1
00:00:03,120 --> 00:00:11,080
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.

2
00:00:14,200 --> 00:00:17,120
Speaker 2: Well, Elon Musk is now the richest person on the planet.

3
00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:20,320
Speaker 3: More than half the satellites in space are owned and

4
00:00:20,400 --> 00:00:24,599
Speaker 3: controlled by one man. Well, he's a legitimate super genius.

5
00:00:24,800 --> 00:00:25,759
Speaker 3: I mean legitimate.

6
00:00:25,920 --> 00:00:28,600
Speaker 4: He says he's always voted for Democrats, but this year

7
00:00:28,640 --> 00:00:29,360
Speaker 4: it will be different.

8
00:00:29,400 --> 00:00:30,360
Speaker 1: He'll vote Republican.

9
00:00:30,640 --> 00:00:33,120
Speaker 5: There is a reason the US government is so reliant

10
00:00:33,159 --> 00:00:33,520
Speaker 5: on him.

11
00:00:33,720 --> 00:00:36,720
Speaker 2: Alon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing.

12
00:00:37,960 --> 00:00:40,680
Speaker 1: Anything he does, he's fascinating people.

13
00:00:50,440 --> 00:00:54,480
Speaker 5: Welcome to Elon, Inc. Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk.

14
00:00:54,760 --> 00:00:58,600
Speaker 5: It's April second, twenty twenty four. I'm your host, David

15
00:00:58,600 --> 00:01:03,400
Speaker 5: Papadopolis Bright and early this morning, Tesla released their first

16
00:01:03,480 --> 00:01:08,080
Speaker 5: quarter delivery and production report and it was disappointing, so

17
00:01:08,280 --> 00:01:11,839
Speaker 5: disappointing that Tesla scher sank seven percent in a matter

18
00:01:11,880 --> 00:01:15,080
Speaker 5: of minutes. But if you're an X user and you

19
00:01:15,200 --> 00:01:18,640
Speaker 5: opened X to follow that news this morning, odds are

20
00:01:18,680 --> 00:01:21,240
Speaker 5: that you saw a little bit of Tesla news and

21
00:01:21,280 --> 00:01:24,400
Speaker 5: a whole lot of something else. The site is a

22
00:01:24,720 --> 00:01:28,800
Speaker 5: wash in spamy ads for adult content and actual pornography.

23
00:01:29,480 --> 00:01:32,600
Speaker 5: What's going on here is this part of Musk's vision

24
00:01:32,680 --> 00:01:35,600
Speaker 5: for free speech. We'll get into all of this X

25
00:01:35,720 --> 00:01:38,760
Speaker 5: rated stuff on X what's happening and what it means

26
00:01:38,800 --> 00:01:42,039
Speaker 5: for the one time global public square. We'll turn to

27
00:01:42,080 --> 00:01:47,160
Speaker 5: our editor extraordinary Raihan Harmansi and a special guest, John Herman,

28
00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:51,520
Speaker 5: who covers technology for New York Magazine, to dig into

29
00:01:51,520 --> 00:01:53,960
Speaker 5: the Tesla numbers. First that we have Dana Hall, who

30
00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:58,040
Speaker 5: covers all things Elon Musk for US. Hello, Dana Hey.

31
00:01:58,680 --> 00:02:01,400
Speaker 5: And we have Max Chapkin here in the studio, Max

32
00:02:01,520 --> 00:02:06,040
Speaker 5: senior reporter at Business Week. Maxilo Happy Tesla Deliveries Day,

33
00:02:06,120 --> 00:02:09,200
Speaker 5: David Happy Tesla Deliveries Day to you. Although it was

34
00:02:09,280 --> 00:02:14,560
Speaker 5: not Dana Hall very happy for Tesla shareholders, the numbers

35
00:02:14,680 --> 00:02:19,960
Speaker 5: were grimy. The company missed Wall Street estimates by a

36
00:02:19,960 --> 00:02:23,320
Speaker 5: fair amount, delivering something like three hundred and eighty thousand,

37
00:02:23,400 --> 00:02:26,000
Speaker 5: I believe, which was about sixty thousand blow estimates, and

38
00:02:26,040 --> 00:02:30,680
Speaker 5: it also represented a decline from deliveries of Tesla's a

39
00:02:30,800 --> 00:02:32,880
Speaker 5: year ago. What happened here?

40
00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:36,920
Speaker 6: Yeah, this was very ugly. I mean there's no there's

41
00:02:36,960 --> 00:02:39,840
Speaker 6: no two ways about it. This was like a horrible, terrible,

42
00:02:39,960 --> 00:02:43,639
Speaker 6: no good, very bad start to the year. And yeah,

43
00:02:43,639 --> 00:02:47,240
Speaker 6: they delivered three hundred and eighty seven thousand vehicles, which

44
00:02:47,280 --> 00:02:50,280
Speaker 6: is like an eight point five percent drop from the

45
00:02:50,360 --> 00:02:52,800
Speaker 6: number of cars that they delivered in the first quarter

46
00:02:52,919 --> 00:02:56,560
Speaker 6: a year ago. And so basically Tesla has a demand problem.

47
00:02:56,600 --> 00:02:59,200
Speaker 6: Like you can blame interest rates or you know, the

48
00:02:59,240 --> 00:03:03,320
Speaker 6: company talked about diversions caused by the Red Sea conflict

49
00:03:03,360 --> 00:03:07,280
Speaker 6: and the arson attacked at the gigafactory in Berlin, but fundamentally,

50
00:03:07,360 --> 00:03:10,960
Speaker 6: like it's it's about demand, like Tesla has an aging lineup,

51
00:03:11,400 --> 00:03:14,519
Speaker 6: and yes, like the macro environment for buying a big

52
00:03:14,560 --> 00:03:18,480
Speaker 6: purchase like a car is lousy, but like Tesla is

53
00:03:18,560 --> 00:03:21,040
Speaker 6: running out of excuses. They have an aging lineup and

54
00:03:21,160 --> 00:03:24,560
Speaker 6: people are sitting on the sidelines. And as Max and

55
00:03:24,560 --> 00:03:29,639
Speaker 6: I have talked a lot together, Elon Musk's behavior is polarizing.

56
00:03:29,840 --> 00:03:33,200
Speaker 6: Most people don't like that, and like I'm not you know,

57
00:03:33,240 --> 00:03:35,800
Speaker 6: we don't have like quantifiable data to show how many

58
00:03:35,840 --> 00:03:38,320
Speaker 6: consumers are not buying Tesla's because they don't like the

59
00:03:38,360 --> 00:03:41,240
Speaker 6: fact that Elon is very political on the platform that

60
00:03:41,280 --> 00:03:44,640
Speaker 6: he owns. But it's it's like it's not something that

61
00:03:44,680 --> 00:03:45,720
Speaker 6: you can brush aside.

62
00:03:45,760 --> 00:03:48,200
Speaker 5: And to that point, Max, I mean it is indeed,

63
00:03:48,200 --> 00:03:50,680
Speaker 5: as Dana said, something we've been over before. But I

64
00:03:50,720 --> 00:03:53,600
Speaker 5: think with the result like this, it's, you know, it's

65
00:03:53,640 --> 00:03:56,960
Speaker 5: becoming more and more acute and louder and louder that

66
00:03:57,160 --> 00:03:59,960
Speaker 5: it is just an enormous problem having a CEO for

67
00:04:00,080 --> 00:04:01,720
Speaker 5: as brilliant as he may be, and all the things

68
00:04:01,800 --> 00:04:04,240
Speaker 5: he may have done for Tesla, whose worldview is so

69
00:04:04,440 --> 00:04:06,760
Speaker 5: misaligned with that of his customer base.

