Could a relatively obscure US Cult (led by someone calling themselves Mother Love) be the next Heaven's Gate? A new lawsuit alleges TikTok is exploiting children's privacy. Over in the UK, investigators have finally solved the ongoing case of what appeared to be widespread corruption -- and, in doing so, have redeemed the reputations of numerous former employees.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our superproducer Alexis
code name Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. It's the top of the week,
which means it is time for our strange news segment.
(00:46):
There's some scandal at the post office. And don't worry, folks,
this is not the US post Office for the first
time in a long time. That's the subject of scandal.
Uh TikTok is in what maybe a little bit of
water and there may be a new Heaven's Gate on
the rise. This this story in particular about a group
(01:10):
called Love is One. This stood out to me because
I know we've got a lot of folks in the
crowd who, like me, kind of monitor cults before they
hit the news in a big way, before something terrible
happens to them. Would you guys be okay with starting
with that story today. Absolutely, yes, I'm always looking for
a new group to join. I love making friends, and
(01:32):
I look forward to learning about this one. Ben. We
still we had a great thing going with that earlier cult.
I want to thank you again for being the messianic
figurehead there, Matt. I think we made a lot of
progress in the space of a seven minute video, you
know what. Matt, speed to you, sir, and Matt speed
to you, my friend. Uh So, everybody probably is at
(01:54):
least a little bit familiar with the tragic story of
the Heaven's Gate Cult back in nineteen seventy four. They
were founded as a new religious movement with a lot
of UFO ideation, and this was a cult that had
this ending point. They believe that after the Hilbop commet
(02:16):
zinged past Earth, there would be a number of spacecraft
coming to retrieve the fateful. This unfortunately led to a
mass suicide as members of the movement took their own
lives in an effort to join those extraterrestrial craft that
they thought they thought they would meet them in an
(02:36):
immaterial or different form. That occurred in October of stories
like these are unfortunately not unique in the world of
new religious movements, which if you're ever talking to someone
that you think is an occult new religious movement, is
more like, is the more diplomatic way to describe their organization,
(02:58):
because as we know, as we've learned from correspondence over
the year, in fact, a lot of people don't like
the C word. Uh. They might even dislike it more
than the other C word that we referred to here
in the US conspiracy theory, No, that would be I
really thought you guys were going a different way with that. Yeah.
(03:18):
CT is a common abbreviation for conspiracy theory if you're
ever reading something on a forum, but they both accomplished
the same thing, Like, a cult is a term that
is used to kind of nagg whatever comes after it. Like,
if you're referring to someone's belief system as a cult, uh,
then you are inherently judging it and applying certain criteria
(03:38):
to it that are inherently negative in the same way
as a conspiracy theory is used in that way. Yeah,
and the modern parlance those could be those could both
qualify as what are known as thought terminating clichees. Our
story for I have found this when I was reading
some local papers in the Pacific Northwest, uh for a
(03:59):
different thing. But our story begins with a report from
the Mount Shasta News. This is a local paper in
the area, and they had a headline that really caught
me and said spiritual group compared to Heaven's Gate cult
is planting roots in the Mount Shasta area. This came
out today, as we record, but the group itself was
(04:22):
familiar to me from some other reading. They have a
really interesting name. They're called Love Has One. Uh odd
to choose that past tense for the name of a
new religious movement, but it happens points for creativity. It
is led by a person named Amy Carlson. If you
are familiar with the cult, you might not know where
(04:44):
is Amy Carlson because she is referred to as Mother
God by her followers and her lover or her partner,
whoever it may be at the time, is also automatically
referred to as Father God. So at this time, Mother God,
Amy Carlson's everyone outside of the movement is about forty
four years old. Here's what the followers believe. They believe
(05:07):
that she has been reincarnated hundreds and hundreds of times.
They also believe that she has been in contact with
Robin Williams since he passed away. In that's just one
of the beliefs that outsiders will point to as the
more bizarre part of the story. Uh. Specifically, the mission
(05:27):
of this religious movement is to follow Carlson because one
day she will lead one hundred and forty four thousand
chosen people into a new mystical fifth dimension. She has
also said that former US President Donald Trump was her
father in a past life. They had a great relationship.
(05:47):
In case anyone is concerned, UH, there's something that happens
a lot with these kinds of movements, which is there's
a growing discrepancy between the narrative offered by the former
members of the organization and the narrative offered by the
spokespeople of the group. This is something we're familiar with
(06:09):
anytime you talk about movements that are you know, that
have this level of controversy. Scientology is of course the
easiest example, but I promise you there are numerous examples
out there. Uh. Mother God claims that she has been
trying to save humanity for nineteen billion years, which is
(06:30):
interesting because what we know of current science shows us
that humans were probably not around nineteen billion years ago.
You can see an episode of Vice about them. It's
the first episode of a series called False Gods, and
you can see the allegations of UM, the allegations of
(06:54):
mistreatment and abuse in this religious movement. Uh. So far,
I haven't been able to find anything that's as egregious
as UM some of the other things that we know
cult movements do. Like I haven't found any fatalities. I
haven't found I haven't found extreme injuries. But I have
(07:17):
seeing videos of Carlson that show her verbally abusing people,
screaming at her followers, abusing animals, having children locked in
the closets for being kids. You know, That's that's one
thing that a lot of a lot of cult like
movements do, is they you know, they punish people through
(07:38):
their children. It's enormously effective because that's one of the
closest relationships human being has. There have also been allegations
that members are underfed, they're never paid for their work,
they're never allowed to sit down. And although the movement itself,
(07:58):
like if you if you hear the spokespeople say the
movement itself is UM. Maybe a little bit more on
the hippie side. But in general they seem like really
nice people who just happened to believe something different. Uh.
But everything that the everything the survivors of the cult
are describing is troublingly close to the guidelines we made
(08:21):
in our earlier video about how to make a cult.
Their brainwashing people. They're regimented, their free time has gone,
relationships are broken down. We also see that some cures
have been promised to people, and these cures are things
like you can talk to Mother God on the phone,
and through that phone conversation she can cure cancer. U.
(08:45):
We also see a little bit of a hubbard esque
thing here, because Hubbard would not allow, you know, drug
and alcohol abuse, but he didn't practice what he preached.
Oh we got I'm gonna Can I take a tangent
really quickly and get right back to here, please do absolutely? Okay.
We We had a listener voicemail that I just heard.
(09:07):
I went through a couple of them today and someone
left a message asking us if we knew anything about
a bet l Ron Hubbard made with some other person
at a bar about whether or not he could begin
a religious movement that would function as a tax haven
and bring him great wealth. Um, well, yeah, I had
(09:33):
not heard. You know, I've not seen any evidence of that.
I think if there were evidence of that that was
you know, blatant or just out there in the public sphere,
then that would be a big issue, or it would
be just completely you know, denied and pushed away. But anyway,
just putting that out there, I've heard that. I've heard
a couple of versions of that anecdote enough to convince
(09:56):
me that at least several times in conversation he had
made statements about, you know why, about how the the
real money was in not writing fiction, but in starting
a religion right for the tax purposes and other other
side benefits of being a religious figure that we've named earlier,
(10:18):
so we knew we talked about in conversation. As far
as a specific bet, I am not aware. I haven't
found proof of that, but I've heard that story before.
I just don't I haven't found a good source for
that yet, But maybe it could have happened. It does
seem a little, you know, very much in his character
(10:38):
being kind of a blustery, braggadocious figure, right, I could
see him like say, hey, look what I'm gonna do
or no to your point, bend just kind of bragging
about how this is a brilliant idea that no one
else has thought of, and to be fair, I mean
he pulled it off in a much more outlandish form
than just about any other figure of his type in
(11:00):
recent in recent time. So we see some parallels in
scientology in the world of scientology, no or on Hubbard
and specific. But again we see a lot of parallels
in these types this genre of religious movement in general.
You know, when you when it comes down to the
(11:21):
psychological aspects of most new religious movements, they're not very
different at all. You know, there's a mad lib mythology
right where you can slot in one thing slot out another.
But when it comes to how people are treated, uh,
it's often going to be the same um negation tactics.
You want to diminish people, You want to make them
(11:43):
feel less than and that you're their only hope, and
you want to find like little little things that you
can use to to like try to make them feel
as though they are somehow inferior. In The sad part
about these sorts of approach is is unless someone is
expecting them, if they make the mistake of trusting you,
(12:07):
then they can be effective. And this this goes into
another commonality that we should probably talk about a little bit,
like Heaven's Gate comparisons. Those are good headline grabber, but
they lead us into I would argue, a conversation about language.
Language is another wall you put up around a group
to isolate them, And Matt, this is something that's stuck
(12:29):
out to you as well, right, Yeah, the the language
of groups, I think is something that I end up
harping on a lot of the time, and I'm sorry
to do so. And everybody who's getting tired of this conversation,
I love this you. I mean, I know I'm not
the audience member here, but you speaking my language? Get it? Oh? Okay.
(12:51):
So if you go to love has one dot org,
which is this organization's website, you can see lot of
stuff here about Mom herself. Even says about Mom in
one tab. There's another tab that you can click on
that says five D updates. And if you go here
(13:12):
you can read your you can see what I'm talking about.
This is just some of the language that's used on
the website, and specifically I'm talking about the phrasing here
stuff that is maybe insular to the group, as well
as what appears to be urgent messages that have consequences.
(13:33):
So so failure to take action feels like it has
a consequence. So let's let's just talk about this, okay,
So here we go. It says, Planet Earth equals Heart
is ascending. We are finishing, as you said, been a
nineteen billion year mission. But notice this, they are finishing
a nineteen billion year mission. Are you getting the codes?
(13:54):
I'm not getting the codes, guys. I don't know about y'all. Uh,
so far I haven't gotten them. Says do you read
the daily updates that will allow you to prep a
bit more for what's coming. That sounds a lot like
the contract that you enter into and you become a scientologist,
is in a billion year contract or something like that. Yeah,
but this is up in the games into nineteen or
(14:15):
at least it's been happening already. Well, but I love
that it's a mission instead of a contract. I think
that's interesting. So obviously the code is up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right,
b A. I think we can all agree on that one.
Don't forget start, don't forget start. Ben. So the the
The interesting distinction here, I would say, is that this
(14:36):
is what's drawing the Heavens Gate comparison that by their
own official statements there at the end of the mission,
what does the end of the mission mean? Is this? Um?
Is this in some way baking in its own finishing line?
And if so, what happens when you cross that finish
(15:00):
same line? It's it's dangerous because and there are you know,
there are places like Cult Watch and nonprofits that try
to keep an eye on these things. But the the
issue is that when you join an organization like this,
you are brought in through a series of very well
(15:20):
thought out strategies, you know, like the infamous love bomb,
where people tell you that you're the greatest, and then
you start getting support that maybe you never had in
your pre cult life. Uh. And then you start the
cracks begin to show. Right. You see that there is
a careening abuse problem here. Apparently there are. There are
(15:45):
multiple reports of abusive behavior and drinking. Uh. And another
thing that has some observers worried about this possibly going
sideways is that Carlson's health is in decline. UH. We
also don't authorities don't know her location either, so she's
(16:07):
kind of going off the grid. Uh. And when you
have a messiodic figure like this, when they decide that
their life is ending, sometimes their teachings change in a
way that isn't always great. Or when they decide their
organization is ending. Uh, these change in a way that
(16:28):
isn't always great for the followers. Right now, this is
very small. I think they have twenty something full time members,
so this is a very close insular group. But it's
something that I wanted to bring attention to today because
fellow conspiracy realists the there are so many more groups
(16:50):
like this in the US and abroad than you might
believe exists. Uh. There are cult de programmers who have
try to put this in the perspective of the larger
context of modern new religious movements in the West. But
the problem here is you can't really predict what's going
(17:11):
to happen. The full time followers are all over eighteen,
they're legally adults, so you can't stop them from following
this person that they believe is their mom. The leader
phrases it in a very um well, it's not supposed
to sound threatening. Let me just read the quote that
she says in one of these videos. Let me know
what you all think. Uh. She says this five and
(17:34):
thirty fourth reincarnation is her quote, quest to recover my
beloved planet, the center of the universe and the first
planet I created. The planet is ascending and you need
to reconnect with the prime source creator me. Yeah, that's
a quote. They've even got on Dr Phil on their
website when you click on about Mom so like it.
