Morning Brew Daily - Meta Kills Fact-Checking & Medical Debt Gone From Credit Reports?

Episode Date: January 8, 2025

Episode 492: Neal and Kyle discuss the major decision from Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg to rollback fact-checking programs across its platforms in an effort to promote “more free speech.” Then, Donald Trump Jr. visits Greenland while his father has expressed interest in buying the island for the US. Next, the CFPB announces a new rule that will bar medical debt being used against your credit report. Plus, Dell is rebranding its PCs by ditching confusing names and going with simple words such as “pro” and “pro max.” Sound familiar? Lastly, the biggest headlines you need to know for the day.  Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Checkout public.com/morningbrew for more Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for US-listed, registered securities, options and bonds in a self-directed account are offered by Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA & SIPC. Public Investing offers a High-Yield Cash Account where funds from this account are automatically deposited into partner banks where they earn interest and are eligible for FDIC insurance; Public Investing is not a bank. Cryptocurrency trading services are offered by Bakkt Crypto Solutions, LLC (NMLS ID 1890144), which is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the NYSDFS. Cryptocurrency is highly speculative, involves a high degree of risk, and has the potential for loss of the entire amount of an investment. Cryptocurrency holdings are not protected by the FDIC or SIPC. APY as of 1/2/25, offered by Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Rate subject to change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many employees can't afford a hefty medical bill that pops up out of the blue, but it happens. And employees who are financially stressed are, understandably, more likely to be distracted at work, costing their employers greatly in lost productivity. Luckily, AFLAC plans help with out-of-pocket expenses not covered by health insurance and can be offered at no direct cost to businesses. Learn more at aflac.com slash morningbrewdaily. That's aflac.com slash morning brew daily. Good morning brew daily show. I'm Neil Fryman.

And I'm Kyle Hagey. Today, Mark Zuckerberg takes a page from Elon Musk's book and rips up Meta's fact-checking system. And Greenland is back in the news after Trump reaffirms his intention to purchase the island. The only issue, Greenland says it's not for sale. It's Wednesday, January 8th. Let's ride. Like many people, you know right now, Toby is out sick and hopefully crushing tea at home feel better. Toby and everyone else who's laid up this winter. But we are delighted to have 2024's

Sixth Man of the Year. Kyle Hagee back on board, Kyle. Thank you for joining me. Yeah, happy to be here. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. You can't say that. Oh, I, you said it yourself. It's January 8th. You cannot say happy New Year. I think you can say Happy New Year all of January and at any time whenever it's the first time you're seeing someone, even if it's like October. Well, they'll look at you very funny. I think you keep the good year, the new cheer. going. But, okay. But we know that the authority on such matters, Larry Davis, has said that

the statute of limitations for wishing somebody a happy new year runs out three days after January 1st. Yeah, I mean, I'm a big Seinfeld fan. I'm a big curb fan, but Larry David has this one wrong. I'm going to have to talk to him after the show. I think you're in the minority here. People are going to look at you weird. You can't say happy birthday on,

or you can't say happy birthday on January 8th if it's not somebody's birthday. And in a similar fashion, you can't say happy new year. On January 8th, I want people to sound off. in the YouTube comments, see who's right, me or you, and it's obviously me. We'll have to agree to disagree. Now, word from our sponsor, public.com. Neil, you're a foodie.

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Shop spring backyard days for seven days at the Home Depot. Now through May 6th, Exclusion supplies to homedipo.com slash price match for details. Last year, Mark Zuckerberg was training to fight Elon Musk in a cage match. he's taking notes from him. Yesterday, Meta made the surprise announcement that it would scrap its third-party fact-checking process and replace it with a version of community notes. The crowdsource moderation system must introduce at X.

With billions of users globally across Instagram, Facebook, and threads, meta's policy change will mean a profound change in the way people everywhere consume social media. So why does Zuck do it? He said that the current fact-checking system, which employs news organizations to flag misleading or inaccurate information had gone too far and led to the suppression of differing opinions. We've reached a point where it's just too many mistakes and too much censorship, he said. Trump's victory in November was also a major factor. Zuck said the recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again

prioritizing speech. And it's probably not a coincidence that META gave this news exclusively to Fox and Friends, one of Trump's favorite shows. Kyle, a clear trend has emerged. in recent weeks Mark Zuckerberg has in a significant way repositioned his company to a tight embrace of Trump, Musk and the philosophies of the incoming White House. Yes, and I just have to say when Zuck made the announcement,

he had that the chain on. Like he is kind of in his like cool era. This is a big deal. I mean, just stepping back from what he actually said, any change to meta's platforms affects how billions of people interact with information. So I think this will have tons of ripple effects. This is an organization that is trying to get in the good, graces of an incoming administration that looks a lot different than the previous administration.

