speaker 1: now having't been in it for twenty years now, Um,
Speaker 1: this evolution, right if we've seen have you seen this
Speaker 1: evolution to where things are getting more controlled, more censored,
Speaker 1: And that's kind of where you're acting out on that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so so obviously you know things have been somewhat censored
Speaker 1: for a long time. But something pretty incredible happened in
Speaker 1: uh the you know, with the with the advent of
Speaker 1: the internet, but then especially with social media. Really about
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve to two thousand sixteen, there was about
Speaker 1: a four year period where an incredible quantum leap took
Speaker 1: place in terms of journalism. And a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't even recognize this happened because they think you know,
Speaker 1: social media came along, sure, and and newspapers kind of
Speaker 1: died off more. But what really happened, what's super significant here,
Speaker 1: is that from two thousands twelve to two thousand and sixteen,
Speaker 1: social media moved away from just being a way to
Speaker 1: connect with friends, and it became a platform, um kind
Speaker 1: of an unprecedented platform for information to be spread um
Speaker 1: through without the need for broadcast journalists, without the need
Speaker 1: for traditional media, and it became a way for independent
Speaker 1: media to reach audiences. And because of that, over the
Speaker 1: last four years, what we saw from two thousand twelve
Speaker 1: and two thousand and sixteen was this kind of growth
Speaker 1: in that area. And so now since and all, there
Speaker 1: has been an incredible pull back by those who are
Speaker 1: in powered by government entities, by NGOs, by think tanks,
Speaker 1: by political operatives, by media itself to say, we're going
Speaker 1: to get control of that again, and we're going to
Speaker 1: heavily censor anyone who does not fit our narrative. And
Speaker 1: so what they've been doing since really the summer of
Speaker 1: last year especially, there's been an unprecedented purge on Twitter,
Speaker 1: on Facebook, on YouTube to to cleanse these platforms of
Speaker 1: anyone who is not fitting that mainstream narrative, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people think, you know what they've heard about it.
Speaker 1: They say, oh, yeah, I've heard that Google censors conservatives.
Speaker 1: Well that's true, but Google, since there's a lot more
Speaker 1: than conservatives, Google is censoring anybody who is not fitting
Speaker 1: that mainstream narrative. Facebook is doing the same thing. They're
Speaker 1: working with the Atlantic Council, and that's been really hyped
Speaker 1: up over the last year, where the Atlantic councils coming
Speaker 1: in and saying, you need to remove these groups, remove
Speaker 1: anyone who's saying these things. It's fascinating, Mark, because all
Speaker 1: of this has been done under the guise of we've
Speaker 1: got to protect elections, right, we have to have have
Speaker 1: safety for the electoral process in the United States. But
Speaker 1: what is actually happening is by purging all these independent
Speaker 1: voices from the right, from the left, libertarians, anti war activists,
Speaker 1: Green party folks, everyone who's getting censored, who's being taken
Speaker 1: off is anyone who actually could provide a counter narrative
Speaker 1: to what the mainstream says as they approach elections. And
Speaker 1: so it's Facebook, by removing people, has done more to
Speaker 1: actually affect the outcome of elections than any you know
Speaker 1: anything they claim that they're trying to stop. Yeah. Wow,
Speaker 1: there's so much here to unpack it. We could go
Speaker 1: in for so super deep. But it's almost like they
Speaker 1: got kind of caught off guard and information got decentralized
Speaker 1: with the Internet, which was good, and then they realized like,
Speaker 1: oh man, we're losing power, and it was kind of
Speaker 1: this knee jerk reaction and as you said, write their
Speaker 1: de platform and everybody and not just left or right,
Speaker 1: but anyone not owing that that line, right, Um, And
Speaker 1: we're really see in that. I I say, to understand
Speaker 1: bitcoin or essentialized cryptocurrencies, you have to understand a bunch
Speaker 1: of things and money and you know, politics, all these things.
Speaker 1: But one of them is like philosophy. So the philosophy
Speaker 1: of freedom of speech. Why do you think that's so important? Well, look,
Speaker 1: I think when you get down to what the founders
Speaker 1: essentially tried to create, right when when the documents were
Speaker 1: first drafted, they gave birth to this nation. Um, there's
Speaker 1: a reason why freedom of speech and freedom of religion
Speaker 1: and freedom from government imposing religion, um, are all kind
Speaker 1: of fitting together in this this first Amendment to the Constitution, Right,
Speaker 1: this first right in our Bill of Rights, UM. And
Speaker 1: and there there's a reason why freedom of speech and
Speaker 1: freedom of the press are both included together because the
Speaker 1: press was not And this is important for your viewers
Speaker 1: to understand. The freedom of press was not about UM
Speaker 1: a a profession and a lot of people have been
Speaker 1: referring to it as such lately, and it's not true. UM.
Speaker 1: You have to remember that that Thomas Payne Benjamin Franklin
Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin was a professional journalist and owned newspapers. UM.
Speaker 1: Thomas Payne was not Thomas Paine was a guy who
Speaker 1: started writing leaflets and pamphlets and handing them out everywhere,
Speaker 1: but saw himself as a journalist. Some people say he
Speaker 1: was a propagandist, but he began to to share ideas
Speaker 1: and concepts through writing. And so the idea of freedom
Speaker 1: oppress and freedom of speech fits together, not because it's
Speaker 1: a profession, but because you have the written word and
Speaker 1: the spoken word both being protected as your God given
Speaker 1: right UH to use. And so what I think what
Speaker 1: we're seeing right now is this incredible crackdown on ideas
Speaker 1: and on speech that is not accepted speech. There's a
Speaker 1: big difference between UM having speech that is considered appropriate
Speaker 1: or you know, um, um, not hateful and accepted speech.