(17:56):
This is her quote. Uh yeah, oh did you did
you read about the dark forces kidnapping my planet? Is
that we haven't read that part yet. So apparently Mother
God has had it up to some metaphysical here with
dark forces kidnapping her planet and her children, and that's
(18:20):
what brought her to reincarnate in the flesh again. You know,
your spiritual beliefs or your own, And we're not fans.
I'm not a fan definitely of people telling you what
to believe, So do as you will as long as
you're not hurting someone else. But the problem here is
this situation looks pretty unsustainable. So so at this point,
(18:44):
the residents of Mount Shasta are worried. Some family members
of people have joined the movement are worried. And the
things that people who have left the movement are saying
absolutely do not match what is being presented on their
official website or by their spokespeople. I can't help but
think of the Futurama villain Carol Miller, who is the
(19:06):
CEO of Mom Corps and is known as mom Um.
And I looked. I looked this character, so just making
sure I wasn't like totally making this up. But on
the Wikipedia Villains wiki, um, the quote that that sets
off the Mom page on on this wiki is children,
your old mother won't be around forever. And just once
before I die, I'd like to be supreme Overlord of Earth.
(19:28):
So rebel, my little ones and conquer the planet. Conquer Earth,
you bastards. Let the blood bath begin. Oh man, No,
I feel like I remember that. Maybe I'm not. I'm
not sure remember my mom. I don't. I don't know.
I mean, she has a weird like hair do that
kind of looks like Gary Oldman's Dracula in the in
the Dracula movie that people were sort of on the
(19:51):
fence about Mom. She's she's anyway, she's one of the
big bads in the in the Futurama universe. But um,
I think it's interesting that there's a cult leader going
by mom. Okay, well, I will definitely check that out.
I will say one last thing here from mother's quote, Um,
this is feels weird to me. I think I understand
what they're saying. Maybe, but take it as you will.
(20:13):
She's talking about that prime source, creator of the thing
that Ben mentioned, So she is that. But there's a
sentence after it, and it says so that you can
ignite your light bodies and can protect you again. Okay,
I mean I'm interested to know what that means, igniting
your light bodies. I I have a visceral reaction to it.
(20:33):
Been almost like fire. But maybe that's not just maybe
that's that word ignite. It is vague, right, Well, I
bet if you pay your way up enough in the organization,
you'll find out more. So I would file this under
keep an eye audit. I hope this does not become
another Heaven's Gate, but of course it is unfortunately difficult
(20:55):
to tell. All too often, if you're listening to this
and you have of experiences with what you later learned
was a cult, would love to hear from you. One
eight three three std w y t K Conspiracy at
I heart radio. Uh And if you or a loved
wind are struggling to extricate yourself from a movement like this,
(21:16):
if you feel as bad for you psychologically, spiritually, or physically,
please remember that there are resources available to help you
leave these harmful organizations. If harmful to you, they are
would recommend cult dash Escape dot com. But as always,
can't wait to hear your stories. Stay safe out there, folks.
(21:37):
We're gonna pause for word from our sponsor and we'll
return with more strange news. All right, and we're back,
and we've got another. It's sort of an update and
an ongoing saga of a particularly popular and controversial apps,
(21:57):
particularly popular with the kids. But during COVID, I sound
like a grandpapa when I say things the kids and
my wife. That's what I'm saying. It's really it started
with the kids influencers, creepy dudes. That guy that reads
the news NOL. You know that guy that reads the news.
He says, today the weather people decided that weather was bad.
(22:21):
Do you remember him. I don't know this guy. I
believe you, I believe you. Um, it started mainly with
the kids. I remember. I know this because my kid
was super into it back when it was called musically
or music dot l Y, and they rebranded and then
you know a little thing called covid hit uh and
it took these like you know, dance reenactment, lip sync
(22:43):
comedy type videos to keep people from going insane. So
you're right, everybody joined the fray uh. And now TikTok,
which is a Chinese owned company, the parent company Byte
Dance UM is massive. It's ubiquitous. I think it has
something in the neighborhood of like hundreds of millions of
(23:04):
users eight hundred million users worldwide, uh, and apparently quite
a chunk of that is in the UK. It is
particularly popular in the UK, with around two hundred million
UM users in the UK alone. And today's story specifically
about how some folks are not super happy about how
(23:27):
TikTok is um behaving towards children in terms of their privacy.
We know that TikTok has gotten some flak and even
like you know, the Trump administration practically went to war
with TikTok, potentially threatening a policy that would have outright
banned them. UM. Got kids interested in politics real quick, um,
(23:49):
and that ultimately ended up not going anywhere. There was
I can't quite remember. You guys might might might know
more than than I'm recalling at the moment. How do
they end up kind of mitigating that. I know there
was a thing where they were going to get bought
out by Microsoft as their US presence, but I don't
think that exactly happened, and I kind of just remember
that story fizzling. But they they must have done something. Uh.
(24:12):
It's been difficult to find actual news about TikTok because
there are so many click baity articles that are written
about TikTok. But I just found one. It's all about
the kind of the plans that TikTok had for an
I p O plans that they had with Oracle and
Walmart and all those the sale and all that stuff,
(24:34):
with the kabosh that the Trump administration put on it.
Apparently with the new administration under the Biden administration, they
are they're holding that sale or whatever that transaction was
going to be for security concerns. So they're still holding
onto it and not allowing any movement forward right now
for now. Okay, because and and just too sorry that's
(24:56):
a derail. But um that was as a direct result
of these concerns over Chinese influence of this app being
in some way insidious and targeting our children and having
some sort of direct line with this data that it's collectings.
As we know, the apps are the secondary UM. The
(25:18):
product is actually data mining and data collecting, and TikTok
is pretty egregious about their data collecting practices. UM. There
have been a few lawsuits already where they've been find
pretty large amounts of money, at least as far as
you know mortals like like, we are concerned, but drop
in the bucket when you think of how many billions
(25:39):
of dollars they made during COVID and how many users
they have. But all of these stem from privacy concerns
that they are taking data from underage users. It does
say you have to be thirteen to sign up, but
they there is a claim in a ninety two million
dollar settlement UM from a class action suit UH that
(26:00):
they were using underaged users data UM in an irresponsible way,
including biometric data, which is, you know, to get all
those crazy filters, you've got to scan faces and all
that stuff translates into you know, metrics that can then
be stored and used and paired with other data that
they are mining and they claim that they don't use
(26:21):
it in any kind of nefarious way. But that's kind
of up for debate, right Yeah, to walk back the
because you I think you asked a question earlier about
Microsoft's Yeah, what happened with that? Yeah, Oracle was chosen
back in September to be the technological partner for the
(26:43):
us UH for the US endeavors. And TikTok is a
huge deal here in the US. It's like Vine, you know,
as far as this popularity level, I would say it's
surpassed Vine. You could argue any number of reasons for that,
but I think, um, the the payout you're talking about,
the proposed settlement UM came from. That's like eighty nine
(27:06):
million TikTok users in the US, Is that correct? Yeah?
And then the and the funny thing is it was
actually halted. It's had a bit of a stalemate right
now because a judge argued that a ninety two million
dollar class action settlement was just absolutely insulting to individual
users because they said, if like even like two percent
(27:27):
of of potential class um members responded, that would be
something like six bucks a piece, you know, um for
for each one of these individuals, which is not enough
to buy a Starbucks coffee, which was what the judge
said in this case. Um, that's yeah, that wouldn't make
sense that guy's getting the fancy coffee. Well, isn't it?
(27:49):
Isn't it interesting though, because it sort of calls into
question like the nature of lawsuits, Like is it really like,
I mean, a class action lawsuit is still something that
sort of boggles my mind at times, and so there's
a lot to it, and you have to be you
have to you know, opt in. But it's like, is
it about punishing the company even if they are awarded like,
you know, a free lunch. Is that really like making
(28:10):
amends for being betrayed technologically? Like it seems like a
little bit of splitting hairs to me, Like isn't you
know it should be about the largest amount of settlement
for the uh infraction that the company you know, supposedly
is made. And I don't see how a coffee versus
you know, a nice lunch is going to really make
all that much of a difference meaningfully to individual users. Yeah,
(28:33):
well it's great for the legal team, and then I
mean they make a ton of about the class action.
And then if you consider class action for things that
have health concerns or environmental regulations that have been violated,
then a class action lawsuit is a very important piece
of changing legislation such that you know, say, people can
(28:57):
get their medical claims supported right in the case of
widespread contamination, or that the company can get a more
actionable trouble. I'm saying, like, I see what you're saying.
Class action lawsuits like this. Anybody who's involved, who ever
been involved with one, or you get that letter in
the mail where it's like you might be eligible for
a piece of this insert million dollar here settlement that
(29:20):
does usually translate to a very small takeaway amount for
a lot of people, especially big things like when a
bank has compromised millions of people or hundreds of thousands,
hundreds of thousands of people's data. It's uh, it's not
necessarily going to help repair the damage done to the
end user. So the best thing you can say about
(29:41):
a lot of class action suits is that it is
paving the way for actionable consequences for those companies. But
you're absolutely right. I don't think an actual cup of
coffee is gonna help someone if their personal data has
been stolen. Yeah, I know, I am with you where
I think we're definitely on the same page, and I'm
I'm now getting to the new thing. I wanted to
(30:01):
establish those precedents. Thank you, Ben for clearing up that
whole uh kerfuffle with the you know, with the Trump administration,
because it really was quite a big deal. It was
a huge news item and they really had to scramble
to make that thing and it really felt like a
almost more like a symbolic gesture, uh, because it does
seem as though there are still major concerns with the
(30:22):
way TikTok is using users data. This new case comes
uh from a woman named and Longfield, who used to
be used to have the role of Children's Commissioner for England,
which is a role that we don't really have an
analog for here exactly in the government. And what it
(30:42):
essentially is is someone whose job is to advocate for
children's rights, which sounds great because you know, I think
maybe we sometimes don't think about children having as many
rights as adults sometimes, which I guess in theory they don't.
But there are things where this kind of conversation really matters,
and this is one of them. Um. She is advocating
(31:05):
for a there's no actual number on it yet, but
potential billion dollar lawsuit against TikTok's parent company Byte Dance
UM for what she refers to and she deems as shadowy,
sinister and if I may, you know, put some words
in her mouth, she's really talking about what she considers
(31:26):
something of an evil practice or at the very least
completely duplicitest and this honest. Her lawyers are alleging that
TikTok has taken children's personal information that includes phone numbers, UM,
geo location, geo tags, you know, to know what to
the kind of like get a sense of their man
their movements because i'd be obviously you make these things
(31:47):
at all kinds of places you make them. It's stores,
you make them, your friends houses you make it really
is a good way to tell exactly what your your
movements are. UM biometric data like we talked about video thos,
phone numbers because it it connects up to your address book,
you know, so you can send uh, you know, these
(32:07):
things directly to folks. Um or invites her. I'm not
sure exactly. I don't have a TikTok account personally, but UM,
I could probably get all this info from my from
my daughter, but alleges that these practices do not include
a sufficient uh warning, a sufficient access to any kinds
of terms with services, and that the most importantly UM
(32:29):
don't require consent from the parents of miners, which is
you know what's an issue here. She has a statement
saying the following TikTok is a hugely popular social media
platform that has helped children keep in touch with their
friends during an incredibly difficult year. However, behind the fund songs,
dance challenges, and lip sync trends lies something far more sinister. UM.