You mentioned going on Fox and Friends to make the announcement. The person that made this announcement was Joel Kaplan, who has been at Meta for, I think a decade plus, but now is taking over as kind of their lead PR public policy person, who is a Republican himself. And so this seems to be meta kind of shifting focus and trying to align with the new cultural tipping point, as Zuckerberg said, and with the new administration. This might have some business. reasons, some kind of fact-checking reasons, but also some political reasons. He's definitely shifting with the wins. I mean, go back to 2016 when this current fact-checking system was put in place.

This was on the heels of Trump's first election when misinformation, social media, Cambridge Analytica data scandal, Russian-Russia meddling in the elections was, you know, all the buzz. And Mark Zuckerberg implemented a very heavy-handed fact-checking and content moderation process in response to that. He employed news organizations like the AP, CNN, to flag to flag misleading or inaccurate posts. And now we're in 2024. Things have completely changed.

Elon Musk bought X or Twitter in 2022, changed it to X, ripped up this content moderation for X and employed community notes, which if people don't know what community notes is on, you know, because they don't go on Twitter or X, it's a community crowdsource space fact-checking system. So if you see a post that is misleading or not or false, then you will see oftentimes a note attached to it by, that has been voted on by people that explains why it's not correct and provides a source at the bottom to say this is why this is not correct. And what's very interesting is the people who say like this is not correct, they have to have differing opinions on other things. So that's like it is this ability to like fact-check in real-time at

scale with people who previously have different opinions. So it's an interesting new approach to content moderation. I'm not sure on like the efficacy of community notes versus the old system, but it seems like meta is going in this direction as well as X, obviously. Yeah. And Zuck said there would be a tradeoff here. He said the reality, this is a tradeoff. It means that we're going to catch less bad stuff, but will also reduce the number of innocent people's posts and accounts that we accidentally take down. And that admission that, you know, there will be more harmful content on these platforms seen by billions of people, you know, is a serious thing. And people who care about, you know, the lack of, you know, not allowing fake news to spread

are very concerned about this. Employees who were against this vented on internal messaging platforms saying this would lead to more transphobic and racist remarks on meta's platforms that go unchecked. Other employees said this is a welcome change. So certainly sparks a debate. But, yeah, as you mentioned, Joel Kaplan going to become the head of public policy for META, the addition of Dana White to the board. This move to employ Musk's favored fact-checking system.

All signs are showing that Zuck is trying to get in the good graces of the incoming administration. And the last thing I'll say is when X moved to community notes and when Elon took over, there was a lot of advertiser backlash. And so you might expect the same thing to happen to META. However, advertisers have said we just can't get a better ROI than all of META's platforms. And so it seems like there won't be as much pushback from advertisers. So I think META is going to be okay in the long run in terms of business perspective. Greenland may be the least dense political entity on the planet,

but the chatter around it has never been louder after President-elect Trump has in the last few weeks repeated his intention for the U.S. to buy the autonomous territory off of Denmark, its current owner. Those plans were on full symbolic display yesterday when Trump's son, John Jr., visited Greenland in his father's jet, Trump Force One. Don Jr. emphasized he wasn't there to make a land deal, but the implications were clear that Trumps are eyeing the island for America. There's just one problem. It is not for sale.

