Offline with Jon Favreau - QAnon is Thriving, Twitter is Dying, Zuck to the Rescue?

Episode Date: July 9, 2023

Will Sommer, author of Trust the Plan, joins Offline to talk about what QAnon actually is, how people are drawn into the world of Q, and how the Republican party has become intertwined with these conspiracies. He and Jon peel back the layers of the movement to understand how it’s being monetized, why Michael Flynn is a QAnon hero, and where you can find adrenochrome in real life (hint: it’s not in the blood of children!). Plus: Max and Jon join Threads, Mark Zuckerberg’s new Twitter.  For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

A long time ago in a galaxy not far away, Jar Jar Binks made his Star Wars debut, and the public response was intense. The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks is a new show about one of the most polarizing characters in cinematic history, and the extreme online backlash against Ahmed Best, the actor who played him. Join host Dylan Maron as he dives into one of the first ever internet hate campaigns and what the backlash against Jar Jar can teach us about fandoms today. Find The Redemption of Jar Jar Jar Banks wherever you get your podcasts. I mean, in Lauren Boebert's case, she says on one podcast with, admittedly with a QAnon promoter, but she says sort of like, yeah, you know, I hope that's real.

That's more of my mom's thing. You know, on one hand, it's pretty crazy to say you hope, you know, Hillary Clinton is drinking kids' blood or whatever. But you can see she's kind of trying to avoid offending them but saying like yeah maybe maybe not my thing marty taylor green meanwhile was like in these boards she was on facebook debating like the veracity of various q and on clues i mean she was i would say like top two or three percent of like hardcore into it and at that point you're not getting any votes from that like that is your thing i think there are just a lot of examples of how high this,

it's like a brain disease, you know, I mean, how high it has gone in the Republican Party. I'm Jon Favreau. Welcome to Offline. Hey, everyone. My guest today is Will Sommer, media reporter at The Washington Post and author of Trust the Plan, The Rise of QAnon and the conspiracy that unhinged America. With America's birthday behind us, I thought we'd spend some time talking about one of our country's most infamous new exports, QAnon. Over the last few years, the once fringe online conspiracy theory has gone global, QAnon followers popping up in dozens of countries. Here in the U.S., QAnon believers have been elected to Congress, and the conspiracy has been openly embraced by Republican presidential

frontrunner Donald Trump. This despite the fact that the FBI has declared QAnon a domestic terror threat, and a QAnon stalker was just arrested outside of Barack Obama's D.C. home, where he told people he was looking for a, quote, good angle on a shot. All of which is why I wanted to talk to Will, who's been reporting on right-wing extremism and conspiracy theories since 2018, first at the Daily Beast and now at the Washington Post. He's interviewed QAnon followers, leaders,

and attended QAnon rallies, where he's had to do most of his reporting in disguise. He recently wrote a brilliant book on the conspiracy called Trust the Plan, which details the rise of QAnon and the unexpected quirks that helped it go mainstream. He joined me to talk through his book and offer his perspective on what the future holds for QAnon. As always, if you have comments, questions, or episode ideas, please email us at offline at crooked.com. And stick around after the interview.

Max, join me to talk about lots of big social media news, starting with Elon's Twitter limits and Mark Zuckerberg's self-described Twitter killer, threats. Here's Will Sommer. Will Sommer, welcome to Offline. Hey, thanks for having me. So before we dive into all things QAnon, I want to talk a little bit about how you became an expert on the subject. I know you grew up in Texas, conservative family, listened to Rush Limbaugh in the car. Can you talk about what that was like just for people who haven't had similar experiences? Sure, yeah. I mean, it was a sort of what we might think of as sort of like a Jeb Bush Republican type of thing. Like you said, a lot of like Rush Limbaugh, Ayn Rand on road trips, like, you know, just like getting into

the fountainhead in third grade, stuff like this. And so, yeah, I mean, it was, you know, growing up in Texas is obviously it was kind of the it was everywhere, you know, being Republican. And then basically, I developed this taste for, you I developed this taste for Fox News every night. I mentioned in the book, I read Bill O'Reilly's book for kids. I might be the only person who read it. And I was like, well, this guy's got some good points. And all this kind of stuff. And then my politics changed in college.

I mean, the Iraq War being such a disaster. I was like, wait a minute, is it not so great to be a Republican? But I still really just loved conservative media. And I kept up with it. And then when you know, we had these characters like Ben, at the time, Ben Shapiro's big thing was that he was a virgin. And so it was like, you know, he just these bizarre characters. And then once Trump hit the scene, suddenly there was people were interested in these folks. So is your upbringing part of what made you want to cover right-wing media and right-wing movements? I think so. I mean, I think, first of all, it gives me a high tolerance for it. And I think I just enjoy following the sort of ideological changes in the factions, maybe more than the average person.

I think they really are some great characters, and they love to feud and stuff. And so that's the kind of stuff you love in reporting. But also, I think it's more like relatable to me, understanding how people, you know, particularly when you get into conspiracy theories, stuff like that, I think I could imagine, you know, these being people I know, and, you know, and perhaps I can better understand what takes off and what doesn't. Well, so how did you come to focus on QAnon? Yeah, so I'd been writing about conspiracy theories

for since about early 2016 and the right. And then in October, 2017, Q appears. And a couple months after that, I started, it was kind of in the corner of my eye. And then I was like, all right, I gotta get into this because it was catching on. And sort of every step of the way, I kept thinking, this is the high watermark of QAnon. This is so crazy.

No one can believe this. This has to be it. And so from people, thousands of people getting into it online on 4chan to in April 2018, I went to a QAnon march in DC. And I thought, I was like, this is crazy. There's like hundreds of people here chanting QAnon slogans. This is so bizarre that they would ever get to this level. And then, you know, all the way to January 6. So I'm a political junkie. I thought that I knew a decent amount about QAnon until I read your book. Wow. For people who aren't as familiar

with the full breadth of the conspiracy or all the details, could you give us a quick primer? Yeah, I'd love to. Sure. So, you know, it is so sprawling and there's all these different factions and stuff, so it can be kind of hard to like boil it down. But the core beliefs are pretty simple. They think that this nefarious cabal has run the world for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. And now the cabal is made up of people in Hollywood, in banking, in the Democratic Party. I mean, John, I'm sure you're on the list as well. You know the whole gang. And that this cabal, why do they run the world, right? Well, because they

want to drain children's blood to stay alive forever in satanic rituals. And so this kind of calls back to Pizzagate as well. And then the second part of QAnon is that the military recruited Donald Trump to run for president and basically said, we're sick of this cabal, only Donald Trump can take them on. And that someday there's going to come a moment called the storm when Donald Trump is going to arrest all of his enemies. And if you're a QAnon believer, your enemies, by extension, everyone from, you know, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to Tom Hanks and Oprah, and execute them at Guantanamo Bay. And then for everyone else, there's going to be a sort of utopia after that. So that's sort of the fundamentals of QAnon. So that all makes a lot of sense. It's clear that they're onto us.

Um, I hadn't realized that part of the QAnon conspiracy has its roots in very old conspiracies like the blood libel. Can you talk about that? And what do you think the connection is between some of these old conspiracies and the QAnon conspiracy today? And why do you think these anti-Semitic tropes tend to have such staying power and keep appearing throughout different parts of history? Yeah, I mean, I'm glad you brought that up. You know, all these institutions I mentioned are also often very stereotypically Jewish ones. You know, banking, Hollywood, these things. So there is this root in this medieval blood libel when, you know, this idea that Jewish people, rabbis, were kidnapping Gentile children and using their blood in Passover

rituals. And this would create these pogroms up until the 20th century, where like thousands of people would be killed. And so this idea recurs in QAnon, where this idea that, you know, all these Democrats, that George Soros is drinking children's blood. I mean, it's a pretty clear echo. And in terms of why it comes back, I mean, I think often these conspiracy theories build on one another. You know, QAnon people will, there's sort of this fundamental question in QAnon, like, why does this cabal do this stuff? And then, you know, they said, well, it's because they're getting this blood, they need this blood to stay alive. And then they hearken back to some neo-Nazi writings or some Nazi writings. And so it kind of, it all builds

on it. Not to get in too deep on the on the blood question. But I also hadn't realized that. So the reason that the cabal is drinking the kids blood is because there's something called adrenochrome. Yes. And that's supposed to make you live forever. Is that the that the whole thing? Yeah. And the origin story here is really, really bizarre, even by QAnon standards. So in the, the adrenochrome is a real thing. It comes from oxidizing adrenaline. And so it's actually like pretty easy to come across. You could take an EpiPen and open it up. But you do not, so you don't need to drink children's blood. That's, that's only additive. Yeah. I mean, it essentially has no medical purpose in the real world. But in the 60s, these counterculture writers, you know,

