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Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd

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Speaker 1: and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

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Speaker 1: So it has been a wild couple of weeks at

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Speaker 1: Twitter since Elon Musk took over, and to talk through

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Speaker 1: all of it, I'm joined with my producer, Michael Almado. Mike,

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Speaker 1: thanks for being here, Bridget, thanks for having me back.

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Speaker 1: It's always a pleasure. So this might come as a

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Speaker 1: surprise to you. I try pretty hard not to talk

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Speaker 1: about Elon Musk too much on the podcast, uh, from

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Speaker 1: being in meetings and calls and stuff with you to

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Speaker 1: make the show. That's probably surprising to you because I

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Speaker 1: know that you know, I have a lot of feelings

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Speaker 1: and thoughts and opinions about Elon Musk. Yeah, he's pretty

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Speaker 1: hard to avoid these days, It's true, and I guess

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Speaker 1: I feel, you know, when making the show. The reason

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Speaker 1: why I try to limit it how much I talk

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Speaker 1: about him is because I just don't think it's really

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Speaker 1: helpful to report on or respond to every little thing

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Speaker 1: that someone who clearly wants attention says or does. I

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Speaker 1: feel like I learned this the hard way back when

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Speaker 1: Musk was first talking about buying Twitter, you and I

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Speaker 1: rushed to put out an emergency episode. We stopped what

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Speaker 1: we were doing. It was like a stop the press moment.

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Speaker 1: And you know, after that episode, Ran, I think it

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Speaker 1: was like months and months and months and months and

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Speaker 1: months until we actually bought Twitter. And during that time,

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Speaker 1: it would be like he would say, Oh, the deal

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Speaker 1: is off, and everybody would rush to report on it

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Speaker 1: and respond. And then it would be like, Oh, the

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Speaker 1: deal's back on, and everyone would rush to report on

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Speaker 1: that and respond. And I think it's a strategy that

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Speaker 1: people like Musk employ that allows for them to set

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Speaker 1: the tone. And I just I don't think that being reactive,

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Speaker 1: always reacting to the things that they say, every little

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Speaker 1: move they make, is the most helpful mode to be in,

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Speaker 1: because I think ultimately it really serves them in setting

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Speaker 1: the agenda and capturing attention, which is clearly something they want. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think it's a useful strategy for people like him

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Speaker 1: and like Trump UH. And I think also it's a

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Speaker 1: useful strategy that just happens to align with their own

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Speaker 1: personal UH needs to constantly be the center of attention,

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Speaker 1: you know, and to constantly control the narrative and have people,

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Speaker 1: you know, jumping and reacting to what they say to

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Speaker 1: fill that void where other people feel love. Yikes, just

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Speaker 1: coming at the gate with a one to punch on

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Speaker 1: Muck's inability to feel love. Okay, wow, damn, we're we're

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Speaker 1: off to a good start off to the races. Sorry,

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Speaker 1: that wasn't my intention that. It's just it's it's been

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Speaker 1: a real evolution for me the last couple of weeks

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Speaker 1: about him. But that's that's not what this episode is about.

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Speaker 1: I don't mean to distract. I mean it might be

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Speaker 1: a little bit right, And so again I try really

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Speaker 1: hard to to avoid just reacting to things that that

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Speaker 1: tas little stunts, because people who pull stunts they want

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Speaker 1: you to react, they want you to respond. But this

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Speaker 1: past weekend something happened that really felt like a direct

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Speaker 1: hit to my work, and a direct direct kind of

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Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, um, if you watch Housewives,

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Speaker 1: when Kenya Moore says, don't come from me unless I

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Speaker 1: send for you, I feel sent for as Kenya Moore

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Speaker 1: would say. And he brought up something that I actually

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Speaker 1: have quite a bit of personal experience on and I

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Speaker 1: felt kind of compelled to talk about on this podcast. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I know you do have a lot of experience in

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Speaker 1: this area, and you don't talk about it on the

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Speaker 1: show much. And so the fact that you, I think,

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Speaker 1: felt so compelled to say something about it really speaks

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Speaker 1: to that that feeling of being called so you know,

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Speaker 1: speak it. Let's here. So what's going on? Well, this

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Speaker 1: past weekend, Elon Musk tweeted that he'd given internal Twitter

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Speaker 1: documents to journalists Matt Taibi, calling it the Twitter files.

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Speaker 1: To be clear, that's what Elon Musk is like branding

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Speaker 1: it as I'm not going to be calling it that

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Speaker 1: because I'm not going to be just you know, doing

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Speaker 1: his work for him and running with this little branded

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Speaker 1: thing that he's trying to make happen for him. Um,

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Speaker 1: but that's what he is calling it. He was very

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Speaker 1: excited about this. He was teasing it all weekend. He tweeted,

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Speaker 1: what really happened with the Hunter Biden story? Suppression by

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Speaker 1: Twitter will be published on Twitter at five pm. This

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Speaker 1: will be awesome popcorn emoji, right, And so this is

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Speaker 1: someone who is really drumming up excitement about something they

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Speaker 1: think is going to be big. He finally got the

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Speaker 1: opportunity to come up with his own nickname, and he's

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Speaker 1: so excited for everybody to hear about it. You can

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Speaker 1: just tell how excited this dude is to be trying

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Speaker 1: to make this happen, Like he's trying to make that

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Speaker 1: ch happen. He is all in this is this is

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Speaker 1: his thing. So to to talk about what's in this report,

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Speaker 1: Let's back up a little bit. The report appear to

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Speaker 1: show in turtal debate at Twitter about how the platform

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Speaker 1: should handle the content of a report on the laptop

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Speaker 1: that was alleged to belong to President Biden's son, Hunter Biden,

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Speaker 1: that was reported initially by The New York Post. You

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Speaker 1: probably recall this story if you were in the United

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Speaker 1: States and paying attention to domestic politics on the presidential election.

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Speaker 1: Um Hunter Biden has dealt with addiction issues, and this

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Speaker 1: laptop purported to show evidence of all this unseemly behavior

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Speaker 1: on the part of President Biden's son Hunter. I should

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Speaker 1: say it is not clear to me how this laptop

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Speaker 1: was obtained if it was actually Hunter Biden's laptop, and

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Speaker 1: thus there was a lot of confusion around how folks

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Speaker 1: could you know, responsibly report on it or talk about

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Speaker 1: it yeah, I remember that obviously. Uh. And I feel

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Speaker 1: compelled to remind everybody that the reason we know about

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Speaker 1: this Hunter Biden laptop story, which you know, maybe it

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Speaker 1: was this laptop, maybe not, We don't really know, you know,

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Speaker 1: I did some research ahead of this show, and like,

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Speaker 1: it's basically unverifiable. But the reason that we know about

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Speaker 1: it is because a concerned citizen brought it to Rudy Giuliani, right,

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Speaker 1: And I think that says a lot if you think

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Speaker 1: about the source of the information being Rudy Giuliani. Earlier

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Speaker 1: this morning, he was at a hearing here in d

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Speaker 1: C before the Bar uh phasing possible disbardment for his frivolous,

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Speaker 1: ridiculous actions in the contesting election, and his defense there

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Speaker 1: was that he didn't have the time to verify that

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Speaker 1: the what he was failing to court was accurate. And

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Speaker 1: so if he's not gonna if he doesn't have the

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Speaker 1: time to verify his legal briefings, what are we to

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Speaker 1: make of his everything else in his life? I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I'll just leave it there. I don't mean to make

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Speaker 1: the story about but anything even connected to Rudy Giuliani,

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Speaker 1: let alone originating with Rudy Giulietti, I feel it needs

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Speaker 1: to be taken with a pretty big grain assault. Are

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Speaker 1: you trying to suggest that when Rudy Giuliani is I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna mix on something is in the mix on something

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Speaker 1: that it's not on the up and up. If he's

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Speaker 1: in the mix, God help everyone. So you can sort

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Speaker 1: of get an idea as to like why there was

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Speaker 1: a lot of skepticism and confusion early on around this

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Speaker 1: Hunter Biden laptop story, and that confusion very much extended

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Speaker 1: to social media platforms like Twitter. Twitter staff independently decided

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Speaker 1: to block posts about the Hunter Biden laptop story and

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Speaker 1: prevented people from sharing the New York Post story in

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Speaker 1: d MS, citing that the content fell under its Hacked

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Speaker 1: Materials policy because at the time, the thinking was that

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Speaker 1: the content of the laptop had been obtained through hacking.

