March 26, 2026 • 33 mins
Bad day? Feeling anxious? A jury just decided companies like Meta Platforms and Google might be to blame. We dive into the lawsuit that says social media is hurting our mental health
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
During the break, I was reading up on this gigantic
meta Google lawsuit, and you know, I said, I don't
know if I said it on the area, if I
was just talking to you, Peyton, but I said that
this is the bigger picture. Here is clamping down on
free speech. Right. So as I'm going through the article,
(00:23):
I gotta find this. I found the paragraph I wanted. Basically,
what they're saying, hang on jurisy liberating blah blah blah,
blah blah. And by the way, if you miss the news,
people are celebrating that Meta and YouTube. And I don't
think YouTube is part of this, but Meta Google all
(00:45):
this stuff they're addicting and somehow and they're harming the children.
So here we go. I think this is a paragraph
at the core of the Los Angeles case. No shock,
it's in Los Angeles, of course. At the core of
the Los Angeles case is a twenty year old identified
(01:08):
by the initials blah blah blah, whose case could determine
how thousands of similar lawsuits will play out. So what
we are witnessing this is a test case. Plaintiffs have
been selected here's the phrase. So plaintiffs have been selected
(01:32):
for Bellweather Trials. See that, you know what that is. Yeah,
if they can figure out how to get this twenty
year old girl paid, it will open up the floodgates
for various lawsuits and actions against these companies. Quote. This
(01:55):
is a monumental inflection point in social media, says Matthew Bergman,
the Seattle based Social Media Victims Law Center. Oh yeah,
now they got a law center. So you know, five
ozho ones are involved now, which represents more than one
thousand plaintiffs in lawsuits against social media companies.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
When we started doing this four years ago, no one
said we would ever get to trial. And here we
are trying our case in front of a fair and
impartial jury. Blah blah blad. What is it? So then
the article goes on to say, these companies make two
hundred billion a year. This lawsuit is a drop in
(02:41):
the bucket. But then they go on to say, but
what people don't think about are the cost of the trial. Right,
because people always hear about judgments. So and so got
a judgment, so and so got a judgment. But what
they don't hear about is the work that had to
be done to get them to trial. The filing of
(03:04):
various motions, the request for information, the time, it took
probably a boardroom full of attorneys to hash this whole
thing out back and forth. So what they've done, at
least in my opinion, because I don't want to be
(03:25):
part of this, it's my opinion, I'm a title to it.
What it seems to me that they've done is they
found a bunch of people that they felt okay, they
could make a claim. Then they went through their claims,
and lawyers do this, but then they went through the
(03:46):
claims to find the claims that were the most promising
right that you would because you can't have a lawsuit
unless you have a victim. Because the first thing people
are going to say is, well, what are your damages?
What happened to you? Like I'll even bring this up.
Many of you remember my wife was poisoned. Well, the
(04:10):
first thing that people wanted to know was what were
the damages? You know, and damages were damages were looked
upon as medical bills, what is going to heal? What
might not heal? Those kind of things. Those are damages.
By the way, Nebraska does not have compensatory damages. So no,
(04:33):
I don't own that theater but this is what's going
on here, okay, because what they're doing is they're trying
to recreate, in my opinion, they're recreating the tobacco lawsuits.
Remember those remembered many many years ago when they brought
in the heads of all the cigarette companies and they
(04:57):
were all going on, I don't know how anybody thought
think this was addicting? Uh uh play stupid. Well, lawyers
were able to prove that they knew, and they got
all that money. So now the uh, the allegation here
is that that the uh that Google or Meta better
(05:19):
known as Facebook, uh, that they purposely designed things to
addict people. But here's I don't know, this is just
me spitballing here, but doesn't anyone that creates a product
want to help create the desire to keep using it.
(05:44):
So what I'm trying to figure out is what are
the actual damages to this individual that was the key
plaintiff in this obvious test case, Because dude, I'm telling you,
this thing hit, it's it's on now. There's so many
people that could say that they've been affected by this.
(06:06):
So I'm really really curious to see what's going to
come out about what she would have claimed those damages
are it looks like she claims that she was depressed.
That could go for anybody that is you social media.
I mean, how can you say that it was social
(06:27):
media that affected me this way? Because life can affect
you this way. I could walk right out of this
building right now and something could happen that would trigger
me into a case of the vapors and snot bubble blowing,
crying fits and everything. All right, probably not, but still
I could say it did. Wow. So again this is
(06:53):
a test case. This is the uh oh, that's right.
The camels knows under the tent, right. And this is
what attorneys do. And I'm not saying that to be critical.
I mean, if a guy becomes an attorney, he becomes
an attorney to make money. So attorneys are always looking
(07:15):
for avenues that they can apply their craft, which is
the law, in order to make money. I saw a
lawyer one day at the courthouse and this guy he
comes to I would see him almost well, every day.
I'd see this guy and he comes walking in and
(07:37):
a guy that they were throwing out because he was
an idiot, was going, hey, you're a lawyer, right, And
the guy said, yeah, he goes, I gotta, I gotta,
I got a case. I got a case, and he goes,
you got three hundred bucks? He said, he got three
hundred bucks. We can talk about it. No, okay, and
just walked right by. And what he was saying was, Hey,
(07:59):
I went to school forever. You know, I'm I'm sixty
years old. I still got college debt. You know. You
want to talk to me about your case, You're gonna
have to pay. So I have no beef with that.
But this is a Now, you know, if you look
at it just from a look at it just from
a business perspective, because I know people have this bad
(08:21):
connotation on lawyers, But if you look at it from
a business perspective, if you're in the law business, this
is a this is uh, this is one of those
minds that no one's dug up yet. So there you go. Boy,
did I put that right? I don't know. It's though.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
It's just like you're talking about this mine that hasn't
been touched yet. Have you been affected by social media?
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Are your heads on it right now?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Are your kids anxious and depressed because social media has
them in a choke hold?
