Pivot - TikTok, Freedom, and the First Amendment with Jeff Kosseff

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

Kara and Scott talk big earnings at Salesforce, Amazon's HQ2 construction pause, and more executive departures at Apple. Also, TikTok ban bills are moving ahead, amid renewed GOP attacks on Big Tech. Plus, we’re joined by Friend of Pivot Jeff Kosseff to discuss how new bills aimed at online speech could challenge the First Amendment. You can find Jeff on Twitter at @jkosseff and you can preorder his book here. Hear Kara’s interview with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff here. You can read the Wall Street Journal Scott mentions in Wins and Fails here. Send us your questions! Call 855-51-PIVOT or go to nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Scott Galloway. How are you doing, Scott?

I'm in the midst, I think I'm like two days into a three-day hangover. I went out Saturday night to a place called The Vox, which is this sort of dirty vaudeville club in London. Oh, dear. And I keep forgetting that I'm not 57 again. No. I keep drinking too much, Kara. Oh, dear. We're going to have to have an intervention. I will fly to I'm not 57 again. I keep drinking too much, Cara. Oh, dear. We're going to have to have an intervention.

I will fly to London if I need to. I don't mind an intervention. I like it when we sit around and talk about me. Yes, that's true. I don't mind that at all. That's true. I don't mind that. I went to a basketball game last night with my son, Alex.

Yes. We went to see the Washington Wizards play the Milwaukee Bucks. It was a very close game. The Bucks won, but it was super close to the end. And we had, I actually, we had a lovely time. I bet. Yeah. It was very nice. There's a lot going on at basketball games.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's hard to argue with. There's a lot. I like dunking and dancing and noise. So I enjoyed it quite a bit. I enjoyed it quite a bit. And I don't like sports, as you know. Oh, really? I like the Miami Heat games because there's a ton of hot people. Oh, I don't.

This was not that. That was not the case here in Washington. Well, Milwaukee and Washington, that's kind of the land where hot people go to die. I mean, it's just. Yeah. Yeah. They've done a nice job. That downtown area used to be bombed out when I was younger, when I was working at the City Paper.

And, you know, with Ted Leonsis, who I know pretty well, who used to be there as well, has done. You know, it's owned by Ted and Lorraine Powell Jobs, the team is. But what they've done downtown is really spectacular. You know, it's very, like, lots of restaurants and funk going on, but it's actually so much better than what was there for so many years. They've really revived that area. I like a big event.

I don't do them very often, but I like it. That's nice. Yeah. I wasn't in a box. It wasn't a box. It was like lots of people. And Alex explained everything to me, none of which I was paying attention to because I was mostly interested in the dunkers and the dancers and all the noise that they made and stuff like that. But you were in the box.

What was the vaudeville? What was the vaudeville routine? To call it vaudeville, it's basically pornography with the style of vaudeville. It's very dirty and very- Strip, simulated sex, stuff like that. Yeah, you know, a hot woman dancing around and then what do you know, she has a dick

or someone gets a phone call and their phone is hidden someplace very awkward on their body. Oh, no. It's all like we all can't look away but keep going back. Sounds like a scene from The Godfather. Do you remember that one? No, this is not The Godfather. This is more like Blue Velvet with better production values. Oh, wow.

So did you enjoy it? Do you like that? That makes me feel awkward, those kinds of things. I find that the thing that really solves every awkward situation for me is the kapha. Drinking. And yeah, there's a few moments where you're like, whoa, I can't believe they're doing that. But in general, it's a lot of creativity. You just got to admire people that have a vision for like, we're going to find this shitty space. Yeah. We're going to bring in a bunch of really young, talented people who might be a little bit off Broadway.

Mm-hmm. Way off, sounds like. We're going to collide creativity and profanity and vulgarity and make this crazy cool atmosphere that, you know, douchebags from New York will pay $10,000 for a table for. So, I just respect capitalism. You know, London's got a lot of vulgarity, I'll tell you, forever since the beginning. Like in that sort of side, quiet, back room kind of stuff that happens in London. I guess every city does. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if it's any, I mean, supposedly this is a place where Prince Harry was having orgies in the basement. I don't know how much of that is true.

Okay. Did she get down there? Oh, yeah. And I got an amazing head from Jada Pinkett's boyfriend. Maybe she can interview me about it. Oh, that's so funny. Anyway. Well, I'm so glad we have such different experiences.