70
00:04:06,960 --> 00:04:09,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's almost like if you spend eighteen

71
00:04:09,280 --> 00:04:16,520
Speaker 2: months embracing like a extremely niche, extremely polarizing, borderline racist ideology,

72
00:04:16,520 --> 00:04:18,760
Speaker 2: you're gonna turn some people off. I mean, like there's

73
00:04:18,800 --> 00:04:21,880
Speaker 2: a reason like car companies, like when they advertise cars

74
00:04:21,880 --> 00:04:28,800
Speaker 2: tend to embrace pretty like classic tropes, apple pies, American flags.

75
00:04:28,960 --> 00:04:33,400
Speaker 2: They don't necessarily lead with cat turd and like freaky

76
00:04:33,520 --> 00:04:36,200
Speaker 2: videos from the border. And that's of course what Elon

77
00:04:36,279 --> 00:04:38,800
Speaker 2: Musk has done. And again, as Dana says, like, we

78
00:04:38,839 --> 00:04:41,280
Speaker 2: don't know for sure how much of this is Elon's behavior,

79
00:04:41,320 --> 00:04:43,880
Speaker 2: how much of this is sort of macro environment stuff.

80
00:04:44,160 --> 00:04:46,440
Speaker 2: And then there's this third factor, which is that evs

81
00:04:46,680 --> 00:04:49,800
Speaker 2: are just not setting the world on fire quite like

82
00:04:49,839 --> 00:04:52,080
Speaker 2: they once did in terms of growth right, Like, they've

83
00:04:52,360 --> 00:04:55,080
Speaker 2: a lot of people have adopted electric vehicles, and we

84
00:04:55,080 --> 00:04:58,760
Speaker 2: should say, like selling three hundred something electric cars in

85
00:04:58,800 --> 00:05:01,920
Speaker 2: a quarter, that is achievement in some sense, but it's

86
00:05:02,040 --> 00:05:04,440
Speaker 2: just not moving in the direction that Elon Musk needs

87
00:05:04,480 --> 00:05:05,960
Speaker 2: it to be for this company to grow.

88
00:05:06,040 --> 00:05:07,160
Speaker 7: It's shrinking.

89
00:05:07,200 --> 00:05:10,400
Speaker 5: In fact, Hey, Dan, you had actually seen early this

90
00:05:10,440 --> 00:05:13,560
Speaker 5: morning a tweet that you thought was spot on on

91
00:05:14,440 --> 00:05:15,000
Speaker 5: this topic.

92
00:05:15,440 --> 00:05:18,640
Speaker 6: So Ross Gerber, who's like a long time former teslable,

93
00:05:18,839 --> 00:05:23,680
Speaker 6: lives in Santa Monica, California, guy tweeted this morning basically,

94
00:05:23,720 --> 00:05:26,960
Speaker 6: Tesla can't sell its cars due to Elon's behavior. Let's

95
00:05:26,960 --> 00:05:30,600
Speaker 6: stop blaming the Houthi rebels or German environmental terrorists or

96
00:05:30,640 --> 00:05:33,640
Speaker 6: a recession that never came or interest rates. Only one

97
00:05:33,680 --> 00:05:35,120
Speaker 6: person responsible for this.

98
00:05:35,880 --> 00:05:38,080
Speaker 7: You know, and this guy, Ross Gerber, I mean, for

99
00:05:38,279 --> 00:05:41,720
Speaker 7: years was like the most reliable testlable. He basically would

100
00:05:41,760 --> 00:05:45,960
Speaker 7: cheer on anything they did with extreme enthusiasm. And I

101
00:05:45,960 --> 00:05:49,560
Speaker 7: guess it's a credit to his intellectual honesty that he's come,

102
00:05:49,800 --> 00:05:51,520
Speaker 7: you know, he's basically gone one to eighty on this.

103
00:05:51,600 --> 00:05:55,800
Speaker 7: But I think it's also sort of Gerber like many

104
00:05:55,839 --> 00:06:00,560
Speaker 7: people really bought into the ev story the environmentalist story. Uh,

105
00:06:00,720 --> 00:06:03,520
Speaker 7: he is not on board for the crazy right wing signaling.

106
00:06:03,839 --> 00:06:06,520
Speaker 7: And I think there are a lot of Tesla investors

107
00:06:06,560 --> 00:06:08,520
Speaker 7: like that, and frankly, like a lot of car buyers

108
00:06:08,560 --> 00:06:11,120
Speaker 7: like that. It's probably the majority of car buyers are

109
00:06:11,240 --> 00:06:13,680
Speaker 7: just even if they're conservative, even if they vote Republican,

110
00:06:14,120 --> 00:06:18,000
Speaker 7: are not super into like Elon's tweeting.

111
00:06:18,040 --> 00:06:21,600
Speaker 5: Dennat to that point. Is this merely a window into

112
00:06:21,640 --> 00:06:27,240
Speaker 5: the broader EV market woes or is a fair amount

113
00:06:27,279 --> 00:06:30,520
Speaker 5: of this problem in addition to those broader woes a

114
00:06:30,720 --> 00:06:33,000
Speaker 5: Tesla and Elon problem right now?

115
00:06:34,440 --> 00:06:36,719
Speaker 6: Well, you know, the long arc is that like the

116
00:06:36,760 --> 00:06:40,440
Speaker 6: world is still moving towards electrification, so like that trend

117
00:06:40,560 --> 00:06:44,000
Speaker 6: is not going away, but the like rapid double digit

118
00:06:44,160 --> 00:06:47,640
Speaker 6: year over year growth that like investors had become expected

119
00:06:47,680 --> 00:06:50,640
Speaker 6: to is no longer happening. And Tesla as the market

120
00:06:50,720 --> 00:06:53,120
Speaker 6: leader here in the US, is going to be like

121
00:06:53,160 --> 00:06:55,080
Speaker 6: the Canary and the Cold Mine in terms of that.

122
00:06:55,160 --> 00:06:57,400
Speaker 6: So you've already seen like a lot of other automakers

123
00:06:57,480 --> 00:07:00,560
Speaker 6: like pull back on their plans, Like people are now

124
00:07:00,600 --> 00:07:04,479
Speaker 6: talking a lot about hybrids. Tesla only makes evs and

125
00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:08,560
Speaker 6: like to have this kind of slump in sales after

126
00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:12,160
Speaker 6: a quarter where they did all this stuff like free supercharging,

127
00:07:12,360 --> 00:07:17,000
Speaker 6: thousand dollars discounts, like you know, like advertising, like all

128
00:07:17,040 --> 00:07:19,840
Speaker 6: these executives besides Elon like talking up the car and

129
00:07:19,880 --> 00:07:22,840
Speaker 6: doing all this consumer education. I think they really have

130
00:07:22,880 --> 00:07:24,600
Speaker 6: to kind of look at their strategy. You know, for

131
00:07:24,640 --> 00:07:27,120
Speaker 6: so many years Elon was like, we don't have a

132
00:07:27,160 --> 00:07:30,160
Speaker 6: demand problem, we have a production problem. Now they actually

133
00:07:30,200 --> 00:07:31,600
Speaker 6: kind of have to reckon with the fact that they

134
00:07:31,600 --> 00:07:34,880
Speaker 6: have a demand problem. And they've said very clearly to

135
00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:39,280
Speaker 6: investors that they're in between two growth waves. So until

136
00:07:39,320 --> 00:07:42,240
Speaker 6: they get that next wave of growth ready, which is

137
00:07:42,280 --> 00:07:44,360
Speaker 6: the next car, Like, what are they.

138
00:07:44,280 --> 00:07:44,640
Speaker 7: Going to do?

139
00:07:44,840 --> 00:07:46,560
Speaker 6: And I mean, the other thing that I really noticed

140
00:07:46,560 --> 00:07:49,680
Speaker 6: about this this press release was they don't break out

141
00:07:49,760 --> 00:07:51,840
Speaker 6: sales of the cyber truck. And I know, David that

142
00:07:51,880 --> 00:07:53,920
Speaker 6: you were very excited about the cyber truck, but they're

143
00:07:53,960 --> 00:07:57,000
Speaker 6: not even telling us how many cyber trucks they made,

144
00:07:57,120 --> 00:07:58,600
Speaker 6: much less delivered.

