Ryan and Emily discuss spam email PAC, Taylor Lorenz debate on phones in schools, Serbia mass protests.
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A Democratic Senate candidate running in Maine on a platform
of getting money out of politics, has spent his career
entangled with controversial pacts created by the notorious email fundraising
firm Mothership's strategies. The firm pioneer the hair on fire
fundraising tactics that often send more money to political consultants
than to political candidates. Mothership was recently the subject of
(00:56):
yet another viral investigation that revealed that of these six
one hundred and seventy eight million dollars that the company's
core political action committees raised since twenty eighteen, just eleven
million dollars went to candidates. One hundred and fifty nine
million dollars made its way to Mothership strategies. Meanwhile, the
(01:16):
firm's spammy approach to email and text messaging, mock overdue bills,
sky is falling, rhetoric, and so on, has left the
grassroots commons desiccated, draining email fundraising of its potency and
driving many campaigns toward SMS, which is in the process
of being destroyed itself. Most fundraising firms, in order to
(01:37):
find businesses in order to find business pitched themselves to
political action committees, which are known as packs, and they
pitched themselves to candidates. Mothership does that, but also innovated
on the notion by simply making its own packs them
and then turning them into clients. As long as the
packs spend some of the money they raise on political purposes,
(01:58):
contributions to candidates, canvassing operations, producing ads, and so forth,
they are perfectly legal enterprises. Now Mothership has pointed its
money vacuum at the main Senate race, a true mother
load for fundraising consultants. In twenty twenty, democratic Senate candidate
Sarah Gideon raised just under seventy five million dollars directly
(02:20):
to her campaign before losing to Susan Collins, Yes seventy
five million dollars. Outside groups raised and spent another fifty
five million dollars to boost her or attack Collins. And
Gideon even finished with more than ten million dollars unspent
in the bank. Collins and the Republican sized, and the
(02:41):
Republican side raised and spent equivalent fortunes. Even a reasonable
percentage of that hall adds up to a small fortune,
and Mothership has never been accused of taking too small
of a cut.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Now.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
The candidate in this case is named Jordan Wood, and
he's been executive director of two packs in the Mothership ecosystem.
His husband, Jake Lipsett, is a co founder of Mothership
and remains a partner. Wood and Lipsett bought a home
in Maine not long after Gideon's loss. In March twenty
twenty one, Lipsett and Wood bought a four thousand square
(03:13):
foot lakeside home in Bristol, Maine, for two point one
five million dollars, now valued at more than three million dollars.
Quote Jordan was born and raised in Lewiston, Maine, and
always dreamed of moving home to Maine to raise his family.
When Jake and Jordan began planning to start their family,
they moved home to Maine, unquote, said Sarah McCarthy, a
(03:34):
campaign spokesperson for Woods campaign.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Now out of the Gate.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Wood was quickly endorsed by a Progressive Turnout Project pack
and Defend the Vote Pack. Both Mothership packs widely derided
for their predatory fundraising tactics and minimal level of genuine
political activity. In twenty nineteen, The Washington Post reported that
Mothership's quote lightning quick rise also has sparked consternation in
(03:57):
democratic circles, where Mothership is some times to ride it
as the m word because of its aggressive and sometimes
misleading tactics unquote.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Now Defend the Vote.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Since launching in the twenty twenty cycle has raised and
spent just over eleven million dollars, according to FEC records.
Of that, three point eight million has gone to Mothership.
Spending well over thirty percent of a total organization's budget
on a single fundraising consultant is considered highly unusual. PTP meanwhile,
(04:27):
has raised and spent more than three hundred and ten
million dollars since its launch in twenty fifteen. Of that,
thirty nine million dollars went to Mothership, but even that
large number is deceiving, as FEC records show PTP got
nearly ninety million dollars of its cash from QUOTE affiliated committees.
Those committees use Mothership for their fundraising and then move
(04:50):
the money to PTP. A budget of ptp's size, the
organization raised ninety point three million dollars for the twenty
twenty four cycle, so typically make a political organization a
significant player in democratic politics, but Progressive Turnout Project has
left barely any visible footprint outside of your email inbox.
In fact, go search for a Progressive Turnout Project in
(05:13):
your inbox, you probably get their emails.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Now spokesperson for PTP.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Rejected that characterization. Quote Mothership strategies has helped power our
efforts since day one. The funds we've spent on our
digital fundraising program have allowed us to become the largest
democratic field organization in the country other than the presidential campaign,
said PTP.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
Now, the two packs.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Have already deployed their massive email lists in the service
of fundraising for Jordan Wood, whose campaign said he has
already raised more than two million dollars. From a political perspective,
the early endorsements were puzzling, as seventy seven year old
main governor Janet Mills has yet to decide whether to run,
which had the effect of largely freezing the field of candidates.
(05:57):
The packs endorsed before knowing who else would run. In
the meantime, a new insurgent candidate, oysterman and veteran Graham Platner,
has emerged as a credible challenger, running on a platform
of taking on the billionaires on behalf of the working class.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
At its core, it's a working class ideology that has
built in movement politics. So I take my inspirations from
the labor movement, I take my inspirations from the civil
rights movement. American history is not a history of working
people asking permission to get things from those in power.
(06:34):
Every good thing that we have gotten, quite frankly, for
working people in this country does not come from writing
a strongly worded letter to someone in power and then
they just give it to you. We need to build power.
We need to build organizational power both the communities and workplaces.
We need to build a much deeper structure of power
(06:57):
through our political apparatus in a way that we can
leverage it far after campaigns come and go.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
So a spokesperson for Wood said that his campaign would
not work with Mothership. Quote Jordan Fermaine has not and
will not hire Jordan's husband's firm. We are working with
a competitor, said Sarah McCarthy, the spokesperson for woods campaign.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Quote.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Jordan is running for Senate because he believes our representatives
should be accountable to regular folks, not billionaires or the elites,
which is why he won't take a dime from corporate
packs or lobbyists unquote. Now Wood began as the political
director for End Citizens United, which was birthed by Mothership
in twenty fifteen as a campaign finance reform project. Wood
helped get it off the ground, becoming its finance and
(07:39):
pack director in November twenty fifteen and later its political
director and vice president, leaving in January twenty twenty. According
to an ECU spokesperson, while Wood was there, ECU paid
Mothership more than nine million dollars while raising seventy three
million dollars.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
The spokesperson said the Wood.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Campaign said, Wood recused himself from eescu's dealings with Mothership
once he and Lipset began dating. The pack eventually became
independent of Mothership, completely cutting ties in twenty twenty three,
and Mothership now deploys Defend the Vote as its election
integrity related pack rather than ECU now. Notably, while Defend
(08:16):
the Vote has endorsed Wood for Senate, ECU, his former organization,
has not, despite the fact that he served as its
executive director, strengthening ECU's claim to independence from the Mothership network.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
In the twenty twenty two cycle.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
The Mothership ecosystem grew with the advent of a new pack,
Democracy First Pack, which made Wood executive director in September
twenty twenty two, would step down in April twenty twenty
five to run for Senate, while Lipsett remains a partner
in Mothership, which now boasts on its website of having
raised nearly eight billion dollars.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
For clients that was billioned with a B.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
The Pack, Underwood's leadership, did not initially hire Mothership for
email fundraising, and instead relied on a handful of major donors,
including three point five million dollars of the first cycle
from philanthropist Lynn Schustermann as he left. But as he left,
Mothership came in and Democracy First ended up shoveling huge
(09:13):
amounts of money their way. The month he left, the
pack funneled more than five hundred thousand dollars to Mothership,
followed by another two payments nearing one hundred thousand dollars
total in May and June of this year. Woods campaign
did not address drop sites specific questions about these payments,
and I asked them a follow up question about these
(09:33):
payments specifically, and they ignored it again. Mothership, for its part,
did not respond to a request for comment, So then
Jordan transferred control of Democracy First to Progressive Turnout Project,
which subsequently endorsed him in March twenty twenty three before
Wood left. According to filings with the FEC March twenty
(09:56):
twenty five, Democracy First named Harry Pascal, co founder of
Progressive Turnout Project, as its treasurer and custodian of records,
switched its mailing address to the same address used by PTP,
and named a slew of Mothership packs as quote affiliated committees.
Progressive Turnout Project's co founder, Hannah Gildner now runs Democracy
(10:16):
First quote Progressive Turnout Project was inspired by the work
Democracy First was doing and wanted to fold it into
their operation to augment their existing state and local work,
said Woods campaign spokesperson McCarthy.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Now.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
In March twenty twenty five, Democracy First became affiliated with
Progressive Turnout Projects, She went on, They went on, We're
proud of the work Democracy First has done on the
ground electing pro democracy candidates with field support and key
battleground states like Pennsylvania, and Progressive Turnout Project wanted to
ensure that work would continue into the twenty twenty six cycle.
Democracy First and Progressive Turnout Project were two of the
(10:53):
only organizations to provide support to Pennsylvania State Senator James
Malone and his upset special election victory in March. Currently,
Democracy First is on pace to spend one million dollars
in field support for local elections in Pennsylvania this fall,
as preparing twenty twenty six plans for Arizona, Michigan, Nevada,
and wisconsint quote. Progressive Turnout Project, the sister pack to
(11:14):
Woods Democracy First Pack, is likely going to raise tens
of millions of dollars from people hoping to oust Susan Collins,
much of which will be funneled to Lipsett's mothership. Progressive
Turnout Project, in a statement, said that it stands by
its early.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Endorsement of Jordan Wood quote.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
We've been familiar with Jordan's work for years, and we
also understand the importance of fielding a strong competitor against
an entrenched Republican incumbent as early as possible.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
The statement read, we.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Believe Jordan continues to be the most formidable candidate to
take on Susan Collins.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Unquote.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Now, Emily, what's so wild about this Mothership story is
that the world's known about them for a very long time.
If we have this next element, we can put this
Hugh Post article up on the screen. This is twenty sixteen.
I edited this story back in twenty sixteen. Headline is
this group raised eleven million dollars to defeat Citizens United.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
So why do people hate this?
Speaker 6 (12:10):
Is that your headline?
Speaker 4 (12:12):
I'm sure that was my headline. Paul.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Story by Paul Bluenthal, good piece. Go back and read
it and it looks it's like, wow, look, all of
this money is being raised ostensibly for campaign finance reform,
and then it's getting moved to this fundraising firm, and
the emails are completely insane and they're driving everybody crazy,
and everyone in the election reform.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Space hated them.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Soon after that, I knew President of the board came
in and actually ESU starts then moving away from Mothership.
Then in twenty nineteen, but this next element up Washing
Post comes in with this like which I mentioned briefly
at the top, how a little known Democratic firm cashed
in on the wave of midterm money.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Like this, look into their practices.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Again, this had the effect of getting campaigns like Ostoff
used them in twenty eighteen for his house race. Doug
Jones used them I'm in Alabama, and they do raise
enormous amounts of money, like those emails work, but then
Mothership keeps like an enormous percentage of it and it
churns through people's inboxes. Are like, okay, fine, I give
(13:19):
you money to go away. Yeah it's like, ah, you
gave us money, You're getting emails forever.
Speaker 6 (13:23):
Yeah, you just made it so much worse.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
So after that Washing Post article, the party basically stopped
using them, but they still had all these packs that
they've made, So they make a pack Progressive turn On
project whatever, and then they raise money for the pack,
then they take money from the pack for raising money
for the pack, and then they do some voter turnout
stuff or whatever they do.
Speaker 6 (13:45):
It's financialization of politics.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Yeah, and it's good money.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
They're making enormous sums of money to think that you're
you know, if you talk to voters, one of the
things they don't like about the party. And I wonder
if this is true of Republicans as well, because I
don't know what their email habits are.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Is the text messages in the emails?
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah, everybody tries pep great and Mothership was the pioneer
of all this stuff. And then Mothership's this guy he's
going to run for Senate.
Speaker 6 (14:14):
Well, I mean to be fair, that strategy got Kamala
Harris elected president.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Yeah, this is carbon bombing your text messaging.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
It worked, of.
Speaker 6 (14:23):
Course, control the Senate and the House right now. So
it can't argue against the strategy.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Was it her husband who on Saturday at Live was like, Kamala,
can I get off these text messages at least? And
She's like, no, hell no, you absolutely canno.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
So okay.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
The argument for it is that it works to raise money.
But the argument against it here is that these packs
are not.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
Doing much with all of that money.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Yeah, it's it's and it's denuding the comments.
Speaker 6 (14:49):
It's a vicious cycle because the more you fuel the strategy,
the more the money is going to go lining the
pockets of the consultants who do the strategy, rather than
actually getting back to a better point where you can
have the money going to the candidate's actual campaign efforts themselves,
(15:10):
not entirely unlike the Washington Post story this week that
revealed the Harris campaign or the DNC agreed to cover
the debts of the Harris campaign so long as Harris
herself was fundraising in the background and trying to raise
the money. So Kamala Harris would raise the money if
the DNC covered the cost. And it's like a shocking amount.
It was like one and a half billion dollars and
(15:31):
I've made like twenty million something like that, which is
good numbers for the DNC, But a lot of that
you can go back and look was spent on things like.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
This, and you can do it more money, you can
do it another way. The two biggest email fundraisers and
Democratic Party politics are Bernie and AOC. Yeah, and if
you read Mary Taylor Green too, and I don't know
how what hers are like, but if you read I'm
curious to tell me, if you read aocs or Bernie's,
they're not this. Yep, they're they're trying to be inspirational
(16:02):
and they don't say like if you don't give five
dollars like you, you know, I'm going to be throwing
in prison tomorrow.
Speaker 6 (16:08):
Oh, you're talking about the pitches themselves. I'm talking about
small dollar donors in general.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
But so the two biggest or AOC and Bernie, and
they managed to raise the money without begging predatory stuff
in your inbox, right, So it shows that if you
have if people are invested in you, believe in you,
they will give you money to do that project. The
problem for the Democratic Party is nobody's bought into them. Yeah,
(16:34):
because what do they stand for? So they have to
then the only thing left is fear.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
But what is that?
Speaker 7 (16:40):
What is?
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Do you know? What? The do you get?
Speaker 6 (16:43):
Her emails show I didn't Yeah, I shouldn't have spoken
because I didn't. I don't know what the tone of
her fundraising pitches are. My guests would be that they're
more similar because she has a really similar rate of.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
Small dollar people are into her.
Speaker 6 (16:54):
Yeah, it's it's actually she's even higher than some populist
Democrats among small like percentage of your donations that are
small dollar I think actually higher than AOC.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Well, you can get a lot of emails and contacts
off of Facebook, Like that's where So the way that
this whole scam works basically.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
A little Cambridge analytica E.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Yeah, you run Facebook ads to basically attract people onto
your email list and then you email them. Democrats are
not on Facebook as much as Republicans are nowadays, is
my sense. Yeah, and so and are certainly Bernie AOC
supporters are under forty and fifty yep, so they're.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
Definitely not on Facebook.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
So it's actually much harder than to collect their emails.
So it would stand a reason that marchiallah Green's people
who are on Facebook and still on email. But anyway,
the idea that this like maybe Jordan Wood is like
I'm the greatest candidate ever, but like.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
He's part of this ecosystem that people don't like, and.
Speaker 6 (17:56):
It's part of an arms race, and that's exactly like
you just end up in this arms race for out fundraising,
and then the money keeps going disproportionately in higher increments
to the fundraisers instead of to the campaign. And that
is absolutely I mean, I have a friend who's a
consultant who has a super flaming hot take on this,
which is actually, like, we spend way more money annually
(18:16):
on Halloween candy than we do on presidential elections, and
like we should be spending way more money in presidential elections,
and that's the like it. I just think that's completely crazy.
I feel like we spend little believe well, of course, yeah,
but like a sincere ideological belief that we should be
spending way more money. It's it's self serving, of course,
but a sincere argument because we do just spend a
(18:40):
lot of money in this country, and hey, if our
priority is Halloween candy, like, why not actually spend so
much money and you know it doesn't have to all
go to ads. I disagree with that, and I think
most Americans disagree with that, And I'm really curious how
the Platner campaign talks about it because at a certain point,
and I guarantee the consultants and fun razors know this.
(19:00):
You hit a tipping point when people catch on in
the emails, get sick of the emails. We're not yet there.
We're not at peak text or email, but we will
at some point and then it will not work anymore.
And then you will have to pivot to something else
and we'll see what that is. But it's not going
to always work. And I think at a certain point
(19:21):
the platterners of the world, it becomes valuable to them
actually campaign on these process things.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
And in May at least you can't put any more
money in.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
I had a member of Congress from there predict to me,
that's like Sarah getting won't even be able to spend
this money because there are only so many hours of
like local television.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Ads you can buy.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Ye, there's only so much space in somebody's mailbox to
cram flyers and these glossy mailers, and people are sick
because a lot of people in main you have to
pay to have your garbage picked up, or you have
to drive it to the dump, and you have to
pay by the wait. And now you've got every single
day you're getting half a pound of these like political mailers.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
It starts to like take people off, so.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
That that's one reason she's, you know, finished the race
with ten million bucks in her back. Like it's like
Brewster's millions, just impossible to spend. And that's why the
fundraising consults are like, all right, well, how about we
just take a little bit more from you so you
can't spend it anyway?
Speaker 4 (20:21):
Use another boat. What's good as a lakeside good as
the lakeside house without.
Speaker 6 (20:25):
A boat, we could all use another boat.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
We invited Jordan wood On to respond to this.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
He did not take us up on.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
That offer, so would be texting him. We're not trying
to be biased here, right, but.
Speaker 6 (20:39):
We will be texting him ten times every hour until right.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Yes, we emailed him one hundred and fifty five times
despite him unsubscribing from.
Speaker 6 (20:48):
The headline all caps urgent.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Definitely signing him up for drop side emails. Yes, oh
that's a good idea. Graham Platner speaking, which did take
us up on the offer, will be here tomorrow, that's.
Speaker 6 (21:01):
Right, So make sure to say tuned tomorrow for that. Now, Ryan,
let's get to Taylor Loreentz, who was joining us to
have a little friendly debate.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
It would be so disappointed. It's not Taylor Swift.
Speaker 6 (21:10):
No, well, we started with Swift, then we thought about
rearranging the block so that it said Taylor Swift on
the bottom bar.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
But all right, let's bring in Taylor.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Joining us now is Taylor Lorenz, who, as often is
at the center of some Internet discourse, this time around
the moves by schools that are opening up this week
and next to ban phones inside their walls. I told
my fourteen year old that we were going to be
talking about this, and she is utterly shocked and appalled
(21:46):
that I think that they should actually have to put
their phones away when they go into the school, and
that I disagree with you on this. She's just apoplectic,
one hundred percent supportive of your position. The from talking
to other friends of hers as well as like I
was reading the Jackson read Like student newspaper about it
(22:08):
last year when they introduced the band. I think if
you pulled the students in high school, it'd be roughly
ninety nine percent, if not one hundred percent, opposed to
these bands. So like they have a view on this
that I think does need to be considered. Is it
it's unusual that kids would be wrong and adults would
(22:28):
be right.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
I think that they are wrong. I think that we're
right about what I want to hear out.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Your you know, the best arguments for my daughter's case,
because she frankly wasn't making it. She's like, I want
to be able to text my friends in class.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
I'm like, that's not a good artist.
Speaker 8 (22:43):
But no, we don't want that. We don't want.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
That's like only when we have breaks.
Speaker 8 (22:48):
Though, well, of course, Okay, So here's the thing.
Speaker 9 (22:52):
First of all, no one wants their kids or no
one wants any kids on their phone during class distracted, like,
no one, no normal person would.
Speaker 8 (23:00):
Make that argument.
Speaker 9 (23:01):
That's yeah. And there's a big, sort of a wide
range of options between laws that are often enforced by
campus resource officers police, and we can get into that
versus rules or norms or you know, other ways of
sort of like curtailing cell phone behavior use during class.
(23:23):
So my opposition is specifically to the laws. You know,
if schools, if teachers want to have certain policies, if
they want, you know, everyone to put their phone in
a basket or these little pocket things that they make
now for classrooms, you know, that's totally fine.
Speaker 8 (23:37):
I think that's great.
Speaker 9 (23:38):
I would encourage teachers to kind of cultivate their own
learning environments. But I think once we get into these
blanket laws, there can be a lot of unintended effects,
and I think that we are not discussing a lot
of those unattended effects. And specifically, I'm concerned with the
sort of civil liberties implications with some of the laws.
Speaker 6 (23:59):
So yeah, if you could rush out what some of
the civiliberties implications of that might be, I think Ryan
and I are both on the same page. Particularly, Ryan
has done reporting on this over the years about how
some of the unintended consequences of sweeping laws.
Speaker 10 (24:09):
That are.
Speaker 6 (24:12):
They're able to be implemented. They get the political permission
structure to be implemented by lawmakers because they're addressing a
serious problem. And then the attempt to address a serious
problem has unintended consequences because they're able to do the
power grab. Everyone was sort of desperate for some type
of solution. So I don't object to the idea that
there may be unintended consequences. Here, tell us a little
bit about what you think they might beat Taylor.
Speaker 9 (24:33):
Yeah, so we've had tech bands in the past, and
I would say the closest corollary to this is actually
the beeper ban. This was a little before my time,
but back in the early nineties, there was this really
big panic about beepers. Kids had the beepers going off
in class like pagers were a new thing. This was
a big distraction at school, and there was a lot
of concern about beepers, and you know, it was the
(24:55):
implication was that people use beepers for like drug use,
so if there was this moral panic around them. We
saw how those laws played out where basically hundreds of
kids ended up having interactions with police, some kids ended
up with criminal records. In one Chicago's school, dozens of
kids were arrested, and kids were just having these regular
interactions with the police already. I talked to a parent
(25:16):
in La just last week who was talking about this
exact issue where the teachers, rightfully in certain environments don't
want to enforce these bands, or the administrators, and we
have an increasing number of police in school campus resource officers,
which is actually skyrocketed since the days of those deeper bands,
and those are often the people that are sort of
(25:37):
tasked with enforcing these bands. So it ends up just
being this quite discriminatory policy where they just sort of
harass kids they you know, and it just leads to
more interactions with kids and police. So I'm sort of
against that. I also think that we have to look
at this law in the context of this broader legislative
and political effort that we're seeing right now to restrict
(25:59):
kids from access to the Internet. And I can get
into that more broadly, but I think a lot of
people have been sort of talking about things like age
verification and these other things, and this law is very
much tied, like these laws rather are very much tied
in this broader political effort to sort of censor the Internet.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Before we go into some of that, I wanted to
get you to address the related controversy that you're that
you're inside now, even going back and forth with a
couple of people on Twitter, including Rachel Collen Booth who
flagged maybe we can put up what we.
Speaker 9 (26:31):
Decided to say that I was paid by a phone company.
I am not paid by a phone company, never have
been paid by a phone company. I don't know what
like that really bothered me, But.
Speaker 6 (26:43):
You did put up the tag paid sponsors.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
I did it.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Well, let's let's put out her in their case and
then have you respond to it. Their case is that
so you did a TikTok for that you that about Bark,
which is a you can tell us.
Speaker 8 (26:57):
Something child safety software.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Yeah, in the post it said hashtag ad and it
had a link that had a long code at the
end of it and you see tracking code, tracking code.
He said, you're doing this in partnership with Bark.
Speaker 6 (27:12):
So people in the screenshot we had right there did
have the tag paid partnership for.
Speaker 9 (27:16):
The reason, I know, Oh my god, that's such a
derailing thing. The way that on TikTok, and I understand
for people that don't use TikTok, they don't understand this.
There's only one way to tag promotional content. So you
click promotional content on TikTok, it comes up as paid
and that just means that the brand can put money
behind it, doesn't mean that you got money. I've been
(27:37):
extra extra careful where even things that I'm not paid for,
I'll market it as promotional because I am making something promotional,
like hey, I really like this product, but me making
a free promotion for child safety software that I use, that,
by the way, is completely is unrelated and is actually
on the same side as you guys on these vands.
It's just so absurd and ridiculous, and I think it
(27:58):
just shows the the attempt that people will go to
to sort of smear and attempt to discredit anybody that
even raises issues with this. I have been reporting on
this topic for eight years, Like I've been writing about
all of these laws, the broader political effort. I've been
talking about people like Jonathan Height whoever are going into
(28:19):
these school districts and specifically lobbying for these laws, the
interest groups around that. This is something that I've covered
for a long time, and I'm actually, you know what
who's actually paying me is this is this program this
reporter is in residence program that I'm in right now
where I'm specifically I got into the program talking about
covering these laws. That's what I am being paid for.
(28:39):
It is basically this fellowship program. So it's just very silly.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
But yeah, I mean, you did post screenshow or somebody
posted screenshots of the company saying yeah.
Speaker 9 (28:51):
The company has said many times on the record she's
not paid. But it's like, I think people will just
jump to anything where they just kind of want to
make up a narrative because they want to discredit this issue.
And this is very normal in moral panics. I write
a lot about moral panics, and I'm not saying that
necessarily kids being on their phone in classes moral panic.
(29:12):
But this issue is very tied to a broader moral
panic about cell phones, where people are convinced that they're
you know, making kids sort of mass unlive themselves and
things like that.
Speaker 8 (29:23):
Not to use YouTube learning lego.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
You can see why people thought from the way that.
Speaker 9 (29:28):
It was for sure, of course, of course, but also like, well,
of course I can understand like people getting confused, but
at that point you have me responding, and I was
at a funeral that day, so I didn't have the
chance to respond quite so quickly as people might have liked.
But and then the company issuing multiple statements saying, you know,
this is just not the case. You've misunderstood the situation.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
But you know, well, so the question on the moral panic, yes,
it's just it does seem to me.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Well, first of all, just in my own life, I'm
not a kid anymore.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
In my brain is better formed than kids that we
are still developing. But even myself, since smartphones have come around,
I think I read less. Do I do more audio books.
I used to be able to sit down and read,
you know, ten twenty thirty pages at a stretch and
then take a little break or something. Now it's like
(30:20):
a page and a half, and I find myself.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Like distracted or strolling.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Combine that with the rates of anxiety and depression that
we're seeing society.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Why are we like, why are we wrong?
Speaker 9 (30:35):
Well, you could combine that with the rate of baggy
pants Ryan, and you would find also a correlation that doesn't.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Mean those things actually skinnier in that skinny pants.
Speaker 9 (30:49):
So what I would caution people against is making these
broad based sort of conclusions.
Speaker 8 (30:52):
We actually had quite literally.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Distracted from the book to like, look at my baggy pants.
Speaker 9 (30:58):
Well, distracted you are, but you are making that correlation
that just does not exist in research. And we have
the top the top, top top researchers, people like Candice Oders,
who wrote a great piece for The Atlantic on this
exact topic, Alice Marwick, like people that have studied this
issue in depth for years and years and years coming
out and saying, hey, we actually do know the cause
(31:21):
of some of these broader issues anxiety, all of these
other things We know those causes and they're not related
to phones. There is no correlation between those things, and
it is just a fact based on the research that
we have that that is just not a sort of
a clear correlation. That's not to say that Ryan, Oh gosh,
(31:42):
you have to read her piece. It's kind of long
and I don't want to mess it up, but all
sorts of things. I mean, one in six kids is
growing up below the poverty line, like I don't know,
just all of these other things that kids are dealing with,
Like they're growing up in a pretty stressful world and
they're told just the way that I was told that
video games were, you know, destroying our lives. Back in
(32:03):
you know, when I was growing up, we had the
video games sort of panic where people were like, oh,
these kids spend hours and hours on the video games.
It's destroying their mental health, it's making them violent. Like
we've seen these moral panics play out over and over
and over again. That doesn't mean that that doesn't mean
that everyone has a healthy relationship with their phone, and
you shouldn't worry. What we know is that the way
that you are can often inform your behavior. So if
you are already depressed and you go down a rabbit
(32:25):
hole that can exacerbate it or whatever. But it is
sort of like it is more a symptom rather than
the problem. And when we're treating it as the problem
rather than the symptom of the problem, we don't ever
get to address the sort of core issues. And often
and there are core issues that sort of lead to
these mental health issues among children. And again that does
not mean that they should be able to sit on
(32:46):
the cell phones all day. But what I would say
is a lot of this moral panic is tied to content.
So you'll see these people saying like they're going to
sit on TikTok all day, right, They're going to sit
in class all day like on TikTok. And the concern
is more about the content and the sort of villainizing
of short form video content.
Speaker 6 (33:04):
We a I don't disagree with you because you've shared
a subsect that's been going pretty viral, I think from
somebody who disagrees with you, and a lot of different things.
And someone had sent that to me separately as well,
And it's about how the argument is that these bands
are a way to shoehorn sort of content bands, and
I don't actually disagree that that's probably the case with
(33:25):
some people, that it's kind of a gateway to age
verification laws and certain things that do genuinely encroach on
CIVI liberties and creativity and freedom and all of that.
I wanted to get your take though on I mean,
I'm looking at I've three studies pulled up, one from
plus one, one from Scientific Reports, and this other one
is from.
Speaker 9 (33:45):
I just want to say, before you pull up any studies,
we have to look at the body of research, and
we have to look at how and I can't speak
to these specific studies, sure, but what I would say
is that all of the top researchers on this topic,
this specific topic got to gather last year and issued
an eighty two page report serving the overwhelming amount of
sort of studies on this topic and debunked this a
(34:09):
lot of misleading studies pushed by this man, Jonathan Height,
which is sort of the most popular person.
Speaker 6 (34:15):
I'm not even going to get into Height. Here's the
other one. Here's from the Journal of Association for Consumer Research.
And I'm not I mean, I'm not an expert on this,
so I'm just saying these are studies, not about anxiety
or any of that. This is a study that shows
and this is particular to the phone ban issue. I
think it's it's salient separately that showed the kind of
brain drain phenomenon. I think we all probably feel this intuitively,
or maybe you disagree, which is that as you're doing studies,
(34:37):
even having a phone near you, even if it's like
flipped down, reduces cognitive capacity. And so in the question
of whether or not it's proper for a school district
to say we're locking these guys up in yonder pouches
from the beginning of the school day to the end
of the school day, it seems to me that addresses
the very specific question of whether kid's cognitive capacity is
harmed while they're learning because they on their backpack.
Speaker 9 (35:00):
Yeah, but like these studies are so dubious, Like often
these are industries like or they're funded by people with
specific political agendas like et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 6 (35:09):
You also have to consider that about the big tech
funded studies that go in the other direction.
Speaker 9 (35:13):
But there's tons of non big tech funded studies. And
again you have to look at the overwhelming body of
research and the overwhelming body of research.
Speaker 6 (35:20):
Simply cognitive capacity question. What about the cognitive capacity question.
Speaker 9 (35:24):
The cognitive capacity question is is a good question. But
here's the thing that you have to consider. All of
these school districts are different. And this is again I'm
not saying that this means kids can be on their
phone all day in class. I'm just against these laws
where certain places you put the phone away, but you're
on a laptop. You're on a really high functioning, great laptop,
and that's totally fine, and you're sort of connected. A
(35:45):
lot of school districts, the phone is the only word
processor people have. When you start to block them away,
you're you know, fifteen percent of kids are disabled. A
lot of kids use these as learning aids. And I
know that's hard to believe, but a lot of times
the phone is the only sort of computer that kids
have in school. And we haven't even gotten into this yet.
But because of big tech lobbying and other things we
(36:06):
have had, and because we just are trying to prepare
kids for the modern world, we have integrated technology into
every part of the learning process, and so sort of
and our lives and sort of sort of take this
one piece away without addressing and without having any funding.
These laws don't come with like funding initiatives or whatever
to fix the broader infrastructure. It sort of just leaves
(36:27):
kids less prepared. I would also say, we want to
teach kids restraint and control. We want to teach kids.
What we don't want is for them to go off
when they're eighteen to college and not know how to
self regulate their own technological use.
Speaker 8 (36:41):
Right.
Speaker 9 (36:41):
We want to give them a safe environment where there
are guardrails, where they're not allowed to sit on the
phone all day long, but where we can teach them restraint.
Otherwise it's you're just prolonging the inevitable. Because phones, as
much as this political effort is trying, are not going
to be banned from public life hopefully anytime soon for
adult and or the workplace. And so we want to
(37:05):
encourage a healthy relationship.
Speaker 8 (37:07):
With tech, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
It always has struck me as odd that schools are
filled with all of these different electronic devices and they
focus on this one thing.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
It's still on the other hand, you.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Don't think there's so what from your perspective, what do
the studies say about the effect of screens on developing
brains and on.
Speaker 9 (37:31):
Kids Yeah, well there's that's a big there's a big question,
right because you have, like if you talk about screens
on developing brains, like you don't want to put a
one year old in front of a screen like YouTube all.
Speaker 8 (37:41):
Day or something.
Speaker 9 (37:42):
But overwhelmingly, I mean, I think Candice Dodgers has really
just been the best and I encourage people to seek
out her work Aunt Alice Marwick. These are two brilliant
researchers that have really spoken about this at length. But
this idea of like screen time and the panic over
screen time is just very imprecise, and the reason that
the studies don't show anything is because it completely depends
(38:02):
what your screen time is. You could be using your
screen time to consume content that is making you feel
bad or something, or you could be using your screen
time to text your friends and be creative and make
creative work.
Speaker 8 (38:15):
We want people to do the latter.
Speaker 9 (38:17):
We want to teach kids to use their phone in
healthy and creative ways. And when we tell the kids,
especially when the primary way that kids use their phone
is through texting, the primary way that kids use social
media is actually dming with each other, It's not scrolling
the feed. Adam Massari came out and even said that,
So we don't want to villainize communication. We want kids
to stay in healthy, productive communication with each other and
(38:40):
not bully each other, and have positive experiences with each
other and have social interaction, especially queer kids, kids that
are from marginalized groups who rely on these online connections
a lot more than other kids. But we just want
to give them a healthy way to do that and
teach them boundaries. And the best way to do that
is to teach it to them when they're young, not
to completely ban devices until they turn eighteen and then
(39:03):
it's a complete free for all. It's just that that's
not an effective way to teach anybody a healthy media consumption.
Speaker 6 (39:09):
What about parents who let me try this one out.
What about parents who say they don't actually they don't
give their kids phones. They don't want their kids to
have phones. They worry, they read the studies differently, they
have different perspective on it, and they don't want their
kids to be exposed to phones at all. So the
bands then allow those parents to allow their kids to
have a phone free childhood without them getting shown something
(39:30):
in between classes that actually, from the content perspective, may
be harmful. Maybe take your example of maybe it's a
queer kid and someone shows something on the phone between
classes that is harmful to their mental health, and their
parents want to be able to prevent that. How would
why not allow parents to let their kids, let make
(39:50):
that decision for their own kids because they control that
between classes.
Speaker 9 (39:54):
No, but what I would say is that you should
be careful with that decision. We know actually that the
mental the health of kids that have the smartphone sooner
is actually more positive, Like they have better mental health
because they're able to get in touch with friends. And ironically,
it's also been found that like, poor kids have access
to phones much more easily than richer kids, so it's
not explained by you know, income, and that is because
(40:16):
they're able to keep in touch with friends. You know,
there's a study that came out that recently found that
as well that like kids actually spent more time outside
with you know, with friends because they were able to
make plans. So you want kids to be able to
communicate with friends. This idea of this like phone free childhood. Again,
we live in a world. I know that there's these
political efforts the people that are selling the phone free
(40:38):
childhood idea. They're also pushing a lot of other reactionary
political efforts that would censor adult adults from content too.
They want to go to a world before phones and
before the Internet, and I admit to that mean and well, guys,
let me tell you there's a lot of bad about
the Internet. And I've written about bullying, and trust me,
(40:58):
I am no one is saying. I just have to
reiterate this again that you should have unmitigated access to
your cell phone all day when you're thirteen years old.
You have to teach healthy internet use. But we live
in the world and if you want your kids to
be competitive, and if you want your kids to be
able to function and have a job and make it
through college, you do need to teach them these skills.
And I understand the fights that come with it. But
(41:19):
the way that we can fight these addictive you know, algorithms,
and I think the problems that a lot of people
have with the phones in terms of the content is
through comprehensive data privacy reform. You want less addictive algorithms,
you want less predatory apps, you want less control of
big tech, and more nonprofit driven online spaces that are
about community join me in advocating for privacy laws and
(41:41):
data privacy specifically, we will never get those laws these
if this political effort to ban the phones and age
restrict everything is successful, because and let me just say
one other thing, at the same time that they are
banning phones, they are, you know, doing these schools are
doing partnerships with surveillance software companies that will do facial
(42:04):
recognition to determine who's allowed to be on campus and
who's not. Harvesting detailed biometric data on children, like all
of this stuff that could have significantly worse consequences for
them down the line.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
So, yeah, I saw a couple of months ago you
write about those studies that you just reference, and that
was one of the first times where I was like, oh,
this is this is kind of interesting. You did a
piece about how the studies were showing that kids that
didn't have access to phones at all, like had worse
mental health outcomes.
Speaker 6 (42:34):
But that's also the collective action, right, because if you
need to have a cell phone to make plans with
your friend, it's because exactly and you're the only one.
Speaker 9 (42:41):
That will do right, right, So and I think there's
a balance. I just think there's a balance here, and
I just think before we jump to laws that will
be enforced by campus police officers, we should have a
more balanced discussion of what we're trying to achieve and
what the realistic trade offs are, because there are realistic
trade offs here, you know, not to mention the problems
(43:02):
with parents and shift work and school. You know, there's
just so many down the line.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Well, so from your perspective, final question, what should what
should parents do?
Speaker 8 (43:10):
Oh god?
Speaker 9 (43:12):
I think it depends on the type of school that
you have, and it depends on your child's educational environment
and who your child is and how they're using their phone.
I am against like, I am against you know again,
just like giving your kid completely unsupervised internet time and
unsupervised phone time forever. Obviously you want to slowly introduce
And the reason I was talking in the first place
for free about like child you know protection software is
(43:35):
because it sort of allows parents to have a little
bit more control over their kids online experience. I think
it's good to introduce kids to phones. I think having restrictions,
parental restrictions, taking it away during certain times the day,
teaching them moderation and how to work with phones and
use their phone in a healthy way and communicate in
a healthy way. It's helpful and just that's that's brought
up the Internet. That's the other thing is that like
(43:57):
these phone conversations are going to be irrelevant. Kids have
app watches, smart glasses. The Internet is getting more and
more integrated into every part of our life. We're gonna
have wearables soon. So we have to we have to
help kids have this healthy relationship with the Internet while
they're still young.
Speaker 6 (44:11):
Ryan is an elder millennial. But as junior.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
School during the beeper thing, and yeah, it was like
pitched about drug dealers and it's like kind of drug dealers,
like getting pinged in class about.
Speaker 6 (44:24):
But I was just gonna say, as a junior millennial,
my high school was cut in half by the smartphone.
And I'm fully, fully concede to being part of a
moral panic, and the swimmer probably could seem to be
a moral planic. I'm a much much different side of
this than you are, a tailor, But we appreciate you
coming here and making the case and allowing us to
have this discussion.
Speaker 9 (44:41):
Yeah, thank you for having me and please don't please
don't destroy me online. I'm just trying to add a
little nuance to tell people, tell people where they can
find your work.
Speaker 8 (44:50):
Yeah, I'm on YouTube at Taylor Lorenz.
Speaker 9 (44:53):
I have a series called free Speech Friday where I
talk about civil liberties concerns and tech policy. So I
talk about this stuff specifically, and I'm everywhere else, just
at Taylor Lorenz.
Speaker 6 (45:01):
Well, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 8 (45:03):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Slightly different kind of segment here, we have new reporting
from drop site on the ground in Serbia from journalists there.
Let's just go ahead and roll this today.
Speaker 11 (45:58):
Name This is the Novi Sad railway station in Serbia,
built in nineteen sixty four. After a recent renovation, it
(46:20):
was officially reopened in July twenty twenty four. Just a
few months later, on November one, twenty twenty four, at
eleven fifty two am, a concrete canopy weighing over three
hundred tons collapsed, killing a total of sixteen people. Following
the renovation, the station building had neither an occupancy permit
(46:44):
nor a completed technical inspection. The initial estimate for the
works was three million euros. In the end, the cost
rose to sixteen million. The station was renovated as part
of the construction of the high speed railway from Belgrade
to the Hungarian border, a project of national importance carried
(47:06):
out under a Serbia China agreement. In Serbia, such deals
are commonly made behind closed doors. In the aftermath of
the tragedy, the investor, Chinese partners, Serbian Railways and President
Alexander Vutich all stated that the collapsed canopy had not
(47:27):
been part of the reconstruction. It would later emerge that
each of these claims was false. Modifications to the canopy
had in fact been carried out. In the first days
following the collapse. Those responsible were largely neither detained nor
held in custody, with most released pending trial or allowed
(47:51):
to remain under house arrest. Fifteen days after the tragedy,
Tributes to the victims begin across Serbia, held every Friday
at eleven fifty two a m. Twenty two days after
the collapse, Students were resulted by officials and members of
the ruling party while paying tribute in front of a
(48:12):
university building in Belgrade. The protests swell in size in
the days that follow. Students initiate blockades at the more
than sixty universities and colleges across the country to the public.
This marks a completely unexpected response from a student population
(48:33):
long seen as apathetic and disengaged from politics. The students
advocate for the rule of law, the fight against corruption,
strong institutions, and respect for the legal system. They demand accountability.
They distanced themselves from political parties and refuse to meet
(48:54):
with the president, stating that their demands do not fall
under his constitution authority, but under the jurisdiction of other institutions.
They receive support from the public in Serbia as well
as from students in neighboring countries of the former Yugoslavia.
Decision making within the movement is based on the principles
(49:17):
of direct democracy. Resolutions are adopted at general assemblies by
a majority vote of those present. Every voice can be heard,
every proposal can be put to a vote. As they
occupy their university buildings, students put forward an initial set
of four demands. First, they call for the full release
(49:41):
of all documentation related to the reconstruction of the Novisad
railway station, records that are currently unavailable to the public. Second,
they demand that the relevant authorities confirm the identities of
those suspected of physically assaulting students and and the criminal
(50:01):
proceedings be launched against them, along with the dismissal if
the whole public office. Third, they called for all charges
against arrested or detained students to be dropped and for
all ongoing criminal proceedings against them to be halted. Fourth,
they demand a twenty percent increase in the budget for
(50:24):
public universities.
Speaker 12 (50:28):
The promenium system provis put an Establian Sastran and nemains sees.
What is necaska and doc Ludiki the Augusta the malt
(50:57):
student rosa to Grajani a solid sour skin in Svens
with students gradia huge and it's professor. Well, corruption in
this society, in our country is so deep it reached
all the way down to dinosaurs.
Speaker 13 (51:19):
How could you translate up in English adding the positive energy,
don't stuff and don't lower attention.
Speaker 14 (51:33):
Yeah, prouded door, let me.
Speaker 10 (52:00):
That's is Nusta hochs in St. Maka atomic. There's a.
Speaker 6 (52:09):
Almost believes the NFL not.
Speaker 11 (52:15):
Loyal students organize gatherings in multiple cities across Serbia, reaching
them through multi day protest marches, which, as many have said,
(52:36):
in some ways sent a pulse through the country.
Speaker 6 (52:51):
Let's just stop before only go amoti Anamlica.
Speaker 10 (52:56):
You put it a little what.
Speaker 6 (53:02):
You said, no I say, can I say? You set
you to what you will?
Speaker 12 (53:07):
That before the speak.
Speaker 8 (53:17):
Someone for.
Speaker 10 (53:44):
You said, Nico enough spin is actor is actor.
Speaker 8 (53:59):
Friend of.
Speaker 12 (54:06):
Ernan over that on Babila servil to office.
Speaker 15 (54:14):
That miss that's Hime eloquently millionaire.
Speaker 6 (54:29):
Mother Prasco Privilegia.
Speaker 11 (54:46):
President Vootage has ruled Serbia for thirteen years. While the
country is formally on the path toward European integration, Vootage
continues to cultivate ties with both Moscow and Beijing. His
rule is described by the Serbian opposition as increasingly authocratic.
Serbia remains one of the few countries that has not
(55:09):
imposed sanctions on Russia, even as negotiations over the status
of costsover continue are the close international supervision. Meanwhile, Serbian
ammunition is being sent to both Ukraine and Israel. The
European Commission has included the lithium mining project in Serbia,
(55:29):
led by the company Rio Tinto, among the projects of
strategic importance for the European Union. There is a growing
sense that Vutich enjoys the backing of all major world powers, who,
preoccupied with their own crisis, pay little more than lip
service to concerns of a Serbian's internal political situation.
Speaker 13 (55:51):
Sati stud easily nilotic.
Speaker 6 (56:11):
Yeah kill met I thought more?
Speaker 8 (56:20):
Or this is the tooth.
Speaker 11 (56:21):
At the end of November twenty twenty four, during a
commemoration for the victims of the Novi Sad tragedy, an
incident occurred in the town of Pagas.
Speaker 9 (56:32):
Do have some more?
Speaker 7 (56:33):
What's the queer automobile?
Speaker 4 (56:35):
Who concious?
Speaker 7 (56:38):
This is town and.
Speaker 15 (56:41):
Boy but always in ademptied approaches.
Speaker 4 (56:44):
You choy approach. The teams catches automobile. It catches who
haves it to talk to automobile Stree Norman.
Speaker 11 (57:06):
In late January, after four young men emerged from the
offices of Vootige's party in Novi Sad and fractured a
female student's jaw in three places using baseball bats, Serbian
Prime Minister Miloshvuvich submitted his resignation. Just over three months later,
(57:27):
President Vutich referred to those same party members as heroes
and later pardoned them. Vootige and members of his ruling
party labeled the protesters as foreign paid agents, accusing them
(57:47):
of working on behalf of outside powers to overthrow both
the government and the state.
Speaker 7 (58:00):
Who politics quat team slugamma only quiz of Telida propalymla
propa only to us salems with.
Speaker 11 (58:16):
In their pursuit of justice, the students visited European institutions,
cycling for thirteen days to Strasbourg and then running a
relay Ultramarthon for eighteen days to Brussels. On March fifteenth,
(58:38):
the largest gathering in Serbia's history took place in Belgrade,
with some three hundred thousand people responding to a call
from the student movement. During the event, some form of
sonic weapon was reportedly used, a claim supported by testimonies
from over three thousand citizens. The government denied all such allegations,
(59:03):
dismissing the public's reaction as staged and orchestrated.
Speaker 15 (59:08):
Nico near primetio n top basically slip nico toristio premation
watch of Isabelagian documental.
Speaker 11 (59:27):
And just today after this statement, a photograph surfaced showing
a police vehicle equipped with an l R A D
four fifty x l acoustic device in front of the
Serbian Parliament during the protest. The Minister of Internal Affairs
then offered an explanation.
Speaker 4 (59:49):
On catastroposlas. This is a test of a long range
acoustic device helped.
Speaker 11 (01:00:01):
Them as their original demands remain unmet After six months
of protest. On May fifth, the students issue a new
demand early elections in Serbia. They state they will not
run as candidates themselves, but will vote on a candidate
(01:00:21):
list through their general assemblies. Meanwhile, repression against dissent in
Serbia is intensifying. There are political arrests and persecutions, widespread
surveillance raids on civil society organizations, and the expulsion of
foreign nationals.
Speaker 4 (01:01:01):
Right, that'll do it for us today.
Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
You around on Friday, I'm around on Friday, year around
on Friday.
Speaker 4 (01:01:05):
I'll be here on Friday, but.
Speaker 6 (01:01:07):
I think we're off Monday. I think the show's off
Monday because it's Labor Day weekend.
Speaker 4 (01:01:10):
So that is correct, So no show money.
Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
So you really got to be there for Friday if
you want the whole show on Friday, not just the
first half. At Breakingpoints, dot Com become a premium member
supports everything we do here. I've also been arguing that
we should do the Friday show live for premium members, right,
because why not?
Speaker 4 (01:01:27):
Like we got nothing to hide.
Speaker 6 (01:01:29):
The sneakest thing Ryan does is just talk about some
of our internal discussions on air so that he can
then use viewer feedback to people.
Speaker 4 (01:01:39):
We're demanding it now.
Speaker 6 (01:01:40):
People are crying out for the Taylor Swift segment, but no,
I think live would be fun. We don't really edit
it anyway.
Speaker 4 (01:01:47):
No, this just goes up.
Speaker 6 (01:01:48):
Although sometimes our DM's open when we share our Twitter.
Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
Yeah, that's got to be honest. We just got a
better opsec, like do what Griffin does, which is log out.
Speaker 6 (01:01:58):
Yes, we can all learn from well, So we'll be
here Friday. Maybe we'll because we'll be off Monday, shove
some extra stuff in so great to make up for
being off on Labor Day. So maybe we'll do that.
Make sure that you're subscribed over at Breakingpoints dot com.
But other than that, Chrystlin Soccer will be here tomorrow.
(01:02:18):
We'll be with them or some combination of them Friday.
And if you if you're not there Friday, you got
to be there Friday. But if you're not, we'll see
you back here next Wednesday's right, see you then,
Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
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We need your help to build the future of independent
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Speaker 3 (00:33):
A Democratic Senate candidate running in Maine on a platform
of getting money out of politics, has spent his career
entangled with controversial pacts created by the notorious email fundraising
firm Mothership's strategies. The firm pioneer the hair on fire
fundraising tactics that often send more money to political consultants
than to political candidates. Mothership was recently the subject of
(00:56):
yet another viral investigation that revealed that of these six
one hundred and seventy eight million dollars that the company's
core political action committees raised since twenty eighteen, just eleven
million dollars went to candidates. One hundred and fifty nine
million dollars made its way to Mothership strategies. Meanwhile, the
(01:16):
firm's spammy approach to email and text messaging, mock overdue bills,
sky is falling, rhetoric, and so on, has left the
grassroots commons desiccated, draining email fundraising of its potency and
driving many campaigns toward SMS, which is in the process
of being destroyed itself. Most fundraising firms, in order to
(01:37):
find businesses in order to find business pitched themselves to
political action committees, which are known as packs, and they
pitched themselves to candidates. Mothership does that, but also innovated
on the notion by simply making its own packs them
and then turning them into clients. As long as the
packs spend some of the money they raise on political purposes,
(01:58):
contributions to candidates, canvassing operations, producing ads, and so forth,
they are perfectly legal enterprises. Now Mothership has pointed its
money vacuum at the main Senate race, a true mother
load for fundraising consultants. In twenty twenty, democratic Senate candidate
Sarah Gideon raised just under seventy five million dollars directly
(02:20):
to her campaign before losing to Susan Collins, Yes seventy
five million dollars. Outside groups raised and spent another fifty
five million dollars to boost her or attack Collins. And
Gideon even finished with more than ten million dollars unspent
in the bank. Collins and the Republican sized, and the
(02:41):
Republican side raised and spent equivalent fortunes. Even a reasonable
percentage of that hall adds up to a small fortune,
and Mothership has never been accused of taking too small
of a cut.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Now.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
The candidate in this case is named Jordan Wood, and
he's been executive director of two packs in the Mothership ecosystem.
His husband, Jake Lipsett, is a co founder of Mothership
and remains a partner. Wood and Lipsett bought a home
in Maine not long after Gideon's loss. In March twenty
twenty one, Lipsett and Wood bought a four thousand square
(03:13):
foot lakeside home in Bristol, Maine, for two point one
five million dollars, now valued at more than three million dollars.
Quote Jordan was born and raised in Lewiston, Maine, and
always dreamed of moving home to Maine to raise his family.
When Jake and Jordan began planning to start their family,
they moved home to Maine, unquote, said Sarah McCarthy, a
(03:34):
campaign spokesperson for Woods campaign.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Now out of the Gate.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Wood was quickly endorsed by a Progressive Turnout Project pack
and Defend the Vote Pack. Both Mothership packs widely derided
for their predatory fundraising tactics and minimal level of genuine
political activity. In twenty nineteen, The Washington Post reported that
Mothership's quote lightning quick rise also has sparked consternation in
(03:57):
democratic circles, where Mothership is some times to ride it
as the m word because of its aggressive and sometimes
misleading tactics unquote.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Now Defend the Vote.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Since launching in the twenty twenty cycle has raised and
spent just over eleven million dollars, according to FEC records.
Of that, three point eight million has gone to Mothership.
Spending well over thirty percent of a total organization's budget
on a single fundraising consultant is considered highly unusual. PTP meanwhile,
(04:27):
has raised and spent more than three hundred and ten
million dollars since its launch in twenty fifteen. Of that,
thirty nine million dollars went to Mothership, but even that
large number is deceiving, as FEC records show PTP got
nearly ninety million dollars of its cash from QUOTE affiliated committees.
Those committees use Mothership for their fundraising and then move
(04:50):
the money to PTP. A budget of ptp's size, the
organization raised ninety point three million dollars for the twenty
twenty four cycle, so typically make a political organization a
significant player in democratic politics, but Progressive Turnout Project has
left barely any visible footprint outside of your email inbox.
In fact, go search for a Progressive Turnout Project in
(05:13):
your inbox, you probably get their emails.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Now spokesperson for PTP.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Rejected that characterization. Quote Mothership strategies has helped power our
efforts since day one. The funds we've spent on our
digital fundraising program have allowed us to become the largest
democratic field organization in the country other than the presidential campaign,
said PTP.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
Now, the two packs.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Have already deployed their massive email lists in the service
of fundraising for Jordan Wood, whose campaign said he has
already raised more than two million dollars. From a political perspective,
the early endorsements were puzzling, as seventy seven year old
main governor Janet Mills has yet to decide whether to run,
which had the effect of largely freezing the field of candidates.
(05:57):
The packs endorsed before knowing who else would run. In
the meantime, a new insurgent candidate, oysterman and veteran Graham Platner,
has emerged as a credible challenger, running on a platform
of taking on the billionaires on behalf of the working class.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
At its core, it's a working class ideology that has
built in movement politics. So I take my inspirations from
the labor movement, I take my inspirations from the civil
rights movement. American history is not a history of working
people asking permission to get things from those in power.
(06:34):
Every good thing that we have gotten, quite frankly, for
working people in this country does not come from writing
a strongly worded letter to someone in power and then
they just give it to you. We need to build power.
We need to build organizational power both the communities and workplaces.
We need to build a much deeper structure of power
(06:57):
through our political apparatus in a way that we can
leverage it far after campaigns come and go.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
So a spokesperson for Wood said that his campaign would
not work with Mothership. Quote Jordan Fermaine has not and
will not hire Jordan's husband's firm. We are working with
a competitor, said Sarah McCarthy, the spokesperson for woods campaign.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Quote.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Jordan is running for Senate because he believes our representatives
should be accountable to regular folks, not billionaires or the elites,
which is why he won't take a dime from corporate
packs or lobbyists unquote. Now Wood began as the political
director for End Citizens United, which was birthed by Mothership
in twenty fifteen as a campaign finance reform project. Wood
helped get it off the ground, becoming its finance and
(07:39):
pack director in November twenty fifteen and later its political
director and vice president, leaving in January twenty twenty. According
to an ECU spokesperson, while Wood was there, ECU paid
Mothership more than nine million dollars while raising seventy three
million dollars.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
The spokesperson said the Wood.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Campaign said, Wood recused himself from eescu's dealings with Mothership
once he and Lipset began dating. The pack eventually became
independent of Mothership, completely cutting ties in twenty twenty three,
and Mothership now deploys Defend the Vote as its election
integrity related pack rather than ECU now. Notably, while Defend
(08:16):
the Vote has endorsed Wood for Senate, ECU, his former organization,
has not, despite the fact that he served as its
executive director, strengthening ECU's claim to independence from the Mothership network.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
In the twenty twenty two cycle.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
The Mothership ecosystem grew with the advent of a new pack,
Democracy First Pack, which made Wood executive director in September
twenty twenty two, would step down in April twenty twenty
five to run for Senate, while Lipsett remains a partner
in Mothership, which now boasts on its website of having
raised nearly eight billion dollars.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
For clients that was billioned with a B.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
The Pack, Underwood's leadership, did not initially hire Mothership for
email fundraising, and instead relied on a handful of major donors,
including three point five million dollars of the first cycle
from philanthropist Lynn Schustermann as he left. But as he left,
Mothership came in and Democracy First ended up shoveling huge
(09:13):
amounts of money their way. The month he left, the
pack funneled more than five hundred thousand dollars to Mothership,
followed by another two payments nearing one hundred thousand dollars
total in May and June of this year. Woods campaign
did not address drop sites specific questions about these payments,
and I asked them a follow up question about these
(09:33):
payments specifically, and they ignored it again. Mothership, for its part,
did not respond to a request for comment, So then
Jordan transferred control of Democracy First to Progressive Turnout Project,
which subsequently endorsed him in March twenty twenty three before
Wood left. According to filings with the FEC March twenty
(09:56):
twenty five, Democracy First named Harry Pascal, co founder of
Progressive Turnout Project, as its treasurer and custodian of records,
switched its mailing address to the same address used by PTP,
and named a slew of Mothership packs as quote affiliated committees.
Progressive Turnout Project's co founder, Hannah Gildner now runs Democracy
(10:16):
First quote Progressive Turnout Project was inspired by the work
Democracy First was doing and wanted to fold it into
their operation to augment their existing state and local work,
said Woods campaign spokesperson McCarthy.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Now.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
In March twenty twenty five, Democracy First became affiliated with
Progressive Turnout Projects, She went on, They went on, We're
proud of the work Democracy First has done on the
ground electing pro democracy candidates with field support and key
battleground states like Pennsylvania, and Progressive Turnout Project wanted to
ensure that work would continue into the twenty twenty six cycle.
Democracy First and Progressive Turnout Project were two of the
(10:53):
only organizations to provide support to Pennsylvania State Senator James
Malone and his upset special election victory in March. Currently,
Democracy First is on pace to spend one million dollars
in field support for local elections in Pennsylvania this fall,
as preparing twenty twenty six plans for Arizona, Michigan, Nevada,
and wisconsint quote. Progressive Turnout Project, the sister pack to
(11:14):
Woods Democracy First Pack, is likely going to raise tens
of millions of dollars from people hoping to oust Susan Collins,
much of which will be funneled to Lipsett's mothership. Progressive
Turnout Project, in a statement, said that it stands by
its early.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Endorsement of Jordan Wood quote.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
We've been familiar with Jordan's work for years, and we
also understand the importance of fielding a strong competitor against
an entrenched Republican incumbent as early as possible.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
The statement read, we.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Believe Jordan continues to be the most formidable candidate to
take on Susan Collins.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Unquote.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Now, Emily, what's so wild about this Mothership story is
that the world's known about them for a very long time.
If we have this next element, we can put this
Hugh Post article up on the screen. This is twenty sixteen.
I edited this story back in twenty sixteen. Headline is
this group raised eleven million dollars to defeat Citizens United.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
So why do people hate this?
Speaker 6 (12:10):
Is that your headline?
Speaker 4 (12:12):
I'm sure that was my headline. Paul.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Story by Paul Bluenthal, good piece. Go back and read
it and it looks it's like, wow, look, all of
this money is being raised ostensibly for campaign finance reform,
and then it's getting moved to this fundraising firm, and
the emails are completely insane and they're driving everybody crazy,
and everyone in the election reform.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Space hated them.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Soon after that, I knew President of the board came
in and actually ESU starts then moving away from Mothership.
Then in twenty nineteen, but this next element up Washing
Post comes in with this like which I mentioned briefly
at the top, how a little known Democratic firm cashed
in on the wave of midterm money.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Like this, look into their practices.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Again, this had the effect of getting campaigns like Ostoff
used them in twenty eighteen for his house race. Doug
Jones used them I'm in Alabama, and they do raise
enormous amounts of money, like those emails work, but then
Mothership keeps like an enormous percentage of it and it
churns through people's inboxes. Are like, okay, fine, I give
(13:19):
you money to go away. Yeah it's like, ah, you
gave us money, You're getting emails forever.
Speaker 6 (13:23):
Yeah, you just made it so much worse.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
So after that Washing Post article, the party basically stopped
using them, but they still had all these packs that
they've made, So they make a pack Progressive turn On
project whatever, and then they raise money for the pack,
then they take money from the pack for raising money
for the pack, and then they do some voter turnout
stuff or whatever they do.
Speaker 6 (13:45):
It's financialization of politics.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Yeah, and it's good money.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
They're making enormous sums of money to think that you're
you know, if you talk to voters, one of the
things they don't like about the party. And I wonder
if this is true of Republicans as well, because I
don't know what their email habits are.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Is the text messages in the emails?
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah, everybody tries pep great and Mothership was the pioneer
of all this stuff. And then Mothership's this guy he's
going to run for Senate.
Speaker 6 (14:14):
Well, I mean to be fair, that strategy got Kamala
Harris elected president.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Yeah, this is carbon bombing your text messaging.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
It worked, of.
Speaker 6 (14:23):
Course, control the Senate and the House right now. So
it can't argue against the strategy.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Was it her husband who on Saturday at Live was like, Kamala,
can I get off these text messages at least? And
She's like, no, hell no, you absolutely canno.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
So okay.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
The argument for it is that it works to raise money.
But the argument against it here is that these packs
are not.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
Doing much with all of that money.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Yeah, it's it's and it's denuding the comments.
Speaker 6 (14:49):
It's a vicious cycle because the more you fuel the strategy,
the more the money is going to go lining the
pockets of the consultants who do the strategy, rather than
actually getting back to a better point where you can
have the money going to the candidate's actual campaign efforts themselves,
(15:10):
not entirely unlike the Washington Post story this week that
revealed the Harris campaign or the DNC agreed to cover
the debts of the Harris campaign so long as Harris
herself was fundraising in the background and trying to raise
the money. So Kamala Harris would raise the money if
the DNC covered the cost. And it's like a shocking amount.
It was like one and a half billion dollars and
(15:31):
I've made like twenty million something like that, which is
good numbers for the DNC, But a lot of that
you can go back and look was spent on things like.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
This, and you can do it more money, you can
do it another way. The two biggest email fundraisers and
Democratic Party politics are Bernie and AOC. Yeah, and if
you read Mary Taylor Green too, and I don't know
how what hers are like, but if you read I'm
curious to tell me, if you read aocs or Bernie's,
they're not this. Yep, they're they're trying to be inspirational
(16:02):
and they don't say like if you don't give five
dollars like you, you know, I'm going to be throwing
in prison tomorrow.
Speaker 6 (16:08):
Oh, you're talking about the pitches themselves. I'm talking about
small dollar donors in general.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
But so the two biggest or AOC and Bernie, and
they managed to raise the money without begging predatory stuff
in your inbox, right, So it shows that if you
have if people are invested in you, believe in you,
they will give you money to do that project. The
problem for the Democratic Party is nobody's bought into them. Yeah,
(16:34):
because what do they stand for? So they have to
then the only thing left is fear.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
But what is that?
Speaker 7 (16:40):
What is?
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Do you know? What? The do you get?
Speaker 6 (16:43):
Her emails show I didn't Yeah, I shouldn't have spoken
because I didn't. I don't know what the tone of
her fundraising pitches are. My guests would be that they're
more similar because she has a really similar rate of.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
Small dollar people are into her.
Speaker 6 (16:54):
Yeah, it's it's actually she's even higher than some populist
Democrats among small like percentage of your donations that are
small dollar I think actually higher than AOC.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Well, you can get a lot of emails and contacts
off of Facebook, Like that's where So the way that
this whole scam works basically.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
A little Cambridge analytica E.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Yeah, you run Facebook ads to basically attract people onto
your email list and then you email them. Democrats are
not on Facebook as much as Republicans are nowadays, is
my sense. Yeah, and so and are certainly Bernie AOC
supporters are under forty and fifty yep, so they're.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
Definitely not on Facebook.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
So it's actually much harder than to collect their emails.
So it would stand a reason that marchiallah Green's people
who are on Facebook and still on email. But anyway,
the idea that this like maybe Jordan Wood is like
I'm the greatest candidate ever, but like.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
He's part of this ecosystem that people don't like, and.
Speaker 6 (17:56):
It's part of an arms race, and that's exactly like
you just end up in this arms race for out fundraising,
and then the money keeps going disproportionately in higher increments
to the fundraisers instead of to the campaign. And that
is absolutely I mean, I have a friend who's a
consultant who has a super flaming hot take on this,
which is actually, like, we spend way more money annually
(18:16):
on Halloween candy than we do on presidential elections, and
like we should be spending way more money in presidential elections,
and that's the like it. I just think that's completely crazy.
I feel like we spend little believe well, of course, yeah,
but like a sincere ideological belief that we should be
spending way more money. It's it's self serving, of course,
but a sincere argument because we do just spend a
(18:40):
lot of money in this country, and hey, if our
priority is Halloween candy, like, why not actually spend so
much money and you know it doesn't have to all
go to ads. I disagree with that, and I think
most Americans disagree with that, And I'm really curious how
the Platner campaign talks about it because at a certain point,
and I guarantee the consultants and fun razors know this.
(19:00):
You hit a tipping point when people catch on in
the emails, get sick of the emails. We're not yet there.
We're not at peak text or email, but we will
at some point and then it will not work anymore.
And then you will have to pivot to something else
and we'll see what that is. But it's not going
to always work. And I think at a certain point
(19:21):
the platterners of the world, it becomes valuable to them
actually campaign on these process things.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
And in May at least you can't put any more
money in.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
I had a member of Congress from there predict to me,
that's like Sarah getting won't even be able to spend
this money because there are only so many hours of
like local television.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Ads you can buy.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Ye, there's only so much space in somebody's mailbox to
cram flyers and these glossy mailers, and people are sick
because a lot of people in main you have to
pay to have your garbage picked up, or you have
to drive it to the dump, and you have to
pay by the wait. And now you've got every single
day you're getting half a pound of these like political mailers.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
It starts to like take people off, so.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
That that's one reason she's, you know, finished the race
with ten million bucks in her back. Like it's like
Brewster's millions, just impossible to spend. And that's why the
fundraising consults are like, all right, well, how about we
just take a little bit more from you so you
can't spend it anyway?
Speaker 4 (20:21):
Use another boat. What's good as a lakeside good as
the lakeside house without.
Speaker 6 (20:25):
A boat, we could all use another boat.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
We invited Jordan wood On to respond to this.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
He did not take us up on.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
That offer, so would be texting him. We're not trying
to be biased here, right, but.
Speaker 6 (20:39):
We will be texting him ten times every hour until right.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Yes, we emailed him one hundred and fifty five times
despite him unsubscribing from.
Speaker 6 (20:48):
The headline all caps urgent.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Definitely signing him up for drop side emails. Yes, oh
that's a good idea. Graham Platner speaking, which did take
us up on the offer, will be here tomorrow, that's.
Speaker 6 (21:01):
Right, So make sure to say tuned tomorrow for that. Now, Ryan,
let's get to Taylor Loreentz, who was joining us to
have a little friendly debate.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
It would be so disappointed. It's not Taylor Swift.
Speaker 6 (21:10):
No, well, we started with Swift, then we thought about
rearranging the block so that it said Taylor Swift on
the bottom bar.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
But all right, let's bring in Taylor.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Joining us now is Taylor Lorenz, who, as often is
at the center of some Internet discourse, this time around
the moves by schools that are opening up this week
and next to ban phones inside their walls. I told
my fourteen year old that we were going to be
talking about this, and she is utterly shocked and appalled
(21:46):
that I think that they should actually have to put
their phones away when they go into the school, and
that I disagree with you on this. She's just apoplectic,
one hundred percent supportive of your position. The from talking
to other friends of hers as well as like I
was reading the Jackson read Like student newspaper about it
(22:08):
last year when they introduced the band. I think if
you pulled the students in high school, it'd be roughly
ninety nine percent, if not one hundred percent, opposed to
these bands. So like they have a view on this
that I think does need to be considered. Is it
it's unusual that kids would be wrong and adults would
(22:28):
be right.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
I think that they are wrong. I think that we're
right about what I want to hear out.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Your you know, the best arguments for my daughter's case,
because she frankly wasn't making it. She's like, I want
to be able to text my friends in class.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
I'm like, that's not a good artist.
Speaker 8 (22:43):
But no, we don't want that. We don't want.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
That's like only when we have breaks.
Speaker 8 (22:48):
Though, well, of course, Okay, So here's the thing.
Speaker 9 (22:52):
First of all, no one wants their kids or no
one wants any kids on their phone during class distracted, like,
no one, no normal person would.
Speaker 8 (23:00):
Make that argument.
Speaker 9 (23:01):
That's yeah. And there's a big, sort of a wide
range of options between laws that are often enforced by
campus resource officers police, and we can get into that
versus rules or norms or you know, other ways of
sort of like curtailing cell phone behavior use during class.
(23:23):
So my opposition is specifically to the laws. You know,
if schools, if teachers want to have certain policies, if
they want, you know, everyone to put their phone in
a basket or these little pocket things that they make
now for classrooms, you know, that's totally fine.
Speaker 8 (23:37):
I think that's great.
Speaker 9 (23:38):
I would encourage teachers to kind of cultivate their own
learning environments. But I think once we get into these
blanket laws, there can be a lot of unintended effects,
and I think that we are not discussing a lot
of those unattended effects. And specifically, I'm concerned with the
sort of civil liberties implications with some of the laws.
Speaker 6 (23:59):
So yeah, if you could rush out what some of
the civiliberties implications of that might be, I think Ryan
and I are both on the same page. Particularly, Ryan
has done reporting on this over the years about how
some of the unintended consequences of sweeping laws.
Speaker 10 (24:09):
That are.
Speaker 6 (24:12):
They're able to be implemented. They get the political permission
structure to be implemented by lawmakers because they're addressing a
serious problem. And then the attempt to address a serious
problem has unintended consequences because they're able to do the
power grab. Everyone was sort of desperate for some type
of solution. So I don't object to the idea that
there may be unintended consequences. Here, tell us a little
bit about what you think they might beat Taylor.
Speaker 9 (24:33):
Yeah, so we've had tech bands in the past, and
I would say the closest corollary to this is actually
the beeper ban. This was a little before my time,
but back in the early nineties, there was this really
big panic about beepers. Kids had the beepers going off
in class like pagers were a new thing. This was
a big distraction at school, and there was a lot
of concern about beepers, and you know, it was the
(24:55):
implication was that people use beepers for like drug use,
so if there was this moral panic around them. We
saw how those laws played out where basically hundreds of
kids ended up having interactions with police, some kids ended
up with criminal records. In one Chicago's school, dozens of
kids were arrested, and kids were just having these regular
interactions with the police already. I talked to a parent
(25:16):
in La just last week who was talking about this
exact issue where the teachers, rightfully in certain environments don't
want to enforce these bands, or the administrators, and we
have an increasing number of police in school campus resource officers,
which is actually skyrocketed since the days of those deeper bands,
and those are often the people that are sort of
(25:37):
tasked with enforcing these bands. So it ends up just
being this quite discriminatory policy where they just sort of
harass kids they you know, and it just leads to
more interactions with kids and police. So I'm sort of
against that. I also think that we have to look
at this law in the context of this broader legislative
and political effort that we're seeing right now to restrict
(25:59):
kids from access to the Internet. And I can get
into that more broadly, but I think a lot of
people have been sort of talking about things like age
verification and these other things, and this law is very
much tied, like these laws rather are very much tied
in this broader political effort to sort of censor the Internet.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Before we go into some of that, I wanted to
get you to address the related controversy that you're that
you're inside now, even going back and forth with a
couple of people on Twitter, including Rachel Collen Booth who
flagged maybe we can put up what we.
Speaker 9 (26:31):
Decided to say that I was paid by a phone company.
I am not paid by a phone company, never have
been paid by a phone company. I don't know what
like that really bothered me, But.
Speaker 6 (26:43):
You did put up the tag paid sponsors.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
I did it.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Well, let's let's put out her in their case and
then have you respond to it. Their case is that
so you did a TikTok for that you that about Bark,
which is a you can tell us.
Speaker 8 (26:57):
Something child safety software.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Yeah, in the post it said hashtag ad and it
had a link that had a long code at the
end of it and you see tracking code, tracking code.
He said, you're doing this in partnership with Bark.
Speaker 6 (27:12):
So people in the screenshot we had right there did
have the tag paid partnership for.
Speaker 9 (27:16):
The reason, I know, Oh my god, that's such a
derailing thing. The way that on TikTok, and I understand
for people that don't use TikTok, they don't understand this.
There's only one way to tag promotional content. So you
click promotional content on TikTok, it comes up as paid
and that just means that the brand can put money
behind it, doesn't mean that you got money. I've been
(27:37):
extra extra careful where even things that I'm not paid for,
I'll market it as promotional because I am making something promotional,
like hey, I really like this product, but me making
a free promotion for child safety software that I use, that,
by the way, is completely is unrelated and is actually
on the same side as you guys on these vands.
It's just so absurd and ridiculous, and I think it
(27:58):
just shows the the attempt that people will go to
to sort of smear and attempt to discredit anybody that
even raises issues with this. I have been reporting on
this topic for eight years, Like I've been writing about
all of these laws, the broader political effort. I've been
talking about people like Jonathan Height whoever are going into
(28:19):
these school districts and specifically lobbying for these laws, the
interest groups around that. This is something that I've covered
for a long time, and I'm actually, you know what
who's actually paying me is this is this program this
reporter is in residence program that I'm in right now
where I'm specifically I got into the program talking about
covering these laws. That's what I am being paid for.
(28:39):
It is basically this fellowship program. So it's just very silly.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
But yeah, I mean, you did post screenshow or somebody
posted screenshots of the company saying yeah.
Speaker 9 (28:51):
The company has said many times on the record she's
not paid. But it's like, I think people will just
jump to anything where they just kind of want to
make up a narrative because they want to discredit this issue.
And this is very normal in moral panics. I write
a lot about moral panics, and I'm not saying that
necessarily kids being on their phone in classes moral panic.
(29:12):
But this issue is very tied to a broader moral
panic about cell phones, where people are convinced that they're
you know, making kids sort of mass unlive themselves and
things like that.
Speaker 8 (29:23):
Not to use YouTube learning lego.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
You can see why people thought from the way that.
Speaker 9 (29:28):
It was for sure, of course, of course, but also like, well,
of course I can understand like people getting confused, but
at that point you have me responding, and I was
at a funeral that day, so I didn't have the
chance to respond quite so quickly as people might have liked.
But and then the company issuing multiple statements saying, you know,
this is just not the case. You've misunderstood the situation.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
But you know, well, so the question on the moral panic, yes,
it's just it does seem to me.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Well, first of all, just in my own life, I'm
not a kid anymore.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
In my brain is better formed than kids that we
are still developing. But even myself, since smartphones have come around,
I think I read less. Do I do more audio books.
I used to be able to sit down and read,
you know, ten twenty thirty pages at a stretch and
then take a little break or something. Now it's like
(30:20):
a page and a half, and I find myself.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Like distracted or strolling.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Combine that with the rates of anxiety and depression that
we're seeing society.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Why are we like, why are we wrong?
Speaker 9 (30:35):
Well, you could combine that with the rate of baggy
pants Ryan, and you would find also a correlation that doesn't.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Mean those things actually skinnier in that skinny pants.
Speaker 9 (30:49):
So what I would caution people against is making these
broad based sort of conclusions.
Speaker 8 (30:52):
We actually had quite literally.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Distracted from the book to like, look at my baggy pants.
Speaker 9 (30:58):
Well, distracted you are, but you are making that correlation
that just does not exist in research. And we have
the top the top, top top researchers, people like Candice Oders,
who wrote a great piece for The Atlantic on this
exact topic, Alice Marwick, like people that have studied this
issue in depth for years and years and years coming
out and saying, hey, we actually do know the cause
(31:21):
of some of these broader issues anxiety, all of these
other things We know those causes and they're not related
to phones. There is no correlation between those things, and
it is just a fact based on the research that
we have that that is just not a sort of
a clear correlation. That's not to say that Ryan, Oh gosh,
(31:42):
you have to read her piece. It's kind of long
and I don't want to mess it up, but all
sorts of things. I mean, one in six kids is
growing up below the poverty line, like I don't know,
just all of these other things that kids are dealing with,
Like they're growing up in a pretty stressful world and
they're told just the way that I was told that
video games were, you know, destroying our lives. Back in
(32:03):
you know, when I was growing up, we had the
video games sort of panic where people were like, oh,
these kids spend hours and hours on the video games.
It's destroying their mental health, it's making them violent. Like
we've seen these moral panics play out over and over
and over again. That doesn't mean that that doesn't mean
that everyone has a healthy relationship with their phone, and
you shouldn't worry. What we know is that the way
that you are can often inform your behavior. So if
you are already depressed and you go down a rabbit
(32:25):
hole that can exacerbate it or whatever. But it is
sort of like it is more a symptom rather than
the problem. And when we're treating it as the problem
rather than the symptom of the problem, we don't ever
get to address the sort of core issues. And often
and there are core issues that sort of lead to
these mental health issues among children. And again that does
not mean that they should be able to sit on
(32:46):
the cell phones all day. But what I would say
is a lot of this moral panic is tied to content.
So you'll see these people saying like they're going to
sit on TikTok all day, right, They're going to sit
in class all day like on TikTok. And the concern
is more about the content and the sort of villainizing
of short form video content.
Speaker 6 (33:04):
We a I don't disagree with you because you've shared
a subsect that's been going pretty viral, I think from
somebody who disagrees with you, and a lot of different things.
And someone had sent that to me separately as well,
And it's about how the argument is that these bands
are a way to shoehorn sort of content bands, and
I don't actually disagree that that's probably the case with
(33:25):
some people, that it's kind of a gateway to age
verification laws and certain things that do genuinely encroach on
CIVI liberties and creativity and freedom and all of that.
I wanted to get your take though on I mean,
I'm looking at I've three studies pulled up, one from
plus one, one from Scientific Reports, and this other one
is from.
Speaker 9 (33:45):
I just want to say, before you pull up any studies,
we have to look at the body of research, and
we have to look at how and I can't speak
to these specific studies, sure, but what I would say
is that all of the top researchers on this topic,
this specific topic got to gather last year and issued
an eighty two page report serving the overwhelming amount of
sort of studies on this topic and debunked this a
(34:09):
lot of misleading studies pushed by this man, Jonathan Height,
which is sort of the most popular person.
Speaker 6 (34:15):
I'm not even going to get into Height. Here's the
other one. Here's from the Journal of Association for Consumer Research.
And I'm not I mean, I'm not an expert on this,
so I'm just saying these are studies, not about anxiety
or any of that. This is a study that shows
and this is particular to the phone ban issue. I
think it's it's salient separately that showed the kind of
brain drain phenomenon. I think we all probably feel this intuitively,
or maybe you disagree, which is that as you're doing studies,
(34:37):
even having a phone near you, even if it's like
flipped down, reduces cognitive capacity. And so in the question
of whether or not it's proper for a school district
to say we're locking these guys up in yonder pouches
from the beginning of the school day to the end
of the school day, it seems to me that addresses
the very specific question of whether kid's cognitive capacity is
harmed while they're learning because they on their backpack.
Speaker 9 (35:00):
Yeah, but like these studies are so dubious, Like often
these are industries like or they're funded by people with
specific political agendas like et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 6 (35:09):
You also have to consider that about the big tech
funded studies that go in the other direction.
Speaker 9 (35:13):
But there's tons of non big tech funded studies. And
again you have to look at the overwhelming body of
research and the overwhelming body of research.
Speaker 6 (35:20):
Simply cognitive capacity question. What about the cognitive capacity question.
Speaker 9 (35:24):
The cognitive capacity question is is a good question. But
here's the thing that you have to consider. All of
these school districts are different. And this is again I'm
not saying that this means kids can be on their
phone all day in class. I'm just against these laws
where certain places you put the phone away, but you're
on a laptop. You're on a really high functioning, great laptop,
and that's totally fine, and you're sort of connected. A
(35:45):
lot of school districts, the phone is the only word
processor people have. When you start to block them away,
you're you know, fifteen percent of kids are disabled. A
lot of kids use these as learning aids. And I
know that's hard to believe, but a lot of times
the phone is the only sort of computer that kids
have in school. And we haven't even gotten into this yet.
But because of big tech lobbying and other things we
(36:06):
have had, and because we just are trying to prepare
kids for the modern world, we have integrated technology into
every part of the learning process, and so sort of
and our lives and sort of sort of take this
one piece away without addressing and without having any funding.
These laws don't come with like funding initiatives or whatever
to fix the broader infrastructure. It sort of just leaves
(36:27):
kids less prepared. I would also say, we want to
teach kids restraint and control. We want to teach kids.
What we don't want is for them to go off
when they're eighteen to college and not know how to
self regulate their own technological use.
Speaker 8 (36:41):
Right.
Speaker 9 (36:41):
We want to give them a safe environment where there
are guardrails, where they're not allowed to sit on the
phone all day long, but where we can teach them restraint.
Otherwise it's you're just prolonging the inevitable. Because phones, as
much as this political effort is trying, are not going
to be banned from public life hopefully anytime soon for
adult and or the workplace. And so we want to
(37:05):
encourage a healthy relationship.
Speaker 8 (37:07):
With tech, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
It always has struck me as odd that schools are
filled with all of these different electronic devices and they
focus on this one thing.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
It's still on the other hand, you.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Don't think there's so what from your perspective, what do
the studies say about the effect of screens on developing
brains and on.
Speaker 9 (37:31):
Kids Yeah, well there's that's a big there's a big question,
right because you have, like if you talk about screens
on developing brains, like you don't want to put a
one year old in front of a screen like YouTube all.
Speaker 8 (37:41):
Day or something.
Speaker 9 (37:42):
But overwhelmingly, I mean, I think Candice Dodgers has really
just been the best and I encourage people to seek
out her work Aunt Alice Marwick. These are two brilliant
researchers that have really spoken about this at length. But
this idea of like screen time and the panic over
screen time is just very imprecise, and the reason that
the studies don't show anything is because it completely depends
(38:02):
what your screen time is. You could be using your
screen time to consume content that is making you feel
bad or something, or you could be using your screen
time to text your friends and be creative and make
creative work.
Speaker 8 (38:15):
We want people to do the latter.
Speaker 9 (38:17):
We want to teach kids to use their phone in
healthy and creative ways. And when we tell the kids,
especially when the primary way that kids use their phone
is through texting, the primary way that kids use social
media is actually dming with each other, It's not scrolling
the feed. Adam Massari came out and even said that,
So we don't want to villainize communication. We want kids
to stay in healthy, productive communication with each other and
(38:40):
not bully each other, and have positive experiences with each
other and have social interaction, especially queer kids, kids that
are from marginalized groups who rely on these online connections
a lot more than other kids. But we just want
to give them a healthy way to do that and
teach them boundaries. And the best way to do that
is to teach it to them when they're young, not
to completely ban devices until they turn eighteen and then
(39:03):
it's a complete free for all. It's just that that's
not an effective way to teach anybody a healthy media consumption.
Speaker 6 (39:09):
What about parents who let me try this one out.
What about parents who say they don't actually they don't
give their kids phones. They don't want their kids to
have phones. They worry, they read the studies differently, they
have different perspective on it, and they don't want their
kids to be exposed to phones at all. So the
bands then allow those parents to allow their kids to
have a phone free childhood without them getting shown something
(39:30):
in between classes that actually, from the content perspective, may
be harmful. Maybe take your example of maybe it's a
queer kid and someone shows something on the phone between
classes that is harmful to their mental health, and their
parents want to be able to prevent that. How would
why not allow parents to let their kids, let make
(39:50):
that decision for their own kids because they control that
between classes.
Speaker 9 (39:54):
No, but what I would say is that you should
be careful with that decision. We know actually that the
mental the health of kids that have the smartphone sooner
is actually more positive, Like they have better mental health
because they're able to get in touch with friends. And ironically,
it's also been found that like, poor kids have access
to phones much more easily than richer kids, so it's
not explained by you know, income, and that is because
(40:16):
they're able to keep in touch with friends. You know,
there's a study that came out that recently found that
as well that like kids actually spent more time outside
with you know, with friends because they were able to
make plans. So you want kids to be able to
communicate with friends. This idea of this like phone free childhood. Again,
we live in a world. I know that there's these
political efforts the people that are selling the phone free
(40:38):
childhood idea. They're also pushing a lot of other reactionary
political efforts that would censor adult adults from content too.
They want to go to a world before phones and
before the Internet, and I admit to that mean and well, guys,
let me tell you there's a lot of bad about
the Internet. And I've written about bullying, and trust me,
(40:58):
I am no one is saying. I just have to
reiterate this again that you should have unmitigated access to
your cell phone all day when you're thirteen years old.
You have to teach healthy internet use. But we live
in the world and if you want your kids to
be competitive, and if you want your kids to be
able to function and have a job and make it
through college, you do need to teach them these skills.
And I understand the fights that come with it. But
(41:19):
the way that we can fight these addictive you know, algorithms,
and I think the problems that a lot of people
have with the phones in terms of the content is
through comprehensive data privacy reform. You want less addictive algorithms,
you want less predatory apps, you want less control of
big tech, and more nonprofit driven online spaces that are
about community join me in advocating for privacy laws and
(41:41):
data privacy specifically, we will never get those laws these
if this political effort to ban the phones and age
restrict everything is successful, because and let me just say
one other thing, at the same time that they are
banning phones, they are, you know, doing these schools are
doing partnerships with surveillance software companies that will do facial
(42:04):
recognition to determine who's allowed to be on campus and
who's not. Harvesting detailed biometric data on children, like all
of this stuff that could have significantly worse consequences for
them down the line.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
So, yeah, I saw a couple of months ago you
write about those studies that you just reference, and that
was one of the first times where I was like, oh,
this is this is kind of interesting. You did a
piece about how the studies were showing that kids that
didn't have access to phones at all, like had worse
mental health outcomes.
Speaker 6 (42:34):
But that's also the collective action, right, because if you
need to have a cell phone to make plans with
your friend, it's because exactly and you're the only one.
Speaker 9 (42:41):
That will do right, right, So and I think there's
a balance. I just think there's a balance here, and
I just think before we jump to laws that will
be enforced by campus police officers, we should have a
more balanced discussion of what we're trying to achieve and
what the realistic trade offs are, because there are realistic
trade offs here, you know, not to mention the problems
(43:02):
with parents and shift work and school. You know, there's
just so many down the line.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
Well, so from your perspective, final question, what should what
should parents do?
Speaker 8 (43:10):
Oh god?
Speaker 9 (43:12):
I think it depends on the type of school that
you have, and it depends on your child's educational environment
and who your child is and how they're using their phone.
I am against like, I am against you know again,
just like giving your kid completely unsupervised internet time and
unsupervised phone time forever. Obviously you want to slowly introduce
And the reason I was talking in the first place
for free about like child you know protection software is
(43:35):
because it sort of allows parents to have a little
bit more control over their kids online experience. I think
it's good to introduce kids to phones. I think having restrictions,
parental restrictions, taking it away during certain times the day,
teaching them moderation and how to work with phones and
use their phone in a healthy way and communicate in
a healthy way. It's helpful and just that's that's brought
up the Internet. That's the other thing is that like
(43:57):
these phone conversations are going to be irrelevant. Kids have
app watches, smart glasses. The Internet is getting more and
more integrated into every part of our life. We're gonna
have wearables soon. So we have to we have to
help kids have this healthy relationship with the Internet while
they're still young.
Speaker 6 (44:11):
Ryan is an elder millennial. But as junior.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
School during the beeper thing, and yeah, it was like
pitched about drug dealers and it's like kind of drug dealers,
like getting pinged in class about.
Speaker 6 (44:24):
But I was just gonna say, as a junior millennial,
my high school was cut in half by the smartphone.
And I'm fully, fully concede to being part of a
moral panic, and the swimmer probably could seem to be
a moral planic. I'm a much much different side of
this than you are, a tailor, But we appreciate you
coming here and making the case and allowing us to
have this discussion.
Speaker 9 (44:41):
Yeah, thank you for having me and please don't please
don't destroy me online. I'm just trying to add a
little nuance to tell people, tell people where they can
find your work.
Speaker 8 (44:50):
Yeah, I'm on YouTube at Taylor Lorenz.
Speaker 9 (44:53):
I have a series called free Speech Friday where I
talk about civil liberties concerns and tech policy. So I
talk about this stuff specifically, and I'm everywhere else, just
at Taylor Lorenz.
Speaker 6 (45:01):
Well, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 8 (45:03):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Slightly different kind of segment here, we have new reporting
from drop site on the ground in Serbia from journalists there.
Let's just go ahead and roll this today.
Speaker 11 (45:58):
Name This is the Novi Sad railway station in Serbia,
built in nineteen sixty four. After a recent renovation, it
(46:20):
was officially reopened in July twenty twenty four. Just a
few months later, on November one, twenty twenty four, at
eleven fifty two am, a concrete canopy weighing over three
hundred tons collapsed, killing a total of sixteen people. Following
the renovation, the station building had neither an occupancy permit
(46:44):
nor a completed technical inspection. The initial estimate for the
works was three million euros. In the end, the cost
rose to sixteen million. The station was renovated as part
of the construction of the high speed railway from Belgrade
to the Hungarian border, a project of national importance carried
(47:06):
out under a Serbia China agreement. In Serbia, such deals
are commonly made behind closed doors. In the aftermath of
the tragedy, the investor, Chinese partners, Serbian Railways and President
Alexander Vutich all stated that the collapsed canopy had not
(47:27):
been part of the reconstruction. It would later emerge that
each of these claims was false. Modifications to the canopy
had in fact been carried out. In the first days
following the collapse. Those responsible were largely neither detained nor
held in custody, with most released pending trial or allowed
(47:51):
to remain under house arrest. Fifteen days after the tragedy,
Tributes to the victims begin across Serbia, held every Friday
at eleven fifty two a m. Twenty two days after
the collapse, Students were resulted by officials and members of
the ruling party while paying tribute in front of a
(48:12):
university building in Belgrade. The protests swell in size in
the days that follow. Students initiate blockades at the more
than sixty universities and colleges across the country to the public.
This marks a completely unexpected response from a student population
(48:33):
long seen as apathetic and disengaged from politics. The students
advocate for the rule of law, the fight against corruption,
strong institutions, and respect for the legal system. They demand accountability.
They distanced themselves from political parties and refuse to meet
(48:54):
with the president, stating that their demands do not fall
under his constitution authority, but under the jurisdiction of other institutions.
They receive support from the public in Serbia as well
as from students in neighboring countries of the former Yugoslavia.
Decision making within the movement is based on the principles
(49:17):
of direct democracy. Resolutions are adopted at general assemblies by
a majority vote of those present. Every voice can be heard,
every proposal can be put to a vote. As they
occupy their university buildings, students put forward an initial set
of four demands. First, they call for the full release
(49:41):
of all documentation related to the reconstruction of the Novisad
railway station, records that are currently unavailable to the public. Second,
they demand that the relevant authorities confirm the identities of
those suspected of physically assaulting students and and the criminal
(50:01):
proceedings be launched against them, along with the dismissal if
the whole public office. Third, they called for all charges
against arrested or detained students to be dropped and for
all ongoing criminal proceedings against them to be halted. Fourth,
they demand a twenty percent increase in the budget for
(50:24):
public universities.
Speaker 12 (50:28):
The promenium system provis put an Establian Sastran and nemains sees.
What is necaska and doc Ludiki the Augusta the malt
(50:57):
student rosa to Grajani a solid sour skin in Svens
with students gradia huge and it's professor. Well, corruption in
this society, in our country is so deep it reached
all the way down to dinosaurs.
Speaker 13 (51:19):
How could you translate up in English adding the positive energy,
don't stuff and don't lower attention.
Speaker 14 (51:33):
Yeah, prouded door, let me.
Speaker 10 (52:00):
That's is Nusta hochs in St. Maka atomic. There's a.
Speaker 6 (52:09):
Almost believes the NFL not.
Speaker 11 (52:15):
Loyal students organize gatherings in multiple cities across Serbia, reaching
them through multi day protest marches, which, as many have said,
(52:36):
in some ways sent a pulse through the country.
Speaker 6 (52:51):
Let's just stop before only go amoti Anamlica.
Speaker 10 (52:56):
You put it a little what.
Speaker 6 (53:02):
You said, no I say, can I say? You set
you to what you will?
Speaker 12 (53:07):
That before the speak.
Speaker 8 (53:17):
Someone for.
Speaker 10 (53:44):
You said, Nico enough spin is actor is actor.
Speaker 8 (53:59):
Friend of.
Speaker 12 (54:06):
Ernan over that on Babila servil to office.
Speaker 15 (54:14):
That miss that's Hime eloquently millionaire.
Speaker 6 (54:29):
Mother Prasco Privilegia.
Speaker 11 (54:46):
President Vootage has ruled Serbia for thirteen years. While the
country is formally on the path toward European integration, Vootage
continues to cultivate ties with both Moscow and Beijing. His
rule is described by the Serbian opposition as increasingly authocratic.
Serbia remains one of the few countries that has not
(55:09):
imposed sanctions on Russia, even as negotiations over the status
of costsover continue are the close international supervision. Meanwhile, Serbian
ammunition is being sent to both Ukraine and Israel. The
European Commission has included the lithium mining project in Serbia,
(55:29):
led by the company Rio Tinto, among the projects of
strategic importance for the European Union. There is a growing
sense that Vutich enjoys the backing of all major world powers, who,
preoccupied with their own crisis, pay little more than lip
service to concerns of a Serbian's internal political situation.
Speaker 13 (55:51):
Sati stud easily nilotic.
Speaker 6 (56:11):
Yeah kill met I thought more?
Speaker 8 (56:20):
Or this is the tooth.
Speaker 11 (56:21):
At the end of November twenty twenty four, during a
commemoration for the victims of the Novi Sad tragedy, an
incident occurred in the town of Pagas.
Speaker 9 (56:32):
Do have some more?
Speaker 7 (56:33):
What's the queer automobile?
Speaker 4 (56:35):
Who concious?
Speaker 7 (56:38):
This is town and.
Speaker 15 (56:41):
Boy but always in ademptied approaches.
Speaker 4 (56:44):
You choy approach. The teams catches automobile. It catches who
haves it to talk to automobile Stree Norman.
Speaker 11 (57:06):
In late January, after four young men emerged from the
offices of Vootige's party in Novi Sad and fractured a
female student's jaw in three places using baseball bats, Serbian
Prime Minister Miloshvuvich submitted his resignation. Just over three months later,
(57:27):
President Vutich referred to those same party members as heroes
and later pardoned them. Vootige and members of his ruling
party labeled the protesters as foreign paid agents, accusing them
(57:47):
of working on behalf of outside powers to overthrow both
the government and the state.
Speaker 7 (58:00):
Who politics quat team slugamma only quiz of Telida propalymla
propa only to us salems with.
Speaker 11 (58:16):
In their pursuit of justice, the students visited European institutions,
cycling for thirteen days to Strasbourg and then running a
relay Ultramarthon for eighteen days to Brussels. On March fifteenth,
(58:38):
the largest gathering in Serbia's history took place in Belgrade,
with some three hundred thousand people responding to a call
from the student movement. During the event, some form of
sonic weapon was reportedly used, a claim supported by testimonies
from over three thousand citizens. The government denied all such allegations,
(59:03):
dismissing the public's reaction as staged and orchestrated.
Speaker 15 (59:08):
Nico near primetio n top basically slip nico toristio premation
watch of Isabelagian documental.
Speaker 11 (59:27):
And just today after this statement, a photograph surfaced showing
a police vehicle equipped with an l R A D
four fifty x l acoustic device in front of the
Serbian Parliament during the protest. The Minister of Internal Affairs
then offered an explanation.
Speaker 4 (59:49):
On catastroposlas. This is a test of a long range
acoustic device helped.
Speaker 11 (01:00:01):
Them as their original demands remain unmet After six months
of protest. On May fifth, the students issue a new
demand early elections in Serbia. They state they will not
run as candidates themselves, but will vote on a candidate
(01:00:21):
list through their general assemblies. Meanwhile, repression against dissent in
Serbia is intensifying. There are political arrests and persecutions, widespread
surveillance raids on civil society organizations, and the expulsion of
foreign nationals.
Speaker 4 (01:01:01):
Right, that'll do it for us today.
Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
You around on Friday, I'm around on Friday, year around
on Friday.
Speaker 4 (01:01:05):
I'll be here on Friday, but.
Speaker 6 (01:01:07):
I think we're off Monday. I think the show's off
Monday because it's Labor Day weekend.
Speaker 4 (01:01:10):
So that is correct, So no show money.
Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
So you really got to be there for Friday if
you want the whole show on Friday, not just the
first half. At Breakingpoints, dot Com become a premium member
supports everything we do here. I've also been arguing that
we should do the Friday show live for premium members, right,
because why not?
Speaker 4 (01:01:27):
Like we got nothing to hide.
Speaker 6 (01:01:29):
The sneakest thing Ryan does is just talk about some
of our internal discussions on air so that he can
then use viewer feedback to people.
Speaker 4 (01:01:39):
We're demanding it now.
Speaker 6 (01:01:40):
People are crying out for the Taylor Swift segment, but no,
I think live would be fun. We don't really edit
it anyway.
Speaker 4 (01:01:47):
No, this just goes up.
Speaker 6 (01:01:48):
Although sometimes our DM's open when we share our Twitter.
Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
Yeah, that's got to be honest. We just got a
better opsec, like do what Griffin does, which is log out.
Speaker 6 (01:01:58):
Yes, we can all learn from well, So we'll be
here Friday. Maybe we'll because we'll be off Monday, shove
some extra stuff in so great to make up for
being off on Labor Day. So maybe we'll do that.
Make sure that you're subscribed over at Breakingpoints dot com.
But other than that, Chrystlin Soccer will be here tomorrow.
(01:02:18):
We'll be with them or some combination of them Friday.
And if you if you're not there Friday, you got
to be there Friday. But if you're not, we'll see
you back here next Wednesday's right, see you then,
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