October 11, 2021 • 53 mins
Reporters reveal a new, massive leak detailing a shadowy international network the rich and powerful use to squirrel away billions -- but will this information change anything? Streaming giant YouTube begins pulling anti-vaccination videos. In his suicide note, French ex-police officer François Verove confesses to a string of unsolved serial murders. All this and more in this week's Strange News.
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 Nol. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
all mission control decades. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. If you are listening to this
and the day it comes out, then you are probably
aware that. As we're recording this Monday, October four, Mark
(00:49):
Zuckerberg lost seven billion dollars and counting. Facebook is down.
What's happened? Instagram are down. It's not a typical d
d O s just aribe to denial of service. It
is something much bigger, much nastier. I've been in contact
with some folks on the tech side. UH, just to
let you know some of the rumors, some of the
(01:09):
facts here. UM rumor number one a hack. Uh. New
York Times is currently saying that that's not that, that's
not likely, but it occurs while there's some other stuff
in the air. Facebook also UH just it just got
reported they had one point five billion people's user information
(01:32):
found for sale on a hacker forum. A whistleblower came
out talking about their role in h hate groups. And
we'll we'll also see, by the way, in this week
strange news how larger social media platforms navigate handling controversial stuff.
But these are all going to be uh. I think
there's an episode on this in the future. Uh. The
(01:53):
this may even be related to I don't know, in
the Pandora papers. But and just remember when face week
went down. For quite a while, all that Facebook officially
said was that there were some routine maintenance going on
and something happened and it went down. But everything's okay,
nothing bad happened at the end of the day. I mean,
it's not like they're legally obligated to tell us anything, right,
(02:14):
I mean, they can spend whatever pr line they want,
and it's not like they're, you know, breaking the law. Yeah,
unless they're actively covering up a legal activity, they don't
have to tell people. But this is this is interesting
because you may maybe slightly amused to find fellow conspiracy
realists that the current word is Facebook employees can't get
(02:35):
into the building, not even their badges are working. They also,
due to the Internet of Things, the people who were
already in the building when this happened aren't able to
get into some rooms, like they can't get into conference
rooms and stuff. People are literally locked out, whether or
not you work for Facebook. So I don't feel like
it's just you folks, right, we look in condolences to
(02:57):
all our Instagram junkies out there. We know how it is.
We're a sorry. It's got to be a tough day.
I mean, that's the thing, for sure. But also, you know,
so many people their whole livelihood is on Instagram. My
girlfriend sells so many of her you know, pieces of
stained glass art that she makes directly through Instagram. So
this is actively costing some people money. Oh yeah, for sure,
it's not just Mark. But with this in mind, a
(03:18):
lot of crazy things happened this weekend, and today we're
gonna talk a little bit about YouTube. We're going to
talk about some true crime revelations, and will maybe start
this week's strange News with a massive leak. It's something
a lot of people were asking this, but we were
talking about it with each other off air. It's something
called the Pandora Papers. So here's what happened. The largest
(03:45):
investigation in the history of journalism of this type just released.
Two point nine something terabytes of information have hit the
public space. The Pandora Papers are a cat of around
eleven point nine million files from all sorts of companies
(04:06):
that are hired by very wealthy clients like World Leader
type wealthy clients to create offshore tax dodges, to help
hide dirty money, to help wash dirty money. We're talking
about stuff that involves everything from our own boy, Putin
and his his crew. Uh. It shows you how they
(04:27):
go about Puttin on the ritz. Uh financially. Uh, we're
talking about tax havens like Panama to buy South Dakota,
Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. You heard that correctly, South Dakota.
Who knew it is a haven for international corruption. This
is bigger than the lesser known Paradise papers. This cash
(04:48):
of two point nine for terabytes of information is the
biggest leak of its sort ever in history, and it
goes from like Vietnam to Singapore, to Belize to the Hammas,
you name it. If you are familiar with the international
Shenanigans of dirty money, then it's here, and this is
(05:08):
like there's a who's who. King Abdullah the Second has
who knew he has a secret real estate empire that's
worth a hundred million. Vladmir Putin's alleged mistress also has
a hundred million, prompting one of us, I'll say who,
but one of us in our group threat to say,
(05:30):
you know, I'm not super into like getting romantic with dictators,
but a hundred mills a hundred mill I was joking.
By the way, guys, that's not yet. Yeah, this this
thing is intense. It's, like you said, bigger than those
other major leagues that we remember. We did a whole
episode on Panama papers. You can find that right now,
(05:51):
but it is very similar. And it is I think
anytime you get to unmask some of these front companies,
right these completely legal, like legally created front companies, that's
all above board, you're allowed to do that. But then
unmasking those and looking at the people behind the curtain,
it's ah. I mean, the revelations won't stop coming because
(06:14):
there's so much information here. Yes, and we need to
give a enormous shout out to the International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists that's the full name of what you'll here
refer to in the reporting, the I C I J.
They started releasing this information on October three of this year,
(06:35):
just a few days ago. And this stuff can We're
talking about stuff like documents, images, spreadsheets, emails from fourteen
different financial service companies. And when we're talking about money here,
we're talking up to an estimated three d and trillion
(06:55):
dollars US. And that doesn't include everything. That doesn't include
like real estate, art which is another great way to
launder money, and jewelry, which is also not a bad
way to launder money. Uh. The big issue is that,
you know, as we've said, and I think generally everybody
acknowledges this. Now, a lot of wealthy people don't pay taxes,
(07:17):
and it's not necessarily illegal. They just have the financial
wherewithal to hire experts who will spend the time hiding
the money in a way that the average person simply
cannot afford to do in either terms of time or money.
And now we have to start wondering what this leads to.
(07:37):
What next world governments have taken action. I know the
Panama papers, some of the more cynical among us sometimes
say well, no one did anything. What has changed, But
in their defense, different countries did take action and get
their appropriate tax revenues. So the same thing will probably
happen here. So I have a question is is this, like,
(07:58):
is this necessarily evidence of illegal activity or is this
just like a bad look, like a pr disaster for
many of these folks. Not in every case. It's not
illegal in every case, and that's because we are to
a degree the badger in the bag here. Is the
reason it's not illegal in every case is because we're
talking about many of the people who decide what is
(08:19):
or is not legal. Well, like, for example, the the
king of Jordan, King Abdullah of Jordan's obviously that country
has been the recipient of, you know, millions and millions
of dollars in American aid money all the while King
Abdullah the second has been funneling millions and millions of
dollars into the United States, or he's bought all of
(08:39):
these lavish properties in Miami and in southern California and
in places like that. So, while maybe not illegal, definitely
a bad look for a ruler who was, you know,
ruling over a country that was in desperate need of
financial assistance, right, Yeah, so there's a they're probably going
to be some rough patterns of distribution and money movement
(09:03):
that we can find and categorize later. Uh, this is
just this is a ton of stuff to go through.
I want to thank everybody who reached out to me,
not on Facebook, not on Instagram today or what's happened
folks who have found a way to reach out to
me and asked a couple of interesting questions. One of
the ones that was my favorite, and I think I
reached out to you guys about as well, was the
(09:25):
idea that this could possibly be John McAfee's dead hand.
But um, for a couple of reasons, I don't. I
don't think that's the case. I'd be surprised. Recall that
he said he had thirty one plus terabytes of information
that he would release, and again this is two point
nine four terabytes. Still huge, still the biggest of its kind,
(09:48):
but not what McAfee was saying he was packing. Yeah,
and they're also reporting that there are fourteen separate whistleblowers,
essentially human beings that are providing this information. And you know,
I I doubt that that has anything to do with McAfee.
Just personally. Um, But I want to jump to something
you asked about Noble, like is it all illegal? And
(10:10):
we were talking about that, Ben, I think I think
Tony Blair's case, at least what's been revealed about him
and his wife and the purchasing of a house in
London is probably a pretty good way to examine the
I guess a legal side, but terrible look thing that's
going on here. I mean, I'll at least set us
(10:30):
up as talking about it. But the revelation about Tony
Blair and Sherry Blair was that they purchased a home,
but not the way you know, you or I or
anybody listening would purchase a home by going to a
real estate agent or a bank that's got that owns
the home and buying it from them. They had to
deal with a and like an offshore company that owned
(10:54):
the house I guess, And instead of purchasing the house,
they purchased the company that owned the house, and by
doing that, it's essentially a tax loophole to where they
don't have to then pay taxes on the house by
purchasing it because they purchased the company that already owns
it and now they own the company. It's just a
weird thing, especially given Tony Blitter's past like fighting against
(11:19):
the exact same kind of tax loopholes totally and and
and just to double down one more time real quick
on the Jordan thing. I mean, the country of Jordan
is incredibly poor. They don't have like oil reserves and
like natural resources like you know, other areas in the
Middle East they're surrounded by, but they are a strategic
kind of like diplomatic stronghold in terms of like you know,
(11:39):
negotiations and being this bellweather, uh, preventing conflict largely at
the behest of the United States, or at least you know,
with the help of the United States. They're kind of
doing us a solid. And therefore I'm not saying this
is a quid pro quote thing, but the United States
funneled one point five billion dollars of um AID into
that country. Uh. They are the third largest recipient of
(12:01):
American foreign assistance in the entire world, behind only Israel
and Afghanistan. So I mean, someone scratching someone's back, and
then to see that the president of that company that's
receiving all this money is spending you know, um hundred
million dollars in like posh real estate in the United States.
It's not a very good look for him to his people,
(12:23):
I would imagine, but also to that relationship. You know,
it just seems like there's something fishy going on. Oh yeah,
that's I mean, that's one of the distribution patterns. Right alone,
is alone, is put through or financial assistance go through,
goes through, and you have to ask yourself how much
of that actually goes to the people, right, instead of
going to someone who later through a front company or
(12:47):
through a charity that they own, right, they funnel that
money to the charity and now as part of the
operating expense and stuff, they're there are clever ways to
do it. Some of this stuff is almost certainly um
in conflict with the law. I'm sure there will be
some weasy term used to avoid saying illegal on the
part of the many many lawyers who are going to
(13:09):
be doing very well for several years based on this.