Yeah. You know, I did. I was in L.A. I interviewed Mark Benioff. Oh, yeah, that's right. Jamie Lee Curtis, and it was on John Lovett's show. Jamie Lee Curtis was one of my first crushes. She's fantastic. We're going to post the interview. Do you know she's an entrepreneur?

She created Instagram before Instagram called iPhoney. And she said this to me, and I'm like, yeah, whatever, Jamie Lee Curtis. And then she showed me her site, which was a year before Instagram, which she gathered 30 really great photographers and they posted photos and talked about them. And it was like, it was in that, it was down that alley. And so it was kind of cool. And she also has a patent on a diaper called Diapen Wipe, which she sent me the patent for, which is a diaper for those with children with a wipe and a bag in it.

So you have the whole thing in the diaper. It's actually fucking brilliant. It was amazing. She never made it. She's quite entrepreneurial. Very fascinating. She strikes me as a very impressive woman. She is.

And her time has come because she's been more of an entertainment thing she talked about. You know, her and Tom Cruise couldn't believe they were at the Oscar lunch because, you know, True Lies and Freaky Friday and the Halloween movies and, of course, A Fish Called Wanda. But this new movie, Everything Everywhere All at Once, has really moved her into a category, and she is enjoying herself quite a bit, you know, the attention and the Oscar. Yeah, I like her. I think she's talented, and I'm not even going to bring up her unbelievable rack. It just wouldn't be appropriate.

I didn't say that. I'm not even going to talk about it, Kara. Okay. I thought you were going to say Activia, but she talks about it because she made a fortune off of it. That's yogurt that makes you poop. Yogurt that makes you poop. Yeah. I like her.

I really enjoy her. She was great. She seems like a neat woman. Yeah. She was great. And I interviewed her with the head of Universal Pictures, Donna Langley, who was also fantastic. Anyway, we have a lot to talk about today. Congress is moving

closer to a TikTok ban. I cannot believe Scott Galloway's efforts have resulted in this. We'll discuss whether or not that actually solves a problem. Also, the GOP targets big tech and big business in its war on freedom. We'll speak with an expert on online speech, Jeff Kossoff, about new bills that could impact the First Amendment. There's a lot of them around, including an anti-drag bill in Tennessee. We'll go into it in a minute. Did you watch Chris Rock live on Netflix? I have not seen it.

I did not watch it live. It was the platform's first live global event. It got great reviews. I have not. I've seen a few clips of it or references to it on social, but I didn't see it. I will watch it. That's the great thing about streaming, right? It's kind of up to me. Right. But what did you think of them doing a live event? I think it makes a ton of sense. I thought it was really visionary when I think Disney did a live Hamilton. There's something about live that creates a certain electricity.

And I think live comedy shows are great. I think Chris Rock is wonderful. I've always liked him. I think he's brilliant. And I love the fact that, quite frankly, I was really, you know, as far as I can tell, this was sort of the revenge show. Yeah. And I was really trying to understand why I still don't. I had such a visceral, awful reaction to what happened at the Academy Awards.

And I remember I'd actually advised, not advised, but done a call with the Academy stewards or board members or whatever. And I immediately called the head of the Academy. And I'm like, with all my advice on how they handle this situation, I'm like, God knows she must have been getting advice from everybody the next day. But, you know, I was at the time, I'm like, you know, the guy should be arrested.

I was so just upset. Yeah, many people think so. And just shaken by the whole thing. Yeah, many people think that. And I thought he handled it i thought chris rock just handled himself with such composure he's quite honest what happened here in this thing i watched the parts of it that part of it and well he does a great job unpacking exactly what was happening and he went there you know in terms of not being mean but

here's what went down just pointing out the fact that this guy's wife was fucking his son's friend i mean there's that. Not just that, but the way he unpacked about why he— And then decided to interview—and then decided she should interview the husband about how he felt about it. Yeah, exactly. These people should be forced to live in a duplex condo with Harry and Meghan and just see what happens. Oh, your favorite people. Anyway, I thought it was great, and kudos to several people at Netflix, including Bella Bajaria, who organized it along with the head of comedy.

I think it's a great idea to Netflix to do some live events, not all the time, but they're moving into it. They're moving into it. Yeah, on to other news. Amazon will pause construction on its second headquarters in Virginia. They have built part of it.