Speaker 1: And so what we've done, we've kind of brought everything
Speaker 1: under under one banner and it's all now you have
Speaker 1: to have acceptable speech and acceptance speech, and anything you'll
Speaker 1: notice that does not fit mainstream narratives, suddenly it is
Speaker 1: not acceptable speech in this country. I mean, you're not
Speaker 1: allowed to talk about vaccines at all. Like I have
Speaker 1: a lot of people and I've done a lot of
Speaker 1: stories on vaccines and scientifically, you know, showing this this
Speaker 1: very simple idea, right, which is that not all vaccines
Speaker 1: are safe for all people in all quantities, at all
Speaker 1: at all times. How dare you That's a very simple concept, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And yeah, when you when you say that, that is
Speaker 1: considered to be dangerous. That's a word that's used a
Speaker 1: lot now, dangerous, um, And the idea that you are
Speaker 1: pushing ideas that are a danger to society, a danger
Speaker 1: to the public, that can harm other people with your words. Um.
Speaker 1: It is a very dangerous time in reality, uh, to
Speaker 1: to speak any kind of truth to power, because everything
Speaker 1: is deemed as being a danger a threat. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's almost if I mean, they just want everyone to
Speaker 1: be just the sheep right where they're just seeing one thing,
Speaker 1: and if you say anything out of line, then it
Speaker 1: then it disrupts them. It it agitates them, and it
Speaker 1: makes them angry. Um. And I guess that is disturbing
Speaker 1: the peace, right if everybody could just be thinking it brainwashed, right,
Speaker 1: And I guess it keeps the peace. And I think,
Speaker 1: uh so, I guess there's both sides, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I we both agree that having open dialogue
Speaker 1: and discussion is really what brings that, but they think
Speaker 1: everyone could just think the same thing. But what I'm
Speaker 1: really bothered with is then once, once you're especially with
Speaker 1: loss of privacy and fear of being censored, and people think, well,
Speaker 1: I have nothing to hide, I don't care, but there's
Speaker 1: always gonna be some one on the other side of
Speaker 1: the table, And then what happens is we censor what
Speaker 1: we start saying, and then we start censoring what we think.
Speaker 1: Right then all the creativity dies. I mean that's a
Speaker 1: big problem. Yeah, it absolutely, it's a big problem. And
Speaker 1: and creativity dies, honest dialogue dies. Accountability dies. Um. And
Speaker 1: as a journalist, you know, the number one responsibility that
Speaker 1: the journalist has is to bring accountability to those who
Speaker 1: are in power. That is the main thing that we do.
Speaker 1: Unfore we're supposed to do. The main thing we do
Speaker 1: now is we actually defend those who were in power
Speaker 1: against criticism from the public. Um. And that's what what
Speaker 1: journalism in America has turned into. It has turned into
Speaker 1: and advocating for those who are in power um and
Speaker 1: defending them against criticisms or questions from those who are
Speaker 1: not in power. And our exact charge is supposed to
Speaker 1: be the opposite, the fourth estate, that is journalism is
Speaker 1: supposed to be diametrically opposed to that. We're supposed to
Speaker 1: be the ones who challenge those who are in authority
Speaker 1: and make them accountable. And free speech allows for accountability.
Speaker 1: It demands accountability from those who are in power. And
Speaker 1: that's not what we're seeing anymore. Yeah. Now, we can
Speaker 1: talk about the political side of this all day, but
Speaker 1: jumping into the tech side of it a little bit, um,
Speaker 1: Like you were saying before, social media really kind of
Speaker 1: helped this escalate and evolved pretty rapidly. Um and and
Speaker 1: and it's a tool, right, So tools can be used
Speaker 1: for good or bad um And in this case, it's
Speaker 1: it's a tool for us to get information out there,
Speaker 1: but it's also a tool for the powers that be,
Speaker 1: whoever they are right to actually impose their will on us. Um.
Speaker 1: And we're seeing that, right, Like you're talking about the
Speaker 1: d platforming and the censoring and whatnot, but we're also seeing, um,
Speaker 1: you know, instances where now Facebook has been accused of
Speaker 1: using their AI to actually mold people and get them
Speaker 1: to act and feel certain ways. Right, Yes, absolutely, And
Speaker 1: so that's that's pretty interesting. Uh. I know there was
Speaker 1: a book Cass Sunstein wrote this book, um uh Nudge
Speaker 1: where he talked about maybe we should have this way
Speaker 1: where we can just kind of nudge people along in
Speaker 1: the direction that we want. Um, that's really scary when
Speaker 1: you think about that. Well, and and and the nudge
Speaker 1: is no longer being being used anymore, right, which is
Speaker 1: because because so on the tech side, right, you had
Speaker 1: a lot of independent media who came along with the Internet.