Speaker 1 (08:50):
There you go, Well, listen. Uh there, that's one way
to deal with it. But I know another way to
deal with that. Min do you find yourself lacking what
it takes to succeed in the bedroom? Do you suffer
from anxiety when you hear the term America? First? Have
you taken time off from work over a comment posted
(09:14):
on your timeline? Well, you are exactly the man we're
looking for. The butch Up Academy can turn a beta,
soy boy, cry bullied midwind like you into the rugged, masculine,
determined man you were designed to be just one week,
and the Butcher Academy can turn a snowflake into a strong,
(09:36):
confident master of your domain. Don't take my word for it.
Listen to our graduates.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
My wife said I should get some sialis to help
out in the bedroom, and I just go get it.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
But after a week at the butch Up Academy, I.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Told my wife, Hey, this is a two way street, honey.
Why don't you do something like wear some sexy underwear,
dance around or hell just move once in a while.
Guess what problems solved? Oh?
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Thanks, butcherp Academy, The Butcher Academy, And no, I'm not
giving you our web address, find it yourself, and we
go through the story, and you start looking through this
whole thing, and it turns out that what this really
is is a test case, so that attorneys now will
(10:21):
have a strategy and case law to back up their
positions for their spineless clients who get their feelings hurt
over some internet post. You know now that they also
here's something else. They say they want to protect kids
from pedophiles. How do you do that? Right? How do
(10:47):
you do that? I mean, here's a great example here
in this great state of Nebraska. Recently two men convicted
of the exact same crime, and they were doing vile
things with a underage boy. I'm not going to go
(11:07):
into the details. One of them got fifty years plus
in prison. The other one got three years plus in prison.
I think the best way to deterpedos put them in jail.
Let him stay there. I mean, put them on an
island and they can hump each other all day or something. Anyway,
(11:27):
Chris Baker program, Let's talk to Meryl. You're on news
radio eleven ten Merril. Hello, Hi, hi there. First of all,
First of all, I am so glad that Chris Baker
is back.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
On the air.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Oh, I love him great, and Peyton's a great match.
Yeah for Chris. And I'm finally glad that somebody grew
some down there at the station. Now now, now, now,
let's not get into that this company listened to its customers.
We are so happy to be back.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Yes, yes, anyway, back to these lawsuits.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yes, and the and the.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Schools and everything else.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
It's a parental.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Raise your kids, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
So it's that's what they need to do. It's the
parental responsibility. So what would you have what would you
have the parents do?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Take it away, limit it limited their children, their kids,
limit their access.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
All right, well I appreciate that, sir.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Make it's as simple as making them do their homework.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Oh yeah, that's up for this, making they show up
for that. Yeah, no kidding. I tell you what I
think you ought to put on a seminar Meryl Meryl's Meryl.
You could do the Butcher Parents seminar at the Butcher Academy.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Chris, Chris, I think we can do it.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Well, I don't know about that that, you know. I mean,
I don't I don't like I don't like uh, you know,
sharing my thunder with other people, you know what I mean, Like,
you could do a good job and then I could
take credit for it and it makes me look better.
But if we do it together and then you know,
then they're like, oh, you guys are great, And of
(13:26):
course I would be what do you mean we it's
me man. By the way, I'm joking around when I
say that. Just to be clear, Meryl. You know, here's
the other thing. When a lot of people will say,
you got to you gotta have the parents. The parents
got to do stuff. The parents got to do stuff.
But here's something else in this day and age. First
(13:49):
of all, a lot of a lot of families don't
have parents. They have a parent. That's tough. Uh. In
some case says they have a grandparent and that's it.
And I'm a parent. I just went through like I
just went through all this nonsense. And let me tell
(14:10):
you from my own personal experience, I would do everything
to try to block stuff, to try to cut stuff off.
And here's the thing that I learned quickly, and my wife,
as a educator, tells me about it too. These kids
are very tech savvy. They're much more tech savvy than me.
(14:33):
And it is no secret in this town. I'm an
idiot when it comes to tech. So these kids are good. Now.
I know a teacher. We were out to, well where
were we And we went somewhere with some teachers people.
Teachers are a lot of fun to hang out with,
by the way, And one of the things they were
(14:54):
talking about is that they try to keep their kids
on task in class, and all the work is done
on tablets, and these kids figure out ways to get
around the school's you know, internet blocker to go on
any website they want, and teachers even have see I'm
(15:19):
going to mess up the language here, Peyton. But the
teachers have a system where they can just look on
a screen and see what everybody's doing, right, And they
said that it is a constant problem because they'll pull
up and sew, what are they doing? What are they doing? So? So?
(15:40):
Why is so and so giggling over there? What are
they doing? And they'll pull up their screen and they'll
see that they're not doing their work. They're watching YouTube
videos or you know, or or something else. TikTok. I
just don't like the TikTok because it's called TikTok anyway,
But you know, kids are very tech savvy. You know,
(16:03):
kids are smart like kids. You know. I know a
kid that got a burner phone and his parents had
no idea he had a burner phone. So the phone
they were paying for, Well, let's look at my son's
not doing any of that terrible stuff. Look at his phone.
It's got all that memory and there's nothing really on it.
And on the other hand, he had his other head,
(16:24):
another phone, and man, that thing was a That thing
was a felony, felonies all over that thing. But again,
kids today are so tech savvy because they've grown up
with it that you know. You take a stupid old
ball headed boomer like me, and I'm trying to you know,
to me, the Internet is like uh plumbing, That's how
(16:49):
I view it. You got to flow of stuff going
this way, and it's going here and there and here.
So I think, okay, what do you do? Well, you
turn off the valve. So I turn off what I
what I would refer to as the valve. What would
this punk do find a way around it?
Speaker 3 (17:05):
You know?
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Oh gee, my dad blocked that. Okay, well let me
just do this click click, all right. So it's it's hard,
and you know what I think, Oh, man, am I late? Oh okay,
here's what I really think. I'm really on. Look at me.
I'm so philosophical today, Peyton. You know what I think
I'm gonna do during the next break. I'm gonna get
a robe with a hood because I'm very philosophical today
(17:29):
and I should just walk around with a giant stick
in my hooded robe as the philosopher guy. Don't worry,
I'll forget about it. But this really comes down to
what I was making fun of yesterday. Look how soft
we are. I mean, we're so incredibly soft that some
people will allow the comments made by an anonymous person
(17:55):
who you don't know, right, you don't even know if
they live in your but they took a shot at
you online. And you know, maybe maybe it's just for
soft like kids in school, right, like this girl that
won this lawsuit twenty years old, So think about it.