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Speaker 1: This decision was made after a lot of internal debate

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Speaker 1: at Twitter. Taibi's report shows a lot of back and

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Speaker 1: forth internally at Twitter about how to moderate tweets about

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Speaker 1: this Hunter Biden laptop story. Trent and Kitnedy, a Twitter

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Speaker 1: communications official, wrote an email, I'm struggling to understand the

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Speaker 1: policy basis for making for marking this as unsafe. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Kennedy advised that the company should say that it is

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Speaker 1: waiting to understand whether the New York Post story was

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Speaker 1: the result of hacked material. I have to say, Twitter,

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Speaker 1: it sounds like they really aired on the side of

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Speaker 1: caution here. Um. You might remember that White House spokesperson

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Speaker 1: Kayleie McKinney her Twitter account was locked for sharing a

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Speaker 1: tweet with the laptop story in it. Um. Twitter took

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Speaker 1: a lot of heat about this with conservatives who said

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Speaker 1: that this was evidence that Twitter and big tech in

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Speaker 1: general was biased against them as conservatives. Uh. Then Twitter

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Speaker 1: CEO Jack Dorsey spoke about the backlash publicly saying, we

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Speaker 1: made a quick interpretation, using no other evidence, that the

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Speaker 1: material in the article were obtained through hacking, and according

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Speaker 1: to our policy, we blocked them from being spread. Upon

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Speaker 1: further consideration, we admitted this action was wrong and corrected

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Speaker 1: it within twenty four hours. Um. And so again you

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Speaker 1: really see this sort of messy nitty gritty of the

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Speaker 1: company having to decide in real time how they were

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Speaker 1: going to moderate this story that they could not verify

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Speaker 1: and didn't know its origins, and at a time when

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Speaker 1: everybody was was felt the same way, like they were

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Speaker 1: not alone in that thinking. So I guess the question

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Speaker 1: might be like, was this the right call? I honestly

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Speaker 1: could not tell you. This is like way above my

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Speaker 1: pay grade. But I do think that reasonable people could

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Speaker 1: and do disagree with whether or not Twitter should have

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Speaker 1: allowed that report about the laptop to be on the platform.

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Speaker 1: But I will say that it seems like fairly new

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Speaker 1: ground for a platform to have to sort out, you know,

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Speaker 1: this kind of situation that is so potentially sensitive, Right,

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Speaker 1: so I can understand why there was some debate about it.

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Speaker 1: I can understand why folks internally disagreed, why folks externally disagreed.

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Speaker 1: It's really kind of new territory for a platform to

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Speaker 1: have to sort out. And the emails really reflect that

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Speaker 1: that there was a lot of what seems like healthy

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Speaker 1: discourse about how they should best proceed. Right, So there's

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Speaker 1: two different things. Right. You can disagree with the conclusion

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Speaker 1: that they came to to moderate the content, which maybe

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Speaker 1: that was the right decision, maybe not, depending on your

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Speaker 1: point of view, but to take some time and like

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Speaker 1: have a discussion about whether it should be moderated, Like,

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Speaker 1: there can be absolutely nothing wrong with that right, like

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Speaker 1: they had a discussion about it. Just the act of

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Speaker 1: discussing it is not in itself anything nefarious. And to

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Speaker 1: eat to suggest that it is is really disingenuous. Well,

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Speaker 1: enter the big Elon Musk bombshell that he dropped. It's

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Speaker 1: gonna change, It's going to change everything. Nothing will ever

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Speaker 1: be the same. So get this. So get this. If

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Speaker 1: you're driving, pull over because it's gonna be it's gonna

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Speaker 1: blow your mind. I don't want I want you to

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Speaker 1: be safe. Before Joe Biden was elected, his campaign staff

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Speaker 1: flagged tweets containing sexually explicit image is of Hunter Biden

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Speaker 1: for the Twitter staff, and those tweets were removed. I know,

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Speaker 1: I know, canceled the constitution. That's it, America is over.

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Speaker 1: So In an email from a Twitter employee from it

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Speaker 1: included six links to tweets and the line more to

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Speaker 1: review from the Biden team, the employee wrote, Another Twitter

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Speaker 1: worker replied, handled these. Interestingly enough, tibe's reporting did not

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Speaker 1: show the Biden team contacting Twitter over the initial reporting

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Speaker 1: about the laptop. It was the tweets containing sexually explicit

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Speaker 1: photos that they were raising an objection over. So when

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Speaker 1: the first new York Post story dropped with a laptop.

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Speaker 1: Biden's team did not reach out. It was the images

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Speaker 1: with Hunter Biden, you know, nude that they were objecting

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Speaker 1: to tbe shared. Five tweets that that the Biden campaign flagged.

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Speaker 1: Four of those still have archives available online, and they

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Speaker 1: did include nude images of Hunt or Biden. So these

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Speaker 1: images were already pretty clearly in violation of Twitter's rules

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Speaker 1: around non consensual explicit images, which specifically prohibits sharing images

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Speaker 1: or video that are taken in an intimate setting and

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Speaker 1: not intended for public distribution. Not to mention, state law

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Speaker 1: in California, where Twitter is based, also outlaws sharing non

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Speaker 1: consensual explicit images. So essentially, this huge bombshell that Elon

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Speaker 1: Musk has presented us is that Twitter was following their

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Speaker 1: pretty clear guidelines about removal of non consensual nude images

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Speaker 1: and like complying with with California state law. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: the breathless tweet revealing that you know, did not include

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Speaker 1: any of that context. You know, it's just like, here's

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Speaker 1: links to four tweets that were removed, of course, like

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Speaker 1: smoke and mirrors, suggesting that something more nefarious was going

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Speaker 1: on exactly, So Elon Musk after this bombshell revelation was dropped,

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Speaker 1: he tweeted, if this isn't a violation of the Constitution's

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Speaker 1: First Amendment, what is now? First of all, Biden was

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Speaker 1: not a government official at the time. He was still campaigning, right,

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Speaker 1: and so it's not really clear to me how that

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Speaker 1: would be a violation of the First Amendment, which we

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Speaker 1: know regulates how government's control speech. But you know whatever, Honestly,

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Speaker 1: who at this point expects Elon Musk to be either

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Speaker 1: getting or making these kinds of distinctions at this point, right?

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Speaker 1: And so Musk and Taibi say that this was evidence

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Speaker 1: that Twitter was in the bag for the Democratic Party

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Speaker 1: and the left. Uh, they did not provide any evidence

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Speaker 1: of this. But Taibi says, quote, this system wasn't balanced.

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Speaker 1: And if you're wondering why he thinks that, well, it's

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Speaker 1: because he says, the majority of Twitter's employees are Democrats.