145
00:07:58,320 --> 00:08:01,000
Speaker 5: Which probably means that the number is somewhere between like

146
00:08:01,080 --> 00:08:02,840
Speaker 5: twenty and fifty I suppose.

147
00:08:03,120 --> 00:08:05,680
Speaker 6: Well, the other thing that's super interesting about Tesla's release

148
00:08:05,720 --> 00:08:07,920
Speaker 6: today is for the first time they talked about energy

149
00:08:07,920 --> 00:08:11,400
Speaker 6: storage which is you know, Tesla sells these big batteries

150
00:08:11,440 --> 00:08:15,120
Speaker 6: to utility companies like PG and E, and they deployed

151
00:08:15,240 --> 00:08:18,000
Speaker 6: you know, over four thousand megawat hours of energy storage

152
00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:21,200
Speaker 6: products in Q one, the highest quarterly deployment yet. So

153
00:08:21,400 --> 00:08:24,160
Speaker 6: what I predict is that as the car business kind

154
00:08:24,160 --> 00:08:27,520
Speaker 6: of stuck in this trough, you're going to see Tesla

155
00:08:27,760 --> 00:08:30,280
Speaker 6: really start talking about the energy side of their business,

156
00:08:30,400 --> 00:08:32,120
Speaker 6: and that is where the growth is going to come

157
00:08:32,240 --> 00:08:34,680
Speaker 6: for the next year or two, because they're not going

158
00:08:34,760 --> 00:08:36,600
Speaker 6: to really have much growth on the car side.

159
00:08:36,760 --> 00:08:39,000
Speaker 2: I will say, you know this on this question of

160
00:08:39,360 --> 00:08:42,000
Speaker 2: is it a growth stock without growth, The way it

161
00:08:42,040 --> 00:08:45,480
Speaker 2: becomes a growth stock is the full self driving thing.

162
00:08:45,720 --> 00:08:47,360
Speaker 7: And I think you know so much of that.

163
00:08:47,440 --> 00:08:50,400
Speaker 2: The valuation the sort of like it's worth ten times

164
00:08:50,480 --> 00:08:52,920
Speaker 2: what other car companies are worth based on the number

165
00:08:52,920 --> 00:08:55,480
Speaker 2: of cars they've sold. The reason for that is because

166
00:08:56,240 --> 00:08:58,920
Speaker 2: investors and even a lot of analysts have bought the

167
00:08:58,960 --> 00:09:02,280
Speaker 2: story that Elon Musk has been selling about Tesla as

168
00:09:02,600 --> 00:09:05,040
Speaker 2: not a car company as much as an AI company,

169
00:09:05,080 --> 00:09:08,160
Speaker 2: as a as a basically essentially a Silicon Valley company

170
00:09:08,200 --> 00:09:10,120
Speaker 2: that only looks like a car company. And I think

171
00:09:10,120 --> 00:09:12,719
Speaker 2: that's why we saw. You know, Dana made a very

172
00:09:13,040 --> 00:09:15,640
Speaker 2: prescient comment last week. We were talking about this for

173
00:09:15,800 --> 00:09:19,080
Speaker 2: you felt full self driving thing, and and Dana said,

174
00:09:19,080 --> 00:09:20,560
Speaker 2: this is a good thing to say if you're about

175
00:09:20,559 --> 00:09:24,240
Speaker 2: to have a terrible quarter, because right, in some sense,

176
00:09:24,480 --> 00:09:27,320
Speaker 2: if you believe the full self driving story, which I think,

177
00:09:27,400 --> 00:09:29,880
Speaker 2: as we've talked about in this podcast, lots of reasons

178
00:09:29,880 --> 00:09:31,440
Speaker 2: to be skeptical of that story. You know, they've been

179
00:09:31,440 --> 00:09:33,040
Speaker 2: talking about it for a bit basically a decade and

180
00:09:33,559 --> 00:09:37,800
Speaker 2: haven't made a ton of like you know, verifiable progress.

181
00:09:38,320 --> 00:09:41,240
Speaker 2: If you believe the story, nonetheless, then these results don't

182
00:09:41,240 --> 00:09:43,640
Speaker 2: matter that much because in the future, the robotaxties are

183
00:09:43,679 --> 00:09:46,040
Speaker 2: gonna come and it's going to change everything. And I

184
00:09:46,040 --> 00:09:47,440
Speaker 2: think that's why we see if you look at Elon

185
00:09:47,520 --> 00:09:50,200
Speaker 2: Musk's Twitter page right now, the pin tweet, which is

186
00:09:50,240 --> 00:09:52,920
Speaker 2: like the thing that you first see is saying that

187
00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:55,640
Speaker 2: you know, full self driving is better than anybody realizes.

188
00:09:55,679 --> 00:09:58,040
Speaker 2: It's so freaking good. And so I think we're going

189
00:09:58,120 --> 00:10:01,000
Speaker 2: to see over the next few months that's going to

190
00:10:01,080 --> 00:10:03,560
Speaker 2: be the story they go with, selling what's the calm,

191
00:10:03,600 --> 00:10:06,160
Speaker 2: what's the In certain ways, it's the only story they

192
00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:06,760
Speaker 2: have to go with.

193
00:10:07,200 --> 00:10:09,880
Speaker 5: I will just say this, Dana, though, there's one group

194
00:10:09,960 --> 00:10:13,040
Speaker 5: out there in the in the Tesla investing universe that

195
00:10:13,160 --> 00:10:16,640
Speaker 5: is thrilled, which is the short sellers, the group that

196
00:10:16,800 --> 00:10:20,320
Speaker 5: Elon Musk hates, the people who have bet against Tesla stock.

197
00:10:20,360 --> 00:10:22,440
Speaker 5: I saw a report the other day that said they

198
00:10:22,480 --> 00:10:25,200
Speaker 5: are up billions and billions of dollars this year. So

199
00:10:25,280 --> 00:10:33,120
Speaker 5: at least someone out there apparently is raking it in. Okay,

200
00:10:33,360 --> 00:10:35,720
Speaker 5: So Max and I are now joined in the studio

201
00:10:35,840 --> 00:10:39,680
Speaker 5: by our very own Rayhan HARMANCI, senior editor of the

202
00:10:39,720 --> 00:10:43,600
Speaker 5: podcast He Love. They're Rayhan. Hello, and we brought in

203
00:10:43,679 --> 00:10:47,040
Speaker 5: John Herman, who just wrote a piece on X's X

204
00:10:47,160 --> 00:10:48,880
Speaker 5: Rated problem for New York Magazine.

205
00:10:49,160 --> 00:10:50,600
Speaker 3: Hey John, thanks for having me on.

206
00:10:51,440 --> 00:10:55,320
Speaker 5: Thank you for being here. Okay, So, Rayhan, we're gonna

207
00:10:55,320 --> 00:10:57,920
Speaker 5: start with you. Give us a little bit of the

208
00:10:59,120 --> 00:11:03,719
Speaker 5: long arc of Twitter and X and pornography.

209
00:11:04,040 --> 00:11:04,640
Speaker 1: Oh Man.

210
00:11:05,240 --> 00:11:08,079
Speaker 8: Well, in a previous life, I was a tech culture

211
00:11:08,120 --> 00:11:12,160
Speaker 8: reporter at BuzzFeed, actually with John, and this is like

212
00:11:12,200 --> 00:11:14,600
Speaker 8: twenty twelve. Twitter was only a few years old, and

213
00:11:14,679 --> 00:11:17,920
Speaker 8: even then porn was a huge issue. Porn is always

214
00:11:17,920 --> 00:11:22,319
Speaker 8: an issue, and every time there's an opportunity for users

215
00:11:22,360 --> 00:11:23,200
Speaker 8: to upload things.

216
00:11:23,679 --> 00:11:25,880
Speaker 1: People are going to upload sexual content.

217
00:11:26,120 --> 00:11:29,760
Speaker 8: Twitter has had long had a reputation as being maybe

218
00:11:29,840 --> 00:11:33,719
Speaker 8: let's say, more open to porn than other social networks.

