WEBVTT - Elon's Porn Problem (and Tesla Headache) 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:11.080 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.120 Well, Elon Musk is now the richest person on the planet. 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:20.320 More than half the satellites in space are owned and 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:24.599 controlled by one man. Well, he's a legitimate super genius. 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:25.759 I mean legitimate. 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:28.600 He says he's always voted for Democrats, but this year 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:29.360 it will be different. 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:30.360 He'll vote Republican. 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.120 There is a reason the US government is so reliant 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:33.520 on him. 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:36.720 Alon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing. 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:40.680 Anything he does, he's fascinating people. 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:54.480 Welcome to Elon, Inc. Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:58.600 It's April second, twenty twenty four. I'm your host, David 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:03.400 Papadopolis Bright and early this morning, Tesla released their first 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:08.080 quarter delivery and production report and it was disappointing, so 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:11.839 disappointing that Tesla scher sank seven percent in a matter 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:15.080 of minutes. But if you're an X user and you 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:18.640 opened X to follow that news this morning, odds are 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:21.240 that you saw a little bit of Tesla news and 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.400 a whole lot of something else. The site is a 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:28.800 wash in spamy ads for adult content and actual pornography. 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.600 What's going on here is this part of Musk's vision 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:35.600 for free speech. We'll get into all of this X 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:38.760 rated stuff on X what's happening and what it means 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.039 for the one time global public square. We'll turn to 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:47.160 our editor extraordinary Raihan Harmansi and a special guest, John Herman, 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:51.520 who covers technology for New York Magazine, to dig into 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:53.960 the Tesla numbers. First that we have Dana Hall, who 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:58.040 covers all things Elon Musk for US. Hello, Dana Hey. 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.400 And we have Max Chapkin here in the studio, Max 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:06.040 senior reporter at Business Week. Maxilo Happy Tesla Deliveries Day, 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:09.200 David Happy Tesla Deliveries Day to you. Although it was 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:14.560 not Dana Hall very happy for Tesla shareholders, the numbers 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:19.960 were grimy. The company missed Wall Street estimates by a 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:23.320 fair amount, delivering something like three hundred and eighty thousand, 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:26.000 I believe, which was about sixty thousand blow estimates, and 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:30.680 it also represented a decline from deliveries of Tesla's a 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:32.880 year ago. What happened here? 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:36.920 Yeah, this was very ugly. I mean there's no there's 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:39.840 no two ways about it. This was like a horrible, terrible, 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.639 no good, very bad start to the year. And yeah, 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.240 they delivered three hundred and eighty seven thousand vehicles, which 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:50.280 is like an eight point five percent drop from the 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:52.800 number of cars that they delivered in the first quarter 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:56.560 a year ago. And so basically Tesla has a demand problem. 0:02:56.600 --> 0:02:59.200 Like you can blame interest rates or you know, the 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:03.320 company talked about diversions caused by the Red Sea conflict 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:07.280 and the arson attacked at the gigafactory in Berlin, but fundamentally, 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.960 like it's it's about demand, like Tesla has an aging lineup, 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:14.519 and yes, like the macro environment for buying a big 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:18.480 purchase like a car is lousy, but like Tesla is 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.040 running out of excuses. They have an aging lineup and 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:24.560 people are sitting on the sidelines. And as Max and 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:29.639 I have talked a lot together, Elon Musk's behavior is polarizing. 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:33.200 Most people don't like that, and like I'm not you know, 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:35.800 we don't have like quantifiable data to show how many 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.320 consumers are not buying Tesla's because they don't like the 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.240 fact that Elon is very political on the platform that 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:44.640 he owns. But it's it's like it's not something that 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:45.720 you can brush aside. 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:48.200 And to that point, Max, I mean it is indeed, 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:50.680 as Dana said, something we've been over before. But I 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:53.600 think with the result like this, it's, you know, it's 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.960 becoming more and more acute and louder and louder that 0:03:57.160 --> 0:03:59.960 it is just an enormous problem having a CEO for 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:01.720 as brilliant as he may be, and all the things 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.240 he may have done for Tesla, whose worldview is so 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:06.760 misaligned with that of his customer base. 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:09.200 Yeah, I mean it's almost like if you spend eighteen 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:16.520 months embracing like a extremely niche, extremely polarizing, borderline racist ideology, 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:18.760 you're gonna turn some people off. I mean, like there's 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.880 a reason like car companies, like when they advertise cars 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:28.800 tend to embrace pretty like classic tropes, apple pies, American flags. 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:33.400 They don't necessarily lead with cat turd and like freaky 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:36.200 videos from the border. And that's of course what Elon 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:38.800 Musk has done. And again, as Dana says, like, we 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:41.280 don't know for sure how much of this is Elon's behavior, 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:43.880 how much of this is sort of macro environment stuff. 