April 2, 2024 • 56 mins
Embark on a revelatory journey with us as social entrepreneur Robert Hawkins joins the conversation to unravel the concealed practice of shadow banning. Together, we dissect how this form of censorship, often invisible to its victims, is molding our digital conversations and potentially narrowing the worldviews we're exposed to online. Our dialogue takes you behind the veil of online moderation, laying bare the silent war waged on free expression, and the resultant echo chambers that both left and right can find themselves trapped within.
Wrestling with the complexities of the First Amendment in the realm of omnipotent social platforms, this episode probes the fine line between the right to speak and the power to silence. We confront the perplexing legal landscape that governs digital communication, pondering whether private entities have the right to exclude voices and how this shapes our online milieu.
The finale of our exploration serves as a warning, highlighting the subtle yet profound impacts of shadow banning on community dialogue and the uphill battle content moderators face in their quest to curate the online space. We leave you not just with a deeper understanding but with practical insights on how to spot and challenge the silent mechanisms that could be shaping your digital experience. Tune in for a discourse that promises not just to inform but to transform your engagement with the ever-evolving world of social media.
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
One of the best things about having a podcast is
it gives others who havesomething interesting and
important to talk about a reasonto reach out to me to be on the
show, and that was the casewith Robert Hawkins.
Robert contacted me about beinga guest because he wanted to
talk about shadow banning, and Iwas immediately like say more,
because I know nothing aboutthis topic, but it sounds pretty
(00:22):
intriguing.
If you don't know what shadowbanning is, trust me when I say
that you do want to know what itis, because it impacts all of
us.
Shadow banning is the act ofmuting a user or their content
on a platform without informingthem.
Basically, they take your stuffdown and they don't let you
know about it.
You might be able to still seeyour stuff, but nobody else can
(00:45):
see it.
Back in December of 2022, theWashington Post published an
article that made note of thepractice making headlines when
Elon Musk released evidenceintended to show shadow banning
was being used to suppressconservative views.
But, like I said, this is aproblem that impacts all of us.
A survey by the Center forDemocracy and Technology found
(01:07):
that nearly one in 10 Americanson social media suspect that
they have been shadow banned.
Their research found theplatforms with the largest
percentage of users who believedthey had been shadow banned
were Facebook, followed byTwitter, then Instagram and then
TikTok.
According to their report,users most frequently believe
(01:27):
that they have been shadowbanned for their political views
or their positions on socialissues and, as a conservative,
this totally makes sense to me.
As a matter of fact, the surveyfound that among the users who
believe they had been shadowbanned, they were
disproportionately Republican.
The survey also noted thatother groups that were
disproportionately affectedincluded males, hispanics and
(01:50):
those whose gender identitydon't match with their
biological sex.
Who knew that all of thesedifferent groups would find
something in common?
During my conversation withRobert, we explored how shadow
banning manipulates yourconversations online, how the
practice helps bots and hurtshumans, how it actually helps to
radicalize online communitiesand, ultimately, how shadow
(02:14):
banning is today's realcensorship.
If you want to know more aboutthis topic and whether it has
impacted you, and especially ifyou care about restoring and
maintaining free speech valuesonline, keep listening.
(02:34):
Welcome to the Communication24-7 Podcast, where we
communicate about how wecommunicate.
I'm your host, jennifer Furlong.
Hi everybody, this is JenniferFurlong, host of the
(02:57):
Communication 24-7 podcast,where we communicate, about how
we communicate.
This is a topic, y'all, that Ithink you're going to want to
pay close attention to.
If you're anything like me,you're not very familiar with
the topic.
Maybe you've heard about it,someone talk about it in passing
, or maybe you've even readabout it in an article or two,
(03:20):
but it is a topic that I thinkimpacts everyone, whether you
know it or not.
I am so incredibly excited thatI have an expert with me today
to talk about this topic, and Iknow I'm building up the
curiosity of the audience likewhat in the heck is she talking
(03:40):
about?
So let me explain who my guestis, and then we will dive right
into this topic.
Like I said, pay closeattention.
This is something that's goingto impact everyone.
So who do I have with me?
The gentleman I have with metoday is named Robert Hawkins,
and Robert is a socialentrepreneur and founder of
(04:01):
Revetit, a website that showspeople where they have been
shadow banned or censored.
So there's the topic shadowbanning and, like I said, I
don't know a whole lot about it.
That's why I needed an experttoday.
Robert became passionate aboutrestoring free speech values
online after discovering his owncomments from past years had
(04:21):
been secretly removed from pastyears had been secretly removed.
Some of us have probably had asimilar experience.
So before founding Revetit,robert worked as a data
scientist and a web developer.
Robert, thank you so much forbeing on the show.
(04:41):
I'm excited to have you here.
You are going to take us on avery important journey.
We got a lot to learn from you.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Thank you so much for having me, jen.
I'm excited to have thisconversation with you.
A communications expert.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Before we get into shadow banning and defining what
that is and why should we evencare about it.
Why is this even a topic thatwarrants an entire episode to
focus on it?
Can you tell us a little bitmore about your journey and what
was it that it just kind oftriggered something in you and
you're like you know what.
I need to do something aboutthis.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
That's a great opening question, I think.
Just going back to well, I waseducated in computer science, so
I had a bachelor's in computerscience and I worked as a
programmer in the US for severalyears and I had a friend who
had moved to East Asia and Iwent to visit him and ultimately
ended up in Taiwan where Ilived and actually met my wife
(05:41):
there, and I lived there for thelast 10 years until I moved
back recently, but during thattime period I was kind of a
digital nomad and so I wouldrely on internet sources for my
learning and for socialinteraction with other
programmers and things like thatand maybe spending a little bit
(06:01):
too much time online commentingabout political topics.
And several years into this, mywife became pregnant and I
needed some stronger work to puton my resume before we came
back to the US and I was lookingat the Reddit.
(06:24):
Reddit is a website, a socialmedia platform.
Your listeners probably havecome across it maybe by looking
for information about aparticular product.
It's got huge comment sectionsthat can be up to anywhere from
100 comments to 20,000 commentson a single post, and so I was
looking at Reddit data andnoticed that in one view, one of
(06:48):
my own old comments showed upfor me, but in the other view it
had been removed.
But I knew that when I waslogged in that I could still see
that comment.
So I was shocked to discoverthe removal and I realized what
was going on, which was that allcomment removals on that
(07:09):
platform are what I would callshadow band or shadow removals.
And so that really shocked me,and I didn't plan for this to be
a six-year project.
I thought this was going to bea two-week project.
I thought, oh, I kind of knowhow to address this.
(07:30):
I can throw up some JavaScriptin a web extension or a website
and compare these two views andshow people where their own
comments are getting removedthat they don't know about, and
then I'll share that on Redditand other people will share it
and they will put it up andeverybody will know.
And then, problem solved, theplatform will be induced to
(07:53):
change.
Well, that didn't happen at all.
What tended to happen was Iwould share the site in a
particular sub-forum on Redditand the moderators there would
remove it, because that wasoversight into their work.
Along the way, I just kind ofkept thinking oh, just two more
(08:14):
weeks.
If I just do this, one morething, if I just make this bot
that alerts people when theirmessages are removed or add this
various feature to the site,that that will get me over the
hump and more people will knowabout it.
And to some extent that's beentrue.
The user base has been growing.
(08:34):
But I kind of accept now thatthis element of content
moderation, if you can even callit that I mean, that's what
it's known as, but I think it'smore like radicalizing us when
you secretly remove content.
But anyway, that it's alwaysgoing to be out there in some
(08:54):
form.
But I still do my best to raiseawareness of the work that I
did and how it can inform otherplatforms, because it's not just
Reddit that does this.
In fact, this occurs on all theplatforms and actually we all
do it to each other.
It's not even just theplatforms doing it to us, yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
So you just stumbled upon it.
It would just happenstance.
You noticed that hey, wait aminute, this isn't looking right
.
And I noticed that it's notshowing up, my comments aren't
showing up, and so that was justkind of like the starting point
of this journey that you've hadnow six years.
You've said six years lateryeah, from the two weeks, right.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
That's, that's right.
Yeah, it was completelystumbled upon, not planned on at
all, like a blog.
You know, just coming up withmy little comments about, you
(10:10):
know, one among those 20,000.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yeah, did you contact them first to ask them why, why
is my comment being hidden?
And did they give you an answerto that?
Speaker 2 (10:25):
So I've had to kind of reverse engineer the answer
to that question, contactingReddit about why.
Yes, I've had some interactionswith some administrators where
they'll use the language oh,sometimes it's best to just
quietly remove something.
(10:46):
But they won't go as far assaying I think there's a
difference between just quietlyremove, where you're not
informing somebody, and actuallypresenting somebody's comment
to them as if it's beenunaltered In the same place,
like if you load up that sameURL with a different user or
(11:06):
when you're logged out, it willbe gone.
So it's really a falserepresentation of your own
content.
Back to you in the same place,where other users don't see it,
they see it as removed.
So I've had some interactionswith administrators where they
use that kind of language andthen, indirectly, I've read some
(11:30):
former Reddit employees havesaid well, this is just the
obvious solution, that when youhave naysayers or trolls or
spammers, that the obvioussolution is just to misrepresent
you know, to shadow ban theircontent, and I disagree with
that very strongly.
(11:50):
We can get into that, but that's, yeah, the answer to your
question.
I've had some interaction, butyou know Reddit is a platform
with over 400 million monthlyactive users, or now I think
they report daily active users,so it's something like 70
million.
That's a lot, yeah.