The first phase will still open in June with 8,000 employees, but it's after they cut 18,000 jobs two months after. Reminder, Amazon selected Arlington, Virginia and Long Island City in New York as the cities for its New York headquarters, but later scrapped New York City due to pushback from the community, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. AOC resisted the idea at the time and took to Twitter to say the pause confirms the pushback was justified, saying we protected New Yorkers from a scam deal to drain public dollars from schools and infrastructure in exchange for empty

promises of, quote, Amazon jobs with zero guarantees or guardrails. Well, you made some predictions on this topic in 2018 on CNBC. Let's listen. I've been on the board of a dozen private and public companies who all talk about a second headquarters. And it always ends up one place where the CEO wants to spend more time. This the new headquarters are going to be in the metro area of New York or D.C. because that's where a 53 year old man worth one hundred and five billion wants to spend more time. Some of these other cities, it's ridiculous that they even entertain the notion and have them spend so much time trying to produce a term sheet that they will then go again and get someone else to match. Well, there you go, Scott. You were

correct. Well, I was wrong. It was both. I was running around on Fox and everything. It's going to be D.C. or New York because that's where he has homes. And I was wrong to pick both. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he didn't ever go to New York. He never went to New York, actually. Well, they announced it and then New York said, sorry, girlfriend, not here. Yeah, yeah. So, do you think she was right? I think she was right. They did whatever was good for them. This was, in my view, such an incredibly poor reflection on the character of the board of directors of Amazon. To engage in this fraudulent roost circus circus to get Phoenix and Columbus, Ohio to spend money and time

and believe that they had any shot. And what we forget is that we always think about these things through the lens of shareholder value and business. They're people. And a guy who's 53 and worth $100 billion, he's not going to spend six days,

much less six weeks a year in Columbus, Ohio, because he doesn't have to. And he bought homes. He bought this big fat home in Calorama and then another home on the Upper East Side. And it was just so obvious, these are where the headquarters are going to go. Although he might buy the commanders, so he might be in DC a lot more, by the way. So they just created, and the board knew about it. And rather than saying, well, maybe we should be letting these cities who are underfunded and have a limited amount of attention and time, let them focus on schools and crime. Instead, we're going to lie to them every day and pretend that, oh yeah, no, you have a shot, Columbus, Ohio. Just let's whip it up into a frenzy. And you know what they did? They took the best term sheet and they went to New York and they went to D.C. and said, all you have to do is match it and we're here.

It was nothing but an elegant gamification resulting in a transfer of time and resources from cities to the two that they had already decided they were going to. cities to the two that they had already decided they were going to. It reflects really poorly on the board that they led Jeff Bezos engage in this midlife crisis ruse at the expense of local municipalities. Yeah, well, it reflects well on AOC, who wasn't having any of it. Anyway. Whatever AOC did with respect to helping to ensure that Amazon didn't take advantage in that region, it was really a fraction of what state senator Michael Gianaris did. He was the one that was out in front on this. He was, yeah. I think they have to, you can't just get freebies for these billionaires. That's, I think, my issue was that. Anyway, speaking of billionaires, Scott, did you hear my excellent

interview with Mark Benioff? Do you have another podcast? You can listen to it in the feed for On with Kara Swisher. It was quite testy and fun and interesting. And he sort of, we whacked each other back and forth. But chairs of the company are up 16% after beating earnings expectations. Fourth quarter revenue rose by 14% over a year. The company also announced an expansion of its share buyback program.

Reminder, in the State of Union, Biden proposed a quadrupling of its stock buybacks tax. I think he really pushed back the active investors. He took control of the company again, no more co-CEO. And of course, we did talk about that. He said he had an heir. But if he wants to be a good CEO, certainly Mark Benioff can do it. So there you have it. Yeah, I'm curious what you thought the most surprising part of the interview is, but their earnings were $1.68 versus $1.36 expected. Revenue is $8.4 billion versus $8. I mean, he had a blowout quarter. Yeah, because he did it. Revenue grew 14%. It's hard to grow. I mean, if you grow revenue 14%, that basically means every five and a half years,