219
00:11:33,800 --> 00:11:38,439
Speaker 8: Albeit they employed content moderation teams and you know, did

220
00:11:38,440 --> 00:11:42,440
Speaker 8: their best to eradicate offensive material. But over time there's

221
00:11:42,440 --> 00:11:45,440
Speaker 8: been a lot of funny, little mini scandals, like people

222
00:11:45,520 --> 00:11:49,440
Speaker 8: might remember that in twenty seventeen, the Senator Ted Cruz

223
00:11:49,760 --> 00:11:52,960
Speaker 8: liked a bit of sexual content that spawned a lot

224
00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:55,800
Speaker 8: of jokes. And then in twenty eighteen, the actor de Norris,

225
00:11:55,800 --> 00:11:57,520
Speaker 8: known for breaking bad, he actually.

226
00:11:57,240 --> 00:11:59,280
Speaker 1: Just tweeted the words sex gift.

227
00:11:59,679 --> 00:12:03,680
Speaker 8: So this has been happening, but it's worth noting that

228
00:12:04,080 --> 00:12:07,880
Speaker 8: this issue has not been helped by elon cutting content

229
00:12:07,960 --> 00:12:13,319
Speaker 8: moderation teams in general at Twitter. And you know, there's

230
00:12:13,440 --> 00:12:16,679
Speaker 8: like a lot of really awful and criminal types of

231
00:12:16,720 --> 00:12:21,319
Speaker 8: pornography that are also on the platform and that make

232
00:12:21,400 --> 00:12:23,960
Speaker 8: content moderation you know, illegal necessity.

233
00:12:24,480 --> 00:12:26,520
Speaker 5: So the other day, I believe you told me that

234
00:12:26,800 --> 00:12:30,800
Speaker 5: you have a friend of yours who said, you know, Rayhon,

235
00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:35,119
Speaker 5: actually I go to X specifically for poor.

236
00:12:35,240 --> 00:12:37,880
Speaker 8: Yeah, I was really fascinated by this. I have a

237
00:12:37,880 --> 00:12:42,280
Speaker 8: friend who only uses X for porn. He made an

238
00:12:42,320 --> 00:12:46,800
Speaker 8: account simply to look at porn. And when I was

239
00:12:46,840 --> 00:12:49,319
Speaker 8: like looking up older stories about Twitter and porn, I

240
00:12:49,400 --> 00:12:52,200
Speaker 8: found some stories from like I don't want to say's

241
00:12:52,200 --> 00:12:55,600
Speaker 8: like twenty seventeen where like hopping to posts interviewed sex

242
00:12:55,679 --> 00:12:57,920
Speaker 8: therapists about why people.

243
00:12:57,640 --> 00:12:59,200
Speaker 1: Are going on Twitter for porn.

244
00:12:59,240 --> 00:13:01,880
Speaker 8: So clearly this is a long standing practice for some people,

245
00:13:01,920 --> 00:13:04,800
Speaker 8: and I think that at least the stories I read

246
00:13:04,840 --> 00:13:08,840
Speaker 8: were suggesting that you can search for porn on X

247
00:13:09,559 --> 00:13:12,600
Speaker 8: in a way that makes it less obvious you're looking

248
00:13:12,679 --> 00:13:15,760
Speaker 8: for porn as opposed to going straight to pornhub or

249
00:13:15,880 --> 00:13:16,719
Speaker 8: porn website.

250
00:13:16,800 --> 00:13:20,520
Speaker 1: So maybe for some people that has appeal. There was a.

251
00:13:20,440 --> 00:13:25,160
Speaker 8: Recent number that came out showing that X had experienced

252
00:13:25,160 --> 00:13:28,680
Speaker 8: a growth in users who are like younger men in

253
00:13:28,720 --> 00:13:32,960
Speaker 8: their like late teens, early twenties, So maybe there I

254
00:13:32,960 --> 00:13:36,720
Speaker 8: don't know, there's there's fewer content moderation. Speech is getting

255
00:13:36,760 --> 00:13:39,720
Speaker 8: freer and freer every day on X. You know, maybe

256
00:13:39,760 --> 00:13:41,200
Speaker 8: people are noticing and looking at you more.

257
00:13:41,559 --> 00:13:45,880
Speaker 5: This friend is not Ted Cruz. So John, what in

258
00:13:46,120 --> 00:13:49,320
Speaker 5: general are you saying in your reporting on the proliferation

259
00:13:49,559 --> 00:13:50,760
Speaker 5: of pornography on X?

260
00:13:51,120 --> 00:13:54,440
Speaker 3: Well, the existence of porn that people are like looking

261
00:13:54,480 --> 00:13:58,120
Speaker 3: for on purpose is kind of the crucial context here,

262
00:13:58,640 --> 00:14:00,880
Speaker 3: Like Rayham was saying, Twitter has been a kind of

263
00:14:00,920 --> 00:14:03,400
Speaker 3: a porn friendly site for a long time. It's a

264
00:14:03,440 --> 00:14:07,200
Speaker 3: good place, you know, it's a great place. It's a

265
00:14:07,200 --> 00:14:10,200
Speaker 3: good place to find adult content, like mixed in with

266
00:14:10,320 --> 00:14:12,959
Speaker 3: regular stuff in a way that almost no other social

267
00:14:12,960 --> 00:14:15,640
Speaker 3: networks Aren'tumblr used to be like this, and it was

268
00:14:15,840 --> 00:14:18,360
Speaker 3: presented a whole range of problems for them that they

269
00:14:18,440 --> 00:14:22,800
Speaker 3: ultimately decided we're not really tolerable, and so Twitter has

270
00:14:22,840 --> 00:14:26,120
Speaker 3: remained so sort of open to adult content.

271
00:14:26,720 --> 00:14:29,640
Speaker 5: Truly, more so than other social media.

272
00:14:29,440 --> 00:14:33,240
Speaker 3: Much more than for example, metas products, Facebook and Instagram

273
00:14:33,320 --> 00:14:37,800
Speaker 3: have very strict rules about nudity, Whereas on Twitter before

274
00:14:37,840 --> 00:14:40,920
Speaker 3: Elon Musk bought it, After Elon Musk bought it, you

275
00:14:41,080 --> 00:14:45,080
Speaker 3: could enter a variety of terms, some of them pretty benign,

276
00:14:45,160 --> 00:14:50,200
Speaker 3: into the search bar and find like hardcore pornography, people

277
00:14:50,240 --> 00:14:54,080
Speaker 3: having sex on video, just right there in the feed.

278
00:14:54,200 --> 00:14:56,840
Speaker 3: So it's like, oh, that's always been a pretty remarkable

279
00:14:56,920 --> 00:15:00,360
Speaker 3: difference between between Twitter and NX and most of the

280
00:15:00,360 --> 00:15:03,000
Speaker 3: other mainstream social platforms. Not something you'll see on TikTok

281
00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:06,200
Speaker 3: for example, right, And this also brings with it a

282
00:15:06,240 --> 00:15:11,040
Speaker 3: whole range of spam challenges because like the adult you know,

283
00:15:11,080 --> 00:15:14,760
Speaker 3: online adult entertainment industry, porn, and then the ways that

284
00:15:14,800 --> 00:15:16,720
Speaker 3: overlaps with sex work. All of that brings with it

285
00:15:16,800 --> 00:15:20,920
Speaker 3: businesses that are you know, trying to exploit people from

286
00:15:21,240 --> 00:15:25,640
Speaker 3: the sort of you know, periphery of the web where

287
00:15:25,680 --> 00:15:27,480
Speaker 3: they've been relegated for most of this time. So you

288
00:15:27,480 --> 00:15:29,520
Speaker 3: get a lot of spammers, you get a lot of scammers,

289
00:15:29,840 --> 00:15:31,400
Speaker 3: and you get a lot of people who see this

290
00:15:31,520 --> 00:15:36,480
Speaker 3: open vector, this forum for like posting adult content, promoting

291
00:15:36,480 --> 00:15:39,440
Speaker 3: adult content, trying to like do what they can to

292
00:15:39,840 --> 00:15:41,360
Speaker 3: you know, scrape together some business.