So you know they don't have theability to interact with
(12:12):
everybody one-on-one and youknow I'm not coming to them as a
representative of any sort oforganization either, so it's not
like I have a lot of leverageto get that kind of response
from them maybe.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Maybe I don't give myself enough credit, I don't
know.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Well, how prevalent of an issue do you think shadow
banning is on not just Reddit,but maybe across the different
social media platforms, becauseit's not just Reddit doing it?
I mean, like you mentionedcontent moderation, and maybe
that could be something we talkabout next.
How do we define contentmoderation versus how do we
(12:52):
define shadow banning?
But how prevalent do you thinkthis is across the different
platforms?
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Oh, I think it's exactly as you stated in your
opening statement that itimpacts all of us.
Certainly, if you comment onthe internet, I think it's very
likely that your comment hasbeen removed without your
knowledge before, because I seeit happening in all of the
(13:18):
subreddits on Reddit.
That includes certainlypolitics, which is a
left-leaning group, but alsoconservative, also pro-life,
also atheism, also Christianity,all the gaming forums.
There's just not really anexception, because that's how it
works across the whole platform.
(13:40):
By default, the system showsyou everything, all of your
removed stuff, as if it's it'snot removed right.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
So what do you see as the difference between content
moderation and shadow banning,or or do you see a difference
between those two?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
yeah, I do.
I think maybe contentmoderation is a superset, but
that's even giving leeway tosome of their position, because
I don't think that when youwithhold information about
removing somebody's content,that that's moderation at all.
(14:20):
In fact, I think maybe what Iwould say is there's
transparently removing contentand then you know, not
transparently removing it.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
And I generally support transparently removing
it.
But then, within the nottransparently removing it,
there's also another divisionwhere, so say on Twitter for
example, if you just write atweet, it kind of goes out into
other people's feeds, right, butthese feeds are no longer, I
(14:54):
don't think, sorted by date,they're just kind of based on
your preferences and how manyother people liked it and things
of that nature.
So maybe Twitter could removesome of your content from other
people's feeds, but you wouldn'thave any way to really verify
(15:14):
that.
That's them manually doing that, or even with an algorithm
saying like oh, I don't like thedomain that you used, like
BitChute or Rumble or something,and so I'm not going to show
that to as many people, versusjust their algorithm saying, oh,
(15:36):
that's not been popular in thepast, that kind of content,
those keywords, and I'm justautomatically not going to show
it.
In that scenario, and I'm justautomatically not going to show
it In that scenario, say,twitter removes your content
from that kind ofpreference-based feed and they
don't tell you that they removedit, but they're also not
(15:57):
showing you back your content inthat same feed because you
don't have access to that feed.
Those are other people'spreference-driven feeds.
So in this subset of contentmoderation there's also like
kind of undisclosed or secretlyremoved and then also shadow
(16:19):
removed, where your comment hasa parent comment to it and if
you load up that parent commentyours is still shown to you,
whereas for other people itdoesn't appear.
So yeah, I do draw adistinction for sure between
what they call contentmoderation and this shadow
(16:40):
banning.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
And what you said just a few moments ago is so
critically important to theconversation.
I think it's already way tooeasy to do with what's going on,
(17:14):
you know, with information andhow important it is.
I'm a huge media literacyadvocate and we have a hard
enough time, I think, gettingpeople to understand that when
you're taking in informationfrom online sources, you have to
consider context, you have toconsider the sender of the
message, you have to considerwhere did they get that
(17:37):
information?
You know there are a whole hostof questions that have to come
along with anything that you'rereading online.
So now this seems to be just anextra layer that is going to
challenge someone who isreceiving that information.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
It's another layer of preventing them from being able
to see the whole picture or toat least understand the entire
(18:17):
context that some of thesecomments are, you know, are
sending removed because thenthey would learn something from
that interaction and they mightchoose to participate in a
different group or they, youknow, they might come back and
say, oh, you're right, I, youknow, phrased that poorly, let
me, let me try putting itanother way.
Also gives them a chance tolearn the rules.
(18:39):
So you get a chance to learnthe rules or move to another
forum.
But again, you know, whenthat's done, without the author
of that removed commentsknowledge, they're not going to
think to remove, move to anotherforum and they're not going to
learn the rules.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Right, I'm kind of muddied with how I feel about
topics like this, especiallywhen we start getting into the
area of free speech.
And how does this impact?
You know what?
At what point does the FirstAmendment actually cover this
and at what point does it notcover it?
You know, there seems to be awhole lot of information
(19:15):
swirling about.
People have different ideas ofwhat the First Amendment should
cover and what it should notcover, especially when we're
talking about the online space,you know, and in social media.
What is your take on theconnection to our First
Amendment rights in what you'reseeing in terms of shadow
(19:38):
banning and even contentmoderation?
Do you think companies have aright to say look, this is a
private company and if we don'tlike what you have to say, we
don't, we don't have to allowyou that space to say it, or
what?
I'm just curious as to whatyour your opinion is on that.
(20:02):
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Speaker 2 (21:14):
I love this question because I've been researching
how this has come up in somecourt cases recently and I've
also changed my mind about it.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah, so I go back and forth.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, I've gone back and forth, literally gone back
and forth, because you know,like I said, I when I started
this project I thought it wouldgo viral on its own.
And then I thought, as I addedfeatures, that a story would be
written about it on its own.
And then when I started to haveto write that story myself and
like reach out to journalistsand and try to connect with them
(21:47):
, my my uh knee jerk response Iguess I think of it now was,
well, the government should fixthis, we should write
legislation that makes thisillegal.
And as I dove into that, Istarted to learn more about the
history of free speech.
Now, I will admit I'm anegotistical American and I
(22:11):
thought being born American mademe an expert in this topic.
Right, but again, little did Iknow.
And I learned a lot about howreally free speech has always
been under attack, and even fromour representatives who, on
both the right and the left, maywrite laws that run into it or
(22:33):
would abridge it if they werepermitted.
And then, more recently, I'vebeen reading about the net
choice cases, which dealt withthe legislation coming out of
Florida and Texas and withoutgetting too into it.
I think there is a questionthere about whether or not
misrepresenting the status ofyour content to you is legal
(23:00):
Even under our existing laws.
I don't know exactly where itwould fall or how it should be
enforced.
I recently finished a book,what's called the administrative
state, which is concerned aboutthe consolidation of power
within the executive branch.
So yeah, I would be concernedabout handing that off to like
(23:21):
an agency to come up with newrules and to enforce it, because
that just seems like adding tothe administrative state problem
.
I mean, I could share myunderstanding of some free
speech case law, like there is acase about a parade in Boston
(23:43):
in, I think, the nineties whereone group was excluded and the
Supreme Court said oh, you'reallowed to exclude, it was a LGB
group actually.
And the court said you'reallowed to exclude this group
from an Irish Day parade on thebasis that the other
multifarious voices are the onesthat are being represented.
(24:05):
And I heard this argument beingmade as being supportive of
shadow banning, in the sensethat you as a private entity are
permitted to exclude whateveryou want.
But I don't think that in thatcase, which is known as Hurley,
that the court would havethought to consider well, what
(24:27):
if the would-be paradeparticipant didn't know that
they were rejected, but in factthey did know, right, they took
the case all the way to theSupreme Court, right, and they
sent a big message there.
And so there, I think there isa difference.
But you know, if somebody wereto write legislation that say,
(24:50):
bans, shadow banning, as Idefine it, this misrepresenting
of your content, and it went,you know, up through the courts
there are probably many otherarguments that lawyers on the
big tech side would come up withto defend the practice.
Big tech side would come upwith to defend the practice.
I hope that conversationhappens.
I think it's one that I alwayswanted to get started.
(25:11):
I didn't imagine it having tohappen in the legal context.
I think of this more of as acultural issue, where the kind
of desire to control is just aweakness that we all have.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Yeah Well, it is absolutely something that I know
.
Speaking in conservativecircles, it absolutely has been
a concern and it's been a vocalconcern.
I'm sure you've read about itand heard about it Conservatives
saying that for a while now,conservative voices have been
restricted on certain onlineplatforms and while it has, as
(25:54):
far as I know and I don't know,with this whole shadow of
anything, maybe it has happenedto me.
I don't know, I haven't reallylooked for it, but as far as I
know, it hasn't happened to mewhen I've expressed my opinions
about certain topics, but I doknow it is something that you
know has happened to many of myconservative colleagues.
You know, on the right there tobe an imbalance of voices that
(26:28):
are targeted to be censoredonline and in different
platforms, or do you think it'skind of a?
Speaker 2 (26:36):
well, it's really hard to make that assessment
because you have to make like aquality judgment about you know
how important was this commentversus, versus that comment, or
you have to make a subjectiveassessment of whether a given
comment was, was left or right.
And some people have said well,you should do research on that
(26:57):
and and just insert yoursubjective assessment.
I would be happy to do that ifsomebody paid me to do it.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
But just in my own time.
It seems quite challenging, andI don't have the quotes in
front of me, but I think thereare several free speech
luminaries who've said thingslike you know, any abridging of
free speech, even even the youknow, censorship of a single
comment, ought to be enough toto make your hair stand on end,
(27:30):
and I really found that to betrue.
I have collected or sort ofcategorized a bunch of removed
commentary that I thought mightbe useful for you know somebody
in the media to write a storyabout this.
If they wanted to, say,interview somebody who had been
impacted like this, they couldkind of research what kind of
comments they had made in thepast and see if they want to
(27:52):
write a story on that.
