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1:00

Hey, it's Jonathan Van Ness. Americans

1:02

United for Separation of Church and

1:05

State defends your freedom to live

1:07

as yourself and believe as you choose,

1:09

so long as you don't harm others.

1:12

Core freedoms like abortion rights,

1:14

marriage equality, public education, and

1:16

even American democracy itself rest

1:19

upon the wall of separation between

1:21

church and state. Christian nationalists

1:24

are attacking these freedoms seeking to

1:26

force us all to live by

1:28

their narrow beliefs. Americans

1:30

United is fighting back. Freedom

1:33

without favor and equality without

1:35

exception. Learn more

1:38

about AU at

1:40

au.org/curious. Hey

1:47

curious people, I'm Jonathan Van Ness and

1:49

welcome back to Getting Curious. Well,

1:53

last time I checked it is 2024, which

1:55

is an election year. We've covered this quite

1:57

a bit on the podcast so far. But,

2:01

queens, I don't know if you remember our episode

2:03

with Nadia Bashir from a few years ago on

2:05

misinformation and disinformation, but the

2:07

misinformation and disinformation continues to

2:09

grow, continues to spiral. And

2:13

I'm really concerned about social media

2:15

algorithms and what roles they play

2:17

in spreading misinformation. And I think

2:20

really throwing our hands up and not

2:23

engaging and just getting frustrated and walking

2:25

away from the process, I

2:27

don't think is what's going to happen. But

2:29

I'm also curious about, has

2:31

misinformation ever been this pervasive?

2:34

So to talk about that, we're going to

2:36

be bringing in Renee DiResta. And

2:39

we're asking misinformation, disinformation, and

2:41

propaganda. What's the difference and how does it

2:43

affect us? And make sure to stick around

2:45

to the end of the episode where we'll

2:47

reflect on what we learned and if we

2:50

answered the question. So stick

2:52

around for that conversation. In the meantime,

2:54

my heart, and I know everyone

2:56

else's heart, is heavy and

2:59

feeling powerless in such

3:01

a gigantic system that is just, we're

3:03

just seeing disarray everywhere. I need to do

3:06

something to just feel

3:09

like I can do something to help the

3:12

suffering in Gaza. So I did

3:14

a little research and I looked into the World Central

3:16

Kitchen, which was established in 2023. But

3:19

I've been reading up on them. They've been doing a lot of

3:21

really good work in Gaza, helping to make sure that people are

3:23

fed. I've also been doing research in To

3:25

Save the Children. They have been around for a little

3:27

longer since 1953. That's actually a lot longer since

3:29

2023. But you get what I'm saying.

3:32

They're doing really important, essential work in Gaza. So

3:35

just before we get into that, I wanted to share

3:37

those two resources. As we support

3:39

a ceasefire now, and we

3:41

also want peace in the region, it's really

3:43

important that we say that there's no space

3:46

for antisemitism in this conversation.

3:49

There's no place for Islamophobia in this

3:51

conversation. And we know that people are

3:53

not their governments. And we know that

3:55

government's actions are not their people. That

3:58

was just on my heart. And I felt that... I

4:00

needed to share those two resources with

4:02

you guys this week. Okay,

4:04

let's get to our guest bio. Renee

4:07

DiResta is the research manager at

4:09

the Stanford Internet Observatory, where she

4:11

investigates the spread of malign narratives

4:14

across social networks and assists policymakers

4:16

in understanding and responding to the

4:18

problem. She has advised

4:21

Congress, the State Department, and

4:23

other academic, civic, and business

4:25

organizations and has studied disinformation

4:27

and computational propaganda in the

4:29

context of pseudoscience, conspiracies, terrorism,

4:31

and state-sponsored information warfare.

4:34

Her latest book, Invisible Rulers, The People

4:36

Who Turn Lies Into Reality, is out

4:39

on June 11th. So

4:41

we need your help, Renee. Also, how are you? Are you

4:43

thriving today? I'm good. I'm wonderful

4:45

today. You guys can't see this

4:47

unless you just so happen to see our

4:49

social content on this episode before listening. Renee's

4:51

got a really gorge orange headband today that

4:53

I'm living for sidebar. I just think it's

4:55

really cute. I also really want a headband

4:57

today. So just

5:02

to go over a little cliff notes

5:04

on misinformation and disinformation just to get

5:06

us up to speed. Can you tell

5:08

me the difference between misinformation and disinformation

5:10

again? Yeah, most people use it. The

5:13

misinformation to me is something that's

5:15

wrong, but unintentionally wrong. Disinformation is

5:18

something that is deliberately either wrong

5:21

or it's put out by somebody who's

5:23

not caught what they've seen. So with

5:25

misinformation, you're trying to use it to

5:27

mean something that is actually false, something

5:29

that can be disproven, something that actually

5:31

isn't true. Whereas disinformation,

5:33

sometimes what you're talking about is like

5:35

a campaign to make people believe a

5:37

thing. It's much more related to propaganda.

5:39

It's the idea that you're trying to

5:41

convince an audience of something. And

5:44

you might be doing that with false

5:46

facts or you might just be doing

5:48

it with fake accounts or you're using a lot

5:50

of bots, you're trying to boost something in authentically.

5:53

So that's how we tend to divide those things. Misinformation,

5:56

accidental, disinformation on purpose. So

5:58

how can we spot those misinformation? and

6:00

disinformation just when we're, like,

6:02

where does it exist and where do

6:04

we need to be aware that we

6:07

could be consuming it? Yeah. So misinformation

6:09

can be about anything, right? It's just somebody

6:11

gets something wrong. They read something,

6:13

they misinterpret it. There's a

6:15

scientific study with complicated statistics. They don't

6:18

really understand what they're reading, so they

6:20

make a claim about it. I

6:23

think that misinformation, you know, people usually share

6:25

it because they genuinely care and they really

6:27

believe they want to help their communities. What

6:29

a lot of people use the term for,

6:31

though, in this, like, kind of especially on

6:33

social media is when they're talking about an

6:36

opinion that they don't like, right? Or content

6:38

that's, like, rage bait. So we're using the

6:40

word, but we're not really using it in

6:42

the way that, you know, we're not really

6:44

using it to describe the thing that people

6:46

are actually upset about most of the time.

6:48

So I think the one thing that, you know, when you're

6:51

asking a question like, how do you spot it, a

6:53

lot of the time you kind

6:56

of believe it because it kind

6:59

of reinforces your pre-existing ideas, right?

7:01

You don't like a particular group

7:03

of people. You hear a claim

7:05

about that particular group of people, maybe a political party

7:08

that you don't like, and you're kind of inclined to

7:10

believe it. You

7:12

find yourself, like, you know, you see something

7:14

and they're, like, outraged, and so then you go

7:16

and you share it yourself. That's the kind of dynamic that

7:18

tends to happen with these things. And

7:20

that's why I think misinformation, when you're talking about

7:23

something that's true or false, it's a good time to

7:25

use the word. Otherwise, what you're really talking about

7:27

is propaganda and rage bait. So

7:30

I think really what's gotten me

7:32

so much is it being

7:35

queer and being genderqueer on

7:37

top of my sexuality is,

7:41

I think I've always seen and

7:43

noticed disinformation, especially when it comes

7:45

to our community, but it

7:47

does feel like there's just a higher amount of this

7:53

type of rage baiting sort

7:55

of content. And I

7:57

wonder if it's because... I've

8:00

hypothesized this on getting curious several times, but it's

8:02

so, you know, excuse me, but we've got to

8:04

do it. It's like, I think

8:06

that it's because negative content speaks to

8:09

like our fear and our brain. It's

8:11

like your survival instinct. It's like that

8:13

unknown thing or the really rage inducing thing,

8:15

that is like the snake, that is the

8:17

hippo that's going to like trample you, like

8:20

that is the thing that's going to kill

8:22

you. So you really notice it.

8:24

Whereas when it's like something that's like, you

8:26

know, a little fuzzy bunny,

8:29

like a happy story about like

8:31

someone doing something nice or accomplishing

8:33

something that doesn't have the same

8:35

amount of energy because it's not

8:37

like a threat to anyone. So

8:39

by playing off of that idea

8:42

of threat to whatever is

8:44

really good at getting people to click

8:46

and engage because people are afraid.

8:49

Do you think that that's true? I think that that's

8:52

true. I think one way that this really happens

8:54

is, you know, we were talking about his identity,

8:56

right? So we've kind

8:58

of hit a point, particularly on social

9:00

media, where people engage around things that

9:02

they feel like reinforce their identity. And

9:04

so much of that is

9:06

culture or politics. And so

9:09

regardless of what particular opinion you may

9:11

hold, what we see and

9:14

social science research kind of reinforces

9:16

this, this sort of geeky academic

9:18

stuff, basically says that people see

9:20

arguments against their political beliefs as

9:22

attacks on them personally also. So it puts

9:24

them into a mindset of, oh, I have

9:26

to fight with these people, right? I have

9:28

to, you know, I have to defeat these

9:30

people, these, these sort of like these enemies.