293
00:15:41,600 --> 00:15:46,040
Speaker 5: Yeah, your piece really dug into those spammers and some

294
00:15:46,120 --> 00:15:49,960
Speaker 5: of the spam tactics they used at to be that

295
00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:54,560
Speaker 5: have gone viral frankly for that matter on X, What

296
00:15:54,800 --> 00:15:58,880
Speaker 5: more or less is the model and how does it work?

297
00:15:58,920 --> 00:16:01,720
Speaker 5: This model that seeks to hap into the fact that

298
00:16:01,880 --> 00:16:04,240
Speaker 5: just generally speaking, there's a lot of nudity and porn

299
00:16:04,280 --> 00:16:04,680
Speaker 5: on X.

300
00:16:05,280 --> 00:16:08,720
Speaker 3: So the thing that went viral on X is this

301
00:16:08,800 --> 00:16:11,880
Speaker 3: sort of like funny construction that was showing up in

302
00:16:11,920 --> 00:16:13,840
Speaker 3: the replies to all kinds of posts. It would be

303
00:16:13,880 --> 00:16:16,160
Speaker 3: a piece of history trivia, a piece of breaking news.

304
00:16:16,920 --> 00:16:18,840
Speaker 3: It would be an argument between two people that had

305
00:16:18,840 --> 00:16:21,800
Speaker 3: gotten really intense, and then here comes a spammer in

306
00:16:21,920 --> 00:16:25,680
Speaker 3: big block texts spaced out with weird symbols saying pussy

307
00:16:25,720 --> 00:16:27,480
Speaker 3: in bio or some variations.

308
00:16:27,480 --> 00:16:29,680
Speaker 5: And that's not and it was not germane to the conversation,

309
00:16:30,160 --> 00:16:30,680
Speaker 5: not at all.

310
00:16:31,000 --> 00:16:34,840
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, sometimes incidentally it is that goes

311
00:16:34,880 --> 00:16:37,800
Speaker 3: viral on its own, but this was it was so

312
00:16:38,040 --> 00:16:40,640
Speaker 3: visible that it really became a meme. And this is

313
00:16:40,680 --> 00:16:42,960
Speaker 3: a meme that is sort of like getting extra traction

314
00:16:43,120 --> 00:16:47,280
Speaker 3: because of the platform stance on spam, and in particular

315
00:16:47,320 --> 00:16:51,680
Speaker 3: because of Elon Musk's like complete fixation on bots and spam.

316
00:16:51,960 --> 00:16:55,840
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, in the lead up to the purchase,

317
00:16:55,920 --> 00:16:58,960
Speaker 3: through the purchase, after the purchase, it's just this constant

318
00:16:59,280 --> 00:17:01,880
Speaker 3: drum beat of like, we must stop the spammers. The

319
00:17:01,920 --> 00:17:04,879
Speaker 3: bots are you know, ruining the site.

320
00:17:04,920 --> 00:17:08,400
Speaker 5: You actually opened your piece with those words. If our

321
00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:11,480
Speaker 5: Twitter bid succeeds, he wrote back in May of twenty

322
00:17:11,520 --> 00:17:15,959
Speaker 5: twenty two, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying.

323
00:17:16,480 --> 00:17:18,800
Speaker 3: That doesn't include the third option, which is just like

324
00:17:18,920 --> 00:17:22,080
Speaker 3: everyone gets kind of riled up and is like confused.

325
00:17:21,680 --> 00:17:22,280
Speaker 5: About what you know.

326
00:17:22,320 --> 00:17:25,720
Speaker 3: It's just like this, it's such a funny thing. It's

327
00:17:25,720 --> 00:17:29,879
Speaker 3: such an undeniably funny like turn in this saga of

328
00:17:29,920 --> 00:17:33,280
Speaker 3: the you know, Elon Musk Twitter acquisition and that it

329
00:17:33,640 --> 00:17:35,399
Speaker 3: just it sort of had to go viral, and it

330
00:17:35,440 --> 00:17:37,840
Speaker 3: sort of stayed viral, helped by the fact that these

331
00:17:37,840 --> 00:17:41,280
Speaker 3: bots are still around. This started happening early this year

332
00:17:41,840 --> 00:17:45,080
Speaker 3: and it has sort of remained pretty visible.

333
00:17:45,160 --> 00:17:47,560
Speaker 5: So the pib bots, as we will refer to them

334
00:17:47,600 --> 00:17:51,880
Speaker 5: henceforth in this family friendly show, are still as prevalent

335
00:17:51,880 --> 00:17:52,240
Speaker 5: as ever.

336
00:17:52,720 --> 00:17:54,920
Speaker 3: It sort of varies day to day, like they're clearly

337
00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:58,040
Speaker 3: working really hard to stop them. Some days I won't

338
00:17:58,040 --> 00:18:01,360
Speaker 3: really see anything, other days I'll see them constantly. They are,

339
00:18:01,440 --> 00:18:03,439
Speaker 3: i should say, evolving a little bit. You've got a

340
00:18:03,440 --> 00:18:06,960
Speaker 3: whole bunch of different funny constructions that they're using. The

341
00:18:07,000 --> 00:18:10,680
Speaker 3: one that I've seen a lot lately is my crazy

342
00:18:10,720 --> 00:18:13,679
Speaker 3: boobs in Bio, which is like a you know, completely

343
00:18:13,720 --> 00:18:15,120
Speaker 3: normal thing that people say.

344
00:18:15,160 --> 00:18:18,520
Speaker 5: It's this human evolutions as right in front of our eye.

345
00:18:18,600 --> 00:18:21,919
Speaker 3: You get fasaurus versions of that too that are absolutely delightful.

346
00:18:23,200 --> 00:18:26,240
Speaker 3: But anyway, it's yeah, it's it's very very visible, and

347
00:18:26,440 --> 00:18:29,719
Speaker 3: what it is is a pretty basic, like scale based

348
00:18:29,760 --> 00:18:32,840
Speaker 3: spam tactic. What was remarkable about this is that it

349
00:18:33,280 --> 00:18:38,439
Speaker 3: exists to promote very old fashioned, extremely unsavory flirt sites,

350
00:18:38,560 --> 00:18:41,480
Speaker 3: dating sites where users are funneled through a whole bunch

351
00:18:41,480 --> 00:18:44,560
Speaker 3: of pages. They sort of become like disoriented and lost,

352
00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:49,879
Speaker 3: and then they get somewhere that says they're you know, hot, local, hot, single,

353
00:18:49,920 --> 00:18:53,240
Speaker 3: local people who want to chat with you and maybe

354
00:18:53,240 --> 00:18:56,119
Speaker 3: meet up. You enter your credit card, you end up

355
00:18:56,160 --> 00:18:58,800
Speaker 3: chatting with an operator who lives in a different country.

356
00:18:59,080 --> 00:19:02,320
Speaker 3: That operator maybe getting a cut of what you're paying

357
00:19:02,320 --> 00:19:04,320
Speaker 3: this company. They might not be getting a cut, and

358
00:19:04,359 --> 00:19:07,360
Speaker 3: they might be under some terrible labor arrangement, or they

359
00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:11,360
Speaker 3: might be you know, scraping your personal information for things

360
00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:13,720
Speaker 3: that they can use to then scam you via text

361
00:19:13,720 --> 00:19:16,080
Speaker 3: message or a telegram. They might be asking for nudes

362
00:19:16,080 --> 00:19:19,119
Speaker 3: from you. So it's a pretty dark path that you

363
00:19:19,160 --> 00:19:21,320
Speaker 3: can follow. You if you actually click through these languages.

364
00:19:21,520 --> 00:19:23,320
Speaker 5: You did, God bless you. You did it for all

365
00:19:23,320 --> 00:19:23,800
Speaker 5: of us.

