Behind the Twitter Files Hype with James Corbett

In this episode, Whitney and James Corbett discuss the Twitter Files phenomenon and how the hype around it is being utilized for more than meets the eye.

Show notes

Follow James: The Corbett Report.

Originally published 12/16/22.

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Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:19):
Hello, you're listening
to Unlimited Hangout. I'm your
host Whitney Webb. If you've
been online recently you have
probably heard of the Twitter
files, which for the most part
are Twitter threads written by
one of two journalists Matt
Taibbi or Barry Weiss, that are
based on internal Twitter
documents shared with those
journalists by the social
networks the new owner
billionaire Elon Musk. Most of

(00:40):
these internal company documents
which have not yet been released
to the public and had been
curated by Twitter management
for TV and Weiss revealed the
politically motivated
suppression of information or
the suspension of prominent
individuals, including them
President Donald Trump from the platform.
The Twitter files have generated
more hype in the past few weeks

(01:00):
than most other media events in
2022. A lot of that hype on
surprisingly has extended to the
journalists affiliated with the
releases Taibbi and Weiss, as
well as Elon Musk himself. Many
are lauding the trio as heroes
are now viewed Twitter as a
quote unquote free speech
platform. But is this really so?
Like most things that seem too
good to be true? The same
probably holds when it comes to

(01:21):
the Twitter files have important
revelations been made? Yes, but
they aren't necessarily new
revelations as many of the
internal documents at the center
of the Twitter files nearly
confirmed claims that were made
over two years ago. Is Elon Musk
Twitter currently free of the
censorship that the Twitter
files purports to expose? Not
quite despite the reinstating of

(01:41):
some high profile previously
suspended accounts in recent
weeks. And looking at the main
players as well as the main
effects of the Twitter files
phenomenon, it becomes quickly
apparent that there is a lot to
say about the whole affair that
is sadly largely absent from
even independent media coverage
of the files in order to tease
out and explore some of the
deeper layers beneath the

(02:02):
Twitter files. I am joined today
by James Corbett of The Corbett
Report at Corbett report.com.
James is an investigative
journalist and one of the
pioneers of open source
intelligence based independent
news. At the Colbert Report, he
has spent well over a decade
producing a trove of high
quality and meticulously sourced
podcast videos, documentaries,
and articles that cover some of

(02:23):
the most important and censored
stories of our time. He recently
produced an ex post on Elon Musk
and often overlooked aspects of
his background. And like myself
is quite familiar with a media
event that took place roughly a
decade ago and has some
surprising parallels with the
Twitter file situation today. So
thank you so much for joining me
today. James, welcome to

(02:44):
unlimited hangout. Thank you for
having me on. It's always a
pleasure to talk to you.
Likewise. So the Twitter files
has generated a lot of buzz. And
so I guess a reasonable place to
start off the conversation with
would be to sort of talk about
maybe first impressions of the
phenomena, and how the sort of
effects that you've seen it have
on independent media discourse?

(03:05):
Well, I guess my first
impression is that this could be
useful in a way. Although, as
you say, what we are getting
here is not an actual treasure
trove of documents. What we are
getting here is a curated series
of screenshots of various
documents. But actually, that
speaks to a deeper sort of more
interesting phenomenon as we
step into the electronic age,

(03:26):
because the the types of things
that we are seeing are
screenshots of emails,
screenshots of slack chats, I
don't use Slack. So I don't know
what the terminology is their
direct messages, various forms
of communication, that are
presumably incredibly scattered
over a number of different
databases and organized in

(03:47):
different ways. So it raises the
fundamental question about who
is curating these, this
collection of screenshots? And
so what what access do we have
to the actual information behind
them, or that contextualize
them? Nothing except what tie up
and Weiss and others are
reporting. So we have to sort of
take it at face value on a

(04:07):
number of different levels.
Actually, that goes back to
something that I was talking to
no meat Prins, about a number of
years ago, she wrote a book
about the various presidents and
their relationships with the
banks, and during their eras.
And and one thing that came up
in our conversation was that it
was at least comprehensible. You

(04:28):
could get a handle on, say,
Roosevelt and the various
correspondence that he had,
because everything was done on
paper, and through through
letters. But if you move into
the Obama age, and things are
being done by email and these
other a morphus, sort of
electronic communications, that
means it's extremely much, much
more difficult for a researcher
to get a handle on all of the

(04:49):
communications that are going on
and I think this is a reflection
of that. So there's that sort of
problem of it. What information
are we getting and filtered
through what source and that
even be?
came part of the Twitter files
controversy itself as it was
revealed that I believe it was
you'll you'll Roth, who was
curating these tweets, or these
these these screenshots, I

(05:10):
should say for the original, the
first release of Twitter files
threads by Matt Taibbi. And then
he was canned and presumably
replaced by someone else. But
now who is curating these for
the the reporters? Again? I
don't know. And is there a
different process going on?
What's their screening process?
It raises a lot of questions
about how we deal with this type

(05:30):
of information in the electronic
age. And, like so much else in
the electronic age, I think it
comes back to the point that we
are essentially at at the whim
at the mercy of the people who
are actually holding the keepers
of the database, they will allow
us to see what they allow us to
see. And we won't see what we
are not allowed to see.
So it seems like, you know, one

(05:51):
of the intentions here is for,
you know, obviously Twitter is
under new ownership with Elon
Musk, you know, steering,
steering the course of the
company from now on. And it
seems like what this is aimed at
doing is making it seem like
censorship. This politically
motivated censorship at the
focus of the Twitter, Twitter

(06:12):
files, or the Twitter files is
focused on that this will not
continue under his under his
reign, or something like that.
Despite the fact that there are
some people like a garland
Nixon, for example, a well known
critic of US foreign policy, who
have been suspended since Ilan
took over, for example, you've
had some high profile

(06:34):
people specifically in sort of
the alternative narratives to
COVID-19 people like Peter
McCullough and Robert Malone
having their accounts restored.
But it seems like there's
obviously some sort of
motive for the people curating
this and I guess it would be to
convince people that the company

(06:55):
is having a facelift of sort. Do
you see that actually being
likely or are we, you know, sort
of being misdirected here? I
would venture to say we are
being misdirected. And I think
that's already demonstrable, as
you've already pointed out,
given people like garland Nixon,

(07:15):
as you say other people in the
alternative media space who were
suspended continued to be
suspended under the reign of
Emperor musk. Obviously, Alex
Jones being one example where
specifically Musk weighed in
personally because now it is
apparently Elon Musk's personal
decision as to whether someone
is allowed on Twitter or not.
And Alex Jones will not be
because me Elon Musk lost his

(07:36):
first baby as as as a baby and
he if he was holding him as he
took his last breath claim
disputed by his ex wife. But
anyway,
that and for that reason, Alex
Jones is not allowed on the what
what does that have to do with
this? Very, very odd narrative?
They're very, very strange, but

(07:56):
in a sense, understandable.
Again, Elon Musk, we have to
understand that Elon Musk is a
billionaire for a reason you do
not become part of the
billionaire oligarch club unless
you are willing to play various
games and I hope people
understand by now that Elon Musk
is certainly part of the
billionaire oligarch club who
has gotten to the position he's
gotten to because he has been
willing to play various games.