I so this is I've been digging through this since
it broke, and one of the things that I think
we'd all like to do is to make this a
full episode. Uh, there's going to be reporting on this
coming out for weeks even when you're listening to this
(13:30):
next week, there's still going to be a lot of
news now as we know, Uh, there are a couple
of things we need to bust. The Panama Papers. One
of the journalists involved did die in a car bombing attack,
but that was most likely due to that journalist corruption
investigation in Malta rather than particularly the Panama Papers. So
(13:54):
one group of guys you're gonna meet, A group of
people you're gonna meet is a very powerful lover that
would probably rather you not know their name. Uh there,
Baker Mackenzie. They kind of set up this global shadow
financial system, so you'll meet them down the road. You
can learn a little bit about them now. And but
(14:16):
before we go to commercial, I really love to hear
everybody's thoughts on this as we're as we researching, diving
into this episode one three three st d w y
t K Conspiracy at I Heart radio dot com. If
you want to learn more, you're gonna see a lot
of very good reporting on this, and you're gonna see
a lot of fluff pieces, and you're gonna see a
(14:38):
lot of what I would say, unfounded opinion presented as fact.
So spare yourself the trouble. Go to I C I
J dot org and you can see multiple reports on
specific aspects Pakistan, the Czech Republic, Sri Lanka of the UK,
and Jordan's in Russia. The list goes on and on
(15:00):
and on. This story is going to continue to develop.
Dare I say explode whether or not Facebook comes back.
Speaking of coming back, we'll be back in a moment,
and we're back by the way. Shout out to Uh,
there's a clubhouse group called Preservation of the Human Race,
(15:22):
I think, and there was a um, a British person
on there been that. I guess it was early on
the third whenever the first news was coming out. Uh,
they just mentioned that this was occurring, and I couldn't
believe it. No another one. It's like, is this like
Panama papers? They're like it was bigger, it was like
another one. But yeah, really really really crazy. That story
(15:48):
is crazy and I can't wait to do that episode.
So we're jumping down to a true crime story coming
out of France. Yeah, this one, this is very grim.
Heads up, if their kids listening, let's you know, pause,
here may be again anyone you don't want to hear
something a little grizzly, grizzly about a serial killer. Let's
pause right here or skip forward quite a bit, maybe
about ten fifteen minutes. All right, I'm gonna start with
(16:10):
an article from Forbes. Here is the title. Ex French
police officer identifies himself in suicide note as serial killer
who terrorized Paris. First of all, wow, from the headline,
Uh yeah. The second of all, it's this is intense. Okay,
So I'm going to read some of this verbatim. This
(16:32):
was posted on septembe and it is exactly what the
headline said. There were a series of very brutal attacks,
rapes and murders that occurred in Paris in the nineteen
eighties and nineteen nineties, and this former police offer this.
This police officer left a suicide note after he took
(16:55):
his own life and he fatally overdosed. And that occur
this past Wednesday as we are recording this. And you know,
what's written in a suicide note may or may not
be true. So there was an investigation. They looked at
his DNA and they were able to match it up
in several places and this guy, it turns out that
(17:16):
this guy was a serial rapist and murderer and he
was lagrell Yeah, lagrel Is is the title that was named.
It's standing or it's translated to the pockmarked man, and
it comes from one witness that saw uh what he
called a man with a pockmarked face inside an apartment
(17:37):
where some murders occurred, to murders occurred. And it's very
I mean, it's grizzly stuff. I don't want to go
too deep into a lot of this. You can, you
can look up all the grizzly details if you want to.
The big thing I want to talk to you guys
about is the concept that here's another police officer that
(17:59):
was using his power to lure victims and in many
of the cases at least according to a lot of
the reporting that's coming out everywhere in Newsweek, BBC. You
can find it everywhere all of the French papers. If
you use Googogle translate if you're not a French speaker,
you can read exactly what's being said and all the
information coming out. One of the primary places I went
(18:21):
to us Laperisan. That's where I went to read about this.
The Latin Times has a great article too, where it's
linking out to other articles. You can find all this stuff,
search it out on your own if you'd like. But
the concept that this guy would approach usually a woman
or almost always a woman, and he's he is a
(18:45):
police officer, and that's how he gets his victims alone,
because when an officer approaches, or at least the the
pressure is to comply, So then he would get them
alone and do terrible things. So I'm feeling a connection
to maybe the Golden State killer guys, because it wasn't
wasn't he also law enforcement officer? Yeah, and this is, um,
(19:09):
this is something you know, we've got law enforcement in
the audience today. I think it's safe to say that, uh,
the rest of law enforcement officials the world round are
grateful that some of these cases have been closed, but
also uh disgusted. Doesn't even doesn't even begin to catch it. Yeah,
(19:29):
you're right, absolutely every police officers are. I'm just saying that.
I'm just saying, like to be clear, like this is
this is a this is an uncommon thing, you know
what I mean? And this guy, from what I understand,
he's still only been identified in the press, is friend
sois V. But this guy knew that people were onto him.
(19:53):
On the way because he was only about fifty nine, right,
Oh yeah, he's about fifty nine. It's weird like BBC
calls him friend suive or ov v E R O
v um, but yeah, he's he's first. Quall V is
the most common one. I think this is correct, though
if it's in BBC, I generally feel like it's vetted.
But I can it's in the British monarchy they're talking about.
(20:19):
Was the Golden State killer like an active police officer
when he was? I mean I didn't, I didn't think so,
and I just wanted to mention this is I'm not
being silly, but there is. This was such an absurd
and terrifying idea that it was the fictional subject of
three slasher movies from the eighties, the Maniac Cop movies.
And I think the reason they chose that is because
(20:39):
it is so terrifying. You've got someone who's supposedly out
there to protect and serve, you know, murdering people. And
then of course we see police a little differently now
with some of the you know, shootings and all of that.
But I'm the idea of being in a position where
someone's looking to you, uh, you know for help and
then betraying that so utterly, um is just unconscionable and
absolutely horrifying. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I just
(21:02):
want to jump to exactly what he was. He was
a member of the Gendarmes. If I think we've talked
about that before. It's like the French military police police officers. Yeah, exactly, So,
I mean, not only is this guy I'm imagining when
he approached he was very uh disarming, maybe we'll be
(21:23):
the word or um alarming. It's it's all, it's both things.
It's like he's this is you're being approached by respect
and like all of that occurring at once. I'm I'm
certain was used completely to his favor in into getting
what he was looking for. I'm sure he would get
(21:45):
someone to get into a vehicle with him for just
about any reason, you know, like I'm sorry, there's been
some there's been a disturbance, I'm gonna need you to
come with me. It's for your own safety, you know
that kind of talk. I just picture that. Also, police
brutality is real. It's not as restricted to the US.
So people are literally in fear of their lives, uh,
and not for nothing when encountering any law enforcement figure. Also,
(22:10):
this guy, I have a question for you, Matt, do
you think this killer would have left his suicide note
if he had not been questioned last month along with
to be fair, seven hundred and fifty other uh law
enforcement individual law enforcement professionals in France. So let's just
(22:30):
give you some more of these details from the BBC article. Uh,
this person in question, fran sUAS body was discovered at
a flat, you know, an apartment, Uh that's called grow
de Roy And there's the suicide note was there and
his DNA, his DNA that was taken from that scene.
It matched several crime scenes. That or at least DNA
(22:53):
that was taken from several crime scenes. And uh, you know,
at least according to the officials when these reports were
initially written, the letter was not confirmed, but they did,
uh they did say I think somebody to the effect
that impulses. The phrase previous impulses were in there a
(23:13):
couple other key phrases. Um, basically, I had done some
terrible things, but now I had quote gotten myself together.
But uh so like I've I've changed, right, but I
still you know, raped and murdered a bunch of people.
And again I don't want to go to a ton
of the details here, but you can read in this
(23:33):
BBC article, in that Forbes article about specific cases and victims.
And at least there are some families out there who
know who killed their loved one, right, I mean, that's
like the best you can do to have some kind
of positive outcome with something like this. Yeah, and the
crimes that were attributed to this killer, the Pockmarks killer,
(23:58):
the last ones I believe were officially linked in so
for twenty seven years, this person was kind of in
a in a stage of dormancy unless there's other stuff
linked to them. So it's interesting because we'll probably never
know the internal motivations behind writing that suicide letter. But
(24:22):
just like how it's tempting to connect the dots between
this uh strange disappearance of Facebook and its social media empire,
you can connect the dots to any number of possible causes. There.
You can easily connect the dot that says this guy
took his own life and confessed because he saw the
(24:42):
writing on the wall, which was that justice which grinds
explete exceedingly slow, does grind exceedingly fine, and once they
had the DNA, it was over right, if you you
have to know at that point, yeah, at least for
many of the crimes. But again, this is somebody who
was trained and took Oh god, I hate saying this.
(25:03):
He was very careful to not leave DNA behind at
many of the crime scenes. So you never know. There's
pressure right now on on the law enforcement there in
Paris and of the several different layers of it too.
Then to now take possible DNA samples from older unsolved
cases and check his DNA with them, just to see,
(25:24):
you have to you have to and with this, you know, Matt,
it's interesting because we had talked about this previously in
the Golden State killer case Joseph James D'Angelo. Um we
we had talked about this. He was apprehended in team,
which is strange that he seems a while ago now,
(25:45):
and we pretty clearly predicted. I don't think it was
a tough prediction that more cases like this would be
on the way. That's one of the uh, that's one
of the huge innovations in DNA tracing this And as
we said in that episode or in our conversations there,
(26:05):
you don't have to have the direct DNA link of
a killer, a criminal, a murderer or sexual assaulter. All
you have to have is someone related closely enough to them,
and that's that's the way DNA works. So I I
still personally, like I said back in, I still personally
believe that there are more of these on the way,
(26:26):
and I believe it's a I believe it's a necessary
thing because as we know, you know, a repugnant, a
terrifying amount of rape kits end up sitting you know,
and and not getting checked or not getting process. Um.
We we received some wonderful correspondence from people associated with
(26:47):
the process who broke down how these things can happen.