She's twenty now, but when this lawsuit was filed four
(18:19):
years ago, she was sixteen. Okay, so what do you
think she'd been going through in school at sixteen? Yeah,
don't bully, don't be critical. Those jokes are too mean.
So in a way, our public education systems has softened
(18:45):
the resolve of many young Americans now because everything needs
a trigger warning or you know, oh we got to
cancel that, or oh you can't say that. Oh you
better not ever say that. Oh that's an proper thought.
So that's what's been poured into people's heads for years now,
(19:07):
so that ought to be part of it as well.
How much has culture softened Americans these days? You know,
it's always funny guys my age always make fun of,
you know, young people going out. They don't have they
have no idea how good they have it. By the way,
I said that once. That was September tenth, twenty twenty one,
(19:31):
and the very next day the Twin Towers fell, and
all those young Americans that I thought were soft they
all joined the Marines and went over and kicked some butt.
So but still, I'm just you know, that's what it
looks like to me. We created a bunch of softies.
Then we have smart lawyers out there going, okay, now,
(19:54):
how can we cash in on this? Oh, the Internet
hurt my feelings. I'm traumatized. I'm going to have to
go to therapy. So there you go. Good. I'm glad
I solved that I could solve every problem. My goodness, gracious,
listen to this. Listen to this, Peyton, I may be triggered.
(20:15):
Sometimes you can be such an inconsistent orifice. Do you
not understand the difference between depression and sadness? You can
walk out of your building and have something happen that
would give you sadness, But there's a big difference between
clinically diagnosed depression to the point of seriously consider to
(20:39):
take one's life. I know you're trying to be funny.
I'm not trying. I am. I'm sorry. I know you're
trying to be funny, but you sound like an idiot.
Thank you. Yes, I do understand clinical depression, but it's
clinical depression. I don't know. You know I should. Oh nope,
(21:00):
I doubt if I could get her on the phone.
Ooh what about doctor Merrit? Maybe doctor Merritt on everything.
Let me reach out to doctor Merritt. Yes, she usually
has got something good to say. Oh, here we go.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
We had her on speed dial? Was it last week
and two weeks ago? And she followed through like you
couldn't believe.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
There's Thor's numbers if you can get him. So we're
literally I have I have all these stories in front
of me, but I'm much more interested in this. So
that's what we're talking about at the moment. Yes, I
understand clinical depression. I do. I get it. I know,
I know people who battle it. It's not it's not
like I'm ignorant of it. But so is clinical depression
(21:41):
something that you're born with or is it? Well, see
if you give him a buzz and see if we
can get him on, and then if we can, we'll
get him on. That'll be awesome. Thank you, Peyton. Peyton's
the best. He's got four arms. I don't know if
you know that or not. He was he fell in
the water by a nuke plant many years ago and
he grew two more arms and he's twelve feet tall.
(22:04):
Unbelievable anyway. But so the woman who got the big
win today, and you know what, and I celebrate it,
but I also worry what that's going to do when
it comes to free speech. One of the other things
that are brought into the story. I was reading earlier
(22:26):
where I was showing you where this is basically a
test case so that thousands more of these cases can
move forward. But something else, and I'll read it says
the outcomes could challenge the company's First Amendment shield and
section two thirty. Now, I remember many years ago having
the big argument on section two thirty as to whether
(22:50):
you could sue a Internet company like say a Google,
because of something that was said on their platform, whether
it defamatory or whatever. And section two thirty, uh, was
created so that Internet platforms were platforms, all right. And
(23:16):
so think of it this way. Think that if you're
a singer and you would like to go sing at
a theater, right, and so you go to the theater
and you sing a song and it is horrible and
racist and bigoted and racist racist, uh, and it's the
(23:39):
Patriot Guard theme song and it's just horrible and it's
going to destroy civilization. Well, they wouldn't be able to
attack the theater because the theater just gave you the stage, right,
they have no control over what you did with that stage.
And that's what section two thirty does. It protects these
(24:01):
Internet companies so that they won't be sued for libel
and such. They're only providing others a platform to do
what they do. So now I wonder how this is
going to fit with Section two thirty because there was
a huge debate over Section two thirty several years ago,
(24:22):
and you know, and from what I remember of it,
the courts ruled that, no, they're just a platform's they
just provide a space for people to express and some
people choose to express really bad stuff and some people
like us choose to express really good stuff. See, so
(24:45):
that's another thing to worry about. So what did he say?
Oh wait a minute, Oh look at that. Good to
go on, Thor. Excellent. So we'll get all right, we'll
take a break, we'll come back. We'll talk to Thor Shrock, who,
by the way, owns a tremendous company and does a
tremendous show in his own right. So we'll talk to him.
Talk to Thor Shrock next. I have a fear that
(25:08):
this is going to somehow end up crushing free speech
in some way. The moon bats have been trying to
do this forever, control freak politicians. So we set up
that this case was a test case. And I'm also
reading now that there's another case that's going to come up,
(25:29):
another Bellweather case, and that's where several school districts in
California are going to sue the same company. So if
you want to know anything about computers or the Internet
or pretty much anything in general, the perfect guy to
talk to is the great Thor Shrock. How you doing,
(25:49):
thor Shrock?
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Hey, pretty good, Chris. How are you doing, buddy?
Speaker 1 (25:53):
I'm doing great, and I really appreciate you jumping on
with us today. It was kind of last minute, but
I know you're you know all this junk, so uh,
you know what I mean. I mean, because here's my concern.
After this big lawsuit against Meta and this huge payout,
(26:14):
and now we found out or we have read that
these are all test cases to open the door to
a flood of cases. In my opinion, I'm worried about
my free speech. So what do you know about these cases?