(08:18):
And I think one of these games
is that of course you're not
going to let Alex Jones back on
the platform that would be the
the bridge too far. So he'll he
might go in other directions
with other decisions. But at the
latest as we are talking, I just
saw this coming across the news
wire that the apparently the the
college freshman who is tracking

(08:38):
Elon Musk's private jet has not
only now been suspended from
Twitter, but is now apparently
facing potential legal charges
over his Oh, wow, check. Yeah,
so that's a long running thing.
I think that's been going on for
a year or two. Elon Musk disdain
with this kid who, as you just
mentioned, is basically pointing
out where he's traveling,

(08:59):
which he is allowed to do like
this is publicly available
public information, indeed.
Right. And so he is, is it's
literally just a twitter bot,
essentially, that just posts
every time his private jet moves
somewhere. And again, that isn't
even necessarily Elon in his
private jet. It's just the
movement of his jet. But
apparently that's not only
against Twitter's Terms of
Service, but now apparently

(09:19):
questionably legally liable for
that information. I don't know.
I don't know how that's going to
stick and I'm not sure which
jurisdiction he's going to be
tried. But anyway, that was the
latest that I saw today. So
again, it is the arbitrary whims
of a singular dictator, which I
am not sure if that's what Elon
Musk's supporters and the people

(09:40):
who are cheering him on during
this take Twitter takeover
process. were originally
cheering on. Were they really?
Oh, yay. Now a different
dictator will be able to come in
and say, who is and is not
allowed on the platform at his
personal whims? Was that really
what was being sold? Or was it
free speech no matter what. This
is the battle for the future of
civil
allegations, that was how it

(10:01):
started, right? And then he came
out with this line, which is
freedom of speech is not freedom
of reach, which is basically
license to do all this funny
business that the Twitter files,
in part has focused on things
like shadow banning, and, you
know, putting people on naughty
lists and, and whatnot, you
know, because like they can have
their freedom of reach.

(10:23):
Restricted, it's interesting
anyway, I think since we're
talking about Elon, a lot,
you've obviously been looking
into him, or have looked into
him rather recently. And I
think, you know, it's pretty
clear from how he handles
himself on Twitter specifically,
but in other regards as well,
that he's very, very, very
conscious of his public image.
And there's a very specific

(10:44):
public image of himself that he
wants to construct.
So maybe we can discuss that for
a little bit. And if you would
like to throw in some of the
bits
about his background, that kind
of clash with that public image
a bit. That would be helpful as
well, well, I didn't go deeply
into His family background and

(11:05):
where he comes from, other than
to point out that he is a again,
as people hopefully know, by
now, literally the grandson of a
card carrying technocrat who was
a high up member of the
technocratic party in Canada,
who fled to South Africa, and
apparently looms large in the
musk family law. Essentially, he

(11:25):
was an important figure, even
though he died, I believe, when
Musk was very, very young,
perhaps even before he was born.
But at any rate, he looms large
in the mosque family legend. And
then there's a whole story about
his father and the abuse that he
may have suffered at his
father's hands. And now his
father, fathering new children
with his stepdaughter, I don't

(11:47):
know, it's very weird stuff
going on there. And that's.
So this is the type of
background anyway, which from
which Musk emerged. But
essentially, he emerged into the
public spotlight at a relatively
young age, making his way to
Canada and then to the US, where
he began a series of
entrepreneurial ventures,
starting with something called
zip to, which was meant to be a

(12:09):
sort of, I guess, kind of like a
proto Craigslist, essentially
list your business on our on the
on the internet, as when that
was a new idea. And eventually
managed to make some money out
of that by essentially selling
that service to newspapers that
were starting to feel the pinch
of classified ads, declining
revenues, and use that parlayed

(12:31):
that straight into PayPal,
which, again, is an entire story
unto itself. And I'm sure
there's a lot to talk about with
regards to the PayPal Mafia and
his connections to people like
Peter Thiel. But don't worry,
Peter Thiel is a totally
different has a totally
different philosophy than Musk
at least, that's what Musk
assures us. So you don't have to

(12:51):
worry about Palantir and things
like that coming from musk. No,
you will simply worry about the
brain chips and other things.
Because, of course, as people
may or may not know, Elon Musk
did spend a short time as CEO of
the combined
Pay Pal what what merged into
Pay Pal from his ex.com. And
Peter Thiel and slash Max lived

(13:13):
since PayPal, eventually merged
into a singular entity See, Musk
took over the CEO role for a
short time was eventually
shoehorned out of there because
the board was not happy with his
decisions and the way he was
trying to run the company. So he
basically took the golden
parachute out of there,
received a few 100 million

(13:33):
dollars for his efforts and
parlayed that into SpaceX, Tesla
Motors and SolarCity. And, and
the boring company and all of
these other ventures, which I'm
sure that your listeners are
broadly aware of that he's been
involved with. But of course,
the connecting thread through
all these ventures is government
money, essentially, a whole

(13:53):
series of different ways in
which government grants and tax
breaks and what have you have
essentially propped up his
businesses to the point where
they are possible at all. And I
think it's starting to become a
point. Now you see, this is the
interesting part of this is
because for a long time, Musk
has been a darling of I think
the good thinking liberal left

(14:15):
in the United States and
elsewhere, who have seen him as
this sort of cool space.
tech guy who is going to save
the environment, and he cares
about all the things we care
about. It is only recently that
he has made the heel turn as it
were and is now being supported
by the right wing of the culture
war that's raging in the United

(14:36):
States right now. And so he has
enjoyed for a very long time,
this sort of bad glow of
publicity, of being some sort
of, essentially tech savior or
tech guru. But now Now the very
same types of platforms that
would have been heralding him as
a savior just a few years ago
are now digging in and finding
you know, Tesla isn't a very

(14:56):
well run company and they're
such things so it's just
interesting to watch.
Chow this plays out not based on
any actual difference in what is
happening on the ground, but
simply the change in people's
perception of who this person is
and whether he is on their side
or not. Right, so let's talk
about a little bit how
specifically since he's
purchased Twitter how Elon Musk

(15:17):
has been cultivating his image.
So I think it's pretty clear
that he's very interested in
presenting himself one as anti
establishment right now. I mean,
he's even gone so far to say
things like, I might be
suicided, and things of this
nature. And this is a bit odd to
me when you consider what you
just mentioned.
And, of course, there's a lot of
evidence for this, that his

(15:39):
wealth, his current roster of
companies, a lot of it could not
exist without the establishment,
and a lot of these companies are
very, very much involved with
the national security state,
specifically SpaceX, which is a
defense and intelligence
contractor. So you know, if this
is a guy that's really going up

(16:00):
against the,
you know, the establishment with
the deep states, even though I
don't really like that term, I
prefer national security state.
You know, he's, he's essentially
a part of that. So it's a bit
um, there's definitely a
contrast there. He's trying to,
you know, I guess, make himself
seem just like a regular person,

(16:21):
on occasion, posting memes and
other things. And, you know,
there's other aspects of this
image he's building is there. So
what, what sort of image do you
see him building? And what sort
of motives Do you think maybe
behind that?
It's a, it's extremely difficult
to know, sort of the inner
workings of, of the creation,
the public creation of a

(16:42):
spectacle like Elon Musk, but I
do see it as somewhat similar to
what we saw just a few years ago
with the creation of the
personality of Donald Trump.
And being sold to a certain
section of the public that I
think is certainly ready for
some sort of Savior. I think
that it is the Savior narrative
that is being played on here.
And we saw that with Trump was

(17:04):
going to be the savior of people
on the on the right again, of
this culture war divide that's
taking place, certainly in the
United States right now. And
then that was, if not eclipsed,
and perhaps bolstered by the q&a
on SIOP, which even fed further
into that idea of the Savior
narrative. And that obviously
didn't quite pan out the way

(17:25):
that Kiwi supporters were
hoping. So now it's time to find
a new person to pin hopes on.
And Musk has taken up that
mantle. And to obviously, as you
say, I think Musk is extremely
aware of his public image. And
just the fact that he is engaged
in tweeting and replying to
people on Twitter on a hourly

(17:46):
basis, shows that he is
interested in at least
cultivating some sort of public
image of himself. And clearly,
that is lining up with the type
of, I suppose broadly, the
resistance movement that has
risen up in the past few years
against lock downs and mandates
of various sorts, and Musk has
positioned himself to be, I'm

(18:08):
the one who's going to, I'm
going to move to Texas, because
I don't want to deal with
California. And it's draconian
lockdown laws and all of this.
So he has positioned himself in
this way for a couple of years
now, at least, and now is really
coming out as someone who has
been championed, essentially,
essentially, largely by people
on the right, who are
disaffected by the