it sounds cool, right? It sounds like the ultimate drug. And so someone like Hunter S. Thompson wrote about it in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And in that book, there's a line where his lawyer says, you know, you can only get this drug from a pedophile, you know, and you drain it from a child's brain or something like that. And then this becomes, for QAnon people, they're like, holy moly, this is real. And so that kind of builds on these other things. And then this becomes for QAnon people, they're like, holy moly, this is real. And so that kind of builds on these other things. And so they believe that, you know, essentially, the only way to get adrenochrome, which is how celebrities stay looking so young, I mean, they don't understand like Botox, I guess, all this stuff is like lost

in that. And so instead, it's like, come to LA, just check it out. And so, you know, during the pandemic, when these shows had to go, like talk shows had to, you know, go from home or over Zoom, suddenly everyone's looking more tired. It's not that the makeup people aren't working. It's that the adrenochrome has been disrupted. So that's the origin of it. And, you know, you'll see people like at these rallies and stuff, and they'll say, you know, don't drain me. Like I've seen kids with shirts that say, like, I'm not pizza. You know, meaning like, don't eat me for adrenochrome.

Oh, my God. Do we know like approximately how many people believe in this shit? Is this like tens of thousands? Are we talking millions? Like, do we have an idea about the numbers here? Yeah, I mean, I think in the United States alone, we can pretty easily say it's in the millions. You know, I like to take sort of the most conservative polling is that directly says, do you believe in QAnon? And that typically results in like three to 7% of Americans. Now, this is back in 2021. So you know, we don't have the latest numbers. But you know, that's easily millions of people, you know, in the when you ask them more broadly, do you believe that global elites are murdering children and satanic rituals, the numbers are higher, and they're like a 1516%. And, you know, it's a lot of people, you know, the, there was a poll in 2021, after January 6, that found it was maybe like roughly 12% of people that were polled believe in QAnon. And

you look at that, and you're like, well, it's not a majority. But you know, as you know, that's more than some religions. Yeah, I mean, also, I like that there's like a gap there. Because QAnon, it's the name ID has a name ID issue. That's why it's down to three, 7%. But if you just if you describe the cabal people, of course, I know about the cabal. I just didn't know that was QAnon. Yes, exactly. That's troubling. In terms of education, income background, QAnon supporters are a more diverse group than people might think. Is that right? That's right. I mean, the initial round of QAnon supporter was sort of who we would think of as like someone at a Trump rally. So, you know, whiter, more likely to be evangelical men often.

But particularly during the pandemic, it diversified, you know, so that's great. It became because, you know, people, suddenly, everyone had questions about like, what was going on in the world? And, you know, QAnon offered an answer. It was a people had more time, you know, more time to spend online. And then at the same time, it got younger, it got more racially diverse, more women were into it, there was this movement in 2020 called Save the Children. And, you know, it sort of dressed it up in a more, you know, overblown stories of human trafficking, stuff like that. And, you know, you have these things that are real that often offer gateways.

So like Jeffrey Epstein, for example, his sort of mysterious death is a big gateway into QAnon. So we've seen the demographics of QAnon change to be much broader than just sort of what we would think of as like the MAGA movement. Yeah, I asked these last couple questions, because I do think some people look at this movement, and it's called QAnon, and the conspiracy sounds nuttier than anything you've ever heard. And they think, well, that's just a few nutty people who aren't that educated and whatever. We're hearing them because they're loud voices and that kind of stuff. But it's a pretty marginalized movement here.

And it doesn't really seem like that. No, it's really not. I mean, if you look at it, I mean, we're talking about millions of people, right? And often I think people can say, well, you know, this won't happen to me or this won't happen to a relative of mine. But I talked to so many people who did not think of their their family members as, you know, conspiracy theorists or big Republicans or anything. And then suddenly they sort of fall down this QAnon rabbit hole and become obsessed with it. And how does a seemingly normal person with a seemingly normal background fall down that rabbit hole? Like, what do you think people find most appealing about this conspiracy and this community? Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of things. I think it is one aspect, it gives you sort of some excitement in your life. I mean,

often QAnon believers call themselves their digital soldiers, they'll say, which is a quote from Michael Flynn, or that they're sort of like warriors for God, or that they're in this like real battle with Satan. I mean, they're rescuing children, right? And so it often sort of adds some excitement to, you know, what is perhaps our otherwise mundane lives. And all you have to do is be online to do it, you know, you don't have to really do but the barrier for entry is low. I think it gives people sort of a sense of agency. I saw an interview with a QAnon believer who said, you know, I know the news before my neighbors do. And so it sort of gives you a like, you know, this kind of like, well, you know, I know a secret. And there's also the community, I think people are very atomized often online.

And then suddenly, you join this group of people who sort of love that you're working with them to decode the clues. We've talked a lot on this podcast about how a lot of people spent a lot of time online because of the pandemic. And a lot of the problems we talk about here sort of stem from or were exacerbated by people being alone. It sounds like in the most extreme example here that social isolation and spending a ton of time on the Internet with with social media, going down rabbit holes, like that really did sort of help QAnon take off. Yeah, I talked to someone in my book who was, you know, not at all a conspiracy theorist, and then the pandemic hits, and she sees an article about saying Tom Hanks got COVID because the Adrena Chrome supply had COVID in it. And she's like, what? And often, you know,

it can be hard to relate to sometimes how people get into this stuff. They can seem very gullible. But often, it just hits people in a very specific way. And she sort of fell down this hole for months, just desperately trying to disprove QAnon because she was so horrified by it. And it was right when the pandemic hit. So she just had all this time in the world to be at home and online. Ultimately, fortunately, she came out of it. But it is it is so there was a real boom because of the pandemic. It didn't realize that one of the most important supply chains that the pandemic disrupted was adrenochrome. That's you learn something new every day. Yeah, you so you've been to QAnon rallies, you have gone to some in disguise, because they know about you and are not

happy. You talked to some QAnon followers who were outside the Capitol on January 6th. What's that like? Like, what are some of the most interesting or more likely terrifying conversations you've had with some QAnon supporters? Yeah, well, I mean, it has been very weird. I've kind of been sucked into the QAnon mythos. And you know, just like with anything, some people have a better sense of humor, like they very much believe in QAnon, but they'll say, well, maybe Will's working for Q because he's writing about it so much. And, you know, he's kind of trying to red pill people, you know. But then some people are just insanely mad at me and, you know, said the death threats and so on.

And so it really varies. I mean, at January 6th, for example, I was outside and I was wearing sort of like a baseball cap and sunglasses so that maybe people wouldn't clock me across the crowd. And then someone said, Will Summer. And I said, Oh, God. And it was a guy just covered in Q stuff. And I said, Oh, man, you know, the cops are obviously too busy, you know, to help me or anything. And then he just wanted a selfie. Because he said, Oh, you know, you're one of the QAnon characters. So I declined. But you know, the opposite of that is I was at this Dallas QAnon convention. And Michael Flynn gets up and he says, you know, this some reporter snuck in today. And I was looking around like someone's about to get busted. And then I hear, you know, feel a hand on my shoulder. And they caught me. And so they, you know, they marched me out. And, you know,

it can be very everyone's, you know, 1000s of people just yelling at me. And so it can be it can be intense at times. Well, I was going to say those two examples are quite interesting because it does seem like so much of this is a mix of like farce and also like sort of anger that can turn into violence. And that seems like that's part of what's so hard to track this movement, to take it seriously, to do something because, you know, one day you're like, oh, these people are really going to commit violence and they're dangerous and there's a threat. And of course, the FBI has labeled them a domestic terrorist organization. But on the other hand, it's like you wonder if they're in on a joke sometimes, right? Because it's so crazy and they're so willing to like if something, if one of their predictions doesn joke sometimes, right? Because it's so crazy. And they're so willing to like if something if one of their predictions doesn't come true, just chalk it up to something

else. And you're like, do you really believe this shit? Yeah, I mean, you really have to sort of hold it to both things in your head at once. I mean, it is serious in terms of, you know, essentially being like a proto fascist movement, in terms of the lives it destroys in terms of literally the people have been murdered by QAnon followers. And the other hand, it is so ridiculous. And when I'm talking to these QAnon believers, there's a lot of me saying like, oh, wow, or that's so interesting. They say it with a totally straight face. I mean, right before the riots started, I was talking to a woman at January 6th with a big Q sign. She was saying, you know, we're here to rescue the children who are all in the tunnels. And they think there's miles and miles of tunnels under DC, and they're being drained of their blood and all this stuff. And I was like, oh, yeah, okay. And

so, I mean, it's ridiculous on its face. And then as soon as the riots started, she started dismantling barricades. And I mean, she got arrested. And I mean, it is this sort of this humor and this menace at the same time. So, you know, nothing that the QAnon folks predicted has come to pass. Obviously, Joe Biden is president. No one's been arrested except the January 6th rioters and now Donald Trump for a few times. I know that hasn't led many QAnon followers to question their beliefs. But like, what's the state of the community today? Has it quieted down at all? Or are they still organizing, planning, recruiting followers? Like what's going on now? Yeah, sure. So after Trump lost in 2020, we saw Ron Watkins, who's accused of being behind QAnon, sort of say, wow, what a run it's been.