9:32

And so what you start to see is

9:34

people are all like, they're, they're

9:36

kind of like waiting for it. They

9:38

even go looking for it because it's like, well,

9:41

of course, this is what I do on the internet, right? I

9:43

fight with my political enemies. This is what the internet is for. This

9:45

is what Twitter is for. This is what TikTok is for. I'm going to

9:47

own my enemies today. And so you get people

9:49

who go there looking for that, you know,

9:51

looking for that content, basically just finding ways

9:53

to fight. And in addition to the ordinary

9:56

people that do this, the sort of crowds

9:58

of people, you have the influencers. And

10:00

the influencers are particularly good at it. And

10:03

that's because there's incentives for them. This is,

10:05

you know, they're making money off of it.

10:07

Their engagement goes up when they, you know,

10:09

when they do these things that rile up

10:12

their base. And so again, it's, you know,

10:14

I'm describing it in general terms because it's

10:16

not a thing that's unique to one particular

10:18

issue or one particular group or even one

10:21

particular country. It's just the incentives of social

10:23

media make it so that people engage like

10:25

this. And it really does intersect with what

10:27

you're describing, right, that sort of psychological response

10:30

to I am being attacked.

10:33

There is something I should be afraid of here. And

10:35

that kind of fear response gets people off the

10:38

fence and, you know, and kind of into the

10:40

melee. Is there a link or like, what's

10:42

the link between misinformation and then like polarization

10:44

across a whole broad group of people? And

10:46

the only other thing I was gonna say

10:49

about that too is, is that

10:51

like, we also just did this fun episode on like local

10:53

press. And one really interesting thing in that episode

10:56

that didn't occur to me at all, is

10:58

that like as local newspapers have dwindled, that

11:01

gave us practice in smaller groups of people, like

11:03

coming to a common understanding of facts. And she

11:05

used this example of like recycling. She was like,

11:07

if you ever wanna see a small town like

11:10

fucking fight each other tooth and nail,

11:12

talk about like redoing their recycling bins

11:14

and you will see people like just

11:17

get so pissed like about

11:19

something that seems like not like

11:21

as huge but it's like really intense.

11:24

But it gives people the practice on

11:26

like compromising and like coming to a

11:28

consensus. And we just don't, we have

11:30

way less practice coming to a common

11:32

consensus now, not only because of local

11:34

papers, but I think maybe because of misinformation

11:37

and like polarization, because at least papers had

11:39

to kind of back up what they were

11:42

saying like a little bit or be like,

11:44

this is an opinion, not fact. But

11:46

what is the link between misinformation and polarization for

11:48

like a community or like a whole country? Yeah,

11:50

there's a lot of, that's one of the things

11:53

that's constantly debated in academia, it's like, you

11:55

know, niche fights. And that's because it's really hard

11:57

to say like this piece

11:59

of information. and cause that belief, right?

12:01

Your beliefs are shaped, your identity is

12:03

shaped by who you engage with, what

12:05

you read, who you spend time with.

12:08

Used to be much more geographically based, like you know,

12:10

right? You have the people you're gonna fight about your recycling

12:12

bins with, live like next door. You

12:15

can be a real asshole in those debates

12:17

if you want to, but then you have

12:19

to see that guy every day, right? So

12:21

there is like, I think, a grace that

12:23

we, you know, that we afford

12:25

our neighbors, perhaps, when there's sort of a physical

12:27

proximity to us, and we don't have to do

12:29

that online, because there are just some random anon,

12:31

right? You know, somebody on the other end of

12:34

an avatar, and we don't have to care how

12:36

they feel about what we say or how we

12:38

act, because again, we're there to have the fight,

12:40

right? That's the incentives, like the norms are really

12:42

now around like, I am going to

12:44

go to the internet, like to brawl, right, now I'm

12:46

gonna go to the internet to learn something

12:48

new and make a new friends or neighbor

12:50

or whatever. So I

12:53

think that with the polarization stuff, it's

12:55

really hard to say like, misinformation leads

12:57

to polarization. I think one of the

12:59

issues though is when

13:01

you have that very factionalized world, and

13:03

then you have people who, they

13:06

really tend to start to trust the media

13:08

that speaks to them because it seems like

13:10

them, right? And that's different than local news,

13:12

which had to speak to all of the

13:15

people in the geographical region, right?

13:17

Whereas now, again, if I am starting a sub-stack,

13:19

say, and I wanna reach a particular group of

13:21

people, the people who are gonna pay me are

13:24

the people who I developed

13:26

a sense of trust with. And one way I can

13:28

do that is by saying like, I'm just like you,

13:30

right? As a member of

13:32

group X, let me tell you about how we should

13:34

think about this thing. And one thing that is

13:36

really interesting is when

13:39

you see actual proper disinformation

13:41

campaigns. And when I say

13:43

that, I'm usually referring to something where there is

13:45

like, a state actor involved, like let's

13:47

say Russia, China, Iran. One

13:50

of the things that happens is they pretend

13:52

to be members of the

13:54

community. That's how they're speaking to you. As

13:56

a fellow black person, we shouldn't vote for Hillary

13:59

Clinton. It's not... You shouldn't write it's

14:01

we shouldn't as a member of the shared

14:03

identity We should not do this thing. And

14:05

so you see that reinforcement that entrenchment and

14:08

then they and then they create the other

14:10

right as American

14:12

veterans we are not receiving our

14:14

benefits. Why are we having more

14:16

immigrants come in? Right. And so there's that

14:19

there's that connection where first and foremost what

14:21

I'm emphasizing is that we're in this together

14:23

We're a shared group, you know, we

14:25

have these shared beliefs and then also those other

14:27

people over there, you know They're

14:30

taking something away from us. And

14:32

so there's that that's the sort of thing where again when

14:35

you see actual literal state

14:37

propagandists doing that work That's

14:39

the strategy that they're running and it's because it

14:41

is the ability to say like you

14:44

trust me I'm like you those other

14:46

people are over there and this

14:48

is how you know This is that let me tell

14:50

you about how the world is we can't compromise with

14:52

them because they're always trying to take something from us

14:55

And you do see that again and like hyper

14:57

partisan political influencers do the same thing. Of course,

15:00

they're not, you know They're not fake. I'm not

15:02

saying in any way that they're quote inauthentic but

15:05

the the sort of The

15:07

accounts that are pretending to be something that they're

15:09

not are using that same type of rhetoric because

15:11

it's very effective So are we just totally

15:13

fucked like social media going to fuck

15:15

us to hell or like how can

15:17

we be effective with our information? One

15:20

of the things I think about is like, you

15:22

know, I have a very dry analytical way

15:24

of communicating, right? It's just you know, here's

15:26

my here the factors how I understand them.

15:28

I like to write I hate

15:30

being on video you know, I thought of making

15:32

kickoffs like gives me anxiety but One

15:35

of the things when the reasons why I wrote the book in part was

15:37

like I feel like Influencers have a

15:40

role to play here, right? Like

15:42

they set the norms. This

15:44

is how you engage This is how you criticize

15:46

somebody just how you talk about somebody right? Like

15:48

you have a lot of people who are who

15:50

really look up to people who have massive Followings

15:52

of huge audiences because they see it as like

15:54

here's a person who's kind of like me has

15:56

a lot of the same opinions It's me and

15:59

here's how they behave And it becomes

16:01

an offense like this

16:03

is the avatar for what it means to

16:05

be a good progressive or a good, you know,

16:07

fill in the blank, conservative or whatever. And

16:11

so that idea of norm setting is

16:13

something I think a lot about. I just

16:15

don't feel like I personally have the power

16:18

to do anything about that. The

16:21

only thing I can do is decide how am I

16:23

going to engage? And

16:26

I do feel like I have kind of hit a

16:28

point where when I see something outrageous about, you

16:30

know, a person or a politician I don't like, like, I actually do

16:33

go try to like find more articles about it

16:35

before I just hit the reshare button at this

16:37

point, like the kind of like, pause before you post

16:39

or whatever they say in media

16:41

literacy these days. But

16:44

there is that question

16:46

of like, how do you establish

16:48

norms within your community? Again, it

16:50

used to be so much geographical.

16:53

And then now, back around 2015,

16:55

the idea that, you know, you

16:59

got attention and quote unquote one by

17:01

like owning your enemies became sort of

17:03

norm for engaging on the internet. And

17:05

people grew massive followings because they were

17:07

very good on, you know, good at

17:09

dunking on people. Like that was their,

17:12

that was a whole mo. So I

17:14

think that kind of shift does have to happen from, you know,

17:17

from people who begin to realize that

17:19

like, you know, I think a lot

17:21

of influencers in particular start off thinking like, Oh, I'm

17:23

just posting my opinions to my friends. They

17:26

don't see it as like a source of power. Right?