(18:29):
establishment. And I think this,
this whole narrative of the
Twitter files plays perfectly
and brilliantly into that
because clearly, Twitter was
very much being run by people
who were very, very invested in
the Democrat Party, and
basically ensuring the continued
rule of the Democrats and, and
on a disproportionate

(18:50):
suppression of information
coming from the right side of
the political spectrum. So Musk
being put in this position.
Well, he's the opposition to
that, therefore, he's on quote
unquote, our side and I think
exactly, again, exactly as
Trump, the billionaire was
posited as he don't worry guys,
he's on your side. He's, he's
for the average working man. I
think, again, Musk is stepping

(19:11):
into that role now that Trump
has seemed to vacate it. So what
Musk is doing here has sort of
raised my eyebrow baton in terms
of you know, what he might be up
to? So one thing that I've
noticed over the past two years,
especially, you know, if you
look at, for example, everyone
these days, and I was about the
World Economic Forum, right. So

(19:33):
one of their big themes last
year was rebuilding trust. And a
lot of even the Biden
administration. A lot of you
know, prominent institutions are
very much aware that there is a
major lack of trust specifically
amongst certain segments of the
population. So, you know, if I
was the World Economic Forum,

(19:53):
which again, Elon Musk was a
young global leader, right,
and agrees with a lot of the
main points
policies that, you know, sort of
web centric politicians and
others tend to support like UBI.
Among among several others, I
think a carbon tax some other
things, you know, if I was, you
know, some like Klaus Schwab, I

(20:15):
guess, right. And I wanted to
get people to rebuild trust, I
know, they're never going to
trust me. Right? I need some
sort of figure
that people who hate Me will
trust that supports the same
policy agendas that I do. Right,
exactly. Right, essentially,
influence laundering by way of

(20:35):
the cool new tech savior that
hey, hey, guys, he's totally on
your side. And I definitely see
what you're saying there. And,
again, since this is 2022, I
guess we have to connect
everything back to the World
Economic Forum. So we must
mention Young Global Leader Elon
Musk, clearly, and as you say,
onboard with so many different
aspects of the of the

(20:56):
technocratic agenda, generally,
but the World Economic Forum
agenda specifically in Klaus
Schwab's statements, I know
there's been a Twitter meme
that's floated around for some
time comparing Klaus Schwab
statements on various issues
like UBI and brain chips. And
what have you and Elon Musk's
statements. I did make a little
segment of that in my recent
Elon Musk technocratic huckster

(21:16):
expos a, just to drive home the
point that I think these people
are aligned on many fundamental
issues. So where where is this
break? And why are people
suddenly cheering on this person
who has been so intimately
affiliated with the the World
Government Summit in the World
Economic Forum and all of these
institutions? And where's New
World Order? On his clothes?

(21:37):
stuff? Exactly. Right, very,
very strange symbolism and
things that come from himself
and from Grimes and the various
people that he's been associated
with. But also, I mean, perhaps
more substantially, we're
looking at someone who is
literally in the process of
creating brain chips, that are

(21:58):
going to augment humans in order
to save us from the transhuman
nightmare that's coming somehow.
Don't think too deeply about
that. And oh, by the way,
they're killing the test animal
subjects left and right, but I'm
sure it'll all be sorted out.
Yeah, like 20% of the animal
subjects die. And if this was
any normal medical device, and

(22:18):
the FDA was functioning as it
was before, COVID, it would be
very hard to get it to human
trials. But let's just say it
seems like Elon Musk is taking
advantage of the removal of
obstacles at the FDA since the
COVID. situation to get neural
link straight to human trials
after animal trials killed like
15 out of 23 animals or eight

(22:41):
depending on if you believe Elon
Musk's company, right. They say
it was eight not 15. But and you
know, exactly right. And let's,
I mean, let's put this in
perspective for people. What,
what, what is the ultimate
agenda here? I think your
audience is not naive. And I
think they understand by this
point that when something is
part of the broader agenda, it

(23:03):
will be approved through the
official regulatory process
exactly as the mRNA vaccines
were approved. Well, I mean,
there's a whole thing about the
word approved, but you
understand emergency use
authorized. And exactly in this
case, as well. The things that
neuro link are have been have
been doing and was documented

(23:24):
before all of this Twitter files
hype started to swell up in the
media.
Absolutely, as you say, would
have disqualified absolutely any
other company. But for some
reason, on this particular
project, it seems that the
regulatory agencies don't seem
to care too much about the let
alone the animal subjects, but
how about the the potential for

(23:44):
human trials going forward?
Again, if it's part of an agenda
item, I think the doors will be
open for it. And this is a prime
example of that. Yeah, well,
frankly, it's really disturbing
to me that if that many monkeys
died, and he's not worried about
that many humans dying and human
trials, you know, that's kind of
clashes with the public image
she's been trying to cultivate

(24:05):
lately.
So what I brought up earlier
about the rebuilding trust
initiatives we're having, or
that have been, you know, openly
talked about by a lot of these
more or less nefarious
organizations. What worries me,
right, is that you people like
Klaus Schwab, talking about
brain chips, and this
technology, people like Bill
Gates even on board, right, but,

(24:26):
you know, Elon Musk is basically
developing a brand, so people
that would normally be against
that if it was Schwab OR gates,
you know, they'd be like, well,
Musk is different, like what he
did with Twitter. He cares about
free speech. He's not going to
invade and surveil my thoughts.
You know, he's, he's not like
the other ones. He's the
billionaire. Yeah, exactly.

(24:46):
Could you imagine if Bill Gates
have taken over Twitter and was
personally running it? And I
mean, yes, no one. Certainly
none of the people who trust
musk and what he is doing and
are on board with this idea, the
notion of freedom of speech,
even if it's
is not actually being
implemented in reality would
obviously be running the other
way as quickly as they possibly
could if Bill Gates were taking
over, no, but Elon Musk is the

(25:07):
cool billionaire who's, who's on
the good side. And I again, I
think it's interesting to note
that the the problems that
neural link have had for for
some time, I've been following
it and talking about it for a
while now and trying to draw
attention to the to the the
things that we already knew
about the grim results of the
animal tests that studies at
neuro link. They've been out

(25:27):
there for several months now, at
the very least, but very, very,
very little coverage. Until now
the Twitter files comes out. And
as I say, the the sort of the
the left side of the culture war
and the establishment media have
been activated against musk and
are now finally bringing
attention to stories like this
and problems of Tesla and other

(25:48):
such things. But of course, we
have to keep in mind this sort
of the bigger the bigger picture
of what is going on here, which
again, we do not have to look
back back very far for the the
example of how this works. We we
saw what happened during the
Trump era, where suddenly the
establishment media was very,
very interested in holding
politicians feet to the fire.

(26:09):
Well, not politicians in
general, essentially,
essentially just Donald Trump.
And we saw them go back to sleep
dutifully once Joe Biden took
took over. So I think we're
seeing the similar pattern
playing out that Elon Musk,
clearly, they're finally
starting to do some
investigative reporting on these
companies and what they're doing
but that will be interpreted by
Musk supporters as look, the

(26:29):
mainstream establishment media
that lies about everything.
Well, now they're lying about
Musk because they don't like him
and what he's doing to their,
their, their that he's owning
the LIBS on Twitter.
Oh, what an interesting state of
affairs. All right, so maybe we
should go back to the the
Twitter files itself for a
second. So Mike, and we talked
you talked earlier about the the

(26:50):
curation issue and when I saw
the the how this was being
rolled out. And you know, Matt
Taibbi was saying things like he
had to accept certain
restrictions in order to work on
on the story. And all of this,
what came what really got my
attention is that I think this

(27:11):
is yet another step away from
well, sort of changing how the
American public perceives the
idea of quote unquote, leaks.
You know, if you go back a
decade and or even less, really,
you know, there was once upon a
time the WikiLeaks era, which of
course, has sort of, I think,
moved out of sight and out of