(32:52):
She calls the company a data collection service that is
thinly veiled as a social network, but which is deliberate
lee and successfully deceiving parents so you know, of course
by dance. The TikTok's parent company UM had a understandably
but patently UM diplomatic and kind of non response UM,
(33:15):
saying that privacy and safety your top priorities for TikTok,
and we have robust policies, processes and technologies in place
to help protect all users, and our teenage users in particular.
We believe the claim claims lack merit and intend to
vigorously defend the action. So UM, there it is really
it's really it's kind of an update. There are some
(33:35):
other kind of precedence for this um that are still
being hung up in the Supreme Court. There's a there's
a there's a case that miss Longfeld in particular or
Longfield who you know, was this kind of spearheading. This
has been keeping a close eye on. Uh. And it
is one brought by Richard Lloyd, who is the director
of child advocacy group called which question mark UM and
(34:00):
it's behalf Well it's really not a privacy advocacy group rather,
but he filed a k suit on behalf of four
million iPhone users alleging that they were illegally tracked by Google.
UM and that case was was was broad in tween
but still hasn't had a you know, a conclusion. Uh.
(34:20):
And it is due to be heard by the Supreme
Court relatively soon. So that's when to keep an eye on.
And if that goes south, then this case doesn't have
much merit um. So it's definitely something to keep an
eye on. Got it. It's fascinating because you know, they're
they're multiple concerns here. Everybody who is a guardian or
parent of a of a child who's listening to the
audience today. You know, there are hard conversations to have
(34:43):
with your kids about how public the kids should be.
You know, many people listening today did not grow up
in an age where their parents had, you know, a
Facebook or or some other profile on a platform where
they could put pictures of you since infancy. You know
what I mean Like this, the boundaries of expectations for
(35:05):
privacy I have been I would say, pretty much completely eroded.
Talked about it in the past, but when it comes
to something like TikTok, we see you know, the questions
about who your children are interacting with online. And I
don't means a fearmonger, but these are really important questions
like who is who has seen them? What are they
(35:25):
possibly learning about these other users? You know, how does
the abyss stare back right? How does the facial recognition
come back to bite you in a few years time. Uh. There,
They're serious concerns and it may sound this is an
important point, um. One of the reasons I really appreciate
you bringing this this show today. It seems unsurfaced, like
(35:47):
it could be really racist if like racist and someone
nationalistic for people to start saying, oh, China is so
bad they're out to steal stuff about when your kids
are McDonald's or whatever. But the fact of the matter
is that Chinese espionage in the world of tech is
a very real and proven things. So the previous administration
(36:12):
definitely had a bad habit of trotting out China whenever
they wanted to get away from their own bad domestic
press or be uh, distract from another issue, makes something
not their fault, etcetera. But concerns are real. They are real,
and we even I mean, look, it's the kind of
thing that would be really good fodder for like a
(36:33):
science science fiction story. Like we even talked about this
in a previous either Strange News or I can't remember
what which segment it was. But the idea of what
if they are like some kind of like subliminal messages
encoded in TikTok videos or something, It's like, it is
the kind of thing you could take to the extreme,
especially when you think about like how, um what what
(36:56):
a country like China would have to gain from having
access to all these kids and access to all this data. Uh.
And that's why I think the Oracle deal is so
important because we require sort of assurances that this stuff
wasn't being just sold to third parties without anyone's knowledge
or used for any kind of, you know, nefarious purposes.
But you're right, it absolutely has the potential. And I'm
(37:18):
joking about the subliminal messages, but I would love to
see a short story with that in mind. I think
it's a really fun idea. Um, I think that has
ha you not seen some of the swift Talk. I look,
if you guys have never perused swift Talk, I highly
recommend anyone out there listening and or watching on their
phone right now check out swift Talk. Get swifty with it.
(37:41):
Check out the messages that can be found in all
of Taylor's Swift's music, social media posts and or uh,
I don't know, messages that she sends throughout the universe
without us even realizing in the moment, Britney Spears and
Taylor Swift are really just doing Darren Brown's act with
some use it right. Yeah, she's on another level if
(38:05):
you believe a lot of the most popular swift Talk folks,
and it's it's really interesting stuff. Wow, this is news
to me. I do know that the Swifties are a
very particular breed and you definitely don't want to cross
Taylor Swift with them around, because what I'm saying, do
not ever do that. No matter who you are or
where you are, what you're doing, just know that it's
(38:27):
fascinating and you can learn a lot about it. Well,
I'm gonna dig right into that while we take a
quick break for a word from our sponsor and then
return for potentially some swift talk, but definitely somewhere strange news.
All right, welcome back for more strange news. Guys. There
(38:47):
really is a person on TikTok and I cannot think
of his name. He is amazing. He just deadpan reads
a news story and or tells you exactly what's happening.
He does not look away. He tells you exactly what's
occurring right now. The scientist will not allow the vaccine
to occur. They it is one of the most wonderful
things I've ever seen. But is it better than David
Lynch reading than the weather? Yes, because this guy just
(39:12):
does it. He doesn't let up until he's finished telling
you exactly what he's telling you, and then he's gone.
He was awesome. Whoever it is. Diana showed me a
couple of videos of him and I loved it. Okay,
but Chris is not here right now. We are, and
that's why we're gonna tell you about a little thing
(39:33):
that's happening out in the United Kingdom and has to
do with year old post office. We have discussed the
post before on this show, generally regarding the United States
when it comes to several of the major issues that
our country's post has been dealing with. Well, today we're
going to talk about the British Isles and what's going
(39:56):
on with their post office system, and particularly we're gonna
be talking about a point of sale software. Essentially, that's
really what this story is about. The machines that are
used to, you know, put a credit card in, make
a payment, do some kind of transaction from a client,
(40:17):
a user, just any person walking in to send something
via the post and the post office itself. We're going
to the BBC to look at an article titled post
Office Scandal. What the Horizon saga is all about? Remember
that word horizon. It's gonna be very important. Apparently, there
were some bad things occurring at the post office. The
(40:41):
Post Office being all of the post offices across the
United Kingdom between two thousand and ten, so fourteen years
there and spoiler alert, they continued after and they're still
happening right now, but we're going to get into that.
For fourteen years, uh, there appeared to be some situations
(41:04):
with balancing the books at specific post offices. So imagine
just the post office that's down the street from wherever
you are. Let's say if you're in London, your your
section of London, or your neighborhood that post office. Now
imagine all of the transactions that are occurring over a quarterly,
a monthly basis, maybe even a daily basis. All of
(41:27):
that stuff is you, is done through one of these computers,
one of these terminals that's there, and all of that information,
all that money in, money out, You get an end
of the day number, essentially how much the post office
made or lost. And what was occurring at a ton
of post offices around the UK is that those numbers
(41:48):
were showing that the post office was losing money. And
because of that, there were seven hundred and thirty six
what are called sub postmasters, which are just people that
run a specific post office, which sounds way more like
a position in a B D S M club than
it is. So post oh boy, oh wow, Like so
(42:14):
it's really lows like the base or wait, is a
post like a physical post involved? I mean, you know
we're not euphemism desmite be a different strange news or
listener mail again at eight three three stt w y
T k okay okay. So, so seven hundred and thirty
six individuals people who were running these post offices were
(42:38):
prosecuted because those numbers were different, right, And it seems
as though the the individual post office was losing money,
but it was just money that was gone. It wasn't
as though they had spent more money than they were making.
It's just money was not there that was supposed to
be there. So it was assumed that these individual post
subpostmasters were stealing money somehow or embezzling money, and a
(43:02):
lot of a lot of people, seventy six ended up
being prosecuted because of this. Many went to prison. They
were convicted for false accounting. So it's not just as
though they were accused of stealing the money, but they
were accused of just doing a terrible job at accounting.
And for some reason misplaced that money. I mean, gross
(43:23):
negligence is a crime. Sure. And and this is you know,
we're talking about the post Office. These these subpostmasters are
kind of like franchise ease, you know, running running one
individual version of this big system. And you can imagine
that the post Office wanted. The post Office itself is
(43:45):
the thing, the entity that's prosecuting these people. So it's
as though McDonald's was prosecuting franchisees who owned the McDonald's
somewhere in Atlanta. It's it's very similar to that. But
here's the deal, huge cross, huge problem, cross fried gligens
(44:05):
god delicious fragligence. So the so here's the deal. Day
for fourteen years they were prosecuting people. And there was
a flag that was raised around and this flag had
written on it, Hey, I think there might be something
wrong with the software that all of these subpostmasters have
(44:27):
been using to balance their books. I think it might
not be the individual. I think it might be the software.
And there was an inquiry, or at least there was
a vote at some point in parliament to take a
look at this to figure out what it what it was,
what was happening. That vote unfortunately in got pushed as
in it just they kind of held off. It didn't
(44:47):
go anywhere, and then for the next five six years
there were just a whole bunch of attorneys, a whole
bunch of individuals who were trying to clear the names
of the these seven hundreds something people that all found
themselves in the in the legal system there in the
UK with felonies. There are horrible stories that you can
(45:11):
read about what happened to individuals, some of whom were
pregnant when they were accused of this stuff and ended
up having, you know, to go to prison for a
little while. Some people who lost their livelihoods who then
walked around with a felony charge on their record for
five six years, sometimes for longer. Sometimes we're a decade
(45:31):
or almost or up to twenty years. Really horrible stories.
You can read and find those all over the place.
The problem is this software which is known as Horizon
h O R I z O N. It appears that
this software Horizon, was the culprit in many of the
scenarios simply because it was not created correctly, at least
(45:55):
according to some insiders with Fujitsu. The name of that
that's the company that creates did it. Uh, some insiders
who say it was built on top of a platform
that wasn't supposed to do what this thing does, So
they retro fitted it, right, they tried to like they
took they took the for a terrible analogy. Uh, they
(46:20):
took what would be the skeleton of a really cool whale,
and they were like, how do we turn this into
something that can run on the land. Yeah, very much, though,
very much. So. You can go to Computer Weekly dot
com and you can check out an article here called
(46:42):
Fujitsu bosses knew about Post Office Horizon I t flaws,
says insider. If you jump to this article, you can
see there are several people who were actually project leads
for Fujitsu working on Horizon back in the early two
thousand I guess it was late nineties early two thousand's
(47:03):
who who were trying to raise alarms about how the
software is being created and these massive problems that it had. Uh.
One of the biggest thing and it's difficult for me
to explain. Maybe it's something we could go to Jonathan with.
It would be great to maybe have him come on
the show and like walk us through some of this stuff.
(47:23):
But there's a layer between the servers, the network servers
that are actually processing all the numbers and everything there
you know, they live in a server room somewhere in
a giant complex. And then on this side you've got
the individual point of sale service, so like the post offices,
the individual post offices, and in a lot of ways
(47:46):
and a lot of systems like this, there's a direct connection.
It's just like having an Internet connection or something. Every
time something occurs at the at the point of sale level,
at the post office level, all that information gets transferred
over to the main server, and that's where stuff gets logged.