Time to move on with our lives, you know, and sort of try to quiet it down a bit. And then they also said, stop identifying as a QAnon believer. You can say, yes, we think there's adrenochrome, all this stuff. But stop saying Q because the brand was so tarnished. And so as a result, we see a lot of this stuff has become, I think, mainstreamed in the Republican Party. These conspiracy theories about, for example, groomers, this idea that there's this pedophile conspiracy out to get kids often, you know, through LGBT rights. I think a lot of that stuff we really would not be seeing at this level without QAnon. I think about Katonji Brown Jackson being accused of being, you know, pro-groomer during her

confirmation hearing. So I think in a way, a lot of it has been mainstreamed within the Republican Party, as well as the, you know, the book banning stuff, all of these things at the local level, I think really has how QAnon has transmuted itself. But going into 2024, I think it's going to flare up again. You know, Trump has kind of been laying the groundwork to, you know, make DeSantis out to be a pedophile. Like he posted this picture of DeSantis at a party with high school students, he said, No, not Iran, surely this can't be a real picture. So I think I think there's a very good possibility he'll come back. Yeah, it's interesting what you say about it being mainstreamed in the Republican Party, because obviously, like, you know, as of now,

most Republicans, most Republican politicians don't go around saying that, you know, a cabal is trying to drink children's blood. But it does seem like the logical endpoint of where the party is going is a group of people whose politics is based on grievance, on victimhood, on this sort of populism in terms of it's the masses versus this elite group in government, in the media, in Hollywood, and they're against us and they're coming for us and we're always victims. And there's no issues in the Republican Party anymore. There's no, they haven't had a platform or presidential platform in a couple of years. And so all of this becomes grievance politics and conspiracy politics. And it does seem like QAnon is just one manifest, probably the most extreme manifestation of that. But you can see it makes sense in the Republican Party right now. Oh, totally. And you I mean, look at now, I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was a hardcore QAnon

believer, and probably still is, I mean, she claims, oh, you know, I put out a couple of wrong hashtags. And she was deeply involved and now is, you know, one of the top fundraisers in the House of Caucus. In the midterms, a QAnon supporter, promoter who poses as JFK Jr. managed to recruit Secretary of State candidates in key battleground states. I mean, they all ended up losing in the general. But we were like really close to people who sort of followed this JFK Jr. guy controlling elections in Pennsylvania or Arizona. And of course, JFK Jr., this is a part of the QAnon conspiracy, because if I get this right, people believe that he didn't really die, that he faked his own death because he thought that the cabal had already killed his his father and his uncle and so now he was going to disguise himself uh and pretend that he or he was going

to pretend that he died and disguise himself exactly exactly and so now we have we have multiple right you're you're you do very very successfully in q anon um and so now we have multiple sort of rival jfk jun Yeah. I was surprised that they're happily surprised that there was not more unrest and that there wasn't any violence outside of Trump's arraignments from his supporters or from QAnon followers. It seemed like the protests were relatively small. Why do you think that was? I've heard some people say that because of January 6, because the government did crack down and arrest a lot of the January 6th rioters, that a lot of these more fringe extreme movements have sort of gone underground and also been a little bit scared off

by what happened after January 6th. I think that's totally right. And both in a sort of reality world and also their own conspiracy idea of it. You know, on one hand, we see a group like the Proud Boys, which after Trump's defeat, had several sort of showdowns in DC and basically got away with impunity, which is sort of street fighting in the city. And of course, had been doing that in the Pacific Northwest for years earlier, until January 6. And suddenly they get decapitated. And so now they're not showing up. I mean, I guess they are, I say that, but you know, they're showing up these drag shows and stuff, but not at the arraignment. The inverse of that is that now because they think January 6th was a was like a federal op, right, that it was it was a trap for Trump supporters that now people are really scared to show up at any Trump event that isn't, you know, straightforward Trump rally. But any kind of protest, anything like that, they think is a false flag event meant to entrap Trump supporters. Well, let's talk about Trump a little bit, because him getting indicted multiple times while running for president again,

seems like it would be rocket fuel for QAnon conspiracies. He is also now openly embracing QAnon, posting about it, posting about Q on Truth Social, boosting Q accounts, which I guess he was doing when he was back on Twitter, playing QAnon songs at his rallies. What role do you think QAnon might play in the 2024 campaign? And what's Trump doing here? What do you think Trump's up to? Yeah, I mean, it's really bizarre, right? I mean, the people who run Truth Social have said openly that they see one of the site's roles as sort of a safe place for QAnon. And, you know, if you had said to me, even in 2018, 2019, that Trump would be posting memes of himself wearing Q button, stuff like that, I never would have imagined it. And, you know, I think there's this ability that Trump still has to sort of signal to QAnon

believers without the broader public kind of becoming aware that like, this guy is saying, like, hey, QAnon, what's up? And also, you know, again, QAnon is really premised on a Trump dictatorship, right? And so the idea that he's saying, you know, yeah, I think this is cool. You know, he said at a press conference, well, maybe they are right about some things. I mean, it is, it's disturbing. And so I think we're going to see whether it's under the name QAnon or something else. I mean, we saw Pizzagate sort of morph into QAnon. And so I think it could perhaps be under another name. But I think Trump, I think would be right. You know, he sees them from reporting we've seen as sort of like the Trump super fan club. And, you know, obviously, there's more to it than that. But that's not wrong. I mean,

they think he's like the Messiah, or, you know, he's working on God's behalf. I mean, they call him Q plus, right? Like he's like Q's boss. And so, you know, he's working on God's behalf. I mean, they call him Q+, right? Like, he's like Q's boss. And so, you know, some of them call him like the God Emperor of the United States, right? And so... Geotis? Yeah. And so these guys, I mean, they're into it. I mean, they're not gonna say, oh, well, I don't know, I think Ron DeSantis might be a little more effective or whatever. I mean, they think it's got to be him. And they think that he's gonna bring about a utopia, like that they personally will be saved by him. The thing I wonder is now that there are so many high level Republicans who we've seen embrace QAnon, Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mike Flynn, fucking Ginny Thomas, Clarence Thomas's wife is, you know, sending texts to Mark Meadows around January 6th, just repeating QAnon conspiracy

theories. And what I can never figure out is like, which of these people are doing it because they want votes, because they are grifters, and which of these people have actually been red pilled much like some of these QAnon followers? Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I think Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are sort of a useful example to look at. I mean, in Lauren Boebert's case, she says on one podcast, admittedly with a QAnon promoter,

but she says sort of like, yeah, you know, I hope that's real. That's more of my mom's thing. You know, on one hand, it's pretty crazy to say you hope Hillary Clinton is drinking kids' blood or whatever. But you can see she's kind of trying to avoid offending them, but saying like, yeah, maybe maybe not my thing. Martyr Taylor Greene, meanwhile, was like in these boards, she was on Facebook debating like

the veracity of various QAnon clues. I mean, she was, I would say, like top two or 3% of like hardcore into it. And at that point, you're not getting any votes from that, like that is your thing. You know, in the case of Ginny Thomas, I think that's so fascinating, that text message where, you know, she says to Mark Meadows, Thomas, I think that's so fascinating, that text message where, you know, she says to Mark Meadows, hey, I hear this whole election was sort of like a trap to catch these Democratic fraudsters, and that the ballots are going to turn out to be fake, and then they'll all get sent to Guantanamo Bay. I mean, that is crazy stuff to be saying for the, you know, the wife of a Supreme Court

justice and a big time Republican activist in her own right, that they would just be laying it out like that. I mean, I think there are just a lot of examples of how high this, it's like a brain disease, you know, I mean, how high it has gone in the Republican Party. And I didn't know that Mike Flynn was caught on tape by, I think he was like secretly courted by Lin Wood. That's the one of the crazy people in Georgia that was around the election denial stuff. And Mike Flynn was caught saying that like, oh, I don't really believe in this stuff. Yeah, it's fascinating. I mean, Michael Flynn is he's like the, you know, maybe next to Trump, the biggest hero in QAnon, this idea he was this martyr to the deep state. And so that, you know, he's going to help Trump, maybe he is Q, they think. And so he's going to help Trump. And then he seems to have realized, well, I have legal fees to pay, you know, and I'm getting paid to appear

at these events, and they donate to my legal fund. So he starts appearing at these conventions, and really like, you know, in a very like, he's doing like a QVC type thing. Like he's, you know, he goes and he auctions off like Q quilts, or they'll have like a bad Photoshop. It looks like a like an AI generated thing of him as like a Revolutionary War soldier, someone will pay five grand for it and all this stuff. And so then he as we find out, because these guys love feuding, and they love taping each other, which is it makes my job so easy. And so you know, like someone like a little further field, like Steven Crowder secretly, you know, taping Ben Shapiro's company, whatever. And so he

Michael Flynn is saying to Lin Wood, who is himself a hardcore QAnon believer, he's saying, you know, this QAnon stuff's a psyop. It's meant, created by the CIA to make Republicans look bad. Now, apparently, it's a psyop he's more than happy to participate in, you know, and make money from. But privately, he's saying this is nuts. This is all part of my theory that which is not novel or anything that like this is such an american brand of proto-fascism right like and that trump

represents better than anyone which is probably why uh he was elected uh he was he's leading the republican party right now but it's it's farce it's camp it is uh grifters right it's all about like making money and entertainment but it's also dark and violent right like we were saying before it's like both of those it has all of these elements to it that are just very american that you would not see in other places in other countries and other times yeah i mean there's this pageantry to it i mean there's there is so much silliness, right? I mean, there's these weird characters and there's like one of the JFK Jr. guys

will pull up in a Lamborghini and everyone's like, yeah, you know, and there's all this silliness to it. But at its heart, they really just want to, you know, frankly, they want to murder people. I mean, they imagine or they want someone to do it on their behalf. Right, because if you really do believe

that the kids are in tunnels, that someone's drinking their blood, then you're going to want to do it on their behalf. Right. Because if you really do believe that the kids are in tunnels, that someone's drinking their blood, then you're going to want to do something about it. Yeah. And if you don't really believe it, then you're just buying into a conspiracy to make money or to joke around or to join a community. I don't know what.

Exactly. I mean, you rev up people with this idea that the most heinous crimes in the world are taking place, committed by the most powerful people, and no one's doing anything about it. You know, it's sort of inevitable that ultimately people are gonna start committing violence to stop it. So there's now a conspiracy theory candidate running in the Democratic primary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He's not QAnon, but there are certainly shades of QAnon in some of his beliefs, the vaccines, stolen elections, CIA assassinations. Steve Bannon

recently said to The Atlantic that where the populist right and populist left overlap, that's who Kennedy's appealing to. And he called it the Tucker-Rogan-Elon-Bannon combo platter. Do you think there's any overlap between the far left and the far right when it comes to some of these conspiracy theories and just having a conspiratorial nature in general? Yeah, I would say so. I mean, often, I think people are drawn to conspiracy theories, because they've already gotten into something else that's a little kooky and often harmless. But the term for it is like stigmatized knowledge. So something that you get into that the mainstream consensus is like, this is stupid. So for example,

a lot of people who get into QAnon, or some people that were early into Bitcoin, and so they were told, that's so dumb, that's so dumb, and then they made a lot of money off of it. And so then they say, well, maybe this thing's, you know, everyone told me I was dumb for that. Or people who are into like natural healing, or alternative medicine, or, you know, again, like anti-vaccine stuff, all these things that draw them in. And then you say, well, it's like a cafeteria. You can get whatever you want once you're in there. And so, for example, I talked to a good amount of people who would have relatives who were sort of like very crunchy types or very into astrology, or this guy's mom was involved

in a natural oils MLM. And then suddenly her MLM boss said, hey, have you heard of QAnon? And get sucked into it through that. And so I think there's a huge amount of overlap. I mean, not said, hey, have you heard of QAnon? And get sucked into it through that. And so I think there's a huge amount of overlap. I mean, not to I think, you know, people online hate talking about horseshoe theory, right? This idea that I do think there is that connection. And often because of, you know, people who are very sort of anti establishment or skeptical of institutions, sometimes to a healthy extent. And like I said, I mean, there are things like, like Jeffrey Epstein, or like corporate abuses, all these things

that draw people into these sort of countercultural or skeptical places. And then they just keep going way too far. Yeah, I mean, clearly, that's RFK Jr, what you've seen from this candidacy, right? Like the guy starts as an environmental lawyer. And so that job has him going up against all kinds of corporations who are, you know, doing some bad things. And so therefore you think, okay, well, corporate actors, people with a lot of power, people with a lot of money, they sometimes do bad things. They try to get away with shit. They try to conspire with each other to do bad stuff. And that starts leading you down a path. And, you know, a lot of times, there is a lot of truth to all that. But then that leads you down a path where suddenly,

everyone in power, everyone with money and status and everything like that, they're getting together and they're trying to figure out how to screw everyone else over. And, you know, I'm the only truth teller and I'm standing up for people and the experts are always wrong. And, you know, I'm the only truth teller, and I'm standing up for people and the experts are always wrong. And they tell us that we're, they think we're stupid, and they think we're dumb, but like, we'll show them that really does seem to be sort of a growing sentiment in the country, regardless of like traditional political ideology. Yeah, I think that stance of sort of like, you can't tell me what to do, or this, like, I don't trust experts, or you know, what is this? What is this doctor? What is this academic know that I don't know?

I mean, certainly something we see a lot reflected a lot with anti vaccine stuff, you know, and really throughout, I think that kind of, I guess they would call it populist, that kind of like reflexive contrarianism. I mean, you talk about the Elon Musk, Bannon, very flattering of Bannon to include himself in that, you know, to say is like, you know, the biggies, Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and me, you know, the but certainly, I think there's a lot to that. You, you talked to a lot of people who've lost family members to QAnon. And I think those stories are both heartbreaking and incredibly frustrating. Because, you know, as you point out, there just aren't many effective strategies to

pull people out of QAnon. You wrote that one thing experts who studied QAnon exit methods almost all agree on is that the most obvious and temporarily satisfying option, a full frontal debunking assault is also the worst. Why is that? Yeah, I mean, it these are people who if you've gotten into QAnon, you really don't trust any normal source of truth that we would believe, like a scientific journal or the scientific community or the government or anything like that, or the media. And so as a result, anything they see, they're going to say, well, yeah, of course, you know, this group would say, the National Institute of Health would say that, you know, don't you know, they got a grant from George Soros? I mean, all this stuff. And, you

know, it also, it just makes people mad, you know, even, and it's a very frustrating thing to try to get someone out of QAnon, because they're often, the QAnon believers are often very condescending about it. They're like, you dummy, don't you know George Soros is drinking kids' blood? And so it's not easy at all. And so I think there's really no one way to get people out of it. Often it's very idiosyncratic. Like, someone will have something that is a field of expertise that they're in and they'll see QAnon say something they know to be a lie. And they'll say, well, wait a minute. If that's not true, what else might not be true?

But really the best advice, and it's kind of hard to put into practice, is just getting them offline, you know, name of the podcast, and getting them to do something else or get obsessed with something that's just, you know, more of the podcast, and getting them to do something else or get obsessed with something that's just, you know, more relaxed and less malevolent, like fantasy baseball or something. There's a guy in the book who's like, God, maybe I'll get my son back into fantasy baseball, just like anything to just, you know, sort of direct these attentions elsewhere.

Yeah, I've thought about this a lot. Because if the problem at the heart of so many of these sort of fringe extremist movements is social isolation, then a lot of times I think they find that these communities as destructive as they are as the answer. And so I think what we have to do is sort of get people to join communities that are not destructive, that are healthy, that are productive. And the more we can do that for people and sort of fight this social isolation, anxiety that comes with it, all these other problems,

then you might be able to pull some people out of it or at least prevent people from falling into the rabbit hole in the first place. Yeah, I mean, I think often people who get really into QAnon, they track their radicalization really accurately, but I mean, I think often people who get really into QAnon, they track their radicalization really accurately, but I mean, but they they like it. And so they'll say, you know, yes, it was when I got this disease, and I lost all my savings, because I didn't have insurance,

or I lost my job, and I lost my house and all these things. And so you can see these desperate straits that drive people into QAnon. You know, we talked about some of the more systemic issues, obviously, there's individual reasons people join this, but lack of trust in experts and institutions, political polarization, obviously social isolation. You've said that unless something changes, QAnon isn't a one-time phenomenon. It's a glimpse into our future. What do you think that future looks like? And what else do we need to change sort of on a systemic level? Yeah, I mean, I think a huge aspect of QAnon that is new versus something maybe conspiracy theories 20 years ago is social media. And so just one aspect that really can fire up these

conspiracy theories and allow people who wouldn't be able to connect and reinforce one another to find each other instantly. And so I think that is something that's also really fueling this sort of just like not having really even caring what the truth is. I talked to the Never Trump pollster, Sarah Longwell for the book. And she said that a lot of the Republicans she talks to are in sort of a post-truth nihilism. Like they don't, it's not that, you know, when we talk about debunking, it's not that they really are like even seeking out the truth. They just think that effectively, you know, they're like, well, the left doesn't believe in anything either, I might as well pick whatever lie or whatever fiction is most comforting to me, because, you know, screw them. And so it's not like these people are really like, even honestly, trying to ascertain reality.

And so I think that's really what we're headed for. Until like, you know, in terms of what to do about it, I mean, just sort of making life a little less desperate for people often. And you know, this is, you know, trying to improve the social safety net, I say in the book, I mean, these are obviously very broad stroke solutions. But I think, you know, when people talk at sort of a more micro level, like information literacy classes, stuff like this, I mean, Republicans are banning books by like Toni Morrison, they're not going to let you have a class in a red state that says, maybe you don't trust Infowars, stuff like that. And so I think just like it's so often when I talk to people, it is just the kind of just the griminess and the these really tough positions they find themselves in life that draw them to believing that Donald Trump is going to cure all diseases and, you know, really act as their as their hero that gets them into it. Yeah, it's interesting you say that, because, you know, I know there's this sort of interminable debate about Trump voters and are they really economically anxious or they're just racist? And I don't think that, you know, economic anxiety is on its own is what led to Trump. I think there's a lot of research about

that now. But I do think that there is despair doesn't necessarily just have to be economic, though. Sometimes it is and sometimes it's financial sometimes it is a feeling of loneliness sometimes it's a lack of purpose right and i do think that where the country has been headed for the last several decades is you see growing inequality you see more social isolation and it is it's all the conditions that you would imagine lead to sort of a conspiratorial worldview, conspiratorial movements, grievance, populism, right? Like all of this stuff sort of flows from the larger context that we're in right now. And one thing that you said that stuck with me is that so many of these people feel disrespected and marginalized already. And so that when we

approach them by belittling them or telling them that they're crazy or any other that kind of stuff that not only does that not help the situation, but it actually sort of probably recruits more people, you know, makes them dig in further. And I don't know what to do about that. Like, it's not a i'm not saying we should all go be nice to each other but i do or nice to the people who are um you know crazy q anon people who want to commit violence but i do i do wonder if like just sort of the overall tone of our politics sort of contributes to this right now like i don't know i don't have any good solutions here.

Yeah, I mean, I think it does. And look, I mean, I think Republicans have been sort of much more advanced on on turning things, you know, very toxic and ugly. At the same time, I think, you know, hopefully, at least understanding perhaps why people are often drawn to these conspiracy theories and what sort of that it's not just sort of a couple wackos that I've uncovered online, you know, but that is often your neighbors. And, you know, it's people who can talk totally normally, and then just be like, oh, by the way, did you know that Barack Obama like drank a kid's blood? You know, it's not just sort of like a raving lunatic, like someone like, like the Q shaman, I think is a real kind of like classic face of QAnon. Really, it's often just sort of normal people who have really fallen

into it. Yeah, no, I keep thinking about the story you tell about the father and the son and the son and, you know, comes in one day and it's just like, oh, by the way, there's going to be a rest soon. And that was it. And the father keeps going back through the kid's life. And it's like, where did we go wrong? Where did this happen? You know, and it just made me think like on an individual, you know, we talk about sort of the bigger societal context, but on an individual level, a lot of this is about sort of how, you know, if it happened to you in your life and if it was a family member, like how would you deal with it, right? Like you wouldn't scream at the person, you wouldn't tell, you know, you would try to, I guess you would try

to, first you try to reason, that wouldn't work. Then you try to maybe empathize and bring them along. But, you know, it's a more complicated set of strategies and approaches than I think we might imagine. Yeah, I mean, it's really complex. I mean, honestly, I mean, and, you know, often when these people, particularly at the start of QAnon, when there was just not a lot of writing on it, people would email me and say, like, you know, you're one of the only people who's written about it. How do I get my spouse, how do I get my mother out of QAnon? And, you know, you're one of the only people who's written about it. How do I get your my my spouse? How do I get my mother out of QAnon? And, you know, I in sort of a very intense case, this woman's basically her sister was sucked into what, you know, basically a cult, a QAnon cult in Arizona said you got to get her out of it.

And so, you know, it really is often, you know, I can say is like, yeah, you're in a really tough situation. Well, Summer, thank you for going down this rabbit hole and staying there for so long so that you could report on this to the rest of us. I think it is, you know, it can be silly. It can sound crazy. It's also very serious and a little bit scary, especially as we head into another election where Trump is running openly embracing Q.

So thank you for the book. Everyone should go check it out. Trust the Plan, fantastic book. And thanks for coming on Offline. Thanks for having me. All right, we are back. I'm here with Max Fisher. Hey, buddy.

Hey there. We got some big social media news to cover. Oh, I'm ready to do some extreme data scraping and system manipulation, personally. I mean, the big news is Mark Zuckerberg's new Twitter copycat app is here. It's called Threads. It's got 10 million signups. John, are you threading? In the first seven hours, we'll talk about it. Are you threading? In the first seven hours, we'll talk about it. Are you threading again?

Jesus. Before we get to that, let's talk about another social media stunner from last week. Elon Musk is a huge supporter of the offline challenge. He really is. Did not expect him. Continues to do a solid for us. Did not expect him to be such a fan. But here's the headline from the New York Times.

Musk says Twitter is limiting number of posts users can read. Last Saturday, Elon claimed that due to concerns over extreme data scraping. It's the worst kind of data scraping. The worst kind. Verified accounts will be limited to reading 6,000 posts per day. Unverified accounts to 600 posts. And new unverified accounts to be limited to reading 6,000 posts per day. Unverified accounts to 600 posts. And new unverified accounts to only 300 posts. Later, these limits went up to 10,000, 1,500, where I believe they are today.

Are they? I think so. I had a very hard time figuring out what is actually still in force with this. Yeah, I will just say, I have not hit a rate limit. Well, as a verified user. I mean, as the... But I'm a verified user who's also an addict. Yes, that's true. You could hit that.

You know, so I did not hit it. As an unverified peasant down here in the mud, it's very easy to hit 600. That's not very many tweets. Yeah, that's not a lot of tweets. It wasn't clear why concerns over data scraping resulted in tweet limits for everyone uh but by tuesday the company offered a new excuse they did it to quote detect and eliminate bots and other bad actors and that quote any advanced notice on these actions would have allowed bad actors to alter their behavior and evade detection he's he's so brilliant shutting down his own

business blowing up his own amusement park to like own the bots it's just have you been able to figure out what the hell's going on here so my assumption is whenever elon musk brings up bots that he is 100 lying it's like every like when he didn't want to buy Twitter, he was like, oh, it's because of the bots that I don't want to buy it. Right. The strongest theory that I have heard is that Twitter owed a bunch of money on their subscription they have for Google, which they pay for cloud hosting that they couldn't or didn't want to pay anymore. They've been refusing to pay for a while. Google gave them an ultimatum that said, if you don't have things off of our service by June 30th, we're just going to shut them down. And sure enough, the day after that was the day that Elon Musk announced his bot sweeping clear hunter killer operation, which just happened to shut down a lot of the service. I thought I read somewhere, though, that the the new CEO like

authorized the payment or something. Maybe it just was like late, but I don't know. I mean, it's equally definitely a theory that I've heard or the Google servers theory. Maybe it just was late. I don't know. That's definitely a theory that I've heard. The Google servers theory. It's equally possible that just the service is collapsing from within, which is like every Twitter engineer who leaves is like, there's no support beams holding up the building anymore. Yeah, that seems very likely to me.

And I get that there are concerns generally about data scraping around the these large, the large language models. Sure. Yeah. The AI models. They're just like scraping data from all these different apps and websites.

I don't, again, I have not been able to find any reasoning why concern over that, which could be legitimate concern. Right. Somehow translates to rate limits. I mean, if your business is trying to get people to browse your platform to look at ads so you can sell ads to them, and if that business is collapsing, as it has been for months on Elon Musk, this does not make a lot of sense as a decision. So I think it's pretty safe to assume that he got forced into this and then just pasted an explanation on it.

Did you notice a difference on the surface while this was happening? No. I just noticed it was, I mean, everyone was like, okay, I'm finally doing it. I'm leaving for blue sky or I'm leaving for this or that.

So there was another round. There's been a couple rounds of this. People being like, I'm leaving, this is over. I felt like this might have been the biggest. I think it was because I felt like I and a lot of people I knew hit the rate limit really quickly.

And it was just the site was really glitchy and not working all weekend. And there was like a lot of news I was really trying to follow. There was like a lot of stuff happening in the West Bank where there's this thing going on in Jenin, this Palestinian city that I really wanted to follow. And all of a sudden the platform like really kind of didn't work. I mean, this is the first time it felt to me like the service really could death spiral. He broke it. I really did kind of break the site.

Yeah. And when you do that, you break user habit and users don't start coming back. And like the super addicts, like you and me, we're going to come back every time because we're degenerates and we have a problem, but you're like, what you have to worry about is the like casual users who formed 90% of the user base. And if they try to log on to Twitter and they can't read tweets they're going to be like screw this I'm going to do something else. It's also clearly been the service has been degrading over time there have been outages

it breaks down and aside from the technical aspects of it dying it's also a platform now where a bunch of blue check marks who are mostly Elon fanboys who are paying $8 a month. Now they reply to everything with stupid shit. And those replies are pushed to the top. So it's overwhelmingly what you see makes the service really hard to read. It's a lot of just complaining about Twitter, right? Complaining about Elon, Elon complaining about things, Elon saying everything is interesting. Which to be fair, welcome welcome to the offline podcast That's what we do But we don't have any reply guys here Thank god

At least we're not boosting them It was kind of like a bittersweet weekend For me a little bit Not for personal reasons I had a great weekend With Twitter and social media, because I like, this is not new information to you. I am somewhat of a critic of social media platforms.

Yeah, I know. But seeing the platform really break like this at a moment when I was trying to follow like real world events and talking to so many other reporters and journalists who like suddenly can't use it. And I feel like really confronting that, like this might go away.

There are parts of that that I think are really bad and that I think we really miss. No, I felt this a couple of times before is, you know, you and I and a lot of other people complain about Twitter, complain about Twitter for a bunch of good reasons. Even pre Elon Musk takeover. Absolutely. And then you're like staring at Twitter's death and you're like, oh, that's actually a few use cases that are pretty important. Like what you were trying to do this weekend. I noticed in the Times article about this, some people who use it for meteorology and weather and stuff like that, like they couldn't use it. And they're like, we need this to like monitor weather events around the world.

So there's a lot of people who like rely on Twitter for things that are more important than, you know, takes. Right, takes. Right. Right. Do you think on net, are we better or worse off as a society of Twitter implodes, which it very well could, I think literally any day now.

If it implodes and nothing takes its place, we're about to talk about threads, but if, if nothing took its place, yeah, it's a good question. I still think we're probably better off. I,

I lean that way too. I think there are plenty of downsides to it there's a lot of things that we'd be missing and we'd be worse off for but net I think better off I have been thinking a lot about it too because seeing all these competitors rise up and really fail to capture that Twitter momentum

has reminded me that Twitter first got big not because it was the place where people went online to dunk on each other's bad takes, but because it was the center of the green revolution in Iran, like the Arab Spring. And it was this place where it felt like news was not just being reported there really quickly, but was actually where major world events were happening on the platform. And I think if Twitter goes away, I don't think that we get that back. And I think that that is a loss. I don't know how you balance it

against the many harms that Twitter has also brought to our world, though. Yeah, no, look, I think news aggregation and curation is important. And that's what Twitter is good for. I think relying on a broader spectrum

of voices and expertise that is not just, you know, the big couple, handful of major media outlets that are still alive. I think that's important too. So I all think that's worth saving, which brings us to our next conversation. As a result of the tweet limit debacle, there was plenty of tooting and skeeting over the weekend. Big loved it. Listen, it's 4th of July.

People got to let loose and toot and skeet. They got to toot, they got to skeet. So some... A lot of people were sharing their blue sky handles, begging for an invite code. I know. This caused a blue sky to periodically go down. Another big champion in the social media space

can't get on it doesn't work can't join it one of the many reasons the platform doesn't seem quite ready for prime time i don't think it's there now um i gave up on mastodon long ago i don't even know what's going on there i'm not on it myself they're tooting up a storm over there um which all which brings us to this week's big announcement from Meta. They've launched a Twitter alternative called Threads that's connected to Instagram, basically. It's a new app, but it's connected to Instagram. I don't know how to say that. It's of Instagram.

It's weird that it's basically built on top of Instagram. When I went to try to load up Threads, I opened up Instagram because I understood there was some sort of connection. I already had a bunch of Thread friend requests on Instagram. When I went to try to load up threads, I opened up Instagram because I understood there was some sort of connection. I already had a bunch of thread friend requests on Instagram. And it connects your friends from one to the other. Your account from one to the other is connected, which has caused some concerns because you cannot delete your thread account without also deleting your Instagram account. Oh, that's interesting. Which means you are involuntarily on threads as long as you are an Instagram user, which is awfully aggressive. I will say, very easy though.

Sure. You sign up like Blue Sky, you're signing up and you're like, oh, I gotta start from scratch, follow all these people. Who am I following? I'm following five people. I feel like I've lost, you know.

On threads, it's just like it imports your bio from Instagram and your picture and all your friends that you're following. And suddenly, you know, you've got all your followers. Right. And you're just like right in it again. And it's being referred to, meta executives have referred to it as the sanely run Twitter. That's their pitch. And look.

Man, when Facebook is pitching itself as the responsible guy in the room holy shit are we in trouble well so what do you are we all are we all getting back together with Zuck now

or is this our so the funny thing about threads my impression and I'm really curious to hear what you think is you open it up and at first

it looks like Twitter but then if you spend more than a few minutes on it you realize oh this is just the Facebook news feed circa 2015 it's the exact same

it's like all algorithm like you can follow people but what you're seeing on the feed is not people you follow it's what the algorithm much like on the Facebook news feed is deciding that you should follow. It's a ton of like brands. I'm getting a lot of like annoying weird memes and like jokey photos and it just like it feels like being back on Facebook because I'm sure it's built on that same algorithm technology. So it's so on that same algorithm technology. So it's so funny. We all fled Facebook and now they're trying to bring us back, but they're pretending it's Instagram.

Yes. So I think it is just like Twitter, except for two major problems that you're referencing. One is the threads don't come up in reverse chronological order, which is the hallmark of Twitter. Yeah. And important if you are using this platform to follow the news. So I do think they need to fix that. Although they have been moving away from following the news for a long time. Like Facebook has not been a news-forward app since 2017.

Instagram has been scaling it back. So they feel, for whatever reason, and as you're saying, this cuts against their idea to replace Twitter, that they don't want to be a news app, I don't think. And even if they don't want to lean into news or be a news app, there's still plenty of reasons

to want to see what is new in your feed. Forget about news, but what is new in your feed at the top? Because otherwise, like, I don't know, something from 10 hours ago and people are posting something and you're like, is that new? That thought? Is that from old? Are you referencing something that just happened? So that sucks.

And then they need a feed. And I heard they're moving towards this or they're going to have this at some point. There's need to be a feed of only people that you follow. Right now you can go into notifications and you can select see first threads from only people you follow and not from everyone. For some reason that only kind of works. Because if someone you follow replies to the thread of someone you don't follow, you still see that.

I selected that option and I still am seeing a bunch of shit that I don't want to see from people. So I would love them to fix that. I think you're right that the kind of central contradiction within threads is that they have built it to replace Twitter but have not understood at all what the appeal, the original primary appeal of Twitter is, which is following the news. And they're trying to just make it like the Facebook experience. They think here's the combination of memes and posts that will get you to spend time on it. So Adam Masseri was on Hard Fork.

They did a special episode where they interviewed him. Nice offline. Nice offline. And he was basically saying that the hallmark of what he wanted to do with threads is sort of decentralization. So you can see toots on there. You can see skeets, tweets.

Wow. You'll be able to take your following from threads to other apps eventually. So they want it to be like very decentralized. I don't know how that helps Facebook and Instagram. It certainly helps the user. I mean, if it's getting people onto their platform, then they can sell ads against it.

So they can sell ads against your skeets. He basically called that a... It's an ad-supported skeet. That would be a champagne problem. And that if they eventually have enough users to run ads, they will put ads in the feeds. That's probably the most likely move. But that's like way down the road. But he was like, I'm not going to...

He's like, I'm not going to... You know what? I appreciated that he was like, I'm not going to, he's like, I'm not going to, he was, you know, I appreciated that he was like, I'm not going to be, you know, coy about this. We believe in ads. And so that's probably something we'll do someday. But for right now, we're just going to see how many people we can get to sign up, which has been a lot so far. So can I tell you, I think two cons and two pros about Threads. Great. Two cons. Number one, it is a personal privacy absolute devastating nightmare. I was just going to ask you that because that was Jack Dorsey's response. Yeah.

Is that he posted the Threads privacy policy, which is also Instagram and Meta's privacy policy, and tweeted, all your threads belong to us now. Yeah. belong to us now. Yeah, so they are tracking, it's the same data that Instagram tracks, which is health and fitness information, which is so creepy. Your location, which is terrifying. Where do they get my health

and fitness information from? It's, you'll have apps on your phone that are, you know, your fitness app, your step tracker, stuff like that. So they are packaging that up

and selling it. Cool. Which is, it's awesome. Yeah. Your location data, all of your contacts, which is part of how they have all your friends preloaded on there, and your search history, including, you know, maybe searches you don't want to be selling to advertisers and your usage data. So basically everything you're doing on your phone, they are

hoovering up and then selling to third parties, which of course it's, it's easy to forget. But five or six years ago, we were all outraged at Facebook for doing this, and they have just continued to do it. And Twitter's not doing that. Twitter is not doing it to the same extent. They certainly would like to track you and sell their ads, but the ads experience on Twitter is not as swoopy. And a big part of Facebook's business has always been just using the fact that their app is on your phone to hoover up and select your data and then to sell it off. So that is a big part of why they want to get you onto threads. And that also, I think, speaks to why would Facebook want to get into this business in

the first place? Because there's something kind of funny about all these companies. They're just a benevolent. They want information to be free and to bring us into a new era of human unrighteousness. They do. They want to connect us all together. It is something funny seeing all these companies trying to divvy up the Twitter market,

but the Twitter market, even when Twitter controlled 100% of it, is not worth money. It's a money-losing market, but Facebook believes they can make money on it because they take more of your data, which is worth more. So let's talk about our experiences on it so far.

Do you want me to tell you the cons and the pros? Oh, I'm sorry. I totally forgot that you had other cons. I forgot there were pros too. Continue. I got so many threads on threads here. The other con is just, I think it's important to remember that Facebook is one of the most irresponsible companies of the digital era. They have been, we know, warned repeatedly about their system, not just allowing but promoting hate, medical misinformation, election misinformation, incitement to genocide that led to actual genocide, and over and over again just ignoring it because they wanted to make more money. So I think it's very safe to assume that this will be a drastically more irresponsibly run Twitter clone. It will be run by more grownups, whereas Twitter is very chaotically run

and was under Jack Dorsey too. But it was, I mean, their track record is just truly appalling. Do you think they did this as part of Instagram or under Instagram because the brand for Instagram is better than Facebook? The brand is a lot better and the usage stats on who uses Instagram is much better and especially young people are using Instagram. But Facebook has been in either very stagnant or in free fall for years in terms of its user base and especially time online, whereas Instagram is growing and especially used by young people. But I'm sure you're right. It's also part of the branding.

Pros? Pros. Number one, it is a clear-cut, holy shit, antitrust violation. And we'd love to give a big opening to the FTC to just, you know, help buoy the IRS a little bit with a couple more billies. Do you think anything will come of that? Absolutely. I mean, one of the biggest antitrust cases in the history of tech was when Microsoft, if you remember this, in the 90s was preloading Internet Explorer on their machine. So using their dominance of the PC market in order to monopolize the browser market. And that's exactly what Meta is doing, using its control over the photo sharing market via Instagram to try to dominate the micro-blocking market. And you see it in the fact that it's the same account, one built into the other. The fact that you don't opt into the service, that they plug you directly into it, and that the two accounts are linked.

I mean, the whole thing is just a giant waving red flag to the FTC. But you don't have to... If you are on Instagram, you don't have to join Threads. You are already on Threads. When I opened up a threads account, I already had a hundred friend invites. Right, but you chose to open up the threads account, right? I did. I'm just wondering if like, well, it's

hard to go back now because we're on threads, but if I just opened up Instagram, didn't want to join threads, they're not going to make me download, like you wouldn't, they wouldn't make you download the app. They don't force you to spend time on it in the way that Microsoft did not force you to spend time on Internet Explorer. But it's still. But they are using Instagram to shoehorn you into it and to aggressively push you into it in a way that I think is, I mean,

not a lawyer, but I play one on podcasts, like certainly seems to me like exactly the sort of antitrust violation that the FTC loves to go after. Well, while we're on the legal, before we go to your next pro. Sure. Did you see that Elon is threatening to sue them? I did. That whole thing, it just reeked of a like, I'm over here too, guys. Like, don't forget about your old pal Twitter.

Like, we also let you do posts. I know. That's what I heard when I read that. Opal Twitter. We also let you do posts. We. I know. That's what I heard when I read that. I just feel like everything he does is just, it's got to be for attention. Another pro. I forgot. I don't know.

Probably wasn't very good. I was trying to come up with something to be balanced, but I just don't think it's very good service. I feel like everything is very chaotic right now. That might be because this is the third recording I've had today, and so it's a little busy. Also, you're on 18 social media microblogging apps. That's why. And I was just like, okay, I'm on Twitter still.

I'm trying out threads because I know we were talking about it today. I'm still skeeting once in a while. I'm not skeeting. But I'm on Blue Sky. And I'm just like talking about it today. I'm still skeeting once in a while. I'm not skeeting. But I'm on Blue Sky. And I'm just like, someone fucking pick. I don't care. Because I don't like Elon Musk. I don't like Mark Zuckerberg.

I don't trust either of them. But for all the reasons we've talked about, I do think it's useful to have some kind of news-oriented micro-blogging service somewhere that's sanely run. And I know that it will come with downsides, whether it's addiction, whether it's all the other downsides we've talked about. But I want one, and I don't want multiple apps. I mean, that was always part of the value of Twitter,

is it was the center of activity, whatever the thing was. If something popped off and there were protests in, I mean, there were the protests in Ukraine in popped off and there were protests in, I mean, you know, the protests in Ukraine in 2014, like you didn't have to think, do they use Twitter in Ukraine? Is it popular there? You just knew that that was going to be like, people were going to be on the ground. People were going to be talking about it. And I actually think that if Twitter implodes, I don't think this will be where you and I go, but I think the kind of like

world events news activity will actually move to Telegram. To Telegram? Yeah, because that's where a lot of this is happening now anyway. And it's like, Telegram is like kind of a pain in the ass to use and it's kind of a pain in the ass to plug into pre-existing communities. But like, Telegram has been huge in Ukraine since the war started. Anytime there's like a big thing popping off someplace in the world, if you talk to the like open source people, they're all following it on telegram now my hunch on threads is that

it will evolve to give users uh and and particularly twitter users what they are asking for and even though it looks like the news feed now, I don't think Zuckerberg has been very shy about just wanting to copy whatever is popular out there. And so if where the crowd is, is, hey, give us reverse chronological order and let us only see who we're following and make it more like Twitter. I think he'll give them that, give people that. I think that's true. A part of his, you might say genius, you might say evil genius. And Adam Massaris too has always been using their data to figure out the difference between what people say they want and what will actually engage people, which is not necessarily what they want or

what makes them happy. But that's part of why Facebook turned into what it turned into. It's part of why Instagram works the way it does is because they realize that people say they want X, they want world news, they want information, they want headlines, but what will actually get them to spend 5% more time online are dumb memes from your aunt and provocative vaccine misinformation.