(27:31):
mind, for most Americans at this
point where WikiLeaks didn't
really do so much curation.
They would, you know, in the
case of a lot of the emails they
released, and other documents,
they they made searchable
databases. And this, this change
was, you know, something that we
can talk about in a little bit,
the creation of the intercept
and the owner of PayPal, Pierre
Omidyar, which, of course has a

(27:53):
lot of parallels, in my opinion
to the situation with the
Twitter files. But since then,
you know, you've had the
persecution of Julian Assange,
the dismantling of WikiLeaks as
an organization, and pretty much
most of the quote unquote, leaks
that have come out, since then
have not, you know, been handled
that way in service to, you

(28:14):
know, greater transparency. It's
been mostly
curated. And so in the case of
the intercept, right, you have
the Snowden leaks, 90% of it
isn't ever released. Right. And
now you have, you know, claims
after Jack Dorsey of the former,
you know, the co founder of
Twitter and former head of it,
you know, steps in and asked
Musk to release, you know, the

(28:35):
full files and all of this,
which must says he'll do and
then subsequently, it's claimed
that a lot of things were
deleted as a disgruntled
employee was leaving, how true
that is, I don't know. But you
know, that we're getting these
just screenshots and not
searchable files is interesting.
And I think it's particularly
interesting when you look at the
situation.

(28:56):
That was the focus of the
earlier Twitter file releases,
which is the censorship of the
Hunter Biden laptop, of course,
Hunter Biden being the very
troubled SON OF US President Joe
Biden. So a lot was said about
the suppression of the laptop
story and all of this, but very
little interest shown in Hmm,
why would they suppress the

(29:17):
laptop? What's actually on the
laptop? It turns out, not that
long before the Twitter files
came out, a nonprofit group
called Marco Polo released a
nearly 700 Page very detailed
report on exactly what is on the
laptop and why it matters. Very
interesting that that's been
moved out of the Twitter files,
almost entirely. It's like the

(29:38):
story is almost entire is pretty
much on the suppression not on
the content that was being
suppressed. What are your
thoughts on that? Well,
actually, I will say that, I
guess mission accomplished for
the Twitter files because this
is literally the first time I am
hearing about this 700 page
report which I will have to go

(29:59):
out and download
Now, so thank you for bringing
it to my attention. But it goes
to show just how thoroughly the
Twitter files brouhaha has
displaced any actual examination
of the underlying data that
we're supposedly talking about,
but not really, what absolutely
fascinating, isn't it? Okay, so
you've raised some incredibly

(30:19):
important points. And here's one
that has made me very unpopular
among certain sectors of the
independent media space for a
long time is that I have always
acknowledged what what Zbigniew
Brzezinski said about the
WikiLeaks phenomenon at the time
that it was going on back in
2010 11. He was giving an
interview in which he opined

(30:40):
that the WikiLeaks organization
is such a beautiful, wonderful
idea for intelligence agencies
to selectively leak information.
And I think the implication of
that is that it doesn't mean
necessarily that Julian Assange
is himself some sort of
intelligence agent who's who's

(31:00):
essentially laundering this
information out to the public.
But he could be used by
intelligence agencies that
selectively leak certain
documents. Oh, whoops, those
documents got out. Well, other
documents remain suppressed.
Now, that issue, I think, is a
core issue of this entire
question about leaked documents
and what they what they do and
don't tell us and how they are

(31:21):
interpreted. And who interprets
them for us because, generally
speaking, we don't have direct
access to this sort of insider
information that makes these
documents understandable. Even
within the Twitter files we have
to rely on on Barry Weiss and
Matt Taibbi and Michael
Shellenberger and others to tell
us what some of this Twitter
lingo the internal lingo means

(31:42):
there was a bunch of acronyms
and things PII and other things
that I was learning about when
reading through the Twitter
files that, as they say, We have
to talk to Twitter, current and
former employees to sort of
understand the context of this
particular screenshot that we're
now showing you. So I think the
fundamental question when it
comes to these types of releases
is the question of the

(32:02):
bottleneck of information.
Obviously, we're not getting
everything. So who, and at what
point is that information being
withheld or suppressed, and then
once it is put forward in some
manner, then who is who is
interpreting that who is making
it sort of accessible to the
public innocence? And that was,
I think we saw the transitionary
point of the WikiLeaks era of

(32:25):
the the leaking where it was, as
you say, large document dumps to
this highly cultivated curated
era of the Twitter files. I
think the the middle point, the
nexus point was the Snowden
information, which as you allude
to, was,
according to Snowden himself was
consciously done in a way that

(32:45):
it wouldn't be curated by
journalists. And they would
report on what they thought was
journalistically important, and
the documents themselves would
not be released. And that was
Snowden stipulation. And that
was the way that he wanted that
to go. And so he selected the
journalists and blah, blah,
blah. I'm sure people are
broadly familiar with that
story. But of course, what
ultimately resulted from that,

(33:06):
who ended up essentially getting
the cache of Snowden documents
was, as you say, Pierre Omidyar
and first look media, which
spawned the intercept. And I, as
as you say, I did reporting on
it at the time how the intercept
came together, and for people
who don't know about the Omidyar
Network, and its relationship

(33:27):
to, for example, funding
Ukrainian protest movements back
during the the coup there, back
in 2014, etc. I've done work on
that before. But I think it's
incredibly important to
understand the way that that
that cache of potentially
interesting information, again,
I'd say there's probably a
bottleneck and who knows how
much of that information is

(33:48):
seeded into the public
consciousness on purpose. But
anyway, potentially interesting
information, obviously kept
behind the closed wolves have a
private organization like first
look, media, the intercept,
which was supposedly the core
idea of the intercept, the core
founding of it was to curate and
report on the Snowden documents.
That's the way it was sold to

(34:08):
the public. That's what sold and
it was a lot of hype.
You know, Glenn Greenwald, was
already kind of a celebrity
journalist, but he became Ultra
celebrity. He was joined, of
course by Laura Poitras, Jeremy
Scahill, and, you know, I mean,
it was probably one of the
biggest media events of that
particular period. A lot of

(34:30):
interest, of course, in the
Snowden leaks, which the Snowden
archive run by first look, media
was shut down a couple years
ago. So that 90% plus of the
documents will never be
released, as far as we know, the
Washington Post and I think one
other mainstream media outlet
received aspects of the cache

(34:51):
which I doubt they're going to
release. But the the intercept
said it was too expensive at the
time and
slubby in the shownotes. For
those that are interested, I did
a report I was working for Matt
Preston news at the time about
how it's very, very unlikely
that cost was the real reason.
As you mentioned, Pierre Omidyar
has ties to funding some very

(35:13):
suspect movements in pre coup
2014. Ukraine, also heavily
funding USA ID and having other
ties to the national security
state. And it has been alleged
that aspects of the Snowden
archive specifically some of the
documents not released, detailed
how PayPal, which Omidyar has

(35:36):
been the owner of since the
early 2000s, buying it from musk
and Peele and CO
people's relationship with
intelligence agencies, and
presumably its role in illegal
mass surveillance, among other
things. I mean, of course,
people speculate but that seems,
you know, very plausible when
you look at how this ultimately
played out, but, you know, going

(35:58):
back in time to about a decade
ago, Pierre Omidyar, not that
differently from Elon Musk was
framing himself as a resolution
revolutionary guy who's going to
you know, change journalism
forever. And that's not that
different point. Elon Musk is
doing what the Twitter files and
talking about how Twitter can be
a new place for journalism, and
it's decent, you know,

(36:18):
decentralized journalism and all
of this stuff. Pierre Omidyar
back in, you know, he was
setting up the intercept that
were puff pieces all about how
he wanted to find adversarial
journalism, Glenn Greenwald.
And, you know, the other people
that signed on to first look,
including Matt Taibbi himself
actually talked about how there
was going to be no interference

(36:40):
from Pierre Omidyar and the
stories they were writing,
things like that. Matt Taibbi
actually ended up leaving first
look, I think within his first
year there because of
disagreements with Omidyar but
Greenwald and CO went on
insisting that there was no
influence there. I disagreed
with that on more than a fair

(37:01):
few fair occasions. Glenn
Greenwald was not very nice to
me. But subsequently ended up
leaving the intercept because he
said that there was censorship
and they weren't letting you
know, they were influencing the
types of stories and what have
you. So I don't know. It seems
like Glenn Greenwald figured it
out at the end, ultimately, but

(37:22):
you know, when it comes to the
intercept, I have a lot of
opinions. I guess probably
because I've written like eight
articles on it, maybe more. And
one thing I, to me, it really
just seems like it was an
operation in a lot of ways. So
you have, you know, Pierre
Omidyar being very well funded.
He's essentially sweeps in and
privatizes the Snowden leaks.