Speaker 1: So the early two thousands especially was the time when
Speaker 1: a lot of people were creating blogs, creating websites, going
Speaker 1: into chat rooms having discussions that were outside the kind
Speaker 1: of the mainstream norms. And then but the problem was
Speaker 1: there was no good delivery method to get that information
Speaker 1: from independent journalists to the public, and and social media
Speaker 1: had no idea that it was about to become that
Speaker 1: delivery system. Mark Zuckerberg and the guys who were creating
Speaker 1: Facebook never thought this was going to become the largest
Speaker 1: media company in the world, right, which is a platform
Speaker 1: for the public to be able to access information. There's
Speaker 1: actually a very interesting memo that was put out. It
Speaker 1: was a fundraising memo put out by Media Matters for
Speaker 1: America after the election. What they found in this memo
Speaker 1: was that after they did some analytical dives, uh, they
Speaker 1: found that the public number one was no longer being
Speaker 1: influenced by broadcast media, that the broadcast journalists in America
Speaker 1: did not sway the election the way they thought they
Speaker 1: thought that they would. Number Two, they found that social
Speaker 1: media became the platform by which people we're sharing information,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. Thomas Woods likes to say that the
Speaker 1: journalists in America were the gatekeepers right for years. They
Speaker 1: would stand there and say, if you want access to information,
Speaker 1: you gotta come through us to get it. The problem
Speaker 1: was that with the Internet and especially now with social media,
Speaker 1: he says, the walls fell down, the gates were still there.
Speaker 1: But the walls fell down, and so the journalist still
Speaker 1: stand in front of the gates, but everybody's just going
Speaker 1: around them like this on the around the side and
Speaker 1: saying I don't need you to get the information I want.
Speaker 1: So what's happened in the last especially two years, has
Speaker 1: been a doubled effort to say we're going to take
Speaker 1: back those social media platforms because that is where conversations
Speaker 1: are happening that shouldn't be happening. That's where UM information
Speaker 1: is being shared that shouldn't be shared. And so if
Speaker 1: you look at what's what's really going on on those
Speaker 1: sites in I want to say November of last year,
Speaker 1: eight hundred pages were purged off of Facebook in one day,
Speaker 1: eight hundred pages completely across the political spectrum. Pages like
Speaker 1: the Thought Project, the Anti Media UM, Conscious Resistance, anybody
Speaker 1: who was was saying things outside that mainstream narrative UM.
Speaker 1: And so what we're also seeing, and this is pretty
Speaker 1: interesting on the tech side, is Facebook's rapid decline. Now,
Speaker 1: if you look at Facebook's Q four numbers for last year,
Speaker 1: they started jumping up and say look, no, no, look
Speaker 1: it's good news. We're not declining. But the reason that
Speaker 1: they didn't decline was because they they suddenly for the
Speaker 1: first time, lumped Facebook users, Instagram users, What's App users,
Speaker 1: and Messenger users all together into one pool and said, well,
Speaker 1: those are our Facebook users. And that's not that's not true.
Speaker 1: Facebook as a platform is actually in decline right now
Speaker 1: because so many people who were once getting information there
Speaker 1: can't find it anymore and so they're not even bothering
Speaker 1: to log onto Facebook. Yeah. Now, um, being a free
Speaker 1: market uh thinker, maybe a free market hopeful. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: there's different viewpoints of this, But what would you say
Speaker 1: to people who would say that, well, Facebook and Twitter
Speaker 1: are private platforms and they're not the woman and if
Speaker 1: they don't want to have that person on the platform,
Speaker 1: and that's okay, what do you say about that? I'm
Speaker 1: totally okay with that. I agree with that. Actually, um
Speaker 1: So from a free market standpoint, I believe that companies
Speaker 1: like Facebook, um absolutely do not have to have anyone
Speaker 1: on their platforms. Now, there are some who will argue
Speaker 1: that because they are not private companies in actuality, they're
Speaker 1: publicly traded companies, they don't have that right right. They've
Speaker 1: they've actually, um, they forfeit that right. When they begin
Speaker 1: to become a publicly traded company, and I think there's
Speaker 1: probably an argument to be had there about it UM. However,
Speaker 1: I also believe this that that companies like Twitter and
Speaker 1: Facebook UM try to use their position once they have
Speaker 1: gained an amassed a position to get government behind them
Speaker 1: to impose new rules that won't apply to them or
Speaker 1: that would prevent barrier to entry to competitors. So in
Speaker 1: the free market, and that's what we have to watch
Speaker 1: out for. In the free market, UM, companies like Facebook
Speaker 1: and Twitter will ultimately lose because they choose UM to
Speaker 1: take positions that are unfortunately UM the public doesn't like,
Speaker 1: and then their user base doesn't like, which means they
Speaker 1: create the opportunity for a competitor where there wasn't room
Speaker 1: for a competitor prior to that. So I think that's
Speaker 1: going to happen now. The problem is watch out for
Speaker 1: when you see Mark Zuckerberg going and writing op eds
Speaker 1: like he did recently where he says, UM, we really
Speaker 1: need governments to take have more control over the internet,
Speaker 1: more control over social media, and even offering to give
Speaker 1: up portions of his control to government. It's his way
Speaker 1: of saying, I need to prevent their too. You know
Speaker 1: that that create that barrier to entry for anybody who's
Speaker 1: going to be a competitor for me in the future.
Speaker 1: I think that's what's happening. Yeah, definitely, and we see
Speaker 1: that across every industry. Really they're using it's it's chrony
Speaker 1: capitalism where they're using the government to to build those
Speaker 1: modes for themselves. Now, like you said, they're public companies. Also,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of government uh, you know, they're working
Speaker 1: with the governments, you know, with an Amazon having servers
Speaker 1: with the c i A, you know, potential uh Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley funds come you know, from the CIA whatever going
Speaker 1: into Facebook. So then then you can also argue that
Speaker 1: as well, right, because that you know, what do you
Speaker 1: think about the slippery slope that they may be setting
Speaker 1: up for themselves. Right, So let's say that they're if
Speaker 1: they're a platform, and they're a platform, and they're just like, hey,
Speaker 1: all we are as a platform and we don't we're
Speaker 1: not responsible for it's on there. Right now, they're taking
Speaker 1: a position of Okay, it's up to us to be
Speaker 1: a do good or we're gonna police this. But then
Speaker 1: if they're going to take that responsibility. Then they have
Speaker 1: to take the responsibility for the bad that comes with that.