And I think that if they figure out that's what's going to serve people, then everything in their corporate history suggests that that is what they will give people to keep them online. And that's what I'm looking for. Well, I have great news for you from the U.S. District Court

for the Western District of Louisiana then. Oh boy, oh boy. So our last story, a Trump-appointed federal judge there in Louisiana ruled over the weekend that the federal government isn't allowed to communicate with social media companies for, quote, the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring or inducing any manner of the removal, deletion, suppression or reduction of content containing protected free speech. The judge also said that he believes the plaintiffs in this case are likely to prove this was an initial injunction. The case will continue to go forward. And he believes the plaintiffs are likely to prove that the federal government has, quote, used its power to silence the opposition, opposition to covid-19 vaccines, masking lockdowns, the lab leak theory, opposition

to the validity of the 2020 election statements at the Hunter Biden laptop was true, all were suppressed, according to this judge. It's just sounds like fucking Donald Trump or Elon Musk just posting. That's what this judge sounds like. I mean, if you read Matt Taibbi, basically, it was a Matt Taibbi thread turned into a judicial. Well, I mean, I think that's part of the origin for it which we'll talk about like if you read the injunction it really does read like some like unhinged gateway pundit post about this like anytime any far-right post or account has been taken down off social media it's part of a government conspiracy to suppress the right or anytime vaccine misinformation has been removed it's part of this plot to suppress the right supposedly it's really like wackadoo internet addict stuff do you think this uh do you think this like survives i mean i don't i don't see like i know we could get into a whole nother conversation about the judicial system

which i've been involved in and the other pods i've done today um and it's going great it's going great but i do this is some crazy shit in this yeah in this ruling and it's going great, right? It's going great. But this is some crazy shit in this ruling. And it's like there is no, I haven't seen any evidence of. What's happened here is the government, different agencies in the government, depending on what the topic is, have developed relationships with some of these social media platforms where they say, hey, we think this is disinformation. Just letting you know. Right. Just flagging it. Flagging. Right. Do what you will. Which the platforms are asking for, hey, we think this is disinformation. Just letting you know. Right. Just flagging it. Flagging.

Right. Do what you will. Which the platforms are asking for, too. Right. And sometimes the platform has, the platforms have taken stuff down. Sometimes they have not. Sure. Sometimes they have probably regretted taking stuff down. Right.

Like around the Hunter Biden laptop stuff. They thought for sure it was like a, you know, people thought it was like a Russian op. But to be clear, it's not like Joe Biden calling up Twitter and saying, remove this post because I don't like it. It's like the FBI saying there's incitement here or there's election misinformation here, or it's Department of Health and Human Services saying, here's what vaccine disinformation looks like, FYI. Or by the way, we have reason to believe that whether or not the Hunter Biden laptop story is real and true, the Russian government is looking to amplify it and add disinformation on top of it

with all kinds of accounts and bots and all that kind of stuff. So it's just like giving people, giving these fucking platforms a heads up. Right. And it's something that came out of especially 2020 and 2021 when we learned how dangerous this sort of content can be. And of course, there was a careful effort to try to

work with the platforms to help them identify it. It's not despite the stories that were the genesis for this ruling, which we should get into because they're their own thing. It's not suppression. It's just like sharing information to try to help make healthy platforms. Well, and also just to give an idea of like how difficult this is going to be to legislate, to dictate, whatever. The judge did make an exception for the government warning social media companies about national security threats, criminal activity or voter suppression. But then he was like, though the line is sort of fuzzy and that's part of what we're going to figure out together. And this, I don't know how you, how do you enforce any of that?

And it's a tacit concession that it's actually important and helpful and necessary to have some sort of government involvement. Again, not in suppressing the speech, but just in identifying what are harmful kinds of speech. So the thing that made me really mad about this is the genesis of this has been, I mean, there's been a like long running right wing conspiracy that first social media companies were trying to suppress the right. And that came basically out of 2016 and the revelation of the Russians trying to help Donald

Trump where just very strategically, the Republicans were like, no, no, actually they're suppressing the right. And there was like, as I'm sure we all remember a lot of extremism and disinformation coming from far right accounts. So then platforms started to remove that. And that was the genesis of the, aha, they hate the right, and they're trying to help the left conspiracy. But this specific conspiracy that this judge was pushing in this injunction actually comes from, weirdly enough, some left-wing writers. One of the first origins for it was a story that ran on The Intercept last year by these two writers, Ken Klippenstein and Lee Fang.

The story has since been completely debunked that suggests that these efforts at DHS and a couple agencies to understand and to track election and medical disinformation online were actually part of a vast Biden administration plot to suppress political speech that was not favorable to Joe Biden or the Democrats. There's no evidence of this. It's been repeatedly debunked. The Intercept refuses to take it down. It's an infamous story

because they name in it a number of academics who work on tracking deadly medical disinformation and provoke just ongoing waves of death threats and harassment against them. And then this got pushed to a much larger audience with, you remember the Twitter files? Yeah, yeah. Which I think, was that earlier this year? Unfortunately, I can't forget. And when Elon bought Twitter, he was like, I'm going to open up the archives and show about how Twitter has been complicit in this vast political suppression scheme on behalf of the

democratic government. And then again, Lee Fangang one of the same supposedly left-wing reporters who worked on the story helped with it along with matt taibi also a formerly left-wing guy whole thing that has like big horseshoe theory horseshoe theory vibes that was well everything's a government conspiracy right right right and it's a vast they're trying to suppress our speech the democrats are trying to control our thoughts and you see sections in this injunction that are almost like word for word echo what was in the Twitter files in this intercept story, which makes me mad because we should be better. Here's what I don't understand, though. And again, no legal experts here on this pod. But say this is upheld, right? So the government is not allowed to flag for the social media companies

uh potential disinformation that they just suggest maybe you want to take down but you know it's up to you can't the government then just publicize the instead of just sending an email to twitter just maybe post it on twitter i guess maybe post it maybe thread it maybe skeet it maybe toot it i mean if you like you to it, it's basically private. They cannot stop the fucking government from just talking about what they believe to be disinformation. Supreme Court to legislate what sort of contacts the government is allowed to have with social media companies and to try to limit and regulate those in a way that will be favorable to, of course, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court, which I think has always been the goal here. Yeah. I don't think they have Roberts on this one, though.

You think so? You think he's going to zag for us? Yeah. It's just that this is the kind of like super kooky stuff. That's true. He likes to make a show of saying, actually, I'm one of the good ones. He brings his buddy Brett along or Amy. It's nice. They'll do something like, I could imagine something like,

the government can't ask you to take it down. Right, which they're not doing anyway. But it seems nuts. I think you're probably right. And the fact that this injunction is so patently crazy and wackadoo on its face, I think you're probably right. And the fact that this injunction is so patently crazy and wackadoo on its face, I think you're right, will probably mean that it goes nowhere. But in the meantime, we get to have some more medical misinformation

and election disinformation just as a fun little treat for us. Yeah, well, I mean, there wasn't enough, so. I've always asked him for more. And that's why we're so excited about the launch of Threads. Well, that's all we have for today. Thanks to Will Sommer for joining us. And also, Rachel from our video team has put together a fantastic video. That's so fun.

That is a recap of the offline challenge. It's great. That you should all check out. Just a magical journey compressed down into 20 thrill a minute. You can find it on YouTube on the Pod Save America YouTube channel. And I guess we can

tweet it, thread it, toot it, skeet it. Sounds like a shitty Broadway song. Fuck, I hate myself. All right, Max. See you later. All right, Max. See you later. All right, buddy.

Offline is a Crooked Media production. It's written and hosted by me, John Favreau. It's produced by Austin Fisher. Emma Illick-Frank is our associate producer. Andrew Chadwick is our sound editor. Kyle Seglin, Charlotte Landis, and Vassilis Fotopoulos sound engineered the show. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Michael Martinez, Ari Schwartz, Amelia Montooth, and Sandy Gerard for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn and Rachel Gajewski, who film and share our episodes as videos every week. Hey, everyone. You might remember last week we had Dr. Abdul

El-Sayed on the show. He hosts a fantastic show here at Crooked Media called America Dissected, and he is joined by experts in politics, media, culture, and science to explore what's really making us sick and the forces we'll need to take on to keep all of us healthy. From insulin price gouging to ineffective sunscreens, America Dissected cuts deeper into the state of health in America. You can find America Dissected wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Tuesday.