Remember, Trump floated buying Greenland the last time he was in office in 2019, causing Denmark to lash out at the, quote, absurd idea. Denmark and Greenland leaders said nothing has changed this time. around and that the U.S. can't buy it, even if they wanted to, it would go against the will and the sovereignty of the 56,000 Inuit majority people who live there. But Trump does not seem to be taking note for an answer at a press conference yesterday. He said he wouldn't commit to ruling out the use of military force to seize control of Greenland and the Panama Canal, for that matter, either calling it a national security issue. Kyle, did you know Greenland

isn't even green? Greenland is icy and Iceland is green. So that's an interesting fun I feel like Denmark is, or like the USA and Denmark are like, Greenland's my best friend. And Greenland's like, y'all, like, we would, we just kind of want to be independent, like, leave us out of this. You might be thinking, like, why are we talking so much about Greenland? And I actually think this country is going to become more and more important as climate chain continues to affect the Arctic. You mentioned its population. One, it is about 57,000 people. My hometown in suburban Minnesota is larger, but Greenland is three times the size of Texas.

And I think why countries are very interested in it is it is home to like 60% of the world's critical minerals. The rest of those critical minerals are typically controlled by China. And so it's clear from a European perspective, a USA perspective, why they want to align with Greenland. Also, as the Arctic starts to melt, unfortunately, those shipping routes get longer or wider and they stay open longer. And so this could be kind of, you know, I think Mike Pompeo maybe hyperbockly said this is the next Suez Canal. The next Panama Canal is these Arctic routes that allow you to transport goods, military, faster. So it's clear why people are very excited about this, aligning with Greenland. And I'm not sure the strategy is the most effective, but we'll see what happens.

Yeah, Greenland is home to 37 of 50 critical minerals. You just go down the periodic table. I mean, gold, silver, uranium. It's all there, and all of those components are so necessary for the green transition. It's also a strategic region in general because a lot of transatlantic flights, if you've ever flown to Europe, you go over Greenland. The U.S. has a military base there. And you might be thinking, wow, this is such an outlandish idea, but the U.S. has bought

land before. Sovereignty purchases are responsible for more than 40 percent of U.S. land. And a number of times in our history, the U.S. has tried to buy. Greenland, most recently, post-World War II in 1946, we offered $100 million for it. They rejected it. Now, who knows what it's worth? The Washington Post did a deep analysis, and they said it could be worth anywhere from $200 billion to $1.7 trillion. But we should say, it's not for sales.

Greenland right now is a semi-autonomous region of the Kingdom of Denmark. And as you alluded to, the people of Greenland do not want to be under the auspices of Denmark. for much longer. The problem is Denmark pays them $550 million per year in subsidies to protect them and they provide security. So there is an interesting tango going on right now. And, you know, people who say, Trump, like, we know that Greenland is a strategic area. Instead of buying it, why don't you invest in it, you know, partner with Denmark and Greenland to push, you know, U.S. interests there instead of having Russian and China sort of expend their influence there. 100%. And we already do partner with them. We have a, you know,

a space force base on Greenland. And we also have some outside investors, including Jeff Bezos, who are working on mining companies to extract minerals. So there's already, you know, some good relations. They might be getting strained now. And this will definitely be a story to keep your eye out as we move into the new year, Neil. If you have medical debt, which approximately 100 million Americans have some form of, I have some potentially good news for you. It won't affect your ability to get a loan. This is because the Biden admin finalized a ruling yesterday. that will end the inclusion of medical debt on credit reports, and it is going to ban lenders from using certain medical information in loan decisions. This rule will remove an estimated

$49 billion in medical bills from credit reports of about 15 million people. The Bureau said in a press release, the Bureau also predicted it would increase credit scores by an average of 20 points for those affected and would drive upwards of 22,000 additional mortgages every year. Now, if those 22,000 people have want to hit me up, and give me some advice on how to buy a home. I am all ears. Neil, we've heard so much about the medical debt problem in America. You heard in my intro, it affects about 100 million Americans in some capacity.

What are your thoughts on this new rule to get medical debt off of credit report? Well, the CFPB said they came to the conclusion that medical debt is just a poor predictor of your ability to repay a loan, which is what a credit score does essentially. And the trends have been moving in this direction already. its medical debt is already treated differently than other kinds of debt on credit reports, the three major credit reporting agencies, which are Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Two years ago said they wouldn't include medical debt more than a year old or under $500 on their credit reports.