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Speaker 1: How do you know, because Twitter's team has greater campaign

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Speaker 1: contributions to Democrats over Republicans. So, as someone who has

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Speaker 1: done this work for the majority of my adult life,

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Speaker 1: this is an absolutely wild conclusion to jump to for

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Speaker 1: many many reasons that I want to talk about after

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Speaker 1: this quick break and we're back. We were talking about

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk and Matt Taiebee dropping this bombless bombshell about

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Speaker 1: what they say is evidence of Twitter and big tech

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Speaker 1: being in the bag for the Democratic Party and the left.

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Speaker 1: And I have to say, as someone who has done

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Speaker 1: this work, it's just a really out there conclusion to

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Speaker 1: jump to. First, of all, social media platforms, having a

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Speaker 1: direct line of communication with political leaders is one normal

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Speaker 1: and that is the case for all major social media platforms.

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Speaker 1: Facebook has them, Instagram has them, Snapchat has them. It

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Speaker 1: is totally a normal, commonplace thing. You know. I have

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Speaker 1: done that work professionally, both from the platform side and

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Speaker 1: the advocacy side. When I worked at the social media

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Speaker 1: platform medium, I was essentially the person on the political

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Speaker 1: team whose job it was to make in roads and

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Speaker 1: connections with political leaders and activists and thought leaders on

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Speaker 1: the left. You know, they could have reached out to

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Speaker 1: me with issues and questions, etcetera. There was also a

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Speaker 1: counterpart to this work on the right who did the

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Speaker 1: same thing as me, but within the Republican Party. Um.

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Speaker 1: It was actually like a very fulfilling and interesting job.

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Speaker 1: We had lots of like spirited discussions and debates about

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Speaker 1: content on our team that actually remind me quite a

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Speaker 1: bit of like the internal emails that we saw from

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Speaker 1: this reporting. It's also fun fact why I attended the

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Speaker 1: Republican National Convention and got to watch Trump officially accept

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Speaker 1: the nomination for president in person, which is a story

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Speaker 1: for another day. But part of the advocacy that I

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Speaker 1: do now involves communicating with platforms to hopefully help influence

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Speaker 1: their content moderation decision making to be less hostile toward

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Speaker 1: marginalized people. Um. A lot of the time that work

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Speaker 1: looks like flat, like the same thing that the Biden

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Speaker 1: campaign was doing to the Twitter folks, you know, flagging

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Speaker 1: content that we think needs to be removed. A lot

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Speaker 1: of times it's like faked demeaning misogynistic images of women,

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Speaker 1: women of color elected officials like AOC for removal being like, oh, um,

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Speaker 1: actually this image that purports to show a misogynistic crew

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Speaker 1: drawing of AOC. We think this might violate your guidelines.

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Speaker 1: Can you please remove it? Um? But we also have

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Speaker 1: had some like really good wins doing this work. You know,

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Speaker 1: earlier this year, TikTok agreed to add dead naming and

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Speaker 1: mis gendering to their community guidelines. Um, we got YouTube

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Speaker 1: to agree to remove inaccurate information about abortion from their platform.

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Speaker 1: So it's it's like fulfilling work. I don't act really

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Speaker 1: bring it up a ton on the podcast, mostly because

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Speaker 1: it's just not that exciting, Like it's fairly mundane work,

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Speaker 1: and it's just, yeah, it's just not exciting, you know,

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Speaker 1: completely normal and commonplace for folks in these positions to

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Speaker 1: have a direct line with folks at platforms. You know,

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Speaker 1: we have flag I have flagged things for them that

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Speaker 1: they that they do not take down, you know. So

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Speaker 1: it's not like when you reach out and say, hey

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Speaker 1: this is problematic, or hey we believe this violates your

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Speaker 1: your your community guidelines. It's not a guarantee they're gonna

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Speaker 1: take it down. But it's like that tedious work of

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Speaker 1: relationship building for for a particular goal, and Musque trying

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Speaker 1: to reframe that work that so many people do that

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Speaker 1: is totally commonplace across platforms. Him trying to reframe that

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Speaker 1: as somehow nefarious or somehow a threat to our democracy

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Speaker 1: is completely wild, completely wild. Yeah, it really is, especially

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Speaker 1: when you think about the role of advocacy in a

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Speaker 1: democracy and because the groups, you know, making the case

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Speaker 1: for their constituencies about issues that they care about, policymakers

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Speaker 1: trying to get policies put in place, and you can

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Speaker 1: tell from those emails that the Twitter team was talking

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Speaker 1: about their policies and how did this fit within their

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Speaker 1: policies that have been crafted to describe the situations in

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Speaker 1: which they would take action to moderate uh And even

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Speaker 1: as I'm saying these words, it sounds so boring, but

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Speaker 1: it's so crucial because without that, you end up with

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Speaker 1: the situation that we have right now, where everything is just,

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Speaker 1: you know, whatever Elon Musk decides about it. Right there's

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Speaker 1: it's not clear what is and is not allowed on

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Speaker 1: Twitter these days. It's just by executive fiat. And also

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Speaker 1: all those fiats bring more attention and news attention to him,

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Speaker 1: which is a win win for him. I'm so glad

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Speaker 1: that you said that, because a few weeks ago, I

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Speaker 1: think it was Sam Harris asked Elon on Twitter about

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Speaker 1: whether or not he was going to reinstate Alex Jones.

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Speaker 1: And Alex Jones famously lies about babies who were tragically

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Speaker 1: shot and killed in Sandy Hook and lies about their parents,

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Speaker 1: and Elon Musk replied, I will never allow him back

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Speaker 1: on the platform because I had a baby who died,

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Speaker 1: and I held that baby in my hands, and I

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Speaker 1: know the heartbreak of a grieving parent. And I actually

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Speaker 1: think that that actually was one of very few genuine

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Speaker 1: statements about how Elon Musk is planning on moderating Twitter.

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Speaker 1: If he can personally identify with the group that he

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Speaker 1: is making a moderation decision around or based on, I

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Speaker 1: think that you will get one thing. If he cannot

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Speaker 1: identify with them, if he cannot put themselves, put himself

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Speaker 1: in their shoes, or see their experience in his own experience,

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Speaker 1: He's I don't think. I don't think it's going to

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Speaker 1: be real to him, And so I think that, to me,

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Speaker 1: was the first honest assessment of how he plans to

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Speaker 1: moderate the platform. It's just based on what he personally

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Speaker 1: likes or doesn't like, what he personally can understand or

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Speaker 1: can identify with or see himself in or not. And

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Speaker 1: so you know, he is a white, straight, sis billionaire.

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Speaker 1: I don't know that he would be able to really

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Speaker 1: see himself in the experience of a trans person or

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Speaker 1: a person of color, or a queer person or someone

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Speaker 1: who's not a billionaire and wants to start a union

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Speaker 1: at their car factory, right, And so I think that

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Speaker 1: really was a pretty clear indication that exactly what you're saying,

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Speaker 1: it's just whatever Elon feels that's how we will be moderating.

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Speaker 1: And I don't think it's a great system, right, Like

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Speaker 1: he is someone who is going on and on about

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Speaker 1: the need to build transparency into moderation to restore trust.