Speaker 1: Do you think they're a slippery slope there, Well, there
Speaker 1: definitely is, and and in reality I can't believe that
Speaker 1: based on the things that Mark Zuckerberg has set in
Speaker 1: front of Congress where he was asked if Facebook is
Speaker 1: a platform or a publisher, and of course they've always
Speaker 1: said that we're They're just a platform, They're not the publisher,
Speaker 1: and he basically repositioned the company in front of Congress
Speaker 1: into no, we're actually a publisher, like, we take responsibility
Speaker 1: for everything that's being published on our site. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: so price that there has hasn't been a class action
Speaker 1: lawsuits brought against them, were serious lawsuits brought against him
Speaker 1: because of the fact that the moment you take that position,
Speaker 1: you're no longer exempt under section two thirty of the
Speaker 1: Communications Act in the US, which essentially means that you
Speaker 1: have protections legal protections as a platform from what publishers
Speaker 1: put on your side. So every song that you know
Speaker 1: essentially has copyright issues that doesn't belong to the person
Speaker 1: who uploaded it, every video clip, every you know, spoiler
Speaker 1: from Avengers in game that ends up on Facebook. Um.
Speaker 1: Facebook is now legally liable for and financially responsible for.
Speaker 1: So it's it's incredible to me that there actually hasn't
Speaker 1: been a lawsuit brought against Facebook yet. I'm shocked that
Speaker 1: there hasn't been. I'd be shocked if there weren't one.
Speaker 1: Because Zuckerberg has repositioned the company. Twitter has done the
Speaker 1: same thing, jack Over. Twitter has taken the same position
Speaker 1: that they're not so much a platform as they are
Speaker 1: the publisher, and I think it's a very dangerous place
Speaker 1: that they put themselves. Yeah, it's definitely gonna be interesting
Speaker 1: to watch. Um could be could be their demise. I
Speaker 1: I like to look at things like, you know, things
Speaker 1: happen today and kind of imagine like where that goes
Speaker 1: in the future. Now, Um, so this is kind of
Speaker 1: this evolution that we're talking about and gidness to where
Speaker 1: we are. Um. But now there's a new technology that's
Speaker 1: coming out to disrupt things as well, right you you
Speaker 1: mentioned you you're starting to use that with dash and
Speaker 1: and whatnot. So tell me about what you think is
Speaker 1: happening now, how how this new technology, blockade of technology
Speaker 1: is going to disrupt now what we have which has
Speaker 1: already disrupted the media industry, right, absolutely so, so in
Speaker 1: terms of of blockchain and cryptocurrency has already created disruption
Speaker 1: within financial spaces clearly, and that's been the case for
Speaker 1: a long time. Bitcoin was making creating disruption and cryptocurrency
Speaker 1: was creating disruption long before the most Americans even knew
Speaker 1: what it was. Right, it's only at the point where
Speaker 1: it begins to become kind of known to the masses
Speaker 1: and have mass appeal that it's too late to to
Speaker 1: for those who are against it to recognize the impact
Speaker 1: that it's happened. So then now everyone's just trying to
Speaker 1: catch up to it um and maybe even in some
Speaker 1: cases co opted. But what we've found is that one
Speaker 1: of the biggest hurdles that have been set up through
Speaker 1: this process of consolidation of media and consolidation of of
Speaker 1: platforms has been the defunding of constant creators. So if
Speaker 1: you're a constant creator and you have Google Ads being
Speaker 1: served to your website, um, they're not paying you anything
Speaker 1: for it, and Google can set those rates. We're gonna
Speaker 1: give you, you know, a couple sins per CPM per
Speaker 1: thousand people who come to your site, So you make
Speaker 1: no money on it, and they essentially run you out
Speaker 1: of business by doing that. Facebook does the same thing
Speaker 1: YouTube on YouTube. If you have a channel and you're
Speaker 1: creating content, they suddenly go through and start demonetizing your
Speaker 1: different UM stories that you put up or or different
Speaker 1: videos that you put up, and they demonetize them for you.
Speaker 1: So you know, there has been an incredible crackdown. Facebook
Speaker 1: and Google together control about of all the ad market
Speaker 1: on the Internet. That's an in incredible idea just in
Speaker 1: and of itself, and so you have to look at, well, then,
Speaker 1: how do we as the public, how do we as
Speaker 1: journalists UM get funded? How do we find a sustainable
Speaker 1: funding model? And so what I found was by partnering
Speaker 1: with Dash, the current cryptocurrency Dash and also the cryptocurrency
Speaker 1: smart Cash, through their treasury system, was able to actually
Speaker 1: fund the content that we were creating. And what we
Speaker 1: found was we really kind of walked away with a
Speaker 1: a sensor proof um AD proof system for funding our content.
Speaker 1: What's also interesting is when a lot of those major
Speaker 1: purges took place on Facebook last year, I was not
Speaker 1: hit with them. The reason I wasn't hit with them
Speaker 1: was because the algorithms that Facebook was using to purge
Speaker 1: a lot of these sites. They would look at them
Speaker 1: and say, oh, if you have a website and you're
Speaker 1: sending people off of Facebook in order to go to
Speaker 1: your website, you now are going to be purged because
Speaker 1: this now violates our new terms of service. Well, in
Speaker 1: our case, it didn't hit us because we didn't have
Speaker 1: to send people away to sites where they were getting
Speaker 1: paid because we had our sponsors who were supporting us.