you're doubling the size of your business. He's got to stay above 10, but he scrambled the jets. You know what I mean? Like he focused, he wasn't focused, obviously, nobody was, and cleaned it up, laid people off, did all the things. He sort of did an Iger. I said he Igered the place and pushed back the investors. I mean, investors just want the stock up, but he definitely had not been focusing, let's just say, and he's certainly a very good CEO. You know, we had a very testy back and forth about Elon and the stuff he was saying, everyone has to find their inner Elon. And I was like, really, you know, racist, misogynist and homophobic? What part? Because he had been pushing that he had protected his gay and lesbian employees, which he did in Indiana. And so I was like, you can't. And

then he was saying he was two sides of one coin and you could like one side and not the other. He said, a person's not a coin, Mark. But it was good to see that attitude out in the open. He listened. And unlike most of them, he doesn't get all hot and bothered when you disagree with him, which was a pleasure to talk to him in that regard. Also, I don't know Mark well, but I do know him. And I find him, I don't want to term him as man of the people, like I saw him at his holiday party. Yeah. And when you get to that level of power and wealth, I think it's easy to become lazy or expect people to come up to you. No, he's very friendly. And he comes up to people and he

shakes their hand and he asks how they're doing. He seems genuinely interested in the welfare of other people. I think he's very likable. I think he's the kind of guy you want to have power or you mind less having power. Yeah, I would agree. I would agree. I think he's trying to see your best side.

I think that's his way. He's very into the guru stuff and the meditation. And I think he's very much like, let's look at his best side. I said, let's look at his not best side for a minute. Like, don't excuse it just because he can, he kept saying he could land a rocket on, he could land a rocket on a surfboard. Isn't that amazing? And I said, I said, you know, Mark, if he, if he drowned a, you know, a ship of puppies, you'd say, but he landed a rocket on a, on a, you know, he landed a rocket on a surfboard. I mean, the puppies suck, but,

so it was good. He was good. We had a good exchange and it was good for people to see that attitude and he depicted it rather well, but he wasn't an arrogant prick in doing so. So that was nice. Yeah, but that's the best act. You talked about the activists. That's the best activist investment ever. You go in, you write a letter just saying, hey, we're here. We're not planning to do anything yet. How can we be helpful? And the stock goes up. And the stock's up 41% here today.

It is, yeah. The best activist investment in the world is one where you don't have to go active. Yeah, they don't. And I think we'll see where it goes. He definitely has to. Elliot wasn't totally thrilled with everything. They still want the heir apparent thing to happen, which he, same thing over at Disney. That makes sense.

He should do that. Yeah. And he took a real slap at Vivek Ramaswamy. He says, you know, Carrie, you probably have more stock than this guy. He's running for president. He's the anti-ESG guy. All he does is write anti-gay and anti, all he's woke, anti-woke guy. And he took a real slamadue at him, as did I, but there you have it. There's a big departure at Apple. Michael Abbott, Apple's top executive in charge of cloud initiatives, is reportedly stepping down. His role will be taking over one of the company's most senior engineering leaders, Jeff Robin.

There's a lot of exits in recent months, including Peter Stern, who helped establish Apple TV, and executives in charge of industrial design, information systems, and more. There's not a lot of departures at Apple, typically, so that's why people are taking note of this. I wonder how much of it is, and you might have some insight here. I know nothing about this other than I just look at the natural arc of a company and people's lives. And a lot of these executives have been there for a while. For a long time. Apple is now the most valuable company in the world.

It's worth over $2 trillion. The run-up since all of these people have been there has been extraordinary. They're probably in their 50s, late 50s, maybe early 60s, and they've made a shit ton of money. And a lot of them are probably thinking, you know, this might be a time to do something else or step back or spend more time with my kids. I wonder how much of it is just genuine, like, I have a ton of money, I've been working my ass off. The stock's at a high. It probably doesn't... The stock over the next few years probably isn't going to go up three or five fold. At least I don't see how it would realistically. Maybe this is a good time to ring the bell, declare victory and leave. Yeah, I would agree with you. I think they've been there. I mean, it is remarkable.

When Walt retired, they did a little party, all the executives for Walt, just a surprise thing, when they had an event and we showed up at this thing. And they were all, it was all the top executives. They'd been there forever. And they are all still there. That was a long time ago. And I just, I think it must be like, okay, you know, Johnny Ive left, obviously, that was a big departure.