17:28

But it is, it is a source of power. And

17:30

to think about how you use that power is something I wish we

17:32

had more of. If

17:39

you're like me, the threat of fascism is

17:41

weighing on you this year. But

17:44

even when the F word is uttered, way

17:46

too few of us are considering the full

17:48

scope of the danger, let alone how to

17:50

really stop it. the

18:00

understanding and urgency we need to defeat

18:02

it. And she is joined by great

18:04

guests to discuss the threat of civil

18:06

war, attacks on abortion rights and trans

18:08

rights, Trump and the theocrats, Project 2025,

18:10

efforts to erase history and critical

18:13

thinking, and much more. Check

18:15

out recent episodes featuring Kathleen

18:17

Belew, Jeff Charlotte, Sarah Posner,

18:20

Wajahat Ali, Dalia Lithwick, and

18:22

many more. Subscribe to the

18:24

Refuse Fascism podcast on your

18:26

listening platform of choice or

18:28

go to refusefascism.org/ podcast. Darling,

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19:40

in the Middle East or even here in the

19:42

United States, is there any way for us to

19:44

know? That is I think that

19:46

is really the question, right? And

19:49

a lot of the stuff that Stanford Internet

19:52

Observatory where I work, what we

19:54

try to understand we're looking at particularly

19:57

breaking crises.

20:00

So I remember on October 7th, immediately

20:03

after it happened, we had all the Telegram channels

20:05

up. And this is my

20:07

job, we look at public data, the Telegram channels

20:09

up, we were looking at what was happening on

20:11

X. And what you would see is

20:14

content that would land on the Telegram

20:17

channels, you couldn't verify

20:19

it really in the moment, but

20:21

people would go and they would take it and they

20:23

would move it over to X

20:25

instantly. Because here is a

20:28

sensational or horrific image, boom, we're going to put

20:30

it over here. And for

20:32

some of these, like, I would do reverse

20:34

image search or something, and I'm like, okay,

20:36

that came out of Syria like five years

20:39

ago, right? But that person who has just

20:41

shared that image is influential, has a large

20:43

following, and it's already gone viral, right? Because

20:45

everybody who's seen it is now outraged and

20:47

horrified also, they've clicked the share button, they've

20:49

participated in that process, and like, boom, we're off

20:52

to the races. Maybe you're going

20:54

to get some community notes that will eventually clarify

20:56

that, no, this is an image from Syria, but

20:58

that's going to have an after test, like two

21:00

million views, you know? And

21:02

we know from Nadia Bashir's episode that when you

21:05

get like, when you first learn something, like your

21:07

brain always is going to think that that's like

21:09

the default right thing, even if it was wrong.

21:12

Right, or you're not even going to see the

21:14

fact check. And this is, you know,

21:16

Israel Gaza was a particularly emotionally, like,

21:18

you know, horrifying thing for many, many

21:20

people. And then the response similarly was

21:22

an emotionally horrifying thing for many people.

21:24

And so they did come to feel

21:26

really invested in it, right? And so

21:28

what can you do if you're like,

21:30

you know, sitting here in the United

21:32

States of America? Well,

21:35

maybe your form of activism is boosting the things that

21:37

you think show your enemies in the worst light or

21:39

show the plight of your side or different ways you

21:41

can do that. But

21:44

what you have to work with is

21:46

not something that you have in any

21:48

way kind of personally verified. And

21:50

so when you have generative AI that

21:53

can produce an image that looks quite

21:55

plausibly like a building blown up

21:57

in a in a conflict zone, right? And

22:00

you can't reverse image search that because it

22:02

is a unique image. It's not going to

22:04

show you that this is from Syria five

22:06

years ago, because it literally doesn't exist, right?

22:08

It's a world. It's a reality, right? It's

22:11

a thing that looks highly plausible. And

22:14

so you can go and share it. And it's

22:16

very hard to figure out if it's true or not.

22:18

And so we're putting all of this onus on people,

22:20

even when I say like, you know, think before you

22:23

share, right? But that

22:25

does assume that you have so much time

22:27

in which you're going to actually go and

22:29

take the time to do that, that you

22:31

have tools that make that possible. And

22:35

most people really don't. And then the

22:37

other flip side that we saw with

22:39

that ability to kind of create unreality

22:41

is that unfortunately, you also saw people

22:43

denying reality that was quite real, right?

22:45

So there were, for example, images

22:47

of babies, right, that were released

22:50

by the Israeli government in the

22:53

days immediately following October

22:55

7. And they

22:57

were real. But interestingly, like, you

22:59

know, right wing influencer Ben Shapiro

23:01

tweeted them, and he

23:03

got tagged by other right wing

23:06

influencers who were like, no, no, no, I

23:08

ran this through an AI checker, and it

23:10

tells me that it's AI generated. And then

23:12

all of a sudden, you have this whole

23:15

debate about whether like, you know, did the

23:17

Israeli government fabricate images of dead babies and

23:19

post them on X? Did

23:22

Israel supporter Ben Shapiro, you know,

23:25

run a propaganda campaign? Was it the whole

23:27

like beheaded babies thing? Yeah. And

23:30

also that was very much caught up

23:32

in the beheaded baby story, which was

23:34

such a like macabre thing to be

23:36

talking about. But there was a journalist

23:38

who reported a story saying that

23:40

a person who was recovering

23:43

bodies after the October 7

23:45

massacre said that there were 40 beheaded

23:47

babies and 40 is a very, very,

23:49

very specific number. You will anchor to it

23:51

you will. And it's also a

23:53

very specific thing to search for. So

23:55

now all of a sudden, when you're searching for 40 beheaded

23:58

babies, that phrase this

24:00

is an opportune time for anybody who

24:02

has produced content related to that very,

24:04

very, very specific phrase is going to

24:07

pop up. And again, what gradually comes

24:09

out is there were some

24:12

babies that had been murdered in various

24:14

ways. Right. And so you wind up in this,

24:17

you know, this world where people are debating, is

24:19

it 40 or not 40? Is the image real?

24:21

Is the image not real? You know, it

24:25

was, it was like one of the most bizarre

24:27

media inquiries that I've ever gotten was, you know,

24:29

was like people wanting to talk about like that

24:32

story and what it meant. And I, you know,

24:34

that's what happens at like the Stanford,

24:36

like it is the Stanford Internet observatories.

24:38

Like you go to Stanford. Is that

24:41

where it is? It is a Stanford.

24:43

Yes. It's like

24:45

you go there and it's basically just like

24:47

a huge newsroom of like academics,

24:50

like verifying stories.

24:53

No, we are not fact checkers. That's the

24:55

funny thing. The media reaches out to

24:57

us periodically, try to try to understand

24:59

like we are adamant that we are not

25:01

fact checkers. It is not our job to tell

25:04

you what is true or false. But

25:06

what we can tell you a lot

25:08

of the time is where an image

25:10

first appeared. Right. And then what you'll

25:12

see is somebody like BBC verify, for

25:14

example, or the New York Times has

25:17

a verification team. Bellingcat has a verification

25:19

team. There are these people, I'll

25:21

use BBC as an example because we, you know, we

25:23

would occasionally talk to them about, you know, anti-uprange

25:26

videos on TikTok and what kind of

25:28

networks were behind those. So

25:30

what you would see is like, here's

25:33

where we first see this content. Here

25:35

is how it's moved across the Internet.

25:37

Here is how this influencer wound up

25:39

with it. So you can think about

25:41

it a little bit more like kind

25:43

of forensically tracing how something went viral.

25:45

Why did that thing come to be

25:47

in your feed? That's the kind of

25:49

work that when we are doing work

25:51

on disinformation, oftentimes that's what we're doing.

25:53

So we're not making a value judgment

25:55

about this is true or this is

25:57

false. We rely on fact checkers and

26:00

people who are doing that kind of authentication

26:02

ourselves. But what we can do is say,

26:04

here is how this became a

26:06

trending topic on Twitter. Here is how this

26:08

debate about the 40 dead babies unfolded across

26:10

the various political factions on the internet. Have

26:13

we seen or has there been

26:15

any like generative AI that's been proven

26:17

like on online

26:19

or on social as related to the Gaza

26:22

war? Yeah, there's

26:24

definitely there's stuff out there. You

26:26

can kind of Google for

26:28

it or Google for it. Media

26:31

does write these stories. Sometimes past a point,

26:33

we don't work very small team. We don't

26:35

have the bandwidth to continue to deal the

26:38

research project on a particular ongoing conflict. Usually

26:40

at some point, there are teams that are

26:42

devoted to conflicts of research that will come

26:44

in and do it. You know, we've worked

26:46

quite a bit on Ukraine in

26:49

the sort of early days of February

26:51

2022. That's not that's sort

26:54

of a little bit less

26:56

of a thing that we actively focus on now. There's so many

26:58

other people to do it. But

27:00

yeah, your question maybe I just

27:03

trailed off. No, you did. You totally did. That's

27:05

just like so interesting. So you guys are like,

27:07

so a news org will come to

27:09

you guys to like try. They're like, we have

27:11

this story like we need to figure out like

27:13

where these images came from. And so you can

27:15

kind of dissect like how a story played out.