(37:43):
And before he is framed as this
revolutionary and does that
there are tweets of Pierre
Omidyar is where he talks about
people who leaked documents to
groups like WikiLeaks are
thieves and something needs to
be done to help catch the thief.
Yeah, that he sets up the
intercept. And I'm sure you're
familiar with this, James, in
short order. Of course, with all

(38:03):
the hype around Snowden and
secure drop the platform for
leakers to submit their
documents to the intercept that
Snowden promotes.
Three whistleblowers have gone
to prison for leaking to the
intercept. And in every of those
three cases, it was

(38:25):
either sloppy or allegedly
intentional act to out the
source and have them go to
prison. So those three would be
reality one or Terry Albery and
Daniel hail. So you know, if
you're looking at this down the
road, and then the closure of
the Snowden archive and all of
this, it really seems to me that
Pierre Omidyar was interested in

(38:45):
creating a honeypot for would be
leakers, on behalf of his
friends on the national security
state, while at the same time
privatizing leaks and being able
to curate ones that were
interesting, you know, enough to
the public, but you know, slow
down the pace gradually, and
create a media outlet with this
hype around it, of it being
adversarial, honest, independent

(39:08):
journalism, sticking it to the
man when in reality, it has not
been that.
I don't know if you have to add
to that. Well, I would venture
to say, I mean, ask the average
person who actually reads the
intercept. And perhaps that's
already a small section of the
public, but ask someone who
reads the intercept about it.

(39:29):
And I would imagine, the vast
majority of them, probably by
this point, don't even know that
this was supposedly originally
set up as the place for the
parsing and, and journalism
surrounding the Snowden files.
It's obviously that it literally
closed the door on that several
years ago, officially, we're
done with the Snowden files.
That's it. So it was it was a

(39:51):
brilliant PR coup, I suppose
because it generally seemed to
work. Basically, all such
reporting has stopped right now.
And as you say it private
thises the, the notion the the
idea of what a WikiLeaks or or
similar organization could be,
it has essentially turned it
into the hands of a private
company that

(40:13):
as again, anyone who looks into
Omidyar and the Omidyar Network
and its various connections will
know undoubtedly has connections
to the US, intelligence world.
And oh, by the way, speaking of
which, as I'm sure you know,
Ellen McCloud, over at MintPress
news has been doing reporting on
various intelligence officials
at various of the social media

(40:34):
outlets, including, of course,
Twitter, which has been infested
by various intelligence agents,
career intelligence officials,
who then go on to in various
positions in Twitter, and
there's no, no lack of examples
of people along those lines that
he's documented there at
MintPress news. So again, it
seems like the intelligence

(40:54):
agencies working hand in hand
with these crusading NGO, slash
philanthropy, entrepreneur
capitalists, whatever, Elon
Musk's and people like that are
read consolidating information.
And I suppose maybe it's beside
the main point of our
conversation today. But I do
find it absolutely horrifying to
think that Twitter really does

(41:15):
represent the future of
journalism. Because the confines
of the 280 character, little
soundbite of a soundbite
essentially, reporting that's
then broken up into these
threads. It's it's a it's a
horrible way of conveying
information. And I point to one
example from the Twitter files
itself. As if my memory serves,

(41:36):
it was in the first Twitter
files thread on that Matt Taibbi
did where he made a statement
about there is no evidence they
have seen no evidence linking
this to an interference by
government or something along
those lines. And that particular
statement was caught on and and
became this this big way of
basically allowing people to

(41:56):
shrug their shoulders about the
Twitter files, Oh, whatever. I
mean, they say there's not even
any government interference. So
what's the big deal? My reading
of that is that Matt Taibbi was
essentially saying there's no
evidence that there was Russian
government sponsorship,
essentially, of the Hunter Biden
laptop story, that that that
connection, the foreign
government connection was not,
but because of the confines of

(42:17):
the 280 characters, I believe
that message became mangled and
then got misinterpreted and mis
reported. And that's the kind of
world we're stepping into when
we start thinking that oh, you
know, these Twitter threads are
going to be the, the deep dive
journalism of the future. Can
you imagine Whitney putting
something like one nation under
blackmail? Twitter thread form?

(42:38):
How many millions of tweets
would that take? Oh, no one read
it? Well, I think, you know, you
think about like, 1984 and stuff
like that, how they talk about
how they manipulated and changed
language to like, dumb it down.
And, like, cheapen it, I think,
you know, reducing, you know,
leaks driven journalism, which
generates a lot of attention,
because the leaks is, you know,
the hidden to the unhidden. You

(43:00):
know, a lot of people are
interested in it just for that
reason, like it's secrets being
aired out, right. And what you
have here is, you know, that
hype, but it's, you know, this
is what journalism looks like.
Now, this is the cutting edge
stuff. And, you know, as someone
who writes very long articles, I
do not think that Twitter

(43:21):
threads, future of journalism.
And if that is the move being,
you know, made here, I think
it's a little unsettling, but I
think there's a bit more to it
as well. For example, Barry
Weiss, one of the journalists
who was handpicked by Moscow to
be sort of the one of the
interpreters and publishers of
Twitter file threads. She

(43:41):
coincided her participation in
the Twitter files with the
launch of her new news outlet,
which is called the Free Press.
If you're familiar with Barry
Weiss, his background, at least
people my audience, I don't
think people will expect her to
necessarily be objective, at
least not on certain topics. I
think actually independent
media, she became most notorious

(44:02):
for her meltdown on the Joe
Rogan podcast where she called
Tulsi Gabbard, who, you know,
I'm certainly not a, you know,
she's another young global
leader who lies about it,
actually, but, you know, she was
called an Assad toady that is
not by Barry Weiss. That is not
a fair assessment of Tulsi
Gabbard 's views on Syria or and
then couldn't define Toady.
Yeah, she couldn't define any of

(44:23):
this. She had no evidence for
it. And obviously, she's not an
objective reporter. And that's
especially true when it comes to
issues of Zionism, Palestine and
Israel, where she's even
accused, you know, anti Zionist
Jews of of anti semitism and her
book, How to combat anti
semitism, or it's called
something like that. She calls

(44:44):
anti Zionist Jews part of a long
history of left wing, anti
semitic movements that
successfully conscript Jews as
agents in their own destruction
and quote, so, you know, there's
a lot to say about censorship of
Palestinians on social media
include
and Twitter. But I, you know,
I'd venture to guess that that
won't be covered by the Twitter

(45:04):
files. That's just a guess here.
So again, it's interesting that
her particular outlet is being
promoted at the same time
with people that are, you know,
of the same mold of, I guess,
journalist as she is. And, you
know, I'm personally not a fan.
Just be pretty open about that.

(45:26):
And I'm, you know, we're in
talking about the parallels
between what's going on here and
the the intercept, the intercept
when it was launched, made
celebrities out of people like
Jeremy Scahill, and Laura
Poitras, and Glenn Greenwald,
and sort of put them above
reproach for some people. I

(45:47):
don't really think that's fair.
For you know, reasons I've
talked about over the years, and
of course, people can go back
and look at some of my Twitter
exchanges with Glenn Greenwald
were and I criticize Pierre
Omidyar, and he tells me that
I'm a liar and belong in a
mental hospital, you know, about
a year or two before he says the
same thing. So, um, you know,

(46:09):
again, and we're having Taiyi
and Weiss being elevated here.
And it's, it's interesting. You
mentioned earlier how Elon Musk,
you know, previously was sort of
a a darling of people left
leaning, because Tesla's you
know, AOC has a Tesla and stuff,
right, and was sort of, you
know, seen as being more popular

(46:31):
on that side of the political
divide until sort of his recent
change. And so I think that's
kind of fair to say for people
like Glenn Greenwald in and Matt
Taibbi as well. Anyone who has
followed the development of of
Greenwald and anti abuse, public
reputation will know it was
interesting to watch, I must
admit, just from a popcorn

(46:52):
perspective, five or six years
ago, when they started to talk
about for example, Russia gate
and obviously not going along
with the establishment message
on that and the to see their own
audience attacking them so
vociferously because this is not
the message guys. So yeah,
clearly is the creation of
public personas. And these
people have demonstrated their

(47:13):
ability to be essentially
chameleons.
Greenwald starting out being pro
Iraq War. But people probably
don't remember that way back in
the day when he first started
blogging.
Having renounced that, several
years later, when he transformed
into the crusading left wing
journalist of the Guardian, and
then various other outlets in

(47:34):
the United States, right. And
then now doing this other
transformation through the after
the intercept, and then into
this Russia gate era, and now
being whatever he is today. And
I think Matt Taibbi along for
much of that same ride. So I
think it is about public
perception and creation of
public persona and playing on

(47:56):
that. And clearly, again, it
keeps circling back to this sort
of divide in the public opinion,
there is a culture war that is
taking place that clearly people
are are looking for people to be
on their team. And I think most
people will accept someone
simply saying, Hey, guys, I'm on
your team or making the right
kind of signals that I'm on your

(48:17):
team is essentially enough for
them to turn off the critical
thinking faculty and no better
example of that than Elon Musk,
who went from the darling of the
left to the darling of the
right. And I think shouldn't be
the darling of anyone given the
sorts of things he's been
involved in. Yeah, well, I
think, you know, not unlike
Trump, what you mentioned
earlier, made some comparisons
about Elon, too. I think he's

(48:38):
most Elon Musk is most
interested in Elon Musk, right
and promoting Elon Musk and Elon
Musk image, if you ask me. So I
think there's a specific reason
why Elon Musk picked Tybee and
Weiss? I'm not sure exactly what
that is. But, you know, I, I
think it's pretty telling when
you consider sort of what we've

(48:59):
talked about earlier that Musk
has a very specific reason for
doing all of this. And
presumably he has picked these
two people because of their
associations and I guess
perceptions among at least some
people that they're anti
establishment. So, you know, in
tyese case, who journalistically
I think is far superior to Barry

(49:20):
Weiss, who's technically an
opinion writer, Matt Taibbi has
done some really good articles
over the years, I think he was
actually one of the few people
in mainstream or at least
mainstream adjacent media to
cover FASEB 56, which was a
policy that's really insane
where basically government
agencies can have public and
private budgets so they can

(49:40):
basically you know, put one
version of the budget out there
and then have a private one and
like cook the books and do all
sorts of sane financial, crazy
stuff they shouldn't be allowed
to do. But having said that, um,
you know, there are certain it's
very clear, if you look at Matt
tyese journalism, there's some
topics he does not like to do.
at all, and it's very different

(50:02):
than someone like Glenn
Greenwald, for example, Glenn
Greenwald has a lot of
similarities to Matt Diaby, but
when pushed on things like 911,
and other issues like that, he
said, essentially, you have to
pick and choose what you cover,
like if you want to be taken
seriously. So, you know, I've
noticed that with people who are
mainly strive to have them brand

(50:23):
wise, be mainstream media
adjacent, that they won't cover
those types of issues. Yeah. So
Matt Taibbi, instead of ignoring
those issues,
as a career move
over the last several decades at
this point, has made it a point
to ridicule people. So he's not
just ignoring issues like, you
know, September 11. He

(50:44):
intentionally ridicules people
who don't believe the official
story. And the most recent of
these, well, he's done it on
Twitter as recently as a few
months ago,
making fun of anyone who
identifies himself as a quote
unquote truther. But in a 2019
article for Rolling Stone. It's
the subtitle is why conspiracy
theories won't die. I'll just

(51:05):
read a quick quote from it. He
says, The old quote unquote
physical impossibility saw is a
nervous tic found in a lot of
the trashiest American
conspiracy tales, only
controlled demolition cause
building seven to freefall, on
September 11. And he says, Look
at the fatal headshot that
killed Kennedy, it's back into
the left the wrong way. If Lee

(51:27):
Harvey Oswald was shooting it.
So you know, he's calling people
that don't believe in a lone
wolf shooter, which is now
according to polls, actually, a
majority of Americans don't
think Lee Harvey Oswald was
acting alone, right? So if you
believe that you're believing a
trashy American conspiracy tale,
or if you think 911 fell into

(51:48):
its own footprint in seven
seconds. So because of
uncontrolled office fires, even
though there's a University of
Alaska study that demolishes the
nest Googly Guk. Narrative, or
report that claims to show it
was office fires, you know,
you're
not very smart. So it's it's
troubling, and probably the most

(52:10):
troubling of all goes back to
some of his early work, where he
calls he says the 911 truth
movement makes the left behind
Sci Fi series which is like
Christian apocalyptic
stuff, says it makes it like
Shakespeare, and he calls people
clinically insane 911 conspiracy

(52:33):
theorists and his his gripes
with the 911 truth movement,
according to him,
where he goes, it's a lot of ad
hominem about people like Jason
burr mess and Dylan Avery,
calling them quote unquote, Dick
wads, among other things, and he
says
911 conspiracy theory is so

(52:54):
shamefully stupid. It's the
lowest form of conspiracy
theory, because it doesn't offer
an affirmative theory of the
crime. And basically, his whole
takedown of 911. Truth has
nothing to do with refuting
evidence offered by the truth
movement. Instead, it's
basically here's the silly

(53:14):
dialogue of what I imagined
Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney would
have planned if the 911 truthers
were right. So it's a very
dishonest engagement with the
information in my opinion. And
you know, it's not what you
would do if you were interested
in getting to the truth of
things. I don't know. I think at

(53:35):
this point, you even have people
that shared the 911 Commission
say, the official story, the 911
Commission report is full of
holes and unanswered question
that they were stonewalled, etc.
So, you know, is it really fair
to call people that question,
the official narrative, you
know, you know, trash and
hopelessly stupid and all this

(53:56):
nasty ad hominem? I don't know.
Do you have any thoughts, James?
I do. Indeed. I recalled.
Probably over a decade and a
half ago at this point, there
was a correspondence that went
on between Matt Taibbi and David
Ray Griffin that people can look
up. And clearly at that point, I
think it was quite apparent that
Toby was never ever going to

(54:16):
entertain any, quote unquote,
conspiracy theories about
September 11, exactly as bush
warned us against in his speech
to the UN. But I actually have
my own experience interacting
with Glenn Greenwald. Also I do
recall at the time where I was
doing that reporting on Omidyar
and first look and what have
you, I got into a Twitter

(54:37):
exchange with him because I was
on Twitter at that point. I am
no longer in case anyone out
there in your audience doesn't
know that. But I did get into a
Twitter exchange with him in
which after a few back and
forth, he ended up apparently
going through my archives He
must have gone pretty deep
because he ended up pulling up a
YouTube clip that someone had

(54:58):
made of some one of
My podcast episodes that at that
point was probably three or four
years old that he dug up as oh
look, this guy is talking about
Stratospheric Aerosol injection.
And oh, he's one of those
chemtrails, Kooks or something
along those lines before
blocking me. So that's, that's
the type of Glenn Greenwald that
that was involved in this. And

(55:19):
yes, then Matt Taibbi is, I
think, a chip off of the same
block.
Again, it's not to say that none
of their work is of of any
utility some of it is. But it I
think people have to become
discerning as to whether they're
simply going to believe someone
based on their public reputation
of oh, this is a, this is a cool

(55:41):
journalist, this is the cool
space guy is going to deliver
us, the tech that's going to
save humanity or things along
those lines, I think we have to
as a society wizened up and grow
up and stop believing these
narratives that are implanted
for us to believe, having said
that, I imagine most of your
audience is already well along
the journey towards growing up
in that fashion. It's how do we

(56:02):
reach people who are so easily
entertained and distracted,
essentially, by things of this
sort? Again, it's not to say
that the Twitter files are
completely useless. There are
things in here that are at least
interesting to me. Some of the
screenshots, not just confirming
that shadow banning happens
again, I think we already knew
that, although that, although

(56:23):
Twitter did actually officially
deny it. So it is it would be
nice to have actual real
evidence of that rather than a
screenshot. However, some of the
insight into the various
categories and how that that
shadow banding takes place, etc.
Again, it's interesting
information. I wouldn't, I
wouldn't dismiss it entirely.
But I just do not think that

(56:44):
this is the amazing breakthrough
journalism, that it's being
presented as well, what worries
me, right, is that you're having
these these two, you know,
journalists being set up and you
know, being celebrity ties, I
guess, I mean, they already did
have like high profile
platforms, but people sort of
like in these types of events.
And in my experience, it seems

(57:04):
like people really emotionally
bond with these people. And Elon
Musk included in this current
iteration of, you know, how all
this stuff is playing out. And I
find that concerning in the case
that I don't know, for example,
you have whispers of a potential
repeat of the COVID era coming
up not that long from now. And
Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome

(57:25):
Trust being named World Health
Organization, Chief Scientist,
right?
It doesn't bode well for that.
So imagine the events of the
past couple of years end up
repeating themselves in a way
that's very unfortunate for the
world. And you have, you know,
the anti establishment, quote
unquote, people that have been
elevated up and, you know,

(57:47):
they're not exactly a reliable
source of information, perhaps
when it comes to these types of
activities. Right? Um, you know,
if they're unwilling to question
events that took place 20 years
ago, or in the case of the
Kennedy assassination, like much
earlier, and are going to be
actually a minority among the
American public when it comes to
the Kennedy assassination in

(58:07):
order to backup the official
story of the conflict of
interest ridden Warren
Commission.
You know, I just think, given
the stakes of what we're seeing
right now, and people really
need to understand that
information warfare is very
sophisticated. Yeah. And also
that, you know, like you said,

(58:28):
James, people like Matt Taibbi
have done really great work, but
at the same time, you know, no
one is perfect. You should I
really wish that people could
get away from this culture of
celebrity journalism, and
instead judge journalists on the
quality of the journalism they
produce. And, you know, as on
even on a case by case basis, or

(58:49):
something like that, you know,
maybe that's a lot to ask, when
the the political savior and
this whole celebrity worship,
including in journalism is so
ingrained in some people and,
you know, very much
propagated by the social media
model.
Which, you know, I guess is
Twitter files coming full

(59:10):
circle, in a sense, but it's,
um, I really do worry that if
people go in, you know, look at
this stuff with, you know,
approach it and kind of a naive
way you're gonna get suckered
in. And, you know, I've had
experiences with some of these
people I've had, you know, with
Matt Taibbi. You know, that's
the only time I've ever been

(59:31):
interviewed about my work on the
Epstein case, and it has not
been published. And part of that
I was only asked really one
question before the feet cut
off. And I was assured that they
had enough to make the interview
and they would patch it together
and publish it and never did.
But it might tell you BSS the
first question, and he said,

(59:52):
What conspiracy theories about
Epstein are too crazy. And I
said in the question that I
didn't
didn't want to really set any
parameters. I don't have any
interest in gatekeeping. What's
my use, specifically about
Epstein's death? For example,
because there's so much I mean,
no one really knows what
happened, right? So

(01:00:13):
that's somehow turned in, I
later find out not necessarily
from high Ed, but other people
at that podcast and sponsored by
Rolling Stone, that someone
there in that studio thought
that I was saying that Epstein
is still alive. And this came
out in a petition that was sent
to Rolling Stone trying to get

(01:00:36):
them to actually be platform
that tie up claiming that they
invited me on and I claimed that
Epstein was still alive. And I'm
a crazy person. So that's a
pretty weird experience. And
I'm, I'm kind of disappointed by
that.
So, you know, but I'm not
bringing this stuff up. And I'm
sure you're not either Jameis.
Because of our personal
experiences with these people, I

(01:00:57):
guess, what I'm trying to point
out here is that we can't really
have rose colored glasses about
these kinds of people, when
they've shown over the course of
their career, that there's
certain topics that they're not
just unwilling to engage with,
but they're going to use to, you
know, ridicule people that don't
see the same way they do about
certain stuff. So while they may
be good on things like Russia

(01:01:18):
gate, and things like that,
people really do need to learn
discernment, if your ultimate
goal as a media consumer is to
get as close to the truth as you
possibly can. I mean, I think
that's, you know, required
behavior.
I suppose it comes down to
people's own internal guide as
to what what it is they're doing

(01:01:38):
and what they're engaged in, and
why I think it has to come down
to fundamental motivations. If
you are genuinely interested in
a pursuit of the truth, then as
I have maintained for many, many
years, in fact, since the
inception of The Corbett Report,
when this starts becoming about
people rather than about
information, then we lose,
because then it becomes a soap
opera, and it can be manipulated
in all sorts of different ways.

(01:02:00):
That is why I do not ask people
to take me at my word on
anything that I'm saying, I
always try to provide the
references to what I'm saying so
that people can go and look it
up in its own context, and see
if they agree or disagree with
my interpretation, that has been
a core part of my work for many
years. Because I do not want
people to put me on any sort of
pedestal or to simply accept

(01:02:21):
what I'm saying, or to think
that I am saying, please accept
what I'm saying. Because I say
it, that is not the way this
should work. And anyone who does
come along with that as sort of
the implicit guideline for what
they're doing, should, I think
probably be held in suspicion
for for that, that that view,
but at the end of the day, I'm

(01:02:42):
sure a lot of people are more
interested in the spectacle, and
in popcorn munching and in
choosing sides in some sort of
spectator sport. Let's eliminate
those from the conversation
because I imagine they're
probably not subscribed to your
podcast. So the people who are
genuinely interested in truth,
do not make this about people
make it about information. And

(01:03:03):
that applies equally to myself
and to Whitney and to everyone
that you listen to. If you
cannot triangulate, or if what
they what they're saying does
not actually comport with your
understanding of reality. Of
course, don't take it on board,
just because someone you've
liked or seen that you think
you'd like said it, obviously.
Now, having said that, of

(01:03:23):
course, we have to make certain
choices in life, we only have a
certain amount of time, I'm not
going to waste my time following
someone that I strongly suspect
is lying to me all the time. So
we have to make certain
decisions at certain points. But
at any rate, no decision should
be final as to I will this
person is an arbiter of truth.
And I think that's the
fundamental point that we're
both gesturing at.