And so, but yeah, I, yeah Ithere's definitely part of me
that feels, yes, there areconservative voices that are
being shut down, eaten out,because what this particular
content moderation techniqueallows is for the rabble rousers
(28:29):
or, you know, the troublemakers, to get the upper hand.
Because you can just imagine if,if your goal in life is to go
online and cause trouble forother people, you're going to be
moderated more often maybe, andso you're more likely to
discover this secret removalmechanism and then you're more
(28:53):
likely to become somebody whotakes advantage of it, start
your own forum and then does thesame thing to other people.
So often the platforms and evenlegislation in Europe will keep
an exception for secretlyremoving spam, and when you and
(29:17):
I hear spam, we think of botslike automation, and you know I
don't want spam about Viagra orwhatever in my inbox and email.
So I accept some filtering outthat content, but in email it
goes to my spam box so I couldgo back there and check it once
in a while to see if it's there.
(29:39):
Like, the sender doesn't knowif it's been marked as spam
maybe, but I can check it.
So there is some fail-safethere.
But anyway, yeah, I don't thinkit's left or right.
I think it really eats away atthe middle and it empowers.
It doesn't help combat spam.
It's helpful to to the spammersto have this secret mechanism
(30:03):
that that fools humans, becausesecrecy does not fool bots.
You know, we all know, you haveto fill out those annoying
captchas sometimes to sign upfor an account or visit a web
page.
That that's the thing thatfools bots the secret secretly
removing stuff.
I can tell you as a softwareengineer, it takes half a second
(30:25):
for a bot to look up a webpageas if it's another user or as if
it's logged out, whereas, youknow, I've got thousands of
comments from people who go ayear, five years, a decade,
without learning that this ishow, um, how much of their
content has been removed fromReddit, for example.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Right, you know, I just remembered I lied.
I think I have been shadowbanned and it happened recently.
I was just thinking about thison TikTok and I had been averse
to TikTok for ages, but having ashow you know having a podcast.
It was like, okay, jen, welcometo TikTok.
And I had been averse to TikTokfor ages, but having a show,
(31:04):
you know, having a podcast, itwas like, okay, jen, welcome to
2024.
Get out there, you know, putthe stuff out there and see what
happens.
And one of the clips that Iposted on TikTok I was
interviewing someone who is afellow cancer survivor and we
were having a conversation abouthow we found out that we had
(31:27):
been diagnosed with cancer and Ihad shared the story of.
I found out on the app.
You know, when you get yourtests done and you have the
health app and you get thislittle ding that you have tests
that are results that are in,and I wasn't quite sure of what
the language was, because I'mnot a medical person and so I
(31:50):
called up the office and I wasjust sharing the story and this
one person posted on the on thecomments, what she couldn't have
.
Just Googled it and I will.
I'll admit I was triggered, okay, so maybe this is why I was
shadow banned very nice commentso so I responded something
about yeah, because we all knowit's such a great idea to
(32:13):
consult Dr Google about.
You know important, you knowmedical diagnoses you dumbass
yeah that's what.
And later on they had tagged meand said, oh, haha, you deleted
your comment and I was likewait a minute no I didn't and I
(32:33):
went back through and it wasgone and yeah no, I still stand
behind what I said dumbass.
but apparently I'm not allowedto type that on the platform.
I don't know and I neverbothered to look into it or ask
anyone.
I just was, like you know,mentally and emotionally tapped
at that point.
(32:54):
I just don't even want to dealwith it.
But now, having thisconversation with you, I'll be
damned.
I think that's what happened tome.
It must have been.
I don't understand.
Where could my comment havegone?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Totally.
Yeah, they didn't tell you, andwhat's the harm in telling you
anyway?
You're a real person.
You should be treated like aperson, not just a piece of
content that the platform wantsor doesn't want.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Yeah, exactly.
And, like you mentioned earlier, at least if you are upfront
about it and say hey, Jen, wetook this comment off because we
have a rule against callingpeople dumbasses, you know?
Okay, then I'll come up withanother that I could use instead
of that.
Totally, I completely agree doesthe First Amendment play in
(33:43):
content moderation or evenshadow banning, you know, does
(34:12):
an organization really have aresponsibility, you know, to its
users to let them know whenthings are taken down?
Do you think the governmentshould have a role in getting
into the private industry youknow private organizations and
getting into the business of ofmaking those types of decisions?
What do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (34:34):
At this point I would say mostly no.
Yeah.
The more I, you know, learnabout that kind of option and
the potential implications, themore nervous I get about these
entities becoming part ofanother arm of the executive or
just part of the government isscary enough and I know that
(34:58):
there are, you know, some verysmart individuals and law firms
who are tackling those questionsas they come up in various
court cases.
There was Gonzalez versusGoogle last year about whether
or not platforms have a right toalgorithmically select content,
(35:18):
and the courts kind of said,yeah, their algorithms are their
freedom to do it.
But with the recent Texas andFlorida legislation it got a
little bit closer.
That decision hasn't come downyet but just based on the oral
arguments it kind of soundedlike maybe not everything from
(35:39):
those proposals would be upheld,and one of the big ones of that
was that platforms wouldn't beallowed to even transparently
remove content in the ways thatthey have been doing.
So that in my opinion, would bea big shift and I don't support
(36:00):
disallowing the platforms fromum making their own selections
there.
But I I share the concerns ofum, the people who wrote that
legislation, that uh, theseplatforms do have a lot of
influence on society today andyou know, it's kind of like
they're their own littlekingdoms and I just wouldn't
(36:23):
want to see us consolidate allof that power into a government.
But I don't know if there'slike a thread the needle, if
there's a way we can thread theneedle through, we can thread
(36:45):
the needle through I, yeah, so I, you know, I think I would
support some legislation banningthe misrepresentation of your
content.
You know, your case is a littlebit different where when you
went back and looked at it, eventhough they didn't tell you
when you were logged in, youcould still see that it was
removed, right.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Yes, that's right.
Yeah, because when I looked forit after he had mentioned haha,
you took down your comment andI was wait a minute I didn't
take it down, but somebody tookit down yeah but you could see
that it was taken down.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
so in that case, you know, I would say that's
ethically wrong and inadvisablein the long term for the
platform because it doesn'tbuild trust among its user base.
It's really short-term thinking, but I wouldn't write
legislation that restricts themfrom doing that myself restricts
(37:43):
them from doing that myself.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Something has been going wrong on many college
campuses for several years now.
We've witnessed speakers beingshouted down, students and
professors say that they arewalking on eggshells and are
afraid to speak honestly which Iwould know because I was one of
those professors and rates ofanxiety, depression and suicide
across our society are rising.
How did this happen?
If you want to explore seriousanswers to this important
question, I highly recommend youread the Coddling of the
(38:10):
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In this book, they explorecritical changes in childhood,
such as the rise of fearfulparenting, the decline of
unsupervised child-directed playand the new world of social
media that has engulfedteenagers in the last decade.
They examine changes on campus,including the corporatization
(38:31):
of universities and theemergence of new ideas about
identity and justice.
They situate the conflicts oncampus within the context of
America's rapidly risingpolitical polarization and
dysfunction.
This is a book for anyone whois confused by what's happening
on college campuses today, orhas children or is concerned
about the growing inability ofAmericans to live and work and
(38:55):
cooperate across party lines.
Get your copy of the Coddlingof the American Mind today at
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Slash podcast that'swwwcommunication247.com.
Forward.
Slash podcast.
Yeah, yeah, I think that's thechallenge when we start getting
(39:17):
into these types ofconversations.
I was listening to a podcastfrom the dispatch it's.
One of their podcasts is calledAdvisory Opinions and I like
listening to it because it'sfrom a legal standpoint and they
have lawyers on there thatactually talk about the legal
side of this topic that we'retalking about and they were
(39:41):
discussing the First Amendmentand how it may or may not apply
to exactly what we're talkingabout.
You know, with privateorganizations and the reason I
go back and forth so much, youknow I have been for the longest
time a free speech absolutist.
I'm like you know what you justsay, what you got to say.
I don't think anybody shouldtake it down.
(40:02):
Deal with it.
At least we all know whatyou're thinking, right.
And then I transition just alittle bit quasi free speech
absolutist, except for when it'sobviously fake information.
You know, I think that we do alot of harm with allowing
blatantly false information, youknow, to proliferate out there.
(40:25):
But then when, as I waslistening to this podcast the
other day, there was a part ofit that I had never considered.
If the private organization isone that is partially funded
with public dollars.
That's the key there With theFirst Amendment.
(40:46):
Clearly, if it's a governmentorganization, government-funded
organization, whether it's anonprofit or a state university,
for example, that's why thefree speech laws are so much
they're adhered to much you knowmuch more strictly rather than
a private organization.
But if you are a hugeorganization like Microsoft, for
(41:09):
example, and you do receivegovernment grants or some type
of government funding, at whatpoint does that now bring you
into the public, publicly fundedorganization realm?
And then at that point therights shift.
You know as far as free speechand how free speech is, I guess,
(41:32):
quote governed, you know onthese different platforms.
That was a part of it that Ihad never thought about before.
And so I find myself shiftingonce more.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
I haven't given it enough consideration myself
either.
You know, a lot of us justdon't know how much money these
services are getting for thegovernment.
I believe that they are.
They do receive some fundingfor doing work to respond to
requests, for, you know,information from security
(42:08):
services.
How much of their bottom lineis that?
And you know, I think there'sunquestionably entanglement
between government and platforms, between government and
platforms.