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Speaker 1: Let's start with a little transparency around how he is

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Speaker 1: going to make moderation decisions. Yeah, And it's also a

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Speaker 1: little bit like a high school student quoting Voltaire about

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Speaker 1: free speech. When he's talking about transparency, I think he

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Speaker 1: still thinks, at least as like a couple of months

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Speaker 1: to go, he thought that transparency meant making all of

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Speaker 1: Twitter's internal decisions uh and algorithms uh like open source

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Speaker 1: so anybody could read it, which is a terrible idea

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Speaker 1: because that just is like a blueprint for anyone who

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Speaker 1: wants to abuse it. And so it's this the spot

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Speaker 1: of like reality where there's like he has the high

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Speaker 1: minded ideals of transparency and free speech, which are virtuous

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Speaker 1: and good things, but to actually like implement them in

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Speaker 1: the real world, one needs to have a thoughtful approach,

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Speaker 1: and he lacks that second part. It's like how all

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Speaker 1: of his tweets with polls about what he should do

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Speaker 1: for Twitter and moderation, we're all accompanied by Latin. But

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Speaker 1: then like getting the Latin phrases wrong. It's like you

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Speaker 1: kind of you're kind of you almost have it, like

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Speaker 1: you are, you're you almost have it, you almost had it.

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Speaker 1: You you found the Latin quote and you got the

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Speaker 1: gist sort of and so speaking of the kind of

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Speaker 1: disingenuous nods to what they're calling free speech, uh Musk

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Speaker 1: really tried to frame this report as a bombshell that

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Speaker 1: showed that Twitter is suppressing the free speech of conservatives

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Speaker 1: on the platform. But Tibee's own reporting shows that the

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Speaker 1: Trump administration, while Trump was president, made the very same

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Speaker 1: kind of requests as the Biden campaign did, and at

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Speaker 1: least some of those requests were honored, right, And so

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Speaker 1: there's not there's no Tibee includes that that information. There

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Speaker 1: isn't any more transparency or any emails around what those

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Speaker 1: requests would be. The public is still just like left

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Speaker 1: to wonder what the what a sitting president was successfully

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Speaker 1: able to get removed from Twitter. Not not worth scrutiny,

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Speaker 1: not worth this transparency that Elon Musk says he wants

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Speaker 1: to bring to moderation on the platform. Musk said, quote,

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Speaker 1: Twitter acting by itself to suppress free speech is not

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Speaker 1: a First Amendment violation, but acting under orders from the

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Speaker 1: government to suppress free speech with no judicial review is.

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Speaker 1: But then again, Taibe himself said, quote, there's no evidence

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Speaker 1: that I have seen of any government involvement in the

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Speaker 1: laptop story. So truly, which is it? Like both of

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Speaker 1: these things can't be correct. It can't be that as

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk says that that Twitter was acting under orders

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Speaker 1: from the government, and Taibe saying, actually, after reviewing this,

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Speaker 1: I saw no government involvement in the suppression of this story.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't it doesn't like something's not heading up the

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Speaker 1: Mattes not lughing. Yeah, it's it's almost like it's all

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Speaker 1: just a big stunt and the substance doesn't matter almost,

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Speaker 1: And I think like this is why, I mean, I

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Speaker 1: I personally, this is just my opinion, but I think

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Speaker 1: it's really really irresponsible to release communications that folks have

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Speaker 1: had with Twitter over the years in this way, you know,

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Speaker 1: In doing this, Elon Musk also released the personal email

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Speaker 1: addresses former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and an elected official.

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Speaker 1: In this release not redacted, just tweeted them out. Um.

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Speaker 1: He did later say on a spaces that he regretted this,

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Speaker 1: but I think it really shows what we're dealing with here.

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Speaker 1: And so, you know, I spent part of the weekend

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Speaker 1: being like, well, geez is, I've had communications with Twitter

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Speaker 1: officials like are they gonna I don't want my information released.

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Speaker 1: I just know what can happen when you have someone

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Speaker 1: who was addicted to attention and stunts and sensitive information.

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Speaker 1: It's it's it's concerning to me. And you know, I'm

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Speaker 1: not concerned because I've ever had communications with Twitter that

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Speaker 1: I would regret or that I wouldn't want you know

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Speaker 1: out there. But unfortunately, I think that we are past

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Speaker 1: the point of the substance of what is being released

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Speaker 1: being important at all. And I think, I mean, I

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Speaker 1: might say that the first time that I really saw

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Speaker 1: this happening for real was aroun on Hillary Clinton's emails,

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Speaker 1: where it didn't really matter the substance of the emails

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Speaker 1: didn't really matter, just the reporting around them seemed to

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Speaker 1: suggest you know, nefarious behavior just like by design, right,

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Speaker 1: And so it was reported as a bombshell, a smoking

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Speaker 1: gun all of that, when really, if you look at it,

430
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:25,239
Speaker 1: you're like, well, what are you what it actually is?

431
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:28,400
Speaker 1: Like newsworthy here? What actually is the big bombshell here?

432
00:25:28,760 --> 00:25:31,879
Speaker 1: And I think that we're in this place where people,

433
00:25:32,359 --> 00:25:37,360
Speaker 1: particularly online, can really drum up a lot of fanfare

434
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 1: around something and be like this is gonna blow your

435
00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:43,600
Speaker 1: fucking mind, and then it doesn't really matter what's in it,

436
00:25:43,640 --> 00:25:46,560
Speaker 1: because if you look at the reporting that Taiebee and

437
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:50,240
Speaker 1: Elon Musk did, nothing in there is really new, right,

438
00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:54,240
Speaker 1: Like the whole internal debate around how Twitter should moderate

439
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:57,439
Speaker 1: the Hunter Biden laptop story, eventually they talked about it

440
00:25:57,440 --> 00:25:59,200
Speaker 1: in public, Like that quote that I read from Jack

441
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:02,159
Speaker 1: Dorsey was a pub quote. It's part of the public

442
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:05,280
Speaker 1: record already. So is the is the bombshell reporting? Just

443
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:09,760
Speaker 1: that this presidential campaign had had direct communication with someone

444
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:13,359
Speaker 1: at Twitter? That's also common knowledge, Like anybody who has

445
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 1: ever worked in social media is aware of that. That's

446
00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:19,639
Speaker 1: not a bombshell. So if they're not actually reporting anything new,

447
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:24,240
Speaker 1: how can you tweet about it in such a bombastic

448
00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 1: way that like, oh, we are going to blow the

449
00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:28,920
Speaker 1: lid off of this thing. You know, I saw people

450
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:32,280
Speaker 1: reporting about it, like Jack Procybia said, we will all

451
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:34,879
Speaker 1: remember where we were when this was reported. Like the

452
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:39,160
Speaker 1: breathlessness that people talked about this for something that wasn't

453
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:44,200
Speaker 1: even any new information, I think is really I'm gonna say, irresponsible. Yeah,

454
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:47,640
Speaker 1: it's an excellent point because the only thing that's new

455
00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:54,560
Speaker 1: here is sort of the salaciousness of the illusion of leaks, right, Like, oh,

456
00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:57,359
Speaker 1: there's some sort of secret emails that they didn't want

457
00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:00,600
Speaker 1: us to see, but that's obviously not the ace for

458
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:05,520
Speaker 1: like multiple reasons. One, like, the emails were released by Twitter,

459
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:08,640
Speaker 1: right there are emails by Twitter employees that Twitter is releasing,

460
00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:12,560
Speaker 1: so that's like not a leak. And in the content

461
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:15,600
Speaker 1: of the emails that the people wrote, it's clear that

462
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 1: they expect these emails, or maybe they don't expect the

463
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:24,879
Speaker 1: emails themselves to become public, but they clearly expect. They

464
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:27,800
Speaker 1: are aware that there's intense scrutiny about how they are

465
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:32,960
Speaker 1: moderating this issue, and uh, and they expect to be

466
00:27:33,320 --> 00:27:35,600
Speaker 1: called to account for it. And like you said, everything,

467
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 1: you know, all of the decisions they made are already

468
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 1: public record. Uh, and not because of some sort of

469
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:46,240
Speaker 1: deep investigative journalism, but because Twitter like put out a

470
00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:49,040
Speaker 1: press release about it and like said all the same things.