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:46.440 And then there's this third factor, which is that evs 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:49.800 are just not setting the world on fire quite like 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:52.080 they once did in terms of growth right, Like, they've 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:55.080 a lot of people have adopted electric vehicles, and we 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:58.760 should say, like selling three hundred something electric cars in 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:01.920 a quarter, that is achievement in some sense, but it's 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:04.440 just not moving in the direction that Elon Musk needs 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:05.960 it to be for this company to grow. 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:07.160 It's shrinking. 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:10.400 In fact, Hey, Dan, you had actually seen early this 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:13.560 morning a tweet that you thought was spot on on 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:15.000 this topic. 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:18.640 So Ross Gerber, who's like a long time former teslable, 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:23.680 lives in Santa Monica, California, guy tweeted this morning basically, 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:26.960 Tesla can't sell its cars due to Elon's behavior. Let's 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:30.600 stop blaming the Houthi rebels or German environmental terrorists or 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.640 a recession that never came or interest rates. Only one 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:35.120 person responsible for this. 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:38.080 You know, and this guy, Ross Gerber, I mean, for 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:41.720 years was like the most reliable testlable. He basically would 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:45.960 cheer on anything they did with extreme enthusiasm. And I 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:49.560 guess it's a credit to his intellectual honesty that he's come, 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:51.520 you know, he's basically gone one to eighty on this. 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:55.800 But I think it's also sort of Gerber like many 0:05:55.839 --> 0:06:00.560 people really bought into the ev story the environmentalist story. Uh, 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:03.520 he is not on board for the crazy right wing signaling. 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:06.520 And I think there are a lot of Tesla investors 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:08.520 like that, and frankly, like a lot of car buyers 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:11.120 like that. It's probably the majority of car buyers are 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:13.680 just even if they're conservative, even if they vote Republican, 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:18.000 are not super into like Elon's tweeting. 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:21.600 Dennat to that point. Is this merely a window into 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:27.240 the broader EV market woes or is a fair amount 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:30.520 of this problem in addition to those broader woes a 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:33.000 Tesla and Elon problem right now? 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:36.719 Well, you know, the long arc is that like the 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:40.440 world is still moving towards electrification, so like that trend 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:44.000 is not going away, but the like rapid double digit 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:47.640 year over year growth that like investors had become expected 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.640 to is no longer happening. And Tesla as the market 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:53.120 leader here in the US, is going to be like 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.080 the Canary and the Cold Mine in terms of that. 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:57.400 So you've already seen like a lot of other automakers 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.560 like pull back on their plans, Like people are now 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:04.479 talking a lot about hybrids. Tesla only makes evs and 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:08.560 like to have this kind of slump in sales after 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:12.160 a quarter where they did all this stuff like free supercharging, 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:17.000 thousand dollars discounts, like you know, like advertising, like all 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:19.840 these executives besides Elon like talking up the car and 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.840 doing all this consumer education. I think they really have 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:24.600 to kind of look at their strategy. You know, for 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:27.120 so many years Elon was like, we don't have a 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:30.160 demand problem, we have a production problem. Now they actually 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:31.600 kind of have to reckon with the fact that they 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:34.880 have a demand problem. And they've said very clearly to 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:39.280 investors that they're in between two growth waves. So until 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:42.240 they get that next wave of growth ready, which is 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:44.360 the next car, Like, what are they. 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:44.640 Going to do? 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:46.560 And I mean, the other thing that I really noticed 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:49.680 about this this press release was they don't break out 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:51.840 sales of the cyber truck. And I know, David that 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:53.920 you were very excited about the cyber truck, but they're 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:57.000 not even telling us how many cyber trucks they made, 0:07:57.120 --> 0:07:58.600 much less delivered. 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:01.000 Which probably means that the number is somewhere between like 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:02.840 twenty and fifty I suppose. 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:05.680 Well, the other thing that's super interesting about Tesla's release 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:07.920 today is for the first time they talked about energy 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:11.400 storage which is you know, Tesla sells these big batteries 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:15.120 to utility companies like PG and E, and they deployed 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:18.000 you know, over four thousand megawat hours of energy storage 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:21.200 products in Q one, the highest quarterly deployment yet. So 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:24.160 what I predict is that as the car business kind 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:27.520 of stuck in this trough, you're going to see Tesla 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:30.280 really start talking about the energy side of their business, 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:32.120 and that is where the growth is going to come 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:34.680 for the next year or two, because they're not going 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:36.600 to really have much growth on the car side. 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:39.000 I will say, you know this on this question of 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.000 is it a growth stock without growth, The way it 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:45.480 becomes a growth stock is the full self driving thing. 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:47.360 And I think you know so much of that. 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:50.400 The valuation the sort of like it's worth ten times 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:52.920 what other car companies are worth based on the number 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:55.480 of cars they've sold. The reason for that is because 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:58.920 investors and even a lot of analysts have bought the 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:02.280 story that Elon Musk has been selling about Tesla as 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:05.040 not a car company as much as an AI company, 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.160 as a as a basically essentially a Silicon Valley company 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:10.120 that only looks like a car company. And I think 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:12.719 that's why we saw. You know, Dana made a very 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:15.640 prescient comment last week. We were talking about this for 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:19.080 you felt full self driving thing, and and Dana said, 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:20.560 this is a good thing to say if you're about 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:24.240 to have a terrible quarter, because right, in some sense, 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.320 if you believe the full self driving story, which I think, 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:29.880 as we've talked about in this podcast, lots of reasons 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:31.440 to be skeptical of that story. You know, they've been 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:33.040 talking about it for a bit basically a decade and 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:37.800 haven't made a ton of like you know, verifiable progress. 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.240 If you believe the story, nonetheless, then these results don't 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:43.640 matter that much because in the future, the robotaxties are 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.040 gonna come and it's going to change everything. And I 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:47.440 think that's why we see if you look at Elon 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:50.200 Musk's Twitter page right now, the pin tweet, which is 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:52.920 like the thing that you first see is saying that 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:55.640 you know, full self driving is better than anybody realizes. 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.040 It's so freaking good. And so I think we're going 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:01.000 to see over the next few months that's going to 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:03.560 be the story they go with, selling what's the calm, 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.160 what's the In certain ways, it's the only story they 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:06.760 have to go with. 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:09.880 I will just say this, Dana, though, there's one group 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:13.040 out there in the in the Tesla investing universe that 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:16.640 is thrilled, which is the short sellers, the group that 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:20.320 Elon Musk hates, the people who have bet against Tesla stock. 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:22.440 I saw a report the other day that said they 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:25.200 are up billions and billions of dollars this year. So 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:33.120 at least someone out there apparently is raking it in. Okay, 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:35.720 So Max and I are now joined in the studio 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.680 by our very own Rayhan HARMANCI, senior editor of the 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:43.600 podcast He Love. They're Rayhan. Hello, and we brought in 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:47.040 John Herman, who just wrote a piece on X's X 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:48.880 Rated problem for New York Magazine. 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:50.600 Hey John, thanks for having me on. 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:55.320 Thank you for being here. Okay, So, Rayhan, we're gonna 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:57.920 start with you. Give us a little bit of the 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:03.719 long arc of Twitter and X and pornography. 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:04.640 Oh Man. 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:08.079 Well, in a previous life, I was a tech culture 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:12.160 reporter at BuzzFeed, actually with John, and this is like 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:14.600 twenty twelve. Twitter was only a few years old, and 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:17.920 even then porn was a huge issue. Porn is always 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:22.319 an issue, and every time there's an opportunity for users 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:23.200 to upload things. 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:25.880 People are going to upload sexual content. 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:29.760 Twitter has had long had a reputation as being maybe 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:33.719 let's say, more open to porn than other social networks. 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:38.439 Albeit they employed content moderation teams and you know, did 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:42.440 their best to eradicate offensive material. But over time there's 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.440 been a lot of funny, little mini scandals, like people 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:49.440 might remember that in twenty seventeen, the Senator Ted Cruz 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:52.960 liked a bit of sexual content that spawned a lot 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:55.800 of jokes. And then in twenty eighteen, the actor de Norris, 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:57.520 known for breaking bad, he actually. 0:11:57.240 --> 0:11:59.280 Just tweeted the words sex gift. 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:03.680 So this has been happening, but it's worth noting that 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:07.880 this issue has not been helped by elon cutting content 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:13.319 moderation teams in general at Twitter. And you know, there's 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:16.679 like a lot of really awful and criminal types of 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:21.319 pornography that are also on the platform and that make 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:23.960 content moderation you know, illegal necessity. 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:26.520 So the other day, I believe you told me that 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:30.800 you have a friend of yours who said, you know, Rayhon, 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:35.119 actually I go to X specifically for poor. 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:37.880 Yeah, I was really fascinated by this. I have a 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:42.280 friend who only uses X for porn. He made an 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:46.800 account simply to look at porn. And when I was 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:49.319 like looking up older stories about Twitter and porn, I 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:52.200 found some stories from like I don't want to say's 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:55.600 like twenty seventeen where like hopping to posts interviewed sex 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:57.920 therapists about why people. 0:12:57.640 --> 0:12:59.200 Are going on Twitter for porn. 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:01.880 So clearly this is a long standing practice for some people, 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:04.800 and I think that at least the stories I read 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:08.840 were suggesting that you can search for porn on X 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:12.600 in a way that makes it less obvious you're looking 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:15.760 for porn as opposed to going straight to pornhub or 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:16.719 porn website. 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:20.520 So maybe for some people that has appeal. There was a. 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:25.160 Recent number that came out showing that X had experienced 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:28.680 a growth in users who are like younger men in 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:32.960 their like late teens, early twenties, So maybe there I 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:36.720 don't know, there's there's fewer content moderation. Speech is getting 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:39.720 freer and freer every day on X. You know, maybe 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:41.200 people are noticing and looking at you more. 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:45.880 This friend is not Ted Cruz. So John, what in 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:49.320 general are you saying in your reporting on the proliferation 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:50.760 of pornography on X? 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:54.440 Well, the existence of porn that people are like looking 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:58.120 for on purpose is kind of the crucial context here, 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:00.880 Like Rayham was saying, Twitter has been a kind of 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.400 a porn friendly site for a long time. It's a 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:07.200 good place, you know, it's a great place. It's a 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:10.200 good place to find adult content, like mixed in with 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:12.959 regular stuff in a way that almost no other social 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:15.640 networks Aren'tumblr used to be like this, and it was 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:18.360 presented a whole range of problems for them that they 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:22.800 ultimately decided we're not really tolerable, and so Twitter has 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:26.120 remained so sort of open to adult content. 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:29.640 Truly, more so than other social media. 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:33.240 Much more than for example, metas products, Facebook and Instagram 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:37.800 have very strict rules about nudity, Whereas on Twitter before 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:40.920 Elon Musk bought it, After Elon Musk bought it, you 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:45.080 could enter a variety of terms, some of them pretty benign, 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:50.200 into the search bar and find like hardcore pornography, people 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:54.080 having sex on video, just right there in the feed. 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:56.840 So it's like, oh, that's always been a pretty remarkable 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:00.360 difference between between Twitter and NX and most of the 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:03.000 other mainstream social platforms. Not something you'll see on TikTok 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:06.200 for example, right, And this also brings with it a 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:11.040 whole range of spam challenges because like the adult you know, 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:14.760 online adult entertainment industry, porn, and then the ways that 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:16.720 overlaps with sex work. All of that brings with it 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:20.920 businesses that are you know, trying to exploit people from 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:25.640 the sort of you know, periphery of the web where 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:27.480 they've been relegated for most of this time. So you 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:29.520 get a lot of spammers, you get a lot of scammers, 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:31.400 and you get a lot of people who see this 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:36.480 open vector, this forum for like posting adult content, promoting 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:39.440 adult content, trying to like do what they can to 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:41.360 you know, scrape together some business. 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:46.040 Yeah, your piece really dug into those spammers and some 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:49.960 of the spam tactics they used at to be that 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:54.560 have gone viral frankly for that matter on X, What 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:58.880 more or less is the model and how does it work? 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:01.720 This model that seeks to hap into the fact that 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:04.240 just generally speaking, there's a lot of nudity and porn 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:04.680 on X. 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:08.720 So the thing that went viral on X is this 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:11.880 sort of like funny construction that was showing up in 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:13.840 the replies to all kinds of posts. It would be 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:16.160 a piece of history trivia, a piece of breaking news. 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:18.840 It would be an argument between two people that had 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:21.800 gotten really intense, and then here comes a spammer in 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:25.680 big block texts spaced out with weird symbols saying pussy 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:27.480 in bio or some variations. 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:29.680 And that's not and it was not germane to the conversation, 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:30.680 not at all. 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:34.840 I mean, you know, sometimes incidentally it is that goes 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:37.800 viral on its own, but this was it was so 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:40.640 visible that it really became a meme. And this is 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:42.960 a meme that is sort of like getting extra traction 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:47.280 because of the platform stance on spam, and in particular 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:51.680 because of Elon Musk's like complete fixation on bots and spam. 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:55.840 It's like, you know, in the lead up to the purchase, 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:58.960 through the purchase, after the purchase, it's just this constant 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:01.880 drum beat of like, we must stop the spammers. The 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:04.879 bots are you know, ruining the site. 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:08.400 You actually opened your piece with those words. If our 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:11.480 Twitter bid succeeds, he wrote back in May of twenty 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:15.959 twenty two, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying. 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:18.800 That doesn't include the third option, which is just like 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:22.080 everyone gets kind of riled up and is like confused. 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:22.280 About what you know. 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:25.720 It's just like this, it's such a funny thing. It's 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:29.879 such an undeniably funny like turn in this saga of 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:33.280 the you know, Elon Musk Twitter acquisition and that it 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:35.399 just it sort of had to go viral, and it 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:37.840 sort of stayed viral, helped by the fact that these 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:41.280 bots are still around. This started happening early this year 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:45.080 and it has sort of remained pretty visible. 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:47.560 So the pib bots, as we will refer to them 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:51.880 henceforth in this family friendly show, are still as prevalent 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:52.240 as ever. 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:54.920 It sort of varies day to day, like they're clearly 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:58.040 working really hard to stop them. Some days I won't 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:01.360 really see anything, other days I'll see them constantly. They are, 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:03.439 i should say, evolving a little bit. You've got a 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:06.960 whole bunch of different funny constructions that they're using. The 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:10.680 one that I've seen a lot lately is my crazy 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:13.679 boobs in Bio, which is like a you know, completely 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:15.120 normal thing that people say. 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:18.520 It's this human evolutions as right in front of our eye. 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:21.919 You get fasaurus versions of that too that are absolutely delightful. 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:26.240 But anyway, it's yeah, it's it's very very visible, and 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.719 what it is is a pretty basic, like scale based 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:32.840 spam tactic. What was remarkable about this is that it 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:38.439 exists to promote very old fashioned, extremely unsavory flirt sites, 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:41.480 dating sites where users are funneled through a whole bunch 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:44.560 of pages. They sort of become like disoriented and lost, 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:49.879 and then they get somewhere that says they're you know, hot, local, hot, single, 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:53.240 local people who want to chat with you and maybe 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:56.119 meet up. You enter your credit card, you end up 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:58.800 chatting with an operator who lives in a different country. 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.320 That operator maybe getting a cut of what you're paying 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:04.320 this company. They might not be getting a cut, and 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:07.360 they might be under some terrible labor arrangement, or they 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:11.360 might be you know, scraping your personal information for things 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:13.720 that they can use to then scam you via text 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:16.080 message or a telegram. They might be asking for nudes 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:19.119 from you. So it's a pretty dark path that you 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:21.320 can follow. You if you actually click through these languages. 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:23.320 You did, God bless you. You did it for all 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:23.800 of us. 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:25.880 So we don't have to Yeah, and you know, I'm 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:28.800 getting married in two months. 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:36.440 So max is this just a case of Elon Musk 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:39.280 the true libertarian, just saying, heck, let's just give the 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:42.440 people what they want. They want sex and nudity. Knock 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:43.320 they can knock themselves. 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:45.520 Well. I mean, I think it's fair to say, based 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:49.640 on like Elon's tweets and like his fondness for risque memes, 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:52.320 that this is a man who's not totally averse to 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:57.000 you know, online pornography and so I and also he's 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:01.280 of course a libertarian and somebody who I think genuinely 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:02.520 like thinks. 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:03.680 This stuff should probably be okay. 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:06.040 But that, of course is at odds with the fact 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:10.440 that trying to run a large media company with major advertisers, 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:13.560 which is what ostensibly he's trying to do, you cannot 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:15.359 have a lot of porn. And there's a reason why, 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:19.240 you know, pharmaceutical companies don't really want to sell their 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:23.960 you know, heart disease medications against porn. Even Viagra does 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:26.560 not want that. Nobody wants it if you're like a 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:29.600 big advertiser. Disney does not want to sell Disney Plus 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:34.200 subscriptions against hardcore pornography, against pib or whatever. And lots 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:37.119 of companies wrestle with this there's a reason only fans, 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:40.880 which you know hosts is basically an adult content business. 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:41.919 There's a reason why. 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:44.560 When they talk about what they do, they don't say, yeah, 0:20:44.560 --> 0:20:46.640 we're a great place to find adult content. They talk 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:49.120 about the cooking shows and the you know, and other 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:53.119 stuff like advertisers don't like this, and you know, this 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:56.119 is just like a way in which Elon Musk's worldview 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:58.719 is at odds with the realities of the media business. 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:01.560 I think there's all so an extent to which, as 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.159 John's saying, you know, he talked about getting rid of 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:06.879 these spambots, but clearly it's gone the other way. And 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:08.920 it's not just it's not just the porn stuff, right 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:12.760