You know, we see that coming upin the Murthy versus Missouri
case, which is alleging federalgovernment has bridged free
(42:33):
speech through theircommunications with platforms.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
And I find that completely compelling.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah, so you know be watching that case and also the
House Judiciary Committee'sweapon weaponization of the
federal government.
Yeah, Watching that closely tosee what comes out.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Yeah, and to anyone who's wondering well, you know
what's the big deal, what's theproblem with that?
It's kind of like what Robertwas saying earlier when you
start getting the federalgovernment legislating and
getting involved.
I don't like to use the wordslippery slope, because I know
that's a logical fallacy aslippery slope.
At the same time, I think thereis cause for concern when you
(43:16):
do have a branch of governmentthat is influencing that type of
power over what is allowed tobe said, who is allowed to say
it and who are going to be theones to monitor these things and
then make those decisions.
At the same time, especially ifit's coming from government
legislation, it's definitely aconcern I think all of us need
(43:40):
to continue to pay attention to.
I do want to transition.
Tell me about your platform.
You created Revetit as aresponse to your experience with
the shadow banning.
Tell us a little bit more aboutthe platform and what is it
that we, as normal everydayusers, could expect from the
(44:00):
platform?
How do we use it?
Speaker 2 (44:02):
we, as normal everyday users, could expect
from the platform.
How do we use it?
So on the homepage it's got alittle box where you can enter a
username.
So if you have a Reddit account, you can type in your username
and look up all of your secretlyremoved comments in the past.
If you wanted to test this outand see for yourself what I'm
talking about, I set up a littlegroup called Can't Say Anything
(44:24):
, so you could create a Redditaccount in a couple of minutes
and go to that group and write acomment and you'll see that
after you write it you won'treceive any sort of notification
.
It'll still look to you likeit's there, but if you log out
and look at it, it won't exist.
Another thing that's on thehomepage of the site is some
(44:47):
testimonials from other userswho discover, after years of
using the site, that commentsthey've written in the past have
been removed that they didn'tknow about.
I can share a few of those withyou if you like.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Yeah, absolutely yeah .
Speaker 2 (44:59):
So one person says One person says Now that is
interesting.
How can they justify removingcomments while making it appear
to the user that the commentsare still there?
Further, no reasons are givenat all.
Another user writes oh my God,there was a thread where
somebody insisted that thepolice in Europe had not been
enforcing COVID restrictionsusing violence.
I posted several videos andnews articles showing otherwise.
(45:22):
No one ever replied to it.
Now I know why and I list, youknow, like 50 of those on the
page.
But there are a few times wheremy site has come up in comments
or has been allowed to staylive for a few hours and you'll
just get thousands of thesecomments from users who didn't
know they're being moderated.
(45:43):
Yeah, so I've tried to share iton Reddit.
That's been difficult.
Another way you can access mycontent is by going to
removednewscom, which is anewsletter where I try to write
for an audience who might not beusing Reddit.
So you know, I try to point outthat this secret removal
(46:07):
mechanism is different fromtransparent content moderation.
I think a lot of the discussionaround content moderation today
has been focused on mostly onwhat content is getting removed.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
And there are folks on the left also who are
concerned about that ethnicminorities or other other types
of content and really the netimpact is that shadow banning
lets platforms manipulate theapparent consensus.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
Mm, hmm, okay.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Yeah, and you know it also hurts politicians' ability
to, I think, accuratelyunderstand and inform their
constituents.
Another thing I write about isthat it's not effective against
bots who can easily detect it.
You know it hurts humans themost and you know I think it's
inherently divisive, more likelyto hurt good faith.
(47:02):
Moderators, mediators sorry, Idon't think to check for the
secret removals on theseplatforms that are otherwise
trusted.
So I've got both the newsletterand the website itself.
There's also an extension thatyou can install to get like a
little pop up when something youwrote got removed, but
unfortunately it only works forReddit right now and I'd love to
(47:24):
see this kind of tool be builtfor other services.
It is possible for some otherones that have public versions
of their sites.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Do you have that plan to build it out?
Speaker 2 (47:37):
Less and less, I would say.
I've been trying to reach outto rights groups to make a
statement about this, and Ithink they're still on the page
that all forms of contentmoderation is the platform's
right to do and that theyshouldn't be restricted legally
(47:59):
or ethically or have any sort ofpushback for this particular
aspect of it.
And I'm a little bit confusedby that, because they do also
advocate transparency, but Ihaven't seen them talk about, uh
, shadow banning within commentsspecifically either the media
or or rights groups.
(48:21):
Um so, but I'm trying to toconnect with them and trying to
keep an open mind about possiblybuilding more tooling for this.
It has been a long time and youknow I I may need to focus um
more on you know now that I'mback in the US just getting a
full time job so I can supportmy family, because the donations
(48:43):
for doing things like opensource software, like this are,
you know, can can be difficultto generate.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
Yeah, well, I'm hoping someone is going to hear
this and they'll be like oh man,we got to like, create some
type of funding source to tocontinue, because I think you're
right in that the conversationdoes tend to focus a lot on what
content is being moderated,versus the behind the scenes how
is it being moderated andwhether or not it is transparent
(49:13):
.
That's probably the challengeright there, the speed bump, if
you will that a lot of peopleare not understanding that
aspect of it.
So I think that's why it'sreally important to continue to
have these conversations.
Like I said earlier, I had noidea what this was, and now it's
(49:34):
getting me thinking about howit can have a profound impact on
our communication and ourperception and how we understand
the topics that we'rediscussing and how we understand
the world around us.
It can have a huge impact onthat, and the transparency of it
is a big question.
So I do hope that at some point, either you get some funding or
(49:58):
some support to be able toexpand that.
One question I do have regardingif someone goes to your website
and they do want to use yourplatform to do some research
into whether or not they've beenshadow banned on Reddit.
Once they find the informationthat they're looking for, what
(50:21):
is it?
What's the next step?
Like, if they, truly if theyagree with you?
Look, this is a problem, andI'm not really appreciating the
fact that this is being donebehind my back and you know at
least let me know what in theworld is going on.
What is the next step to that?
What is it that we can do inorder to gain some momentum in
(50:45):
this movement that you're tryingto create?
Speaker 2 (50:48):
I would say reach out to your favorite podcast hosts,
your favorite columnist or atech reporter, and ask them to
do a story on it.
Say, hey, I was shadow bannedand I wasn't being a jerk online
or maybe I was, but I deserveto know about it so that I can
(51:10):
you know, so that I can grow andlearn, which?
Is you know, I think, a humanright.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
So so reach out to people who have, who are good
communicators, and encouragethem to do a story on it would
be my advice.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
Okay, that's a fantastic idea.
Is there any particular aspectof this topic that you feel is
really important to touch on atthis point that maybe we have
not had an opportunity to talkabout just yet?
Speaker 2 (51:40):
I would say, just if you do speak up about this
practice and you get somepushback, don't just buy what
somebody tells you is a goodreason for doing it.
Don't buy the line that thisdefeats spam it doesn't.
Don't buy the line that itdefeats trolls or people with
(52:03):
malintent online it doesn't.
And if you're not able toconvince one person that you
know that's okay, don't give upon the topic, because you know
we do get sucked into.
I think these arguments aboutwhat should be allowed to stay
online and you know, maybe someof it can be taken down, but at
(52:24):
the very least we should knowthat it's being taken down.
One of the problems withdisagreeing about or focusing on
what is getting removed onlineis yeah, you're, you're sorry, I
just lost my train of thought.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
I think we are at the end of the hour.
What we know is being removedonline.
I I think that's that's right.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
Challenges yeah, yeah , if that's what we're focusing
you, you, you assume that youknow that, what, what is being
while being removed, but youdon't know what you don't know,
and I'm not even saying likewhen I say that I don't know all
the stuff that's being removedwe don't know what we don't know
Probably so many good ideasfrom people out there, or that
(53:04):
would change our way of thinkingabout the world such that when
I go out and interact with youin public, that you know I would
already understand that youhave that viewpoint.
But I think a lot of times whatmay be happening when we are
just looking at this sort ofnarrow portal that we imagine is
the is all encompassing, likewe have access to all the
information.
Actually it's.
(53:24):
It's very filtered and in waysthat we don't understand, that's
being filtered.
So.
So when we go out and interactwith each other in the real
world, we're caught unpreparedand it leads to, you know, like
shouting matches in schools andor, you know, potentially even
worse.
Speaker 1 (53:40):
So I think that was very well said.
I think that's the key rightthere to remember for anyone who
is still asking that question,that the so what?
Question, like you just said,it's being filtered in ways that
we don't even know how it'sbeing filtered and that right
there, is preventing you fromhaving a full picture, from
(54:01):
having a full understanding of alot of the topics that are
being discussed online.
For me, that's it, like that'sall I need to know, because I
want to know.
I don't want anybody filteringanything for me.
Let me look through it myselfand then I'm going to make my
decision based on theinformation that's in front of
me.
But then I'm going to make mydecision on based on the
information that's in front ofme.
(54:21):
But if I can't trust that allthe information is in front of
me, that's really doing me andeveryone else a disservice at
the same time.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Yeah, and you deserve that.
I mean, you're a person.
Everybody deserves to be, to betreated like, like people.
Yeah so thanks so much forhaving me on, Jen.
I really appreciate you takingthe chance on this topic that
you didn't know anything about.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
Oh, absolutely.
I'm so glad we did.
Now I know a little bit moreabout this topic, so, and and I
think this is going to get a lotmore people talking about it as
well, which is the importantthing, all right.
So, final thing, how do peopleget in touch with you?
Speaker 2 (54:55):
I think through my newsletter is is a good way.
Do people get in touch with you?