And can companies do what they're asking, which is protect
(26:35):
the children, stop the hate and all that nonsense.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yeah, it's always the children, right, I mean, yeah, we
got to keep these kids safe. You know, those four
year old smoking cigars in the in the coal mine.
You know, we got to get a tobacco you know,
got to get them. So it's always, it's always something.
But here's the thing. First of all, you know, don't
get too excited about this. These cases are going to
be appealed, and this is going to be in for
a decade. These people are not going to get a
(27:03):
payout for a very long time. And when it does
get it, when they do get a pay out, and
they will get a payout, it's going to be a
negotiated settlement, is what it's going to come down to.
So yes, I mean, they were found liable and they
will appeal and under appeal, there's all these you know,
Google has come out and said, hey, this whole trial
completely misunderstands that Google is a is a responsible company.
(27:27):
We're not a social media company. We're a responsible company.
Unlike those you know, meta people with their Instagram and
anyone who's had their kids sit around on a couch
all day and consume YouTube shorts for fifteen hours straight.
You know that there's some dopamine hits going on there.
It's the same thing. So it's really tough because the product,
(27:49):
it's an entertainment product. Social media is essentially an entertainment product.
It is not an information product. You can have some
crossover kind of like you know, compute this when I
do my Sunday show, it's a little bit of fun
and a little bit of selling stuff. You know, we
got to pay the bills, but you can have a
little bit of both. But you know, these these platforms
make money by attracting eyeballs. So I haven't been on
(28:09):
Facebook in a while. I haven't opened the app on
my phone in a while. I use it every week
when I broadcast my show, though. Facebook has figured out
that I'm not actually consuming the content, I'm just creating
the content. So now whenever somebody I know post something,
I get an email or even got a text message
from Facebook. The other day, did you know that somebody
posted about you? You know, it was one of those
things like they're just trying to draw me back in
(28:30):
to get those dopamine hits going. And it's like, you know,
I don't need the validation. I'm okay, so but other
people go they love this, and so people will live
all day long and they'll look into how many likes
did I get, how many responses, how many comments? You know,
people will post things specifically. There was one guy who
was posting about cheese and he purposefully misspelled the name
of a high end cheese. He did it on purpose
(28:52):
so that he would get more interaction from people correcting
him and calling him stupid because that's what the algorithm likes.
He got more views because people were calling him stupid.
You should try it, I am.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I'm just sitting here going, man, I gotta do that.
That'll be easy for murder. So so thor when when
it's said that they want these companies to put in
quote unquote guard rails, is there really something they can
do that would qualify as a guard rail.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
There's a few possible things. There was a related story
that we covered on Compute This that was a chat
gpt actually was about to come out with a spicy Mode.
Essentially you could you can make your own chat gupt pornography.
So yay, we need more porn, right, So anyway, they
had to delay spicy Mode. It was like it was
(29:48):
it was awful, Right, we can't have spicy Mode because
we haven't figured out how to make sure that kids
under eighteen aren't just going to log into chat gept
and make spicy mode and switch people's heads around and stuff,
and so can there be guardrails? You know? The challenge
that we come to is there's two concepts of the Internet.
The concept that we all grew up with, you know,
(30:10):
when I say we grew up with you know, the
internet was I'm before the internet. You might have been
before the Internet also, but you know we were there
in the beginning. And the beginning it was don't use
your real name online, use a pseudonym because you know,
you have an anonymity online. And so now what we're
seeing is the opposite of that. We're like, it's really
tough to have complete freedom of speech without any consequences
(30:33):
for speech. So you can't go posting online as Antifa
and talk about how you're going to you know, light
the place on fire and then hide behind a mask.
But that's my freedom of speech. Well, you do have
freedom of speech, but that doesn't mean you're not accountable
for your speech. So if there was a guardrail that
(30:55):
we could put on this, that would be the guardrail
is just if you do something, If you if you
go to school and Sally in your class suddenly gets,
you know, an Instagram post of her on top of
some you know, really ugly poorn star's body, do an
unimaginable thing. She's in middle school, right, that's what we're
afraid of here, right, So when that happens, we want
(31:17):
to know that Billy posted that it can't be an
anonymous account from you know, you know, you know middle
school poster from five to nine. You know, it's got
to be Billy, and so some kind of you know,
we have real ID and everybody. You know, I understand
people got ben off the shape about that, and you know,
I kind of agree with some of the arguments there.
But when it comes to some things online, maybe it's
(31:40):
better that we actually have accountability. Now. If we have accountability,
we can have freedom of speech. It doesn't mean that
your viewpoints are prohibited. But where it gets really scary
is what we saw in the last administration. If we
have accountability online where we can tie speech directly back
to an individual user, you know, you'll concretely authoritatively, then
(32:02):
we can punish that individual person for speech that we
disagree with.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
And that's the separate extension. That's where things get dangerous.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
And that's the thing I'm worried about because it seems
to me that's where this is all gone. Under the
guise of helping the three year old cigar smoking coal miners,
we just the rest of society are just.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Too Yeah, that's the tradeoff. I mean, so The answer
to your question is, if you preserve anonymity, no, you
can't have guardrails. If you create accountability, yes you could
have guardrails. Then these companies are compliant with a bureaucratic
rule set. But then that bureaucratic rule set can be weaponized.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Ah see, there it is there, it is there. It
is all right, Thor Schrock. You're so good at this.
I really appreciate it. Yeah. I worry about my free speech.
That's that's my whole thing. I just worry about free
speech when I hear they're doing these test cases.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
You know, you know, I hear you clucking, buddy. But
I mean, I don't think you should be getting your
undies in a load. I mean, no one's going to
cancel a guy on k F A D. I mean,
come on, you have a big radio share audience. Everybody
loves you. No one is going to ever cancel you.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
You're right, I'm not worried about a thing. It'll be fine. Yeah,
it'll be great. All right, Thanks Thor. Take care of
my friend,
During the break, I was reading up on this gigantic
meta Google lawsuit, and you know, I said, I don't
know if I said it on the area, if I
was just talking to you, Peyton, but I said that
this is the bigger picture. Here is clamping down on
free speech. Right. So as I'm going through the article,
(00:23):
I gotta find this. I found the paragraph I wanted. Basically,
what they're saying, hang on jurisy liberating blah blah blah,
blah blah. And by the way, if you miss the news,
people are celebrating that Meta and YouTube. And I don't
think YouTube is part of this, but Meta Google all
(00:45):
this stuff they're addicting and somehow and they're harming the children.