It gets logged on both sides, and then everything is
backed up on that main server. That's where all the
(48:06):
major information is kept. There was a huge issue where
with this system, stuff would all end. We would all
stay on the post office level, so locally everything, all
the information would get stored locally until some random point
at night or when the service wasn't being used, you know,
in a daily service mode. It would then transfer all
(48:29):
of the information to the servers. And so it's almost like,
do you guys remember having any kind of system like that.
I'm trying to think of an equivalent ben and uh,
where there's just an update that occurs once a day
or something. Sure, even like you know, cameras that are
offloaded at the end of the day or something like that,
like uh, like a scheduled event where things are either
(48:53):
offloaded onto a server and then the local copies are
wiped and then rent and repeat. Or in the old
days of podcasts, you know, actually there would be some
platforms and services that would just refresh something on a
twenty four hour o' clock so you could maybe publish
(49:13):
something like you know, you publishing your new episode of
um Bens Crazy back Roads or some other show I
just made up and then I love that podcast. Thanks guys.
It doesn't matter if that publishes. If you publish it
at like ten, it's still not going to really hit
until twelve oh one or something like that. Yes, yeah,
(49:36):
funnily enough, I mean, even like huge companies like Apple,
for example, like on their Apple podcast platform, if you
make a change as a user, you oftentimes have to
ask for a manual refresh, which you can't do yourself.
You have to request it otherwise it takes twenty four
hours for when that re refresh happens. You think with
a big company like that, it would happen more regularly,
(49:58):
but it's just like a one time thing a day.
That makes a lot of sense. Well, so that that
was one of the major issues, and that created a
lot of problems because sometimes something just the transfer would
get a little corrupted if service was interrupted in between. Right, So,
if you're in the middle of a large file transfer, uh,
if something occurred to the power, you may lose some data.
(50:20):
And that was a big issue. And that's just one
example of a problem that could come there. The other
major problem is that with any with any software system
like this, there should be a essentially a dictionary of
entries that are possible. So if you've got a point
of sale and then you've got a server that's checking everything,
(50:42):
you want to make sure that when you send stuff
to the server, the server understands what the heck you're
talking about, what numbers you're crunching, what all these things represent.
So I'm gonna go back to McDonald's really quickly. If
you imagine the McDonald's menu just laid out, if you
ever looked at one before, and now imagine that the
person from whom you're ordering at the let's say the
(51:05):
to go window or of the drive through, they've got
essentially the same menu in front of them, only it's
represented as a touch screen with buttons. So when you
order something, I can enter in exactly what you're ordering,
and it's all representative. Machine understands exactly what it is.
Everybody who's gonna make your food for you, they understand
what you're ordering. Everybody speaking the same language is a
(51:28):
great comparison, by the way, Yes, so in this case,
they didn't have that layer that the dictionary of terms.
So when one postmaster is entering in you know X
number of stamps and there was postage with a certain
weight that was sent out, and all this stuff they're
(51:50):
putting in a single entry or multiple entries. There wasn't
always a common parlament, a common language that was being
spoken there to where the server when you you would
have all of these entries for the end of the day,
the server would only recognize them them of them the
(52:12):
other you know two to that is didn't understand a
lot of times, it would just throw those entries out
as though they didn't exist. It wasn't real. Those weren't
actual numbers, so that money would literally disappear. It was
just gone. No transactions occurred, nobody gets billed, it's just done.
(52:32):
Or But the other thing is if a transaction did occur,
and let's say money NOL came out of your bank account,
but it never shows up on the books of the postmaster,
the subpostmaster, that means you lost money somehow, but the
post office never collects that money, I guess, or or
it gets a little weird there to know exactly what
(52:55):
occurred on each subpostmasters or under each subpostmasters watch. And
that's why they were everybody was being prosecuted individually. And
it never seemed to be a massive problem with this
with the software. And you made a really great point
mat about the franchise e situation from the star in
this McDonald's metaphor that you've carried on throughout this story,
(53:15):
and I think it absolutely works. Um. But I just
want to point out again when I hear the name postmaster,
what I think in my mind is postmaster general, which
is like a single position over a giant organization. There
are hundreds of these. Postmaster and post mistress, by the way,
is actually another official name which seems a little uh dated, um,
(53:35):
but it definitely was in one of the articles in
the BBC that I read. Um, so it appears to
be the official term they've used, But aren't aren't. There
aren't a lot of these being walked back now, Matt.
And then many of them are being sent back to
the courts because essentially talking about jumping to conclusions, that's
exactly what happened, as opposed to recognizing a pattern, uh
and realizing more quickly and efficiently. This is a problem
(53:57):
inherent in the platform, not in a weirdly out of
the blue rash of of embezzlements, you know, throughout the system. Right. Yes,
as of right now, this is a fairly positive story
because many of these individuals names are being cleared. I
think as of three days ago, according to the BBC,
there are five hundred and fifty five claimants that in
(54:23):
December agreed to they m the Post Office agreed to
settle with them. So there will be a lot of
money going back to these individuals. I think, oh wow,
it's fifty eight million pounds in damage. That's what the
Post Office has agreed to pay overall overall. Yes, and
the claimants individually are going to receive around twelve million
(54:45):
pounds of that and that's five and fifty five individuals.
So you do the math there. Um. You know, it
doesn't mean those people get the parts of their lives
back that were irreparably damaged from the time that they
spent as you know, someone charged with a major crime
like like theft in that way, basically theft from the government,
(55:08):
which is doesn't look good on a on an application um.
And there are further cases that are being looked at
outside of those people. There's something that's so hilarious to
me about this. It's funny amidst the very tragic thing
because as you said, Matt, these folks will never get
(55:29):
that time back and you can't really put a price
on it. But the thing that's funny to me is
that you know, at some point there was somebody tracking
down these cases who believed there was a nationwide cabal
of of evil postmass subpostmasters who were scheming on the
(55:49):
government and a really weird, easily discernible way. And so this,
I would say, this damage to their reputations, damage to
these individuals reputations isn't just one of like painting them
as uh, financial criminals. It's painting them as very incompetent criminals,
(56:11):
when in fact, it turns out that the Japanese company,
which was one of the world's most admired companies, have
won an award for it. Uh, it was actually their
incompetence all at long. So glad to see justice, serve
Glad they're getting better, better settlement terms than TikTok claimants.
But it's it's still a it's still an unfortunate situation
(56:34):
all around. And look, people who work at the post
office works so insanely hard. You get a lot of
bad press about them in the US because for a
very long time, aspects of this country's political structure, I've
been trying to render the post office, have been trying
to cripple it and render it extinct for a number
(56:55):
of reasons. But don't believe the anti post propaganda, you
know what I mean, be diceier post office person next
time you see it. Yeah, totally, yes, yes, And I'm
gonna leave you with this. This is something that the
BBC ended their article with. Uh, it's just the fact
that all of these people's lives were affected because of
(57:16):
faulty software, or at least it appears that that is so.
And the Post Office is settling four millions and millions
of pounds with that as as the fact. Essentially, Matt
really quickly did I miss what happened to the money?
Did they? Did it ever come back? Was it ever?
Was it never really gone in the first place, it
was just a calculating error. Or was there never actually
(57:37):
any money that was was disappeared? Oh? Yeah, as a
as we were talking about earlier, it was it was
money that disappeared off of the books, but individuals were
still paid money. It just never made it to the
post office. So there was missing money. I remember that.
I just wanted to make sure that was super clear.
So now they're on the hook for real money. Yes, yes,
(58:02):
and and it's because of this Horizon software at least
that's what's being alleged. That's what's being settled right now. Um.
And that's why there are a lot of other cases.
There's there's this thing happening right now in the high
courts in in the UK where there are twenty four
twenty five hundred other individuals. Yeah, two thousand, four hundred
(58:27):
people are more than that who are attempting to really
settle another claim here, and the Post Office set up.
I guess a fund or you know, a certain amount
of money to then pay out some of those claims.
But they are worried they're gonna need a lot more,
so they're gonna see seek help from the government itself.
(58:47):
Have you seen anything about the Post Office potentially suing
the software company. I have not seen that right now
because as of right now in the court, in the
actual courts, the Post Office is not like there's no
individual who made a decision about the software in the
Post Office who's being held to account. There's no individual
(59:09):
or a group of people at Fujitsu who developed the
software being held to account. So I don't know no
news right now. I was looking to this too because
I think this this news captured all of our attention. Also,
I wanted to give a shout out to conspiracy realist Jake,
who was the first person to write to us about this.
In a happy accident, Jake, we were reading a lot
(59:31):
of the same things. Uh. Post Office Chief executive Nick
Reid is actually one of the main voices who is
calling on for compensation, which is I think speaks really
highly to his character. But my other question is this
is something we we definitely need to put in the
show here, guys, Uh, what is going to replace Horizon?
So far they've said they'll get to a cloud based
(59:53):
service of some sort at this point. But right now,
as far as I know, correct me if I'm off her,
as far as the day to day life of the
subpostmasters who have not yet gone down for post fraud, Uh,
they're still using Horizon, which means two things. To mean first,
it means there could be other false reports of crime
(01:00:15):
and then secondly, if there is some villainous evil sub
postmaster subpostmistress out there, although they don't care for the
gendering of the words there, if there is someone who
is nefarious and unethical in this situation, now's the time,
right like, now is kind of the time to go.
You'll get away with it. Don't do it, it's time
(01:00:39):
to do it, don't do it? All right? Well, I
think we may have to revisit this again in the
future just to give an update, but for right now,
that is what's happening in the news in the UK
with the Postmaster Subpostmaster General's UK heavy episode today. Uh. Hey,
(01:01:01):
thank you so much for yeah, Jake, for learning us
to that. But honestly, I this was me, Yeah, just
reading a bunch of stories, trying to figure out what
to talk about today. So but thank you for learning me.
Maybe I thought about it subconsciously while I was looking
at the news today. I all think, so the same
thing happened happened to me because I I love getting
this kind of correspondence. So, Jake, I want you to
(01:01:24):
know when I opened that email, I muttered, God damn
it to myself in the happiest way, because it meant
that all of us throughout the same page of Matt.
I think this is something that was on all three
of our minds because this is one of those stories
we each wanted to examine. Noel, you would said the
same thing earlier. Oh, I was just uh, I was
actually researching this for my listener Male episode. It was
(01:01:47):
definitely definite parallel thinking. And then I went to our
document spreadsheet that we shared and I saw it. I
also uttered a goddamn it. It wasn't quite as good
natured as yours, Ben, but I'm glad we got it
out there just the same aim. And Uh, I was,
you know, prepared to discuss it. So very very very
interesting story and one to follow for sure, well sorry,
(01:02:08):
not sorry. If you want to be like Jake who
wrote to us, you can do the same. You can
find us all over the place on social media. On
Facebook and Twitter we are conspiracy stuff, and on Instagram
we are conspiracy stuff. Show on YouTube we are conspiracy stuff.
Whoa look at that. You can see all the videos
that we did way back in the day, all the
(01:02:29):
way up until this week. Check it out. I can subscribe,
I guess, or turn on notifications. I don't know how
it works. Now you can. You can watch our videos.
If you're pointing at the bottom of the screen right
now and you say that, Matt. Sure. If you are
not someone who likes the sip on the SuDS of
social meads, never have worry. You can always call us
directly at our phone line. We are one eight three
(01:02:52):
three st d w y t K three minutes. Those
minutes are yours. You'll hear a brief message and then
just pop in. Let us know what's on your mind.
Would love to hear what you think of the post
office shenanigans, what your opinion of privacy online and TikTok are,
and of course your experiences with things that may or
(01:03:13):
may not be considered cults. Uh. If that three minutes
doesn't work, have no fear. Please do not edit yourself,
Please tell us the whole story. Don't admit anything. Give
yourself a cool nickname too, we always love those, and
send us a good old fashioned email where we are
conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want
(01:03:51):
you to know is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our superproducer Alexis
code name Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. It's the top of the week,
which means it is time for our strange news segment.