471
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 1: So the only thing new here is just the framing

472
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:56,360
Speaker 1: as a leak that something inappropriate happened, But the actual

473
00:27:56,680 --> 00:27:59,720
Speaker 1: facts are completely unchanged. You know, like you said, like,

474
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 1: what's the big reveal that that the Biden campaign didn't

475
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 1: want the candidates sons like naked photos published without his

476
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:13,240
Speaker 1: consent like that, Yeah, they didn't want to cry a

477
00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:17,240
Speaker 1: literal sex crime to occur. But news of eleven, Yeah,

478
00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:20,520
Speaker 1: that's the only thing new here, just the illusion and

479
00:28:20,600 --> 00:28:25,119
Speaker 1: framing of salaciousness. And I think that Ellen is doing

480
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:29,040
Speaker 1: this because he's speaking to people who I think already

481
00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:32,920
Speaker 1: feel aggrieved, right, and so they he knows even if

482
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:35,879
Speaker 1: this isn't really anything, nothing really new as being you know,

483
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:39,640
Speaker 1: talked about or reported, that people that feel aggrieved are

484
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:42,080
Speaker 1: going to be like, oh my god, mind blown. This

485
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:46,760
Speaker 1: is huge, Oh my god, this this confirms my persecution

486
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 1: complex that I have been censored on Twitter. And I

487
00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:53,240
Speaker 1: think that's exactly why he is doing this, because he

488
00:28:53,280 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 1: knows that all of this sycophants and hangers on are

489
00:28:55,880 --> 00:28:58,000
Speaker 1: going to amplify that claim and be like, oh my god,

490
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:02,080
Speaker 1: huge reporting, even though nothing new is being reported. Here's

491
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 1: how Representative James Comer from Tennessee, here's what he had

492
00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 1: to say about this, or he's just beginning, Jason, because

493
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 1: we're gonna have every single person at Twitter that was

494
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:14,400
Speaker 1: involved in this in front of the House Oversight Committee

495
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:19,160
Speaker 1: as soon as possible. So he's talking about like investigating

496
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: and hauling people in before our committee. I think that

497
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 1: it really is a state, a testament to the fact

498
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:29,440
Speaker 1: that we are not like anybody can say anything and

499
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 1: the substance of what's actually being said doesn't matter, because

500
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:36,720
Speaker 1: people who are already predisposed to feel aggrieved and be

501
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: on the side of like, oh yeah, we're being censored,

502
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 1: are going to circle the wagons to make sure that

503
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 1: that claim is amplified and like treated with seriousness. Yeah,

504
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:51,880
Speaker 1: like truth doesn't exist. It's all just framing and you know,

505
00:29:51,920 --> 00:29:54,960
Speaker 1: winning the narrative. And right now, if you Google or

506
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:57,440
Speaker 1: take to Twitter to search her name, there are people

507
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:00,720
Speaker 1: talking about how the Jaya God who was Twitter's former

508
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 1: head of Legal policy and trust at Twitter, the person

509
00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:05,880
Speaker 1: who made kind of moderation decisions and was the head

510
00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 1: of you know, combating things like misinformation and hate speech.

511
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:12,760
Speaker 1: How she should be arrested for her role in moderating

512
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:16,560
Speaker 1: content around the Hunter Biden laptop story and quote rigging

513
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 1: election for Biden. So it's interesting how all of this.

514
00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 1: I think it's it's it's savvy on Elon's part, because

515
00:30:24,280 --> 00:30:28,680
Speaker 1: it feeds into this like big lie that somehow, somewhere

516
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 1: the election was rigged for Biden against Trump. Yeah, and

517
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:38,120
Speaker 1: you know, isn't it convenient that they finally found a

518
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 1: woman of color to be the like poster child of

519
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:45,560
Speaker 1: this invented scandal. You know, obviously it's a woman of color.

520
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:49,760
Speaker 1: And the other idea in here is that this one

521
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:55,040
Speaker 1: singular event is what rigged the election for Joe Biden. Right,

522
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 1: Like everybody still knew about the Hunter Biden laptop. We're

523
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 1: still talking about it years later. You know, it's not

524
00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 1: like Twitter's decision to not show those photos somehow killed

525
00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:12,520
Speaker 1: the story and nobody ever heard about it again. Right,

526
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:14,960
Speaker 1: So it's like even the part that they're aggrieved about

527
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 1: is just completely fabricated. More after a quick break, let's

528
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 1: get right back into it. It is not surprising to

529
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:38,719
Speaker 1: me that a woman of color, a brown girl, is

530
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 1: at the center of this story. There are memes on

531
00:31:42,400 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 1: Twitter right now it says Twitter head of Legal Policy,

532
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: I knowingly subverted your election process. I did it with

533
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:51,840
Speaker 1: the intent to throw the election. That makes that makes

534
00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 1: me guilty of treason under Article three, Section three of

535
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: the United States Constitution. Um, it's not surprising to me that,

536
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:02,160
Speaker 1: like earlier today, I saw a picture that had that

537
00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:06,200
Speaker 1: was a explicit image of Hunter Biden where they had

538
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:09,120
Speaker 1: doctored her head on the body of another woman and

539
00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:11,720
Speaker 1: they were involved in a sex act. It's not surprising

540
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:13,320
Speaker 1: to me. I think that when you talk about this

541
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:16,080
Speaker 1: kind of thing, and I know I beat this drum

542
00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 1: a lot. Misogyny and racism, it's all linked. And when

543
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:22,680
Speaker 1: you talk about this kind of thing, it is not

544
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:26,720
Speaker 1: surprising to me that, you know, the fallout is not

545
00:32:27,720 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 1: measured discourse. The fallout is talking about arresting this woman

546
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 1: and making crude memes of her that are sexually explicit. Yeah,

547
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 1: it's so sad and just like the same old story

548
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:48,600
Speaker 1: of like once again, it's just racism and misogyny finding

549
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:53,720
Speaker 1: new stories to turn into memes to feed that same

550
00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:57,440
Speaker 1: narrative exactly, and it has to be said. I mean,

551
00:32:57,440 --> 00:32:59,280
Speaker 1: I didn't want to bring them up in this episode,

552
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:03,640
Speaker 1: but here I am. In response to this reporting, Trump

553
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:08,280
Speaker 1: took to truth Social two advocate for throwing out the

554
00:33:08,360 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 1: Constitution and throwing out the election results. And so you know,

555
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 1: if this whole thing was meant to be a crusade

556
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:20,200
Speaker 1: around free speech, and it led to Trump, who is

557
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:24,880
Speaker 1: the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, being like, oh, I'm coming

558
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:28,000
Speaker 1: out in favor of throwing out the Constitution. The First

559
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:30,880
Speaker 1: Amendment is part of the Constitution. So like, where where

560
00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:34,120
Speaker 1: are all these like free speech crusaders who are like

561
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:36,920
Speaker 1: trying to protect the free free speech to the First Amendment.

562
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 1: When the presumptive Republican presidential nominee comes out against just

563
00:33:42,000 --> 00:33:45,120
Speaker 1: throwing the whole thing out because of their reporting, it's

564
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:48,520
Speaker 1: a great question. It's almost like, you know something, it's

565
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 1: like selectively applies here but not there. You know, today

566
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 1: they care about the Constitution. Tomorrow let's cancel it. I mean,

567
00:33:57,600 --> 00:34:01,760
Speaker 1: I guess two Republicans credit not many people like rallied

568
00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 1: around Trump's cry to cancel the Constitution. Whatever that would mean.