So here we go. I think this is a paragraph
at the core of the Los Angeles case. No shock,
it's in Los Angeles, of course. At the core of
the Los Angeles case is a twenty year old identified
(01:08):
by the initials blah blah blah, whose case could determine
how thousands of similar lawsuits will play out. So what
we are witnessing this is a test case. Plaintiffs have
been selected here's the phrase. So plaintiffs have been selected
(01:32):
for Bellweather Trials. See that, you know what that is. Yeah,
if they can figure out how to get this twenty
year old girl paid, it will open up the floodgates
for various lawsuits and actions against these companies. Quote. This
(01:55):
is a monumental inflection point in social media, says Matthew Bergman,
the Seattle based Social Media Victims Law Center. Oh yeah,
now they got a law center. So you know, five
ozho ones are involved now, which represents more than one
thousand plaintiffs in lawsuits against social media companies.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
When we started doing this four years ago, no one
said we would ever get to trial. And here we
are trying our case in front of a fair and
impartial jury. Blah blah blad. What is it? So then
the article goes on to say, these companies make two
hundred billion a year. This lawsuit is a drop in
(02:41):
the bucket. But then they go on to say, but
what people don't think about are the cost of the trial. Right,
because people always hear about judgments. So and so got
a judgment, so and so got a judgment. But what
they don't hear about is the work that had to
be done to get them to trial. The filing of
(03:04):
various motions, the request for information, the time, it took
probably a boardroom full of attorneys to hash this whole
thing out back and forth. So what they've done, at
least in my opinion, because I don't want to be
(03:25):
part of this, it's my opinion, I'm a title to it.
What it seems to me that they've done is they
found a bunch of people that they felt okay, they
could make a claim. Then they went through their claims,
and lawyers do this, but then they went through the
(03:46):
claims to find the claims that were the most promising
right that you would because you can't have a lawsuit
unless you have a victim. Because the first thing people
are going to say is, well, what are your damages?
What happened to you? Like I'll even bring this up.
Many of you remember my wife was poisoned. Well, the
(04:10):
first thing that people wanted to know was what were
the damages? You know, and damages were damages were looked
upon as medical bills, what is going to heal? What
might not heal? Those kind of things. Those are damages.
By the way, Nebraska does not have compensatory damages. So no,
(04:33):
I don't own that theater but this is what's going
on here, okay, because what they're doing is they're trying
to recreate, in my opinion, they're recreating the tobacco lawsuits.
Remember those remembered many many years ago when they brought
in the heads of all the cigarette companies and they
(04:57):
were all going on, I don't know how anybody thought
think this was addicting? Uh uh play stupid. Well, lawyers
were able to prove that they knew, and they got
all that money. So now the uh, the allegation here
is that that the uh that Google or Meta better
(05:19):
known as Facebook, uh, that they purposely designed things to
addict people. But here's I don't know, this is just
me spitballing here, but doesn't anyone that creates a product
want to help create the desire to keep using it.
(05:44):
So what I'm trying to figure out is what are
the actual damages to this individual that was the key
plaintiff in this obvious test case, Because dude, I'm telling you,
this thing hit, it's it's on now. There's so many
people that could say that they've been affected by this.
(06:06):
So I'm really really curious to see what's going to
come out about what she would have claimed those damages
are it looks like she claims that she was depressed.
That could go for anybody that is you social media.
I mean, how can you say that it was social
(06:27):
media that affected me this way? Because life can affect
you this way. I could walk right out of this
building right now and something could happen that would trigger
me into a case of the vapors and snot bubble blowing,
crying fits and everything. All right, probably not, but still
I could say it did. Wow. So again this is
(06:53):
a test case. This is the uh oh, that's right.
The camels knows under the tent, right. And this is
what attorneys do. And I'm not saying that to be critical.
I mean, if a guy becomes an attorney, he becomes
an attorney to make money. So attorneys are always looking
(07:15):
for avenues that they can apply their craft, which is
the law, in order to make money. I saw a
lawyer one day at the courthouse and this guy he
comes to I would see him almost well, every day.
I'd see this guy and he comes walking in and
(07:37):
a guy that they were throwing out because he was
an idiot, was going, hey, you're a lawyer, right, And
the guy said, yeah, he goes, I gotta, I gotta,
I got a case. I got a case, and he goes,
you got three hundred bucks? He said, he got three
hundred bucks. We can talk about it. No, okay, and
just walked right by. And what he was saying was, Hey,
(07:59):
I went to school forever. You know, I'm I'm sixty
years old. I still got college debt. You know. You
want to talk to me about your case, You're gonna
have to pay. So I have no beef with that.
But this is a Now, you know, if you look
at it just from a look at it just from
a business perspective, because I know people have this bad
(08:21):
connotation on lawyers, But if you look at it from
a business perspective, if you're in the law business, this
is a this is uh, this is one of those
minds that no one's dug up yet. So there you go. Boy,
did I put that right? I don't know. It's though.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
It's just like you're talking about this mine that hasn't
been touched yet. Have you been affected by social media?
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Are your heads on it right now?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Are your kids anxious and depressed because social media has
them in a choke hold?
Speaker 1 (08:50):
There you go, Well, listen. Uh there, that's one way
to deal with it. But I know another way to
deal with that. Min do you find yourself lacking what
it takes to succeed in the bedroom? Do you suffer
from anxiety when you hear the term America? First? Have
you taken time off from work over a comment posted
(09:14):
on your timeline? Well, you are exactly the man we're
looking for. The butch Up Academy can turn a beta,
soy boy, cry bullied midwind like you into the rugged, masculine,
determined man you were designed to be just one week,
and the Butcher Academy can turn a snowflake into a strong,
(09:36):
confident master of your domain. Don't take my word for it.