(01:03:45):
Yeah, absolutely. And the only
point I feel like we didn't make
today as we're wrapping up here
that I would like to point out
to people on the Elon Musk from
Elon Musk has been very, very
specific that his intention in
acquiring Twitter, even though
he made these postures about it
being freedom of speech and
culture war stuff, he said very
openly that he intends to turn

(01:04:06):
Twitter if he can into a WeChat
equivalent, with WeChat being
the closest thing we have today
to the quote unquote, everything
app, as it's sometimes called.
And I think Elon Musk and ended
up sort of using that term, or
at least mainstream media sort
of attributed that term to him
for his ambitions for Twitter.
So we chats parent company, by

(01:04:26):
the way, is a major investor. In
Elon Musk, I believe it's Tesla,
and probably one of his most
active shareholders. So it's
interesting that you have this
idea of promoting WeChat to an
American audience, because
basically, we chat, if you're
looking at this, from the

(01:04:47):
paradigm of data is the new oil
which I know you've you've
covered a lot about that in your
work, James, you know, you think
about the who were the barons of
the oil era? Well, you know the
Rockefellers because of the
Standard Oil monopoly
So if you want to be the
Rockefellers of the data era,
how do you basically get a
monopoly on data? Well, you own
the everything app, because all
the the idea of the everything

(01:05:09):
app is having, you know,
everyone do their finances,
their social media, their
government services, their
whatever, everything through
this one app, right. So if you
control that app, you control
all the data flowing through
that app. And if everyone's
obligated to use it for
everything, you're gonna have
the most data out of everyone
else. So this is, you know, Elon
Musk is not at Twitter

(01:05:30):
necessarily to restore free
speech. And I actually got a
message from a friend of mine,
Sam Husseini, who's also a
colleague, really great
journalist, I would encourage
people to check out his work.
He's been shadow banned more
than ever on Elon Musk, no one
can even see his tweets at all.
Even people that reply to him,
his his tweet above suddenly
becomes hidden and stuff. I

(01:05:52):
mean, you know, people need to
be vigilant about the stuff and
aware that there is some, you
know, usually where there is
this type of hype, even if it
seems to be social, media
generated and viral, all of
these things are manipulated
social media is a heavily
manipulated medium, the
algorithms and all of that, I
mean, it would be very naive to
think that Elon Musk isn't
tweeting that to his advantage

(01:06:14):
for whatever goals he has for
his acquisition of the platform.
Let me just back up what you're
saying there, I'm so glad that
you brought up that final point
about the WeChat everything app
of Twitter.
That is such an important
concept because as we're
recording this, I just recently
released my new world next year
with James and Bilodeau media
monarchy.com, where we're

(01:06:35):
talking about our predictions
for future trends. And my
prediction for 2023 is about the
digital ID, and how that is
going to be increasingly a part
of people's lives and being
foisted on the public. And it's
already happening in basically
every country around the world,
various governments are working
hard at trying to implement and
foist and digital ID on their
population. But as part of that

(01:06:57):
pincer movement that we're
talking about, where it's
generally there's there's two
sides that are essentially
working towards the same thing,
but one seems to be on your side
and the others the big, bad,
evil, scary men. In this case,
it is absolutely possible that
instead of having some sort of
government mandated government
run digital Ivica, oh, that
would be terrible. No, we want

(01:07:18):
to trust Spaceman with his
digital ID essentially, which is
what the everything app is,
it's, it's the consolidation of
your entire physical and
biological identity into the
digital space, and everything
that you do everything that you
think everything that you buy,
is being recorded in that space.
So it essentially functions as a
type of digital ID. And it may

(01:07:39):
be a way of getting a digital ID
through the back door.
It with the support of the
people who would be against it
if it was coming from the
federal government say, so I
think we have to be on guard
against that. Yeah. What's very
odd in the context of what you
just said, too, is that you're
having these rather prominent
figures on the quote unquote,
anti establishment, right? For
example, Jordan Peterson,

(01:08:00):
recently arguing that anonymity
should be eliminated from the
internet and online government
should be able to know who you
are when you're saying stuff.
Which is actually interesting
enough, another policy goal of
the World Economic Forum, and
their partnership against
cybercrime is literally all
about that. And the people,
their reasons for the cyber
polygon stuff, it all ties back

(01:08:20):
to ending online anonymity. And
of course, digital ID agenda,
having your government your
digital ID your government
issued ID tied to your social
media activity is very much part
of that. So interesting to see
that popping up on people like
Tim Poole talking about hey,
whoa, yeah, neural link is going
to be the greatest thing ever. I
can't wait. it weird that all

(01:08:43):
these these, you know, voices
and the same sort of niche, I
guess, that Musk himself is
trying to develop are now
starting to talk about how, how
great all this stuff is all of a
sudden and you know, people are
gonna, you know, targeting the
segment that nor of the
population that would that would
normally be most against this.
It's a bit. It's a bit odd. But

(01:09:05):
you know, I don't want to be a
hopelessly stupid conspiracy
theorist James. So me well,
Whitney, as you know, the
pursuit of truth and actually
standing by principles has never
and will never be a popular
endeavor. So yeah, no, I think
people have to look in the
mirror and see if they're ready
to really take the plunge as to
whether they are willing to

(01:09:25):
withstand the psychological
onslaught that will come as they
become holdouts of the the brand
new technocratic future that's
being dangled out in front of
our faces. Anyway, I know which
side of that line I'm on, but
it's never going to be an easy
path. Well, on that note, I
would like to say sorry, to all
the listeners that might be Elon
Musk fanboys are fanboys of Matt

(01:09:47):
Taibbi, Barry Weiss, Glenn
Greenwald, and the list goes on.
But I think it's important that
as we said earlier, scrutiny is
applied to all of us that it
goes for me that goes for James
as
As my friend Ryan Christian
likes to say, question,
everything should probably also
be question everyone, it should
all be about, like you said,
James the information, not the

(01:10:09):
person. And I really hope at
some point, we get to a paradigm
where that is the case. And I
hope that people, you know, if
you're eagerly consuming the
Twitter files hype, and are
enjoying it, which is you're
totally within your right to do
that, that, you know, perhaps
maybe prod some of these figures
to release the files that

(01:10:30):
they're actually putting out
there to be a little more
transparent. So you know, the
idea is that this type of
censorship doesn't happen again.
So for effective change, that
fact that that documentation has
to be there, for example, if
legal action were to be taken or
something like that, to at least
send a message or something like
that, to the Twitter executives

(01:10:51):
involved in this suppression
being exposed, most of whom
don't work at Twitter anymore. I
think all of them actually don't
work at Twitter anymore. Fancy
that. So I guess with that being
said, James, thanks so much for
joining me to discuss these
issues today. If you have any
parting thoughts, I would love
to hear them. And if not, if you
could, please let everyone know
where to find your work and what

(01:11:11):
you have coming up.
Well, let's leave the parting
thought as I don't want to say a
plug for my site
[e-mail], you will
be able to find all of the
reports I've done along these
lines, just use the search bar
to search for Musk or Peter
Thiel or any of the issues and
things that we've discussed
first look media, the intercept,
Omidyar Greenwalt, you will find

(01:11:32):
it in the archives there, it's
all available for free. So I
hope people take advantage of
that and use it as one way of
gaining a window into this. And
as always, only one way. And as
I certainly don't have the the
archive of everything, but I'm
working on it. I will be
plunging into the new year with
a bunch of new material. But for

(01:11:52):
the next couple of weeks,
probably taking a bit of time
off and enjoying the the
Christmas New Year's break. So
having said that, once again,
thank you, Whitney for
everything you're doing. I hope
your listeners are supporting
your work. I know this is not
again, this is not an easy or
popular path. And so my best to
you and and thank you for doing

(01:12:12):
what you do. Well, thanks,
James, I really appreciate that.
You definitely for me, you're
one of the models about how
journalism should be done. You
know, you are the open source
intelligence masters. So I'm
very happy to have you on my
podcast today. So thanks again.
And yes, for everyone listening,
you probably are aware that
Christmas and New Year's are
upon us. So this will be my last

(01:12:33):
podcast of 2020. To see you all
again in 2023. Thank you so much
to everyone that supported this
podcast, including when I was
not producing very much because
I was writing a very lengthy two
volume book that is very much
appreciated. And I hope everyone
listening has a great holiday
season, and that you enjoy this
last podcast of the year. Just

(01:12:56):
like James mentioned, unlimited
hangout and myself also have a
lot of material coming out next
year. That will definitely be of
interest to a lot of people
listening to this podcast and
interested in some of the themes
of the recent podcast, including
the FTX situation that I have
written about recently. So I
would encourage you to if you

(01:13:16):
haven't already, sign up for our
newsletter at unlimited
Hangouts. You can find out about
all the podcast articles and
interviews and other things as
they as they are released. And
with that being said, Have a
great holiday season everyone
and see you in the next year.