569
00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 1: I wonder if part of this whole thing is just

570
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 1: like Ellen really being desperate to try to like get

571
00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 1: in Trump's good graces, you think, I mean some of

572
00:34:16,640 --> 00:34:18,799
Speaker 1: those some of those images he was tweeting a couple

573
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:23,560
Speaker 1: of weeks back about him and Trump were definitely an

574
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:28,439
Speaker 1: appeal to get into Trump's good graces. I'll say, I'll

575
00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 1: just keep it at that. We can move on. There

576
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:33,239
Speaker 1: were some good graces. Is the title of a movie here?

577
00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:42,640
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think it's really scary how commonplace communications

578
00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:48,279
Speaker 1: are being reframed as indicative of like nefarious, inappropriate behavior.

579
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:51,000
Speaker 1: And I also think that it's confirmation bias at work.

580
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 1: Some people on the right, which at this point I

581
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:57,239
Speaker 1: think includes Elon Musk, already believe that they are being

582
00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 1: censored on social media platforms. Are really interest study by

583
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:05,080
Speaker 1: the Pew Research Center found that Republicans believe that their

584
00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 1: views are being censored, and Republicans or people who who

585
00:35:09,160 --> 00:35:13,319
Speaker 1: lent republicans believe that social media companies generally support the

586
00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:16,879
Speaker 1: views of liberals over conservatives. And so I think that,

587
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:20,960
Speaker 1: you know, it's this confirmation bias at work, where anything,

588
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 1: even something that is like not anything, can be used

589
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:29,120
Speaker 1: to confirm this previously held opinion that they have, and

590
00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:34,560
Speaker 1: Elon Musk repeatedly parents this claim that Twitter has previously

591
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:37,520
Speaker 1: had an anti right wing bias and thus quote the

592
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:40,799
Speaker 1: Twitter files is just another part of that, you know.

593
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 1: But there are entire bodies of academic research that disapproved

594
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:49,120
Speaker 1: this time and time again. Their studies from n y U,

595
00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 1: M I T that debunk this claim that there is

596
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:55,880
Speaker 1: anti conservative bias on social media platforms. It's just not

597
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:58,440
Speaker 1: a thing, right, And so there was also a study

598
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:02,719
Speaker 1: done internally at Twitter in the pre Elon Musk days

599
00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:05,480
Speaker 1: after Trump was banned from Twitter. The team was facing

600
00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 1: a lot of criticism saying that they were censoring the right,

601
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:10,920
Speaker 1: so they looked into it. The internal research team at

602
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:13,879
Speaker 1: Twitter found that folks on the right are actually amplified

603
00:36:13,920 --> 00:36:17,520
Speaker 1: on Twitter, both within the United States and globally. Our

604
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:21,000
Speaker 1: results reveal a remarkably consistent trend. In six out of

605
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:24,520
Speaker 1: the seven countries studied, the mainstream political right enjoys higher

606
00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 1: algorithmic amplification than the mainstream political left. They've released a

607
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 1: whole twenties seven page report. It is fascinating. And so

608
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 1: here's my thing. Either Elon Musk is woefully uninformed about

609
00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:39,640
Speaker 1: the realities of quote right wing bias at Twitter, or

610
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:43,319
Speaker 1: he's just lying to get attention from right wing extremists.

611
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:46,040
Speaker 1: And that's really kind of what bums me out. You know,

612
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:49,560
Speaker 1: their entire bodies of work and studies in school of

613
00:36:49,560 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 1: thought dedicated to answering all of these thorny, complicated questions

614
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:57,920
Speaker 1: that are raised by social media and how it is moderated, right,

615
00:36:58,239 --> 00:37:01,319
Speaker 1: But Elon Musk is demonstrating him time again that he

616
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:04,320
Speaker 1: does not care about any of that because he thinks

617
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 1: that he knows better despite never having done this work before.

618
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:11,239
Speaker 1: And I feel like everything in our culture is really

619
00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:15,759
Speaker 1: coalescing around confirming that he has some kind of special,

620
00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 1: super special innate genius ability to understand this stuff as

621
00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:23,359
Speaker 1: a novice more than people who have been working on

622
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:26,279
Speaker 1: it for years and years. You know, in his last

623
00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:30,000
Speaker 1: few weeks, he came into Twitter and immediately blew up verification,

624
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:34,080
Speaker 1: only to realize like, oh wait, verification is actually important,

625
00:37:34,200 --> 00:37:36,880
Speaker 1: and then walked back those plans to blow up verification.

626
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:41,440
Speaker 1: He said, oh, we don't need moderation, and then Kanye

627
00:37:41,560 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 1: West starts tweeting swastikas and he's like, wait, actually, we

628
00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:47,120
Speaker 1: do need some moderation. Just kidding, guys, let's bring in

629
00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:50,880
Speaker 1: some moderation. He is learning the very same lessons that

630
00:37:51,040 --> 00:37:54,360
Speaker 1: every other social media platform, even the ones like truth

631
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:58,839
Speaker 1: Social and Parlor that started by being these fringe platforms

632
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:01,720
Speaker 1: that wanted to, you know, be free speech zones or whatever.

633
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:05,640
Speaker 1: He is learning what every single social media platform, including

634
00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 1: those French platforms, has learned, only he's getting to the

635
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:13,080
Speaker 1: game years and years late. Yeah, I think you're right.

636
00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:17,880
Speaker 1: He's just like pretty uninformed about these things. And you know,

637
00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:22,919
Speaker 1: I think a a generous interpretation of his actions here

638
00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:25,960
Speaker 1: is that he's bringing like a move fast and break

639
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 1: things kind of attitude to the way that Twitter should

640
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:35,480
Speaker 1: do moderation. And I think that sort of approach can

641
00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:39,440
Speaker 1: work great for little scrappy startups trying to fight for

642
00:38:39,480 --> 00:38:42,839
Speaker 1: a piece of market share to sell widgets. But when

643
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:50,279
Speaker 1: you are making decisions about a cornerstone of society, right

644
00:38:50,360 --> 00:38:54,160
Speaker 1: like that like twitters or at least was how people

645
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:58,560
Speaker 1: share information, and it's just like it's a really important thing.

646
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:02,200
Speaker 1: And for him to just be making these huge decisions

647
00:39:02,239 --> 00:39:04,880
Speaker 1: and then days later be like, oops, my bed, I

648
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:10,280
Speaker 1: guess that was wrong. It's just so reckless and irresponsible.

649
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:17,400
Speaker 1: It's it's he should be ashamed, but he certainly is not. Yeah,

650
00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 1: that's my thing is like he should be embarrassed. I

651
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:24,680
Speaker 1: don't know that that is a an emotion that he

652
00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:27,360
Speaker 1: feels the way that you or I might feel. A

653
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:29,919
Speaker 1: friend of mine, Justin Hendrix, who is brilliant. He runs

654
00:39:29,960 --> 00:39:32,239
Speaker 1: a great organization called Tech Policy Press, which is they

655
00:39:32,239 --> 00:39:34,319
Speaker 1: also have a podcast you should definitely should definitely listen

656
00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:37,640
Speaker 1: to it. But he works with students, um, you know,

657
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:41,440
Speaker 1: teaching them about social media. And whenever they the students

658
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:43,680
Speaker 1: are given like a thought experiment about how they should

659
00:39:43,719 --> 00:39:46,359
Speaker 1: run platforms, they always at first or like we're gonna

660
00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:48,640
Speaker 1: have no moderation. It's gonna be whatever people want to

661
00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:51,319
Speaker 1: do and they can self moderate, and then immediately they're like,

662
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 1: oh wait, that doesn't work. So it's like starting at

663
00:39:55,800 --> 00:39:57,440
Speaker 1: the one, like the thing that like a one oh

664
00:39:57,520 --> 00:40:01,320
Speaker 1: one student would suggest. That's where Elon Musk is starting.