27:18

And like, yeah, yeah, that's fascinating.

27:20

Yeah, so that's what we try to

27:23

be. And again, public data and quantitative

27:25

analysis. So that's what we focus on. Interest.

27:28

Let's go back to the book.

27:30

Invisible Rulers. So who

27:34

are our modern day propagandists? It's

27:36

me. Who else are the invisible

27:38

rulers? So the term invisible rulers came

27:41

from Edward Bernays, who sometimes called the

27:43

father of modern propaganda. And he wrote

27:45

this book. So he was

27:47

he worked on kind of selling World War I to

27:49

the American public. Right. And

27:53

the word propaganda back in the 1920s was not

27:56

yet a pejorative. Right. So he's making

27:58

this argument, the phrase he the The

28:00

sentence he says is like, there are invisible

28:02

rulers who control the destinies of millions. And

28:05

then he talks about how we are

28:07

governed by, and our

28:09

tastes are formed by, our ideas are suggested

28:11

by, men we've never even heard of. So

28:14

you think that your opinion is

28:16

being steered maybe by the media,

28:18

by the politician. But what's really

28:20

happening is there are these incredibly

28:22

powerful people who are opinion formers

28:24

and opinion shakers, who are actually

28:26

steering the politician or speaking to

28:28

the media. And that was where

28:30

the idea of invisible rulers came

28:32

from. So I wanted to

28:34

kind of like pull that phrase forward

28:36

100 years basically, right? So I thought

28:38

it was like such a captivating way

28:40

to describe it, particularly because most of

28:42

what Bernays is doing in the book,

28:45

most of the case studies in the

28:47

book are not about politics at all.

28:49

They're about marketing, right? They're about like,

28:52

I want to sell cigarettes to women.

28:54

How am I gonna do that? Well, I'm gonna call them like,

28:57

I forgot the name, the specific phrase to

28:59

use, torches of freedom. You know, you are

29:01

a liberated woman, if you are smoking, pick

29:03

up your torch of freedom. And

29:06

so you see this model

29:09

of influence as like,

29:11

we are gonna appeal to you as a member

29:13

of a group and make you think that as

29:16

a good member of a group, as a liberated

29:18

woman, you should be a smoker. And we're gonna

29:20

create that demand over time and by appealing to

29:22

your identity as a member of that group. And

29:25

so this book is kind of a fascinating read, and

29:27

again, 100 years in the future, because what he's

29:30

basically talking about are people

29:32

who are incredibly influential and

29:34

they just know how to reach and connect with

29:36

an audience. And so influencers,

29:38

like the very term influencer didn't

29:41

come out of politics, came out of marketing,

29:43

right? And I was like, you probably remember

29:45

this, the idea

29:47

of like, you can help, you

29:49

know, you can help the gap sell as

29:51

teens, right? You

29:53

can help Nike sell their sneakers by, because

29:56

like, you have like

29:59

a certain aesthetic. like you're fun,

30:01

your fans like you, you can help

30:03

a brand monetize. And so you actually

30:05

see brands going to, what

30:07

became influencers, trying to sell products

30:09

to their fans, right? It's actually

30:11

like a completely transactional thing in

30:13

the early days. And

30:16

gradually you see that kind of

30:18

move into political influencers, where instead

30:20

of selling a pair of shoes,

30:22

you're selling an ideology, right? You're

30:24

selling like a, you're selling a

30:26

topic to fight about, you're selling a culture war

30:28

opinion. And so the book

30:30

really just asks, what

30:33

does it look like when

30:35

the kind of people who

30:37

are molding opinions, suggesting ideas,

30:40

shaping the discourse, right? Getting

30:42

eyeballs on content, like

30:45

what do we call them? How do we think about them?

30:47

So I didn't intend propaganda to be like a pejorative at

30:49

all. I was thinking about it more in the context of

30:51

like, how it was used in the 1920s, which

30:54

was just like, here we

30:56

are, we're opinion shaping. That is a thing people do. And

30:59

we're gonna go ahead and do it.

31:01

And so my goal with the book is

31:03

just to kind of ask that question, right? What

31:05

happens when it's very self-directed

31:07

and you personally can earn quite

31:09

a good living off of it? Don't

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33:19

things that happen on social media are stressful,

33:21

but you know, is it a security threat?

33:24

It depends on if something happens to you. But

33:26

what security threats does this pose

33:28

to people at large? Just the

33:30

level of polarization that plays

33:32

out on social media on so many

33:34

different terms. I mean, I think about

33:37

Charlottesville. I

33:39

think about times where people have lost their

33:41

lives in protests and in all

33:43

sorts of different ways. Are we over

33:45

concerned? Are we under concerned? Have we been

33:47

here before? What did you

33:49

find from researching the book about where we are?

33:52

So one of the things that I point to quite

33:54

a bit actually was this guy

33:58

by the name of Father Coughlin. Oh

34:00

my God. Yeah, there's a whole country on

34:02

Father Koppel. On Ultra, they

34:04

talked about him on Ultra, Rachel Maddow's podcast

34:07

about that. Oh, I have to go listen.

34:09

Oh my God. It's about

34:11

that senator from Minnesota who is

34:13

a fucking Nazi apologist who from

34:15

inside the Senate was distributing

34:17

Nazi propaganda. He was basically working in

34:19

cahoots with the Nazis to try to

34:21

get us not to go into World

34:24

War II. Then he

34:26

ended up dying in this weird plane

34:28

crash. He's the only sitting senator to

34:30

ever die in office. Then

34:32

after he died, this book that got recovered

34:34

from the plane crash, you have got to

34:37

listen to Ultra Renate. You will shit your

34:39

pants. I have to listen to this. It's

34:41

so good. Father Koppel was part of... Wasn't

34:44

he a radio guy from the 30s and he just

34:46

had this huge... He

34:49

was really giving you

34:51

Trumpy nationalist... It

34:55

was like the most popular radio show of that whole

34:57

decade, wasn't it? Yeah. At his

35:00

peak, he had about 30 million listeners.

35:03

Three zero million fucking

35:05

30 million? That's huge

35:07

by today's standards. Right. It's

35:10

objectively huge. I think the population in

35:12

the US was maybe 120 million at

35:14

that point. You can fact check

35:16

me. It's in the book. The book was fact checked.

35:19

What I thought was really interesting about

35:21

him is you see this man of

35:23

the moment, right? Radio is relatively

35:25

new. If you can listen to some

35:28

of the recordings, he's always talked about us having this

35:30

deep baritone. He sounds...

35:32

He's a priest. He's a man

35:34

of God. He's trusted. He's

35:37

got this hypnotic way of delivering

35:40

his sermon. What you

35:42

see is he's originally very much like a

35:44

supporter of the poor. He's a populist in

35:46

the way that populism is

35:48

not in the proto-populism of today, but

35:50

in the actual populism where it means

35:53

people who are trying to support the poor

35:55

and try to create political policies that

35:57

benefit the poor. You

35:59

see him... Originally a supporter of FDR than

36:01

he kind of becomes like an about enemy of

36:03

FDR He feels like he's failed he hasn't delivered

36:05

for the people But he in

36:07

turn becomes a big fan of Mussolini

36:09

and Hitler and so you see his

36:12

radicalization Happens and

36:14

because he has this massive Following

36:16

you see him really kind of like take those

36:18

followers along for the ride And

36:20

then you see the sort of oh shit moment

36:22

right where FDR doesn't want to intervene because of

36:24

the First Amendment He doesn't want to be seen

36:26

as you know Sifling this critic of his you

36:29

see the broadcasters you radio is licensed

36:31

right so there's kind of you know And

36:34

you can think about it as kind of a

36:36

parallel to social media in a sense not a

36:38

government license But again somebody is controlling who gets

36:41

that slot So they're trying to figure out

36:43

like how do we fact check him he

36:45

starts to say crazy things Chris

36:47

so knocked right where Jewish homes and businesses were

36:49

attacked he says oh well It was really the

36:52

fault of the Jews right so you see that

36:54

very kind of you know that rhetoric that you

36:56

can Hear echoes of or you know you sort

36:58

of see it again a century into the future

37:01

And so it's been a bit of time like trying

37:04

to explain that moment right you see you

37:06

know He's got a paramilitary organization that sort

37:08

of supports him. He's again. He's doing that

37:10

thing where he's like well You know violence

37:12

is terrible, but also we need to fight

37:14

for you know Catholics need to stand up

37:16

and fight for their kind right and so

37:18

you see that that same kind of rhetoric

37:20

is out there You

37:23

see the FBI going after these people

37:25

Because they really blow up like a

37:27

weapon factory yeah, yeah, so there's like

37:29

so they begin to do these sort of

37:32

street skirmishes You know there's a bunch of

37:34

different kind of political actions of these groups that

37:36

are Nominally aligned with him

37:38

there's a question about how active he really

37:40

is Yeah, that's

37:43

sort of plausible. Deny abilities there

37:45

sometimes. He's supporting it sometimes

37:47

He's taking a couple steps back You see

37:49

his supporters begin to protest as the broadcasters

37:51

do begin to crack down on him and

37:53

take him off the air right, they've is

37:55

very dramatic set of

37:57

events that's happening and You

38:00

know, you have media trying to figure out how

38:02

to counter speak effectively and then you have ordinary

38:05

like college professors that go and they

38:08

create this educational curriculum

38:10

called the Institute for Propaganda

38:12

Analysis and what I loved about it

38:14

was they literally Annotated

38:17

his speeches with emoji, right? They they

38:19

like came up with this like I

38:24

When I opened up the archives, I was like

38:26

this is actually this like kind of fucking incredible

38:28

I don't know how did we forget this but

38:30

you have these professors who begin to say look

38:33

We're not going to try to fact check him.