Speaker 1: So we found a fantastic method of doing that in
Speaker 1: the past. And that's why as we've looked forward into
Speaker 1: this new project work that we're trying to create, we're
Speaker 1: actually because let me just say this, when I started
Speaker 1: doing this, I was the first journalist to actually fund
Speaker 1: independent content through cryptocurrency. And as I did it, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, dozens of other independent journalists began turning
Speaker 1: to these cryptocurrencies and asking, hey, can you guys fund
Speaker 1: us as well, and can you support what we're doing. Well.
Speaker 1: The problem is for both Dash and smart cash, their
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency systems, their treasuries are not designed. They're not built
Speaker 1: to actually do that. They're not built to support independent media.
Speaker 1: There's they're built to support the coins through marketing and
Speaker 1: so what I you know, I was talking with my
Speaker 1: team and we said, well, maybe the answer is taking
Speaker 1: what they've done in terms of their doubt, their decentralized
Speaker 1: autonomous organization, and let's create one specific to independent journalists.
Speaker 1: Let's create a doubt for them. Let's create a system
Speaker 1: by which users and viewers can actually vote on proposals. Um,
Speaker 1: content creators can create proposals and independent content can be created.
Speaker 1: That doesn't make you reliant on Facebook and Google to
Speaker 1: decide whether or not you're worthy of getting funding. Very interesting.
Speaker 1: I want to I want to know more about that,
Speaker 1: but I want to ask just one of the questions. First,
Speaker 1: you talk about we've seen you know, Julian Osange and
Speaker 1: wiki leaks getting paid in in bitcoin right when they
Speaker 1: were cut off from all their sources. So we've been
Speaker 1: seeing this uh happening. Um, well let's let's go. We'll
Speaker 1: jump right into it. So you're talking about a way
Speaker 1: to kind of build out on that right to get
Speaker 1: more content funded through that and using like a dow right.
Speaker 1: So there's uh, the coin, the project itself is then
Speaker 1: having some sort of creation inflation or whatever that it
Speaker 1: can pay for that media is that we're talking about. So,
Speaker 1: so what what we're looking at doing is creating. Basically,
Speaker 1: it's a three tiered system. It's a seven over the
Speaker 1: top channel called ice media UM that has original content
Speaker 1: let's created on it. There's a secondary channel system similar
Speaker 1: to YouTube that would pick up people who are being
Speaker 1: purged from these other sites so they can be content
Speaker 1: creators and they can monetize that however they choose to.
Speaker 1: But recognizing that a lot of content creators because one
Speaker 1: of the tactics that's being used is to drive away
Speaker 1: advertisers from them, UM, we would actually create a treasury
Speaker 1: system through an s t O and we would create
Speaker 1: a treasury system that would allow basically a funded treasury
Speaker 1: UM that our users can then vote on proposals. So
Speaker 1: then content is created and it's generated, and then through
Speaker 1: voting on proposals, it creates an economy where people are
Speaker 1: are actually using that tokenized economy. Got it. So, as
Speaker 1: a content creator, especially one that's been d platform, that
Speaker 1: could come over to that platform, start creating content and
Speaker 1: then somehow tap into add revenue or something from that
Speaker 1: treasury to get paid for the content that I'm creating. Exactly,
Speaker 1: ad revenue and direct funding. So you could say, for instance, hey,
Speaker 1: I here's some content I've created in the past. I
Speaker 1: want to create. Let's say, uh, I want to create
Speaker 1: a esodic series at details and I don't know whatever
Speaker 1: it might be. Um, you know, it could be something
Speaker 1: on us involvement in other countries and interfering in their elections.
Speaker 1: It could be a documentary, it could be short form videos.
Speaker 1: I want to just create a short form video explaining
Speaker 1: to people the Bill of Rights and how it works.
Speaker 1: Could be anything, right, What you would do is you
Speaker 1: create your proposal. You'd submitted to the community, and the
Speaker 1: community as a whole. That's why it's decentralized. Community as
Speaker 1: a whole will actually vote on proposals and say we
Speaker 1: like this one. That's you know, their funding seems reasonable.
Speaker 1: That's what they're asking for in order to do it. Um,
Speaker 1: this is what it's gonna take. This is their experience,
Speaker 1: will fund it and they make it happen. Great. So, UM,
Speaker 1: I look at the Internet as um. It decentralized information.
Speaker 1: Like you said before, like the newspapers and the nightly
Speaker 1: news was the gate keepers. But then, as you said,
Speaker 1: I've never heard that before. But basically the Internet tore
Speaker 1: the walls down, right, So information is everywhere, and you have, um,
Speaker 1: you know, somebody on a beach posting a picture on
Speaker 1: Instagram and now I know what the weather on the
Speaker 1: beach is like, right, So it's information is different today.
Speaker 1: And I look at the blockchain. Teckn oology is doing
Speaker 1: the same thing to value where value we just think
Speaker 1: value as money and it's consentually controlled by the bank
Speaker 1: central banks, but really values a lot more than just money.
Speaker 1: There's lots of things that are value valuable, um, And
Speaker 1: so one of those that I've been excited about is information.
Speaker 1: And so really the main thing that really drew me
Speaker 1: into bitcoin was censorship resistant. Obviously having censorship resistant money
Speaker 1: is a big piece of that, but what about censorship
Speaker 1: resistant information? Right? Well, and I think if you and
Speaker 1: I had had this conversation even two or three years ago,
Speaker 1: when the need was still there, it would have seemed
Speaker 1: more like a tinfoil hat conversation, right about creating censorship
Speaker 1: resistant information. People would say, you don't really need that.