States like New York and California had already done this provision that the CFPV did nationally. So it seems like all the momentum was moving in this direction for medical debt to sort of not appear on your credit score and that is a or not have an impact on your credit school score and that is will have a major impact on your ability to get a loan whether that's to buy a house or do anything else yeah and rohi chopra who's the bureau's director just said point blankly like quote people who get sick should and have their financial future upended and so that I think is what this is really trying to help with it also bar bans lenders from using medical devices such as wheelchairs or prosthetic limbs as collateral so there was some

abuse, I think, going on by companies to kind of get the money that they're owed or take back assets. And they just wanted to stop the abuse. Now, it's not without detractors. Several House Republicans wrote to chopper and auger to basically say, like, they have some serious concerns. Anytime you're removing the ability to look at debt for giving out mortgages or loans, those might get more risky. And can we have a situation where that starts to affect the economy? But according to the Bureau's reporting, this doesn't have, you know, it doesn't increase long-term instability in financial markets. Right. And speaking of predatory practices, as you were talking about, this seemed to be like a major lever that debt collectors use to have you pay bills that you may not even owe saying you have better pay your bills now because it will negatively impact your credit score.

And I think that was a popular practice that this agency wants to get rid of. Up next, is Dell becoming like Apple? You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton.

Welcome to your ocean front room. Just steps from the water. The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.

Precision, Inspiron, Latitude. No, these aren't the names of RELD. random billionaires new rocket companies. They are the former names of Dell's laptop and desktop lineup, which are being swapped out for a more simplified naming convention. That's right, Dell announced on Monday ahead of CES that their laptop and desktop lineup will now be labeled simply Dell, Dell Pro, and Dell Max. Now, if you're thinking, hey, that sounds awfully similar to Apple's naming convention

of the iPhones, well, you're not alone. In fact, audience members even pushed back during the announcement, one saying, quote, I'm wondering why you guys didn't choose something original because you essentially have Apple's branding here. Dell's CEO Jeff Clark when talking to reporters said, quote, customers really prefer names that are easy to remember and easy to pronounce. And so that's the reason Dell is making the moves that they are. Now, my deepest apologies to all the kids who want iPhones for their birthday and their grandparents accidentally buy them a Dell computer instead now. Neil, a good move or a bad move for Dell to copy Apple. I think it's just inevitable. Someone invents a language and you have to start speaking that language or no one will understand you. And Apple invented this language around pros and Macs and everyone understands conceptually what those models mean in terms of what you're getting. One is bigger. One has more. One is faster, right? Like though you just understand that. And Dell had this outdated language that he was like Yiddish. No one speaks it anymore.

So it had to move to this simplified language because its PC sales are flagging and it needs to sell more. So this is not a move from a position of offense, obviously, because it's basically copying another company. But I just think it's an inevitable way for companies now to adopt conventional naming conventions. They're called naming conventions for reason. And that's because they're conventional. It's the reason why every streaming service decided to do add a plus. You know, they probably wanted to be original, but they said, I don't even remember who the first plus was. Was it ESPN Plus? I don't remember. But either way, as soon as Plus came to indicate streaming service, then every company just said, okay, well, whatever.

We'll just, we want consumers to know that we are launching a streaming service and then this is a streaming service. So we're going to add a plus. You want to make it frictionless for a consumer. So to your point, like once we've understood a naming convention, once we see it other places, oh, we see the plus, we know that's streaming. So, you know, good artist's copy, great artist steel. It seems like Dell. went with the steel and just took it from Apple. I will give them credit. This is the first time I've thought about a Dell computer in years. So they really did make some noise.

Now, their market cap is $84.94 billion. Apples is $3.66 trillion. So Dell has a way to go to copying their market cap. But it got us talking about Dell computers. It got us talking about Dell computers. And it got me thinking about what companies do naming well. Well, one I think is BMW. BMW has so many different cars and different.

versions of those cars. And I think the way they've done it, they've honed it over years is quite extraordinary. They have the model series in letters, one through eight. The even numbers indicate two doors. The odd numbers indicate four doors. The cars generally get bigger. You have X for off-road.

M means fast or souped up. D for diesel. It's just very communicated in a very elegant way, a very complicated product offering. Well, now we know, Neil, that you can afford a BMW. So well done. I'll go with the product I can afford, which is Haines T-shirts. I think they crushed it. Small, medium, large, very simple. You know what you're getting.