I think through my newsletteris a good way.
Remove newscom.
I'm also on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
You can just use the link from my newsletter or
revettacom to find that Allright, sounds good, and I'll
make sure that the link to yourwebsites are in the show notes
as well.
Speaker 2 (55:13):
Great, All right.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
Robert, thank you so much again, and everyone who is
listening.
I hope this is some good foodfor thought.
Mull things over, let itmarinate for a while, check out
Robert's websites and then, yeah, give me a call, contact me and
let me know how it goes.
I want to know if you wereshadow banned.
All right, so let's keep theconversation going.
(55:35):
If you were shadow banned, letme know.
I'll let Robert know and then,you know, maybe we can finally
get a columnist to actuallywrite about this stuff.
Who knows, keep hope alive.
All right, everyone.
Have a wonderful rest of yourday and we'll see you next time.
Thanks for listening.
(55:58):
If you enjoyed this episode andyou'd like to help support the
podcast, please share it withothers, post about it on social
media or leave a rating and areview.
One of the best things about having a podcast is
it gives others who havesomething interesting and
important to talk about a reasonto reach out to me to be on the
show, and that was the casewith Robert Hawkins.
Robert contacted me about beinga guest because he wanted to
talk about shadow banning, and Iwas immediately like say more,
because I know nothing aboutthis topic, but it sounds pretty
(00:22):
intriguing.
If you don't know what shadowbanning is, trust me when I say
that you do want to know what itis, because it impacts all of
us.
Shadow banning is the act ofmuting a user or their content
on a platform without informingthem.
Basically, they take your stuffdown and they don't let you
know about it.
You might be able to still seeyour stuff, but nobody else can
(00:45):
see it.
Back in December of 2022, theWashington Post published an
article that made note of thepractice making headlines when
Elon Musk released evidenceintended to show shadow banning
was being used to suppressconservative views.
But, like I said, this is aproblem that impacts all of us.
A survey by the Center forDemocracy and Technology found
(01:07):
that nearly one in 10 Americanson social media suspect that
they have been shadow banned.
Their research found theplatforms with the largest
percentage of users who believedthey had been shadow banned
were Facebook, followed byTwitter, then Instagram and then
TikTok.
According to their report,users most frequently believe
(01:27):
that they have been shadowbanned for their political views
or their positions on socialissues and, as a conservative,
this totally makes sense to me.
As a matter of fact, the surveyfound that among the users who
believe they had been shadowbanned, they were
disproportionately Republican.
The survey also noted thatother groups that were
disproportionately affectedincluded males, hispanics and
(01:50):
those whose gender identitydon't match with their
biological sex.
Who knew that all of thesedifferent groups would find
something in common?
During my conversation withRobert, we explored how shadow
banning manipulates yourconversations online, how the
practice helps bots and hurtshumans, how it actually helps to
radicalize online communitiesand, ultimately, how shadow
(02:14):
banning is today's realcensorship.
If you want to know more aboutthis topic and whether it has
impacted you, and especially ifyou care about restoring and
maintaining free speech valuesonline, keep listening.
(02:34):
Welcome to the Communication24-7 Podcast, where we
communicate about how wecommunicate.
I'm your host, jennifer Furlong.
Hi everybody, this is JenniferFurlong, host of the
(02:57):
Communication 24-7 podcast,where we communicate, about how
we communicate.
This is a topic, y'all, that Ithink you're going to want to
pay close attention to.
If you're anything like me,you're not very familiar with
the topic.
Maybe you've heard about it,someone talk about it in passing
, or maybe you've even readabout it in an article or two,
(03:20):
but it is a topic that I thinkimpacts everyone, whether you
know it or not.
I am so incredibly excited thatI have an expert with me today
to talk about this topic, and Iknow I'm building up the
curiosity of the audience likewhat in the heck is she talking
(03:40):
about?
So let me explain who my guestis, and then we will dive right
into this topic.
Like I said, pay closeattention.
This is something that's goingto impact everyone.
So who do I have with me?
The gentleman I have with metoday is named Robert Hawkins,
and Robert is a socialentrepreneur and founder of
(04:01):
Revetit, a website that showspeople where they have been
shadow banned or censored.
So there's the topic shadowbanning and, like I said, I
don't know a whole lot about it.
That's why I needed an experttoday.
Robert became passionate aboutrestoring free speech values
online after discovering his owncomments from past years had
(04:21):
been secretly removed from pastyears had been secretly removed.
Some of us have probably had asimilar experience.
So before founding Revetit,robert worked as a data
scientist and a web developer.
Robert, thank you so much forbeing on the show.
(04:41):
I'm excited to have you here.
You are going to take us on avery important journey.
We got a lot to learn from you.
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Thank you so much for having me, jen.
I'm excited to have thisconversation with you.
A communications expert.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Before we get into shadow banning and defining what
that is and why should we evencare about it.
Why is this even a topic thatwarrants an entire episode to
focus on it?
Can you tell us a little bitmore about your journey and what
was it that it just kind oftriggered something in you and
you're like you know what.
I need to do something aboutthis.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
That's a great opening question, I think.
Just going back to well, I waseducated in computer science, so
I had a bachelor's in computerscience and I worked as a
programmer in the US for severalyears and I had a friend who
had moved to East Asia and Iwent to visit him and ultimately
ended up in Taiwan where Ilived and actually met my wife
(05:41):
there, and I lived there for thelast 10 years until I moved
back recently, but during thattime period I was kind of a
digital nomad and so I wouldrely on internet sources for my
learning and for socialinteraction with other
programmers and things like thatand maybe spending a little bit
(06:01):
too much time online commentingabout political topics.
And several years into this, mywife became pregnant and I
needed some stronger work to puton my resume before we came
back to the US and I was lookingat the Reddit.
(06:24):
Reddit is a website, a socialmedia platform.
Your listeners probably havecome across it maybe by looking
for information about aparticular product.
It's got huge comment sectionsthat can be up to anywhere from
100 comments to 20,000 commentson a single post, and so I was
looking at Reddit data andnoticed that in one view, one of
(06:48):
my own old comments showed upfor me, but in the other view it
had been removed.
But I knew that when I waslogged in that I could still see
that comment.
So I was shocked to discoverthe removal and I realized what
was going on, which was that allcomment removals on that
(07:09):
platform are what I would callshadow band or shadow removals.
And so that really shocked me,and I didn't plan for this to be
a six-year project.
I thought this was going to bea two-week project.
I thought, oh, I kind of knowhow to address this.
(07:30):
I can throw up some JavaScriptin a web extension or a website
and compare these two views andshow people where their own
comments are getting removedthat they don't know about, and
then I'll share that on Redditand other people will share it
and they will put it up andeverybody will know.
And then, problem solved, theplatform will be induced to
(07:53):
change.
Well, that didn't happen at all.
What tended to happen was Iwould share the site in a
particular sub-forum on Redditand the moderators there would
remove it, because that wasoversight into their work.
Along the way, I just kind ofkept thinking oh, just two more
(08:14):
weeks.
If I just do this, one morething, if I just make this bot
that alerts people when theirmessages are removed or add this
various feature to the site,that that will get me over the
hump and more people will knowabout it.
And to some extent that's beentrue.
The user base has been growing.
(08:34):
But I kind of accept now thatthis element of content
moderation, if you can even callit that I mean, that's what
it's known as, but I think it'smore like radicalizing us when
you secretly remove content.
But anyway, that it's alwaysgoing to be out there in some
(08:54):
form.
But I still do my best to raiseawareness of the work that I
did and how it can inform otherplatforms, because it's not just
Reddit that does this.
In fact, this occurs on all theplatforms and actually we all
do it to each other.
It's not even just theplatforms doing it to us, yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
So you just stumbled upon it.
It would just happenstance.
You noticed that hey, wait aminute, this isn't looking right
.
And I noticed that it's notshowing up, my comments aren't
showing up, and so that was justkind of like the starting point
of this journey that you've hadnow six years.
You've said six years lateryeah, from the two weeks, right.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
That's, that's right.
Yeah, it was completelystumbled upon, not planned on at
all, like a blog.
You know, just coming up withmy little comments about, you
(10:10):
know, one among those 20,000.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yeah, did you contact them first to ask them why, why
is my comment being hidden?
And did they give you an answerto that?
Speaker 2 (10:25):
So I've had to kind of reverse engineer the answer
to that question, contactingReddit about why.
Yes, I've had some interactionswith some administrators where
they'll use the language oh,sometimes it's best to just
quietly remove something.
(10:46):
But they won't go as far assaying I think there's a
difference between just quietlyremove, where you're not
informing somebody, and actuallypresenting somebody's comment
to them as if it's beenunaltered In the same place,
like if you load up that sameURL with a different user or
(11:06):
when you're logged out, it willbe gone.
So it's really a falserepresentation of your own
content.
Back to you in the same place,where other users don't see it,
they see it as removed.
So I've had some interactionswith administrators where they
use that kind of language andthen, indirectly, I've read some
(11:30):
former Reddit employees havesaid well, this is just the
obvious solution, that when youhave naysayers or trolls or
spammers, that the obvioussolution is just to misrepresent
you know, to shadow ban theircontent, and I disagree with
that very strongly.
(11:50):
We can get into that, but that's, yeah, the answer to your
question.
I've had some interaction, butyou know Reddit is a platform
with over 400 million monthlyactive users, or now I think
they report daily active users,so it's something like 70
million.
That's a lot, yeah.