366
00:19:23,640 --> 00:19:25,880
Speaker 3: So we don't have to Yeah, and you know, I'm

367
00:19:25,880 --> 00:19:28,800
Speaker 3: getting married in two months.

368
00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:36,440
Speaker 5: So max is this just a case of Elon Musk

369
00:19:36,520 --> 00:19:39,280
Speaker 5: the true libertarian, just saying, heck, let's just give the

370
00:19:39,320 --> 00:19:42,440
Speaker 5: people what they want. They want sex and nudity. Knock

371
00:19:42,480 --> 00:19:43,320
Speaker 5: they can knock themselves.

372
00:19:43,400 --> 00:19:45,520
Speaker 2: Well. I mean, I think it's fair to say, based

373
00:19:45,560 --> 00:19:49,640
Speaker 2: on like Elon's tweets and like his fondness for risque memes,

374
00:19:49,920 --> 00:19:52,320
Speaker 2: that this is a man who's not totally averse to

375
00:19:52,840 --> 00:19:57,000
Speaker 2: you know, online pornography and so I and also he's

376
00:19:57,080 --> 00:20:01,280
Speaker 2: of course a libertarian and somebody who I think genuinely

377
00:20:01,600 --> 00:20:02,520
Speaker 2: like thinks.

378
00:20:02,240 --> 00:20:03,680
Speaker 5: This stuff should probably be okay.

379
00:20:04,040 --> 00:20:06,040
Speaker 2: But that, of course is at odds with the fact

380
00:20:06,480 --> 00:20:10,440
Speaker 2: that trying to run a large media company with major advertisers,

381
00:20:10,440 --> 00:20:13,560
Speaker 2: which is what ostensibly he's trying to do, you cannot

382
00:20:13,600 --> 00:20:15,359
Speaker 2: have a lot of porn. And there's a reason why,

383
00:20:15,600 --> 00:20:19,240
Speaker 2: you know, pharmaceutical companies don't really want to sell their

384
00:20:19,560 --> 00:20:23,960
Speaker 2: you know, heart disease medications against porn. Even Viagra does

385
00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:26,560
Speaker 2: not want that. Nobody wants it if you're like a

386
00:20:26,560 --> 00:20:29,600
Speaker 2: big advertiser. Disney does not want to sell Disney Plus

387
00:20:29,680 --> 00:20:34,200
Speaker 2: subscriptions against hardcore pornography, against pib or whatever. And lots

388
00:20:34,240 --> 00:20:37,119
Speaker 2: of companies wrestle with this there's a reason only fans,

389
00:20:37,480 --> 00:20:40,880
Speaker 2: which you know hosts is basically an adult content business.

390
00:20:40,960 --> 00:20:41,919
Speaker 7: There's a reason why.

391
00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:44,560
Speaker 2: When they talk about what they do, they don't say, yeah,

392
00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:46,640
Speaker 2: we're a great place to find adult content. They talk

393
00:20:46,680 --> 00:20:49,120
Speaker 2: about the cooking shows and the you know, and other

394
00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:53,119
Speaker 2: stuff like advertisers don't like this, and you know, this

395
00:20:53,280 --> 00:20:56,119
Speaker 2: is just like a way in which Elon Musk's worldview

396
00:20:56,160 --> 00:20:58,719
Speaker 2: is at odds with the realities of the media business.

397
00:20:59,040 --> 00:21:01,560
Speaker 2: I think there's all so an extent to which, as

398
00:21:01,640 --> 00:21:04,159
Speaker 2: John's saying, you know, he talked about getting rid of

399
00:21:04,160 --> 00:21:06,879
Speaker 2: these spambots, but clearly it's gone the other way. And

400
00:21:06,920 --> 00:21:08,920
Speaker 2: it's not just it's not just the porn stuff, right

401
00:21:09,080 --> 00:21:12,760
Speaker 2: this The dynamics around these PIB accounts are very very

402
00:21:12,760 --> 00:21:16,720
Speaker 2: similar to cryptosam scammers. Like you'll often see somebody post

403
00:21:16,800 --> 00:21:19,280
Speaker 2: something about their you know, their late you know, uncle

404
00:21:19,359 --> 00:21:21,679
Speaker 2: dying or something, and you have a PIB and then

405
00:21:21,720 --> 00:21:24,320
Speaker 2: you have someone being like, check out pepe coin. It's

406
00:21:24,359 --> 00:21:25,560
Speaker 2: it's pumping right now, you know.

407
00:21:25,600 --> 00:21:27,840
Speaker 3: And if you get the AI you know, the AI

408
00:21:27,960 --> 00:21:30,880
Speaker 3: scam spam, then you've got the trifecta. It's something.

409
00:21:31,480 --> 00:21:33,719
Speaker 8: But also you guys, like I think part of this

410
00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:36,919
Speaker 8: is that like x is completely unable to moderate itself,

411
00:21:36,960 --> 00:21:39,960
Speaker 8: Like who could forget when there was deep fake porn

412
00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:44,040
Speaker 8: of Taylor Swift? Like yeah, you know, the God of America.

413
00:21:44,560 --> 00:21:47,960
Speaker 8: Like Twitter just simply deleted the ability to search for

414
00:21:48,040 --> 00:21:51,240
Speaker 8: the words Taylor Swift, Like they couldn't moderate.

415
00:21:51,320 --> 00:21:53,479
Speaker 5: They sort of panicked and they didn't know what they

416
00:21:53,520 --> 00:21:54,320
Speaker 5: hit the new keys.

417
00:21:54,560 --> 00:21:56,960
Speaker 8: For days, you couldn't search for one of the most

418
00:21:56,960 --> 00:21:58,680
Speaker 8: popular search terms on a platform.

419
00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:01,440
Speaker 3: Well, that's that's that's worth it sizing like this isn't

420
00:22:01,480 --> 00:22:04,320
Speaker 3: just a funny, you know, meme spam thing that's showing

421
00:22:04,359 --> 00:22:06,280
Speaker 3: up in a bunch of replies. You can't really search

422
00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:08,600
Speaker 3: for very much these days without seeing something that you

423
00:22:08,640 --> 00:22:09,359
Speaker 3: don't want to see.

424
00:22:09,400 --> 00:22:11,120
Speaker 5: Well, this is what Rayhon keeps alleging.

425
00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:13,439
Speaker 1: I mean meetings I have.

426
00:22:13,640 --> 00:22:16,600
Speaker 8: I have made it clear that while I don't follow

427
00:22:16,960 --> 00:22:21,480
Speaker 8: proactively any sex workers, I see a lot of porn

428
00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:23,960
Speaker 8: in my feet and I was looking into it this morning,

429
00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:25,640
Speaker 8: and a lot There are a lot of people commenting

430
00:22:25,640 --> 00:22:29,040
Speaker 8: on Reddit and other places who are like suggested tweets

431
00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:32,159
Speaker 8: now include spot like before you follow tab is filled

432
00:22:32,200 --> 00:22:32,960
Speaker 8: with pornography.

433
00:22:33,080 --> 00:22:37,480
Speaker 5: So John post the gutting of X's content moderation team.

434
00:22:37,720 --> 00:22:43,399
Speaker 5: How reportable is this stuff and how easy or difficult

435
00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:44,800
Speaker 5: is it to get it filtered out?

436
00:22:45,359 --> 00:22:47,480
Speaker 3: A lot of the same basic mechanisms are in place.