Some coffee companies can't even do that. That's true. I am excited to see what else Dell does. I feel like their marketing department's just like throwing ideas out. Like we might get a Dell GPT, maybe a Dell Vidia, or maybe they get into streaming a Dell Streaming Plus. Let's sprint to the finish with some final headlines. Multiple fires are raging around Los Angeles, sparking evacuation orders for at least 30,000 people and consuming homes in flames. Weather analysts say this was the worst fire event for the area in at least 15 years because you have this combustible recipe of extremely dry vegetation and Santa Ana winds that gust up to 80 miles per hour and push the fire along quickly, giving firefighters

no chance at containing it. The footage coming out of Southern California is truly harrowing. And residents say they've never seen a day like yesterday. The most dangerous conditions are expected to last through this afternoon. Yeah, I mean, I was looking at the videos last night and it is terrifying, so I hope everyone is okay in that we get a lot of support down there because it was truly remarkable stuff. And some more grim news out of Florida, officials have launched an investigation after the bodies of two individuals were found in the landing gear compartment of a jet blue plane after it landed in Fort Lauderdale Monday night. The bodies were found during a routine post-flight maintenance check after the aircraft arrived from JFK in New York. It is

unclear why and how these people got into the wheel well, but once you're in there, it is not good news. Any number of things can kill you from the lack of oxygen when the plane is at cruising altitude, hypothermia from freezing temperatures, and potentially falling out once the wheels are deployed for landing. A report from 2011 found that only 18 of 89 people survived attempts to fly in compartments outside the aircraft cabin. I'm surprised 18 even survived. I mean, this followed a similar tragedy from United Airlines flying from Chicago to Hawaii. The same thing. happen. Like, I didn't even really know that this was a thing. Like, please do not go in the wheel components. Yeah, I don't think they're doing it because they want to. It's out of desperation.

On a lighter note, if you want to be an artificial intelligence engineer or consultant when you grow up, great news. Those are the fastest growing jobs in the United States. LinkedIn released its list of the most in-demand jobs for 2025 yesterday. And those two AI-facing roles came out on top. Routing out the top five, physical therapist came in third, workforce development manager fourth and travel advisor fifth. And a sign of the rapid advancement of technology, 60% of the fastest growing jobs are new to the list this year, while about half the positions didn't even exist 25 years ago. Yeah, I like how physical therapists are number three.

Like literally we're all hunched over at our AI prompt engineering jobs. And it seems to be good for our friends in the physical therapy department. It is. And I also thought it was interesting that travel advisors fifth and event coordinator was six that shows that in-person meetups are still a thing. Thankfully, after the pandemic and the rise of AI and all of that. But, you know, a lot of, you know, the turn of the year is a time when a lot of people are thinking about new jobs. So if you, you know, want an in-demand job, maybe go to the LinkedIn top 25 list and see what's out there.

Finally, I'm about to get all your stomachs rumbling because yesterday the Girl Scouts of the USA announced the start of the new season for Girl Scout cookies, which runs through the spring. All of the classic flavors will be back, but two cookies are going to be discontinued. this year. Smoors and toast yay. So stock up if you're one of the few who actually like those. We'll see if a black market takes shape actually. Two years ago when the Girl Scouts retired Raspberry Rally boxes were being sold on eBay for $30. Okay, one, smores is delicious. So I got to talk to someone at the Girl Scouts. We can't let that one die. I feel like this should be like when an athlete retires and they go to like the different away games and everyone claps for them. Like we should have like the governor of each state eat like the last Girl Scouts.

in every state and everyone come. That would bring this country together, Neil. It would, but I think Derek Jeter ended it forever with his farewell tour. It was just so over the top that we can't even do it even for Girl Scout cookies. What's your favorite? Thanks, Derek Jeter. The Samoa. Okay. Yeah. What about you? I don't know what it's called tag along, I think? Just chocolate peanut butter. You can't go wrong. You can't go wrong with that. Okay, let's wrap it up there. Thanks for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Wednesday. Thanks again for stepping in Kyle. It was great to be here. For any questions, comments or feedback, send an email to Morningbrewdaily at MorningBrew.com. Let's roll the credits.

Emily Milliron is our executive producer. Raymond Loo is our producer. Olivia Graham is our associate producer. Yuchinawa Ogu is our technical director. Billy Minino is on audio. Hair and makeup is the 26th fastest growing job. Devin Emery is our chief content officer and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Let's run it back tomorrow.