38:35

That's a waste of time, but let us explain

38:37

why the rhetoric works, right? Here is why you

38:39

feel so emotionally enraptured

38:41

by Father Coughlin Here's the

38:43

kind of rhetoric that's being used in

38:45

this speech in this sentence in this

38:47

like smear campaign against this enemy And

38:50

so they come up with all these little

38:52

names like the glittering generality, right? And and

38:54

then they literally make an emoji a diamond

38:56

emoji for the glittering generality and they take

38:59

all the speeches and they begin to release

39:01

Them basically as pamphlets for the communities for

39:03

people to just share in there, you know

39:05

Local like bowling club or whatever, you know, I

39:07

just sit around listening to the radio maybe And

39:10

they just kind of like dropped a little

39:13

diamond in the spots in the speech where

39:15

he's using that technique And so the point

39:17

is almost like why are we wasting our

39:19

time playing whack-a-mole with fact checks? And we

39:22

could be teaching people to recognize the sort

39:24

of tactics and tropes that propaganda Use

39:26

and so I spent a bunch of time on this as

39:29

a book basically just trying to like make that argument is

39:31

this this sort of

39:33

like a lost knowledge from the 1930s like

39:35

a better approach to responding than

39:38

you know, then then playing fact-checking games or

39:41

Screaming at somebody and trying to counter them

39:43

by screaming at them is like Exposing

39:46

the tricks actually a much more effective way to do

39:48

it Which is basically the glitting

39:50

generalities like when you take like What

39:54

is a glittering generality? to

39:56

mean something

39:58

where you can I painted entire

40:01

pension, entire group that like better and living

40:03

on time when the when you are yeah

40:05

oh like is veterans. we're not getting our

40:07

benefits and all these immigrants keep coming in

40:09

and taking or things so we want to

40:11

be like? Isn't that one where you're like

40:14

blaming the woes of like the Vi and

40:16

immigration. Is

40:19

the grain of truth there a lot of

40:21

veterans who don't get their benefits are a

40:23

lot of that are and to have extreme.

40:25

Mental health, struggled, struggled in are

40:27

totally forgotten about that completely. Grounded

40:29

and so there is like it. It's

40:32

residents he says something about

40:34

it is true. The.

40:36

And a demonization that particular. Season

40:39

Two. Is not necessarily the

40:41

correct you know they raised to

40:43

get into the propaganda at the

40:45

other Angus. There is a problem.

40:47

The scapegoating is problem for the

40:50

argument that. There is that getting

40:52

a benefits. Isn't something that is

40:54

actively true right into their is? With

40:56

a grain of truth that ferrets it's

40:58

very hard. Because. Then you have

41:00

to respond by getting into a whole debate

41:02

about it. About it is sad

41:04

that this. Crisis.

41:08

Nuance here Who? so he can think

41:10

about that instead, you're much more likely

41:12

to respond, mostly because he. Is. Generality

41:15

appeals to you. Which. Is like. Biological.

41:18

Males are a threat to women are we

41:20

are the I'm right, The Ark is a

41:22

fuckin' over fund the man and under fund

41:24

the women and give like the women city

41:26

or training facilities. But it's like the trans

41:29

women aren't even fucking men. so like what

41:31

are we talking about here Sharon, you know

41:33

I'm in the yeah that is so in

41:35

for. That is so true. So I'm. It's

41:38

Alexa near. Ah. And

41:41

also I realize when I started this I was

41:43

so said Her misinformation december me say never

41:45

really asked a guiding question which is like. Are.

41:48

We've fucked is missing Burmese and more

41:50

prevalent than ever. So maybe that's like

41:52

what it was in retrospect. the like

41:54

in an election year which we are

41:56

in Norway especially first is missing for

41:58

me, suddenly more prevalent. Than ever. Like

42:01

you have any recommendations for like

42:03

ah, money to how much time

42:05

a day said one spend on

42:07

Athena information at night. Let's

42:10

see, I'm loving it. did. I

42:13

think. As. He said. When

42:16

as it were narrative legacy people who are trying to be.

42:18

Influences A More Not trying to make it a

42:20

career and. People realize how much

42:22

influence the even some was in their

42:25

communities right? As a thinking about your

42:27

role as like wire sharing and are

42:29

you getting information out there. It.

42:31

Is really important. Are. We fact. I

42:33

mean. You know, Depends.

42:35

On who you. Know

42:37

I wish I could be optimistic.

42:40

I'm really not enough released under

42:42

stress. And that's because one of

42:44

the things I'm. One.

42:46

Of the things that has persisted disliked the

42:48

belief that the Twenty Twenty a lesson was

42:50

stolen. Has been.

42:53

Really pc interest and

42:56

it's. It's. Not there

42:58

are in a when it's expressed by lake A

43:00

person who has heard of it has their media

43:03

has told them in their elected leaders have told

43:05

us. Facet of

43:07

people are if you've been misled

43:09

by people who know better or

43:11

worse, seamlessly, using them for purposes

43:13

of maximizing their political power is

43:15

incredibly manipulative, and it's been happening

43:17

for four years now. Price: And

43:19

so that is where I think

43:21

the biggest in the biggest. Challenge.

43:25

Is actually going to be. The people are really

43:27

dug in. They've been hearing for four years. And

43:29

in a lesson was stolen from

43:31

them by those other people. Every

43:33

single campaign speech reinforces that I

43:35

it has no basis in reality

43:37

By no. Matter how many investigations there

43:39

are and sue you know, ballot said

43:41

ballot integrity and putting the scene Integrity

43:43

no matter how many. Times. Like

43:47

Two Sues Fox News, the financial in

43:49

math is Samantha and we still for

43:51

ten that somehow there was like that

43:53

there. There and they don't. Full.

43:55

throated the repudiated and emphasize on their

43:57

programs now know there was no evidence

44:00

So we are in two very,

44:02

very kind of distinct realities about

44:05

the basic legitimacy of American elections.

44:08

And that's the thing that concerns me

44:10

because it's one thing to disagree about,

44:12

you know, trans policies,

44:15

abortion policies, more policies, you name

44:17

it, while at least acknowledging that

44:19

an election is free and fair. And

44:21

we have hit a point where whatever direction

44:24

it goes, my real concern is that people

44:26

are going to be convinced that the winner

44:28

is illegitimate. And I think

44:30

that's actually a foundational problem for

44:32

American democracy in a way that

44:34

all of the other kind of issue-based debates

44:37

are predicated on the idea that we get to

44:39

fight those out at the ballot box. And if

44:41

we then create the perception that the ballot box

44:43

itself is not legitimate, that's where I think the

44:46

real concern is. So

44:49

my own work, my own kind of focus for

44:52

2024 is actually trying to understand more of

44:54

the narratives about election

44:57

de-legitimization, right? It's just,

44:59

I am not going to, you know, in

45:01

2020, we ran a project where

45:03

we just looked at false

45:05

and misleading claims related to voting. We

45:07

didn't pay attention to Hunter Biden's laptop.

45:10

We didn't pay attention to what

45:12

candidate A said about candidate B. We did

45:14

not care about the broader kind of culture

45:16

war, you know, issues of the day. The

45:18

only thing we cared about was what, you

45:21

know, were there lies about the procedures and

45:23

kind of protocols of voting, like these things

45:25

that they vote on Wednesday, not on Tuesday,

45:28

or lie to you about when early voting

45:30

ends, things like that. And then were they

45:32

working to de-legitimize the election? And

45:34

it was overwhelmingly the latter. It was

45:37

so much de-legitimization. And that's what I

45:39

think we really need to be focused

45:41

on, just as people who believe in democracy and

45:43

want to see the American project continue. Especially with

45:45

like generative AI, it's like you could make, I

45:47

mean, you know, when Trump's always talking about like

45:49

stuffing ballot boxes and like, you could

45:51

just make videos of that sort of thing. And

45:53

that's where I think, again, kind of going

45:56

back to our chat about the, you know,

45:58

the sort of fog of unreality. that

46:00

we started to see play out in Ukraine

46:03

and Gaza, right, these sort of very pivotal

46:05

moments. I think you will see

46:07

some of that play out during an election. And

46:09

one thing that becomes a challenge is if a

46:12

fact checker or authenticator says, no,

46:14

this isn't real, then the response

46:16

is going to be, yeah, but you don't trust that fact checker.