437
00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:50,520
Speaker 3: You flag content, it gets reviewed. Mostly that's not how

438
00:22:50,520 --> 00:22:52,240
Speaker 3: the spam is getting dealt with. This is getting dealt

439
00:22:52,280 --> 00:22:55,320
Speaker 3: with sort of invisibly, with a lot of like behind

440
00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:59,600
Speaker 3: the scenes algorithmic identification and then a bunch of contractors

441
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:03,560
Speaker 3: feel are now, who are you know, basically looking at

442
00:23:03,600 --> 00:23:07,320
Speaker 3: the outputs from these you know, algorithms and saying, okay,

443
00:23:07,320 --> 00:23:09,400
Speaker 3: this is actually spam. We should identify this and get

444
00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:11,280
Speaker 3: rid of this. So they're doing, you know, they're doing

445
00:23:11,280 --> 00:23:13,080
Speaker 3: the same stuff that every other platform is doing. It

446
00:23:13,119 --> 00:23:15,720
Speaker 3: just seems that they're doing it not as effectively, and

447
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:19,440
Speaker 3: arguably they're facing a challenge that is a little bit

448
00:23:20,520 --> 00:23:24,000
Speaker 3: more complicated than some of the other platforms just because

449
00:23:24,040 --> 00:23:27,119
Speaker 3: of what Twitter is. It's it has a really like

450
00:23:27,280 --> 00:23:29,720
Speaker 3: thorough connection to the outside web that a lot of

451
00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:33,800
Speaker 3: other platforms don't. Instagram isn't all about links, and so

452
00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:36,680
Speaker 3: you don't have this constant interface with like a world

453
00:23:36,720 --> 00:23:40,399
Speaker 3: where anything could be happening. Just on the issue of

454
00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:43,199
Speaker 3: only fans alone, that creates a huge problem because you know,

455
00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:46,840
Speaker 3: you have a lot of onlyfan scammers, who are you know,

456
00:23:47,080 --> 00:23:51,119
Speaker 3: running these agencies with with operators and chatbots and all

457
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:53,919
Speaker 3: this stuff. But as far as Twitter can tell, the

458
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:57,159
Speaker 3: link to the only Fans profile is legitimate. You know,

459
00:23:57,520 --> 00:23:59,399
Speaker 3: the user then follows it and then they're sort of

460
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:01,719
Speaker 3: in a world of scans. And so I do think

461
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:04,960
Speaker 3: that x deserves a little bit of recognition for the

462
00:24:05,359 --> 00:24:06,320
Speaker 3: scale of the challenge.

463
00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:09,080
Speaker 2: One thing that's kind of funny and almost redeeming about

464
00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:11,440
Speaker 2: this story is that the PIB thing has now become

465
00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:13,439
Speaker 2: a meme. I think your story had this tweet It

466
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:16,280
Speaker 2: was like Merrion Webster's Dictionary did a tweet that it

467
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:18,760
Speaker 2: was like words in bio. You know, it's become like

468
00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:22,080
Speaker 2: it just like a Twitter are just swallowed, like is

469
00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:24,639
Speaker 2: a culture unto itself and in some ways has been

470
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:29,119
Speaker 2: able to absorb this kind of scammy, sad phenomenon and

471
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:31,440
Speaker 2: turn it into its own thing, And in a way

472
00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:32,479
Speaker 2: that's redeeming almost.

473
00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:35,680
Speaker 3: When Xai announced that they were, you know, revealing a

474
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:37,879
Speaker 3: lot of details about how groc works and how the

475
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:41,720
Speaker 3: underlying model works, they posted a PIB meme. They said

476
00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:44,359
Speaker 3: weights in bio from the official Grock account, Like this

477
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:45,480
Speaker 3: is they're not even They're like.

478
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:46,960
Speaker 5: They're leaning into it.

479
00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:48,040
Speaker 3: It's like they have no choice.

480
00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:50,240
Speaker 2: I do think part of the issue here is that,

481
00:24:50,320 --> 00:24:54,840
Speaker 2: like fewer people are using Twitter right now, notwithstanding you

482
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:57,600
Speaker 2: know those who are going there for porn, and then

483
00:24:57,640 --> 00:25:00,159
Speaker 2: you have the porn scammers who are riding on top

484
00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:01,959
Speaker 2: of that. But all of this is kind of a

485
00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:05,040
Speaker 2: problem when your numbers are going down generally, because then

486
00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:07,399
Speaker 2: it gets hard to like you don't really want to

487
00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 2: delete those those accounts. You could want to keep the

488
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:10,720
Speaker 2: numbers moving the right time.

489
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:13,119
Speaker 5: Correct. So is there a school thought inside of X

490
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:16,200
Speaker 5: that says, hey, when given lemons, let's make lemonade, let's

491
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:20,439
Speaker 5: lean into as part of our new business model pushing

492
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:21,959
Speaker 5: adult content on X.

493
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 1: Well, there were stories.

494
00:25:23,560 --> 00:25:26,080
Speaker 8: Last week though that X was going to be testing

495
00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:29,680
Speaker 8: some kind of adult content feature. I mean, it has

496
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:33,159
Speaker 8: rolled out for the past year or so, various like

497
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:37,000
Speaker 8: paid mechanisms, including like I think something about like paid video.

498
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 8: Although if X really wanted to make money off of

499
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:44,960
Speaker 8: all the porn on its site, there's like a lot

500
00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:46,120
Speaker 8: of reasons why that would.

501
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:50,840
Speaker 3: Be difficult, right, They tried before the acquisition to develop

502
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:57,480
Speaker 3: basically a competitive set of features for OnlyFans. They were

503
00:25:57,720 --> 00:26:01,720
Speaker 3: talking about kind of like a Patreon's but clearly influenced

504
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:07,000
Speaker 3: by OnlyFans fan follower model that fell apart. I remember

505
00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:08,879
Speaker 3: it was I believe the Verge that reported on this,

506
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:13,600
Speaker 3: in part because of concerns about c SAM and you know,

507
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:18,880
Speaker 3: illegal pornography and non contentional content, and this was something

508
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:20,920
Speaker 3: that they figured out pretty quickly with a like quick

509
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:22,719
Speaker 3: red teaming of the feature. They were like, oh, this

510
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:25,280
Speaker 3: is going to be really really hard. They probably were

511
00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:27,520
Speaker 3: also aware that OnlyFans has a lot of trouble with this.

512
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:30,920
Speaker 3: But yeah, now fast forward a little bit. Those features

513
00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:34,800
Speaker 3: were mostly built OnlyFans. Spam along with the PIV spam

514
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:39,400
Speaker 3: is absolutely overwhelming the platform. So they've got this big opportunity.

515
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:41,480
Speaker 3: They see that it feels a little bit out of reach.

516
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:44,880
Speaker 3: They've got that competitor and only fans that is kind

517
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:49,400
Speaker 3: of abusing their platform, albeit indirectly through third parties, and

518
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:51,760
Speaker 3: you know, probably getting a lot of benefit out of

519
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 3: what X is doing. It's got to be kind of frustrating.

520
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:58,240
Speaker 5: Right because, as you said, it's simultaneously overwhelming the site

521
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:01,720
Speaker 5: and driving away a tizers who would otherwise be there,

522
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:03,919
Speaker 5: but at the same time they can't monetize it in

523
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:04,359
Speaker 5: a way.

524
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:10,439
Speaker 4: I mean, the winners really are my friends, right, my

525
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 4: good friends who are now able to see more free

526
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:18,399
Speaker 4: porn that X cannot control at all.

527
00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:21,159
Speaker 5: And like, I think it was a big tal in

528
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:23,240
Speaker 5: hindsight when he changed the name of the company to

529
00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:27,639
Speaker 5: X and had quite properly appreciated it. So John, Indeed,

530
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 5: when you drilled all the way down and you click through,

531
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:31,639
Speaker 5: and you click through, and you know you got the

532
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:34,040
Speaker 5: pib spam and you followed it all the way to

533
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:37,360
Speaker 5: its logical conclusion, you found that I think it took

534
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:40,560
Speaker 5: you to a link called Provocative Neighbors, which in turn

535
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:42,520
Speaker 5: is run by a Dutch company.

536
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is like normally you can't figure out who's

537
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:48,120
Speaker 3: running these kinds of sites. You know, it's pretty well

538
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 3: concealed through anonymous domain registrars and all this stuff. One

539
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:55,919
Speaker 3: of the sites that you end up at was you know,

540
00:27:56,800 --> 00:28:00,439
Speaker 3: pretty candidate about what they do and who runs them.