So you know they don't have theability to interact with
(12:12):
everybody one-on-one and youknow I'm not coming to them as a
representative of any sort oforganization either, so it's not
like I have a lot of leverageto get that kind of response
from them maybe.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Maybe I don't give myself enough credit, I don't
know.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Well, how prevalent of an issue do you think shadow
banning is on not just Reddit,but maybe across the different
social media platforms, becauseit's not just Reddit doing it?
I mean, like you mentionedcontent moderation, and maybe
that could be something we talkabout next.
How do we define contentmoderation versus how do we
(12:52):
define shadow banning?
But how prevalent do you thinkthis is across the different
platforms?
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Oh, I think it's exactly as you stated in your
opening statement that itimpacts all of us.
Certainly, if you comment onthe internet, I think it's very
likely that your comment hasbeen removed without your
knowledge before, because I seeit happening in all of the
(13:18):
subreddits on Reddit.
That includes certainlypolitics, which is a
left-leaning group, but alsoconservative, also pro-life,
also atheism, also Christianity,all the gaming forums.
There's just not really anexception, because that's how it
works across the whole platform.
(13:40):
By default, the system showsyou everything, all of your
removed stuff, as if it's it'snot removed right.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
So what do you see as the difference between content
moderation and shadow banning,or or do you see a difference
between those two?
Speaker 2 (14:00):
yeah, I do.
I think maybe contentmoderation is a superset, but
that's even giving leeway tosome of their position, because
I don't think that when youwithhold information about
removing somebody's content,that that's moderation at all.
(14:20):
In fact, I think maybe what Iwould say is there's
transparently removing contentand then you know, not
transparently removing it.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
And I generally support transparently removing
it.
But then, within the nottransparently removing it,
there's also another divisionwhere, so say on Twitter for
example, if you just write atweet, it kind of goes out into
other people's feeds, right, butthese feeds are no longer, I
(14:54):
don't think, sorted by date,they're just kind of based on
your preferences and how manyother people liked it and things
of that nature.
So maybe Twitter could removesome of your content from other
people's feeds, but you wouldn'thave any way to really verify
(15:14):
that.
That's them manually doing that, or even with an algorithm
saying like oh, I don't like thedomain that you used, like
BitChute or Rumble or something,and so I'm not going to show
that to as many people, versusjust their algorithm saying, oh,
(15:36):
that's not been popular in thepast, that kind of content,
those keywords, and I'm justautomatically not going to show
it.
In that scenario, and I'm justautomatically not going to show
it In that scenario, say,twitter removes your content
from that kind ofpreference-based feed and they
don't tell you that they removedit, but they're also not
(15:57):
showing you back your content inthat same feed because you
don't have access to that feed.
Those are other people'spreference-driven feeds.
So in this subset of contentmoderation there's also like
kind of undisclosed or secretlyremoved and then also shadow
(16:19):
removed, where your comment hasa parent comment to it and if
you load up that parent commentyours is still shown to you,
whereas for other people itdoesn't appear.
So yeah, I do draw adistinction for sure between
what they call contentmoderation and this shadow
(16:40):
banning.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
And what you said just a few moments ago is so
critically important to theconversation.
I think it's already way tooeasy to do with what's going on,
(17:14):
you know, with information andhow important it is.
I'm a huge media literacyadvocate and we have a hard
enough time, I think, gettingpeople to understand that when
you're taking in informationfrom online sources, you have to
consider context, you have toconsider the sender of the
message, you have to considerwhere did they get that
(17:37):
information?
You know there are a whole hostof questions that have to come
along with anything that you'rereading online.
So now this seems to be just anextra layer that is going to
challenge someone who isreceiving that information.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
It's another layer of preventing them from being able
to see the whole picture or toat least understand the entire
(18:17):
context that some of thesecomments are, you know, are
sending removed because thenthey would learn something from
that interaction and they mightchoose to participate in a
different group or they, youknow, they might come back and
say, oh, you're right, I, youknow, phrased that poorly, let
me, let me try putting itanother way.
Also gives them a chance tolearn the rules.
(18:39):
So you get a chance to learnthe rules or move to another
forum.
But again, you know, whenthat's done, without the author
of that removed commentsknowledge, they're not going to
think to remove, move to anotherforum and they're not going to
learn the rules.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Right, I'm kind of muddied with how I feel about
topics like this, especiallywhen we start getting into the
area of free speech.
And how does this impact?
You know what?
At what point does the FirstAmendment actually cover this
and at what point does it notcover it?
You know, there seems to be awhole lot of information
(19:15):
swirling about.
People have different ideas ofwhat the First Amendment should
cover and what it should notcover, especially when we're
talking about the online space,you know, and in social media.
What is your take on theconnection to our First
Amendment rights in what you'reseeing in terms of shadow
(19:38):
banning and even contentmoderation?
Do you think companies have aright to say look, this is a
private company and if we don'tlike what you have to say, we
don't, we don't have to allowyou that space to say it, or
what?
I'm just curious as to whatyour your opinion is on that.
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Speaker 2 (21:14):
I love this question because I've been researching
how this has come up in somecourt cases recently and I've
also changed my mind about it.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah, so I go back and forth.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, I've gone back and forth, literally gone back
and forth, because you know,like I said, I when I started
this project I thought it wouldgo viral on its own.
And then I thought, as I addedfeatures, that a story would be
written about it on its own.
And then when I started to haveto write that story myself and
like reach out to journalistsand and try to connect with them
(21:47):
, my my uh knee jerk response Iguess I think of it now was,
well, the government should fixthis, we should write
legislation that makes thisillegal.
And as I dove into that, Istarted to learn more about the
history of free speech.
Now, I will admit I'm anegotistical American and I
(22:11):
thought being born American mademe an expert in this topic.
Right, but again, little did Iknow.
And I learned a lot about howreally free speech has always
been under attack, and even fromour representatives who, on
both the right and the left, maywrite laws that run into it or
(22:33):
would abridge it if they werepermitted.
And then, more recently, I'vebeen reading about the net
choice cases, which dealt withthe legislation coming out of
Florida and Texas and withoutgetting too into it.
I think there is a questionthere about whether or not
misrepresenting the status ofyour content to you is legal
(23:00):
Even under our existing laws.
I don't know exactly where itwould fall or how it should be
enforced.
I recently finished a book,what's called the administrative
state, which is concerned aboutthe consolidation of power
within the executive branch.
So yeah, I would be concernedabout handing that off to like
(23:21):
an agency to come up with newrules and to enforce it, because
that just seems like adding tothe administrative state problem
.
I mean, I could share myunderstanding of some free
speech case law, like there is acase about a parade in Boston
(23:43):
in, I think, the nineties whereone group was excluded and the
Supreme Court said oh, you'reallowed to exclude, it was a LGB
group actually.
And the court said you'reallowed to exclude this group
from an Irish Day parade on thebasis that the other
multifarious voices are the onesthat are being represented.
(24:05):
And I heard this argument beingmade as being supportive of
shadow banning, in the sensethat you as a private entity are
permitted to exclude whateveryou want.
But I don't think that in thatcase, which is known as Hurley,
that the court would havethought to consider well, what
(24:27):
if the would-be paradeparticipant didn't know that
they were rejected, but in factthey did know, right, they took
the case all the way to theSupreme Court, right, and they
sent a big message there.
And so there, I think there isa difference.
But you know, if somebody wereto write legislation that say,
(24:50):
bans, shadow banning, as Idefine it, this misrepresenting
of your content, and it went,you know, up through the courts
there are probably many otherarguments that lawyers on the
big tech side would come up withto defend the practice.
Big tech side would come upwith to defend the practice.
I hope that conversationhappens.
I think it's one that I alwayswanted to get started.
(25:11):
I didn't imagine it having tohappen in the legal context.
I think of this more of as acultural issue, where the kind
of desire to control is just aweakness that we all have.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Yeah Well, it is absolutely something that I know
.
Speaking in conservativecircles, it absolutely has been
a concern and it's been a vocalconcern.
I'm sure you've read about itand heard about it Conservatives
saying that for a while now,conservative voices have been
restricted on certain onlineplatforms and while it has, as
(25:54):
far as I know and I don't know,with this whole shadow of
anything, maybe it has happenedto me.
I don't know, I haven't reallylooked for it, but as far as I
know, it hasn't happened to mewhen I've expressed my opinions
about certain topics, but I doknow it is something that you
know has happened to many of myconservative colleagues.
You know, on the right there tobe an imbalance of voices that
(26:28):
are targeted to be censoredonline and in different
platforms, or do you think it'skind of a?
Speaker 2 (26:36):
well, it's really hard to make that assessment
because you have to make like aquality judgment about you know
how important was this commentversus, versus that comment, or
you have to make a subjectiveassessment of whether a given
comment was, was left or right.
And some people have said well,you should do research on that
(26:57):
and and just insert yoursubjective assessment.
I would be happy to do that ifsomebody paid me to do it.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
But just in my own time.
It seems quite challenging, andI don't have the quotes in
front of me, but I think thereare several free speech
luminaries who've said thingslike you know, any abridging of
free speech, even even the youknow, censorship of a single
comment, ought to be enough toto make your hair stand on end,
(27:30):
and I really found that to betrue.
I have collected or sort ofcategorized a bunch of removed
commentary that I thought mightbe useful for you know somebody
in the media to write a storyabout this.
If they wanted to, say,interview somebody who had been
impacted like this, they couldkind of research what kind of
comments they had made in thepast and see if they want to
(27:52):
write a story on that.
And so, but yeah, I, yeah Ithere's definitely part of me
that feels, yes, there areconservative voices that are
being shut down, eaten out,because what this particular
content moderation techniqueallows is for the rabble rousers
(28:29):
or, you know, the troublemakers, to get the upper hand.