But there there are more crimes to be solved, and
with this I believe they will be solved or at
least hopefully some of them. And just when it comes
to numbers here at least according to the BBC, this
guy from Suavrov is supposedly linked to four murders and
(27:08):
six rapes, but it is believed that they are likely more,
but there is uncertainty there again, it's going to require
more testing, more more checking DNA against available evidence. He also,
we know attempted several things unsuccessfully, which is a strong
indicator that they are more than those four cases. Al Right,
(27:31):
So now that everybody feels better about themselves in the world,
let's take a quick break and then it's sort of
the service that true crime provides a lot of people
that thinks you kind of feel better about your life
that you're not being, you know, murdered by a police officer. Yeah, well, yes,
I want to link this. I'm not linking it in
(27:53):
any way, but as we were, as we were talking
about this, if anyone is paying attention to what's going
on in London right now, the death of Sarah Everard
and everything going on with that case is well worth
your time to look into and just get some kind
(28:13):
of takeaway from protecting yourself when you're anywhere alone or
even with somebody else if there is and I'm sorry,
just the takeaway is, and again nothing against any law
enforcement officer out there when I'm saying this, but be
careful if there's a loan officer approaching you, because generally
(28:33):
that's not going to happen. The explicit warning of the
Unite of the Government of the United Kingdom, yes, be
worry of loan officers l O N E not l
O A N loan officers. Yeah. I don't think there are.
They're doing God's work. Sorry, I pack it down on people.
(28:58):
I think they send letters or call you. Yeah. Yeah,
but and if you don't answer, they'll start calling your
mom whoever the co signed. You know it's true. Sorry
for the sorry vitivity there that that was genuinely funny. Um, okay,
but yes, we will be back after a few words
from our sponsor, and we will move on to something
(29:21):
very different, and we're back more strange news. This is uh.
By the time you hear this is likely evolved to
a degree. But um, as of right now, it's something
that's been a long time coming. YouTube has officially banned
(29:43):
anti vaccine content from the platform. Um. We know that
algorithms that YouTube uses have been you know, automatically taking
down some things related to COVID nineteen, vaccination conspiracies, conspiracy theories. Um,
but now they are extending this to all anti vax
(30:04):
type of talk. And this actually is is he can
have a pretty significant effect on some pretty popular creators
um or were content generators. Let's let's call it's the
entirely creative pursuit, but they are banning accounts that include
Joseph Marcola's channel, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. UM, who has
(30:25):
been linked and you know, very supportive of the Children's
Health Defense Fund and others. Um, it's interesting because this
isn't exactly knew. They've been trying to crack down on misinformation,
you know, using that algorithm, but there have been some
folks that have actually gotten hit by the algorithm that
(30:46):
weren't even spreading anti vax content. They were just offering
you know, reporting or or like critical kind of dissection
you know from a from a media standpoint of this
type of misinformation. Certain words get flagged and the videos
get taken down, while some prominent anti vaccine accounts have
continued to to be putting videos out. So it's it's
(31:07):
been pretty interesting to follow. But UM, like I said,
this not only affects COVID nineteen vaccination videos, you know,
spreading misinformation propaganda, but also other vaccines like the flu
shot or the measles, mumps and Rebella, which a combo
vaccine that you know most kids get, and um, things
like human papuloma virus vaccines hpv UM you know, this
(31:31):
is a whole community. It's been very very controversial for
a long time, folks refusing to have their children vaccinated
and enacting as though being vaccinated in some way depriving
them of their you know freedom. Um, certainly very divisive
subject and one that I think people probably in your
own lives maybe come down on different sides of And
(31:53):
there's you know, certainly different shades of opinions about the
subject in terms of like how early do you get
your children vac excinated? Do you do it all at once?
You know, is it something that's better to spread out?
But then we start venturing into the more kind of
all or nothing approach where it's like all vaccines are
forms of mind control or in some ways, you know,
depriving people of their civil liberties. I think that's when
(32:15):
most of us can agree that things have gone uh
quite a bit too far, and when it gets politicized,
it can obviously be very dangerous. Um when we're literally
living in the midst of a pandemic. So they've already
demonetized anti vaccination content as far back as twenty nineteen
UM and in October of so they would remove videos
(32:36):
that pushed misinformation about the COVID nineteen vaccination in particular. UM.
But this I think probably is a is a you know,
a means of casting a wider net so that they
don't have to fine tune the algorithm to grab only,
you know, certain types of anti vax talk. Instead, it'll
(32:57):
be easier, I think, for them to pull all of it.
But guys, I mean, I was certainly involved in the podcast,
but I was never really on the YouTube side of it.
But you guys have certainly seen stuff. I don't want
you to know, videos pulled or demonetized due to literally
just reporting on things that could be construed as hate speech.
But you're just you know, discussing something UM or any
(33:19):
of these other things, and I could see, you know,
if we did a video on this subject, the algorithm
could certainly catch some of these keywords and potentially de
monetize or d platform the video. What are y'alls thoughts
on this? Is it too extreme? Is it anti free speech?
Or is it exactly what needs to happen in this
age where disinformation is just so easily spread on platforms
(33:39):
like YouTube and you know other social media. YouTube has
put in a lot of work two attempt to automate
the D platform me where the demonetization at the very
least of content that it feels could be particularly distasteful
or perhaps even more importantly, continent fuels could endanger people's lives.
(34:04):
And before this statement, they had already taken down a
hundred and thirty thousands something anti vax things just in
the last year alone. It's a UM exacerbation of of
a previous aim. But those questions you raise regarding what
is free speech or what should people uh be allowed
(34:25):
or not allowed to say in you know, the modern
public square, because let's be honest, the Internet is the
modern public square of this era of humanity. Uh, those
questions sometimes have very clear cut answers, right, and then
sometimes they don't have easy comforting answers. The problem with
the automation is exactly as you describe. It can be
(34:48):
sometimes too broad of a brush. It can be a
chainsaw where maybe scissors would be better for the job,
or a scalpel. I guess, as the saying goes, Um,
but Matt and I Yeah. In our you tube trenches days,
we had run into stuff that accelerated UM accelerated DP
platform in or demonetization simply because of keywords or simply
(35:11):
because of a specific lip Like one thing that surprised
me is writing and presenting a guide to how people
get away with murder, and that was not one of
the first ones to get d platforms. Um. There's also
a financialness incentive here because if you can did further
(35:32):
disincentivize people are spreading a message you don't like, whatever
it is, then they are going to be rational actors
and they are going to make different videos if they
depend on YouTube for income in the future. A dirty
secret of YouTube, by the way, is that they google
in alphabet get a lot of money off the gross
(35:54):
of revenue for any video because they are the only
game in town. So that's why I say for their
disincentivizing overall, if it's saving people's lives, is it not
a good thing. The problem is with this kind of approach,
it's going to further I don't want to say radicalize,
but people I know where you're heading with this. Yeah,
(36:16):
people aren't gonna say YouTube shut this down because it's dangerous.
They're going especially if they're on the fence about vaccination,
They're going to say there's something they don't want you
to know it, you know we did. I just want
to jump in really quickly here and talk about this
November two thousand ten video we posted called stuff they
(36:38):
Don't want you to Know Vaccinations and it's still up,
so it's still functioning. That's good. We've got a COVID
episode that came out not long ago on our conspiracy
stuff channel up. Yeah, it's it's got COVID in the name.
Monetization got turned off on that one, but they didn't
take Yeah, but that's see word on. I am noticing
(37:02):
that most of the videos in this format, the one
where it's just us on zoom talking, are all monetized.
Still they're not making much money, but they're all monetized.
But if you you know covid, oh my god, the
next video that has COVID in the name demonetized. Yeah,
that's the people aren't manually watching these and switching them off,
(37:25):
not even not even back then. Well, just just really quick,
just to read from their policy, they posted this vaccine
misinformation policy. YouTube doesn't allow content that poses a serious
risk of egregious harm by spreading medical misinformation about currently
administered vaccines that are approved and confirmed to be safe
and effective by local health authorities and by the World
Health Organization. This is limited to content that contradicts local
(37:48):
health authorities or the who's guidance on vaccine safety, efficacy
and ingredients. So I'm wondering if they waited until now,
because only just now I believe has the w h
O or H sorry, has the f d A fully
vetted and tested the Fiser vaccine. Isn't that right? Well, okay,
(38:08):
fair enough to the few people were maybe concerned about here,
But I do want to point out they do have
a section that sort of covers what should have covered
our videos and your videos educational, scientific, artistic, or testimonial content,
YouTube mail out content that violates the misinformation policies noted
on this page. If that content includes additional context in
(38:30):
the video, audio title, or description, this is not a
free pass to promote miss misinformation. Additional context may include
countervailing views from local health authorities or medical experts. We
may also make exceptions if the purpose of the content
is to condemn, dispute, or satirize misinformation that violates our policies.
We may also make exceptions for content showing an open
(38:51):
public forum like a protest or public hearing, provided the
content does not aim to promote misinformation that violates our policies.
But again, your brush argument, Ben is a big part
of this. It's hard to separate these things, you know,
from the genuine article. Sometimes uh yeah, there's something really
important that a wish is getting more uh coverage about
(39:14):
this issue, and it's this. There's clear proof that a
lot of the more extreme things, a lot of the
more extreme memes or videos or little factoids that are
floating about on the Internet, especially regard to anti vaccination stuff,
are themselves purposely produced disinformation from foreign powers waging a
(39:37):
symmetric information warfare. This is not a theory. It's not
something that's just like, oh, let's get high in our
dorm room and talk about it. This is actually happening.
There's money behind it, and that does pose a threat
because that means that at the very least the people
are spreading that information, they themselves don't believe it. They
(40:00):
think that people who do swallow it, hook line and
sinker are marks, are rubes, and they have met with
a measure of success in this regard. Now, we have
had great conversations with many of our fellow conspiracy realists
about multiple angles of this. You know, the troubled history
of bad actors in the world of vaccinations, shout out
(40:23):
Tuskegee blah blah blah. But the truth is, you know,
the word factoid means something that sounds true, but it's
very much not. Right now, you used it correctly just now,
And I was really going to applaud you on that,
because people use it as like almost like a listical,
like a factoid is like a nugget, like a fact nugget.
