December 12, 2022 • 50 mins
On her other tech podcast There Are No Girls on the Internet, Bridget explored how Elon Musk keeps trying to make fetch happen with the “Twitter Files,” by releasing internal Twitter emails about content moderation decisions on the platform before he took over as CEO.
But here’s why it’s not the bombshell he says it is.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
So this week Elon Musk announced what he was calling
the Twitter Files, where he gave internal Twitter documents and
emails to journalist Matt Taiebee and op ed author Barry
Weis to supposedly drop some bombshells into Twitter's content moderation
policies before he took over the helm. But the whole
thing was pretty underwhelming, and on my other podcast there
(00:23):
Are No Girls on the Internet, I broke down all
the reasons why I felt like the whole thing was
just a big stunt, and I wanted to share it
here with Internet hate machine listeners too. I should add
that Musk has teased that more of these jobs are
to come, so we shall see if anything more substitutive
ends up being revealed. There Are No Girls on the Internet.
(00:46):
As a production of My Heart Radio and unbost Creative,
I'm Bridget Todd and this is there Are No Girls
on the Internet. So it has been a wild couple
of weeks at Twitter since Elon Musk took over, and
to talk through all of it, I'm joined with my
producer Michael Almado. Mike, thanks for being here, Bridget, thanks
(01:08):
for having me back. What is a pleasure So This
might come as a surprise to you. I try pretty
hard not to talk about Elon Musk too much on
the podcast, uh, from being in meetings and calls and
stuff with you to make the show. That's probably surprising
to you because I know that you know, I have
a lot of feelings and thoughts and opinions about Elon Musk. Yeah,
(01:32):
he's pretty hard to avoid these days. It's true, and
I guess I feel, you know, when making the show.
The reason why I try to limit how much I
talk about him is because I just don't think it's
really helpful to report on or respond to every little
thing that someone who clearly wants attention says or does.
(01:52):
I feel like I learned this the hard way. When
Musk was first talking about buying Twitter, you and I
rushed to put out an emergency episode. We stopped what
we were doing. It was like a stop the press moment.
And you know, after that episode ran, I think it
was like months and months and months and months and
months until he actually bought Twitter. And during that time,
it will be like he would say, oh, the deal
is off, and everybody would rush to report on it
(02:15):
and respond, and then it would be like Oh, the
deal's back on, and everyone would rush to report on
that and respond. And I think it's a strategy that
people like Musk employ that allows for them to set
the tone. And it's just I don't think that being reactive,
always reacting to the things that they say, every little
move they make, is the most helpful mode to be
(02:35):
in because I think ultimately it really serves them in
setting the agenda and capturing attention, which is clearly something
they want. Yeah, I think it's a useful strategy for
people like him and like Trump. Uh. And I think
also it's a useful strategy that just happens to align
with their own personal UH needs to constantly be the
(02:58):
center of attention and to constantly control the narrative and
have people, you know, jumping and reacting to what they
say to fill that void where other people feel love. Yikes,
just coming at the gate with a one to punch
on Musk's inability to feel love. Okay, Wow, damn, we're
(03:20):
off to a good start off to the races. Sorry,
that wasn't my intention that. It's just it's it's been
a real evolution for me the last couple of weeks
about him, But that's that's not what this episode is about.
I don't mean to distract. I mean it might be
a little bit right. And so again I try really
hard to to avoid just reacting to things that that
is little stunts, because people who pull stunts, they want
(03:41):
you to react, they want you to respond. But this
past weekend something happened that really felt like a direct
hit to my work and a direct direct kind of
I feel like, you know, um, if you watch Housewives,
when Kenya Moore says, don't come from me unless I
send for you, I feel sent for as Kenya Moore
(04:01):
would say, And he brought up something that I actually
have quite a bit of personal experience on and I
felt kind of compelled to talk about on this podcast. Yeah,
I know you do have a lot of experience in
this area, and you don't talk about it on the
show much. And so the fact that you, I think,
felt so compelled to say something about it really speaks
to that that feeling of being called so you know,
(04:27):
speak it. Let's here. So what's going on? Well, this
past weekend, Elon Musk tweeted that he'd given internal Twitter
documents to journalists, Matt Taibi, calling it the Twitter files.
To be clear, that's what Elon Musk is like branding
it as I'm not going to be calling it that
because I'm not going to be just you know, doing
(04:49):
his work for him and running with this little branded
thing that he's trying to make happen for him. Um,
but that's what he is calling it. He was very
excited about this. He was t sing it all weekend.
He tweeted, what really happened with the Hunter Biden story?
Suppression by Twitter will be published on Twitter at five pm.
This will be awesome popcorn emoji, right, And so this
(05:11):
is someone who is really drumming up excitement about something
they think is going to be big. He finally got
the opportunity to come up with his own nickname, and
he's so excited for everybody to hear about it. You
can just tell how excited this dude is to be
trying to make this happen, Like he's trying to make
that ch happen. He is all in this is this
(05:33):
is his thing. So to to talk about what's in
this report, let's back up a little bit. The report
appeared to show intertal debate at Twitter about how the
platform should handle the content of a report on the
laptop that was alleged to belong to President Biden's son,
Hunter Biden, that was reported initially by The New York Post.
You probably recall this story if you were in the
(05:55):
United States and paying attention to domestic politics on the
presidential election. Um, Hunter Biden has dealt with addiction issues,
and this laptop purported to show evidence of all this
unseemly behavior on the part of President Biden's sun Hunter,
I should say, and it's not clear to me how
this laptop was obtained if it was actually Hunter Biden's laptop,
(06:18):
and thus there was a lot of confusion around how
folks could you know, responsibly report on it or talk
about it. Yeah, that's I remember that obviously. Uh. And
I I feel compelled to remind everybody that the reason
we know about this Hunter Biden laptop story, which you know,
maybe it was this laptop, maybe not, we don't really know.
You know, I did some research ahead of this show,
(06:40):
and like it's basically unverifiable. Uh, But the reason that
we know about it is because a concerned citizen brought
it to Rudy Giuliani, right, And I think that says
a lot if you think about the source of the
information being Rudy Giuliani. Earlier this morning, he was at
(07:00):
a hearing here in d C before the bar uh
phasing possible disbardment for his frivolous, ridiculous actions in the
contesting election, and his defense there was that he didn't
have the time to verify that the what he was
(07:21):
failing to court was accurate. And so if he's not gonna,
if he doesn't have the time to verify his legal briefings,
what are we to make of his everything else in
his life. I don't know. I'll just leave it there.
I don't mean to make the story about that, But
(07:41):
anything even connected to Rudy Giuliani, let alone originating with
Rudy Giuliantti, I feel it needs to be taken with
a pretty big grain assault. Are you trying to suggest
that when Rudy Giuliani is I'm a mix on something
is in the mix on something that it's not on
the up and up. If he's in the mix, God
help everyone. So you can sort of get an idea
(08:01):
as to like why there was a lot of skepticism
and confusion early on around this Hunter Biden laptop story,
and that confusion very much extended to social media platforms
like Twitter. Twitter staff independently decided to block posts about
the Hunter Biden laptop story and prevented people from sharing
the New York Post story in d MS, citing that
(08:23):
the content fell under its hacked Materials policy because at
the time, the thinking was that the content of the
laptop had been obtained through hacking. This decision was made
after a lot of internal debate at Twitter. Uh Tybe's
report shows a lot of back and forth internally at
Twitter about how to moderate tweets about this Hunter Biden
laptop story. Trent and Kidnedy, a Twitter communications official, wrote
(08:44):
an email, I'm struggling to understand the policy basis for
making for marking this as unsafe. H Kennedy advised that
the company should say that it is waiting to understand
whether the New York Post story was the result of
hacked material. I have to say, Twitter, it sounds like
they really aired on the side of caution here. Um,
you remember that White House spokesperson Kayleie McKinney her Twitter
account was locked for sharing a tweet with the laptop
(09:06):
story in it. Um, Twitter took a lot of heat
about this with conservatives who said that this was evidence
that Twitter and big tech in general was biased against
them as conservatives. Uh. Then Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey spoke
about the backlash publicly saying, we made a quick interpretation,
using no other evidence, that the material in the article
were obtained through hacking, and according to our policy, we
(09:28):
blocked them from being spread. Upon further consideration, we admitted
this action was wrong and corrected it within twenty four hours. Um.
And so again you really see this sort of messy
nitty gritty of this company having to decide in real
time how they were going to moderate this story that
they could not verify and didn't know its origins, and
at a time when everybody was was felt the same way,
(09:50):
like they were not alone in that thinking. So I
guess the question might be like, was this the right call?
I honestly could not tell you. This is like way
above I pay grade. But I do think that reasonable
people could and do disagree with whether or not Twitter
should have allowed that report about the laptop to be
on the platform. But I will say that it seems
(10:12):
like fairly new ground for a platform to have to
sort out, you know, this kind of situation that is
so potentially sensitive. Right, so I can understand why there
was some debate about it. I can understand why folks
internally disagreed, why folks externally disagreed. It's really kind of
new territory for a platform to have to sort out.
(10:34):
And the emails really reflect that that there was a
lot of what seems like healthy discourse about how they
should best proceed. Right, So there's two different things. Right.
You can disagree with the conclusion that they came to
to moderate the content, which maybe that was the right decision,
maybe not, depending on your point of view, but to
take some time and like have a discussion about whether
(10:56):
it should be moderated, Like, there can be absolutely nothing
wrong with that, right, Like they had a discussion about it.
Just the act of discussing it is not, in itself
anything nefarious, and to eat to suggest that it is
is really disingenuous. Well, enter the big Elon Musk bombshell
(11:16):
that he dropped. It's gonna change, It's going to change everything.
Nothing will ever be the same. So get this. So
get this. If you're driving, pull over because it's gonna
be it's gonna blow your mind. I don't want I
want you to be safe. Before Joe Biden was elected,
his campaign staff flagged tweets containing sexually explicit images of
(11:40):
Hunter Biden for the Twitter staff, and those tweets were removed.
I know, I know, cancel the constitution. That's it. It
America is over. So in an email from a Twitter
employee from it included six links to tweets and the
(12:01):
line more to review from the Biden team, the employee wrote,
Another Twitter worker replied handled these. Interestingly enough, Tibe's reporting
did not show the Biden team contacting Twitter over the
initial reporting about the laptop. It was the tweets containing
sexually explicit photos that they were raising an objection over.
So when the first New York Post story dropped with
(12:24):
a laptop, Biden's team did not reach out. It was
the images with Hunter Biden, you know, nude, that they
were objecting to. Tybe shared five tweets that that the
Biden campaign flagged. Four of those still have archives available online,
and they did include nude images of Hunter Biden. So
these images were already pretty clearly in violation of Twitter's
(12:45):
rules around non consensual explicit images, which specifically prohibits sharing
images or video that are taken in an intimate setting
and not intended for public distribution. Not to mention, state
law in California, where Twitter is based, all so outlaws
sharing non consensual explicit images. So essentially, this huge bombshell
(13:07):
that Elon Musk has presented us is that Twitter was
following their pretty clear guidelines about removal of non consensual
nude images and like complying with with California state law. Yeah,
and the breathless tweet revealing that, you know, did not
include any of that context. You know, it's just like,
here's links to four tweets that were removed, of course,
(13:31):
like smoke and mirrors, suggesting that something more nefarious was
going on exactly. So Elon Musk, after this bombshell revelation
was dropped, he tweeted, if this isn't a violation of
the Constitution's First Amendment, what is now? First of all,
Biden was not a government official at the time. He
was still campaigning, right, and so it's not really clear
(13:53):
to me how that would be a violation of the
First Amendment, which we know regulates how government's control speech.
But you know what I or honestly, who at this
point expects Elon Musk to be either getting or making
these kinds of distinctions at this point, right. And so
Musk and Taibi say that this was evidence that Twitter
was in the bag for the Democratic Party and the left. Uh,
(14:14):
they did not provide any evidence of this, but Taibi says, quote,
this system wasn't balanced. And if you're wondering why he
thinks that, well, it's because he says the majority of
Twitter's employees are Democrats. How do you know, because Twitter's
team has greater campaign contributions to Democrats over Republicans. So,
(14:36):
as someone who has done this work for the majority
of my adult life, this is an absolutely wild conclusion
to jump to for many many reasons that I want
to talk about after this quick break and we're back.
(15:02):
We were talking about Elon Musk and Matt Taiebee dropping
this bombless bombshell about what they say is evidence of
Twitter and big tech being in the bag for the
Democratic Party and the left. And I have to say,
as someone who has done this work, it's just a
really out there conclusion to jump to. First, of all,
(15:26):
social media platforms, having a direct line of communication with
political leaders is one normal and that is the case
for all major social media platforms. Facebook has them, Instagram
has them, Snapchat has them. It is totally a normal
commonplace thing, you know. I have done that work professionally,
(15:47):
both from the platform side and the advocacy side. When
I worked at the social media platform Medium, I was
essentially the person on the political team whose job it
was to make in roads and connections with political leaders
and activists and thought leaders on the left. You know,
they could reached out to me with issues and questions, etcetera.
There was also a counterpart to this work on the
(16:07):
right who did the same thing as me, but within
the Republican Party. Um. It was actually like a very
fulfilling and interesting job. We had lots of like spirited
discussions and debates about content on our team that actually
remind me quite a bit of like the internal emails
that we saw from this reporting. It's also fun fact
why I attended they seen Republican National Convention and got
(16:30):
to watch Trump officially accept the nomination for president in person,
which is a story for another day. But part of
the advocacy work that I do now involves communicating with
platforms to hopefully help influence their content moderation decision making
to be less hostile toward marginalized people. Um. A lot
(16:50):
of the time that work looks like flat, like the
same thing that the Biden campaign was doing to the
Twitter folks, you know, flagging content that we think needs
to be removed. A lot of times it's like faked,
demeaning misogynistic images of women, women of color, elected officials
like AOC for removal being like, oh, um, actually this
image that purports to show a misogynistic crew drawing of AOC.
(17:16):
We think this might violate your guidelines. Can you please
remove it? Um? But we also have had some like
really good wins doing this work. You know. Earlier this year,
TikTok agreed to add dead naming and mis gendering to
their community guidelines. Um, we got YouTube to agree to
remove inaccurate information about abortion from their platform. Uh. So
it's it's like fulfilling work. I don't actually bring it
(17:40):
up a ton on the podcast, mostly because it's just
not that exciting, Like it's fairly mundane work, and it's
just yeah, it's just not exciting, you know, completely normal
and commonplace for folks in these positions to have a
direct line with folks at platforms. You know, we have
flag I have flag things for them that they that
they do not take down, you know. So it's not
(18:02):
like when you reach out and say, hey this is problematic,
or hey we believe this violates your your your community guidelines.
It's not a guarantee they're going to take it down.
But it's like that tedious work of relationship building for
us for a particular goal, and Musk trying to reframe
that work that so many people do that is totally
commonplace across platforms. Him trying to reframe that as somehow
(18:27):
nefarious or somehow a threat to our democracy is completely wild,
completely wild. Yeah, it really is, especially when you think
about the role of advocacy in a democracy and advocacy groups,
you know, making the case for their constituencies about issues
that they care about, policymakers trying to get policies put
(18:48):
in place. And you can tell from those emails that
the Twitter team was talking about their policies and how
did this fit within their policies that have been crafted
to describe this situations in which they would take action
to moderate uh. And even as I'm saying these words,
it sounds so boring, but it's so crucial because without that,
(19:09):
you end up with a situation that we have right now,
where everything is just, you know, whatever Elon Musk decides
about it. Right there's it's not clear what is and
is not allowed on Twitter these days, it's just by
executive fiat. And also all those fiats bring more attention
(19:29):
and news attention to him, which is a win win
for him. I'm so glad that you said that, because
a few weeks ago, I think it was Sam Harris
asked Elon on Twitter about whether or not he was
going to reinstate Alex Jones, and Alex Jones famously lies
about babies who were tragically shot and killed in Sandy
(19:51):
Hook and lies about their parents, and Elon Musk replied,
I will never allow him back on the platform because
I had a baby who died, and I held that
baby in my hands, and I know the heartbreak of
a grieving parent, and I actually think that that actually
was one of very few genuine statements about how Elon
Musk is planning on moderating Twitter if he can personally
(20:13):
identify with the group that he is making a moderation
decision around or based on I think that you will
get one thing if he cannot identify with them, if
he cannot put themselves, put himself in their shoes, or
see their experience in his own experience, He's I don't think.
I don't think it's going to be real to him.
(20:34):
And so I think that, to me was the first
honest assessment of how he plans to moderate the platform
is just based on what he personally likes or doesn't like,
what he personally can understand or can identify with or
see himself in or not. And so you know, he
is a white, straight, sis billionaire. I don't know that
(20:54):
he would be able to really see himself in the
experience of a trans person or a person of color
or a queer person or someone who's not a billionaire
and wants to start a union at their car factory,
right And so I think that really was a pretty
clear indication that exactly what you're saying, it's just whatever
Elon feels that's how we will be moderating. And I
don't think it's a great system, right, Like he is
(21:17):
someone who is going on and on about the need
to build transparency into moderation to restore trust. Let's start
with a little transparency around how he is going to
make moderation decisions. Yeah, and it's also a little bit
like a high school student quoting Voltaire about free speech.
When he's talking about transparency, I think he still thinks,
(21:38):
at least as like a couple of months ago, he
thought the transparency meant making all of Twitter's internal decisions
uh and algorithms uh, like open source so anybody could
read it, which is a terrible idea because that just
is like a blueprint for anyone who wants to abuse it.
And so it's this the spot of like reality where
(22:04):
there's like he has the high minded ideals of transparency
and free speech, which are virtuous and good things, but
to actually like implement them in the real world one
needs to have a thoughtful approach, and he lacks that
second part. It's like how all of his tweets with
(22:25):
Poles about what he should do for Twitter and moderation,
we're all accompanied by Latin, but then like getting the
Latin phrases wrong. It's like you kind of you're kind
of you almost have it. Like you you're you almost
have it, you almost had it. You you found the
Latin quote and you got the gist sort of and
(22:45):
so speaking of the kind of disingenuous nods to what
they're calling free speech. Uh. Musk really tried to frame
this report as a bombshell that show that Twitter is
suppressing the free speech of conservatives on the platform. But
Tibee's own reporting shows that the Trump administration, while Trump
(23:09):
was president, made the very same kind of requests as
the Biden campaign did, and at least some of those
requests were honored, right, And so there's not there's no
Tibee includes that that information. There isn't any more transparency
or any emails around what those requests would be. The
public is still just like left to wonder what the
what a sitting president was successfully able to get removed
(23:31):
from Twitter. Not not worth scrutiny, not worth this transparency
that Elon Musk says he wants to bring to moderation
on the platform. Musk said, quote, Twitter acting by itself
to suppress free speech is not a First Amendment violation,
but acting under orders from the government to suppress free
speech with no judicial review is. But then again, Tabee
(23:53):
himself said, quote, there's no evidence that I have seen
of any government involvement in the laptop story so true,
which is it like both of these things can't be correct.
It can't be that as Elon Musk says that that
Twitter was acting under orders from the government, and Tibi saying, actually,
after reviewing this, I saw no government involvement in the
suppression of this story. It doesn't it doesn't like something's
(24:15):
not heading up, the mates not lughing. Yeah, it's it's
almost like it's all just a big stunt and the
substance doesn't matter almost, And I think like this is why.
I mean, I I personally, this is just my opinion,
but I think it's really really irresponsible to release communications
that folks have had with Twitter over the years in
this way, you know. In doing this, Elon Musk also
(24:37):
released the personal email addresses of former Twitter CEO Jack
Dorsey and an elected official in this release not redacted,
just tweeted them out. Um. He did later say on
a spaces that he regretted this, but I think it
really shows what we're dealing with here. And so, you know,
I spent part of the weekend being like, well, geez
(24:58):
is I've have communications with Twitter officials like are they
gonna I don't want my information released. I just know
what can happen when you have someone who was addicted
to attention and stunts and sensitive information. It's it's it's
concerning to me. And you know, I'm not concerned because
(25:19):
I've ever had communications with Twitter that I would regret
or that I wouldn't want, you know, out there. But unfortunately,
I think that we are past the point of the
substance of what is being released being important at all.
And I think, I mean, I might say that the
first time that I really saw this happening for real
was around Hillary Clinton's emails, where it didn't really matter.
(25:44):
The substance of the emails didn't really matter, just the
reporting around them seemed to suggest, you know, nefarious behavior
just like by design, right, and so it was reported
as a bombshell, let's omoking gun all of that, when really,
if you look at it, you're like, well, what are
you what it actually is like newsworthy here? What actually
(26:07):
is the big bombshell here? And I think that we're
in this place where people, particularly online, can really drum
up a lot of fanfare around something and be like
this is gonna blow your fucking mind, and then it
doesn't really matter what's in it? Because if you look
at the reporting that Tayebee and Elon Musk did, nothing
(26:28):
in there is really new, right, Like the whole internal
debate around how Twitter should moderate the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Eventually they talked about it in public, Like that quote
that I read from Jack Dorsey was a public quote.
This is part of the public record already. So is
the is the bombshell reporting just that this presidential campaign
had had direct communication with someone at Twitter? That's also
(26:51):
common knowledge, Like anybody who has ever worked in social
media is aware of that. That's not a bombshell. So
if they're not actually reporting anything new, how can you
tweet about it in such a bombastic way that like, oh,
we are going to blow the lid off of this thing.
You know, I saw people reporting about it, like Jack
Procybia said, we will all remember where we were when
(27:13):
this one was reported. Like the breathlessness that people talked
about this for something that wasn't even any new information,
I think is really I'm gonna say, irresponsible. Yeah, it's
an excellent POI because the only thing that's new here
is sort of the salaciousness of the illusion of leaks, right,
(27:34):
Like Oh, there's some sort of secret emails that they
didn't want us to see. But that's obviously not the
case for like multiple reasons. One, like, the emails were
released by Twitter, right, there are emails by Twitter employees
that Twitter is releasing, so that's like not a leak.
And in the content of the emails that the people wrote,
(27:54):
it's clear that they expect these emails. Maybe they don't
expect the emails themselves to become public, but they clearly expect.
They are aware that there's intense scrutiny about how they
are moderating this issue, and uh, and they expect to
be called to account for it. And like you said, everything,
(28:16):
you know, all of the decisions they made are already
public record. Uh, and not because of some sort of
deep investigative journalism, but because Twitter like put out a
press release about it, and like said all the same things.
So the only thing new here is just the framing
as a leak that something inappropriate happened, But the actual
(28:36):
facts are completely unchanged, you know, Like you said, like,
what's the big reveal that that the Biden campaign didn't
want the candidates sons like naked photos published without his consent?
Like that, Yeah, they didn't want to cry a literal
sect crime to a car new Yeah, that's the only
(28:57):
thing new here, just the illusion and framing of salaciousness.
And I think that Ellen is doing this because he
is speaking to people who I think already feel aggrieved, right,
and so they he knows even if this isn't really anything,
nothing really new as being you know, talked about or reported,
that people that feel aggrieved are going to be like,
(29:20):
oh my god, mind blown. This is huge. Oh my god,
this this confirms my persecution complex that I have been
censored on Twitter. And I think that's exactly why he
is doing this, because he knows that all of this
sycophants and hangers on are going to amplify that claim
and be like, oh my god, huge reporting even though
nothing new is being reported. Here's how Representative James Comber
(29:43):
from Tennessee, here's what he had to say about this.
Or he's just beginning, Jason, because we're gonna have every
single person at Twitter that was involved in this in
front of the House Overside Committee as soon as possible.
So he's talking about like investigating and hauling people in
before a committee. I think that it really is a state,
(30:05):
a testament to the fact that we are not like
anybody can say anything and the substance of what it's
actually being said doesn't matter, because people who are already
predisposed to feel aggrieved and be on the side of like,
oh yeah, we're being censored, are going to circle the
wagons to make sure that that claim is amplified and
like treated with seriousness. Yeah, like truth doesn't exist. It's
(30:29):
all just framing and you know, winning the narrative. And
right now, if you Google or take to Twitter to
search her name, there are people talking about how the
Jaya God who was Twitter's former head of Legal policy
and trust at Twitter, the person who made kind of
moderation decisions and was the head of you know, combating
things like misinformation and hate speech, how she should be
(30:50):
arrested for her role in moderating content around the Hunter
Biden laptop story and quote rigging election for Biden. So
it's interesting how all of this I think it's it's
it's savvy on Elon's part because it feeds into this
like big lie that somehow somewhere the election was rigged
(31:11):
for Biden against Trump. Yeah, and you know, isn't it
convenient that they finally found a woman of color to
be the like poster child of this invented scandal. You know,
obviously it's a woman of color. And the other idea
in here is that this one singular event is what
(31:32):
ragged the election for Joe Biden. Right, Like, everybody still
knew about the Hunter Biden laptop. We're still talking about
it years later. You know, it's not like Twitter's decision
to not show those photos somehow killed the story and
nobody ever heard about it again. Right, So it's like
(31:53):
even the part that they're aggrieved about is just completely fabricated.
More of a quick break, let's get right back into it.
(32:14):
It is not surprising to me that a woman of color,
a brown girl, is at the center of this story.
There are memes on Twitter right now. It says Twitter
head of Legal Policy, I knowingly subverted your election process.
I did it with the intent to throw the election.
That makes that makes me guilty of treason under Article three,
Section three of the United States Constitution. Um, it's not
(32:37):
surprising to me that, like earlier today, I saw a
picture that had that was a explicit image of Hunter
Biden where they had doctored her head on the body
of another woman and they were involved in a sex act.
It's not surprising to me. I think that when you
talk about this kind of thing, and I know I
I beat this drum a lot. Misogyny and racism, it's
(33:00):
all linked, and when you talk about this kind of thing,
it is not surprising to me that, you know, the
fallout is not measured discourse. The fallout is talking about
arresting this woman and making crude memes of her that
are sexually explicit. Yeah, it's so sad and just like
the same old story of like once again, it's just
(33:25):
racism and misogyny finding new stories to turn into memes
to feed that same narrative exactly. And it has to
be said, I mean, I didn't want to bring them
up in this episode, but here I am. In response
to this reporting, Trump took to truth Social two advocate
(33:47):
for throwing out the constitution and throwing out the election results.
And so you know, if this whole thing was meant
to be a crusade around free speech, and it led
to Trump, who is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, being like, oh,
I'm coming out in favor of throwing up the Constitution.
(34:07):
The First Amendment is part of the Constitution, So like,
where where are all these like free speech crusaders who
are like trying to protect the free free speech to
the First Amendment When the presumptive Republican presidential nominee comes
out against just throwing the whole thing out because of
their reporting, it's a great question. It's almost like, you
know something, it's like selectively applies here but not there.
(34:32):
You know, today they care about the Constitution. Tomorrow let's
cancel it. I mean, I guess two Republicans credit not
many people like rallied around Trump's cry to cancel the Constitution.
Whatever that would mean. I wonder if part of this
whole thing is just like Ellen really being desperate to
try to like get in Trump's good graces, you think,
(34:54):
I mean, some of those some of those images he
was tweeting a couple of weeks back about him and
Trump were definitely an appeal to get into Trump's good graces.
I'll say, I'll just keep it at that. We can
move on. There were some good graces is the title
of a movie here? So yeah, there the I think
(35:17):
it's really scary how commonplace communications are being reframed as
indicative of like nefarious inappropriate behavior. And I also think
that it's confirmation bias at work. Some people on the right,
which at this point I think includes Elon Musk, already
believe that they are being censored on social media platforms.
(35:39):
A really interesting study by the Pew Research Center found
that of Republicans believe that their views are being censored,
and republicans or people who who lent republicans believe that
social media companies generally support the views of liberals over conservatives.
And so I think that, you know, it's this confirmation
bias at work, or anything, even something that is like
(36:03):
not anything can be used to confirm this previously held
opinion that they have. And Elon Musk repeatedly parents this
claim that Twitter has previously had an anti right wing
bias and thus quote the Twitter files is just another
part of that, you know. But there are entire bodies
(36:24):
of academic research that disapproved this time and time again.
Their studies from n y U, M I T that
debunk this claim that there is anti conservative bias on
social media platforms. It's just not a thing, right, And
so there was also a study done internally at Twitter
in the pre Elon Musk days after Trump was banned
from Twitter. The team was facing a lot of criticisms
(36:46):
saying that they were censoring the right, so they looked
into it. The internal research team at Twitter found that
folks on the right are actually amplified on Twitter, both
within the United States and globally. Our results reveal a
remarkably consistent trend. In six out of the seven countries studied,
the mainstream political right enjoys higher algorithmic amplification than the
(37:06):
mainstream political left. They've released a whole twenties, seven page report.
It is fascinating. And so here's my thing. Either Elon
Musk is woefully uninformed about the realities of quote right
wing bias at Twitter, or he's just lying to get
attention from right wing extremists. And that's really kind of
what bums me out. You know, there are entire bodies
(37:28):
of work and studies in school of thought dedicated to
answering all of these thorny complicated questions that are raised
by social media and how it is moderated right, but
Elon Musk is demonstrating time and time again that he
does not care about any of that because he thinks
that he knows better despite never having done this work before.
(37:48):
And I feel like everything in our culture is really
coalescing around confirming that he has some kind of special,
super special innate genius ability to understand in this stuff
as a now this more than people who have been
working on it for years and years. You know, in
his last few weeks, he came into Twitter and immediately
blew up verification, only to realize like, oh wait, verification
(38:13):
is actually important, and then walked back those plans to
blow up Verification. He said, oh, we don't need moderation,
and then Kanye West starts tweeting swastikas and he's like, wait,
actually we do need some moderation. Just kidding, guys, let's
bring in some moderation. He is learning the very same
lessons that every other social media platform, even the ones
(38:34):
like truth Social and Parlor that started by being these
fringe platforms that wanted to, you know, be free speech
zones or whatever. He is learning what every single social
media platform, including those French platforms, has learned, only he's
getting to the game years and years late. Yeah, I
think you're right. He's just like pretty uninformed about these things.
(38:56):
And you know, I think a generous interpretation of his
actions here is that he's bringing like a move fast
and break things kind of attitude to the way that
Twitter should do moderation. And I think that sort of
approach can work great for a little scrappy startups trying
(39:19):
to fight for a piece of market share to sell widgets.
But when you are making decisions about a cornerstone of society,
right like that like Twitter is, or at least was,
how people share information, and it's just like it's a
really important thing. And for him to just be making
(39:40):
these huge decisions and then days later be like, oops,
my bad, I guess that was wrong. It's just so
reckless and irresponsible. It's it's he should be ashamed, but
he certainly is not. Yeah, that's my thing is like
he should be embarrassed. I don't know that that is
(40:03):
a an emotion that he feels the way that you
or I might feel. A friend of mine, Justin Hendrix,
who is brilliant. He runs a great organization called Tech
Policy Press, which is they also have a podcast you
should definitely you should definitely listen to it. But he
works with students um, you know, teaching them about social media.
And whenever they the students are given like a thought
experiment about how they should run platforms, they always at
(40:25):
first or like we're gonna have no moderation. It's gonna
be whatever people want to do and they can self moderate,
and then immediately they're like, oh wait, that doesn't work.
So it's like starting at the one, like the thing
that like a one oh one student would suggest. That's
where Elon Musk is starting. But I don't feel like
he's self aware enough to be like, oh wait, I'm
actually starting at the ideas that a one on one
(40:47):
student at this would actually come to the table with. Yeah.
I think that is exactly right with him. I think
he he thinks that he is this genius, uh, but
he's just he just like doesn't know about these things.
These things are complicated, and I'm not an expert in moderation,
but I know that there are experts out there who
(41:08):
spend a lot of time and ink on it and
to just like weighed in and just like makeup rules.
It's it's just so reckless. Yeah, it is reckless. And
I have worked in this space for a long time
for years and I come to the table with people
who are way smarter than me, who have worked in
this space, who are content moderation experts, and even in
(41:32):
those spaces, there is not consensus of how to do
it right. It is an ongoing, complex, complicated body of work,
and people who have been doing it for years at
the highest levels don't have consensus of how to do
it right. And I really take umbradge with this idea
(41:53):
that Elon Musk, someone who has never done this, I
have no background in it, no experience with it. It's
just uniquely a genius at it somehow, And I reject that,
And I honestly think that Elon Musk's tenure at Twitter,
I think I'm seeing a little bit of of the
tides turning. I think, being someone who works in text spaces,
(42:16):
we're so willing to give wealthy white dudes the benefit
of the doubt that if they say they're a genius
at something, then they're a genius had something. If they
say that they know how to do it, even if
they've ever done it before, give them millions of dollars
of funding because they're going to figure it out. And
if they don't, then you know they had to learn
(42:37):
by failing. And I'm just I know how this story ends.
You know, I've seen this story a lot. I have
had to smile through this story being told to my face,
even though I'm screaming inside. And I think we're all
starting to peel back that curtain a little bit and say, well, wait,
are you actually a genius? Is it possible that maybe
(42:57):
you're not playing chest not checkers. May you're not even
playing checkers. Maybe you're like eating the pieces and throwing
the board on the floor. Yeah, you totally know it.
And you talked about how content moderation is like difficult
and nuanced, and I think those sorts of things are
like really difficult to talk about, and like you said earlier,
they're kind of boring. They're not really exciting. You know.
(43:20):
There's certainly if you were to try to pack all
of it into a single tweet, that tweet would probably
not get a lot of engagement, right because you need
to write like a lot of them about it. And
I think, uh, you know, when we think about some
of those studies that find that right wing social media
posts tend to get amplified more than uh, posts written
(43:42):
by people on the left, I think that's part of
it that, like on the left, there is often a
recognition of like nuance and things are complicated and wanting
to qualify things and provide caveats, whereas, uh, I mean,
they're certainly thoughtful people on the right, but there's also
(44:03):
a lot of people who are not interested in the
thoughtful new ones and are just interested in like getting
those likes, you know, getting those retweets totally. And this
is actually one of the reasons why, as you know,
I was hesitant to even make this episode, because content
moderation is messy, it's complicated, and it's mundane. It's a
(44:23):
lot of stuff not working and being like, oh, well,
here's why this didn't work, or here's what I thought
about this. I'm like, it's never the The reality of
the work that people like myself do is never gonna
be as flashy and exciting as the pithy but incorrect
Elon Musk tweet about it right like, it's it ends like,
(44:46):
right have a disadvantage, you know that the truth is
actually the thoughtful, complex truth is so much less exciting
than the sexy bombshell with the popcorn emoji. And I
don't know, I struggle. When we were talking about how
how I wanted to respond to this, you were like,
maybe an op ed, and I was like, yeah, I
(45:06):
know the reality, and even I would still like to
believe the Elon Musk version of things that there are
some files in Twitter that revealed the smoking gun that
election was rigged and blah blah blah, and Soyland Green
is people and all of that. Like, I know the truth,
and even I would be more entertained to believe this
complete fiction that he is selling people. But that fiction
(45:29):
is always going to travel faster than the mundane, boring truth.
So that probably means that people listening to this, we're like, oh,
glad I tuned in forty five minutes of mundane accuracy. Yeah,
I think you got it right with It's more entertaining,
right that popcorn emoji. We haven't really talked about that,
(45:50):
but I think it says so much about Elon's approach
to his shiny new toy that he bought for forty
four billion dollars, right, Like it's he's he's the guy
in church, He's making all these decisions, but also he's
like cool and detached and just like doing it for lulls, y'all,
Oh my god, totally. And I think it's like, so
(46:13):
you don't I don't know if you know this deep
thinks about emoji choices are my like, like, that's my
Q and on I'm like, I'm like, I gotta I
gotta like follow all the threads. But a popcorn emoji
is inviting us to watch the show, right like, he
knows it's a stunt. He wants us to watch, and
(46:34):
I think that he is betting this is just my opinion.
He is betting on turning Twitter into a drama machine
that people will pay a subscription to watch go down.
And I think that popcorn I think that you're totally
spot on that popcorn emoji is. I know it's a stunt.
Step right up, folks, watch the show. It reminds me
(46:55):
of something else that he tweeted. I think it was
the first week that he bought Twitter and things really
felt like they were on fire, and he tweeted, well,
at least you know, the last days of Twitter won't
be boring. And I think that's really what he is
counting on us, our attention, our eyeballs really being glued
to him and locked into what's going to happen next.
It's the same way how how he kept tweeting about how, oh,
(47:19):
the daily average users has never been higher, and somebody
was like, yeah, that's like setting your house on fire,
and then being like, wow, I've never had more visitors
on my lawn than my house was on fire. Yeah.
I am so curious to see where this goes, and
like what Twitter looks like six months from now, who's
using it, how many people are using it? You know,
(47:39):
what are they talking about on there? But that's probably
a story for another show. So all of this is
to say, I don't want to make it seem like
pre Elonomusk Twitter days were the best. Certainly if you
listen to the show, you know that that's not how
I feel. But I just want to say it explicitly,
and I do want to say, like, there are so
(48:02):
many good questions to be asked about the way that
Twitter moderates content, and I think that more transparency around
those conversations would be awesome. But unfortunately that's not what
we're getting. And it is so clear to me that
Elon Musk is only interested in cherry picking instances to
blow up and exaggerate that tap into this right wing
(48:23):
fantasy about being censored on social media platforms, and so
I would absolutely welcome and love and applaud more transparency
about how moderation decisions are made. But this is not it,
you know, cherry picking these examples. It's bloading them up
and hyping them up as this big bombshell and then
flinging them to a group of people that you know
(48:46):
is going to already be predisposed to being like, yes,
this is so true. This totally confirms my worldview about
me being persecuted. That is not the way that you
achieve true transparency about social media platforms and how they
are moderated. You know what, the way that social media
platforms work and on our run in two, it can
shape elections, it can shape democracy, it can shape what
(49:09):
the world looks like. And so we deserve true transparency
as the people that fuel these platforms. But what Elon
Musk is selling us is not that it is a stunt.
We deserve so much better than these little popcorn emoji stunts. Yeah, absolutely,
it's a stunt. Transparency is great, This is not it.
(49:30):
Well that's it for me, Michael. Do you have anything
else to add? No, nothing else. Thanks for having me, Bridget.
I always love talking with you here. Thanks for being here.
I'll see on Mastodon see you there. Got a story
about an interesting thing in tech. I just want to
say hi. You can be just at hello at tangodi
dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode
(49:52):
at tangodi dot com. There Are No Girls on the
Internet was created by me, Bridget pad. It's a production
of I Heart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan's Quid as
our executive producer. Terry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.
Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd.
If you want to help us grow, rate and review
us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio,
(50:13):
check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
So this week Elon Musk announced what he was calling
the Twitter Files, where he gave internal Twitter documents and
emails to journalist Matt Taiebee and op ed author Barry
Weis to supposedly drop some bombshells into Twitter's content moderation
policies before he took over the helm. But the whole
thing was pretty underwhelming, and on my other podcast there
(00:23):
Are No Girls on the Internet, I broke down all
the reasons why I felt like the whole thing was
just a big stunt, and I wanted to share it
here with Internet hate machine listeners too. I should add
that Musk has teased that more of these jobs are
to come, so we shall see if anything more substitutive
ends up being revealed. There Are No Girls on the Internet.
(00:46):
As a production of My Heart Radio and unbost Creative,
I'm Bridget Todd and this is there Are No Girls
on the Internet. So it has been a wild couple
of weeks at Twitter since Elon Musk took over, and
to talk through all of it, I'm joined with my
producer Michael Almado. Mike, thanks for being here, Bridget, thanks
(01:08):
for having me back. What is a pleasure So This
might come as a surprise to you. I try pretty
hard not to talk about Elon Musk too much on
the podcast, uh, from being in meetings and calls and
stuff with you to make the show. That's probably surprising
to you because I know that you know, I have
a lot of feelings and thoughts and opinions about Elon Musk. Yeah,
(01:32):
he's pretty hard to avoid these days. It's true, and
I guess I feel, you know, when making the show.
The reason why I try to limit how much I
talk about him is because I just don't think it's
really helpful to report on or respond to every little
thing that someone who clearly wants attention says or does.
(01:52):
I feel like I learned this the hard way. When
Musk was first talking about buying Twitter, you and I
rushed to put out an emergency episode. We stopped what
we were doing. It was like a stop the press moment.
And you know, after that episode ran, I think it
was like months and months and months and months and
months until he actually bought Twitter. And during that time,
it will be like he would say, oh, the deal
is off, and everybody would rush to report on it
(02:15):
and respond, and then it would be like Oh, the
deal's back on, and everyone would rush to report on
that and respond. And I think it's a strategy that
people like Musk employ that allows for them to set
the tone. And it's just I don't think that being reactive,
always reacting to the things that they say, every little
move they make, is the most helpful mode to be
(02:35):
in because I think ultimately it really serves them in
setting the agenda and capturing attention, which is clearly something
they want. Yeah, I think it's a useful strategy for
people like him and like Trump. Uh. And I think
also it's a useful strategy that just happens to align
with their own personal UH needs to constantly be the
(02:58):
center of attention and to constantly control the narrative and
have people, you know, jumping and reacting to what they
say to fill that void where other people feel love. Yikes,
just coming at the gate with a one to punch
on Musk's inability to feel love. Okay, Wow, damn, we're
(03:20):
off to a good start off to the races. Sorry,
that wasn't my intention that. It's just it's it's been
a real evolution for me the last couple of weeks
about him, But that's that's not what this episode is about.
I don't mean to distract. I mean it might be
a little bit right. And so again I try really
hard to to avoid just reacting to things that that
is little stunts, because people who pull stunts, they want
(03:41):
you to react, they want you to respond. But this
past weekend something happened that really felt like a direct
hit to my work and a direct direct kind of
I feel like, you know, um, if you watch Housewives,
when Kenya Moore says, don't come from me unless I
send for you, I feel sent for as Kenya Moore
(04:01):
would say, And he brought up something that I actually
have quite a bit of personal experience on and I
felt kind of compelled to talk about on this podcast. Yeah,
I know you do have a lot of experience in
this area, and you don't talk about it on the
show much. And so the fact that you, I think,
felt so compelled to say something about it really speaks
to that that feeling of being called so you know,
(04:27):
speak it. Let's here. So what's going on? Well, this
past weekend, Elon Musk tweeted that he'd given internal Twitter
documents to journalists, Matt Taibi, calling it the Twitter files.
To be clear, that's what Elon Musk is like branding
it as I'm not going to be calling it that
because I'm not going to be just you know, doing
(04:49):
his work for him and running with this little branded
thing that he's trying to make happen for him. Um,
but that's what he is calling it. He was very
excited about this. He was t sing it all weekend.
He tweeted, what really happened with the Hunter Biden story?
Suppression by Twitter will be published on Twitter at five pm.
This will be awesome popcorn emoji, right, And so this
(05:11):
is someone who is really drumming up excitement about something
they think is going to be big. He finally got
the opportunity to come up with his own nickname, and
he's so excited for everybody to hear about it. You
can just tell how excited this dude is to be
trying to make this happen, Like he's trying to make
that ch happen. He is all in this is this
(05:33):
is his thing. So to to talk about what's in
this report, let's back up a little bit. The report
appeared to show intertal debate at Twitter about how the
platform should handle the content of a report on the
laptop that was alleged to belong to President Biden's son,
Hunter Biden, that was reported initially by The New York Post.
You probably recall this story if you were in the
(05:55):
United States and paying attention to domestic politics on the
presidential election. Um, Hunter Biden has dealt with addiction issues,
and this laptop purported to show evidence of all this
unseemly behavior on the part of President Biden's sun Hunter,
I should say, and it's not clear to me how
this laptop was obtained if it was actually Hunter Biden's laptop,
(06:18):
and thus there was a lot of confusion around how
folks could you know, responsibly report on it or talk
about it. Yeah, that's I remember that obviously. Uh. And
I I feel compelled to remind everybody that the reason
we know about this Hunter Biden laptop story, which you know,
maybe it was this laptop, maybe not, we don't really know.
You know, I did some research ahead of this show,
(06:40):
and like it's basically unverifiable. Uh, But the reason that
we know about it is because a concerned citizen brought
it to Rudy Giuliani, right, And I think that says
a lot if you think about the source of the
information being Rudy Giuliani. Earlier this morning, he was at
(07:00):
a hearing here in d C before the bar uh
phasing possible disbardment for his frivolous, ridiculous actions in the
contesting election, and his defense there was that he didn't
have the time to verify that the what he was
(07:21):
failing to court was accurate. And so if he's not gonna,
if he doesn't have the time to verify his legal briefings,
what are we to make of his everything else in
his life. I don't know. I'll just leave it there.
I don't mean to make the story about that, But
(07:41):
anything even connected to Rudy Giuliani, let alone originating with
Rudy Giuliantti, I feel it needs to be taken with
a pretty big grain assault. Are you trying to suggest
that when Rudy Giuliani is I'm a mix on something
is in the mix on something that it's not on
the up and up. If he's in the mix, God
help everyone. So you can sort of get an idea
(08:01):
as to like why there was a lot of skepticism
and confusion early on around this Hunter Biden laptop story,
and that confusion very much extended to social media platforms
like Twitter. Twitter staff independently decided to block posts about
the Hunter Biden laptop story and prevented people from sharing
the New York Post story in d MS, citing that
(08:23):
the content fell under its hacked Materials policy because at
the time, the thinking was that the content of the
laptop had been obtained through hacking. This decision was made
after a lot of internal debate at Twitter. Uh Tybe's
report shows a lot of back and forth internally at
Twitter about how to moderate tweets about this Hunter Biden
laptop story. Trent and Kidnedy, a Twitter communications official, wrote
(08:44):
an email, I'm struggling to understand the policy basis for
making for marking this as unsafe. H Kennedy advised that
the company should say that it is waiting to understand
whether the New York Post story was the result of
hacked material. I have to say, Twitter, it sounds like
they really aired on the side of caution here. Um,
you remember that White House spokesperson Kayleie McKinney her Twitter
account was locked for sharing a tweet with the laptop
(09:06):
story in it. Um, Twitter took a lot of heat
about this with conservatives who said that this was evidence
that Twitter and big tech in general was biased against
them as conservatives. Uh. Then Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey spoke
about the backlash publicly saying, we made a quick interpretation,
using no other evidence, that the material in the article
were obtained through hacking, and according to our policy, we
(09:28):
blocked them from being spread. Upon further consideration, we admitted
this action was wrong and corrected it within twenty four hours. Um.
And so again you really see this sort of messy
nitty gritty of this company having to decide in real
time how they were going to moderate this story that
they could not verify and didn't know its origins, and
at a time when everybody was was felt the same way,
(09:50):
like they were not alone in that thinking. So I
guess the question might be like, was this the right call?
I honestly could not tell you. This is like way
above I pay grade. But I do think that reasonable
people could and do disagree with whether or not Twitter
should have allowed that report about the laptop to be
on the platform. But I will say that it seems
(10:12):
like fairly new ground for a platform to have to
sort out, you know, this kind of situation that is
so potentially sensitive. Right, so I can understand why there
was some debate about it. I can understand why folks
internally disagreed, why folks externally disagreed. It's really kind of
new territory for a platform to have to sort out.
(10:34):
And the emails really reflect that that there was a
lot of what seems like healthy discourse about how they
should best proceed. Right, So there's two different things. Right.
You can disagree with the conclusion that they came to
to moderate the content, which maybe that was the right decision,
maybe not, depending on your point of view, but to
take some time and like have a discussion about whether
(10:56):
it should be moderated, Like, there can be absolutely nothing
wrong with that, right, Like they had a discussion about it.
Just the act of discussing it is not, in itself
anything nefarious, and to eat to suggest that it is
is really disingenuous. Well, enter the big Elon Musk bombshell
(11:16):
that he dropped. It's gonna change, It's going to change everything.
Nothing will ever be the same. So get this. So
get this. If you're driving, pull over because it's gonna
be it's gonna blow your mind. I don't want I
want you to be safe. Before Joe Biden was elected,
his campaign staff flagged tweets containing sexually explicit images of
(11:40):
Hunter Biden for the Twitter staff, and those tweets were removed.
I know, I know, cancel the constitution. That's it. It
America is over. So in an email from a Twitter
employee from it included six links to tweets and the
(12:01):
line more to review from the Biden team, the employee wrote,
Another Twitter worker replied handled these. Interestingly enough, Tibe's reporting
did not show the Biden team contacting Twitter over the
initial reporting about the laptop. It was the tweets containing
sexually explicit photos that they were raising an objection over.
So when the first New York Post story dropped with
(12:24):
a laptop, Biden's team did not reach out. It was
the images with Hunter Biden, you know, nude, that they
were objecting to. Tybe shared five tweets that that the
Biden campaign flagged. Four of those still have archives available online,
and they did include nude images of Hunter Biden. So
these images were already pretty clearly in violation of Twitter's
(12:45):
rules around non consensual explicit images, which specifically prohibits sharing
images or video that are taken in an intimate setting
and not intended for public distribution. Not to mention, state
law in California, where Twitter is based, all so outlaws
sharing non consensual explicit images. So essentially, this huge bombshell
(13:07):
that Elon Musk has presented us is that Twitter was
following their pretty clear guidelines about removal of non consensual
nude images and like complying with with California state law. Yeah,
and the breathless tweet revealing that, you know, did not
include any of that context. You know, it's just like,
here's links to four tweets that were removed, of course,
(13:31):
like smoke and mirrors, suggesting that something more nefarious was
going on exactly. So Elon Musk, after this bombshell revelation
was dropped, he tweeted, if this isn't a violation of
the Constitution's First Amendment, what is now? First of all,
Biden was not a government official at the time. He
was still campaigning, right, and so it's not really clear
(13:53):
to me how that would be a violation of the
First Amendment, which we know regulates how government's control speech.
But you know what I or honestly, who at this
point expects Elon Musk to be either getting or making
these kinds of distinctions at this point, right. And so
Musk and Taibi say that this was evidence that Twitter
was in the bag for the Democratic Party and the left. Uh,
(14:14):
they did not provide any evidence of this, but Taibi says, quote,
this system wasn't balanced. And if you're wondering why he
thinks that, well, it's because he says the majority of
Twitter's employees are Democrats. How do you know, because Twitter's
team has greater campaign contributions to Democrats over Republicans. So,
(14:36):
as someone who has done this work for the majority
of my adult life, this is an absolutely wild conclusion
to jump to for many many reasons that I want
to talk about after this quick break and we're back.
(15:02):
We were talking about Elon Musk and Matt Taiebee dropping
this bombless bombshell about what they say is evidence of
Twitter and big tech being in the bag for the
Democratic Party and the left. And I have to say,
as someone who has done this work, it's just a
really out there conclusion to jump to. First, of all,
(15:26):
social media platforms, having a direct line of communication with
political leaders is one normal and that is the case
for all major social media platforms. Facebook has them, Instagram
has them, Snapchat has them. It is totally a normal
commonplace thing, you know. I have done that work professionally,
(15:47):
both from the platform side and the advocacy side. When
I worked at the social media platform Medium, I was
essentially the person on the political team whose job it
was to make in roads and connections with political leaders
and activists and thought leaders on the left. You know,
they could reached out to me with issues and questions, etcetera.
There was also a counterpart to this work on the
(16:07):
right who did the same thing as me, but within
the Republican Party. Um. It was actually like a very
fulfilling and interesting job. We had lots of like spirited
discussions and debates about content on our team that actually
remind me quite a bit of like the internal emails
that we saw from this reporting. It's also fun fact
why I attended they seen Republican National Convention and got
(16:30):
to watch Trump officially accept the nomination for president in person,
which is a story for another day. But part of
the advocacy work that I do now involves communicating with
platforms to hopefully help influence their content moderation decision making
to be less hostile toward marginalized people. Um. A lot
(16:50):
of the time that work looks like flat, like the
same thing that the Biden campaign was doing to the
Twitter folks, you know, flagging content that we think needs
to be removed. A lot of times it's like faked,
demeaning misogynistic images of women, women of color, elected officials
like AOC for removal being like, oh, um, actually this
image that purports to show a misogynistic crew drawing of AOC.
(17:16):
We think this might violate your guidelines. Can you please
remove it? Um? But we also have had some like
really good wins doing this work. You know. Earlier this year,
TikTok agreed to add dead naming and mis gendering to
their community guidelines. Um, we got YouTube to agree to
remove inaccurate information about abortion from their platform. Uh. So
it's it's like fulfilling work. I don't actually bring it
(17:40):
up a ton on the podcast, mostly because it's just
not that exciting, Like it's fairly mundane work, and it's
just yeah, it's just not exciting, you know, completely normal
and commonplace for folks in these positions to have a
direct line with folks at platforms. You know, we have
flag I have flag things for them that they that
they do not take down, you know. So it's not
(18:02):
like when you reach out and say, hey this is problematic,
or hey we believe this violates your your your community guidelines.
It's not a guarantee they're going to take it down.
But it's like that tedious work of relationship building for
us for a particular goal, and Musk trying to reframe
that work that so many people do that is totally
commonplace across platforms. Him trying to reframe that as somehow
(18:27):
nefarious or somehow a threat to our democracy is completely wild,
completely wild. Yeah, it really is, especially when you think
about the role of advocacy in a democracy and advocacy groups,
you know, making the case for their constituencies about issues
that they care about, policymakers trying to get policies put
(18:48):
in place. And you can tell from those emails that
the Twitter team was talking about their policies and how
did this fit within their policies that have been crafted
to describe this situations in which they would take action
to moderate uh. And even as I'm saying these words,
it sounds so boring, but it's so crucial because without that,
(19:09):
you end up with a situation that we have right now,
where everything is just, you know, whatever Elon Musk decides
about it. Right there's it's not clear what is and
is not allowed on Twitter these days, it's just by
executive fiat. And also all those fiats bring more attention
(19:29):
and news attention to him, which is a win win
for him. I'm so glad that you said that, because
a few weeks ago, I think it was Sam Harris
asked Elon on Twitter about whether or not he was
going to reinstate Alex Jones, and Alex Jones famously lies
about babies who were tragically shot and killed in Sandy
(19:51):
Hook and lies about their parents, and Elon Musk replied,
I will never allow him back on the platform because
I had a baby who died, and I held that
baby in my hands, and I know the heartbreak of
a grieving parent, and I actually think that that actually
was one of very few genuine statements about how Elon
Musk is planning on moderating Twitter if he can personally
(20:13):
identify with the group that he is making a moderation
decision around or based on I think that you will
get one thing if he cannot identify with them, if
he cannot put themselves, put himself in their shoes, or
see their experience in his own experience, He's I don't think.
I don't think it's going to be real to him.
(20:34):
And so I think that, to me was the first
honest assessment of how he plans to moderate the platform
is just based on what he personally likes or doesn't like,
what he personally can understand or can identify with or
see himself in or not. And so you know, he
is a white, straight, sis billionaire. I don't know that
(20:54):
he would be able to really see himself in the
experience of a trans person or a person of color
or a queer person or someone who's not a billionaire
and wants to start a union at their car factory,
right And so I think that really was a pretty
clear indication that exactly what you're saying, it's just whatever
Elon feels that's how we will be moderating. And I
don't think it's a great system, right, Like he is
(21:17):
someone who is going on and on about the need
to build transparency into moderation to restore trust. Let's start
with a little transparency around how he is going to
make moderation decisions. Yeah, and it's also a little bit
like a high school student quoting Voltaire about free speech.
When he's talking about transparency, I think he still thinks,
(21:38):
at least as like a couple of months ago, he
thought the transparency meant making all of Twitter's internal decisions
uh and algorithms uh, like open source so anybody could
read it, which is a terrible idea because that just
is like a blueprint for anyone who wants to abuse it.
And so it's this the spot of like reality where
(22:04):
there's like he has the high minded ideals of transparency
and free speech, which are virtuous and good things, but
to actually like implement them in the real world one
needs to have a thoughtful approach, and he lacks that
second part. It's like how all of his tweets with
(22:25):
Poles about what he should do for Twitter and moderation,
we're all accompanied by Latin, but then like getting the
Latin phrases wrong. It's like you kind of you're kind
of you almost have it. Like you you're you almost
have it, you almost had it. You you found the
Latin quote and you got the gist sort of and
(22:45):
so speaking of the kind of disingenuous nods to what
they're calling free speech. Uh. Musk really tried to frame
this report as a bombshell that show that Twitter is
suppressing the free speech of conservatives on the platform. But
Tibee's own reporting shows that the Trump administration, while Trump
(23:09):
was president, made the very same kind of requests as
the Biden campaign did, and at least some of those
requests were honored, right, And so there's not there's no
Tibee includes that that information. There isn't any more transparency
or any emails around what those requests would be. The
public is still just like left to wonder what the
what a sitting president was successfully able to get removed
(23:31):
from Twitter. Not not worth scrutiny, not worth this transparency
that Elon Musk says he wants to bring to moderation
on the platform. Musk said, quote, Twitter acting by itself
to suppress free speech is not a First Amendment violation,
but acting under orders from the government to suppress free
speech with no judicial review is. But then again, Tabee
(23:53):
himself said, quote, there's no evidence that I have seen
of any government involvement in the laptop story so true,
which is it like both of these things can't be correct.
It can't be that as Elon Musk says that that
Twitter was acting under orders from the government, and Tibi saying, actually,
after reviewing this, I saw no government involvement in the
suppression of this story. It doesn't it doesn't like something's
(24:15):
not heading up, the mates not lughing. Yeah, it's it's
almost like it's all just a big stunt and the
substance doesn't matter almost, And I think like this is why.
I mean, I I personally, this is just my opinion,
but I think it's really really irresponsible to release communications
that folks have had with Twitter over the years in
this way, you know. In doing this, Elon Musk also
(24:37):
released the personal email addresses of former Twitter CEO Jack
Dorsey and an elected official in this release not redacted,
just tweeted them out. Um. He did later say on
a spaces that he regretted this, but I think it
really shows what we're dealing with here. And so, you know,
I spent part of the weekend being like, well, geez
(24:58):
is I've have communications with Twitter officials like are they
gonna I don't want my information released. I just know
what can happen when you have someone who was addicted
to attention and stunts and sensitive information. It's it's it's
concerning to me. And you know, I'm not concerned because
(25:19):
I've ever had communications with Twitter that I would regret
or that I wouldn't want, you know, out there. But unfortunately,
I think that we are past the point of the
substance of what is being released being important at all.
And I think, I mean, I might say that the
first time that I really saw this happening for real
was around Hillary Clinton's emails, where it didn't really matter.
(25:44):
The substance of the emails didn't really matter, just the
reporting around them seemed to suggest, you know, nefarious behavior
just like by design, right, and so it was reported
as a bombshell, let's omoking gun all of that, when really,
if you look at it, you're like, well, what are
you what it actually is like newsworthy here? What actually
(26:07):
is the big bombshell here? And I think that we're
in this place where people, particularly online, can really drum
up a lot of fanfare around something and be like
this is gonna blow your fucking mind, and then it
doesn't really matter what's in it? Because if you look
at the reporting that Tayebee and Elon Musk did, nothing
(26:28):
in there is really new, right, Like the whole internal
debate around how Twitter should moderate the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Eventually they talked about it in public, Like that quote
that I read from Jack Dorsey was a public quote.
This is part of the public record already. So is
the is the bombshell reporting just that this presidential campaign
had had direct communication with someone at Twitter? That's also
(26:51):
common knowledge, Like anybody who has ever worked in social
media is aware of that. That's not a bombshell. So
if they're not actually reporting anything new, how can you
tweet about it in such a bombastic way that like, oh,
we are going to blow the lid off of this thing.
You know, I saw people reporting about it, like Jack
Procybia said, we will all remember where we were when
(27:13):
this one was reported. Like the breathlessness that people talked
about this for something that wasn't even any new information,
I think is really I'm gonna say, irresponsible. Yeah, it's
an excellent POI because the only thing that's new here
is sort of the salaciousness of the illusion of leaks, right,
(27:34):
Like Oh, there's some sort of secret emails that they
didn't want us to see. But that's obviously not the
case for like multiple reasons. One, like, the emails were
released by Twitter, right, there are emails by Twitter employees
that Twitter is releasing, so that's like not a leak.
And in the content of the emails that the people wrote,
(27:54):
it's clear that they expect these emails. Maybe they don't
expect the emails themselves to become public, but they clearly expect.
They are aware that there's intense scrutiny about how they
are moderating this issue, and uh, and they expect to
be called to account for it. And like you said, everything,
(28:16):
you know, all of the decisions they made are already
public record. Uh, and not because of some sort of
deep investigative journalism, but because Twitter like put out a
press release about it, and like said all the same things.
So the only thing new here is just the framing
as a leak that something inappropriate happened, But the actual
(28:36):
facts are completely unchanged, you know, Like you said, like,
what's the big reveal that that the Biden campaign didn't
want the candidates sons like naked photos published without his consent?
Like that, Yeah, they didn't want to cry a literal
sect crime to a car new Yeah, that's the only
(28:57):
thing new here, just the illusion and framing of salaciousness.
And I think that Ellen is doing this because he
is speaking to people who I think already feel aggrieved, right,
and so they he knows even if this isn't really anything,
nothing really new as being you know, talked about or reported,
that people that feel aggrieved are going to be like,
(29:20):
oh my god, mind blown. This is huge. Oh my god,
this this confirms my persecution complex that I have been
censored on Twitter. And I think that's exactly why he
is doing this, because he knows that all of this
sycophants and hangers on are going to amplify that claim
and be like, oh my god, huge reporting even though
nothing new is being reported. Here's how Representative James Comber
(29:43):
from Tennessee, here's what he had to say about this.
Or he's just beginning, Jason, because we're gonna have every
single person at Twitter that was involved in this in
front of the House Overside Committee as soon as possible.
So he's talking about like investigating and hauling people in
before a committee. I think that it really is a state,
(30:05):
a testament to the fact that we are not like
anybody can say anything and the substance of what it's
actually being said doesn't matter, because people who are already
predisposed to feel aggrieved and be on the side of like,
oh yeah, we're being censored, are going to circle the
wagons to make sure that that claim is amplified and
like treated with seriousness. Yeah, like truth doesn't exist. It's
(30:29):
all just framing and you know, winning the narrative. And
right now, if you Google or take to Twitter to
search her name, there are people talking about how the
Jaya God who was Twitter's former head of Legal policy
and trust at Twitter, the person who made kind of
moderation decisions and was the head of you know, combating
things like misinformation and hate speech, how she should be
(30:50):
arrested for her role in moderating content around the Hunter
Biden laptop story and quote rigging election for Biden. So
it's interesting how all of this I think it's it's
it's savvy on Elon's part because it feeds into this
like big lie that somehow somewhere the election was rigged
(31:11):
for Biden against Trump. Yeah, and you know, isn't it
convenient that they finally found a woman of color to
be the like poster child of this invented scandal. You know,
obviously it's a woman of color. And the other idea
in here is that this one singular event is what
(31:32):
ragged the election for Joe Biden. Right, Like, everybody still
knew about the Hunter Biden laptop. We're still talking about
it years later. You know, it's not like Twitter's decision
to not show those photos somehow killed the story and
nobody ever heard about it again. Right, So it's like
(31:53):
even the part that they're aggrieved about is just completely fabricated.
More of a quick break, let's get right back into it.
(32:14):
It is not surprising to me that a woman of color,
a brown girl, is at the center of this story.
There are memes on Twitter right now. It says Twitter
head of Legal Policy, I knowingly subverted your election process.
I did it with the intent to throw the election.
That makes that makes me guilty of treason under Article three,
Section three of the United States Constitution. Um, it's not
(32:37):
surprising to me that, like earlier today, I saw a
picture that had that was a explicit image of Hunter
Biden where they had doctored her head on the body
of another woman and they were involved in a sex act.
It's not surprising to me. I think that when you
talk about this kind of thing, and I know I
I beat this drum a lot. Misogyny and racism, it's
(33:00):
all linked, and when you talk about this kind of thing,
it is not surprising to me that, you know, the
fallout is not measured discourse. The fallout is talking about
arresting this woman and making crude memes of her that
are sexually explicit. Yeah, it's so sad and just like
the same old story of like once again, it's just
(33:25):
racism and misogyny finding new stories to turn into memes
to feed that same narrative exactly. And it has to
be said, I mean, I didn't want to bring them
up in this episode, but here I am. In response
to this reporting, Trump took to truth Social two advocate
(33:47):
for throwing out the constitution and throwing out the election results.
And so you know, if this whole thing was meant
to be a crusade around free speech, and it led
to Trump, who is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, being like, oh,
I'm coming out in favor of throwing up the Constitution.
(34:07):
The First Amendment is part of the Constitution, So like,
where where are all these like free speech crusaders who
are like trying to protect the free free speech to
the First Amendment When the presumptive Republican presidential nominee comes
out against just throwing the whole thing out because of
their reporting, it's a great question. It's almost like, you
know something, it's like selectively applies here but not there.
(34:32):
You know, today they care about the Constitution. Tomorrow let's
cancel it. I mean, I guess two Republicans credit not
many people like rallied around Trump's cry to cancel the Constitution.
Whatever that would mean. I wonder if part of this
whole thing is just like Ellen really being desperate to
try to like get in Trump's good graces, you think,
(34:54):
I mean, some of those some of those images he
was tweeting a couple of weeks back about him and
Trump were definitely an appeal to get into Trump's good graces.
I'll say, I'll just keep it at that. We can
move on. There were some good graces is the title
of a movie here? So yeah, there the I think
(35:17):
it's really scary how commonplace communications are being reframed as
indicative of like nefarious inappropriate behavior. And I also think
that it's confirmation bias at work. Some people on the right,
which at this point I think includes Elon Musk, already
believe that they are being censored on social media platforms.
(35:39):
A really interesting study by the Pew Research Center found
that of Republicans believe that their views are being censored,
and republicans or people who who lent republicans believe that
social media companies generally support the views of liberals over conservatives.
And so I think that, you know, it's this confirmation
bias at work, or anything, even something that is like
(36:03):
not anything can be used to confirm this previously held
opinion that they have. And Elon Musk repeatedly parents this
claim that Twitter has previously had an anti right wing
bias and thus quote the Twitter files is just another
part of that, you know. But there are entire bodies
(36:24):
of academic research that disapproved this time and time again.
Their studies from n y U, M I T that
debunk this claim that there is anti conservative bias on
social media platforms. It's just not a thing, right, And
so there was also a study done internally at Twitter
in the pre Elon Musk days after Trump was banned
from Twitter. The team was facing a lot of criticisms
(36:46):
saying that they were censoring the right, so they looked
into it. The internal research team at Twitter found that
folks on the right are actually amplified on Twitter, both
within the United States and globally. Our results reveal a
remarkably consistent trend. In six out of the seven countries studied,
the mainstream political right enjoys higher algorithmic amplification than the
(37:06):
mainstream political left. They've released a whole twenties, seven page report.
It is fascinating. And so here's my thing. Either Elon
Musk is woefully uninformed about the realities of quote right
wing bias at Twitter, or he's just lying to get
attention from right wing extremists. And that's really kind of
what bums me out. You know, there are entire bodies
(37:28):
of work and studies in school of thought dedicated to
answering all of these thorny complicated questions that are raised
by social media and how it is moderated right, but
Elon Musk is demonstrating time and time again that he
does not care about any of that because he thinks
that he knows better despite never having done this work before.
(37:48):
And I feel like everything in our culture is really
coalescing around confirming that he has some kind of special,
super special innate genius ability to understand in this stuff
as a now this more than people who have been
working on it for years and years. You know, in
his last few weeks, he came into Twitter and immediately
blew up verification, only to realize like, oh wait, verification
(38:13):
is actually important, and then walked back those plans to
blow up Verification. He said, oh, we don't need moderation,
and then Kanye West starts tweeting swastikas and he's like, wait,
actually we do need some moderation. Just kidding, guys, let's
bring in some moderation. He is learning the very same
lessons that every other social media platform, even the ones
(38:34):
like truth Social and Parlor that started by being these
fringe platforms that wanted to, you know, be free speech
zones or whatever. He is learning what every single social
media platform, including those French platforms, has learned, only he's
getting to the game years and years late. Yeah, I
think you're right. He's just like pretty uninformed about these things.
(38:56):
And you know, I think a generous interpretation of his
actions here is that he's bringing like a move fast
and break things kind of attitude to the way that
Twitter should do moderation. And I think that sort of
approach can work great for a little scrappy startups trying
(39:19):
to fight for a piece of market share to sell widgets.
But when you are making decisions about a cornerstone of society,
right like that like Twitter is, or at least was,
how people share information, and it's just like it's a
really important thing. And for him to just be making
(39:40):
these huge decisions and then days later be like, oops,
my bad, I guess that was wrong. It's just so
reckless and irresponsible. It's it's he should be ashamed, but
he certainly is not. Yeah, that's my thing is like
he should be embarrassed. I don't know that that is
(40:03):
a an emotion that he feels the way that you
or I might feel. A friend of mine, Justin Hendrix,
who is brilliant. He runs a great organization called Tech
Policy Press, which is they also have a podcast you
should definitely you should definitely listen to it. But he
works with students um, you know, teaching them about social media.
And whenever they the students are given like a thought
experiment about how they should run platforms, they always at
(40:25):
first or like we're gonna have no moderation. It's gonna
be whatever people want to do and they can self moderate,
and then immediately they're like, oh wait, that doesn't work.
So it's like starting at the one, like the thing
that like a one oh one student would suggest. That's
where Elon Musk is starting. But I don't feel like
he's self aware enough to be like, oh wait, I'm
actually starting at the ideas that a one on one
(40:47):
student at this would actually come to the table with. Yeah.
I think that is exactly right with him. I think
he he thinks that he is this genius, uh, but
he's just he just like doesn't know about these things.
These things are complicated, and I'm not an expert in moderation,
but I know that there are experts out there who
(41:08):
spend a lot of time and ink on it and
to just like weighed in and just like makeup rules.
It's it's just so reckless. Yeah, it is reckless. And
I have worked in this space for a long time
for years and I come to the table with people
who are way smarter than me, who have worked in
this space, who are content moderation experts, and even in
(41:32):
those spaces, there is not consensus of how to do
it right. It is an ongoing, complex, complicated body of work,
and people who have been doing it for years at
the highest levels don't have consensus of how to do
it right. And I really take umbradge with this idea
(41:53):
that Elon Musk, someone who has never done this, I
have no background in it, no experience with it. It's
just uniquely a genius at it somehow, And I reject that,
And I honestly think that Elon Musk's tenure at Twitter,
I think I'm seeing a little bit of of the
tides turning. I think, being someone who works in text spaces,
(42:16):
we're so willing to give wealthy white dudes the benefit
of the doubt that if they say they're a genius
at something, then they're a genius had something. If they
say that they know how to do it, even if
they've ever done it before, give them millions of dollars
of funding because they're going to figure it out. And
if they don't, then you know they had to learn
(42:37):
by failing. And I'm just I know how this story ends.
You know, I've seen this story a lot. I have
had to smile through this story being told to my face,
even though I'm screaming inside. And I think we're all
starting to peel back that curtain a little bit and say, well, wait,
are you actually a genius? Is it possible that maybe
(42:57):
you're not playing chest not checkers. May you're not even
playing checkers. Maybe you're like eating the pieces and throwing
the board on the floor. Yeah, you totally know it.
And you talked about how content moderation is like difficult
and nuanced, and I think those sorts of things are
like really difficult to talk about, and like you said earlier,
they're kind of boring. They're not really exciting. You know.
(43:20):
There's certainly if you were to try to pack all
of it into a single tweet, that tweet would probably
not get a lot of engagement, right because you need
to write like a lot of them about it. And
I think, uh, you know, when we think about some
of those studies that find that right wing social media
posts tend to get amplified more than uh, posts written
(43:42):
by people on the left, I think that's part of
it that, like on the left, there is often a
recognition of like nuance and things are complicated and wanting
to qualify things and provide caveats, whereas, uh, I mean,
they're certainly thoughtful people on the right, but there's also
(44:03):
a lot of people who are not interested in the
thoughtful new ones and are just interested in like getting
those likes, you know, getting those retweets totally. And this
is actually one of the reasons why, as you know,
I was hesitant to even make this episode, because content
moderation is messy, it's complicated, and it's mundane. It's a
(44:23):
lot of stuff not working and being like, oh, well,
here's why this didn't work, or here's what I thought
about this. I'm like, it's never the The reality of
the work that people like myself do is never gonna
be as flashy and exciting as the pithy but incorrect
Elon Musk tweet about it right like, it's it ends like,
(44:46):
right have a disadvantage, you know that the truth is
actually the thoughtful, complex truth is so much less exciting
than the sexy bombshell with the popcorn emoji. And I
don't know, I struggle. When we were talking about how
how I wanted to respond to this, you were like,
maybe an op ed, and I was like, yeah, I
(45:06):
know the reality, and even I would still like to
believe the Elon Musk version of things that there are
some files in Twitter that revealed the smoking gun that
election was rigged and blah blah blah, and Soyland Green
is people and all of that. Like, I know the truth,
and even I would be more entertained to believe this
complete fiction that he is selling people. But that fiction
(45:29):
is always going to travel faster than the mundane, boring truth.
So that probably means that people listening to this, we're like, oh,
glad I tuned in forty five minutes of mundane accuracy. Yeah,
I think you got it right with It's more entertaining,
right that popcorn emoji. We haven't really talked about that,
(45:50):
but I think it says so much about Elon's approach
to his shiny new toy that he bought for forty
four billion dollars, right, Like it's he's he's the guy
in church, He's making all these decisions, but also he's
like cool and detached and just like doing it for lulls, y'all,
Oh my god, totally. And I think it's like, so
(46:13):
you don't I don't know if you know this deep
thinks about emoji choices are my like, like, that's my
Q and on I'm like, I'm like, I gotta I
gotta like follow all the threads. But a popcorn emoji
is inviting us to watch the show, right like, he
knows it's a stunt. He wants us to watch, and
(46:34):
I think that he is betting this is just my opinion.
He is betting on turning Twitter into a drama machine
that people will pay a subscription to watch go down.
And I think that popcorn I think that you're totally
spot on that popcorn emoji is. I know it's a stunt.
Step right up, folks, watch the show. It reminds me
(46:55):
of something else that he tweeted. I think it was
the first week that he bought Twitter and things really
felt like they were on fire, and he tweeted, well,
at least you know, the last days of Twitter won't
be boring. And I think that's really what he is
counting on us, our attention, our eyeballs really being glued
to him and locked into what's going to happen next.
It's the same way how how he kept tweeting about how, oh,
(47:19):
the daily average users has never been higher, and somebody
was like, yeah, that's like setting your house on fire,
and then being like, wow, I've never had more visitors
on my lawn than my house was on fire. Yeah.
I am so curious to see where this goes, and
like what Twitter looks like six months from now, who's
using it, how many people are using it? You know,
(47:39):
what are they talking about on there? But that's probably
a story for another show. So all of this is
to say, I don't want to make it seem like
pre Elonomusk Twitter days were the best. Certainly if you
listen to the show, you know that that's not how
I feel. But I just want to say it explicitly,
and I do want to say, like, there are so
(48:02):
many good questions to be asked about the way that
Twitter moderates content, and I think that more transparency around
those conversations would be awesome. But unfortunately that's not what
we're getting. And it is so clear to me that
Elon Musk is only interested in cherry picking instances to
blow up and exaggerate that tap into this right wing
(48:23):
fantasy about being censored on social media platforms, and so
I would absolutely welcome and love and applaud more transparency
about how moderation decisions are made. But this is not it,
you know, cherry picking these examples. It's bloading them up
and hyping them up as this big bombshell and then
flinging them to a group of people that you know
(48:46):
is going to already be predisposed to being like, yes,
this is so true. This totally confirms my worldview about
me being persecuted. That is not the way that you
achieve true transparency about social media platforms and how they
are moderated. You know what, the way that social media
platforms work and on our run in two, it can
shape elections, it can shape democracy, it can shape what
(49:09):
the world looks like. And so we deserve true transparency
as the people that fuel these platforms. But what Elon
Musk is selling us is not that it is a stunt.
We deserve so much better than these little popcorn emoji stunts. Yeah, absolutely,
it's a stunt. Transparency is great, This is not it.
(49:30):
Well that's it for me, Michael. Do you have anything
else to add? No, nothing else. Thanks for having me, Bridget.
I always love talking with you here. Thanks for being here.
I'll see on Mastodon see you there. Got a story
about an interesting thing in tech. I just want to
say hi. You can be just at hello at tangodi
dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode
(49:52):
at tangodi dot com. There Are No Girls on the
Internet was created by me, Bridget pad. It's a production
of I Heart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan's Quid as
our executive producer. Terry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.
Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd.
If you want to help us grow, rate and review
us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio,
(50:13):
check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Host
Bridget Todd
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