And certain people left because of, you know, back and forth with some of the executives like Scott Forstall and some others. But I do think at some point you're like, all right, time to go, you know. But they have, it's a remarkably consistent management team there at Apple since forever. In the last 10 years, the stock's up tenfold. Yep. I mean, at some point you're like, okay, do I really want to keep working this hard? Yeah, they haven't done layoffs the way others have.

Well, they also didn't hire as aggressively. They didn't. They're very measured people. Tim Cook's reign will be described as the adult in the room. I've always thought that he's just this entire management team. They don't shitpost other companies. They're much more discreet. They just sort of always define kind of adult supervision. There's big tech and then there's Apple. Yeah, exactly. Doing well also, another billionaire CEO leader doing well. Okay,

let's get to our first big story. Washington's clock is ticking closer to a TikTok ban. Get that clock, TikTok. Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, who we hope to have on, said on Sunday that he'll introduce a bill that could ban foreign technology, including TikTok. Here he is on Fox News Sunday. If they suddenly want to dial up the fact that we are going to decrease the content that criticizes Chinese leadership, but increase the content that your kids may be seeing, saying, hey, you know, Taiwan really is part of China. that your kids may be seeing saying, hey, you know, Taiwan really is part of China. That is a distribution model that would make RT or Sputnik or some of the Russian propaganda models pale in comparison. I wonder where they got those analogies.

I know. It sounds like you were hanging out with them behind Puppet Master. Last week, Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted to advance a bill that would give President Biden an authority to ban TikTok. None of the committee's Democrats voted for the bill. One Democratic leader called it, quote, dangerously overbroad, and I would agree. So did the Commerce Secretary. It's for to attack one company is problematic and probably will have all kinds of court challenges in this country where we have courts that do that. Biden seems eager to do something like this. What gives and what will happen given all the US ownership of TikTok? Let's not forget that.

This is one of the few bipartisan issues. This is politically gonna be a big win for Biden. And what's interesting about this is I haven't seen this many moderate Democrats this riled up. I mean, you have Senator Warner, you have Senator Bennett, who called for a ban. These are not, you know, these are moderates. And also Senator Warner, I'm a big fan of, and he actually, he's one of the 4% of our elected representatives in Washington that has a background in technology or engineering.

Yep, he does. So he's just not fooled easily. He comes with real domain expertise here. And he's also seen as someone who's not always going for political points. You know, he just kind of reeks of integrity, like that he's not doing this to try and get reelected or raise more money. I think this is a big issue. I think it's an important issue. I think he summarized it exactly. I am very concerned.

And I always go back to the analogy of the movie The Sting. The best con is a con where you don't know you've been conned. And I think we're going to find out, Kara, that for the last several years, the CCP has been very elegantly putting their thumb on the scale of anti-Western content. And I worry that we're raising a generation of civic business, nonprofit and military leaders who just generally feel a little bit shittier about America every day. And I think there's, I'm sorry, go ahead. I don't know. I don't know that. You know, that's the thing. It's so hard to find within the, I don't say mess that is TikTok, but it's so broad and so many topics. And how do you know

what they're doing? There was a fascinating actually story in the information about all the kids of tech leaders like Eve Jobs and Alexis Cuban and Phoebe Gates, who are on TikTok or Instagram, any of them, but TikTok too, who are trying to be influencers on there, which was interesting. But everyone's on there doing something. So it'd be hard to figure out, put your finger on them doing that. And does banning one company get to the root of the problem? Is that advisable to pick one company? Although a report in Gizmodo found nearly 30,000 apps and websites sending data to TikTok via tracks and pixels. Now that happens with all the other social networks too. So is it good to target one company or is it just because this is the example we make? So what do we know? We know that as we go younger, people, generations as we go younger, they feel shittier and shittier about America

to the point where, quite frankly, they're not really looking at the data. Things are bad, but they're better than they have been. And to not recognize any of the progress we've made means you are being overly cynical and dangerously negative about the future of America. What do we also know? As you go younger, more and more time on social media. And what do we also know? And you're right, it's no one culprit here. got greater consumption by our youth than the rest of media, I don't think we start from a position of we have to prove it first, because when it comes to China, they decided they didn't need to prove anything. They would just unilaterally bring in our companies