Speaker 1: But I think we're living in a moment when when
Speaker 1: many more people can now say, yeah, we absolutely do
Speaker 1: need it, because what they recognize is the all out
Speaker 1: assaults on um information that does not fit a certain narrative.
Speaker 1: And and what's fascinating to me over the years is
Speaker 1: I find that there, uh, there's a lot of overlap.
Speaker 1: But there there are people within you know, groups of
Speaker 1: tens of millions who are in these different groups that
Speaker 1: have a belief system and they may think that one
Speaker 1: group is wrong about, you know, their belief in being
Speaker 1: anti war, but they believe in vaccines and and vaccine
Speaker 1: freedom excuse me, uh. And then there's another group who says, well,
Speaker 1: I don't want really talk about the vaccines too much,
Speaker 1: but I definitely think that our electoral process is broken
Speaker 1: and right. And so there's a lot of different overlap
Speaker 1: within these groups. And the one thing that many of
Speaker 1: them will have in common is they believe that people
Speaker 1: should have the right to speak, just to have the
Speaker 1: right to to to be able to share information at all. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the lies that we're being told right now,
Speaker 1: and this is you know, if you tell a lie
Speaker 1: over and over and over, eventually it becomes the truth.
Speaker 1: And one of the lies that were being told consistently
Speaker 1: by media and my politicians, uh, is that the biggest
Speaker 1: danger in our society is fake news or bad information,
Speaker 1: and so we we must have all stop bad information
Speaker 1: from being shared. But in reality, bad information has always
Speaker 1: been shared. It's always been a part of the discourse.
Speaker 1: You know, Untrue statements have always been a part of
Speaker 1: the discourse. Actually, with the Internet, we have a much
Speaker 1: better tool for being able to decipher what is true
Speaker 1: and what is not true than we ever did in
Speaker 1: the past. If you go back to again things that
Speaker 1: our government has told us over the years, and and
Speaker 1: the way that we've gotten into wars, for instance, in
Speaker 1: the past, go back even as recently in recent history
Speaker 1: as the two thousand three invasion of Iraq, how much
Speaker 1: bad information where we as the public fed from media,
Speaker 1: from politicians, and from the Bush administration about Iraq. Flash
Speaker 1: forward to two thousand twelve, two thousand thirteen, and when
Speaker 1: the Obama administration was attempting to do the same thing
Speaker 1: to go into Syria, the public as a whole was
Speaker 1: far more educated as to what they were saying and
Speaker 1: why it may not be true, and the fact that
Speaker 1: there were other counter narratives than they ever were in
Speaker 1: two thousand three. So the idea that the Internet is
Speaker 1: actually made us dumber, more susceptible to being deceived more quickly. Um,
Speaker 1: kind of having the will pulled over our eyes. I
Speaker 1: think it's an absolute lie. It's not it's not true,
Speaker 1: and it's not backed up by facts. Yeah, that's that's crazy.
Speaker 1: And and uh, you know, the thought that we need
Speaker 1: government to regulate. I guess what you would call morality
Speaker 1: right where it's like I have little kids, I see
Speaker 1: what happens at the playground at school, like they tell untruths,
Speaker 1: like they tell lies, like you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: and I have a good night school. They do the
Speaker 1: same thing. And in business and politicians, I mean it's
Speaker 1: lies are just part of it. And and the government
Speaker 1: wants to take this role where they're gonna legislate or
Speaker 1: you know, somehow regulate that um as opposed to maybe
Speaker 1: in school they could just teach critical thinking, right, right,
Speaker 1: which would be far more effective. Right, It's far more
Speaker 1: effective to know how to be a critical thinker than
Speaker 1: it is to be able to detect whether or not
Speaker 1: you're being lied to on this one occasion, whether this
Speaker 1: one lie is allowed to exist. And then and then
Speaker 1: the thing that you have, I guess what they want
Speaker 1: as a central body to determine what's true and what's not,
Speaker 1: which is where we're headed, which is where we're headed,
Speaker 1: which is really scary. So so back to that question, um,
Speaker 1: do you see the technology being used for censorship resistant
Speaker 1: information as well? Uh? Is that happening now or is
Speaker 1: that somewhere in the future it needs to happen. It's not.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's quite happening yet. So there are
Speaker 1: a couple of important thing functions that we see blockchain having,
Speaker 1: uh in the project that we're trying to launch, And
Speaker 1: one of the things is to create, number one, a
Speaker 1: system by which whistleblowers can actually anonymously blow the whistle,
Speaker 1: which is something that's actually gone away completely in our society,
Speaker 1: even though we have federal laws that have been created,
Speaker 1: a Federal whistle Blower Protection Act that was created specifically
Speaker 1: for the purpose of protecting whistleblowers. But when they end
Speaker 1: up dead, that all goes out the window, right or
Speaker 1: they go to prison anyways, right, you go when you
Speaker 1: share this information, and then all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: realize that under the Obama administration, we have more whistleblowers
Speaker 1: prosecuted than under every other president in history combined, and
Speaker 1: that has only continued under President Trump. It has not changed,
Speaker 1: uh in the in the time that he's been in office,
Speaker 1: and so we have seen an unprecedented crackdown on whistle blowing.
Speaker 1: UM blockchain actually creates an ability for people to anonymously
Speaker 1: be able to share that information and spread that information, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, we as the public of a right
Speaker 1: to We have a as the public. I don't care
Speaker 1: if you call it classified or unclass I don't care
Speaker 1: what you call it. If I am an American taxpayer,
Speaker 1: I have the right to know what my government is doing.
Speaker 1: I have that authority under the Constitution. The other thing
Speaker 1: is UM that this technology can do as well, is
Speaker 1: it can create a permanent record of a lot of information.
Speaker 1: So there is a lot of bad information that is
Speaker 1: presented by media on a regular basis. I know this
Speaker 1: as a journalist. There have been many times, and I'm
Speaker 1: all about being fact based the reports that I do.
Speaker 1: If if your people, um, your viewers will look for
Speaker 1: Ben Swan reality check online. We do a lot of
Speaker 1: segments called reality check, done them for years. UM. I've
Speaker 1: done them with Fox and CBS and then them independently.
Speaker 1: And if you watch that content, what you find is
Speaker 1: we are incredibly fact based. It's not about opinions or emotions.
Speaker 1: It's about let's go to the facts of what the
Speaker 1: facts say. And one thing I have found is that
Speaker 1: even having done that and and sourcing my information very precisely, Um,
Speaker 1: I am called a crazy person, right and a liar.
Speaker 1: And he's spreading this information. And you know, he claims
Speaker 1: that this has happened, and this has happened. I'll give
Speaker 1: you a quick example. So one of the things that
Speaker 1: I've shared is as I mentioned alluded to before about vaccines,
Speaker 1: is this idea that not all vaccines are safe for
Speaker 1: all people in all quantities, at all times. That is provable,
Speaker 1: that is scientically provable fact, no question, um, and and
Speaker 1: and HHS recognizes that we have a thing in this
Speaker 1: country called Vaccine Court. It was started in and it
Speaker 1: allows for it bans essentially people from suing vaccine makers,
Speaker 1: but it allows for a process by which a vaccine
Speaker 1: court will look at vaccine injuries and then compensate families
Speaker 1: of children who have been injured by vaccines. And that
Speaker 1: program has paid out something like four billion dollars since
Speaker 1: it was created. If if no vaccines have harmed anyone
Speaker 1: ever then that four billion dollars was either stolen or
Speaker 1: wrongfully given out by HHS. The reason it's important is
Speaker 1: because if you say that as as I have as
Speaker 1: a journalist, there are others who will come along and say, no,
Speaker 1: he's lying, it's not true, he's denying vaccines. But they
Speaker 1: try to smear you with all these things, and it's
Speaker 1: very difficult to find that information if you as a
Speaker 1: parent or you as a viewer saying I want to
Speaker 1: know what's true, and somebody tell me what's actually true,
Speaker 1: especially right now with the Internet set up the way
Speaker 1: that it is with Google, who does, by the way,
Speaker 1: hide search results, who does bury search results? Who does
Speaker 1: create a system by which they flag certain subjects and
Speaker 1: hide them where you don't find them. There needs to
Speaker 1: be a system that's created that creates a permanent record
Speaker 1: of a lot of these kinds of pieces of information
Speaker 1: so that they are readily accessible. They are permanent um
Speaker 1: and they are not tampered with, so that the public
Speaker 1: can have access to them and find them. Because we
Speaker 1: need a public that can debate and can critically think,
Speaker 1: and you're not going to get that without good information. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm That's what I'm excited about. I know,
Speaker 1: you know, there's the stuff that my kids. The history
Speaker 1: that my kids are learning is different than the history
Speaker 1: that I learned when I was a kid, right, like
Speaker 1: the books are being rewritten, and so to have that
Speaker 1: immutable censorship information is good. And you know, unfortunately you
Speaker 1: have to be ready for the good and the bad because, um,
Speaker 1: it either is or it isn't immutable, and so you're
Speaker 1: gonna get good and bad. But maybe that's just okay.
Speaker 1: We we should have the right to just tune out
Speaker 1: to stuff we don't like. I guess. Um, So I
Speaker 1: know you were using a platform called D two for
Speaker 1: a while. Are you still using that? So we have
Speaker 1: not been using it lately? Um? I have. I think
Speaker 1: it's a great platform, no problem with it. Um. It's
Speaker 1: different than the the platform that we're building in that
Speaker 1: it emulates YouTube very closely, and what we're creating really doesn't.
Speaker 1: What we're creating is more like a Netflix meets YouTube
Speaker 1: meets a Treasury system. Your will your platform be censorship resistant?
Speaker 1: For absolutely as well? Absolutely it will be, UM, and
Speaker 1: we will have some very very basic terms of use.
Speaker 1: But what we're not going to do is be the
Speaker 1: group that stands over you and says, you know, can't
Speaker 1: you can't say things that other people deem is hateful.
Speaker 1: And I know that's difficult to say because we live
Speaker 1: in a time when you're immediately attacked for that. Right. Oh,
Speaker 1: you you're encouraging violence, you're encouraging hate speech. That that
Speaker 1: those are all lies, those are all um concepts that
Speaker 1: are being manufactured right now to say, anyone who says
Speaker 1: anything that we disagree with is considered hate speech, and
Speaker 1: so it's all being lumped together. And what you do
Speaker 1: if when you were strategically doing that is you go
Speaker 1: and you find the most um extreme example possible and
Speaker 1: you say, well, no one would agree with this, right,
Speaker 1: we don't want to agree with this, And you say,
Speaker 1: of course I don't want to agree with that. That's
Speaker 1: that's crazy. Good. Well, then you agree with us that
Speaker 1: we need censorship. No, we agree that that the most
Speaker 1: out landish things that call for violence against other people, um,
Speaker 1: that call for um um the death of other people,
Speaker 1: injury to other people. You know, I'm very libertarian. I
Speaker 1: believe in those two major principles. Do not hurt people,
Speaker 1: do not take their stuff, right, I believe in those
Speaker 1: two things. However, I also believe that people have the
Speaker 1: right to speak, and and even if I disagree with them,
Speaker 1: in fact, I encourage people I disagree with to speak.