46:19

That's a mainstream media fact checker. And so

46:23

I think that that's

46:26

one of the things that I think is going to

46:28

be challenging about generative AI. It's going to be

46:30

even if something is created and identified as created,

46:32

there's going to be people who are going to

46:34

continue to want to believe it. And

46:37

that is where I think that kind

46:39

of divergence in reality is really toxic.

46:42

Yeah, I need to make a note of this, like

46:44

what I'm curious about now, because it's like that fucking

46:46

electoral college, honey. What Biden won like

46:48

those six or seven states by like 110 or something.

46:51

I think Trump won those six or seven

46:53

or whatever his coalition was by like a

46:55

little bit less. But the difference in the

46:57

popular vote is so big that it's

47:00

crazy that California, New

47:05

York and these states that

47:07

have way more population just

47:10

were still ruled by this

47:12

antiquated fucking electoral college. It was

47:14

literally meant to empower rural fucking

47:19

people, not even rural, people

47:21

who were participating in

47:23

the Transatlantic Trade directly. It

47:25

was really about like the South and like

47:27

making sure that lesser populated states didn't get

47:29

like out, like

47:31

they wanted more power. And so they fucking gave it to them.

47:33

And we're still paying the price. I mean, it is

47:36

definitely worth doing a podcast on American governance. You

47:38

got to do one American governance. Shit.

47:41

Okay, so you said something really important just a moment ago, which was, I

47:44

think a lot of people don't or you said a

47:46

lot of people don't even realize like the power that

47:48

they have to combat misinformation in their own lives and

47:51

like with their own platform in their own communities. It

47:53

makes you think about certain family members of mine who

47:55

just like, don't fucking

47:57

talk about anything because they're like, that

47:59

doesn't. affect me. So I'm just gonna like not

48:02

fucking talk about it at

48:05

all. And actually, I'm going to like enable

48:08

all these other fuckers talking

48:11

to you. You know who you are. You

48:15

guys, I found out that like a friend of

48:17

the friend of a friend of a family member

48:19

who's actually closer than what I just said, literally

48:21

had a fundraiser for fucking Casey DeSantis in

48:24

my home fucking town. I've been in that

48:26

house. Like fuck

48:28

me with this empty coffee

48:31

cup. Like I cannot

48:33

handle these people. So anyway, is there

48:35

a trusted source of information anymore or

48:38

what? Man,

48:41

you know that I think... Besides

48:44

me. I know everyone. I am. No,

48:48

no, no, no. That's really the question,

48:51

right? That's one of the things that you see.

48:55

And I write about, I have a whole chapter in the book

48:57

on COVID and I was like, oh boy,

49:00

we're gonna go folks out there. But because I

49:02

think that you can again, hold two ideas in

49:04

your head, which was institutions at times,

49:06

top to top, especially from a

49:08

communication standpoint. And also

49:10

there were people who profit from

49:13

and maximize their own clout based

49:15

on undermining confidence in institutions. So

49:17

both of these things are true. And one

49:20

of the things that's become a challenge is

49:22

you do have this like kind

49:25

of, you know, this fracturing

49:28

along tribal and identity

49:30

based lines. And

49:33

what you see happen there is like,

49:35

you can just dismiss a media outlet

49:37

because they're not trustworthy. I

49:39

have tended to, like,

49:41

okay, what can I get from associated pressure? What

49:45

can I get? Like, where are the areas

49:47

where the Wall Street Journal and the New

49:50

York Times and, you know, Reason

49:52

and Mother Jones all kind of have

49:54

the same body of facts. You know, is there at least

49:56

some, maybe they're going to spin it differently, but like, where

49:58

are the facts in that? in that kind

50:01

of rubric.

50:04

And then I think about like, if

50:07

I want to share to somebody like a family

50:09

member or a friend or someone where like we're

50:11

just not aligned on an issue and I think

50:13

that they have that information, which

50:16

outlet are they going to be most receptive to and

50:18

how can I find a way to

50:22

present something palatably? I don't know if that's the

50:24

right answer, that's how I have started doing it.

50:27

But another way you can do it is like, you

50:30

can see somebody post something or share something and

50:32

you can send them a DM. You don't have

50:34

to necessarily like blow them

50:36

up in the public comments. If

50:39

you have a huge disagreement with someone over

50:42

something as complicated as the Middle East

50:44

or as easy as you're recycling, but

50:47

it really depends on you having like a shared

50:50

set of facts, but both people don't have

50:52

a shared set of facts or haven't even done enough

50:54

research to really understand

50:56

the history and what we're talking about.

50:59

Like, is it worth a conversation? If someone's

51:02

really into propaganda, are

51:05

you not the right person to have that talk

51:07

with them? Can we come to consensus? And

51:10

is there any like personal policies that

51:12

could make an impact on how we

51:14

could be better at that? I

51:17

have tried to do, you know,

51:19

I have friends,

51:22

you know, I think across the political spectrum, I had

51:24

a fellowship in 2017, right? And

51:26

it was the Bush

51:28

and Clinton foundations, the LBJ foundation and

51:31

Bush too. So it was like half Democrats,

51:34

half Republicans. And I

51:36

really liked it because, this

51:39

was in 2017, I felt like it

51:42

was at a time when polarization felt like it

51:44

was getting worse and all of a sudden, I

51:46

had like these 50 people that I saw once

51:48

a month and then talked on the internet for

51:50

this sort of fellowship program for six months. And

51:53

I felt like I came away with such a

51:58

group of people where my experience was that that

52:00

we were always engaging in good faith. That

52:02

was the big line, right? You know?

52:06

And I just felt like, and you know, we're still friends, you

52:08

know, just got six years there, very,

52:11

very close. You're like a second family. And what I love about

52:13

it was that it was just a way to think about, you're

52:16

not gonna always agree. You're gonna

52:18

have your fights. We don't have

52:21

to have them in full public view. We

52:23

can have conversations privately. For

52:27

me, I, that's

52:29

how I've chosen to be most of the time

52:32

on social media. Like, look, there are a couple of areas

52:35

where I do feel like

52:38

I'm going to get in there and I'm gonna fight, right? There

52:40

are like, you know, I have three kids and

52:42

education policy is really important to me, vaccine policy is

52:45

really important to me. And in certain areas where I'm

52:47

like, okay, this is where like, I will let it

52:49

all, you know? But

52:52

like, are there ways to do it without being,

52:57

without like smearing people, right? Without making

52:59

somebody into a caricature. And I know

53:01

what that feels like because it happens

53:03

to me quite a bit too, right?

53:06

And it feels bad. More

53:09

importantly, I imagine you have this feeling,

53:11

you feel like you can't fight that, right?

53:13

And so you're always gonna see like that one

53:16

negative person, that one asshole who's like, in your

53:18

mention, smearing you as a thing. You feel almost

53:20

like you have to respond. Those are

53:22

the moments where I'm like, you know, I actually don't. Unless I

53:24

feel like I might be able to speak to

53:27

the bystanders where like it's worth responding for the

53:30

sake of the bystanders, then sometimes I'll do it.

53:32

But otherwise I don't feel that I necessarily, it's

53:34

not my job to have to fight with that

53:36

person in that moment. If

53:40

I don't feel like it's a good faith encounter, like again,

53:42

I said, I feel like I have this community of people

53:44

where I do feel like I understand like, a

53:47

good faith discussion can leave you feeling closer

53:49

to the person afterwards. It can leave you

53:51

feeling more informed. Maybe you didn't come to

53:53

an agreement. Maybe you agree to disagree, but

53:56

you have that, that sense

53:58

that you've come away like. like as

54:00

humans who have had a

54:03

conversation as opposed to wasting

54:05

your time just

54:08

being like shit on by some rando who's just gonna

54:10

go off and do it to the next person. Which

54:12

like even if they are trying to do it

54:14

in good faith on social, it is really hard because

54:16

it's like you see the text in whatever mood

54:18

you're kind of in. Exactly, however you

54:21

choose to read it in your like emotions and your

54:23

feelings in that moment, yes. It's just not

54:25

an easy place to feel like you've had

54:28

a conversation to come up closer with someone

54:30

when it's through text only and you've never

54:32

met them. Right, right and

54:34

I think I've had, I mean you probably even had this

54:36

with your friends, right? You get a text and

54:38

you like feel like they're being snippy maybe and

54:40

you're like offended by it and

54:43

then you know I had this happen

54:45

with a friend of mine and I actually was like okay

54:47

I've valued this relationship let me call her, I

54:50

can actually ring her phone which is not a

54:52

thing I normally do, you know? And

54:56

you know and I felt really glad that

54:58

I had made that choice, right? It was a complete

55:00

misunderstanding. I had read the situation wrong.