Because you can just imagine if,if your goal in life is to go
online and cause trouble forother people, you're going to be
moderated more often maybe, andso you're more likely to
discover this secret removalmechanism and then you're more
(28:53):
likely to become somebody whotakes advantage of it, start
your own forum and then does thesame thing to other people.
So often the platforms and evenlegislation in Europe will keep
an exception for secretlyremoving spam, and when you and
(29:17):
I hear spam, we think of botslike automation, and you know I
don't want spam about Viagra orwhatever in my inbox and email.
So I accept some filtering outthat content, but in email it
goes to my spam box so I couldgo back there and check it once
in a while to see if it's there.
(29:39):
Like, the sender doesn't knowif it's been marked as spam
maybe, but I can check it.
So there is some fail-safethere.
But anyway, yeah, I don't thinkit's left or right.
I think it really eats away atthe middle and it empowers.
It doesn't help combat spam.
It's helpful to to the spammersto have this secret mechanism
(30:03):
that that fools humans, becausesecrecy does not fool bots.
You know, we all know, you haveto fill out those annoying
captchas sometimes to sign upfor an account or visit a web
page.
That that's the thing thatfools bots the secret secretly
removing stuff.
I can tell you as a softwareengineer, it takes half a second
(30:25):
for a bot to look up a webpageas if it's another user or as if
it's logged out, whereas, youknow, I've got thousands of
comments from people who go ayear, five years, a decade,
without learning that this ishow, um, how much of their
content has been removed fromReddit, for example.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Right, you know, I just remembered I lied.
I think I have been shadowbanned and it happened recently.
I was just thinking about thison TikTok and I had been averse
to TikTok for ages, but having ashow you know having a podcast.
It was like, okay, jen, welcometo TikTok.
And I had been averse to TikTokfor ages, but having a show,
(31:04):
you know, having a podcast, itwas like, okay, jen, welcome to
2024.
Get out there, you know, putthe stuff out there and see what
happens.
And one of the clips that Iposted on TikTok I was
interviewing someone who is afellow cancer survivor and we
were having a conversation abouthow we found out that we had
(31:27):
been diagnosed with cancer and Ihad shared the story of.
I found out on the app.
You know, when you get yourtests done and you have the
health app and you get thislittle ding that you have tests
that are results that are in,and I wasn't quite sure of what
the language was, because I'mnot a medical person and so I
(31:50):
called up the office and I wasjust sharing the story and this
one person posted on the on thecomments, what she couldn't have
.
Just Googled it and I will.
I'll admit I was triggered, okay, so maybe this is why I was
shadow banned very nice commentso so I responded something
about yeah, because we all knowit's such a great idea to
(32:13):
consult Dr Google about.
You know important, you knowmedical diagnoses you dumbass
yeah that's what.
And later on they had tagged meand said, oh, haha, you deleted
your comment and I was likewait a minute no I didn't and I
(32:33):
went back through and it wasgone and yeah no, I still stand
behind what I said dumbass.
but apparently I'm not allowedto type that on the platform.
I don't know and I neverbothered to look into it or ask
anyone.
I just was, like you know,mentally and emotionally tapped
at that point.
(32:54):
I just don't even want to dealwith it.
But now, having thisconversation with you, I'll be
damned.
I think that's what happened tome.
It must have been.
I don't understand.
Where could my comment havegone?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Totally.
Yeah, they didn't tell you, andwhat's the harm in telling you
anyway?
You're a real person.
You should be treated like aperson, not just a piece of
content that the platform wantsor doesn't want.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Yeah, exactly.
And, like you mentioned earlier, at least if you are upfront
about it and say hey, Jen, wetook this comment off because we
have a rule against callingpeople dumbasses, you know?
Okay, then I'll come up withanother that I could use instead
of that.
Totally, I completely agree doesthe First Amendment play in
(33:43):
content moderation or evenshadow banning, you know, does
(34:12):
an organization really have aresponsibility, you know, to its
users to let them know whenthings are taken down?
Do you think the governmentshould have a role in getting
into the private industry youknow private organizations and
getting into the business of ofmaking those types of decisions?
What do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (34:34):
At this point I would say mostly no.
Yeah.
The more I, you know, learnabout that kind of option and
the potential implications, themore nervous I get about these
entities becoming part ofanother arm of the executive or
just part of the government isscary enough and I know that
(34:58):
there are, you know, some verysmart individuals and law firms
who are tackling those questionsas they come up in various
court cases.
There was Gonzalez versusGoogle last year about whether
or not platforms have a right toalgorithmically select content,
(35:18):
and the courts kind of said,yeah, their algorithms are their
freedom to do it.
But with the recent Texas andFlorida legislation it got a
little bit closer.
That decision hasn't come downyet but just based on the oral
arguments it kind of soundedlike maybe not everything from
(35:39):
those proposals would be upheld,and one of the big ones of that
was that platforms wouldn't beallowed to even transparently
remove content in the ways thatthey have been doing.
So that in my opinion, would bea big shift and I don't support
(36:00):
disallowing the platforms fromum making their own selections
there.
But I I share the concerns ofum, the people who wrote that
legislation, that uh, theseplatforms do have a lot of
influence on society today andyou know, it's kind of like
they're their own littlekingdoms and I just wouldn't
(36:23):
want to see us consolidate allof that power into a government.
But I don't know if there'slike a thread the needle, if
there's a way we can thread theneedle through, we can thread
(36:45):
the needle through I, yeah, so I, you know, I think I would
support some legislation banningthe misrepresentation of your
content.
You know, your case is a littlebit different where when you
went back and looked at it, eventhough they didn't tell you
when you were logged in, youcould still see that it was
removed, right.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Yes, that's right.
Yeah, because when I looked forit after he had mentioned haha,
you took down your comment andI was wait a minute I didn't
take it down, but somebody tookit down yeah but you could see
that it was taken down.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
so in that case, you know, I would say that's
ethically wrong and inadvisablein the long term for the
platform because it doesn'tbuild trust among its user base.
It's really short-term thinking, but I wouldn't write
legislation that restricts themfrom doing that myself restricts
(37:43):
them from doing that myself.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Something has been going wrong on many college
campuses for several years now.
We've witnessed speakers beingshouted down, students and
professors say that they arewalking on eggshells and are
afraid to speak honestly which Iwould know because I was one of
those professors and rates ofanxiety, depression and suicide
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Yeah, yeah, I think that's thechallenge when we start getting
(39:17):
into these types ofconversations.
I was listening to a podcastfrom the dispatch it's.
One of their podcasts is calledAdvisory Opinions and I like
listening to it because it'sfrom a legal standpoint and they
have lawyers on there thatactually talk about the legal
side of this topic that we'retalking about and they were
(39:41):
discussing the First Amendmentand how it may or may not apply
to exactly what we're talkingabout.
You know, with privateorganizations and the reason I
go back and forth so much, youknow I have been for the longest
time a free speech absolutist.
I'm like you know what you justsay, what you got to say.
I don't think anybody shouldtake it down.
(40:02):
Deal with it.
At least we all know whatyou're thinking, right.
And then I transition just alittle bit quasi free speech
absolutist, except for when it'sobviously fake information.
You know, I think that we do alot of harm with allowing
blatantly false information, youknow, to proliferate out there.
(40:25):
But then when, as I waslistening to this podcast the
other day, there was a part ofit that I had never considered.
If the private organization isone that is partially funded
with public dollars.
That's the key there With theFirst Amendment.
(40:46):
Clearly, if it's a governmentorganization, government-funded
organization, whether it's anonprofit or a state university,
for example, that's why thefree speech laws are so much
they're adhered to much you knowmuch more strictly rather than
a private organization.
But if you are a hugeorganization like Microsoft, for
(41:09):
example, and you do receivegovernment grants or some type
of government funding, at whatpoint does that now bring you
into the public, publicly fundedorganization realm?
And then at that point therights shift.
You know as far as free speechand how free speech is, I guess,
(41:32):
quote governed, you know onthese different platforms.
That was a part of it that Ihad never thought about before.
And so I find myself shiftingonce more.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
I haven't given it enough consideration myself
either.
You know, a lot of us justdon't know how much money these
services are getting for thegovernment.
I believe that they are.
They do receive some fundingfor doing work to respond to
requests, for, you know,information from security
(42:08):
services.
How much of their bottom lineis that?
And you know, I think there'sunquestionably entanglement
between government and platforms, between government and
platforms.
You know, we see that coming upin the Murthy versus Missouri
case, which is alleging federalgovernment has bridged free
(42:33):
speech through theircommunications with platforms.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
And I find that completely compelling.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah, so you know be watching that case and also the
House Judiciary Committee'sweapon weaponization of the
federal government.
Yeah, Watching that closely tosee what comes out.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Yeah, and to anyone who's wondering well, you know
what's the big deal, what's theproblem with that?
It's kind of like what Robertwas saying earlier when you
start getting the federalgovernment legislating and
getting involved.
I don't like to use the wordslippery slope, because I know
that's a logical fallacy aslippery slope.
At the same time, I think thereis cause for concern when you
(43:16):
do have a branch of governmentthat is influencing that type of
power over what is allowed tobe said, who is allowed to say
it and who are going to be theones to monitor these things and
then make those decisions.
At the same time, especially ifit's coming from government
legislation, it's definitely aconcern I think all of us need
(43:40):
to continue to pay attention to.
I do want to transition.
Tell me about your platform.
You created Revetit as aresponse to your experience with
the shadow banning.