Listen to our graduates.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
My wife said I should get some sialis to help
out in the bedroom, and I just go get it.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
But after a week at the butch Up Academy, I.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Told my wife, Hey, this is a two way street, honey.
Why don't you do something like wear some sexy underwear,
dance around or hell just move once in a while.
Guess what problems solved? Oh?
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Thanks, butcherp Academy, The Butcher Academy, And no, I'm not
giving you our web address, find it yourself, and we
go through the story, and you start looking through this
whole thing, and it turns out that what this really
is is a test case, so that attorneys now will
(10:21):
have a strategy and case law to back up their
positions for their spineless clients who get their feelings hurt
over some internet post. You know now that they also
here's something else. They say they want to protect kids
from pedophiles. How do you do that? Right? How do
(10:47):
you do that? I mean, here's a great example here
in this great state of Nebraska. Recently two men convicted
of the exact same crime, and they were doing vile
things with a underage boy. I'm not going to go
(11:07):
into the details. One of them got fifty years plus
in prison. The other one got three years plus in prison.
I think the best way to deterpedos put them in jail.
Let him stay there. I mean, put them on an
island and they can hump each other all day or something. Anyway,
(11:27):
Chris Baker program, Let's talk to Meryl. You're on news
radio eleven ten Merril. Hello, Hi, hi there. First of all,
First of all, I am so glad that Chris Baker
is back.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
On the air.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Oh, I love him great, and Peyton's a great match.
Yeah for Chris. And I'm finally glad that somebody grew
some down there at the station. Now now, now, now,
let's not get into that this company listened to its customers.
We are so happy to be back.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Yes, yes, anyway, back to these lawsuits.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yes, and the and the.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Schools and everything else.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
It's a parental.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Raise your kids, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
So it's that's what they need to do. It's the
parental responsibility. So what would you have what would you
have the parents do?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Take it away, limit it limited their children, their kids,
limit their access.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
All right, well I appreciate that, sir.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Make it's as simple as making them do their homework.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Oh yeah, that's up for this, making they show up
for that. Yeah, no kidding. I tell you what I
think you ought to put on a seminar Meryl Meryl's Meryl.
You could do the Butcher Parents seminar at the Butcher Academy.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Chris, Chris, I think we can do it.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Well, I don't know about that that, you know. I mean,
I don't I don't like I don't like uh, you know,
sharing my thunder with other people, you know what I mean, Like,
you could do a good job and then I could
take credit for it and it makes me look better.
But if we do it together and then you know,
then they're like, oh, you guys are great, And of
(13:26):
course I would be what do you mean we it's
me man. By the way, I'm joking around when I
say that. Just to be clear, Meryl. You know, here's
the other thing. When a lot of people will say,
you got to you gotta have the parents. The parents
got to do stuff. The parents got to do stuff.
But here's something else in this day and age. First
(13:49):
of all, a lot of a lot of families don't
have parents. They have a parent. That's tough. Uh. In
some case says they have a grandparent and that's it.
And I'm a parent. I just went through like I
just went through all this nonsense. And let me tell
(14:10):
you from my own personal experience, I would do everything
to try to block stuff, to try to cut stuff off.
And here's the thing that I learned quickly, and my wife,
as a educator, tells me about it too. These kids
are very tech savvy. They're much more tech savvy than me.
(14:33):
And it is no secret in this town. I'm an
idiot when it comes to tech. So these kids are good. Now.
I know a teacher. We were out to, well where
were we And we went somewhere with some teachers people.
Teachers are a lot of fun to hang out with,
by the way, And one of the things they were
(14:54):
talking about is that they try to keep their kids
on task in class, and all the work is done
on tablets, and these kids figure out ways to get
around the school's you know, internet blocker to go on
any website they want, and teachers even have see I'm
(15:19):
going to mess up the language here, Peyton. But the
teachers have a system where they can just look on
a screen and see what everybody's doing, right, And they
said that it is a constant problem because they'll pull
up and sew, what are they doing? What are they doing? So? So?
(15:40):
Why is so and so giggling over there? What are
they doing? And they'll pull up their screen and they'll
see that they're not doing their work. They're watching YouTube
videos or you know, or or something else. TikTok. I
just don't like the TikTok because it's called TikTok anyway,
But you know, kids are very tech savvy. You know,
(16:03):
kids are smart like kids. You know. I know a
kid that got a burner phone and his parents had
no idea he had a burner phone. So the phone
they were paying for, Well, let's look at my son's
not doing any of that terrible stuff. Look at his phone.
It's got all that memory and there's nothing really on it.
And on the other hand, he had his other head,
(16:24):
another phone, and man, that thing was a That thing
was a felony, felonies all over that thing. But again,
kids today are so tech savvy because they've grown up
with it that you know. You take a stupid old
ball headed boomer like me, and I'm trying to you know,
to me, the Internet is like uh plumbing, That's how
(16:49):
I view it. You got to flow of stuff going
this way, and it's going here and there and here.
So I think, okay, what do you do? Well, you
turn off the valve. So I turn off what I
what I would refer to as the valve. What would
this punk do find a way around it?
Speaker 3 (17:05):
You know?
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Oh gee, my dad blocked that. Okay, well let me
just do this click click, all right. So it's it's hard,
and you know what I think, Oh, man, am I late? Oh okay,
here's what I really think. I'm really on. Look at me.
I'm so philosophical today, Peyton. You know what I think
I'm gonna do during the next break. I'm gonna get
a robe with a hood because I'm very philosophical today
(17:29):
and I should just walk around with a giant stick
in my hooded robe as the philosopher guy. Don't worry,
I'll forget about it. But this really comes down to
what I was making fun of yesterday. Look how soft
we are. I mean, we're so incredibly soft that some
people will allow the comments made by an anonymous person
(17:55):
who you don't know, right, you don't even know if
they live in your but they took a shot at
you online. And you know, maybe maybe it's just for
soft like kids in school, right, like this girl that
won this lawsuit twenty years old, So think about it.
She's twenty now, but when this lawsuit was filed four
(18:19):
years ago, she was sixteen. Okay, so what do you
think she'd been going through in school at sixteen? Yeah,
don't bully, don't be critical. Those jokes are too mean.