long enough to steal our IP and then kick us out. Yes, they did. So while I believe Facebook and Meta do exactly the same thing, but they do it for money, they don't do it for geopolitical purposes. At least we get, I would argue, some benefit here. And when you have a bad actor who says, you know, and here's the thing, I think it's, they say, well, you can't find proof of this. I'm not sure we'll ever find proof because it would be so easy to do. We're talking about one engineer could do this. So my

sense is we should be starting when we're talking about national defense, when we're talking about our youth, when we're talking about how they feel about the flag, when we're talking about something that is bigger than the rest of all media combined for a younger generation, I think you start from a position of over-correcting. And so I'm not one that's like, well, what does this mean for other companies? Should we have a measured approach? I think we start from where the Chinese start. And that is unless you can prove to us this is not happening, and it all goes down to connection between ownership and the product, we're going to just decide it's too much of

a risk. There's still going to be challenges, including the First Amendment. The ACLU opposes the TikTok bans for this reason. One way to possibly do it, and this is what another person we know well, Senator Michael Bennett has said, was that Google and Apple dropped them from the App Store. YouTube has done this in the past with RT News. That said, people could create, there's workarounds, a web app they could do that anybody could get on the web. It's going to be very difficult. You can definitely shut it down in a weird way by attacking the app, but there's other

ways if people really love it. And people have built businesses off this thing. There are business people who are doing rather well on the TikTok app. Again, huge, huge US ownership of this company. And again, huge, huge U.S. ownership of this company. And so there's going to be all kinds of downstream impacts for doing something like this. It is pretty unprecedented. And again, legal challenges, consumer backlash, et cetera, et cetera.

But this is where I think it ends up. And that is the key to any negotiation, you only have to remember two things. We're going to do it. Don't get emotional about it. Don, you only have to remember two things. The first is, don't get emotional about it. Don't make it a win-lose. Don't make this feel sound racist or anti-Chinese or outraged. Just lay out your concerns and why we're doing this. And two, always show a credible willingness to walk away. And in this instance, it is like, no, we came to play. We might ban you. And to continue to advance the legislative support to, in fact, enact a ban. And I think once the CCP sees it, no, shit's real.

They're going to ban us. Yeah. I think that. They probably don't believe it because it's the U.S. and they consider us such like. Let's just wash over all these whores with money and they can never agree on anything. Just wait them out.

They'll tire them out. They'll move on to the next insurrection or whatever it is. And then, but if we show we're on the eve of the banning of this thing, they're gonna say, well, we used to have this ultimate propaganda tool and hundreds of billions of dollars. We can't have both. We might get zero here. Which do we want? And they'll think, well, it's either hold on to hundreds of billions or hold on to none of it. And I think that's at the point where they say, okay, we will agree to some sort of safeguards that give you the requisite comfort,

whether it's spinning the U.S. business. This is pretty bipartisan. Whether it's spinning the U.S. business or some sort of all data is stored on U.S. servers and no one in China touches it. But yeah, but there's still evidence. It's got to be a spin. It's got to be a spin or it's not going to work. I think that is probably what happens. If the Republicans get in charge, they're worse.

I mean, Trump doesn't like China, as he calls it. So it's not like you're running, you know, if you stick with the Democrats, it's kind of a mess. Anyway, we'll see what happens. But, Scott, you've been on the front lines of this. And I've been worried for many years. I wrote many years ago. I was worried. All right, Scott, let's go on the front lines of this. And I've been worried for many years. I wrote many years ago, I was worried. All right, Scott, let's go on a quick break.

And when we come back, Republicans go after business and tech. And we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, Jeff Kossoff, about freedom of speech online. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Zelle. When you picture an online scammer, what do you see? For the longest time, we have these images of somebody sitting crouched over their computer with a hoodie on, just kind of typing away in the middle of the night. And honestly, that's not what it is anymore.

That's Ian Mitchell, a banker turned fraud fighter. These days, online scams look more like crime syndicates than individual con artists. And they're making bank. Last year, scammers made off with more than $10 billion. It's mind-blowing to see the kind of infrastructure that's been built to facilitate scamming at scale. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of scam centers all around the world. These are very savvy business people.