But in fact, I think I want to point out
(40:43):
an applaud you. I think that's really important to point
out that that word is often misused. Well, it's and
also this this kind of information is misused because if
you it's one thing I would argue, if someone is
genuinely saying, and they're sincerely saying, I am personally worried
(41:03):
about vaccination, why are you personally worried about that in
general or in a specific situation. Well, it's specific situation
for these reasons A, B all the way to Z, etcetera.
That's different from thinking I am going to pull an
op on someone or I'm gonna pull an op on
a country. You know what I mean, that's that's not
(41:25):
the same thing. And I'm sure the good folks that
YouTube are are very well aware of this and they're
they're thinking through this. But ultimately, you know, like you said, no,
and I think we can all agree that the issue
with this in the future is that they may end
up accidentally um accelerating the problem that they are attempting
(41:49):
to address, because now that knowledge may be seen as
purposely suppressed or it may be seen as genuine knowledge,
and that you know, that's that it's just gonna make
people doubled down. That's exactly what's gonna happen. Instead of
putting out something that says like, hey, here, even if
you makeing a official statement, instead of putting something that's
(42:09):
like an added on part of a video that comes
on like a pre roll advertisement that says, hey, it's
us YouTube. Here's the thing, and you should know that
the like you should know that uh, genuine Happy Eagle
News is is a front group for these folks out
(42:32):
in St. Petersburg and they want you to believe the
following stuff. We're keeping it up, but you should know
what's happening. Like, I don't know if that approach work either.
But it's just gonna be that's how people's brains work.
The human brain is going to say this means I
was right the whole time, and now maybe some of
those other things that I once thought were too extreme
(42:53):
are true because someone's covering this up. And we're not
saying either of those cases are true. We're just saying, like,
that's that's day one stuff, buddy. As they said in Workaholics,
do you remember work Coholics? I do, Matt, what do
you think, man? Like as far as the free speech angle,
or as far as like depending on an algorithm to
(43:13):
censor things for us, like have we have we hit
like a high water mark of like being so concerned
about people's ability to separate fact from fiction that we
have to like kind of police this information for them. Well,
it stinks. There's a part of me that feels like
we as a species kind of abused our free speech privileges,
Like we're in a classroom and we just did something
(43:34):
we're using it to freely, like a bathroom pass or something. Um.
But at the same time, I a bigger part of
me thinks that if if we stifle everyone's ability to
think and have discussions and you know, say that stuff
(43:54):
out loud, then we're way worse off. Yeah that's the problem. No,
it's you make a good point, mad, But it's also
in the past we could depend on things like journalistic
codes of ethics or things that sort of were like
the ground rules, right, like the rules of engagement, you know,
saying with like in war where we used to have
(44:14):
like you know, this is the one side they wear
these uniforms, and this is the other side they wear
these and if you throw up a white flag then
you're supposed to both abide by that and kind of
like do you know, like back down. But now with
the Internet and you're not knowing which uniform people are
wearing and flags are all mainly just red. Now, um,
it's really hard for people to separate that stuff. So
(44:34):
it's like you need someone to kind of do it
for you. But yeah, we teach critical thinking on this show,
or preach it anyway, maybe not preach, but it's something
that we feel very strongly about. But some people either
don't have the time or the wherewithal uh to exercise
that critical thinking, and so you almost kind of like
when this stuff actually hurts people, you kind of gotta
(44:55):
roll back on some of these liberties a little bit.
I don't know now, I feel like it sounds like
a fascist I just don't know. But we're talking about it, right,
and that's the whole point. We're we're putting these ideas out.
That's what matters. Hopefully this video doesn't get demonetized, which,
by the way, to call back to what you said
Ben getting Away with murder, where we describe how to
get away with murder completely fine, solid on that too.
(45:19):
Don't do it. I have to say that whenever that
comes up in conversation, it is a clear walkthrough on
how to get away. There are a couple updates I
wanted to do um regarding DNA. There's some ways around that,
but don't do it. There's never a situation where that
is something that you should consider doing. But this this also,
(45:40):
this point stands you know again, like I I would
say that, I wish more people would acknowledge that even
in those days, pre Internet, days of journalistic integrity, it's
very much wasn't as a real thing. Intelligence agencies still
had an enormous amount of control over the media. They
(46:01):
will tell you, like the CIA will tell the New
York Times what to say, that's like a given. So
it's the the idea of free speech as it is
often thought of in the modern West is somewhat mythologized
in practice, like the actual practice of it. Freedom of
speech does not mean freedom of consequences, as they say.
(46:24):
But also there are a lot of unseen barriers to
to reporting. And that's why I have such immense respect
for investigative journalists. And again, we know there's not a
perfect answer, but there's no way around the fact that
YouTube is a primary vehicle of communication for people what
they say. Whether you agree with it or not, it
(46:47):
does go. It's the only show in town. You know, Um,
the next thing up would be the next way up
for it. It's its own kind of communication. You know.
TikTok is a vast medium of communication now, but it's
not it's not the same thing as YouTube. And let's
(47:07):
also not forget that those codes of ethics we talked about,
they're self imposed for the most part, you know what
I mean. It's like this is a standard that I
hold myself to, or that this organization holds itself to. Um,
it's not like you can arrest somebody for reporting this
information unless you're they're actively inciting a riot or something,
(47:27):
and even that's hard to prove. We couldn't approve that
the president did that with the insurrection when he kind
of went up and on the podium and said, follow me,
take to the streets, you know all that stuff. They
couldn't prove that he incited a riot. Or maybe we
haven't all seen the endgame of that quite yet, but
we know how hard it is to do that, That's
all I'm saying. So it's not much of a surprise
that those self enforced and self imposed codes of ethics
(47:50):
and codes of integrity or whatever are kind of falling
by the wayside As things get more democratized, and you know,
and more and more people become armed chair reporters and
armchair pundits and armed air influencers, you know, or whatever
the case is. You know, um people that that that
are out there telling people how to live at some people,
if they have enough charisma, they make a good case
(48:11):
to certain people and they don't bother vetting. Also, you
know when you should be really worried, folks, is when
social media or YouTube or Reddit or what have you
start suppressing conversations about things like the Pandora papers or
when when you see when you see what or what
are called algorithm burials, or at least that's what I've
(48:33):
decided to call them now. Because if you want to
remove attention from something, if you really want people not
to talk about it, then you don't make a public statement.
You don't say, hey, we're pulling all this stuff on purpose.
You just you just stop showing it to folks, and
when they search, they can't find stuff that is genuinely
the best way to get rid of stuff. So then
(48:55):
the other question becomes, why isn't this why the decision
to go public and say, hey, we're doing this. Is
it based as you said, on the recent announcements from
international medical organizations? I think that's likely? Is it? What
else is it based on? I'd love to hear our
fellow conspiracy realists take on this, because I love people
(49:17):
have been with us for a long time. UM, I
would love to hear what you think. Do you think
we're right when we say that? Folks will tend to
react adversely to this, perhaps even doubling down or becoming
more extremist in their views. My money's on yes, that's
where I'm putting that's where I'm putting books well, and
also that's just not forget that that the end of
the day, YouTube is a business, and they probably businesses
(49:39):
don't tend to react or change their policies, and not
for purely altruistic reasons. Usually happens when they start feeling
like they're gonna lose some money from some advertisers who
don't want to be associated with a platform. Then let's
that kind of content through shout out to only fans
who learned their lesson real fast. Yes yeah, so yes, yes,
only fans. I don't know why. It's still like this
(50:02):
is a diverse I don't want to derail this. But
there's this you guys remember the film Half Baked? Sure, yeah, okay,
So there was this line and a Half Baked at
the very towards the very end that has just sort
of haunted me and I don't understand it, and I
don't know what his improvised, but it plays in my
head constantly. There's, uh, he's the main bad guy. He's
(50:25):
gonna kill one of the one of the dudes from
the crew and he's like or all blow you, blah
blah blah, friend away, and then the guy's getting he's
like held in the neck, in the neck grabb and
he goes, hey, I'm Cuban B. And then the bad guy,
without missing a beach, just goes, oh, yes, Cuban B.
I don't know what that means. Is that like, I
(50:45):
don't know it's it's I think it's just him. Misunderstanding
is amazing catchphrase. It is so hard to have in folks.
Matt Nolan, I UM don't hang out in person as
much as we'd like to, but we are actually friends
and we do hang we do kick it um, and
we enjoy each other's company. And I just want to
confess to you guys. Sometimes in conversations, I don't know why,
(51:07):
I have to like bite down the impulse to respond.
And we're having good conversations. We're having in depth, nuanced
intellectual conversations. I have to stop myself from going yes,
scuban By. Please please, please don't let me think nothing
of it. Ben, Please, now that you've preptics for this,
(51:30):
I really want to see this happen, um, you know
when we least expect it for sure, Please please let
and uh, yeah, well hey guess what, Yeah, it's five
pm t Eastern time, and Facebook is still down. And
Facebook is still down checking, So go. Let us know
(51:52):
what's on your mind about the role YouTube should or
should not play, or the approaches things of that magnitude
should or should not take. Let us know if you
think there will be any substantive, meaningful change due to
the release of the Pandora papers. Let us know what
else you think is in there. Let us know what
you especially if you're located in France yourself. Let us
(52:14):
know what the reaction on the ground to the revelations
about the serial killer are. You can tell us about
it on Facebook maybe if Facebook is there, But don't worry.
If Facebook never comes back, you don't have to worry
a bit. You can still talk to that Ben. Don't
say that you find us on Instagram. If Instagram never
(52:39):
comes back, you can. You can still talk to us,
and we cannot wait to hear from you. Why not
give us a ring on our good old fashioned telephone number.