So in a way, our public education systems has softened
(18:45):
the resolve of many young Americans now because everything needs
a trigger warning or you know, oh we got to
cancel that, or oh you can't say that. Oh you
better not ever say that. Oh that's an proper thought.
So that's what's been poured into people's heads for years now,
(19:07):
so that ought to be part of it as well.
How much has culture softened Americans these days? You know,
it's always funny guys my age always make fun of,
you know, young people going out. They don't have they
have no idea how good they have it. By the way,
I said that once. That was September tenth, twenty twenty one,
(19:31):
and the very next day the Twin Towers fell, and
all those young Americans that I thought were soft they
all joined the Marines and went over and kicked some butt.
So but still, I'm just you know, that's what it
looks like to me. We created a bunch of softies.
Then we have smart lawyers out there going, okay, now,
(19:54):
how can we cash in on this? Oh, the Internet
hurt my feelings. I'm traumatized. I'm going to have to
go to therapy. So there you go. Good. I'm glad
I solved that I could solve every problem. My goodness, gracious,
listen to this. Listen to this, Peyton, I may be triggered.
(20:15):
Sometimes you can be such an inconsistent orifice. Do you
not understand the difference between depression and sadness? You can
walk out of your building and have something happen that
would give you sadness, But there's a big difference between
clinically diagnosed depression to the point of seriously consider to
(20:39):
take one's life. I know you're trying to be funny.
I'm not trying. I am. I'm sorry. I know you're
trying to be funny, but you sound like an idiot.
Thank you. Yes, I do understand clinical depression, but it's
clinical depression. I don't know. You know I should. Oh nope,
(21:00):
I doubt if I could get her on the phone.
Ooh what about doctor Merrit? Maybe doctor Merritt on everything.
Let me reach out to doctor Merritt. Yes, she usually
has got something good to say. Oh, here we go.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
We had her on speed dial? Was it last week
and two weeks ago? And she followed through like you
couldn't believe.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
There's Thor's numbers if you can get him. So we're
literally I have I have all these stories in front
of me, but I'm much more interested in this. So
that's what we're talking about at the moment. Yes, I
understand clinical depression. I do. I get it. I know,
I know people who battle it. It's not it's not
like I'm ignorant of it. But so is clinical depression
(21:41):
something that you're born with or is it? Well, see
if you give him a buzz and see if we
can get him on, and then if we can, we'll
get him on. That'll be awesome. Thank you, Peyton. Peyton's
the best. He's got four arms. I don't know if
you know that or not. He was he fell in
the water by a nuke plant many years ago and
he grew two more arms and he's twelve feet tall.
(22:04):
Unbelievable anyway. But so the woman who got the big
win today, and you know what, and I celebrate it,
but I also worry what that's going to do when
it comes to free speech. One of the other things
that are brought into the story. I was reading earlier
(22:26):
where I was showing you where this is basically a
test case so that thousands more of these cases can
move forward. But something else, and I'll read it says
the outcomes could challenge the company's First Amendment shield and
section two thirty. Now, I remember many years ago having
the big argument on section two thirty as to whether
(22:50):
you could sue a Internet company like say a Google,
because of something that was said on their platform, whether
it defamatory or whatever. And section two thirty, uh, was
created so that Internet platforms were platforms, all right. And
(23:16):
so think of it this way. Think that if you're
a singer and you would like to go sing at
a theater, right, and so you go to the theater
and you sing a song and it is horrible and
racist and bigoted and racist racist, uh, and it's the
(23:39):
Patriot Guard theme song and it's just horrible and it's
going to destroy civilization. Well, they wouldn't be able to
attack the theater because the theater just gave you the stage, right,
they have no control over what you did with that stage.
And that's what section two thirty does. It protects these
(24:01):
Internet companies so that they won't be sued for libel
and such. They're only providing others a platform to do
what they do. So now I wonder how this is
going to fit with Section two thirty because there was
a huge debate over Section two thirty several years ago,
(24:22):
and you know, and from what I remember of it,
the courts ruled that, no, they're just a platform's they
just provide a space for people to express and some
people choose to express really bad stuff and some people
like us choose to express really good stuff. See, so
(24:45):
that's another thing to worry about. So what did he say?
Oh wait a minute, Oh look at that. Good to
go on, Thor. Excellent. So we'll get all right, we'll
take a break, we'll come back. We'll talk to Thor Shrock, who,
by the way, owns a tremendous company and does a
tremendous show in his own right. So we'll talk to him.
Talk to Thor Shrock next. I have a fear that
(25:08):
this is going to somehow end up crushing free speech
in some way. The moon bats have been trying to
do this forever, control freak politicians. So we set up
that this case was a test case. And I'm also
reading now that there's another case that's going to come up,
(25:29):
another Bellweather case, and that's where several school districts in
California are going to sue the same company. So if
you want to know anything about computers or the Internet
or pretty much anything in general, the perfect guy to
talk to is the great Thor Shrock. How you doing,
(25:49):
thor Shrock?
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Hey, pretty good, Chris. How are you doing, buddy?
Speaker 1 (25:53):
I'm doing great, and I really appreciate you jumping on
with us today. It was kind of last minute, but
I know you're you know all this junk, so uh,
you know what I mean. I mean, because here's my concern.
After this big lawsuit against Meta and this huge payout,
(26:14):
and now we found out or we have read that
these are all test cases to open the door to
a flood of cases. In my opinion, I'm worried about
my free speech. So what do you know about these cases?
And can companies do what they're asking, which is protect
(26:35):
the children, stop the hate and all that nonsense.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yeah, it's always the children, right, I mean, yeah, we
got to keep these kids safe. You know, those four
year old smoking cigars in the in the coal mine.
You know, we got to get a tobacco you know,
got to get them. So it's always, it's always something.
But here's the thing. First of all, you know, don't
get too excited about this. These cases are going to
be appealed, and this is going to be in for
a decade. These people are not going to get a
(27:03):
payout for a very long time. And when it does
get it, when they do get a pay out, and
they will get a payout, it's going to be a
negotiated settlement, is what it's going to come down to.