(00:46):
There's some scandal at the post office. And don't worry, folks,
this is not the US post Office for the first
time in a long time. That's the subject of scandal.
Uh TikTok is in what maybe a little bit of
water and there may be a new Heaven's Gate on
the rise. This this story in particular about a group
(01:10):
called Love is One. This stood out to me because
I know we've got a lot of folks in the
crowd who, like me, kind of monitor cults before they
hit the news in a big way, before something terrible
happens to them. Would you guys be okay with starting
with that story today. Absolutely, yes, I'm always looking for
a new group to join. I love making friends, and
(01:32):
I look forward to learning about this one. Ben. We
still we had a great thing going with that earlier cult.
I want to thank you again for being the messianic
figurehead there, Matt. I think we made a lot of
progress in the space of a seven minute video, you
know what. Matt, speed to you, sir, and Matt speed
to you, my friend. Uh So, everybody probably is at
(01:54):
least a little bit familiar with the tragic story of
the Heaven's Gate Cult back in nineteen seventy four. They
were founded as a new religious movement with a lot
of UFO ideation, and this was a cult that had
this ending point. They believe that after the Hilbop commet
(02:16):
zinged past Earth, there would be a number of spacecraft
coming to retrieve the fateful. This unfortunately led to a
mass suicide as members of the movement took their own
lives in an effort to join those extraterrestrial craft that
they thought they thought they would meet them in an
(02:36):
immaterial or different form. That occurred in October of stories
like these are unfortunately not unique in the world of
new religious movements, which if you're ever talking to someone
that you think is an occult new religious movement, is
more like, is the more diplomatic way to describe their organization,
(02:58):
because as we know, as we've learned from correspondence over
the year, in fact, a lot of people don't like
the C word. Uh. They might even dislike it more
than the other C word that we referred to here
in the US conspiracy theory, No, that would be I
really thought you guys were going a different way with that. Yeah.
(03:18):
CT is a common abbreviation for conspiracy theory if you're
ever reading something on a forum, but they both accomplished
the same thing, Like, a cult is a term that
is used to kind of nagg whatever comes after it. Like,
if you're referring to someone's belief system as a cult, uh,
then you are inherently judging it and applying certain criteria
(03:38):
to it that are inherently negative in the same way
as a conspiracy theory is used in that way. Yeah,
and the modern parlance those could be those could both
qualify as what are known as thought terminating clichees. Our
story for I have found this when I was reading
some local papers in the Pacific Northwest, uh for a
(03:59):
different thing. But our story begins with a report from
the Mount Shasta News. This is a local paper in
the area, and they had a headline that really caught
me and said spiritual group compared to Heaven's Gate cult
is planting roots in the Mount Shasta area. This came
out today, as we record, but the group itself was
(04:22):
familiar to me from some other reading. They have a
really interesting name. They're called Love Has One. Uh odd
to choose that past tense for the name of a
new religious movement, but it happens points for creativity. It
is led by a person named Amy Carlson. If you
are familiar with the cult, you might not know where
(04:44):
is Amy Carlson because she is referred to as Mother
God by her followers and her lover or her partner,
whoever it may be at the time, is also automatically
referred to as Father God. So at this time, Mother God,
Amy Carlson's everyone outside of the movement is about forty
four years old. Here's what the followers believe. They believe
(05:07):
that she has been reincarnated hundreds and hundreds of times.
They also believe that she has been in contact with
Robin Williams since he passed away. In that's just one
of the beliefs that outsiders will point to as the
more bizarre part of the story. Uh. Specifically, the mission
(05:27):
of this religious movement is to follow Carlson because one
day she will lead one hundred and forty four thousand
chosen people into a new mystical fifth dimension. She has
also said that former US President Donald Trump was her
father in a past life. They had a great relationship.
(05:47):
In case anyone is concerned, UH, there's something that happens
a lot with these kinds of movements, which is there's
a growing discrepancy between the narrative offered by the former
members of the organization and the narrative offered by the
spokespeople of the group. This is something we're familiar with
(06:09):
anytime you talk about movements that are you know, that
have this level of controversy. Scientology is of course the
easiest example, but I promise you there are numerous examples
out there. Uh. Mother God claims that she has been
trying to save humanity for nineteen billion years, which is
(06:30):
interesting because what we know of current science shows us
that humans were probably not around nineteen billion years ago.
You can see an episode of Vice about them. It's
the first episode of a series called False Gods, and
you can see the allegations of UM, the allegations of
(06:54):
mistreatment and abuse in this religious movement. Uh. So far,
I haven't been able to find anything that's as egregious
as UM some of the other things that we know
cult movements do. Like I haven't found any fatalities. I
haven't found I haven't found extreme injuries. But I have
(07:17):
seeing videos of Carlson that show her verbally abusing people,
screaming at her followers, abusing animals, having children locked in
the closets for being kids. You know, That's that's one
thing that a lot of a lot of cult like
movements do, is they you know, they punish people through
(07:38):
their children. It's enormously effective because that's one of the
closest relationships human being has. There have also been allegations
that members are underfed, they're never paid for their work,
they're never allowed to sit down. And although the movement itself,
(07:58):
like if you if you hear the spokespeople say the
movement itself is UM. Maybe a little bit more on
the hippie side. But in general they seem like really
nice people who just happened to believe something different. Uh.
But everything that the everything the survivors of the cult
are describing is troublingly close to the guidelines we made
(08:21):
in our earlier video about how to make a cult.
Their brainwashing people. They're regimented, their free time has gone,
relationships are broken down. We also see that some cures
have been promised to people, and these cures are things
like you can talk to Mother God on the phone,
and through that phone conversation she can cure cancer. U.
(08:45):
We also see a little bit of a hubbard esque
thing here, because Hubbard would not allow, you know, drug
and alcohol abuse, but he didn't practice what he preached.
Oh we got I'm gonna Can I take a tangent
really quickly and get right back to here, please do absolutely? Okay.
We We had a listener voicemail that I just heard.
(09:07):
I went through a couple of them today and someone
left a message asking us if we knew anything about
a bet l Ron Hubbard made with some other person
at a bar about whether or not he could begin
a religious movement that would function as a tax haven
and bring him great wealth. Um, well, yeah, I had
(09:33):
not heard. You know, I've not seen any evidence of that.
I think if there were evidence of that that was
you know, blatant or just out there in the public sphere,
then that would be a big issue, or it would
be just completely you know, denied and pushed away. But anyway,
just putting that out there, I've heard that. I've heard
a couple of versions of that anecdote enough to convince
(09:56):
me that at least several times in conversation he had
made statements about, you know why, about how the the
real money was in not writing fiction, but in starting
a religion right for the tax purposes and other other
side benefits of being a religious figure that we've named earlier,
(10:18):
so we knew we talked about in conversation. As far
as a specific bet, I am not aware. I haven't
found proof of that, but I've heard that story before.
I just don't I haven't found a good source for
that yet, But maybe it could have happened. It does
seem a little, you know, very much in his character
(10:38):
being kind of a blustery, braggadocious figure, right, I could
see him like say, hey, look what I'm gonna do
or no to your point, bend just kind of bragging
about how this is a brilliant idea that no one
else has thought of, and to be fair, I mean
he pulled it off in a much more outlandish form
than just about any other figure of his type in
(11:00):
recent in recent time. So we see some parallels in
scientology in the world of scientology, no or on Hubbard
and specific. But again we see a lot of parallels
in these types this genre of religious movement in general.
You know, when you when it comes down to the
(11:21):
psychological aspects of most new religious movements, they're not very
different at all. You know, there's a mad lib mythology
right where you can slot in one thing slot out another.
But when it comes to how people are treated, uh,
it's often going to be the same um negation tactics.
You want to diminish people, You want to make them
(11:43):
feel less than and that you're their only hope, and
you want to find like little little things that you
can use to to like try to make them feel
as though they are somehow inferior. In The sad part
about these sorts of approach is is unless someone is
expecting them, if they make the mistake of trusting you,
(12:07):
then they can be effective. And this this goes into
another commonality that we should probably talk about a little bit,
like Heaven's Gate comparisons. Those are good headline grabber, but
they lead us into I would argue, a conversation about language.
Language is another wall you put up around a group
to isolate them, And Matt, this is something that's stuck
(12:29):
out to you as well, right, Yeah, the the language
of groups, I think is something that I end up
harping on a lot of the time, and I'm sorry
to do so. And everybody who's getting tired of this conversation,
I love this you. I mean, I know I'm not
the audience member here, but you speaking my language? Get it? Oh? Okay.
(12:51):
So if you go to love has one dot org,
which is this organization's website, you can see lot of
stuff here about Mom herself. Even says about Mom in
one tab. There's another tab that you can click on
that says five D updates. And if you go here
(13:12):
you can read your you can see what I'm talking about.
This is just some of the language that's used on
the website, and specifically I'm talking about the phrasing here
stuff that is maybe insular to the group, as well
as what appears to be urgent messages that have consequences.
(13:33):
So so failure to take action feels like it has
a consequence. So let's let's just talk about this, okay,
So here we go. It says, Planet Earth equals Heart
is ascending. We are finishing, as you said, been a
nineteen billion year mission. But notice this, they are finishing
a nineteen billion year mission. Are you getting the codes?
(13:54):
I'm not getting the codes, guys. I don't know about y'all. Uh,
so far I haven't gotten them. Says do you read
the daily updates that will allow you to prep a
bit more for what's coming. That sounds a lot like
the contract that you enter into and you become a scientologist,
is in a billion year contract or something like that. Yeah,
but this is up in the games into nineteen or
(14:15):
at least it's been happening already. Well, but I love
that it's a mission instead of a contract. I think
that's interesting. So obviously the code is up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right,
b A. I think we can all agree on that one.
Don't forget start, don't forget start. Ben. So the the
The interesting distinction here, I would say, is that this
(14:36):
is what's drawing the Heavens Gate comparison that by their
own official statements there at the end of the mission,
what does the end of the mission mean? Is this? Um?
Is this in some way baking in its own finishing line?
And if so, what happens when you cross that finish
(15:00):
same line? It's it's dangerous because and there are you know,
there are places like Cult Watch and nonprofits that try
to keep an eye on these things. But the the
issue is that when you join an organization like this,
you are brought in through a series of very well
(15:20):
thought out strategies, you know, like the infamous love bomb,
where people tell you that you're the greatest, and then
you start getting support that maybe you never had in
your pre cult life. Uh. And then you start the
cracks begin to show. Right. You see that there is
a careening abuse problem here. Apparently there are. There are
(15:45):
multiple reports of abusive behavior and drinking. Uh. And another
thing that has some observers worried about this possibly going
sideways is that Carlson's health is in decline. UH. We
also don't authorities don't know her location either, so she's
(16:07):
kind of going off the grid. Uh. And when you
have a messiodic figure like this, when they decide that
their life is ending, sometimes their teachings change in a
way that isn't always great. Or when they decide their
organization is ending. Uh, these change in a way that
(16:28):
isn't always great for the followers. Right now, this is
very small. I think they have twenty something full time members,
so this is a very close insular group. But it's
something that I wanted to bring attention to today because
fellow conspiracy realists the there are so many more groups
(16:50):
like this in the US and abroad than you might
believe exists. Uh. There are cult de programmers who have
try to put this in the perspective of the larger
context of modern new religious movements in the West. But
the problem here is you can't really predict what's going
(17:11):
to happen. The full time followers are all over eighteen,
they're legally adults, so you can't stop them from following
this person that they believe is their mom. The leader
phrases it in a very um well, it's not supposed
to sound threatening. Let me just read the quote that
she says in one of these videos. Let me know
what you all think. Uh. She says this five and
(17:34):
thirty fourth reincarnation is her quote, quest to recover my
beloved planet, the center of the universe and the first
planet I created. The planet is ascending and you need
to reconnect with the prime source creator me. Yeah, that's
a quote. They've even got on Dr Phil on their
website when you click on about Mom so like it.
(17:56):
This is her quote. Uh yeah, oh did you did
you read about the dark forces kidnapping my planet? Is
that we haven't read that part yet. So apparently Mother
God has had it up to some metaphysical here with
dark forces kidnapping her planet and her children, and that's
(18:20):
what brought her to reincarnate in the flesh again. You know,
your spiritual beliefs or your own, And we're not fans.
I'm not a fan definitely of people telling you what
to believe, So do as you will as long as
you're not hurting someone else. But the problem here is
this situation looks pretty unsustainable. So so at this point,
(18:44):
the residents of Mount Shasta are worried. Some family members
of people have joined the movement are worried. And the
things that people who have left the movement are saying
absolutely do not match what is being presented on their
official website or by their spokespeople. I can't help but
think of the Futurama villain Carol Miller, who is the
(19:06):
CEO of Mom Corps and is known as mom Um.
And I looked. I looked this character, so just making
sure I wasn't like totally making this up. But on
the Wikipedia Villains wiki, um, the quote that that sets
off the Mom page on on this wiki is children,
your old mother won't be around forever. And just once
before I die, I'd like to be supreme Overlord of Earth.
(19:28):
So rebel, my little ones and conquer the planet. Conquer Earth,
you bastards. Let the blood bath begin. Oh man, No,
I feel like I remember that. Maybe I'm not. I'm
not sure remember my mom. I don't. I don't know.
I mean, she has a weird like hair do that
kind of looks like Gary Oldman's Dracula in the in
the Dracula movie that people were sort of on the
(19:51):
fence about Mom. She's she's anyway, she's one of the
big bads in the in the Futurama universe. But um,
I think it's interesting that there's a cult leader going
by mom. Okay, well, I will definitely check that out.
I will say one last thing here from mother's quote, Um,
this is feels weird to me. I think I understand
what they're saying. Maybe, but take it as you will.
(20:13):
She's talking about that prime source, creator of the thing
that Ben mentioned, So she is that. But there's a
sentence after it, and it says so that you can
ignite your light bodies and can protect you again. Okay,
I mean I'm interested to know what that means, igniting
your light bodies. I I have a visceral reaction to it.
(20:33):
Been almost like fire. But maybe that's not just maybe
that's that word ignite. It is vague, right, Well, I
bet if you pay your way up enough in the organization,
you'll find out more. So I would file this under
keep an eye audit. I hope this does not become
another Heaven's Gate, but of course it is unfortunately difficult
(20:55):
to tell. All too often, if you're listening to this
and you have of experiences with what you later learned
was a cult, would love to hear from you. One
eight three three std w y t K Conspiracy at
I heart radio. Uh And if you or a loved
wind are struggling to extricate yourself from a movement like this,
(21:16):
if you feel as bad for you psychologically, spiritually, or physically,
please remember that there are resources available to help you
leave these harmful organizations. If harmful to you, they are
would recommend cult dash Escape dot com. But as always,
can't wait to hear your stories. Stay safe out there, folks.
(21:37):
We're gonna pause for word from our sponsor and we'll
return with more strange news. All right, and we're back,
and we've got another. It's sort of an update and
an ongoing saga of a particularly popular and controversial apps,
(21:57):
particularly popular with the kids. But during COVID, I sound
like a grandpapa when I say things the kids and
my wife. That's what I'm saying. It's really it started
with the kids influencers, creepy dudes. That guy that reads
the news NOL. You know that guy that reads the news.
He says, today the weather people decided that weather was bad.
(22:21):
Do you remember him. I don't know this guy. I
believe you, I believe you. Um, it started mainly with
the kids. I remember. I know this because my kid
was super into it back when it was called musically
or music dot l Y, and they rebranded and then
you know a little thing called covid hit uh and
it took these like you know, dance reenactment, lip sync
(22:43):
comedy type videos to keep people from going insane. So
you're right, everybody joined the fray uh. And now TikTok,
which is a Chinese owned company, the parent company Byte
Dance UM is massive. It's ubiquitous. I think it has
something in the neighborhood of like hundreds of millions of
(23:04):
users eight hundred million users worldwide, uh, and apparently quite
a chunk of that is in the UK. It is
particularly popular in the UK, with around two hundred million
UM users in the UK alone. And today's story specifically
about how some folks are not super happy about how
(23:27):
TikTok is um behaving towards children in terms of their privacy.
We know that TikTok has gotten some flak and even
like you know, the Trump administration practically went to war
with TikTok, potentially threatening a policy that would have outright
banned them. UM. Got kids interested in politics real quick, um,
(23:49):
and that ultimately ended up not going anywhere. There was
I can't quite remember. You guys might might might know
more than than I'm recalling at the moment. How do
they end up kind of mitigating that. I know there
was a thing where they were going to get bought
out by Microsoft as their US presence, but I don't
think that exactly happened, and I kind of just remember
that story fizzling. But they they must have done something. Uh.
(24:12):
It's been difficult to find actual news about TikTok because
there are so many click baity articles that are written
about TikTok. But I just found one. It's all about
the kind of the plans that TikTok had for an
I p O plans that they had with Oracle and
Walmart and all those the sale and all that stuff,
(24:34):
with the kabosh that the Trump administration put on it.
Apparently with the new administration under the Biden administration, they
are they're holding that sale or whatever that transaction was
going to be for security concerns. So they're still holding
onto it and not allowing any movement forward right now
for now. Okay, because and and just too sorry that's
(24:56):
a derail. But um that was as a direct result
of these concerns over Chinese influence of this app being
in some way insidious and targeting our children and having
some sort of direct line with this data that it's collectings.
As we know, the apps are the secondary UM. The
(25:18):
product is actually data mining and data collecting, and TikTok
is pretty egregious about their data collecting practices. UM. There
have been a few lawsuits already where they've been find
pretty large amounts of money, at least as far as
you know mortals like like, we are concerned, but drop
in the bucket when you think of how many billions
(25:39):
of dollars they made during COVID and how many users
they have. But all of these stem from privacy concerns
that they are taking data from underage users. It does
say you have to be thirteen to sign up, but
they there is a claim in a ninety two million
dollar settlement UM from a class action suit UH that
(26:00):
they were using underaged users data UM in an irresponsible way,
including biometric data, which is, you know, to get all
those crazy filters, you've got to scan faces and all
that stuff translates into you know, metrics that can then
be stored and used and paired with other data that
they are mining and they claim that they don't use
(26:21):
it in any kind of nefarious way. But that's kind
of up for debate, right Yeah, to walk back the
because you I think you asked a question earlier about
Microsoft's Yeah, what happened with that? Yeah, Oracle was chosen
back in September to be the technological partner for the
(26:43):
us UH for the US endeavors. And TikTok is a
huge deal here in the US. It's like Vine, you know,
as far as this popularity level, I would say it's
surpassed Vine. You could argue any number of reasons for that,
but I think, um, the the payout you're talking about,
the proposed settlement UM came from. That's like eighty nine
(27:06):
million TikTok users in the US, Is that correct? Yeah?
And then the and the funny thing is it was
actually halted. It's had a bit of a stalemate right
now because a judge argued that a ninety two million
dollar class action settlement was just absolutely insulting to individual
users because they said, if like even like two percent
(27:27):
of of potential class um members responded, that would be
something like six bucks a piece, you know, um for
for each one of these individuals, which is not enough
to buy a Starbucks coffee, which was what the judge
said in this case. Um, that's yeah, that wouldn't make
sense that guy's getting the fancy coffee. Well, isn't it?
(27:49):
Isn't it interesting though, because it sort of calls into
question like the nature of lawsuits, Like is it really like,
I mean, a class action lawsuit is still something that
sort of boggles my mind at times, and so there's
a lot to it, and you have to be you
have to you know, opt in. But it's like, is
it about punishing the company even if they are awarded like,
you know, a free lunch. Is that really like making
(28:10):
amends for being betrayed technologically? Like it seems like a
little bit of splitting hairs to me, Like isn't you
know it should be about the largest amount of settlement
for the uh infraction that the company you know, supposedly
is made. And I don't see how a coffee versus
you know, a nice lunch is going to really make
all that much of a difference meaningfully to individual users. Yeah,
(28:33):
well it's great for the legal team, and then I
mean they make a ton of about the class action.
And then if you consider class action for things that
have health concerns or environmental regulations that have been violated,
then a class action lawsuit is a very important piece
of changing legislation such that you know, say, people can
(28:57):
get their medical claims supported right in the case of
widespread contamination, or that the company can get a more
actionable trouble. I'm saying, like, I see what you're saying.
Class action lawsuits like this. Anybody who's involved, who ever
been involved with one, or you get that letter in
the mail where it's like you might be eligible for
a piece of this insert million dollar here settlement that
(29:20):
does usually translate to a very small takeaway amount for
a lot of people, especially big things like when a
bank has compromised millions of people or hundreds of thousands,
hundreds of thousands of people's data. It's uh, it's not
necessarily going to help repair the damage done to the
end user. So the best thing you can say about
(29:41):
a lot of class action suits is that it is
paving the way for actionable consequences for those companies. But
you're absolutely right. I don't think an actual cup of
coffee is gonna help someone if their personal data has
been stolen. Yeah, I know, I am with you where
I think we're definitely on the same page, and I'm
I'm now getting to the new thing. I wanted to
(30:01):
establish those precedents. Thank you, Ben for clearing up that
whole uh kerfuffle with the you know, with the Trump administration,
because it really was quite a big deal. It was
a huge news item and they really had to scramble
to make that thing and it really felt like a
almost more like a symbolic gesture, uh, because it does
seem as though there are still major concerns with the
(30:22):
way TikTok is using users data. This new case comes
uh from a woman named and Longfield, who used to
be used to have the role of Children's Commissioner for England,
which is a role that we don't really have an
analog for here exactly in the government. And what it
(30:42):
essentially is is someone whose job is to advocate for
children's rights, which sounds great because you know, I think
maybe we sometimes don't think about children having as many
rights as adults sometimes, which I guess in theory they don't.
But there are things where this kind of conversation really matters,
and this is one of them. Um. She is advocating
(31:05):
for a there's no actual number on it yet, but
potential billion dollar lawsuit against TikTok's parent company Byte Dance
UM for what she refers to and she deems as shadowy,
sinister and if I may, you know, put some words
in her mouth, she's really talking about what she considers
(31:26):
something of an evil practice or at the very least
completely duplicitest and this honest. Her lawyers are alleging that
TikTok has taken children's personal information that includes phone numbers, UM,
geo location, geo tags, you know, to know what to
the kind of like get a sense of their man
their movements because i'd be obviously you make these things
(31:47):
at all kinds of places you make them. It's stores,
you make them, your friends houses you make it really
is a good way to tell exactly what your your
movements are. UM biometric data like we talked about video thos,
phone numbers because it it connects up to your address book,
you know, so you can send uh, you know, these
(32:07):
things directly to folks. Um or invites her. I'm not
sure exactly. I don't have a TikTok account personally, but UM,
I could probably get all this info from my from
my daughter, but alleges that these practices do not include
a sufficient uh warning, a sufficient access to any kinds
of terms with services, and that the most importantly UM
(32:29):
don't require consent from the parents of miners, which is
you know what's an issue here. She has a statement
saying the following TikTok is a hugely popular social media
platform that has helped children keep in touch with their
friends during an incredibly difficult year. However, behind the fund songs,
dance challenges, and lip sync trends lies something far more sinister. UM.