These are organized criminal rings. And so once we understand the magnitude of this problem, we can protect people better. One challenge that fraud fighters like Ian face is that scam victims sometimes feel too ashamed to discuss what happened to them. But Ian says one of our best defenses is simple. We need to talk to each other. We need to have those awkward conversations around what do you do if you have text messages

you don't recognize? What do you do if you start getting asked to send information that's more sensitive? Even my own father fell victim to a, thank goodness, a smaller dollar scam, but he fell victim. And we have these conversations all the time. So we are all at risk and we all need to work together to protect each other. Learn more about how to protect yourself at vox.com slash Zelle. And when using digital payment platforms, remember to only send money to people you know and trust. home projects done. Out. Carpet in the bathroom. Like, why? In. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. Scott, we're back. The GOP renewed its attacks on big tech this week. The industry

was a popular target at CPAC, which was under-attended. Apparently, Trump only filled half the room. The annual conservative gathering run by Matt Schlapp, who has some schlappy issues having to do with schlapping other men's junk. Representative Lauren Boebert and two other Republican senators put Section 230 on blast, with Boebert calling for a big tech protection to be removed. Boebert is a functional idiot, so that's not happening. What are they doing? The conservatives are forging a path towards internet censorship. Case in point, a new Texas bill would force ISPs to block access to sites that provide abortion information. Similar bills are coming out of all kinds of states. Obviously, we just discussed Tennessee banning drag shows. I don't know what is wrong with them. And of course, we have to mention the speaker called for an end to, quote, transgenderism

and said, Transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely. The whole preposterous ideology. That speaker, political commentator Michael Knowles, now faces accusations as comments or a call for genocide. But still, they're moving forward. They're obsessed with trans people. This ban on drag shows and gender-affirming care

for young people last week in Tennessee. In response, California Governor Gavin Newsom tweeted, Tennessee has the eighth highest murder rate in the nation. It ranks 44th among states for health outcomes. This is what the governor is focused on. So what do you think? We have more to go in a minute, but please commentate on what I've just said, many things. Well, it's just disappointing that we have, and it's our fault, we have an ecosystem that rewards rage as opposed to anything that actually affects 99.9% of the voters. And we have an environment where a number of kids, it's become more important where they live in America, not that they live in America. We have real problems with young men.

We have mating inequality. I mean, we just have, for the first time in our nation's history, a 30-year-old isn't doing as well as his or her parents were at 30, which is basically a breakdown on the fundamental compact of what America is supposed to be. And we're talking about swim meets. And we have Republicans trying to say these incredibly hateful things because it riles up a base that at the very extreme is just mean. And unfortunately, the Democrats have stuck their chin out and take the bait and spend a lot of their time rather than just saying, everyone deserves dignity, everyone deserves equal rights.

They go all in on it. And we have, I do think we've screwed up in the sense that we've decided any discussion around this or any questions around trans rights makes you a transphobe. And I think it's set up moderates to be more sympathetic to these ridiculous arguments. Again, Scott, I'm sorry, you're blaming. Go ahead. Look, these are actual bills. Like, this is not, angry trans people are no match for what's happening here. This is a bill in Tennessee that would ban any kind of care and ban drag shows. These people are actively doing things, and then they're like, well, if trans people weren't so

mean to moderates, like, come on. Come on. No one said that trans, angry trans people is the problem here. The problem here is that the media and a lot of people on the left, if you start asking questions like, well, should someone at 13 be able to start testosterone therapy without notifying their parents? When you even ask those questions, you're labeled as transphobic. So it's become an issue that really riles up a lot of people

who would probably default to this should be, when you take it into the schools, when you take away parents' rights, and you begin this litmus test, if you even ask these questions, you start getting called names, it creates issues where there don't need to be any. Certainly, but it's because the conservatives are right behind people

actively doing something about it and making it into a political issue that works. It certainly does, and it's sickening, actually. But let me just say, as someone who's a gay person, and they say it's not the same thing, but it is the same thing. Parents are dangerous to these kids. My mother was dangerous to me on this issue, not physically, but mentally. And so, people at school knew I was gay, I think, and didn't inform my mother, and I'm thrilled that they didn't. There's a different, hold on, hold on. Okay. That is the mother of all false equivalents. It's not. Suspecting someone has a different sexual orientation and not ratting them out to their parents or calling them and saying, I'm concerned your daughter is a lesbian is much different than potentially letting them engage in gender affirmation treatment, which sometimes includes— Treatment is different than saying they, them. I understand that. Which includes hormone therapy and sometimes surgery, potentially in states where the legal age of medical consent is 13, 15, and 16.