Tell us a little bit more aboutthe platform and what is it
that we, as normal everydayusers, could expect from the
(44:00):
platform?
How do we use it?
Speaker 2 (44:02):
we, as normal everyday users, could expect
from the platform.
How do we use it?
So on the homepage it's got alittle box where you can enter a
username.
So if you have a Reddit account, you can type in your username
and look up all of your secretlyremoved comments in the past.
If you wanted to test this outand see for yourself what I'm
talking about, I set up a littlegroup called Can't Say Anything
(44:24):
, so you could create a Redditaccount in a couple of minutes
and go to that group and write acomment and you'll see that
after you write it you won'treceive any sort of notification
.
It'll still look to you likeit's there, but if you log out
and look at it, it won't exist.
Another thing that's on thehomepage of the site is some
(44:47):
testimonials from other userswho discover, after years of
using the site, that commentsthey've written in the past have
been removed that they didn'tknow about.
I can share a few of those withyou if you like.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Yeah, absolutely yeah .
Speaker 2 (44:59):
So one person says One person says Now that is
interesting.
How can they justify removingcomments while making it appear
to the user that the commentsare still there?
Further, no reasons are givenat all.
Another user writes oh my God,there was a thread where
somebody insisted that thepolice in Europe had not been
enforcing COVID restrictionsusing violence.
I posted several videos andnews articles showing otherwise.
(45:22):
No one ever replied to it.
Now I know why and I list, youknow, like 50 of those on the
page.
But there are a few times wheremy site has come up in comments
or has been allowed to staylive for a few hours and you'll
just get thousands of thesecomments from users who didn't
know they're being moderated.
(45:43):
Yeah, so I've tried to share iton Reddit.
That's been difficult.
Another way you can access mycontent is by going to
removednewscom, which is anewsletter where I try to write
for an audience who might not beusing Reddit.
So you know, I try to point outthat this secret removal
(46:07):
mechanism is different fromtransparent content moderation.
I think a lot of the discussionaround content moderation today
has been focused on mostly onwhat content is getting removed.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
And there are folks on the left also who are
concerned about that ethnicminorities or other other types
of content and really the netimpact is that shadow banning
lets platforms manipulate theapparent consensus.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
Mm, hmm, okay.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Yeah, and you know it also hurts politicians' ability
to, I think, accuratelyunderstand and inform their
constituents.
Another thing I write about isthat it's not effective against
bots who can easily detect it.
You know it hurts humans themost and you know I think it's
inherently divisive, more likelyto hurt good faith.
(47:02):
Moderators, mediators sorry, Idon't think to check for the
secret removals on theseplatforms that are otherwise
trusted.
So I've got both the newsletterand the website itself.
There's also an extension thatyou can install to get like a
little pop up when something youwrote got removed, but
unfortunately it only works forReddit right now and I'd love to
(47:24):
see this kind of tool be builtfor other services.
It is possible for some otherones that have public versions
of their sites.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Do you have that plan to build it out?
Speaker 2 (47:37):
Less and less, I would say.
I've been trying to reach outto rights groups to make a
statement about this, and Ithink they're still on the page
that all forms of contentmoderation is the platform's
right to do and that theyshouldn't be restricted legally
(47:59):
or ethically or have any sort ofpushback for this particular
aspect of it.
And I'm a little bit confusedby that, because they do also
advocate transparency, but Ihaven't seen them talk about, uh
, shadow banning within commentsspecifically either the media
or or rights groups.
(48:21):
Um so, but I'm trying to toconnect with them and trying to
keep an open mind about possiblybuilding more tooling for this.
It has been a long time and youknow I I may need to focus um
more on you know now that I'mback in the US just getting a
full time job so I can supportmy family, because the donations
(48:43):
for doing things like opensource software, like this are,
you know, can can be difficultto generate.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
Yeah, well, I'm hoping someone is going to hear
this and they'll be like oh man,we got to like, create some
type of funding source to tocontinue, because I think you're
right in that the conversationdoes tend to focus a lot on what
content is being moderated,versus the behind the scenes how
is it being moderated andwhether or not it is transparent
(49:13):
.
That's probably the challengeright there, the speed bump, if
you will that a lot of peopleare not understanding that
aspect of it.
So I think that's why it'sreally important to continue to
have these conversations.
Like I said earlier, I had noidea what this was, and now it's
(49:34):
getting me thinking about howit can have a profound impact on
our communication and ourperception and how we understand
the topics that we'rediscussing and how we understand
the world around us.
It can have a huge impact onthat, and the transparency of it
is a big question.
So I do hope that at some point, either you get some funding or
(49:58):
some support to be able toexpand that.
One question I do have regardingif someone goes to your website
and they do want to use yourplatform to do some research
into whether or not they've beenshadow banned on Reddit.
Once they find the informationthat they're looking for, what
(50:21):
is it?
What's the next step?
Like, if they, truly if theyagree with you?
Look, this is a problem, andI'm not really appreciating the
fact that this is being donebehind my back and you know at
least let me know what in theworld is going on.
What is the next step to that?
What is it that we can do inorder to gain some momentum in
(50:45):
this movement that you're tryingto create?
Speaker 2 (50:48):
I would say reach out to your favorite podcast hosts,
your favorite columnist or atech reporter, and ask them to
do a story on it.
Say, hey, I was shadow bannedand I wasn't being a jerk online
or maybe I was, but I deserveto know about it so that I can
(51:10):
you know, so that I can grow andlearn, which?
Is you know, I think, a humanright.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
So so reach out to people who have, who are good
communicators, and encouragethem to do a story on it would
be my advice.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
Okay, that's a fantastic idea.
Is there any particular aspectof this topic that you feel is
really important to touch on atthis point that maybe we have
not had an opportunity to talkabout just yet?
Speaker 2 (51:40):
I would say, just if you do speak up about this
practice and you get somepushback, don't just buy what
somebody tells you is a goodreason for doing it.
Don't buy the line that thisdefeats spam it doesn't.
Don't buy the line that itdefeats trolls or people with
(52:03):
malintent online it doesn't.
And if you're not able toconvince one person that you
know that's okay, don't give upon the topic, because you know
we do get sucked into.
I think these arguments aboutwhat should be allowed to stay
online and you know, maybe someof it can be taken down, but at
(52:24):
the very least we should knowthat it's being taken down.
One of the problems withdisagreeing about or focusing on
what is getting removed onlineis yeah, you're, you're sorry, I
just lost my train of thought.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
I think we are at the end of the hour.
What we know is being removedonline.
I I think that's that's right.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
Challenges yeah, yeah , if that's what we're focusing
you, you, you assume that youknow that, what, what is being
while being removed, but youdon't know what you don't know,
and I'm not even saying likewhen I say that I don't know all
the stuff that's being removedwe don't know what we don't know
Probably so many good ideasfrom people out there, or that
(53:04):
would change our way of thinkingabout the world such that when
I go out and interact with youin public, that you know I would
already understand that youhave that viewpoint.
But I think a lot of times whatmay be happening when we are
just looking at this sort ofnarrow portal that we imagine is
the is all encompassing, likewe have access to all the
information.
Actually it's.
(53:24):
It's very filtered and in waysthat we don't understand, that's
being filtered.
So.
So when we go out and interactwith each other in the real
world, we're caught unpreparedand it leads to, you know, like
shouting matches in schools andor, you know, potentially even
worse.
Speaker 1 (53:40):
So I think that was very well said.
I think that's the key rightthere to remember for anyone who
is still asking that question,that the so what?
Question, like you just said,it's being filtered in ways that
we don't even know how it'sbeing filtered and that right
there, is preventing you fromhaving a full picture, from
(54:01):
having a full understanding of alot of the topics that are
being discussed online.
For me, that's it, like that'sall I need to know, because I
want to know.
I don't want anybody filteringanything for me.
Let me look through it myselfand then I'm going to make my
decision based on theinformation that's in front of
me.
But then I'm going to make mydecision on based on the
information that's in front ofme.
(54:21):
But if I can't trust that allthe information is in front of
me, that's really doing me andeveryone else a disservice at
the same time.
Speaker 2 (54:29):
Yeah, and you deserve that.
I mean, you're a person.
Everybody deserves to be, to betreated like, like people.
Yeah so thanks so much forhaving me on, Jen.
I really appreciate you takingthe chance on this topic that
you didn't know anything about.
Speaker 1 (54:41):
Oh, absolutely.
I'm so glad we did.
Now I know a little bit moreabout this topic, so, and and I
think this is going to get a lotmore people talking about it as
well, which is the importantthing, all right.
So, final thing, how do peopleget in touch with you?
Speaker 2 (54:55):
I think through my newsletter is is a good way.
Do people get in touch with you?
I think through my newsletteris a good way.
Remove newscom.
I'm also on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
You can just use the link from my newsletter or
revettacom to find that Allright, sounds good, and I'll
make sure that the link to yourwebsites are in the show notes
as well.
Speaker 2 (55:13):
Great, All right.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
Robert, thank you so much again, and everyone who is
listening.
I hope this is some good foodfor thought.
Mull things over, let itmarinate for a while, check out
Robert's websites and then, yeah, give me a call, contact me and
let me know how it goes.
I want to know if you wereshadow banned.
All right, so let's keep theconversation going.
(55:35):
If you were shadow banned, letme know.
I'll let Robert know and then,you know, maybe we can finally
get a columnist to actuallywrite about this stuff.
Who knows, keep hope alive.
All right, everyone.
Have a wonderful rest of yourday and we'll see you next time.
Thanks for listening.
(55:58):
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