55:03

It was you know, she

55:06

did not realize that I was far more upset

55:08

about the issue that she'd kind of you know

55:10

made comments about than I was and it was

55:13

again a relationship, like a moment

55:15

of connection between two people. I

55:17

think social media, we're not necessarily

55:20

equipped to be broadcasting

55:22

at all times, receiving feedback

55:24

at all times. Everything

55:27

you ever do is forever. I'm sure

55:29

you know this. You might think it's fleeting

55:31

but someone has screenshotted it and they will

55:33

be there, you know? You know? And

55:38

then you live in like in

55:40

fear and self-censorship about you know

55:42

the like what is the, I

55:44

mean you do this but I definitely, when

55:47

I'm speaking about some contentious political issue or

55:49

even things that shouldn't be contentious like

55:51

me saying the 2020 election was not stolen or I'm like

55:53

I'm speaking and I'm like, I'm like interpret,

55:56

like what is the worst faith interpretation

55:58

of this sentence? Maki

56:00

my circle and they cannot account

56:03

for to make a decision on

56:05

my kids. I read. These are

56:07

like who is gonna just as as

56:09

any Sylvanus. As I'm speaking I feel

56:11

like it's something or for me doing

56:13

them know we're gonna suffer less like

56:15

seven years. I. Am in

56:17

out the gets a weird weird skills

56:20

develop pray. For us,

56:22

is there any like Paul is

56:24

like we're talking about. Father.

56:27

Copland like the census have been first

56:29

amendment stuff like. Is

56:31

there any policies around kids are getting

56:33

be. Is a

56:35

yeah? I mean. Or

56:37

three policies. I think a few minutes is

56:39

a people's. History as I got their

56:42

yard. Misinformation Disinformation Like someone turns because

56:44

you could really think that Lake. Is

56:47

really one thing that Nadia taught a second

56:49

or first episode about Miss of recent submission

56:51

that I didn't When he hears is that

56:53

you know both sides kind of do It

56:55

is in my whole thing away as like

56:57

a fuckin' leftist as I was like yeah,

56:59

but lives you were. It's like to try

57:01

the Prince that like protects more people, whereas

57:03

I feel like when people on the right

57:05

do it, it's like typically the policy harms

57:07

more people than what it's trying to protect,

57:10

which I feel like it's kind of a

57:12

significant distinction to me. I'm. We're

57:14

in a we didn't like really end

57:16

up getting their she was just I

57:18

was like i don't know because it

57:20

was like vaccines or like or abortion

57:22

were. It's

57:25

you're hurting more people than but then

57:27

it's like also hurts is over the

57:29

flipside that we're we're protecting women sports

57:31

but it's like he's a such a

57:34

conversation so be. Is

57:36

aired like his early as Hill or like our

57:38

a Move to Sell Free Speech or mean I

57:40

think even just like on social how I met

57:42

a made it so that you couldn't. Like.

57:44

I did this abortion. This video about

57:46

abortion a few weeks ago. That literally.like so

57:49

many lakes in if it. were

57:51

really hate gays or got up like a

57:53

million views but it had like. Really

57:55

low sears and most the time if

57:58

I had something that got to.money. We

58:00

got that me like this year it

58:02

would be like off the charts but

58:04

I could see how this new policy

58:06

of like no political stuff it's impacting.

58:08

they algorithm on Instagram a lot like

58:10

my podcast out Park Platform end my

58:12

regular when because they do talk about

58:14

political things they can see the way

58:16

that it's like doesn't reach the same

58:18

people in the Met Adidas are just

58:20

kind of encourages you to like, talk

58:22

about hair and like seek your and

58:24

handling you know yes. That's

58:26

a really big wasn't so. My

58:30

race and nobody. Is.

58:32

Ever happy Every single group feels that the

58:35

algorithm is up to get them. I can

58:37

tell you that most of the time it

58:39

is conservative tiny that the algorithm has been

58:41

out to get them to talk to people

58:44

that already engaged and. I'm really not on twitter

58:46

much anymore. I don't I don't enjoy it. a idea.

58:48

We got off to. Yeah, I'm

58:50

enjoying my friends enough. None of

58:53

this guy. and. You

58:55

know I like Alex Has Fifth Avenue make

58:57

him as awesome as I'm battling with a

58:59

guy with the Css policy. How that might

59:01

the Maurice. It's. So I used to pure

59:03

as a think people are like empty people on

59:06

Twitter we lived. are you outside of any at

59:08

the this idea that the algorithm is suppressing

59:10

you? And one thing that I always been very

59:12

interesting with a lot of people who are most

59:14

riled up about it it's usually and like twenty

59:17

seventeen. Heard from and influencers

59:19

talking about these arab and I was in

59:21

and a half from have put a label

59:23

on their Clinton is it is downright as

59:25

a you know it has been. In.

59:27

Some extreme cases block from sharing. In

59:29

the most extreme cases before taxes, he

59:31

does. But you'd

59:34

see ordinary people. Talking.

59:36

About how shadow banned they were and I thought

59:38

like this is such. This

59:41

is such an interesting for such I'm like why do

59:43

you think that is as well What? what? What evidence

59:45

like? Why do you feel that that this is a

59:47

thing like a. Swirling of cases that no.

59:50

Labels. On their tweets it's sort

59:52

of like replying to people but they're

59:54

convinced or sad event anyway and repeatedly.

59:56

The answer that like that and these

59:58

engagements was my friends don't. The all

1:00:00

of my content. right? Into the

1:00:02

rashly convinced that way. He.

1:00:04

Closed. The people who follow them didn't

1:00:06

see all their posts about was evidence

1:00:09

that they're really conservative. Viewpoint. Based

1:00:11

depression I was going on. With the

1:00:13

reality is the platform decides that the algorithm is

1:00:15

the kingmaker. Basically I spend a whole bunch of

1:00:17

time on this on the book in the context

1:00:20

of like a case study on the Facebook botched

1:00:22

have. Because. We

1:00:24

have visibility into. Tool called crowd single

1:00:26

crouching or gives us visibility into what's

1:00:28

happening on the platform To researcher at

1:00:30

the school again public post for the

1:00:33

data. Can you say paying attention for

1:00:35

a while? There really is a few.

1:00:37

Videos of the women next thing I

1:00:39

see minutes while at are making like

1:00:41

spaghetti o's on the counter. Remedies a

1:00:44

rose Weird food videos that really had

1:00:46

this moment constantly for since your feed.

1:00:49

So. As the because you're into things I start.

1:00:52

Looking into it under a minute is a

1:00:54

you tube or with like you know tens

1:00:56

of millions of of. Hard. And.

1:00:59

Suicide me he was seeing the also is

1:01:01

what's up with this on on Fifa. And

1:01:03

we were. We were talking about. It as a

1:01:05

men is because he's. Pretty. Different for me.

1:01:07

Listen until the didn't part of my country you know,

1:01:09

Why are we seeing the same pay? For.

1:01:11

Start looking at it and piece of actually

1:01:13

don't have many followers at all. A lot

1:01:16

of them have very very small foreign earth,

1:01:18

but the algorithm is just pushing and pushing

1:01:20

and pushing an hour. And. What

1:01:22

you see in the comments: his late

1:01:25

majesty Food content that has a sensational

1:01:27

headline. It is a weird thing people

1:01:29

are watching it and for like a

1:01:32

six fascination like they're grossed out by

1:01:34

I can't look away. The got sick

1:01:36

a train wreck. And.

1:01:39

This is the thing that the algorithm. Is like Loosey

1:01:41

Goosey was increasing. You see billions of

1:01:43

views on this concept network. And

1:01:46

then all the sudden the algorithm changes.

1:01:48

and the news though they just as

1:01:50

a traitor missing a vertical club fresh

1:01:52

and that's because somebody. You know,

1:01:54

some either team or. Whoever is

1:01:56

responsible for looking at the face but

1:01:58

mattress maybe realizes that. The comments are not

1:02:01

very favorable. The comments: your life why is

1:02:03

gross at my feet Again grants of their

1:02:05

engagement but it's not like positive. Answer:

1:02:08

when you start to see is like the algorithm

1:02:10

gives and takes away and it's got in this

1:02:12

particular case where liked about the case that he.

1:02:14

Was. Other was nothing remotely political about

1:02:16

this. Content are all. It was

1:02:18

surely a life. We have decided that this

1:02:21

is not a for us anymore This is

1:02:23

that it for users and so boom There

1:02:25

it is. It's and I and you see

1:02:27

done this network over the next six months

1:02:30

trying to climb back up to get back

1:02:32

to see that. The reason I use this

1:02:34

example is like. The. Platform

1:02:36

is all there is no neutral,

1:02:39

they are always out there trying

1:02:41

to decide what to show you

1:02:43

and your followers and over the.