665
00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:03,680
Speaker 1: But I don't feel like he's self aware enough to

666
00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:06,800
Speaker 1: be like, oh wait, I'm actually starting at the ideas

667
00:40:06,800 --> 00:40:09,400
Speaker 1: that a one on one student at this would actually

668
00:40:09,560 --> 00:40:12,560
Speaker 1: come to the table with. Yeah, I think that is

669
00:40:12,680 --> 00:40:15,319
Speaker 1: exactly right with him. I think he thinks that he

670
00:40:15,840 --> 00:40:20,160
Speaker 1: is this genius. Uh, but he's just not. He just

671
00:40:20,239 --> 00:40:22,279
Speaker 1: like doesn't know about these things. These things are complicated,

672
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 1: and I'm not an expert in moderation, but I know

673
00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 1: that there are experts out there who spend a lot

674
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:32,560
Speaker 1: of time and ink on it and to just like

675
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 1: weighed in and just like makeups. It's it's just so reckless. Yeah,

676
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:41,800
Speaker 1: it is reckless. And I have worked in this space

677
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:44,600
Speaker 1: for a long time for years, and I come to

678
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:47,360
Speaker 1: the table with people who are way smarter than me,

679
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 1: who have worked in this space, who are content moderation experts,

680
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 1: and even in those spaces that it's not consensus of

681
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 1: how to do it right. It is an ongoing, complex,

682
00:40:58,320 --> 00:41:02,839
Speaker 1: complicated body of work, and people who have been doing

683
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:07,279
Speaker 1: it for years at the highest levels don't have consensus

684
00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:10,360
Speaker 1: of how to do it right. And I really take

685
00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:14,680
Speaker 1: umbradge with this idea that Elon Musk, someone who has

686
00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:17,800
Speaker 1: never done this, I have no background in it, no

687
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:23,720
Speaker 1: experience with it. It's just uniquely a genius at it somehow,

688
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:26,960
Speaker 1: And I reject that. And I honestly think that Elon

689
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:30,239
Speaker 1: Musk's tenure at Twitter, I think I'm seeing a little

690
00:41:30,239 --> 00:41:34,480
Speaker 1: bit of of the tides turning. I think, being someone

691
00:41:34,560 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 1: who works in text spaces, we're so willing to give

692
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:43,799
Speaker 1: wealthy white dudes the benefit of the doubt that if

693
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:45,480
Speaker 1: they say they're a genius had something, then they're a

694
00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:47,399
Speaker 1: genius had something. If they say that they know how

695
00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:49,280
Speaker 1: to do it, even if they've ever done it before,

696
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:51,759
Speaker 1: give them millions of dollars of funding because they're going

697
00:41:51,800 --> 00:41:55,200
Speaker 1: to figure it out. And if they don't, then you

698
00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 1: know they had to learn by failing. And I'm just

699
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:00,759
Speaker 1: I know how this story end. You know, I've seen

700
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:03,959
Speaker 1: this story a lot. I have had to smile through

701
00:42:04,040 --> 00:42:07,080
Speaker 1: this story being told to my face even though I'm

702
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:10,880
Speaker 1: screaming inside. And I think we're all starting to peel

703
00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:12,920
Speaker 1: back back curtain a little bit and say, well, wait,

704
00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:16,880
Speaker 1: are you actually a genius? Is it possible that maybe

705
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:20,200
Speaker 1: you're not playing chess, not checkers, Maybe you're not even

706
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:23,320
Speaker 1: playing checkers, maybe you're like eating the pieces and throwing

707
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:25,840
Speaker 1: the board on the floor. Yeah, you totally know it.

708
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:29,320
Speaker 1: And you talked about how content moderation is like difficult

709
00:42:29,440 --> 00:42:32,680
Speaker 1: and nuanced, and I think those sorts of things are

710
00:42:32,719 --> 00:42:36,440
Speaker 1: like really difficult to talk about, and like you said earlier,

711
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:40,000
Speaker 1: they're kind of boring, they're not really exciting. You know,

712
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:43,879
Speaker 1: there's certainly if you were to try to pack all

713
00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:46,040
Speaker 1: of it into a single tweet, that tweet would probably

714
00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:47,799
Speaker 1: not get a lot of engagement, right because you need

715
00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:49,560
Speaker 1: to write like a lot of them about it. And

716
00:42:49,600 --> 00:42:53,560
Speaker 1: I think, uh, you know, when we think about some

717
00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:57,640
Speaker 1: of those studies that find that right wing social media

718
00:42:57,680 --> 00:43:02,400
Speaker 1: posts tend to get amplified more than uh, posts written

719
00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:05,360
Speaker 1: by people on the left, I think that's part of

720
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:09,400
Speaker 1: it that, like on the left, there is often a

721
00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:13,880
Speaker 1: recognition of like nuance and things are complicated and wanting

722
00:43:13,920 --> 00:43:19,799
Speaker 1: to qualify things and provide caveats, whereas uh, I mean,

723
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 1: they're certainly thoughtful people on the right, but there's also

724
00:43:22,960 --> 00:43:25,360
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are not interested in the

725
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:28,480
Speaker 1: thoughtful nu once and are just interested in like getting

726
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:31,880
Speaker 1: those likes, you know, getting those retweets totally. And this

727
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:34,719
Speaker 1: is actually one of the reasons why, as you know,

728
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:39,080
Speaker 1: I was hesitant to even make this episode, because content

729
00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:43,040
Speaker 1: moderation is messy, it's complicated, and it's mundane. It's a

730
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:45,640
Speaker 1: lot of stuff not working and being like, oh, well,

731
00:43:45,680 --> 00:43:47,359
Speaker 1: here's why this didn't work, or here's what I thought

732
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:51,719
Speaker 1: about this. I'm like, it's never the the reality of

733
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:55,919
Speaker 1: the work that people like myself do is never gonna

734
00:43:55,960 --> 00:44:01,160
Speaker 1: be as flashy and exciting as the pithy but incorrect

735
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:04,839
Speaker 1: Elon Musk tweet about it right, Like, it's it ends

736
00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:07,719
Speaker 1: like where I have a disadvantage. You know that the

737
00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:13,000
Speaker 1: truth is actually the thoughtful, complex, truth is so much

738
00:44:13,080 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 1: less exciting than the sexy bombshell with the popcorn emoji.

739
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:21,000
Speaker 1: And I don't know. I struggled, Like when we were

740
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:23,640
Speaker 1: talking about how how I wanted to respond to this,

741
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:25,880
Speaker 1: we were like, maybe an op ed and I was like, yeah,

742
00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:28,520
Speaker 1: I know the reality, and even I would still like

743
00:44:28,640 --> 00:44:31,719
Speaker 1: to believe the Elon Musk version of things that there

744
00:44:31,719 --> 00:44:34,880
Speaker 1: are some files in Twitter that revealed the smoking gun

745
00:44:35,040 --> 00:44:39,000
Speaker 1: that election was rigged and blah blah blah and Soyland

746
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:42,440
Speaker 1: greenest people and all of that. Like, I know the truth,

747
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:45,319
Speaker 1: and even I would be more entertained to believe this

748
00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:49,120
Speaker 1: complete fiction that he is selling people. But that fiction

749
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:53,520
Speaker 1: is always going to travel faster than the mundane, boring truth.

750
00:44:53,920 --> 00:44:56,040
Speaker 1: So that probably means that people listening to this, we're like, oh,

751
00:44:56,080 --> 00:45:02,240
Speaker 1: glad I tuned in forty five minutes of mundane a curiacy. Yeah,

752
00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 1: I think you got it right with it's more entertaining.