(32:52):
She calls the company a data collection service that is
thinly veiled as a social network, but which is deliberate
lee and successfully deceiving parents so you know, of course
by dance. The TikTok's parent company UM had a understandably
but patently UM diplomatic and kind of non response UM,
(33:15):
saying that privacy and safety your top priorities for TikTok,
and we have robust policies, processes and technologies in place
to help protect all users, and our teenage users in particular.
We believe the claim claims lack merit and intend to
vigorously defend the action. So UM, there it is really
it's really it's kind of an update. There are some
(33:35):
other kind of precedence for this um that are still
being hung up in the Supreme Court. There's a there's
a there's a case that miss Longfeld in particular or
Longfield who you know, was this kind of spearheading. This
has been keeping a close eye on. Uh. And it
is one brought by Richard Lloyd, who is the director
of child advocacy group called which question mark UM and
(34:00):
it's behalf Well it's really not a privacy advocacy group rather,
but he filed a k suit on behalf of four
million iPhone users alleging that they were illegally tracked by Google.
UM and that case was was was broad in tween
but still hasn't had a you know, a conclusion. Uh.
(34:20):
And it is due to be heard by the Supreme
Court relatively soon. So that's when to keep an eye on.
And if that goes south, then this case doesn't have
much merit um. So it's definitely something to keep an
eye on. Got it. It's fascinating because you know, they're
they're multiple concerns here. Everybody who is a guardian or
parent of a of a child who's listening to the
audience today. You know, there are hard conversations to have
(34:43):
with your kids about how public the kids should be.
You know, many people listening today did not grow up
in an age where their parents had, you know, a
Facebook or or some other profile on a platform where
they could put pictures of you since infancy. You know
what I mean Like this, the boundaries of expectations for
(35:05):
privacy I have been I would say, pretty much completely eroded.
Talked about it in the past, but when it comes
to something like TikTok, we see you know, the questions
about who your children are interacting with online. And I
don't means a fearmonger, but these are really important questions
like who is who has seen them? What are they
(35:25):
possibly learning about these other users? You know, how does
the abyss stare back right? How does the facial recognition
come back to bite you in a few years time. Uh. There,
They're serious concerns and it may sound this is an
important point, um. One of the reasons I really appreciate
you bringing this this show today. It seems unsurfaced, like
(35:47):
it could be really racist if like racist and someone
nationalistic for people to start saying, oh, China is so
bad they're out to steal stuff about when your kids
are McDonald's or whatever. But the fact of the matter
is that Chinese espionage in the world of tech is
a very real and proven things. So the previous administration
(36:12):
definitely had a bad habit of trotting out China whenever
they wanted to get away from their own bad domestic
press or be uh, distract from another issue, makes something
not their fault, etcetera. But concerns are real. They are real,
and we even I mean, look, it's the kind of
thing that would be really good fodder for like a
(36:33):
science science fiction story. Like we even talked about this
in a previous either Strange News or I can't remember
what which segment it was. But the idea of what
if they are like some kind of like subliminal messages
encoded in TikTok videos or something, It's like, it is
the kind of thing you could take to the extreme,
especially when you think about like how, um what what
(36:56):
a country like China would have to gain from having
access to all these kids and access to all this data. Uh.
And that's why I think the Oracle deal is so
important because we require sort of assurances that this stuff
wasn't being just sold to third parties without anyone's knowledge
or used for any kind of, you know, nefarious purposes.
But you're right, it absolutely has the potential. And I'm
(37:18):
joking about the subliminal messages, but I would love to
see a short story with that in mind. I think
it's a really fun idea. Um, I think that has
ha you not seen some of the swift Talk. I look,
if you guys have never perused swift Talk, I highly
recommend anyone out there listening and or watching on their
phone right now check out swift Talk. Get swifty with it.
(37:41):
Check out the messages that can be found in all
of Taylor's Swift's music, social media posts and or uh,
I don't know, messages that she sends throughout the universe
without us even realizing in the moment, Britney Spears and
Taylor Swift are really just doing Darren Brown's act with
some use it right. Yeah, she's on another level if
(38:05):
you believe a lot of the most popular swift Talk folks,
and it's it's really interesting stuff. Wow, this is news
to me. I do know that the Swifties are a
very particular breed and you definitely don't want to cross
Taylor Swift with them around, because what I'm saying, do
not ever do that. No matter who you are or
where you are, what you're doing, just know that it's
(38:27):
fascinating and you can learn a lot about it. Well,
I'm gonna dig right into that while we take a
quick break for a word from our sponsor and then
return for potentially some swift talk, but definitely somewhere strange news.
All right, welcome back for more strange news. Guys. There
(38:47):
really is a person on TikTok and I cannot think
of his name. He is amazing. He just deadpan reads
a news story and or tells you exactly what's happening.
He does not look away. He tells you exactly what's
occurring right now. The scientist will not allow the vaccine
to occur. They it is one of the most wonderful
things I've ever seen. But is it better than David
Lynch reading than the weather? Yes, because this guy just
(39:12):
does it. He doesn't let up until he's finished telling
you exactly what he's telling you, and then he's gone.
He was awesome. Whoever it is. Diana showed me a
couple of videos of him and I loved it. Okay,
but Chris is not here right now. We are, and
that's why we're gonna tell you about a little thing
(39:33):
that's happening out in the United Kingdom and has to
do with year old post office. We have discussed the
post before on this show, generally regarding the United States
when it comes to several of the major issues that
our country's post has been dealing with. Well, today we're
going to talk about the British Isles and what's going
(39:56):
on with their post office system, and particularly we're gonna
be talking about a point of sale software. Essentially, that's
really what this story is about. The machines that are
used to, you know, put a credit card in, make
a payment, do some kind of transaction from a client,
(40:17):
a user, just any person walking in to send something
via the post and the post office itself. We're going
to the BBC to look at an article titled post
Office Scandal. What the Horizon saga is all about? Remember
that word horizon. It's gonna be very important. Apparently, there
were some bad things occurring at the post office. The
(40:41):
Post Office being all of the post offices across the
United Kingdom between two thousand and ten, so fourteen years
there and spoiler alert, they continued after and they're still
happening right now, but we're going to get into that.
For fourteen years, uh, there appeared to be some situations
(41:04):
with balancing the books at specific post offices. So imagine
just the post office that's down the street from wherever
you are. Let's say if you're in London, your your
section of London, or your neighborhood that post office. Now
imagine all of the transactions that are occurring over a quarterly,
a monthly basis, maybe even a daily basis. All of
(41:27):
that stuff is you, is done through one of these computers,
one of these terminals that's there, and all of that information,
all that money in, money out, You get an end
of the day number, essentially how much the post office
made or lost. And what was occurring at a ton
of post offices around the UK is that those numbers
(41:48):
were showing that the post office was losing money. And
because of that, there were seven hundred and thirty six
what are called sub postmasters, which are just people that
run a specific post office, which sounds way more like
a position in a B D S M club than
it is. So post oh boy, oh wow, Like so
(42:14):
it's really lows like the base or wait, is a
post like a physical post involved? I mean, you know
we're not euphemism desmite be a different strange news or
listener mail again at eight three three stt w y
T k okay okay. So, so seven hundred and thirty
six individuals people who were running these post offices were
(42:38):
prosecuted because those numbers were different, right, And it seems
as though the the individual post office was losing money,
but it was just money that was gone. It wasn't
as though they had spent more money than they were making.
It's just money was not there that was supposed to
be there. So it was assumed that these individual post
subpostmasters were stealing money somehow or embezzling money, and a
(43:02):
lot of a lot of people, seventy six ended up
being prosecuted because of this. Many went to prison. They
were convicted for false accounting. So it's not just as
though they were accused of stealing the money, but they
were accused of just doing a terrible job at accounting.
And for some reason misplaced that money. I mean, gross
(43:23):
negligence is a crime. Sure. And and this is you know,
we're talking about the post Office. These these subpostmasters are
kind of like franchise ease, you know, running running one
individual version of this big system. And you can imagine
that the post Office wanted. The post Office itself is
(43:45):
the thing, the entity that's prosecuting these people. So it's
as though McDonald's was prosecuting franchisees who owned the McDonald's
somewhere in Atlanta. It's it's very similar to that. But
here's the deal, huge cross, huge problem, cross fried gligens
(44:05):
god delicious fragligence. So the so here's the deal. Day
for fourteen years they were prosecuting people. And there was
a flag that was raised around and this flag had
written on it, Hey, I think there might be something
wrong with the software that all of these subpostmasters have
(44:27):
been using to balance their books. I think it might
not be the individual. I think it might be the software.
And there was an inquiry, or at least there was
a vote at some point in parliament to take a
look at this to figure out what it what it was,
what was happening. That vote unfortunately in got pushed as
in it just they kind of held off. It didn't
(44:47):
go anywhere, and then for the next five six years
there were just a whole bunch of attorneys, a whole
bunch of individuals who were trying to clear the names
of the these seven hundreds something people that all found
themselves in the in the legal system there in the
UK with felonies. There are horrible stories that you can
(45:11):
read about what happened to individuals, some of whom were
pregnant when they were accused of this stuff and ended
up having, you know, to go to prison for a
little while. Some people who lost their livelihoods who then
walked around with a felony charge on their record for
five six years, sometimes for longer. Sometimes we're a decade
(45:31):
or almost or up to twenty years. Really horrible stories.
You can read and find those all over the place.
The problem is this software which is known as Horizon
h O R I z O N. It appears that
this software Horizon, was the culprit in many of the
scenarios simply because it was not created correctly, at least
(45:55):
according to some insiders with Fujitsu. The name of that
that's the company that creates did it. Uh, some insiders
who say it was built on top of a platform
that wasn't supposed to do what this thing does, So
they retro fitted it, right, they tried to like they
took they took the for a terrible analogy. Uh, they
(46:20):
took what would be the skeleton of a really cool whale,
and they were like, how do we turn this into
something that can run on the land. Yeah, very much, though,
very much. So. You can go to Computer Weekly dot
com and you can check out an article here called
(46:42):
Fujitsu bosses knew about Post Office Horizon I t flaws,
says insider. If you jump to this article, you can
see there are several people who were actually project leads
for Fujitsu working on Horizon back in the early two
thousand I guess it was late nineties early two thousand's
(47:03):
who who were trying to raise alarms about how the
software is being created and these massive problems that it had. Uh.
One of the biggest thing and it's difficult for me
to explain. Maybe it's something we could go to Jonathan with.
It would be great to maybe have him come on
the show and like walk us through some of this stuff.
(47:23):
But there's a layer between the servers, the network servers
that are actually processing all the numbers and everything there
you know, they live in a server room somewhere in
a giant complex. And then on this side you've got
the individual point of sale service, so like the post offices,
the individual post offices, and in a lot of ways
(47:46):
and a lot of systems like this, there's a direct connection.
It's just like having an Internet connection or something. Every
time something occurs at the at the point of sale level,
at the post office level, all that information gets transferred
over to the main server, and that's where stuff gets logged.
It gets logged on both sides, and then everything is
backed up on that main server. That's where all the
(48:06):
major information is kept. There was a huge issue where
with this system, stuff would all end. We would all
stay on the post office level, so locally everything, all
the information would get stored locally until some random point
at night or when the service wasn't being used, you know,
in a daily service mode. It would then transfer all
(48:29):
of the information to the servers. And so it's almost like,
do you guys remember having any kind of system like that.
I'm trying to think of an equivalent ben and uh,
where there's just an update that occurs once a day
or something. Sure, even like you know, cameras that are
offloaded at the end of the day or something like that,
like uh, like a scheduled event where things are either
(48:53):
offloaded onto a server and then the local copies are
wiped and then rent and repeat. Or in the old
days of podcasts, you know, actually there would be some
platforms and services that would just refresh something on a
twenty four hour o' clock so you could maybe publish
(49:13):
something like you know, you publishing your new episode of
um Bens Crazy back Roads or some other show I
just made up and then I love that podcast. Thanks guys.
It doesn't matter if that publishes. If you publish it
at like ten, it's still not going to really hit
until twelve oh one or something like that. Yes, yeah,
(49:36):
funnily enough, I mean, even like huge companies like Apple,
for example, like on their Apple podcast platform, if you
make a change as a user, you oftentimes have to
ask for a manual refresh, which you can't do yourself.
You have to request it otherwise it takes twenty four
hours for when that re refresh happens. You think with
a big company like that, it would happen more regularly,
(49:58):
but it's just like a one time thing a day.
That makes a lot of sense. Well, so that that
was one of the major issues, and that created a
lot of problems because sometimes something just the transfer would
get a little corrupted if service was interrupted in between. Right, So,
if you're in the middle of a large file transfer, uh,
if something occurred to the power, you may lose some data.
(50:20):
And that was a big issue. And that's just one
example of a problem that could come there. The other
major problem is that with any with any software system
like this, there should be a essentially a dictionary of
entries that are possible. So if you've got a point
of sale and then you've got a server that's checking everything,
(50:42):
you want to make sure that when you send stuff
to the server, the server understands what the heck you're
talking about, what numbers you're crunching, what all these things represent.
So I'm gonna go back to McDonald's really quickly. If
you imagine the McDonald's menu just laid out, if you
ever looked at one before, and now imagine that the
person from whom you're ordering at the let's say the
(51:05):
to go window or of the drive through, they've got
essentially the same menu in front of them, only it's
represented as a touch screen with buttons. So when you
order something, I can enter in exactly what you're ordering,
and it's all representative. Machine understands exactly what it is.
Everybody who's gonna make your food for you, they understand
what you're ordering. Everybody speaking the same language is a
(51:28):
great comparison, by the way, Yes, so in this case,
they didn't have that layer that the dictionary of terms.
So when one postmaster is entering in you know X
number of stamps and there was postage with a certain
weight that was sent out, and all this stuff they're
(51:50):
putting in a single entry or multiple entries. There wasn't
always a common parlament, a common language that was being
spoken there to where the server when you you would
have all of these entries for the end of the day,
the server would only recognize them them of them the
(52:12):
other you know two to that is didn't understand a
lot of times, it would just throw those entries out
as though they didn't exist. It wasn't real. Those weren't
actual numbers, so that money would literally disappear. It was
just gone. No transactions occurred, nobody gets billed, it's just done.
(52:32):
Or But the other thing is if a transaction did occur,
and let's say money NOL came out of your bank account,
but it never shows up on the books of the postmaster,
the subpostmaster, that means you lost money somehow, but the
post office never collects that money, I guess, or or
it gets a little weird there to know exactly what
(52:55):
occurred on each subpostmasters or under each subpostmasters watch. And
that's why they were everybody was being prosecuted individually. And
it never seemed to be a massive problem with this
with the software. And you made a really great point
mat about the franchise e situation from the star in
this McDonald's metaphor that you've carried on throughout this story,
(53:15):
and I think it absolutely works. Um. But I just
want to point out again when I hear the name postmaster,
what I think in my mind is postmaster general, which
is like a single position over a giant organization. There
are hundreds of these. Postmaster and post mistress, by the way,
is actually another official name which seems a little uh dated, um,
(53:35):
but it definitely was in one of the articles in
the BBC that I read. Um, so it appears to
be the official term they've used, But aren't aren't. There
aren't a lot of these being walked back now, Matt.
And then many of them are being sent back to
the courts because essentially talking about jumping to conclusions, that's
exactly what happened, as opposed to recognizing a pattern, uh
and realizing more quickly and efficiently. This is a problem
(53:57):
inherent in the platform, not in a weirdly out of
the blue rash of of embezzlements, you know, throughout the system. Right. Yes,
as of right now, this is a fairly positive story
because many of these individuals names are being cleared. I
think as of three days ago, according to the BBC,
there are five hundred and fifty five claimants that in
(54:23):
December agreed to they m the Post Office agreed to
settle with them. So there will be a lot of
money going back to these individuals. I think, oh wow,
it's fifty eight million pounds in damage. That's what the
Post Office has agreed to pay overall overall. Yes, and
the claimants individually are going to receive around twelve million
(54:45):
pounds of that and that's five and fifty five individuals.
So you do the math there. Um. You know, it
doesn't mean those people get the parts of their lives
back that were irreparably damaged from the time that they
spent as you know, someone charged with a major crime
like like theft in that way, basically theft from the government,
(55:08):
which is doesn't look good on a on an application um.
And there are further cases that are being looked at
outside of those people. There's something that's so hilarious to
me about this. It's funny amidst the very tragic thing
because as you said, Matt, these folks will never get
(55:29):
that time back and you can't really put a price
on it. But the thing that's funny to me is
that you know, at some point there was somebody tracking
down these cases who believed there was a nationwide cabal
of of evil postmass subpostmasters who were scheming on the
(55:49):
government and a really weird, easily discernible way. And so this,
I would say, this damage to their reputations, damage to
these individuals reputations isn't just one of like painting them
as uh, financial criminals. It's painting them as very incompetent criminals,
(56:11):
when in fact, it turns out that the Japanese company,
which was one of the world's most admired companies, have
won an award for it. Uh, it was actually their
incompetence all at long. So glad to see justice, serve
Glad they're getting better, better settlement terms than TikTok claimants.
But it's it's still a it's still an unfortunate situation
(56:34):
all around. And look, people who work at the post
office works so insanely hard. You get a lot of
bad press about them in the US because for a
very long time, aspects of this country's political structure, I've
been trying to render the post office, have been trying
to cripple it and render it extinct for a number
(56:55):
of reasons. But don't believe the anti post propaganda, you
know what I mean, be diceier post office person next
time you see it. Yeah, totally, yes, yes, And I'm
gonna leave you with this. This is something that the
BBC ended their article with. Uh, it's just the fact
that all of these people's lives were affected because of
(57:16):
faulty software, or at least it appears that that is so.
And the Post Office is settling four millions and millions
of pounds with that as as the fact. Essentially, Matt
really quickly did I miss what happened to the money?
Did they? Did it ever come back? Was it ever?
Was it never really gone in the first place, it
was just a calculating error. Or was there never actually
(57:37):
any money that was was disappeared? Oh? Yeah, as a
as we were talking about earlier, it was it was
money that disappeared off of the books, but individuals were
still paid money. It just never made it to the
post office. So there was missing money. I remember that.
I just wanted to make sure that was super clear.
So now they're on the hook for real money. Yes, yes,
(58:02):
and and it's because of this Horizon software at least
that's what's being alleged. That's what's being settled right now. Um.
And that's why there are a lot of other cases.
There's there's this thing happening right now in the high
courts in in the UK where there are twenty four
twenty five hundred other individuals. Yeah, two thousand, four hundred
(58:27):
people are more than that who are attempting to really
settle another claim here, and the Post Office set up.
I guess a fund or you know, a certain amount
of money to then pay out some of those claims.
But they are worried they're gonna need a lot more,
so they're gonna see seek help from the government itself.
(58:47):
Have you seen anything about the Post Office potentially suing
the software company. I have not seen that right now
because as of right now in the court, in the
actual courts, the Post Office is not like there's no
individual who made a decision about the software in the
Post Office who's being held to account. There's no individual
(59:09):
or a group of people at Fujitsu who developed the
software being held to account. So I don't know no
news right now. I was looking to this too because
I think this this news captured all of our attention. Also,
I wanted to give a shout out to conspiracy realist Jake,
who was the first person to write to us about this.
In a happy accident, Jake, we were reading a lot
(59:31):
of the same things. Uh. Post Office Chief executive Nick
Reid is actually one of the main voices who is
calling on for compensation, which is I think speaks really
highly to his character. But my other question is this
is something we we definitely need to put in the
show here, guys, Uh, what is going to replace Horizon?
So far they've said they'll get to a cloud based
(59:53):
service of some sort at this point. But right now,
as far as I know, correct me if I'm off her,
as far as the day to day life of the
subpostmasters who have not yet gone down for post fraud, Uh,
they're still using Horizon, which means two things. To mean first,
it means there could be other false reports of crime
(01:00:15):
and then secondly, if there is some villainous evil sub
postmaster subpostmistress out there, although they don't care for the
gendering of the words there, if there is someone who
is nefarious and unethical in this situation, now's the time,
right like, now is kind of the time to go.
You'll get away with it. Don't do it, it's time
(01:00:39):
to do it, don't do it? All right? Well, I
think we may have to revisit this again in the
future just to give an update, but for right now,
that is what's happening in the news in the UK
with the Postmaster Subpostmaster General's UK heavy episode today. Uh. Hey,
(01:01:01):
thank you so much for yeah, Jake, for learning us
to that. But honestly, I this was me, Yeah, just
reading a bunch of stories, trying to figure out what
to talk about today. So but thank you for learning me.
Maybe I thought about it subconsciously while I was looking
at the news today. I all think, so the same
thing happened happened to me because I I love getting
this kind of correspondence. So, Jake, I want you to
(01:01:24):
know when I opened that email, I muttered, God damn
it to myself in the happiest way, because it meant
that all of us throughout the same page of Matt.
I think this is something that was on all three
of our minds because this is one of those stories
we each wanted to examine. Noel, you would said the
same thing earlier. Oh, I was just uh, I was
actually researching this for my listener Male episode. It was
(01:01:47):
definitely definite parallel thinking. And then I went to our
document spreadsheet that we shared and I saw it. I
also uttered a goddamn it. It wasn't quite as good
natured as yours, Ben, but I'm glad we got it
out there just the same aim. And Uh, I was,
you know, prepared to discuss it. So very very very
interesting story and one to follow for sure, well sorry,
(01:02:08):
not sorry. If you want to be like Jake who
wrote to us, you can do the same. You can
find us all over the place on social media. On
Facebook and Twitter we are conspiracy stuff, and on Instagram
we are conspiracy stuff. Show on YouTube we are conspiracy stuff.
Whoa look at that. You can see all the videos
that we did way back in the day, all the
(01:02:29):
way up until this week. Check it out. I can subscribe,
I guess, or turn on notifications. I don't know how
it works. Now you can. You can watch our videos.
If you're pointing at the bottom of the screen right
now and you say that, Matt. Sure. If you are
not someone who likes the sip on the SuDS of
social meads, never have worry. You can always call us
directly at our phone line. We are one eight three
(01:02:52):
three st d w y t K three minutes. Those
minutes are yours. You'll hear a brief message and then
just pop in. Let us know what's on your mind.
Would love to hear what you think of the post
office shenanigans, what your opinion of privacy online and TikTok are,
and of course your experiences with things that may or
(01:03:13):
may not be considered cults. Uh. If that three minutes
doesn't work, have no fear. Please do not edit yourself,
Please tell us the whole story. Don't admit anything. Give
yourself a cool nickname too, we always love those, and
send us a good old fashioned email where we are
conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want
(01:03:51):
you to know is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.