1:02:46

And it's often times like they're

1:02:48

trying to balance things that are

1:02:51

explicitly harmful, right and illegal, send

1:02:53

things that are highly offensive, an

1:02:55

inflammatory. And there's a difference here

1:02:57

is that they have. And.

1:03:00

Particularly. On things that are offensive

1:03:02

inflammatory different people have different points of

1:03:04

view on what is offensive and what

1:03:06

isn't monetary as that are out. There

1:03:08

like telling you know tweaking these

1:03:11

these lovers behind the scenes and

1:03:13

he passes at everybody feel angry.

1:03:15

And disgusted and irritated

1:03:17

at moderators. Ah, but

1:03:19

the only real solution to this I

1:03:21

would argue is like giving users more

1:03:24

direct control over their experience, right? Were

1:03:26

when they have chosen to follow somebody

1:03:28

that is treated as a very strong

1:03:30

signal and then that content is. Pushed.

1:03:33

To them or that they see a lot more of it. The. Flip

1:03:35

side of that though is you are basically

1:03:37

saying. If people choose to follow

1:03:39

my you know heinous people are afraid

1:03:42

of these and has as a global

1:03:44

but uncle. The

1:03:47

matter what they're going to see to race

1:03:49

or as you wish, you make determinations for

1:03:52

what should be surface, what should be amplified,

1:03:54

what should be to boost. It is actually

1:03:56

a very, very complicated series of questions because

1:03:58

it has to work. The entire

1:04:01

system. So. That it becomes

1:04:03

a problem right to somebody? Who has played

1:04:05

a good person creating content that he

1:04:07

feels like in that you know in

1:04:09

the interests of herring humanity and helping

1:04:11

people. Are. Ultimately is going to

1:04:13

be subject to the same rules as people

1:04:15

who are. Race baiting are

1:04:17

doing other things if you decide to say like

1:04:20

if you follow somebody. Should see other

1:04:22

costs so. We're nearing or embrace

1:04:24

when access your book. Invisible Ruler of the

1:04:26

people who turn lies in reality it's you've

1:04:28

already given us like a little italy peek

1:04:31

into like what you cover but is there

1:04:33

any like people who you cover things you

1:04:35

cover the you really particularly surprised out or

1:04:37

wanna leave us a think a little bread

1:04:39

crumb for people to get the book and

1:04:42

read s. Oh yeah, I

1:04:44

mean that you know, A

1:04:46

lot as it is a key and memoir which

1:04:48

is not what as expressing I set out like

1:04:50

I said to read this book about what is

1:04:52

propaganda look like in the modern era I know

1:04:54

how do I dislike where the interesting for any

1:04:56

questions they're how do I tell them to them.

1:04:59

And of happening with that you

1:05:01

know Congressman started smearing my colleagues

1:05:03

and I was sixteen at least.

1:05:06

Jim Jordan subpoenaed near a in a way of

1:05:08

getting all the Congress. Because we did work on the twenties

1:05:10

when he likes and. And. I thought like wow

1:05:13

this is really. At there's

1:05:15

a line then. You

1:05:17

to talk all about being subpoenaed by Jim Jordan

1:05:20

in the Book. About

1:05:22

what happens when like when I became

1:05:24

all of a sudden the either me

1:05:27

and my colleagues became the. The

1:05:29

subject of like you know that propaganda campaigns

1:05:31

in our work in certain ways and like

1:05:33

what that was like. It.

1:05:36

Is again you feel like oh my gosh

1:05:39

how the way and with correct the record

1:05:41

and then you realize that some some people.

1:05:44

System. Of the news is.

1:05:47

That ending and a very personal

1:05:49

level And so you know the

1:05:51

book really again started off as

1:05:53

the Slaves and of that provocative.

1:05:57

You know, Investigation and said.

1:06:00

Political influence your culture and and van

1:06:02

turned into like oh hey. Now

1:06:04

in character, You

1:06:06

guys if that's not like a reason to

1:06:08

fucking run out and get this post, we

1:06:10

have to write about that experience of. Reading.

1:06:13

These so much for your time they give

1:06:15

her come as a good thing if rain

1:06:18

this incredible book and they for doing this

1:06:20

hard ass. Thorny. Nuanced

1:06:22

work queen. We appreciate you. We salute you

1:06:24

and the swords are coming on the show.

1:06:27

You some surrounding the did we learn

1:06:29

the things Will we. Absolutely.

1:06:32

Dead and Nyazov lot more question

1:06:34

so misinformation. that's when something is

1:06:36

wrong accidentally this information is intentionally

1:06:39

untrue and is much more related

1:06:41

propaganda I also thought really of

1:06:43

sitting here like propaganda is really

1:06:45

like information is information that spread

1:06:48

by someone who has like a

1:06:50

political agenda of which is why

1:06:52

like honey I'm part of the

1:06:54

gay agenda which of like keeping

1:06:57

queer the live in having like

1:06:59

good access to like economic security.

1:07:01

And like C D and housing.

1:07:03

and like. Being. Able to be okay, Ah,

1:07:06

And Breivik. Ah, so that's really what are

1:07:08

gauge and is is not as scary as

1:07:10

the other. I took a lot of interesting

1:07:12

things that way from this conversation. One

1:07:15

of them as which that like we really

1:07:17

got to read read a book because getting

1:07:19

subpoena by Jim Jordan sounds like something that

1:07:22

would not be very fine. anything. but we

1:07:24

need to listen to this. We really get

1:07:26

involved in things that we think has a

1:07:28

direct impact on our lives and when we

1:07:31

don't think that those things have a direct

1:07:33

impact on our lives, we just don't concern

1:07:35

or so. And I don't know that this

1:07:38

is for everyone but I just saw that

1:07:40

was interesting. I'm the ways that people take

1:07:42

some information and run away with that on

1:07:44

tic toc. Or just on social media.

1:07:47

It is so dehumanizing and so absolute

1:07:50

and like it was. The good faith

1:07:52

part when running was like if people

1:07:54

are really engaging in these conversations in

1:07:56

good faith and I think especially on

1:07:58

tic toc We. The people are

1:08:01

not engaging the conversations in

1:08:03

good faith, they are rage

1:08:05

baiting the or click baiting

1:08:07

and they are painting themselves

1:08:09

as like the arbiter of

1:08:12

morality and I think. No

1:08:14

one is really I mean I didn't really have.

1:08:16

we were really to look at what people are

1:08:18

actually doing it like it's just I don't know

1:08:20

I think that was it's really interesting the ways

1:08:22

that like. Because.

1:08:25

So many things are true at once. I

1:08:27

think the actually lot of people who are. Trying.

1:08:32

To make content to illuminate an

1:08:34

issue end up sometimes doing more

1:08:37

harm than good, which is. Something

1:08:40

I'm really interested in in in trying to

1:08:42

learn more now. I also thought that the

1:08:45

way that social media the Jews talking about

1:08:47

really shifted everyone to becoming like a commentator

1:08:49

and and the way that a commentator is

1:08:51

not a journalist and the training of not

1:08:54

the same I that was really interesting and

1:08:56

something for us to spend more time or

1:08:58

and. Scary. About

1:09:00

the generative ai and where that's going to

1:09:02

be going. Whoop! We need to see what

1:09:04

what's going to keep happening. Mirror A has

1:09:06

it's like you can't really bad checked a

1:09:09

generated image because it may seem legit if

1:09:11

the computer can't tell that it's like a

1:09:13

made up image isn't That would have been

1:09:15

like the unique I'm sorry I just moved

1:09:17

my little chair in my car. I'm. Oh,

1:09:20

and then also the foundational issue with

1:09:22

the Twenty Twenty Four election: diligent disease

1:09:24

and. This is

1:09:26

really what remains. Most.

1:09:29

Concerned about is the fact that

1:09:31

so many people still disagree on

1:09:33

whether or not the Twenty Twenty

1:09:35

election was real. I'm okay, so

1:09:37

now really curious about several things.

1:09:40

Ah, one of them is that

1:09:42

Father Coughlin need to understand more

1:09:44

about that. I'm also curious about.

1:09:47

Narratives. That. State

1:09:49

actors try to put out in the

1:09:51

United States. I'm also a mercury's at

1:09:54

the mall or report now. But.

1:09:57

Russia, China, Iran Collaboration.

1:10:00

What does that look like? Is that

1:10:02

true? I'm so really. what I took

1:10:04

away from this episode is that like

1:10:06

how you do anything is really how

1:10:09

you do everything and almost. Anything

1:10:11

in our life is political.

1:10:13

I'm in so just really

1:10:15

seem that with open eyes.

1:10:18

I love you guys and Six, listen to getting serious with

1:10:20

me. So much of a scenic time. You

1:10:22

been listening to? Getting serious with me.

1:10:24

It's on at the Center, learn more

1:10:26

about this week's guess in their areas,

1:10:28

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