The number is one eight three three std w y
t K. It's a voicemail system. You've got three minutes
say anything you want to, whatever you can conceive of,
(53:00):
and to leave yourself a cool nickname that would be wonderful,
just to keep the anonymity a little higher than normal,
and we've really looked forward to hearing from you. If
you've got more to share stuff that can't fit in
that three minutes, then we highly recommend you instead send
us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at
i heeart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you
(53:38):
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 Nol. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
all mission control decades. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. If you are listening to this
and the day it comes out, then you are probably
aware that. As we're recording this Monday, October four, Mark
(00:49):
Zuckerberg lost seven billion dollars and counting. Facebook is down.
What's happened? Instagram are down. It's not a typical d
d O s just aribe to denial of service. It
is something much bigger, much nastier. I've been in contact
with some folks on the tech side. UH, just to
let you know some of the rumors, some of the
(01:09):
facts here. UM rumor number one a hack. Uh. New
York Times is currently saying that that's not that, that's
not likely, but it occurs while there's some other stuff
in the air. Facebook also UH just it just got
reported they had one point five billion people's user information
(01:32):
found for sale on a hacker forum. A whistleblower came
out talking about their role in h hate groups. And
we'll we'll also see, by the way, in this week
strange news how larger social media platforms navigate handling controversial stuff.
But these are all going to be uh. I think
there's an episode on this in the future. Uh. The
(01:53):
this may even be related to I don't know, in
the Pandora papers. But and just remember when face week
went down. For quite a while, all that Facebook officially
said was that there were some routine maintenance going on
and something happened and it went down. But everything's okay,
nothing bad happened at the end of the day. I mean,
it's not like they're legally obligated to tell us anything, right,
(02:14):
I mean, they can spend whatever pr line they want,
and it's not like they're, you know, breaking the law. Yeah,
unless they're actively covering up a legal activity, they don't
have to tell people. But this is this is interesting
because you may maybe slightly amused to find fellow conspiracy
realists that the current word is Facebook employees can't get
(02:35):
into the building, not even their badges are working. They also,
due to the Internet of Things, the people who were
already in the building when this happened aren't able to
get into some rooms, like they can't get into conference
rooms and stuff. People are literally locked out, whether or
not you work for Facebook. So I don't feel like
it's just you folks, right, we look in condolences to
(02:57):
all our Instagram junkies out there. We know how it is.
We're a sorry. It's got to be a tough day.
I mean, that's the thing, for sure. But also, you know,
so many people their whole livelihood is on Instagram. My
girlfriend sells so many of her you know, pieces of
stained glass art that she makes directly through Instagram. So
this is actively costing some people money. Oh yeah, for sure,
it's not just Mark. But with this in mind, a
(03:18):
lot of crazy things happened this weekend, and today we're
gonna talk a little bit about YouTube. We're going to
talk about some true crime revelations, and will maybe start
this week's strange News with a massive leak. It's something
a lot of people were asking this, but we were
talking about it with each other off air. It's something
called the Pandora Papers. So here's what happened. The largest
(03:45):
investigation in the history of journalism of this type just released.
Two point nine something terabytes of information have hit the
public space. The Pandora Papers are a cat of around
eleven point nine million files from all sorts of companies
(04:06):
that are hired by very wealthy clients like World Leader
type wealthy clients to create offshore tax dodges, to help
hide dirty money, to help wash dirty money. We're talking
about stuff that involves everything from our own boy, Putin
and his his crew. Uh. It shows you how they
(04:27):
go about Puttin on the ritz. Uh financially. Uh, we're
talking about tax havens like Panama to buy South Dakota,
Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. You heard that correctly, South Dakota.
Who knew it is a haven for international corruption. This
is bigger than the lesser known Paradise papers. This cash
(04:48):
of two point nine for terabytes of information is the
biggest leak of its sort ever in history, and it
goes from like Vietnam to Singapore, to Belize to the Hammas,
you name it. If you are familiar with the international
Shenanigans of dirty money, then it's here, and this is
(05:08):
like there's a who's who. King Abdullah the Second has
who knew he has a secret real estate empire that's
worth a hundred million. Vladmir Putin's alleged mistress also has
a hundred million, prompting one of us, I'll say who,
but one of us in our group threat to say,
(05:30):
you know, I'm not super into like getting romantic with dictators,
but a hundred mills a hundred mill I was joking.
By the way, guys, that's not yet. Yeah, this this
thing is intense. It's, like you said, bigger than those
other major leagues that we remember. We did a whole
episode on Panama papers. You can find that right now,
(05:51):
but it is very similar. And it is I think
anytime you get to unmask some of these front companies,
right these completely legal, like legally created front companies, that's
all above board, you're allowed to do that. But then
unmasking those and looking at the people behind the curtain,
it's ah. I mean, the revelations won't stop coming because
(06:14):
there's so much information here. Yes, and we need to
give a enormous shout out to the International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists that's the full name of what you'll here
refer to in the reporting, the I C I J.
They started releasing this information on October three of this year,
(06:35):
just a few days ago. And this stuff can We're
talking about stuff like documents, images, spreadsheets, emails from fourteen
different financial service companies. And when we're talking about money here,
we're talking up to an estimated three d and trillion
(06:55):
dollars US. And that doesn't include everything. That doesn't include
like real estate, art which is another great way to
launder money, and jewelry, which is also not a bad
way to launder money. Uh. The big issue is that,
you know, as we've said, and I think generally everybody
acknowledges this. Now, a lot of wealthy people don't pay taxes,
(07:17):
and it's not necessarily illegal. They just have the financial
wherewithal to hire experts who will spend the time hiding
the money in a way that the average person simply
cannot afford to do in either terms of time or money.
And now we have to start wondering what this leads to.
(07:37):
What next world governments have taken action. I know the
Panama papers, some of the more cynical among us sometimes
say well, no one did anything. What has changed, But
in their defense, different countries did take action and get
their appropriate tax revenues. So the same thing will probably
happen here. So I have a question is is this, like,
(07:58):
is this necessarily evidence of illegal activity or is this
just like a bad look, like a pr disaster for
many of these folks. Not in every case. It's not
illegal in every case, and that's because we are to
a degree the badger in the bag here. Is the
reason it's not illegal in every case is because we're
talking about many of the people who decide what is
(08:19):
or is not legal. Well, like, for example, the the
king of Jordan, King Abdullah of Jordan's obviously that country
has been the recipient of, you know, millions and millions
of dollars in American aid money all the while King
Abdullah the second has been funneling millions and millions of
dollars into the United States, or he's bought all of
(08:39):
these lavish properties in Miami and in southern California and
in places like that. So, while maybe not illegal, definitely
a bad look for a ruler who was, you know,
ruling over a country that was in desperate need of
financial assistance, right, Yeah, so there's a they're probably going
to be some rough patterns of distribution and money movement
(09:03):
that we can find and categorize later. Uh, this is
just this is a ton of stuff to go through.
I want to thank everybody who reached out to me,
not on Facebook, not on Instagram today or what's happened
folks who have found a way to reach out to
me and asked a couple of interesting questions. One of
the ones that was my favorite, and I think I
reached out to you guys about as well, was the
(09:25):
idea that this could possibly be John McAfee's dead hand.
But um, for a couple of reasons, I don't. I
don't think that's the case. I'd be surprised. Recall that
he said he had thirty one plus terabytes of information
that he would release, and again this is two point
nine four terabytes. Still huge, still the biggest of its kind,
(09:48):
but not what McAfee was saying he was packing. Yeah,
and they're also reporting that there are fourteen separate whistleblowers,
essentially human beings that are providing this information. And you know,
I I doubt that that has anything to do with McAfee.
Just personally. Um, But I want to jump to something
you asked about Noble, like is it all illegal? And
(10:10):
we were talking about that, Ben, I think I think
Tony Blair's case, at least what's been revealed about him
and his wife and the purchasing of a house in
London is probably a pretty good way to examine the
I guess a legal side, but terrible look thing that's
going on here. I mean, I'll at least set us
(10:30):
up as talking about it. But the revelation about Tony
Blair and Sherry Blair was that they purchased a home,
but not the way you know, you or I or
anybody listening would purchase a home by going to a
real estate agent or a bank that's got that owns
the home and buying it from them. They had to
deal with a and like an offshore company that owned
(10:54):
the house I guess, And instead of purchasing the house,
they purchased the company that owned the house, and by
doing that, it's essentially a tax loophole to where they
don't have to then pay taxes on the house by
purchasing it because they purchased the company that already owns
it and now they own the company. It's just a
weird thing, especially given Tony Blitter's past like fighting against
(11:19):
the exact same kind of tax loopholes totally and and
and just to double down one more time real quick
on the Jordan thing. I mean, the country of Jordan
is incredibly poor. They don't have like oil reserves and
like natural resources like you know, other areas in the
Middle East they're surrounded by, but they are a strategic
kind of like diplomatic stronghold in terms of like you know,
(11:39):
negotiations and being this bellweather, uh, preventing conflict largely at
the behest of the United States, or at least you know,
with the help of the United States. They're kind of
doing us a solid. And therefore I'm not saying this
is a quid pro quote thing, but the United States
funneled one point five billion dollars of um AID into
that country. Uh. They are the third largest recipient of
(12:01):
American foreign assistance in the entire world, behind only Israel
and Afghanistan. So I mean, someone scratching someone's back, and
then to see that the president of that company that's
receiving all this money is spending you know, um hundred
million dollars in like posh real estate in the United States.
It's not a very good look for him to his people,
(12:23):
I would imagine, but also to that relationship. You know,
it just seems like there's something fishy going on. Oh yeah,
that's I mean, that's one of the distribution patterns. Right alone,
is alone, is put through or financial assistance go through,
goes through, and you have to ask yourself how much
of that actually goes to the people, right, instead of
going to someone who later through a front company or
(12:47):
through a charity that they own, right, they funnel that
money to the charity and now as part of the
operating expense and stuff, they're there are clever ways to
do it. Some of this stuff is almost certainly um
in conflict with the law. I'm sure there will be
some weasy term used to avoid saying illegal on the
part of the many many lawyers who are going to
(13:09):
be doing very well for several years based on this.
I so this is I've been digging through this since
it broke, and one of the things that I think
we'd all like to do is to make this a
full episode. Uh, there's going to be reporting on this
coming out for weeks even when you're listening to this
(13:30):
next week, there's still going to be a lot of
news now as we know, Uh, there are a couple
of things we need to bust. The Panama Papers. One
of the journalists involved did die in a car bombing attack,
but that was most likely due to that journalist corruption
investigation in Malta rather than particularly the Panama Papers. So
(13:54):
one group of guys you're gonna meet, A group of
people you're gonna meet is a very powerful lover that
would probably rather you not know their name. Uh there,
Baker Mackenzie. They kind of set up this global shadow
financial system, so you'll meet them down the road. You
can learn a little bit about them now. And but
(14:16):
before we go to commercial, I really love to hear
everybody's thoughts on this as we're as we researching, diving
into this episode one three three st d w y
t K Conspiracy at I Heart radio dot com. If
you want to learn more, you're gonna see a lot
of very good reporting on this, and you're gonna see
a lot of fluff pieces, and you're gonna see a
(14:38):
lot of what I would say, unfounded opinion presented as fact.
So spare yourself the trouble. Go to I C I
J dot org and you can see multiple reports on
specific aspects Pakistan, the Czech Republic, Sri Lanka of the UK,
and Jordan's in Russia. The list goes on and on
(15:00):
and on. This story is going to continue to develop.
Dare I say explode whether or not Facebook comes back.
Speaking of coming back, we'll be back in a moment,
and we're back by the way. Shout out to Uh,
there's a clubhouse group called Preservation of the Human Race,
(15:22):
I think, and there was a um, a British person
on there been that. I guess it was early on
the third whenever the first news was coming out. Uh,
they just mentioned that this was occurring, and I couldn't
believe it. No another one. It's like, is this like
Panama papers? They're like it was bigger, it was like
another one. But yeah, really really really crazy. That story
(15:48):
is crazy and I can't wait to do that episode.
So we're jumping down to a true crime story coming
out of France. Yeah, this one, this is very grim.
Heads up, if their kids listening, let's you know, pause,
here may be again anyone you don't want to hear
something a little grizzly, grizzly about a serial killer. Let's
pause right here or skip forward quite a bit, maybe
about ten fifteen minutes. All right, I'm gonna start with
(16:10):
an article from Forbes. Here is the title. Ex French
police officer identifies himself in suicide note as serial killer
who terrorized Paris. First of all, wow, from the headline,
Uh yeah. The second of all, it's this is intense. Okay,
So I'm going to read some of this verbatim. This
(16:32):
was posted on septembe and it is exactly what the
headline said. There were a series of very brutal attacks,
rapes and murders that occurred in Paris in the nineteen
eighties and nineteen nineties, and this former police offer this.
This police officer left a suicide note after he took
(16:55):
his own life and he fatally overdosed. And that occur
this past Wednesday as we are recording this. And you know,
what's written in a suicide note may or may not
be true. So there was an investigation. They looked at
his DNA and they were able to match it up
in several places and this guy, it turns out that
(17:16):
this guy was a serial rapist and murderer and he
was lagrell Yeah, lagrel Is is the title that was named.
It's standing or it's translated to the pockmarked man, and
it comes from one witness that saw uh what he
called a man with a pockmarked face inside an apartment
(17:37):
where some murders occurred, to murders occurred. And it's very
I mean, it's grizzly stuff. I don't want to go
too deep into a lot of this. You can, you
can look up all the grizzly details if you want to.
The big thing I want to talk to you guys
about is the concept that here's another police officer that
(17:59):
was using his power to lure victims and in many
of the cases at least according to a lot of
the reporting that's coming out everywhere in Newsweek, BBC. You
can find it everywhere all of the French papers. If
you use Googogle translate if you're not a French speaker,
you can read exactly what's being said and all the
information coming out. One of the primary places I went
(18:21):
to us Laperisan. That's where I went to read about this.
The Latin Times has a great article too, where it's
linking out to other articles. You can find all this stuff,
search it out on your own if you'd like. But
the concept that this guy would approach usually a woman
or almost always a woman, and he's he is a
(18:45):
police officer, and that's how he gets his victims alone,
because when an officer approaches, or at least the the
pressure is to comply, So then he would get them
alone and do terrible things. So I'm feeling a connection
to maybe the Golden State killer guys, because it wasn't
wasn't he also law enforcement officer? Yeah, and this is, um,
(19:09):
this is something you know, we've got law enforcement in
the audience today. I think it's safe to say that, uh,
the rest of law enforcement officials the world round are
grateful that some of these cases have been closed, but
also uh disgusted. Doesn't even doesn't even begin to catch it. Yeah,
(19:29):
you're right, absolutely every police officers are. I'm just saying that.
I'm just saying, like to be clear, like this is
this is a this is an uncommon thing, you know
what I mean? And this guy, from what I understand,
he's still only been identified in the press, is friend
sois V. But this guy knew that people were onto him.
(19:53):
On the way because he was only about fifty nine, right,
Oh yeah, he's about fifty nine. It's weird like BBC
calls him friend suive or ov v E R O
v um, but yeah, he's he's first. Quall V is
the most common one. I think this is correct, though
if it's in BBC, I generally feel like it's vetted.
But I can it's in the British monarchy they're talking about.
(20:19):
Was the Golden State killer like an active police officer
when he was? I mean I didn't, I didn't think so,
and I just wanted to mention this is I'm not
being silly, but there is. This was such an absurd
and terrifying idea that it was the fictional subject of
three slasher movies from the eighties, the Maniac Cop movies.
And I think the reason they chose that is because
(20:39):
it is so terrifying. You've got someone who's supposedly out
there to protect and serve, you know, murdering people. And
then of course we see police a little differently now
with some of the you know, shootings and all of that.
But I'm the idea of being in a position where
someone's looking to you, uh, you know for help and
then betraying that so utterly, um is just unconscionable and
absolutely horrifying. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I just
(21:02):
want to jump to exactly what he was. He was
a member of the Gendarmes. If I think we've talked
about that before. It's like the French military police police officers. Yeah, exactly, So,
I mean, not only is this guy I'm imagining when
he approached he was very uh disarming, maybe we'll be
(21:23):
the word or um alarming. It's it's all, it's both things.
It's like he's this is you're being approached by respect
and like all of that occurring at once. I'm I'm
certain was used completely to his favor in into getting
what he was looking for. I'm sure he would get
(21:45):
someone to get into a vehicle with him for just
about any reason, you know, like I'm sorry, there's been
some there's been a disturbance, I'm gonna need you to
come with me. It's for your own safety, you know
that kind of talk. I just picture that. Also, police
brutality is real. It's not as restricted to the US.
So people are literally in fear of their lives, uh,
and not for nothing when encountering any law enforcement figure. Also,
(22:10):
this guy, I have a question for you, Matt, do
you think this killer would have left his suicide note
if he had not been questioned last month along with
to be fair, seven hundred and fifty other uh law
enforcement individual law enforcement professionals in France. So let's just
(22:30):
give you some more of these details from the BBC article. Uh,
this person in question, fran sUAS body was discovered at
a flat, you know, an apartment, Uh that's called grow
de Roy And there's the suicide note was there and
his DNA, his DNA that was taken from that scene.
It matched several crime scenes. That or at least DNA
(22:53):
that was taken from several crime scenes. And uh, you know,
at least according to the officials when these reports were
initially written, the letter was not confirmed, but they did,
uh they did say I think somebody to the effect
that impulses. The phrase previous impulses were in there a
(23:13):
couple other key phrases. Um, basically, I had done some
terrible things, but now I had quote gotten myself together.
But uh so like I've I've changed, right, but I
still you know, raped and murdered a bunch of people.
And again I don't want to go to a ton
of the details here, but you can read in this
(23:33):
BBC article, in that Forbes article about specific cases and victims.
And at least there are some families out there who
know who killed their loved one, right, I mean, that's
like the best you can do to have some kind
of positive outcome with something like this. Yeah, and the
crimes that were attributed to this killer, the Pockmarks killer,
(23:58):
the last ones I believe were officially linked in so
for twenty seven years, this person was kind of in
a in a stage of dormancy unless there's other stuff
linked to them. So it's interesting because we'll probably never
know the internal motivations behind writing that suicide letter. But
(24:22):
just like how it's tempting to connect the dots between
this uh strange disappearance of Facebook and its social media empire,
you can connect the dots to any number of possible causes. There.
You can easily connect the dot that says this guy
took his own life and confessed because he saw the
(24:42):
writing on the wall, which was that justice which grinds
explete exceedingly slow, does grind exceedingly fine, and once they
had the DNA, it was over right, if you you
have to know at that point, yeah, at least for
many of the crimes. But again, this is somebody who
was trained and took Oh god, I hate saying this.
(25:03):
He was very careful to not leave DNA behind at
many of the crime scenes. So you never know. There's
pressure right now on on the law enforcement there in
Paris and of the several different layers of it too.
Then to now take possible DNA samples from older unsolved
cases and check his DNA with them, just to see,
(25:24):
you have to you have to and with this, you know, Matt,
it's interesting because we had talked about this previously in
the Golden State killer case Joseph James D'Angelo. Um we
we had talked about this. He was apprehended in team,
which is strange that he seems a while ago now,
(25:45):
and we pretty clearly predicted. I don't think it was
a tough prediction that more cases like this would be
on the way. That's one of the uh, that's one
of the huge innovations in DNA tracing this And as
we said in that episode or in our conversations there,
(26:05):
you don't have to have the direct DNA link of
a killer, a criminal, a murderer or sexual assaulter. All
you have to have is someone related closely enough to them,
and that's that's the way DNA works. So I I
still personally, like I said back in, I still personally
believe that there are more of these on the way,
(26:26):
and I believe it's a I believe it's a necessary
thing because as we know, you know, a repugnant, a
terrifying amount of rape kits end up sitting you know,
and and not getting checked or not getting process. Um.
We we received some wonderful correspondence from people associated with
(26:47):
the process who broke down how these things can happen.
But there there are more crimes to be solved, and
with this I believe they will be solved or at
least hopefully some of them. And just when it comes
to numbers here at least according to the BBC, this
guy from Suavrov is supposedly linked to four murders and
(27:08):
six rapes, but it is believed that they are likely more,
but there is uncertainty there again, it's going to require
more testing, more more checking DNA against available evidence. He also,
we know attempted several things unsuccessfully, which is a strong
indicator that they are more than those four cases. Al Right,
(27:31):
So now that everybody feels better about themselves in the world,
let's take a quick break and then it's sort of
the service that true crime provides a lot of people
that thinks you kind of feel better about your life
that you're not being, you know, murdered by a police officer. Yeah, well, yes,
I want to link this. I'm not linking it in
(27:53):
any way, but as we were, as we were talking
about this, if anyone is paying attention to what's going
on in London right now, the death of Sarah Everard
and everything going on with that case is well worth
your time to look into and just get some kind
(28:13):
of takeaway from protecting yourself when you're anywhere alone or
even with somebody else if there is and I'm sorry,
just the takeaway is, and again nothing against any law
enforcement officer out there when I'm saying this, but be
careful if there's a loan officer approaching you, because generally
(28:33):
that's not going to happen. The explicit warning of the
Unite of the Government of the United Kingdom, yes, be
worry of loan officers l O N E not l
O A N loan officers. Yeah. I don't think there are.
They're doing God's work. Sorry, I pack it down on people.
(28:58):
I think they send letters or call you. Yeah. Yeah,
but and if you don't answer, they'll start calling your
mom whoever the co signed. You know it's true. Sorry
for the sorry vitivity there that that was genuinely funny. Um, okay,
but yes, we will be back after a few words
from our sponsor, and we will move on to something
(29:21):
very different, and we're back more strange news. This is uh.
By the time you hear this is likely evolved to
a degree. But um, as of right now, it's something
that's been a long time coming. YouTube has officially banned
(29:43):
anti vaccine content from the platform. Um. We know that
algorithms that YouTube uses have been you know, automatically taking
down some things related to COVID nineteen, vaccination conspiracies, conspiracy theories. Um,
but now they are extending this to all anti vax
(30:04):
type of talk. And this actually is is he can
have a pretty significant effect on some pretty popular creators
um or were content generators. Let's let's call it's the
entirely creative pursuit, but they are banning accounts that include
Joseph Marcola's channel, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. UM, who has
(30:25):
been linked and you know, very supportive of the Children's
Health Defense Fund and others. Um, it's interesting because this
isn't exactly knew. They've been trying to crack down on misinformation,
you know, using that algorithm, but there have been some
folks that have actually gotten hit by the algorithm that
(30:46):
weren't even spreading anti vax content. They were just offering
you know, reporting or or like critical kind of dissection
you know from a from a media standpoint of this
type of misinformation. Certain words get flagged and the videos
get taken down, while some prominent anti vaccine accounts have
continued to to be putting videos out. So it's it's
(31:07):
been pretty interesting to follow. But UM, like I said,
this not only affects COVID nineteen vaccination videos, you know,
spreading misinformation propaganda, but also other vaccines like the flu
shot or the measles, mumps and Rebella, which a combo
vaccine that you know most kids get, and um, things
like human papuloma virus vaccines hpv UM you know, this
(31:31):
is a whole community. It's been very very controversial for
a long time, folks refusing to have their children vaccinated
and enacting as though being vaccinated in some way depriving
them of their you know freedom. Um, certainly very divisive
subject and one that I think people probably in your
own lives maybe come down on different sides of And
(31:53):
there's you know, certainly different shades of opinions about the
subject in terms of like how early do you get
your children vac excinated? Do you do it all at once?
You know, is it something that's better to spread out?
But then we start venturing into the more kind of
all or nothing approach where it's like all vaccines are
forms of mind control or in some ways, you know,
depriving people of their civil liberties. I think that's when
(32:15):
most of us can agree that things have gone uh
quite a bit too far, and when it gets politicized,
it can obviously be very dangerous. Um when we're literally
living in the midst of a pandemic. So they've already
demonetized anti vaccination content as far back as twenty nineteen
UM and in October of so they would remove videos
(32:36):
that pushed misinformation about the COVID nineteen vaccination in particular. UM.
But this I think probably is a is a you know,
a means of casting a wider net so that they
don't have to fine tune the algorithm to grab only,
you know, certain types of anti vax talk. Instead, it'll
(32:57):
be easier, I think, for them to pull all of it.
But guys, I mean, I was certainly involved in the podcast,
but I was never really on the YouTube side of it.
But you guys have certainly seen stuff. I don't want
you to know, videos pulled or demonetized due to literally
just reporting on things that could be construed as hate speech.
But you're just you know, discussing something UM or any
(33:19):
of these other things, and I could see, you know,
if we did a video on this subject, the algorithm
could certainly catch some of these keywords and potentially de
monetize or d platform the video. What are y'alls thoughts
on this? Is it too extreme? Is it anti free speech?
Or is it exactly what needs to happen in this
age where disinformation is just so easily spread on platforms
(33:39):
like YouTube and you know other social media. YouTube has
put in a lot of work two attempt to automate
the D platform me where the demonetization at the very
least of content that it feels could be particularly distasteful
or perhaps even more importantly, continent fuels could endanger people's lives.
(34:04):
And before this statement, they had already taken down a
hundred and thirty thousands something anti vax things just in
the last year alone. It's a UM exacerbation of of
a previous aim. But those questions you raise regarding what
is free speech or what should people uh be allowed
(34:25):
or not allowed to say in you know, the modern
public square, because let's be honest, the Internet is the
modern public square of this era of humanity. Uh, those
questions sometimes have very clear cut answers, right, and then
sometimes they don't have easy comforting answers. The problem with
the automation is exactly as you describe. It can be
(34:48):
sometimes too broad of a brush. It can be a
chainsaw where maybe scissors would be better for the job,
or a scalpel. I guess, as the saying goes, Um,
but Matt and I Yeah. In our you tube trenches days,
we had run into stuff that accelerated UM accelerated DP
platform in or demonetization simply because of keywords or simply
(35:11):
because of a specific lip Like one thing that surprised
me is writing and presenting a guide to how people
get away with murder, and that was not one of
the first ones to get d platforms. Um. There's also
a financialness incentive here because if you can did further
(35:32):
disincentivize people are spreading a message you don't like, whatever
it is, then they are going to be rational actors
and they are going to make different videos if they
depend on YouTube for income in the future. A dirty
secret of YouTube, by the way, is that they google
in alphabet get a lot of money off the gross
(35:54):
of revenue for any video because they are the only
game in town. So that's why I say for their
disincentivizing overall, if it's saving people's lives, is it not
a good thing. The problem is with this kind of approach,
it's going to further I don't want to say radicalize,
but people I know where you're heading with this. Yeah,
(36:16):
people aren't gonna say YouTube shut this down because it's dangerous.
They're going especially if they're on the fence about vaccination,
They're going to say there's something they don't want you
to know it, you know we did. I just want
to jump in really quickly here and talk about this
November two thousand ten video we posted called stuff they
(36:38):
Don't want you to Know Vaccinations and it's still up,
so it's still functioning. That's good. We've got a COVID
episode that came out not long ago on our conspiracy
stuff channel up. Yeah, it's it's got COVID in the name.
Monetization got turned off on that one, but they didn't
take Yeah, but that's see word on. I am noticing
(37:02):
that most of the videos in this format, the one
where it's just us on zoom talking, are all monetized.
Still they're not making much money, but they're all monetized.
But if you you know covid, oh my god, the
next video that has COVID in the name demonetized. Yeah,
that's the people aren't manually watching these and switching them off,
(37:25):
not even not even back then. Well, just just really quick,
just to read from their policy, they posted this vaccine
misinformation policy. YouTube doesn't allow content that poses a serious
risk of egregious harm by spreading medical misinformation about currently
administered vaccines that are approved and confirmed to be safe
and effective by local health authorities and by the World
Health Organization. This is limited to content that contradicts local
(37:48):
health authorities or the who's guidance on vaccine safety, efficacy
and ingredients. So I'm wondering if they waited until now,
because only just now I believe has the w h
O or H sorry, has the f d A fully
vetted and tested the Fiser vaccine. Isn't that right? Well, okay,
(38:08):
fair enough to the few people were maybe concerned about here,
But I do want to point out they do have
a section that sort of covers what should have covered
our videos and your videos educational, scientific, artistic, or testimonial content,
YouTube mail out content that violates the misinformation policies noted
on this page. If that content includes additional context in
(38:30):
the video, audio title, or description, this is not a
free pass to promote miss misinformation. Additional context may include
countervailing views from local health authorities or medical experts. We
may also make exceptions if the purpose of the content
is to condemn, dispute, or satirize misinformation that violates our policies.
We may also make exceptions for content showing an open
(38:51):
public forum like a protest or public hearing, provided the
content does not aim to promote misinformation that violates our policies.
But again, your brush argument, Ben is a big part
of this. It's hard to separate these things, you know,
from the genuine article. Sometimes uh yeah, there's something really
important that a wish is getting more uh coverage about
(39:14):
this issue, and it's this. There's clear proof that a
lot of the more extreme things, a lot of the
more extreme memes or videos or little factoids that are
floating about on the Internet, especially regard to anti vaccination stuff,
are themselves purposely produced disinformation from foreign powers waging a
(39:37):
symmetric information warfare. This is not a theory. It's not
something that's just like, oh, let's get high in our
dorm room and talk about it. This is actually happening.
There's money behind it, and that does pose a threat
because that means that at the very least the people
are spreading that information, they themselves don't believe it. They
(40:00):
think that people who do swallow it, hook line and
sinker are marks, are rubes, and they have met with
a measure of success in this regard. Now, we have
had great conversations with many of our fellow conspiracy realists
about multiple angles of this. You know, the troubled history
of bad actors in the world of vaccinations, shout out
(40:23):
Tuskegee blah blah blah. But the truth is, you know,
the word factoid means something that sounds true, but it's
very much not. Right now, you used it correctly just now,
And I was really going to applaud you on that,
because people use it as like almost like a listical,
like a factoid is like a nugget, like a fact nugget.