753
00:45:06,239 --> 00:45:09,879
Speaker 1: Right that popcorn emoji. We haven't really talked about that,

754
00:45:10,040 --> 00:45:13,759
Speaker 1: but I think it says so much about Ellen's approach

755
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:16,200
Speaker 1: to his shiny new toy that he bought for forty

756
00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:19,799
Speaker 1: four billion dollars, right, Like, it's he He's the guy

757
00:45:19,840 --> 00:45:23,440
Speaker 1: in charge, He's making all these decisions, but also he's

758
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:27,880
Speaker 1: like cool and detached and just like doing it for lulls, y'all,

759
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:33,040
Speaker 1: Oh my god, totally. And I think it's like, so

760
00:45:33,800 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 1: you don't I don't know if you know this deep

761
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:40,560
Speaker 1: thinks about emoji choices are my like, like, that's my

762
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:42,680
Speaker 1: Q and on I'm like, I'm like, I gotta I

763
00:45:42,760 --> 00:45:46,960
Speaker 1: gotta like follow all the threads. But a popcorn emoji

764
00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:50,200
Speaker 1: is inviting us to watch the show, right, Like he

765
00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:53,920
Speaker 1: knows it's a stunt. He wants us to watch. And

766
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:56,640
Speaker 1: I think that he is betting this is just my opinion.

767
00:45:57,040 --> 00:46:01,440
Speaker 1: He is betting on turning Twitter into a drama machine

768
00:46:01,719 --> 00:46:05,120
Speaker 1: that people will pay a subscription to watch go down.

769
00:46:05,520 --> 00:46:07,560
Speaker 1: And I think that popcorn I think that you're totally

770
00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:11,040
Speaker 1: spot on that popcorn emoji is. I know it's a

771
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:14,840
Speaker 1: stunt step right up, folks watch the show. It reminds

772
00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:16,560
Speaker 1: me of something else that he tweeted. I think it

773
00:46:16,640 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 1: was the first week that he bought Twitter and things

774
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:21,120
Speaker 1: really felt like they were on fire, and he tweeted, well,

775
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:23,880
Speaker 1: at least, you know, the last days of Twitter won't

776
00:46:23,920 --> 00:46:26,600
Speaker 1: be boring. And I think that's really what he is

777
00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:31,640
Speaker 1: counting on us, our attention, our eyeballs really being glued

778
00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:34,360
Speaker 1: to him and locked into what's going to happen next.

779
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:38,760
Speaker 1: It's the same way how how he kept tweeting about how, oh,

780
00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:42,720
Speaker 1: the daily average users has never been higher, and somebody

781
00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:44,920
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, that's like setting your house on fire,

782
00:46:44,960 --> 00:46:47,080
Speaker 1: and then being like, wow, I've never had more visitors

783
00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 1: on my lawn than when my house was on fire. Yeah.

784
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:53,040
Speaker 1: I am so curious to see where this goes, and

785
00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:57,080
Speaker 1: like what Twitter looks like six months from now, who's

786
00:46:57,200 --> 00:46:59,319
Speaker 1: using it, how many people are using it? You know,

787
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:02,319
Speaker 1: what are they talk and about on there? But that's

788
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:06,440
Speaker 1: probably a story for another show. So all of this

789
00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:08,320
Speaker 1: is to say, I don't want to make it seem

790
00:47:08,360 --> 00:47:13,000
Speaker 1: like pre Elono Musk Twitter days were the best. Certainly

791
00:47:13,440 --> 00:47:15,160
Speaker 1: if you listen to the show, you know that that's

792
00:47:15,160 --> 00:47:16,600
Speaker 1: not how I feel, but I just want to say

793
00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:21,160
Speaker 1: it explicitly, and I do want to say, like, there

794
00:47:21,160 --> 00:47:25,040
Speaker 1: are so many good questions to be asked about the

795
00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:28,480
Speaker 1: way that Twitter moderates content, and I think that more

796
00:47:28,560 --> 00:47:34,600
Speaker 1: transparency around those conversations would be awesome. But unfortunately that's

797
00:47:34,600 --> 00:47:36,400
Speaker 1: not what we're getting. And it is so clear to

798
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 1: me that Elon Musk is only interested in cherry picking

799
00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:43,000
Speaker 1: instances to blow up and exaggerate that tap into this

800
00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:46,560
Speaker 1: right wing fantasy about being censored on social media platforms.

801
00:47:46,600 --> 00:47:50,800
Speaker 1: And so I would absolutely welcome and love and applaud

802
00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 1: more transparency about how moderation decisions are made. But this

803
00:47:54,680 --> 00:47:59,600
Speaker 1: is not it, you know, cherry picking these examples. It's

804
00:47:59,680 --> 00:48:01,799
Speaker 1: below them up and hyping them up as this big

805
00:48:01,840 --> 00:48:05,360
Speaker 1: bombshell and then flinging them to a group of people

806
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:09,400
Speaker 1: that you know is going to already be predisposed to

807
00:48:09,440 --> 00:48:12,160
Speaker 1: being like, yes, this is so true. This totally confirms

808
00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:15,000
Speaker 1: my worldview about me being persecuted. That is not the

809
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:18,920
Speaker 1: way that you achieve true transparency about social media platforms

810
00:48:18,920 --> 00:48:20,960
Speaker 1: and how they are moderated. And you know what, the

811
00:48:21,000 --> 00:48:23,600
Speaker 1: way that social media platforms work and on our run

812
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:28,200
Speaker 1: in two. It can shape elections, it can shape democracy,

813
00:48:28,239 --> 00:48:30,600
Speaker 1: it can shape what the world looks like, and so

814
00:48:30,680 --> 00:48:35,399
Speaker 1: we deserve true transparency as the people that fuel these platforms.

815
00:48:35,719 --> 00:48:38,279
Speaker 1: But what Elon Musk is selling us is not that

816
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 1: it is a stunt. We deserve so much better than

817
00:48:42,239 --> 00:48:47,560
Speaker 1: these little popcorn emoji stunts. Yeah, absolutely, it's a stunt.

818
00:48:48,040 --> 00:48:51,080
Speaker 1: Transparency is great. This is not it. Well, that's it

819
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:54,040
Speaker 1: for me, Michael. Do you have anything else to add? No,

820
00:48:54,200 --> 00:48:56,480
Speaker 1: nothing else. Thanks for having me, Bridget. I always love

821
00:48:56,520 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 1: talking with you here. Thanks for being here. I'll see

822
00:48:58,640 --> 00:49:06,240
Speaker 1: on mathodon see there got a story about an interesting

823
00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:08,279
Speaker 1: thing in tech, or just want to say hi. You

824
00:49:08,280 --> 00:49:10,520
Speaker 1: can reach us at Hello at tang godi dot com.

825
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:12,920
Speaker 1: You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangdi

826
00:49:13,000 --> 00:49:15,040
Speaker 1: dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was

827
00:49:15,080 --> 00:49:17,440
Speaker 1: created by Me Bridget Todd. It's a production of I

828
00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:21,080
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer.

829
00:49:21,480 --> 00:49:24,640
Speaker 1: Ary Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato

830
00:49:24,719 --> 00:49:28,279
Speaker 1: is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If

831
00:49:28,280 --> 00:49:30,000
Speaker 1: you want to help us grow, rate, and review us

832
00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:33,239
Speaker 1: on Apple podcasts. For more podcasts from i Heeart Radio,

833
00:49:33,360 --> 00:49:35,640
Speaker 1: check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever

834
00:49:35,640 --> 00:49:36,560
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts.