November 1, 2023 • 43 mins
In this capítulo, Jean Guerrero, columnist for the Los Angeles Times joins us to discuss the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Palestine. How does misinformation threaten democracy during times of global conflict? We discuss the digital economy, the algorithm, how the billionaire class depends on us, and how to cultivate empathy.
Read her column here.
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You're tuning in to Capitolo one seventy nine.
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Speaker 1 (01:28):
So today we have a pretty intense episode. This is
a this is a deep one. This is this is
We've been waiting to do this one. We need at
the time, We needed the research and so we're going
to be talking about the state of affairs in the
world as best as we can, but we'll be doing
so with a journalist and really focusing on misinformation and
(01:51):
social media. This in this conversation, the.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Last time we briefly touched upon Israel Palestine, we suggest
that folks not turn to celebrities or influencers or Instagram
graphics for their takes and for their perspectives and for
their background, which is why we're inviting on a journalist,
(02:14):
Jean Guerrero, to give us some context and perspective on
specifically misinformation online as it relates to Israel Palestine. A
few weeks ago, we received the news over here Stateside
that Hamas bombed Israel. Since October seventh, seven thousand civilians
(02:35):
have been killed in Gaza due to Israeli airstrikes. Of
those seven thousand, more than twenty nine hundred have been children,
twenty four journalists, sixty one teachers, thirty five United Nations staff,
and these numbers according to The Washington Post.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Those numbers continue to rise right as we do our research,
as things are reported out. And we're also have been noticing,
you know, in the US, of course, when people voice
their opinions or people voice their support in particular of Palestine,
they have been losing job opportunities, have been resigning from jobs,
(03:15):
and so just a couple examples, Javier Zamora, author of
New York Times bestselling memoir Sorito, was uninvited from a
panel for voicing his support of Palestine.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
And javier' Zamora is not the only one that seems
to be experiencing some type of professional repercussions for support
of Palestine. We also have examples of folks like ca
agent Maha Dakil, who recently resigned from the internal board
at CAIA. But we're seeing Israeli people and those who
(03:50):
are in support of ending air strikes in Gaza receiving
negative backlash in the public sphere.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
We mentioned like not to listen or not to seek
out influencers, write, or celebrities for your information or news,
but I did want to point out like Belahadee obviously
is a model, she's Palestinian, and she has been vocal
in the Free Palestine movement in support of it, and
she's been receiving death threats, and so it's we share
this to contextualize the consequences of showing your support for Palestine,
(04:22):
and how this relates to free thinking, critical thinking, media literacy,
lack there of media literacy, and how we can combat
it as we consume news, how we can be more
mindful with the things that we share, because we all
share things, influencer or not. If you're a person online,
you're probably sharing. If you care about different causes, you're
(04:45):
going to be sharing things.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
And in addition, you know, the Free Palestine movement is
not a recent movement. This is something that has been
going on for the past fifty years. There have been
Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at Universe cities across
the country for a long time. Certainly when I was
an undergrad, SJP was around, and so I think part
of it too is look to the movement that has
(05:10):
been going on for several decades now, the thought leaders,
the activists, the writers, the journalists, the Palestinians who have
been talking about this issue, not necessarily like someone who
got a million followers in the last six months, you
know what I mean, as like now posting about it
is more the perspective where're coming from?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, I mean Angela Davis has been writing about Palestine
for most of her career. Different collectives, feminist collectives over
the years, over the decades that have been writing about
Palestine have been thinking and supporting Palestinian folks. And also
because you mentioned SGP, I did also want to mention that,
you know, students from across the country in their SJP
(05:54):
chapters are being dogsed, are losing their jobs. And something
to keep in mind is these are twenty somethings student leaders.
So we can have celebrities, we can have professional folks
sure losing opportunities, but we're having twenty something year olds
being docksed.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
So this is happening more.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
And more absolutely. And in putting this episode together, you know,
we were reaching out to different folks to see who
could we bring on, who could we interview, And I
asked a journalist friend of ours, you know, who are
your recommendations as far as Palestinian journalists who might be available, able,
willing to speak on the topic, and sort of what
(06:31):
we were finding is there are plenty of Palestinian journalists
out there who right now are very booked. They're on CNN,
they're on the major news stations, they're on the ground,
they're talking about the issue and what's going on. But
you also have a number of Palestinian journalists, writers, thinkers
who are not necessarily able or comfortable or safe to
(06:52):
speak on these issues publicly or on the record for
fear of whatever potential consequences might come their way. So
if you're asking, why don't we have a Palestinian journalist
on today's episode, well, that's one of the reasons why.
So thus Jean, we're very excited to have her. She's
been writing on this issue recently for the la time
she has a column, So after the episode, make sure
(07:13):
to go and read some of her writing about misinformation
and how to really kind of disentangle all the different interests,
all the conflicting interests that are involved in this in
this issue.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah, and next week we will be joined by two guests,
one of them Palestinian, to talk about the crisis and
war crimes in Palestine and They have a podcast as well,
so we'll be talking more about that next week, but
in the meantime, we're super excited to have an Jin Guerrero.
We've been following her work for years and she's an
opinion columnist at the La Times. Her writing has been
featured in Vanity Fair, Politico, The Nation, Wired, and The
(07:49):
New York Times and The Washington Post and everywhere. Basically.
She's originally from San Diego and a graduate of USC
and Gaucher College. This past week, she published an article
titled Horrific Social media post about the Israel Hamas War
show how being online ruins independent thinking? Can we fix it?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Jean Guerrero columnist, journalist, writer at the La Times. Thank
you so much for joining us today. Can you please
say hello and introduce yourself for our listeners.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Hi, great to be here.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
My name is Jean Guerrero and I'm a columnist at
the La Times. I write mostly about politics, threats to democracy,
disinformation and grew up on the border in San Diego
and covered immigration issues under the Trump administration and Gene.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
You cover all kinds of topics in your column, from
dating and who splits the Bill to now talking about
misinformation and the horrific social media posts about the Israel
Hamas war that people are seeing online, and what that
is illustrating about American public's ability to think freely and independently.
(09:03):
So I would love for us to talk to you
specifically about about that article as it relates to Israel
and Hamas.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
Yeah, I'd love to talk about it.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
I'll just preface by saying I'm not, by any stretch
of the imagination, an expert on the Israel Hamas war,
So I wouldn't feel comfortable commenting on the peculiar the
particularities of how people should be processing it. But I
can absolutely talk about why people on social media seem
(09:34):
to be adopting an extremely harmful and black or white
framing that I don't think is conducive to peace or
any constructive progress on this issue.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Gene, I'm curious, was there one particular post or a
series of posts, or a pattern that sparked this idea
for you you to talk about the misinformation as it
relates to the Israel Palestine issue, Like, was there something
specific that you saw that moved you to write this column?
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Yeah, I mean I was.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
I was on Instagram and I was just noticing that
the people who were appearing in my feed were either
super super pro Israel and not expressing any empathy or
concern about the lives of Palestinian civilians, or they were
(10:36):
super pro Palestinian to the to the point of of
of rationalizing or even cheering on the horrific deaths that
we saw as a result of Hamask going into Israel
and killing so many people in these brutal ways.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
So I just I was.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
I was noticing it was it was either one way
or the or the other way, and I wasn't seeing
any nuance or complexity in the discussion. And I started
talking to my friends and found that they were experiencing
similar things on social media. If if they were were
if they leaned more in the Palestinian direction, their social
media media feeds tended to be more populated by these
(11:19):
just horrible videos of of of of the violence being
committed against Palestinians by by the Israeli government and UH
and vice versa.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
People who were super pro Israel were tending.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
To see videos of of of the children who were
taken hostage by Hamas and and and the people who
were killed by Hamas and I realized we were all
experiencing completely different realities and were unable to It was
just another example of how we were a lot of
(11:53):
people just were unable to have conversations about this very
important issue because we were all seeing entirely different realities
and we couldn't. We can't. So many of us just
continue to not be able to understand one another because
we're not seeing the same reality. Literally, we're seeing entirely
different realities on our.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Feeds, right, And that's part of how the algorithm is created.
I mean, I would definitely be on the side of
social media where everyone is pro Palestine, you know, free
Palestine movement, and so what I'm seeing is very different
than say someone in the opposite quote opposite side.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
But the way the.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Social media algorithm is created, that's where we exist online.
And you references really great quote by Naomi Klein about
the more we exist online, the more privacy and autonomy
we lose.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
So can you talk more.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
About that as someone that's both online for work maybe
for personal reasons too, and consuming all of this news.
Speaker 5 (13:00):
Yeah, I mean this great quote she says is how
individual we're all becoming individuals not guided by legible principles
or beliefs, but acting as members of groups, playing yin
to the others yang well versus weak, awake versus sheep right,
just versus depraved binaries where thinking once lived. And I
(13:20):
just thought that was so insightful because I do believe
that the way that the algorithms operate, they're encouraging us
to increasingly increasingly think in terms of binaries instead of complexities. Literally,
we're starting to think like in zeros and ones like
the coding and computers, and are losing what I think
(13:42):
makes us human and becoming more like automatons, like robots,
which is what these algorithms are intended to do, because
the more that we think in these reductionistic ways, the
more susceptible we become to manipulation, and these these algorithms
are designed to do that. The tech tech companies gather
(14:08):
all kinds of information about us, the most intimate details
of our lives.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
Every click, view.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
And search online is harvested from us to create these
user profiles that are sold to data brokers that are
then sold to corporations who want to sell us things,
to campaigns who want to affect the way that we
vote and the way that we see the world and
the way that we see other people. So we're increasingly
(14:34):
losing our free will and the way Naomi Client talks
about it in her amazing new book Doppelganger, is these
digital profiles that are being created of us, are she
calls them, digital doubles. We're losing our autonomy and our
free will to these digital doubles that are kind of
like these virtual voodoo dolls that get constructed out of
(14:54):
our online behavior and can then be used. I mean
they're sold, like I said, to corporations, can pains, and
anyone who wants to influence what we believe, how we behave,
and those doubles are used to nudge our behavior in
real life. They use our fantasies, our fears, o our
(15:16):
deepest vulnerabilities, our biases, our proclivities to inform how they
can best take advantage of us, you know, in moments
of darkness and moments of weakness. I mean, the amount
of things that they know about us is that is astounding.
They know if we're going through divorce, they know if
we're they knew who were sleeping next to They know
(15:39):
what time we wake up in the morning. They know
how fast we walk, they know what facial expressions we're making,
and all of this is just such an incredible amount
of information that they have on us that, whether whether
we think we're susceptible or not we are, the more
time that we spend on line, the more we lose
our free will to these to these companies that have
(16:01):
access to that information.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
I also want to ask about the sentence. In the
days since the Israel Himas war began, our collective loss
of these things is conspicuous on social media, where many
of us are recycling the one sided takes of bots.
And I think this point is so important, whether it's
on Instagram, TikTok x formerly Twitter, sometimes the posts that
(16:29):
you see going super viral and the pages that you
see like posting tons of memes or whatever. I don't
think that we always sit back and realize that there
are not necessarily human beings running the pages or generating
the post. We're at this place in social media and
(16:49):
in our economy where a lot of people and brands
and companies have paid to like have pages right count
that they don't necessarily have to manually run, but they
can like run themselves, you know, and so I'm wondering
about the place of bots and like meme pages in
(17:11):
all of this, where it's like not even necessarily human
beings influencing other human beings directly exactly.
Speaker 5 (17:20):
I'm so glad you bring that up, because there's so
much disinformation going around about this war, and a lot
of it is being spread by bots that then, because
of how viral the content goes, ordinary people begin to recycle, retweet,
and just spread that information, and it just creates this
(17:41):
ripple effect of people just not understanding what is really
going on. And the people who are behind those bots
those accounts are often foreign actors who are using social
media as a weapon of psychological warfare that is intended
to pit us all against each other so that we
(18:02):
can't talk to each other, and we can't, you know,
we can't address the real issues that we're facing, whether
it's in our country or abroad, and and they're they're
they're chipping away at our capacity for civil discourse and
eroding our democracy. This is a tool of psychological warfare
that is being used in that way, but also just
(18:23):
anybody within the United States who has an interest in
us talking past each other and and not understanding what's
going on, you know, within the military industrial complex, people
who just want to profit off of our sale of
weapons and and such overseas. I mean that that those
(18:44):
are other people who have an interest in spreading disinformation
and causing us to not be able to talk about
this in a way. That's that's constructive.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
That's such a great point, and I think leads to
this question about propaganda, right.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
A lot of us have.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Been seeing the propaganda language right being used when talked
about Palestinians. They're being regarded as quote animals, unhuman, subhuman,
And so how do we, you know, filter the propaganda
the disinformation while also holding in mind there's a genocide happening,
(19:22):
And so how are we carrying those two We're sure
for one side of the aisle it may seem like
we're speaking in extreme ways, but this is the reality
of Palestinian journalists, Palestinian civilians reporting on the ground. So
how do we carry all of that as just like
average citizens.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
That want to be informed.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
I just think it's so important for us to remember
that the minute that we lose our theory of mind
for the other, the minute that we lose our capacity
to put ourselves in the shoes of the perceived other,
we risk becoming exactly what we're condemning. And I've been
trying to talk to people within my social circle who
(20:04):
I've seen posting what I believe to be like extremely
dangerous and toxic views, and.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Be like, just call out the fact that, like, Okay.
Speaker 5 (20:16):
You think these people are monsters, you think these people
are animals, But like, how can you then distinguish yourself
from this perceived other if you too are like surrendering
your capacity for empathy and for having a theory of
mind of the other, and for seeing other people as
(20:38):
human Like I think one of the most beautiful, powerful
and unique things about the human species that distinguishes us
from other animals is that our brains can explore the
liminal spaces of uncertainty and contradiction and complexity, and we
have mirror neurons that allow us to empathize with people
who are very different from us, and to cultivate a
(21:01):
theory of mind for others, which enables us to have
conversations and co create and collaborate on extraordinary feats. And
this is a gift that we I don't think we
realize how much of it. We are losing to our
digital economy and surveillance capitalism, and I just think that
(21:22):
when we I think we need to keep the conversation
focused on what is happening to our brains, because we're
all being made victims here, and people who we see
who are saying and believing outrageous, horrific things and contributing
to the problem. I think that if we approach them
with a little bit of empathy and understanding as well,
(21:44):
and try to have conversations about why perhaps they're being
misled or manipulated and try to give people the benefit
of the doubt, I think that is going to be
a much more constructive way to be able to change
people's hearts and change people's minds and allow them to
deradicalize and understand that, like, at the at the end
(22:07):
of the day, what matters is protecting human lives, and
right now that's not happening right now, right now, I mean,
we all know what's happening, it's just it's just beyond words.
And I think that the only way we're going to
stop stop this is if we're able to convince some
(22:29):
of the people who have been manipulated into dehumanizing Palestinians
into understanding what's happening in their own minds and how
their tools, how are digital tools, how their digital tools
are being weaponized against them, without condescending, without patronizing, just
trying to trying to be like, look, we're all victims
(22:50):
of this. I think those are the conversations that we
need to be having, because I don't think people realize
the extent to which they're literally just being manipulated on
a constant basis, and the reality that they're seeing on
their devices is tailored to exploit their deepest fears and biases,
(23:15):
and and and we need to be empathetic to the
fact that that that that they're that that that everyone
is being made a victim of these technologies, and we
need to figure out how we can collectively guide ourselves
out and regain our autonomy and our capacity for universal empathy,
(23:37):
and and and find ways to pressure our governments to
to be better and and to not fund genocide.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Thank you so much for all of that, for sharing
all of your insight. I think that our audience tends
to be predominantly Latinas, and I think that a lot
of our audience has come from maybe a Catholic background
or some type of a Christian background, And speaking for myself,
you know, when you grow up Catholic, there is a
(24:10):
sort of there is an emphasis on Israel and Bethlehem
and the Promised Land and all of that. And something
we've been doing on our show is encouraging our listeners
who tend to be Latina's Right not to get all
of their news from social media, to not look to celebrities,
(24:31):
and to not look to influencers, especially with regards to
this issue in particular. And I'm wondering if you have
suggestions for our audience on where they can look instead
of looking to Instagram posts and influencers and social media,
where can they go to get more perspective on the issue.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's a great question, and
I just encourage people to to I mean, I feel
like I can't general Well, Okay, first of all, I
used to work in public media. I came I came
to the Early Times from KPBS, which is the NPR
and PBS station in San Diego.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
So I always.
Speaker 5 (25:14):
I always encourage people to support and to turn to
public media in times of crisis to understand what is
happening in our world because public media is among it's
just it's the least likely to be affected or one
of the least likely to be affected by corporate interests
and and and and just much more likely to be
(25:39):
I don't want to say objective or impartial, because I
feel like those terms are so loaded now. But I
do think that they try to approach thing NPR, PBS,
news are They try to approach things with with with
real nuance and consideration of the facts, and not not
(26:01):
let certain interests affect the way that they cover things.
And obviously I work at the Alley Times. I think
we have amazing journalists here and who are doing who
are doing.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Great work on this issue and and all.
Speaker 5 (26:17):
I mean, there's there's so many publications to choose from,
and and not all of them are consistently great on
especially on on foreign affairs. But I do encourage people
to just seek out that there's always certain journalists at
every inst at almost every journalistic organization whose work is
(26:41):
worth following. And and I just I encourage people to
make to make their own decisions based on on on
assessing like who are the best journalists at these at
these various publications who are on the ground whenever possible,
or who who actually demons straight an interest in informing
(27:03):
the public.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Versus just.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
You know, just versus like furthering divisions and disinformation.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Definitely support public media. I want to ask you about
independent thinking in general and creating more space for it.
A lot of us have gravitated to the digital space,
especially if we're a millennial or gen Z. We haven't
A lot of us haven't known a time without the internet,
right or without social media. Like we talk about that
(27:33):
all the time, Like we met online. I remember when
I made my first aim account, my first MySpace, Like,
we've been online for so long, it's it makes me wonder,
like is it even possible to create a space for
independent thinking online? Is this something we need to move offline?
Like what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 5 (27:54):
I do think that it's possible. I mean, like, well,
first of all, I just want to.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
Say that whenever we.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
Fall into this adversarial US versus them binary way of
thinking that our digital spaces encourage, we we are less
able to fight against, Like we're less able to fight
for our common interests as the non billionaire classes because
(28:26):
we're not able to talk to each other, We're not
able to reach any form of compromise, and that's what
these billionaires want. They want to protect the status quo.
And whenever we start to attack each other instead of
the systems that they are protecting, it strengthens the status
quo because we have like a form of paralysis. But
(28:49):
to your question, I do think that there's a way
for these digital spaces to embrace, for us within these
digital spaces, to embrace a more non violent form of
communication that will encourage actual changes to take place in
the real world. And I say non violent communication because
(29:11):
this is one thing I've realized in recent years. I've
just been challenged a lot the more that I spend
time offline, like in the real world, to talking to
people who have very different political views for me or
just different experiences for me. I've realized that, like because
(29:32):
I've talked to a lot of I've talked to a
number of extremists, religious extremists, right wing extremists who have
become deradicalized and who left extremism behind as a result
of people communicating with them non violently, either in real
life or in digital spaces, and I mean, there's an
entire book, Non Violent Communication, which I've written about before,
(29:54):
which which is really helpful for this. But also Reverend
James Lawson here in Los Angeles, who is a close
ally Martin Luther King junior, and who's still alive today.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
He was.
Speaker 5 (30:04):
He's a leading theorist of nonviolence who teaches a class
on non violence.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
And it's all about treating.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
The perceived other, the person who we see as our adversary,
as as a fellow human being and and and instead
of our immortal enemy or an existential threat to our lives,
even if we feel that, even if we feel like
their beliefs and their actions in the world are a
threat to us and the people that we love, if
(30:32):
we if we condemn them in violent language, no matter
how true we believe that language to be, we're actually
causing them to double down and and too, and losing
the ability to potentially persuade them and and change them.
And I've talked to people former extremists who have been
(30:53):
changed by people speaking with them, speaking to them with
empathy and with like just these non violent forms of
communication and and and even though they have not these
non violent forms of communication have not predominated in digital spaces.
I do see them increasingly going viral. People like a
(31:15):
low fade men and who I wrote about, a non
binary activist and who embraces love towards their towards the
people who express hatred towards them. Love and empathy and
humanity do go viral. I think so many of us
(31:35):
are exhausted by hatred and adversarial thinking that we're increasingly
likely to want these things, and so they do go viral.
And we just we need to we we just we
need to model ways of being in digital spaces and
in the real world that are revolutionary and contradictory to
(32:00):
those that have been set in motion. And once these
tech companies see that this is what we want, I
hope and I do believe that that that that they
will be forced to change their business models.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yeah, we're thank you so much, Gene for giving us
and our listeners so much to chew on and so
much to think about, especially as I think we all
scroll aimlessly, you know, and we're clicking and we're liking
and we're sharing, and I hope that this is a
type of conversation that will really like give our listeners,
(32:38):
you know, pause and really think about what it is
that we're consuming and what we're sharing and what we're liking,
and what we're encouraging the algorithm to feed us more of.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Yeah, I do a follow up question.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
You know, obviously you're you're a columnists, so you you
write for a living, but just in general, you know,
I wanted to ask you about out you know, right,
you because you have a column based on your opinion, right,
what's your process for backing up your belief with research
and supported arguments? Because even if someone is not a columnist, right,
(33:12):
we all have our opinions and how are we backing
them up?
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Right?
Speaker 1 (33:15):
And so how would you advise someone to that has
this belief, has this opinion, and how can they you know,
back that up in the way you do, but at
their own level.
Speaker 5 (33:25):
Well, so for every column that I write, I'm I'm
kind of I think I'm an outlier. Well, I don't
want to say that because I'm not. I'm not fully
informed of everybody else's creative process as a columnist. But
I for every column, even if it's a short column,
I talk to at least a dozen people, and often
these are long conversations like our long conversations where I'm
(33:48):
just and I love these conversations because I'm just. I
go to people who are experts on a subject that
I intend to write about, and I just I call
them and I pick their brains, and I just I
don't even necessar crely have a set list of questions.
I just I want to hear what's interesting to them
about this issue and and and just pick their brains
in a sort of free flowing way.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
And I just I feel like we have forgotten this art.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
Of of deep, long, lingering conversations with each other. And
that's what I love about about you guys, and and
podcasting in general, is it creates a space for us
to really just dive deep and and to explore the
expertise of so many different people and the life experiences
(34:38):
of different people. So just don't expect I mean, obviously,
doing research and making sure that you're corroborating your sources
and that they're reliable sources to the best of your knowledge.
Doing as much research as possible is great, but there's
nothing that substitutes having conversations with people who have lived
(35:00):
experience in the area that you're trying to understand, who
have spent their lives or written entire books about certain subjects.
So so I do encourage people to try to have
those conversations with people. If they don't have the time
to seek people out on their own, then obviously listening
(35:22):
to podcasts long form interviews online.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
Are great as well.
Speaker 5 (35:29):
But I just I just think it's so important and
for us to do that and to just question, question
the information that is automatically fed to us, because that
that information that is appearing on our feeds is, even
if it's accurate, it is, it's only so accurate. It's
only one small piece of the picture in most cases,
(35:52):
and and it is designed to to exploit our particular
biases or to reinforce our biases, and not necessarily to
broaden our perspective in ways that can be extremely useful.
So seeking out as many perspectives as possible while avoiding propagandists,
(36:15):
which like it can be an entire podcast episode on
its own, like who are the gas Lighters? Like how
do you spot somebody who's just like going deep on
a subject in a way that's extremely deceptive. But I
do feel like we all kind of have a feel
for or we can develop a feel for who are
(36:39):
trustworthy voices, and usually it's people who are not speaking
in binaries and who are not trying to reinforce your
hatred of other people.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
I think that's huge. I think that's a great takeaway
folks who are not speaking in binaries or reinforcing hatred
of other people. I think that's a really great summation
for how our folks, our listeners can like navigate misinformation
and propaganda online.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah, because I think in for latin As and a
lot of us in multi generational household, we're doing the
work for the family, right. It's not just me disseminating
information and going through news and what's propaganda and what's misinformation,
but it's like what is my mom seeing on Twitter?
What is she seeing on Facebook? And kind of navigating
those conversations as well, because we're not just doing it
(37:27):
for ourselves.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
It's also a lot of the time it's for our families.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
So true.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
Yeah, Yeah, the amount of times that my Aalita usually
it's my Awaitha will send me something and she's like,
can you believe this is happening and I'm like, oh no,
that's not that's not happening. And yeah, especially with my
dad because my dad, yeah, my dad is he has
(37:51):
struggled with delusions of persecution and hallucinations, and he's constantly
coming to me with video, YouTube ideas and articles from
Russian news outlets that are being targeted to him, that
are preying on his particular paranoias.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
And I'm just like, ugh, yeah, Latinos.
Speaker 5 (38:12):
We often have to play that role of helping our
families navigate this extremely complicated media environment.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
While also like not making it about us, right right,
And I find that and my grandmother too, and older Catholics,
older Latini Catholics in particular, you know, there is a personal,
seemingly a personal vested interest in Israel because of all,
because of everything, you know, especially the religious connections there.
(38:44):
And I think that that's a big piece of it,
is like this is not about us, Like this particular
issue really is not about us and how we feel
about it about Israel, and I think that's I think
a big takeaway for me is like even decentering ourselves.
Obviously we're latin As here having this conversation, but I
(39:06):
think that's like an important takeaway too, you know, And
it's interesting to see folks who really are are not Israeli,
are not Palestinian, are not Jewish or not Muslim, also
having very strong opinions in one direction or the other,
and how that sways things like I think a lot
of people somehow see themselves as part of the issue
(39:27):
when maybe we're not.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
You know, yeah, that's one hundred percent true.
Speaker 5 (39:31):
Like the amount of self self anointed experts on this
who've never visited or lived in the region is kind
of crazy. So I do think that decent ourselves is
really important, but also recognizing that we do have agency
when it comes to protecting people's lives. I think we
(39:51):
can condemn the actions of the Israeli government, we can
condemn the actions of Hamas, and we can act in
response to them and urge our government to do what
is right without without broadly characterizing Israeli's or Palestinians as
(40:16):
evil based on the actions of a few specific individuals
who are who I mean, groups that are in power.
I just think it's really important for us to distinguish
and while we're decentering ourselves, also acknowledge that we do
have a responsibility as citizens of the United States, where
so many resources are being sent to this war. We
(40:39):
have a responsibility to act on behalf of life and
peace to the extent possible.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
And in that spirit and in that vein, a lot
of folks have been sharing, you know, call your representative,
call your senators and demand a cease fire. And that
is one thing that we can each you and using
that personal and civic and global responsibility as human beings
to make the phone call. You know, it's not something
we can vote on right this second, but you can
(41:11):
get in touch with your representative and it.
Speaker 5 (41:13):
Makes a difference. They count those calls. I mean, every
call does count. As small or as quaint as the
action may seem, it really it really does make a
difference to make those calls and to talk to your
friends and family members about the importance of making those calls.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Yes, I'm going to link in the news letter and
our show notes where you can find your representative if
you're in California. That sometime is like the first hurdle.
You don't know where to find them, you don't know
their information. So we're going to link that in the
show notes as well. Thank you so much Jean for
joining us today. I also want to shout out that
there's been a long history of Palestinian Latin American solidarity,
(41:55):
and so I just want to call that out and
also say that we will be producing another episode about
this with some more experts that can speak more on this.
So thank you so much for listening. Thank you Gene
for joining us today. This has been an incredible conversation.
You're welcome back anytime I think we need to talk
about propaganda next.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
I'd love to thank you both. I really enjoyed speaking
with you and you guys are doing great work. So
thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of
lok A Radio. We will catch you next time us.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Lokata Radio a Radio Fani Novela is executive produced and
hosted by me Mala Munos and Viosa.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Fam Story editing by Me Fiosa.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Audio editing by Stephanie Franco.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Thank you to our locomotives, our listeners for all of
your support.
Lokata Radio is a radiophonic novella, which.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Is just a very extra way of saying a podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
I'm Fosa FM.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
And I am Mala Munos.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Lokata Radio is yr Brima's favorite podcast, hosted by us
Mala and Viosa.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
We're two ig friends turned podcast partners, breaking down pop culture, feminism,
sexual wellness, and offering fresh takes on trending topics through
nuanced interviews with up and coming LATINX creatives.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Known as Las Lokatas, Las Mammis of Myth and Bullshit
and Las Bocasters Prosas. We were podcasting independently since twenty sixteen,
but joined iHeartMedia's Microtura network in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
This year, we're continuing to share stories from the LATINX community.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Partodo el Mundo Welcome to season eighty.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Are you listening?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
O La La Loka Motes, Welcome to season eight of
Lokata Radio.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
I'm the Osa and I'm Mala.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
You're tuning in to Capitolo one seventy nine.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Last time on locat Our Radio, we interviewed Jasmine Malonado,
founder of Persona the Shop. Go ahead and tune into
that episode, leave us a review, share with a friend,
and subscribe to Loca Thought our radio.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
So today we have a pretty intense episode. This is
a this is a deep one. This is this is
We've been waiting to do this one. We need at
the time, We needed the research and so we're going
to be talking about the state of affairs in the
world as best as we can, but we'll be doing
so with a journalist and really focusing on misinformation and
(01:51):
social media. This in this conversation, the.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Last time we briefly touched upon Israel Palestine, we suggest
that folks not turn to celebrities or influencers or Instagram
graphics for their takes and for their perspectives and for
their background, which is why we're inviting on a journalist,
(02:14):
Jean Guerrero, to give us some context and perspective on
specifically misinformation online as it relates to Israel Palestine. A
few weeks ago, we received the news over here Stateside
that Hamas bombed Israel. Since October seventh, seven thousand civilians
(02:35):
have been killed in Gaza due to Israeli airstrikes. Of
those seven thousand, more than twenty nine hundred have been children,
twenty four journalists, sixty one teachers, thirty five United Nations staff,
and these numbers according to The Washington Post.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Those numbers continue to rise right as we do our research,
as things are reported out. And we're also have been noticing,
you know, in the US, of course, when people voice
their opinions or people voice their support in particular of Palestine,
they have been losing job opportunities, have been resigning from jobs,
(03:15):
and so just a couple examples, Javier Zamora, author of
New York Times bestselling memoir Sorito, was uninvited from a
panel for voicing his support of Palestine.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
And javier' Zamora is not the only one that seems
to be experiencing some type of professional repercussions for support
of Palestine. We also have examples of folks like ca
agent Maha Dakil, who recently resigned from the internal board
at CAIA. But we're seeing Israeli people and those who
(03:50):
are in support of ending air strikes in Gaza receiving
negative backlash in the public sphere.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
We mentioned like not to listen or not to seek
out influencers, write, or celebrities for your information or news,
but I did want to point out like Belahadee obviously
is a model, she's Palestinian, and she has been vocal
in the Free Palestine movement in support of it, and
she's been receiving death threats, and so it's we share
this to contextualize the consequences of showing your support for Palestine,
(04:22):
and how this relates to free thinking, critical thinking, media literacy,
lack there of media literacy, and how we can combat
it as we consume news, how we can be more
mindful with the things that we share, because we all
share things, influencer or not. If you're a person online,
you're probably sharing. If you care about different causes, you're
(04:45):
going to be sharing things.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
And in addition, you know, the Free Palestine movement is
not a recent movement. This is something that has been
going on for the past fifty years. There have been
Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at Universe cities across
the country for a long time. Certainly when I was
an undergrad, SJP was around, and so I think part
of it too is look to the movement that has
(05:10):
been going on for several decades now, the thought leaders,
the activists, the writers, the journalists, the Palestinians who have
been talking about this issue, not necessarily like someone who
got a million followers in the last six months, you
know what I mean, as like now posting about it
is more the perspective where're coming from?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, I mean Angela Davis has been writing about Palestine
for most of her career. Different collectives, feminist collectives over
the years, over the decades that have been writing about
Palestine have been thinking and supporting Palestinian folks. And also
because you mentioned SGP, I did also want to mention that,
you know, students from across the country in their SJP
(05:54):
chapters are being dogsed, are losing their jobs. And something
to keep in mind is these are twenty somethings student leaders.
So we can have celebrities, we can have professional folks
sure losing opportunities, but we're having twenty something year olds
being docksed.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
So this is happening more.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
And more absolutely. And in putting this episode together, you know,
we were reaching out to different folks to see who
could we bring on, who could we interview, And I
asked a journalist friend of ours, you know, who are
your recommendations as far as Palestinian journalists who might be available, able,
willing to speak on the topic, and sort of what
(06:31):
we were finding is there are plenty of Palestinian journalists
out there who right now are very booked. They're on CNN,
they're on the major news stations, they're on the ground,
they're talking about the issue and what's going on. But
you also have a number of Palestinian journalists, writers, thinkers
who are not necessarily able or comfortable or safe to
(06:52):
speak on these issues publicly or on the record for
fear of whatever potential consequences might come their way. So
if you're asking, why don't we have a Palestinian journalist
on today's episode, well, that's one of the reasons why.
So thus Jean, we're very excited to have her. She's
been writing on this issue recently for the la time
she has a column, So after the episode, make sure
(07:13):
to go and read some of her writing about misinformation
and how to really kind of disentangle all the different interests,
all the conflicting interests that are involved in this in
this issue.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Yeah, and next week we will be joined by two guests,
one of them Palestinian, to talk about the crisis and
war crimes in Palestine and They have a podcast as well,
so we'll be talking more about that next week, but
in the meantime, we're super excited to have an Jin Guerrero.
We've been following her work for years and she's an
opinion columnist at the La Times. Her writing has been
featured in Vanity Fair, Politico, The Nation, Wired, and The
(07:49):
New York Times and The Washington Post and everywhere. Basically.
She's originally from San Diego and a graduate of USC
and Gaucher College. This past week, she published an article
titled Horrific Social media post about the Israel Hamas War
show how being online ruins independent thinking? Can we fix it?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Jean Guerrero columnist, journalist, writer at the La Times. Thank
you so much for joining us today. Can you please
say hello and introduce yourself for our listeners.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Hi, great to be here.
Speaker 5 (08:24):
My name is Jean Guerrero and I'm a columnist at
the La Times. I write mostly about politics, threats to democracy,
disinformation and grew up on the border in San Diego
and covered immigration issues under the Trump administration and Gene.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
You cover all kinds of topics in your column, from
dating and who splits the Bill to now talking about
misinformation and the horrific social media posts about the Israel
Hamas war that people are seeing online, and what that
is illustrating about American public's ability to think freely and independently.
(09:03):
So I would love for us to talk to you
specifically about about that article as it relates to Israel
and Hamas.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
Yeah, I'd love to talk about it.
Speaker 5 (09:13):
I'll just preface by saying I'm not, by any stretch
of the imagination, an expert on the Israel Hamas war,
So I wouldn't feel comfortable commenting on the peculiar the
particularities of how people should be processing it. But I
can absolutely talk about why people on social media seem
(09:34):
to be adopting an extremely harmful and black or white
framing that I don't think is conducive to peace or
any constructive progress on this issue.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Gene, I'm curious, was there one particular post or a
series of posts, or a pattern that sparked this idea
for you you to talk about the misinformation as it
relates to the Israel Palestine issue, Like, was there something
specific that you saw that moved you to write this column?
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Yeah, I mean I was.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
I was on Instagram and I was just noticing that
the people who were appearing in my feed were either
super super pro Israel and not expressing any empathy or
concern about the lives of Palestinian civilians, or they were
(10:36):
super pro Palestinian to the to the point of of
of rationalizing or even cheering on the horrific deaths that
we saw as a result of Hamask going into Israel
and killing so many people in these brutal ways.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
So I just I was.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
I was noticing it was it was either one way
or the or the other way, and I wasn't seeing
any nuance or complexity in the discussion. And I started
talking to my friends and found that they were experiencing
similar things on social media. If if they were were
if they leaned more in the Palestinian direction, their social
media media feeds tended to be more populated by these
(11:19):
just horrible videos of of of of the violence being
committed against Palestinians by by the Israeli government and UH
and vice versa.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
People who were super pro Israel were tending.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
To see videos of of of the children who were
taken hostage by Hamas and and and the people who
were killed by Hamas and I realized we were all
experiencing completely different realities and were unable to It was
just another example of how we were a lot of
(11:53):
people just were unable to have conversations about this very
important issue because we were all seeing entirely different realities
and we couldn't. We can't. So many of us just
continue to not be able to understand one another because
we're not seeing the same reality. Literally, we're seeing entirely
different realities on our.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Feeds, right, And that's part of how the algorithm is created.
I mean, I would definitely be on the side of
social media where everyone is pro Palestine, you know, free
Palestine movement, and so what I'm seeing is very different
than say someone in the opposite quote opposite side.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
But the way the.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Social media algorithm is created, that's where we exist online.
And you references really great quote by Naomi Klein about
the more we exist online, the more privacy and autonomy
we lose.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
So can you talk more.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
About that as someone that's both online for work maybe
for personal reasons too, and consuming all of this news.
Speaker 5 (13:00):
Yeah, I mean this great quote she says is how
individual we're all becoming individuals not guided by legible principles
or beliefs, but acting as members of groups, playing yin
to the others yang well versus weak, awake versus sheep right,
just versus depraved binaries where thinking once lived. And I
(13:20):
just thought that was so insightful because I do believe
that the way that the algorithms operate, they're encouraging us
to increasingly increasingly think in terms of binaries instead of complexities. Literally,
we're starting to think like in zeros and ones like
the coding and computers, and are losing what I think
(13:42):
makes us human and becoming more like automatons, like robots,
which is what these algorithms are intended to do, because
the more that we think in these reductionistic ways, the
more susceptible we become to manipulation, and these these algorithms
are designed to do that. The tech tech companies gather
(14:08):
all kinds of information about us, the most intimate details
of our lives.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
Every click, view.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
And search online is harvested from us to create these
user profiles that are sold to data brokers that are
then sold to corporations who want to sell us things,
to campaigns who want to affect the way that we
vote and the way that we see the world and
the way that we see other people. So we're increasingly
(14:34):
losing our free will and the way Naomi Client talks
about it in her amazing new book Doppelganger, is these
digital profiles that are being created of us, are she
calls them, digital doubles. We're losing our autonomy and our
free will to these digital doubles that are kind of
like these virtual voodoo dolls that get constructed out of
(14:54):
our online behavior and can then be used. I mean
they're sold, like I said, to corporations, can pains, and
anyone who wants to influence what we believe, how we behave,
and those doubles are used to nudge our behavior in
real life. They use our fantasies, our fears, o our
(15:16):
deepest vulnerabilities, our biases, our proclivities to inform how they
can best take advantage of us, you know, in moments
of darkness and moments of weakness. I mean, the amount
of things that they know about us is that is astounding.
They know if we're going through divorce, they know if
we're they knew who were sleeping next to They know
(15:39):
what time we wake up in the morning. They know
how fast we walk, they know what facial expressions we're making,
and all of this is just such an incredible amount
of information that they have on us that, whether whether
we think we're susceptible or not we are, the more
time that we spend on line, the more we lose
our free will to these to these companies that have
(16:01):
access to that information.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
I also want to ask about the sentence. In the
days since the Israel Himas war began, our collective loss
of these things is conspicuous on social media, where many
of us are recycling the one sided takes of bots.
And I think this point is so important, whether it's
on Instagram, TikTok x formerly Twitter, sometimes the posts that
(16:29):
you see going super viral and the pages that you
see like posting tons of memes or whatever. I don't
think that we always sit back and realize that there
are not necessarily human beings running the pages or generating
the post. We're at this place in social media and
(16:49):
in our economy where a lot of people and brands
and companies have paid to like have pages right count
that they don't necessarily have to manually run, but they
can like run themselves, you know, and so I'm wondering
about the place of bots and like meme pages in
(17:11):
all of this, where it's like not even necessarily human
beings influencing other human beings directly exactly.
Speaker 5 (17:20):
I'm so glad you bring that up, because there's so
much disinformation going around about this war, and a lot
of it is being spread by bots that then, because
of how viral the content goes, ordinary people begin to recycle, retweet,
and just spread that information, and it just creates this
(17:41):
ripple effect of people just not understanding what is really
going on. And the people who are behind those bots
those accounts are often foreign actors who are using social
media as a weapon of psychological warfare that is intended
to pit us all against each other so that we
(18:02):
can't talk to each other, and we can't, you know,
we can't address the real issues that we're facing, whether
it's in our country or abroad, and and they're they're
they're chipping away at our capacity for civil discourse and
eroding our democracy. This is a tool of psychological warfare
that is being used in that way, but also just
(18:23):
anybody within the United States who has an interest in
us talking past each other and and not understanding what's
going on, you know, within the military industrial complex, people
who just want to profit off of our sale of
weapons and and such overseas. I mean that that those
(18:44):
are other people who have an interest in spreading disinformation
and causing us to not be able to talk about
this in a way. That's that's constructive.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
That's such a great point, and I think leads to
this question about propaganda, right.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
A lot of us have.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Been seeing the propaganda language right being used when talked
about Palestinians. They're being regarded as quote animals, unhuman, subhuman,
And so how do we, you know, filter the propaganda
the disinformation while also holding in mind there's a genocide happening,
(19:22):
And so how are we carrying those two We're sure
for one side of the aisle it may seem like
we're speaking in extreme ways, but this is the reality
of Palestinian journalists, Palestinian civilians reporting on the ground. So
how do we carry all of that as just like
average citizens.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
That want to be informed.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
I just think it's so important for us to remember
that the minute that we lose our theory of mind
for the other, the minute that we lose our capacity
to put ourselves in the shoes of the perceived other,
we risk becoming exactly what we're condemning. And I've been
trying to talk to people within my social circle who
(20:04):
I've seen posting what I believe to be like extremely
dangerous and toxic views, and.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Be like, just call out the fact that, like, Okay.
Speaker 5 (20:16):
You think these people are monsters, you think these people
are animals, But like, how can you then distinguish yourself
from this perceived other if you too are like surrendering
your capacity for empathy and for having a theory of
mind of the other, and for seeing other people as
(20:38):
human Like I think one of the most beautiful, powerful
and unique things about the human species that distinguishes us
from other animals is that our brains can explore the
liminal spaces of uncertainty and contradiction and complexity, and we
have mirror neurons that allow us to empathize with people
who are very different from us, and to cultivate a
(21:01):
theory of mind for others, which enables us to have
conversations and co create and collaborate on extraordinary feats. And
this is a gift that we I don't think we
realize how much of it. We are losing to our
digital economy and surveillance capitalism, and I just think that
(21:22):
when we I think we need to keep the conversation
focused on what is happening to our brains, because we're
all being made victims here, and people who we see
who are saying and believing outrageous, horrific things and contributing
to the problem. I think that if we approach them
with a little bit of empathy and understanding as well,
(21:44):
and try to have conversations about why perhaps they're being
misled or manipulated and try to give people the benefit
of the doubt, I think that is going to be
a much more constructive way to be able to change
people's hearts and change people's minds and allow them to
deradicalize and understand that, like, at the at the end
(22:07):
of the day, what matters is protecting human lives, and
right now that's not happening right now, right now, I mean,
we all know what's happening, it's just it's just beyond words.
And I think that the only way we're going to
stop stop this is if we're able to convince some
(22:29):
of the people who have been manipulated into dehumanizing Palestinians
into understanding what's happening in their own minds and how
their tools, how are digital tools, how their digital tools
are being weaponized against them, without condescending, without patronizing, just
trying to trying to be like, look, we're all victims
(22:50):
of this. I think those are the conversations that we
need to be having, because I don't think people realize
the extent to which they're literally just being manipulated on
a constant basis, and the reality that they're seeing on
their devices is tailored to exploit their deepest fears and biases,
(23:15):
and and and we need to be empathetic to the
fact that that that that they're that that that everyone
is being made a victim of these technologies, and we
need to figure out how we can collectively guide ourselves
out and regain our autonomy and our capacity for universal empathy,
(23:37):
and and and find ways to pressure our governments to
to be better and and to not fund genocide.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Thank you so much for all of that, for sharing
all of your insight. I think that our audience tends
to be predominantly Latinas, and I think that a lot
of our audience has come from maybe a Catholic background
or some type of a Christian background, And speaking for myself,
you know, when you grow up Catholic, there is a
(24:10):
sort of there is an emphasis on Israel and Bethlehem
and the Promised Land and all of that. And something
we've been doing on our show is encouraging our listeners
who tend to be Latina's Right not to get all
of their news from social media, to not look to celebrities,
(24:31):
and to not look to influencers, especially with regards to
this issue in particular. And I'm wondering if you have
suggestions for our audience on where they can look instead
of looking to Instagram posts and influencers and social media,
where can they go to get more perspective on the issue.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's a great question, and
I just encourage people to to I mean, I feel
like I can't general Well, Okay, first of all, I
used to work in public media. I came I came
to the Early Times from KPBS, which is the NPR
and PBS station in San Diego.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
So I always.
Speaker 5 (25:14):
I always encourage people to support and to turn to
public media in times of crisis to understand what is
happening in our world because public media is among it's
just it's the least likely to be affected or one
of the least likely to be affected by corporate interests
and and and and just much more likely to be
(25:39):
I don't want to say objective or impartial, because I
feel like those terms are so loaded now. But I
do think that they try to approach thing NPR, PBS,
news are They try to approach things with with with
real nuance and consideration of the facts, and not not
(26:01):
let certain interests affect the way that they cover things.
And obviously I work at the Alley Times. I think
we have amazing journalists here and who are doing who
are doing.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Great work on this issue and and all.
Speaker 5 (26:17):
I mean, there's there's so many publications to choose from,
and and not all of them are consistently great on
especially on on foreign affairs. But I do encourage people
to just seek out that there's always certain journalists at
every inst at almost every journalistic organization whose work is
(26:41):
worth following. And and I just I encourage people to
make to make their own decisions based on on on
assessing like who are the best journalists at these at
these various publications who are on the ground whenever possible,
or who who actually demons straight an interest in informing
(27:03):
the public.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Versus just.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
You know, just versus like furthering divisions and disinformation.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Definitely support public media. I want to ask you about
independent thinking in general and creating more space for it.
A lot of us have gravitated to the digital space,
especially if we're a millennial or gen Z. We haven't
A lot of us haven't known a time without the internet,
right or without social media. Like we talk about that
(27:33):
all the time, Like we met online. I remember when
I made my first aim account, my first MySpace, Like,
we've been online for so long, it's it makes me wonder,
like is it even possible to create a space for
independent thinking online? Is this something we need to move offline?
Like what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 5 (27:54):
I do think that it's possible. I mean, like, well,
first of all, I just want to.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
Say that whenever we.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
Fall into this adversarial US versus them binary way of
thinking that our digital spaces encourage, we we are less
able to fight against, Like we're less able to fight
for our common interests as the non billionaire classes because
(28:26):
we're not able to talk to each other, We're not
able to reach any form of compromise, and that's what
these billionaires want. They want to protect the status quo.
And whenever we start to attack each other instead of
the systems that they are protecting, it strengthens the status
quo because we have like a form of paralysis. But
(28:49):
to your question, I do think that there's a way
for these digital spaces to embrace, for us within these
digital spaces, to embrace a more non violent form of
communication that will encourage actual changes to take place in
the real world. And I say non violent communication because
(29:11):
this is one thing I've realized in recent years. I've
just been challenged a lot the more that I spend
time offline, like in the real world, to talking to
people who have very different political views for me or
just different experiences for me. I've realized that, like because
(29:32):
I've talked to a lot of I've talked to a
number of extremists, religious extremists, right wing extremists who have
become deradicalized and who left extremism behind as a result
of people communicating with them non violently, either in real
life or in digital spaces, and I mean, there's an
entire book, Non Violent Communication, which I've written about before,
(29:54):
which which is really helpful for this. But also Reverend
James Lawson here in Los Angeles, who is a close
ally Martin Luther King junior, and who's still alive today.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
He was.
Speaker 5 (30:04):
He's a leading theorist of nonviolence who teaches a class
on non violence.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
And it's all about treating.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
The perceived other, the person who we see as our adversary,
as as a fellow human being and and and instead
of our immortal enemy or an existential threat to our lives,
even if we feel that, even if we feel like
their beliefs and their actions in the world are a
threat to us and the people that we love, if
(30:32):
we if we condemn them in violent language, no matter
how true we believe that language to be, we're actually
causing them to double down and and too, and losing
the ability to potentially persuade them and and change them.
And I've talked to people former extremists who have been
(30:53):
changed by people speaking with them, speaking to them with
empathy and with like just these non violent forms of
communication and and and even though they have not these
non violent forms of communication have not predominated in digital spaces.
I do see them increasingly going viral. People like a
(31:15):
low fade men and who I wrote about, a non
binary activist and who embraces love towards their towards the
people who express hatred towards them. Love and empathy and
humanity do go viral. I think so many of us
(31:35):
are exhausted by hatred and adversarial thinking that we're increasingly
likely to want these things, and so they do go viral.
And we just we need to we we just we
need to model ways of being in digital spaces and
in the real world that are revolutionary and contradictory to
(32:00):
those that have been set in motion. And once these
tech companies see that this is what we want, I
hope and I do believe that that that that they
will be forced to change their business models.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yeah, we're thank you so much, Gene for giving us
and our listeners so much to chew on and so
much to think about, especially as I think we all
scroll aimlessly, you know, and we're clicking and we're liking
and we're sharing, and I hope that this is a
type of conversation that will really like give our listeners,
(32:38):
you know, pause and really think about what it is
that we're consuming and what we're sharing and what we're liking,
and what we're encouraging the algorithm to feed us more of.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Yeah, I do a follow up question.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
You know, obviously you're you're a columnists, so you you
write for a living, but just in general, you know,
I wanted to ask you about out you know, right,
you because you have a column based on your opinion, right,
what's your process for backing up your belief with research
and supported arguments? Because even if someone is not a columnist, right,
(33:12):
we all have our opinions and how are we backing
them up?
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Right?
Speaker 1 (33:15):
And so how would you advise someone to that has
this belief, has this opinion, and how can they you know,
back that up in the way you do, but at
their own level.
Speaker 5 (33:25):
Well, so for every column that I write, I'm I'm
kind of I think I'm an outlier. Well, I don't
want to say that because I'm not. I'm not fully
informed of everybody else's creative process as a columnist. But
I for every column, even if it's a short column,
I talk to at least a dozen people, and often
these are long conversations like our long conversations where I'm
(33:48):
just and I love these conversations because I'm just. I
go to people who are experts on a subject that
I intend to write about, and I just I call
them and I pick their brains, and I just I
don't even necessar crely have a set list of questions.
I just I want to hear what's interesting to them
about this issue and and and just pick their brains
in a sort of free flowing way.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
And I just I feel like we have forgotten this art.
Speaker 5 (34:17):
Of of deep, long, lingering conversations with each other. And
that's what I love about about you guys, and and
podcasting in general, is it creates a space for us
to really just dive deep and and to explore the
expertise of so many different people and the life experiences
(34:38):
of different people. So just don't expect I mean, obviously,
doing research and making sure that you're corroborating your sources
and that they're reliable sources to the best of your knowledge.
Doing as much research as possible is great, but there's
nothing that substitutes having conversations with people who have lived
(35:00):
experience in the area that you're trying to understand, who
have spent their lives or written entire books about certain subjects.
So so I do encourage people to try to have
those conversations with people. If they don't have the time
to seek people out on their own, then obviously listening
(35:22):
to podcasts long form interviews online.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
Are great as well.
Speaker 5 (35:29):
But I just I just think it's so important and
for us to do that and to just question, question
the information that is automatically fed to us, because that
that information that is appearing on our feeds is, even
if it's accurate, it is, it's only so accurate. It's
only one small piece of the picture in most cases,
(35:52):
and and it is designed to to exploit our particular
biases or to reinforce our biases, and not necessarily to
broaden our perspective in ways that can be extremely useful.
So seeking out as many perspectives as possible while avoiding propagandists,
(36:15):
which like it can be an entire podcast episode on
its own, like who are the gas Lighters? Like how
do you spot somebody who's just like going deep on
a subject in a way that's extremely deceptive. But I
do feel like we all kind of have a feel
for or we can develop a feel for who are
(36:39):
trustworthy voices, and usually it's people who are not speaking
in binaries and who are not trying to reinforce your
hatred of other people.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
I think that's huge. I think that's a great takeaway
folks who are not speaking in binaries or reinforcing hatred
of other people. I think that's a really great summation
for how our folks, our listeners can like navigate misinformation
and propaganda online.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah, because I think in for latin As and a
lot of us in multi generational household, we're doing the
work for the family, right. It's not just me disseminating
information and going through news and what's propaganda and what's misinformation,
but it's like what is my mom seeing on Twitter?
What is she seeing on Facebook? And kind of navigating
those conversations as well, because we're not just doing it
(37:27):
for ourselves.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
It's also a lot of the time it's for our families.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
So true.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
Yeah, Yeah, the amount of times that my Aalita usually
it's my Awaitha will send me something and she's like,
can you believe this is happening and I'm like, oh no,
that's not that's not happening. And yeah, especially with my
dad because my dad, yeah, my dad is he has
(37:51):
struggled with delusions of persecution and hallucinations, and he's constantly
coming to me with video, YouTube ideas and articles from
Russian news outlets that are being targeted to him, that
are preying on his particular paranoias.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
And I'm just like, ugh, yeah, Latinos.
Speaker 5 (38:12):
We often have to play that role of helping our
families navigate this extremely complicated media environment.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
While also like not making it about us, right right,
And I find that and my grandmother too, and older Catholics,
older Latini Catholics in particular, you know, there is a personal,
seemingly a personal vested interest in Israel because of all,
because of everything, you know, especially the religious connections there.
(38:44):
And I think that that's a big piece of it,
is like this is not about us, Like this particular
issue really is not about us and how we feel
about it about Israel, and I think that's I think
a big takeaway for me is like even decentering ourselves.
Obviously we're latin As here having this conversation, but I
(39:06):
think that's like an important takeaway too, you know, And
it's interesting to see folks who really are are not Israeli,
are not Palestinian, are not Jewish or not Muslim, also
having very strong opinions in one direction or the other,
and how that sways things like I think a lot
of people somehow see themselves as part of the issue
(39:27):
when maybe we're not.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
You know, yeah, that's one hundred percent true.
Speaker 5 (39:31):
Like the amount of self self anointed experts on this
who've never visited or lived in the region is kind
of crazy. So I do think that decent ourselves is
really important, but also recognizing that we do have agency
when it comes to protecting people's lives. I think we
(39:51):
can condemn the actions of the Israeli government, we can
condemn the actions of Hamas, and we can act in
response to them and urge our government to do what
is right without without broadly characterizing Israeli's or Palestinians as
(40:16):
evil based on the actions of a few specific individuals
who are who I mean, groups that are in power.
I just think it's really important for us to distinguish
and while we're decentering ourselves, also acknowledge that we do
have a responsibility as citizens of the United States, where
so many resources are being sent to this war. We
(40:39):
have a responsibility to act on behalf of life and
peace to the extent possible.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
And in that spirit and in that vein, a lot
of folks have been sharing, you know, call your representative,
call your senators and demand a cease fire. And that
is one thing that we can each you and using
that personal and civic and global responsibility as human beings
to make the phone call. You know, it's not something
we can vote on right this second, but you can
(41:11):
get in touch with your representative and it.
Speaker 5 (41:13):
Makes a difference. They count those calls. I mean, every
call does count. As small or as quaint as the
action may seem, it really it really does make a
difference to make those calls and to talk to your
friends and family members about the importance of making those calls.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Yes, I'm going to link in the news letter and
our show notes where you can find your representative if
you're in California. That sometime is like the first hurdle.
You don't know where to find them, you don't know
their information. So we're going to link that in the
show notes as well. Thank you so much Jean for
joining us today. I also want to shout out that
there's been a long history of Palestinian Latin American solidarity,
(41:55):
and so I just want to call that out and
also say that we will be producing another episode about
this with some more experts that can speak more on this.
So thank you so much for listening. Thank you Gene
for joining us today. This has been an incredible conversation.
You're welcome back anytime I think we need to talk
about propaganda next.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
I'd love to thank you both. I really enjoyed speaking
with you and you guys are doing great work. So
thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of
lok A Radio. We will catch you next time us.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Lokata Radio a Radio Fani Novela is executive produced and
hosted by me Mala Munos and Viosa.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Fam Story editing by Me Fiosa.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Audio editing by Stephanie Franco.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Thank you to our locomotives, our listeners for all of
your support.
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