541
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:05,200
Speaker 3: And it was a small operation called Meteor Interactive run

542
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:09,080
Speaker 3: out of the Netherlands that on their website claims to

543
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 3: offer payment solutions for a variety of things, but mostly

544
00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:16,359
Speaker 3: adult sites, and it appears as though they're running a

545
00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:19,359
Speaker 3: network of these flirt sites or dating sites that wrote

546
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:24,080
Speaker 3: people into these arrangements where you're chatting with fake personas.

547
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 3: This is all explained in the terms of service on

548
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 3: their website. I tried to pull some records on them

549
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:32,119
Speaker 3: there as of a few years ago, relatively small, a

550
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 3: few hundred thousand euros in revenue per year. They are

551
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 3: obviously one of many, but they are emblematic of the

552
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 3: type of operation that the PIB spam exists to support.

553
00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 3: And so the fact that that is popping up on

554
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:50,120
Speaker 3: x like that one of the world's most powerful and

555
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:53,840
Speaker 3: one of the wealthiest people has declared war on spam

556
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 3: on his platform and is now being thwarted by like

557
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 3: totally third rate porn.

558
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:04,520
Speaker 8: I mean, do we think that is he almost giving

559
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 8: up his war on spam? You know now that like

560
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:10,840
Speaker 8: Grock is tweeting out these memes and like, you.

561
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 2: Know, it was really clear how committed he was to

562
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:18,200
Speaker 2: the war on spam. He did as as Kurt Wagner

563
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:21,840
Speaker 2: brought up several weeks ago, he was frustrated, I guess

564
00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:25,120
Speaker 2: from the spam replies he was personally getting. But you know,

565
00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 2: a lot of that war on spam, you know, if

566
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 2: you if you remember Back was about trying to wiggle

567
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:31,240
Speaker 2: his way out of the Twitter deal, right like, he

568
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 2: sort of cooked up the war on spam in part

569
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:38,520
Speaker 2: at least because he realized that Twitter was was not

570
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 2: worth as much as as he.

571
00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:42,320
Speaker 5: Not worth forty four billion dollars.

572
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 2: Man, It's definitely not worth forty four billion dollars. If

573
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 2: a big part of the business is the business that

574
00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:50,960
Speaker 2: John's talking about, if you're in like the porn business,

575
00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:52,400
Speaker 2: you're basically cut.

576
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:55,360
Speaker 7: Off from a big part of the normal, Like.

577
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:58,080
Speaker 5: Financially, you become like a pariah state of sam.

578
00:29:58,120 --> 00:30:01,880
Speaker 2: And again, totally, you know, it is not compatible with

579
00:30:01,960 --> 00:30:04,560
Speaker 2: running a mass media company. It is not compatible with

580
00:30:04,640 --> 00:30:07,400
Speaker 2: running like a public company on a major exchange.

581
00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 7: I mean, with that very small handful of exceptions.

582
00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:12,520
Speaker 5: So John, will we have you back in a year's

583
00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 5: time to report about whatever the new PIB is at time?

584
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:20,800
Speaker 5: Is X going to be more a wash and porn

585
00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:24,240
Speaker 5: or will they have figured finally the bots problem out?

586
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 3: I think one one way to make a guess about

587
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 3: that is to look at what's going on with like

588
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:32,520
Speaker 3: the Blue checks and verification because to some extent, I

589
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 3: do think that current Twitter, current x leadership has kind

590
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:42,160
Speaker 3: of given up on conventional like spam countermeasures. They're still

591
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 3: doing a lot of it. They have to, otherwise the

592
00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:46,720
Speaker 3: platform just wouldn't work. But all of Elon Musk's big

593
00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:49,560
Speaker 3: ideas about this are like, what if we charged people,

594
00:30:49,840 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 3: Like what if we emphasized our verified users that pay

595
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:56,560
Speaker 3: over everyone else, And then what if beyond that we

596
00:30:56,640 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 3: experimented with charging people a dollar just to post anything

597
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:02,640
Speaker 3: at all. It's it's a really like sort of pay

598
00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 3: to speak model that does have like, you know, real

599
00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:10,120
Speaker 3: promise for ending spam in a narrow sense if it

600
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 3: just makes speech more expensive, but also blue check replies.

601
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:16,520
Speaker 3: The things that Elon is seeing now every day as

602
00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:19,440
Speaker 3: he posts are kind of full of spam. It's just

603
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:22,080
Speaker 3: like it's a spam on a different part of the spectrum.

604
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 3: It's a little more expensive to produce. A lot of

605
00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 3: the bots that you see there are clearly using like

606
00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:29,920
Speaker 3: new large language models to produce convincing replies to posts.

607
00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:32,720
Speaker 3: The scams are a little more opaque. Some of them

608
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:35,560
Speaker 3: are you know, are in startup mode, not totally monetized yet.

609
00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:37,960
Speaker 3: Some of them are just monetizing through the revenue share

610
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 3: platform on X, Like spam is this impossible problem that

611
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:45,120
Speaker 3: plagues every public venue and a lot of private venues

612
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:48,120
Speaker 3: on the web. And I think I think Elon is

613
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 3: still in this in this phase of thinking like there

614
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:52,200
Speaker 3: might be a sort of magic bullet, there might be

615
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 3: this big innovative idea that no one else has tried.

616
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:56,840
Speaker 3: And I think in a year, you know, he will

617
00:31:56,880 --> 00:32:01,120
Speaker 3: be whatever X looks like, he will remain quiet vexed

618
00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 3: by this.

619
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 8: I mean, there's like this old chestnut that pornography is

620
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:09,720
Speaker 8: always at the edge of innovation, Like that was true

621
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 8: in like times where like you know, filmmaking and video

622
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 8: recording became popular. That was true in the early Internet days.

623
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:21,640
Speaker 8: Like I think that spam always finds a way, but

624
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:24,239
Speaker 8: also like sex always finds a way, you know, And

625
00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 8: so like brute.

626
00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:27,560
Speaker 1: Forcing these memes.

627
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:29,520
Speaker 8: Is one way I think AI obviously is going to

628
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 8: present more and more opportunities.

629
00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 2: Wait, are you saying, Rahan, that this is the leading

630
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 2: edge that we're going to follows. We're no, no, that,

631
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:41,920
Speaker 2: like you know this, these this you know, huge amount

632
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 2: of porn on X is only the beginning for a

633
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:46,040
Speaker 2: new wave of general content on X Maybe is the

634
00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:49,720
Speaker 2: rest of I mean, catch up with the I'm saying.

635
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:52,680
Speaker 1: That the ex user base is you know, they're.

636
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:57,000
Speaker 8: Growing demographic as young men. I'm saying that AI is

637
00:32:57,040 --> 00:33:01,640
Speaker 8: flooding the market, and whatever tools exist to defeat it,

638
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:05,440
Speaker 8: I think are only matched by tools that will circumvent for.

639
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 5: Our PIB for what it's worth, will be pod in bio. Right,

640
00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:13,239
Speaker 5: all right, John, thank you very much for joining us.

641
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 5: This was great anytime, Mac great to be here.

642
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 1: Ray Hunt thanks.

643
00:33:24,520 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 5: This episode was produced by Stacy Wang, Naomi Shaven and

644
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 5: Rayhan Harmanci are senior editors. The idea for this show

645
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 5: also came from Rayhan Blake Maples handles engineering, and we

646
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 5: get special editing assistants from Jeff Grocott. Our supervising producer

647
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 5: is Magnus Hendrickson. The Elon Inc. Theme is written and

648
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:50,280
Speaker 5: performed by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiura. Brendan Francis Newnham

649
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 5: is our executive producer, and Sage Bowman is ahead of

650
00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:57,520
Speaker 5: Bloomberg Podcasts. I'm David Papadopolis. If you have a minute,

651
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 5: rate and review our show, it'll help our listeners find

652
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 5: us see you next week.

653
00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:11,440
Speaker 2: M