So yes, I mean, they were found liable and they
will appeal and under appeal, there's all these you know,
Google has come out and said, hey, this whole trial
completely misunderstands that Google is a is a responsible company.
(27:27):
We're not a social media company. We're a responsible company.
Unlike those you know, meta people with their Instagram and
anyone who's had their kids sit around on a couch
all day and consume YouTube shorts for fifteen hours straight.
You know that there's some dopamine hits going on there.
It's the same thing. So it's really tough because the product,
(27:49):
it's an entertainment product. Social media is essentially an entertainment product.
It is not an information product. You can have some
crossover kind of like you know, compute this when I
do my Sunday show, it's a little bit of fun
and a little bit of selling stuff. You know, we
got to pay the bills, but you can have a
little bit of both. But you know, these these platforms
make money by attracting eyeballs. So I haven't been on
(28:09):
Facebook in a while. I haven't opened the app on
my phone in a while. I use it every week
when I broadcast my show, though. Facebook has figured out
that I'm not actually consuming the content, I'm just creating
the content. So now whenever somebody I know post something,
I get an email or even got a text message
from Facebook. The other day, did you know that somebody
posted about you? You know, it was one of those
things like they're just trying to draw me back in
(28:30):
to get those dopamine hits going. And it's like, you know,
I don't need the validation. I'm okay, so but other
people go they love this, and so people will live
all day long and they'll look into how many likes
did I get, how many responses, how many comments? You know,
people will post things specifically. There was one guy who
was posting about cheese and he purposefully misspelled the name
of a high end cheese. He did it on purpose
(28:52):
so that he would get more interaction from people correcting
him and calling him stupid because that's what the algorithm likes.
He got more views because people were calling him stupid.
You should try it, I am.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I'm just sitting here going, man, I gotta do that.
That'll be easy for murder. So so thor when when
it's said that they want these companies to put in
quote unquote guard rails, is there really something they can
do that would qualify as a guard rail.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
There's a few possible things. There was a related story
that we covered on Compute This that was a chat
gpt actually was about to come out with a spicy Mode.
Essentially you could you can make your own chat gupt pornography.
So yay, we need more porn, right, So anyway, they
had to delay spicy Mode. It was like it was
(29:48):
it was awful, Right, we can't have spicy Mode because
we haven't figured out how to make sure that kids
under eighteen aren't just going to log into chat gept
and make spicy mode and switch people's heads around and stuff,
and so can there be guardrails? You know? The challenge
that we come to is there's two concepts of the Internet.
The concept that we all grew up with, you know,
(30:10):
when I say we grew up with you know, the
internet was I'm before the internet. You might have been
before the Internet also, but you know we were there
in the beginning. And the beginning it was don't use
your real name online, use a pseudonym because you know,
you have an anonymity online. And so now what we're
seeing is the opposite of that. We're like, it's really
tough to have complete freedom of speech without any consequences
(30:33):
for speech. So you can't go posting online as Antifa
and talk about how you're going to you know, light
the place on fire and then hide behind a mask.
But that's my freedom of speech. Well, you do have
freedom of speech, but that doesn't mean you're not accountable
for your speech. So if there was a guardrail that
(30:55):
we could put on this, that would be the guardrail
is just if you do something, If you if you
go to school and Sally in your class suddenly gets,
you know, an Instagram post of her on top of
some you know, really ugly poorn star's body, do an
unimaginable thing. She's in middle school, right, that's what we're
afraid of here, right, So when that happens, we want
(31:17):
to know that Billy posted that it can't be an
anonymous account from you know, you know, you know middle
school poster from five to nine. You know, it's got
to be Billy, and so some kind of you know,
we have real ID and everybody. You know, I understand
people got ben off the shape about that, and you know,
I kind of agree with some of the arguments there.
But when it comes to some things online, maybe it's
(31:40):
better that we actually have accountability. Now. If we have accountability,
we can have freedom of speech. It doesn't mean that
your viewpoints are prohibited. But where it gets really scary
is what we saw in the last administration. If we
have accountability online where we can tie speech directly back
to an individual user, you know, you'll concretely authoritatively, then
(32:02):
we can punish that individual person for speech that we
disagree with.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
And that's the separate extension. That's where things get dangerous.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
And that's the thing I'm worried about because it seems
to me that's where this is all gone. Under the
guise of helping the three year old cigar smoking coal miners,
we just the rest of society are just.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Too Yeah, that's the tradeoff. I mean, so The answer
to your question is, if you preserve anonymity, no, you
can't have guardrails. If you create accountability, yes you could
have guardrails. Then these companies are compliant with a bureaucratic
rule set. But then that bureaucratic rule set can be weaponized.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Ah see, there it is there, it is there. It
is all right, Thor Schrock. You're so good at this.
I really appreciate it. Yeah. I worry about my free speech.
That's that's my whole thing. I just worry about free
speech when I hear they're doing these test cases.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
You know, you know, I hear you clucking, buddy. But
I mean, I don't think you should be getting your
undies in a load. I mean, no one's going to
cancel a guy on k F A D. I mean,
come on, you have a big radio share audience. Everybody
loves you. No one is going to ever cancel you.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
You're right, I'm not worried about a thing. It'll be fine. Yeah,
it'll be great. All right, Thanks Thor. Take care of
my friend,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Kingdom of Fraud
It’s the unlikeliest of criminal partnerships: a devout polygamist from an insular Utah sect joining forces with a shadowy Armenian tycoon from LA. The result - a billion dollar fraud conspiracy. In Kingdom of Fraud, investigative reporter Michele McPhee traces the origins of the extraordinary alliance between Jacob Kingston and Levon Termendzhyan. Together, the two men trigger the largest tax investigation in American history and weave around themselves a web of dirty cops, influential political relationships and transnational money laundering. All this is set against the backdrop of Jacob Kingston’s clan – The Order. A powerful and secretive polygamist organization in Salt Lake City. To whom Jacob is desperate to prove his worth. Kingdom of Fraud is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/. You can listen to new episodes of Kingdom of Fraud completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “iHeart True Crime+, and subscribe today!