But in fact, I think I want to point out
(40:43):
an applaud you. I think that's really important to point
out that that word is often misused. Well, it's and
also this this kind of information is misused because if
you it's one thing I would argue, if someone is
genuinely saying, and they're sincerely saying, I am personally worried
(41:03):
about vaccination, why are you personally worried about that in
general or in a specific situation. Well, it's specific situation
for these reasons A, B all the way to Z, etcetera.
That's different from thinking I am going to pull an
op on someone or I'm gonna pull an op on
a country. You know what I mean, that's that's not
(41:25):
the same thing. And I'm sure the good folks that
YouTube are are very well aware of this and they're
they're thinking through this. But ultimately, you know, like you said, no,
and I think we can all agree that the issue
with this in the future is that they may end
up accidentally um accelerating the problem that they are attempting
(41:49):
to address, because now that knowledge may be seen as
purposely suppressed or it may be seen as genuine knowledge,
and that you know, that's that it's just gonna make
people doubled down. That's exactly what's gonna happen. Instead of
putting out something that says like, hey, here, even if
you makeing a official statement, instead of putting something that's
(42:09):
like an added on part of a video that comes
on like a pre roll advertisement that says, hey, it's
us YouTube. Here's the thing, and you should know that
the like you should know that uh, genuine Happy Eagle
News is is a front group for these folks out
(42:32):
in St. Petersburg and they want you to believe the
following stuff. We're keeping it up, but you should know
what's happening. Like, I don't know if that approach work either.
But it's just gonna be that's how people's brains work.
The human brain is going to say this means I
was right the whole time, and now maybe some of
those other things that I once thought were too extreme
(42:53):
are true because someone's covering this up. And we're not
saying either of those cases are true. We're just saying, like,
that's that's day one stuff, buddy. As they said in Workaholics,
do you remember work Coholics? I do, Matt, what do
you think, man? Like as far as the free speech angle,
or as far as like depending on an algorithm to
(43:13):
censor things for us, like have we have we hit
like a high water mark of like being so concerned
about people's ability to separate fact from fiction that we
have to like kind of police this information for them. Well,
it stinks. There's a part of me that feels like
we as a species kind of abused our free speech privileges,
Like we're in a classroom and we just did something
(43:34):
we're using it to freely, like a bathroom pass or something. Um.
But at the same time, I a bigger part of
me thinks that if if we stifle everyone's ability to
think and have discussions and you know, say that stuff
(43:54):
out loud, then we're way worse off. Yeah that's the problem. No,
it's you make a good point, mad, But it's also
in the past we could depend on things like journalistic
codes of ethics or things that sort of were like
the ground rules, right, like the rules of engagement, you know,
saying with like in war where we used to have
(44:14):
like you know, this is the one side they wear
these uniforms, and this is the other side they wear
these and if you throw up a white flag then
you're supposed to both abide by that and kind of
like do you know, like back down. But now with
the Internet and you're not knowing which uniform people are
wearing and flags are all mainly just red. Now, um,
it's really hard for people to separate that stuff. So
(44:34):
it's like you need someone to kind of do it
for you. But yeah, we teach critical thinking on this show,
or preach it anyway, maybe not preach, but it's something
that we feel very strongly about. But some people either
don't have the time or the wherewithal uh to exercise
that critical thinking, and so you almost kind of like
when this stuff actually hurts people, you kind of gotta
(44:55):
roll back on some of these liberties a little bit.
I don't know now, I feel like it sounds like
a fascist I just don't know. But we're talking about it, right,
and that's the whole point. We're we're putting these ideas out.
That's what matters. Hopefully this video doesn't get demonetized, which,
by the way, to call back to what you said
Ben getting Away with murder, where we describe how to
get away with murder completely fine, solid on that too.
(45:19):
Don't do it. I have to say that whenever that
comes up in conversation, it is a clear walkthrough on
how to get away. There are a couple updates I
wanted to do um regarding DNA. There's some ways around that,
but don't do it. There's never a situation where that
is something that you should consider doing. But this this also,
(45:40):
this point stands you know again, like I I would
say that, I wish more people would acknowledge that even
in those days, pre Internet, days of journalistic integrity, it's
very much wasn't as a real thing. Intelligence agencies still
had an enormous amount of control over the media. They
(46:01):
will tell you, like the CIA will tell the New
York Times what to say, that's like a given. So
it's the the idea of free speech as it is
often thought of in the modern West is somewhat mythologized
in practice, like the actual practice of it. Freedom of
speech does not mean freedom of consequences, as they say.
(46:24):
But also there are a lot of unseen barriers to
to reporting. And that's why I have such immense respect
for investigative journalists. And again, we know there's not a
perfect answer, but there's no way around the fact that
YouTube is a primary vehicle of communication for people what
they say. Whether you agree with it or not, it
(46:47):
does go. It's the only show in town. You know, Um,
the next thing up would be the next way up
for it. It's its own kind of communication. You know.
TikTok is a vast medium of communication now, but it's
not it's not the same thing as YouTube. And let's
(47:07):
also not forget that those codes of ethics we talked about,
they're self imposed for the most part, you know what
I mean. It's like this is a standard that I
hold myself to, or that this organization holds itself to. Um,
it's not like you can arrest somebody for reporting this
information unless you're they're actively inciting a riot or something,
(47:27):
and even that's hard to prove. We couldn't approve that
the president did that with the insurrection when he kind
of went up and on the podium and said, follow me,
take to the streets, you know all that stuff. They
couldn't prove that he incited a riot. Or maybe we
haven't all seen the endgame of that quite yet, but
we know how hard it is to do that, That's
all I'm saying. So it's not much of a surprise
that those self enforced and self imposed codes of ethics
(47:50):
and codes of integrity or whatever are kind of falling
by the wayside As things get more democratized, and you know,
and more and more people become armed chair reporters and
armchair pundits and armed air influencers, you know, or whatever
the case is. You know, um people that that that
are out there telling people how to live at some people,
if they have enough charisma, they make a good case
(48:11):
to certain people and they don't bother vetting. Also, you
know when you should be really worried, folks, is when
social media or YouTube or Reddit or what have you
start suppressing conversations about things like the Pandora papers or
when when you see when you see what or what
are called algorithm burials, or at least that's what I've
(48:33):
decided to call them now. Because if you want to
remove attention from something, if you really want people not
to talk about it, then you don't make a public statement.
You don't say, hey, we're pulling all this stuff on purpose.
You just you just stop showing it to folks, and
when they search, they can't find stuff that is genuinely
the best way to get rid of stuff. So then
(48:55):
the other question becomes, why isn't this why the decision
to go public and say, hey, we're doing this. Is
it based as you said, on the recent announcements from
international medical organizations? I think that's likely? Is it? What
else is it based on? I'd love to hear our
fellow conspiracy realists take on this, because I love people
(49:17):
have been with us for a long time. UM, I
would love to hear what you think. Do you think
we're right when we say that? Folks will tend to
react adversely to this, perhaps even doubling down or becoming
more extremist in their views. My money's on yes, that's
where I'm putting that's where I'm putting books well, and
also that's just not forget that that the end of
the day, YouTube is a business, and they probably businesses
(49:39):
don't tend to react or change their policies, and not
for purely altruistic reasons. Usually happens when they start feeling
like they're gonna lose some money from some advertisers who
don't want to be associated with a platform. Then let's
that kind of content through shout out to only fans
who learned their lesson real fast. Yes yeah, so yes, yes,
only fans. I don't know why. It's still like this
(50:02):
is a diverse I don't want to derail this. But
there's this you guys remember the film Half Baked? Sure, yeah, okay,
So there was this line and a Half Baked at
the very towards the very end that has just sort
of haunted me and I don't understand it, and I
don't know what his improvised, but it plays in my
head constantly. There's, uh, he's the main bad guy. He's
(50:25):
gonna kill one of the one of the dudes from
the crew and he's like or all blow you, blah
blah blah, friend away, and then the guy's getting he's
like held in the neck, in the neck grabb and
he goes, hey, I'm Cuban B. And then the bad guy,
without missing a beach, just goes, oh, yes, Cuban B.
I don't know what that means. Is that like, I
(50:45):
don't know it's it's I think it's just him. Misunderstanding
is amazing catchphrase. It is so hard to have in folks.
Matt Nolan, I UM don't hang out in person as
much as we'd like to, but we are actually friends
and we do hang we do kick it um, and
we enjoy each other's company. And I just want to
confess to you guys. Sometimes in conversations, I don't know why,
(51:07):
I have to like bite down the impulse to respond.
And we're having good conversations. We're having in depth, nuanced
intellectual conversations. I have to stop myself from going yes,
scuban By. Please please, please don't let me think nothing
of it. Ben, Please, now that you've preptics for this,
(51:30):
I really want to see this happen, um, you know
when we least expect it for sure, Please please let
and uh, yeah, well hey guess what, Yeah, it's five
pm t Eastern time, and Facebook is still down. And
Facebook is still down checking, So go. Let us know
(51:52):
what's on your mind about the role YouTube should or
should not play, or the approaches things of that magnitude
should or should not take. Let us know if you
think there will be any substantive, meaningful change due to
the release of the Pandora papers. Let us know what
else you think is in there. Let us know what
you especially if you're located in France yourself. Let us
(52:14):
know what the reaction on the ground to the revelations
about the serial killer are. You can tell us about
it on Facebook maybe if Facebook is there, But don't worry.
If Facebook never comes back, you don't have to worry
a bit. You can still talk to that Ben. Don't
say that you find us on Instagram. If Instagram never
(52:39):
comes back, you can. You can still talk to us,
and we cannot wait to hear from you. Why not
give us a ring on our good old fashioned telephone number.
The number is one eight three three std w y
t K. It's a voicemail system. You've got three minutes
say anything you want to, whatever you can conceive of,
(53:00):
and to leave yourself a cool nickname that would be wonderful,
just to keep the anonymity a little higher than normal,
and we've really looked forward to hearing from you. If
you've got more to share stuff that can't fit in
that three minutes, then we highly recommend you instead send
us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at
i heeart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you
(53:38):
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
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
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.