Speaker 1: Listening to someone else is the only way that you're
Speaker 1: going to be able to get them to listen to you,
Speaker 1: and having dialogue is the only way you actually change
Speaker 1: people's minds. This concept that we're going to take people
Speaker 1: who are on the fringes of society, who are the
Speaker 1: most lost right now in terms of their their worldview,
Speaker 1: that we're going to fix that by suppressing them. Don't
Speaker 1: hear from them, pretend they don't exist. It never goes away.
Speaker 1: There's no time in history that has ever cured anything.
Speaker 1: The thing that changes people is to speak and to
Speaker 1: have dialogue, and to help people to see that maybe
Speaker 1: these thoughts I'm having don't make sense, and maybe it
Speaker 1: does make sense to go a different way. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: cast Suenstein's book Why Societies Need Dissent he wrote in
Speaker 1: two thousan three, which is interesting. He wrote a book
Speaker 1: in nineteen three called Democracy and the Problem of Free
Speaker 1: Speech where he thought we didn't need free speech. Then
Speaker 1: he wrote a book in two thousand three said why
Speaker 1: societies do need it, and he actually said he concluded
Speaker 1: he's a he's a University of Chicago law professor, which
Speaker 1: I'm not a big fan of his, but interesting that
Speaker 1: he said this where basically he says that the suppression
Speaker 1: of of speech is actually what causes this terrorism and
Speaker 1: things to come out because these they're being silenced and
Speaker 1: it's being suppressed as opposed to allowing it to come
Speaker 1: out and kind of have that truly free society prohibits
Speaker 1: censorship enables free expression to occur. So he kind of
Speaker 1: came to that conclusion, which was interesting. So, um, I
Speaker 1: guess to recap this disruption, uh, I guess media information
Speaker 1: had kind of relatively remained unchanged up until the Internet days.
Speaker 1: The Internet changed it, as you said, toward the gates down.
Speaker 1: Now a sudden there's knee jerk reaction to like pull
Speaker 1: back control, which they're doing pretty good right now, the
Speaker 1: platform and everybody wrapping everything up. But now we have
Speaker 1: a new technology that is about to change it again. Right,
Speaker 1: So that's kind of where we're at. Yeah, absolutely, I
Speaker 1: think we do. And I think the question, you know,
Speaker 1: it goes back to what you had said before about Um,
Speaker 1: you know these big companies and what do you do
Speaker 1: with them? Well, the thing you do is you just
Speaker 1: create an alternative to them, UM, and you create a
Speaker 1: better alternative. Right, It's not just like, oh, we're gonna
Speaker 1: copy what they're doing. Let's create something that's better. Let's
Speaker 1: create something that that others haven't created before, UM, and
Speaker 1: let's create something that actually has value, not necessarily monetary value,
Speaker 1: but it has value to society, it has value to people.
Speaker 1: And so that's what we're doing. And and if people
Speaker 1: want to learn more about the project that we're doing,
Speaker 1: it's the name is a little complicated. It's ice Agoria
Speaker 1: dot com. I Sgori is actually a Greek word. It
Speaker 1: means equality in the right to speak. It's one of
Speaker 1: the oldest words um in language dealing with democracy. It
Speaker 1: goes back to the ancient Greeks for sure, where ice
Speaker 1: i s e media. But if you go to isagoria
Speaker 1: dot com, you can read all about the project and
Speaker 1: what we're putting together, the team we're putting together, what
Speaker 1: we're trying to do. But I think the main thing
Speaker 1: that we want is to help create a society UM
Speaker 1: that better represents what our founders tried to create a
Speaker 1: place where it's not a perfect society, but certainly a
Speaker 1: place where debate is fostered and not crushed or dissent
Speaker 1: um is allowed, because it makes all of us better.
Speaker 1: It makes those who are in power more accountable. It
Speaker 1: makes those who have the ability to to foster change,
Speaker 1: it gives them the ability to foster that change. And
Speaker 1: I think that all of that can happen UM with
Speaker 1: a more open dialogue, which we're fast losing in this country. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's awesome and I love it and I'm supporting it. UM.
Speaker 1: So where you mentioned the website, I'll link to that
Speaker 1: in the show notes. Where else can people keep up
Speaker 1: with you? Um for more on this? So after all
Speaker 1: this conversation, I'm on Facebook. You can find me on Facebook,
Speaker 1: so just search Ben Swan or Ben Swan Reality check, Twitter,
Speaker 1: Instagram on those as well. It's at bin swan Underscore YouTube.
Speaker 1: And then we have a website which we haven't been
Speaker 1: doing a whole lot with lately, but we're gonna get
Speaker 1: it back up and running truth and Media dot com.
Speaker 1: We had a lot of archives on there of content
Speaker 1: we've done in the past, and it gives people on
Speaker 1: idea of the kinds of stuff that we do. Great,
Speaker 1: all right, I'll link to all that in the show notes,
Speaker 1: and uh, everybody should check it out. And uh, like
Speaker 1: you said, even if you don't agree with the speech,
Speaker 1: you should support the right and the freedom to have
Speaker 1: that speech. So that's it. I hope you guys enjoyed. Hey,
Speaker 1: if you like this episode of the Market Disruptors Podcast,
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