Regardless of where you come down on that, it's worth a discussion. And those are fair questions. Certainly. And when you ask those questions and want to have a conversation about it, you're inclined by not trans people. Okay, go ahead. Finish. We're not talking about these bills. You're talking about not being able to say what you want, which is the typical thing

that you- Yeah, but I'm talking about why this hateful speech resonates with people, because they see our side as not being reasonable to even have a discussion about it. All right, but here they are doing actual hateful bills. These are like, they are hateful bills. Agreed. And they're not what actually helps voters. I don't think there's a big drag queen problem in Tennessee or Arkansas or anywhere else. Agreed. So this is what happens because they're cynical and they understand it. And here we are like finger pointing at each other, in fact, the actual actors are calling for things like they want eradication.

I firmly believe that that's what they want. When you say eradication, what do you mean? Getting rid of transgender people. This speech has not surprised me in no way to end transgenderism. They are uncomfortable with it. They hate it. They'd like it to go away. And then their next move is gay people.

And then their next move is these people have an agenda that is so sick. And if you push back in any way, you're a groomer or a pedo or whatever. And then you get sucked up into that disastrous mess. And so I feel like we spend a lot of time arguing with each other when they're actually doing things. They're doing things rather than arguing about it. And that's where they become effective. And they're going to keep doing it. Let me give you another example. Walgreens announced it won't carry abortion pills in 20 U.S. states, including 10 where abortion is legal. That includes Kansas, where voters, famous voters, upheld the right to abortion is legal. That includes Kansas where voters famous voters upheld the right to abortion

last year. Let's me say that again. Voters. The move comes after 20 Republican attorney generals sent a letter to Walgreens warning of legal consequences, sold the drugs also report found that police are using data from social media, including Facebook messages to prosecute women for alleged abortions. Now companies have to comply with the law.

Walgreens is going further. CVS received the same letter, but hasn't commented. But in the past, it said it will stock these drugs. I don't think there's anything tech can do about this except encrypt everything. That's where we're going with these things. Yeah, I've always seen, and by the way, I think this is a different issue with a different level. I just think this is not even

anti-women, this trend. This is anti-poor women, because there's just no getting around it. You're a rich woman in any city, anywhere in the nation, you're going to have no problem getting access to this medication or no problem getting on a plane and going where you need to go to terminate a pregnancy. This is a war on poor women. It's going to set us back economically. Every nation in the world, I mean, with the exception of Poland, every nation you would call kind of a Western nation is moving in the right direction. I mean, for God's sakes, Mexico, which has a very strong religious component, has said, protected a woman's right to terminate. Yeah, Ireland, which has some of the most horrific stories of what's happened to women who become pregnant and their children.

They've progressed. It's sort of, to me, quite frankly, it's a winning issue for the Democrats. This is an issue I would talk about more. You know, your child becomes pregnant. A 10-year-old gets raped, and this happened. And in that state, they want to force her to carry that child to term. And granted, that's a very isolated instance and meant to trigger an emotional reaction, but it should trigger an emotional reaction. I've heard it from a half a dozen kids going to college recently, like where they want to go to college.

I know it sounds crazy, and these are mostly—not all of them are privileged kids, actually. want to go to college. I know it sounds crazy. And these are mostly, not all of them are privileged kids, actually. But it's like, do I want to go to college in this state because of this? It's interesting. Like, what if by accident I get pregnant? Just contrasting it versus the trans issue. Quite frankly, this impacts exponentially more people. A hundred percent. This is an American issue. And I do see this as straight, you know, this is just straight liberty

and what it means to be America. Yeah. On the trans side, I do think there's a longer conversation that the left needs to engage in, that they refuse to engage in and it sticks out. They don't all refuse.

It's not a monolith. Of course people think parents should be involved. It's just the danger. I don't think you understand the danger involved that is much of it. And this is the tip of the spear. Trance is the tip of the spear for all of this, because it's easy to demonize this group of people. And they've been demonized and beaten down for decades and so long. But it warrants a conversation. And also, just there's a question around, my 12 and 15-year-old boys make highly irrational decisions every day. And you said something before around parents can be awful.

I agree with you that parents can be awful, but I still can't find a better system for giving the parents the jurisdiction around big decisions for kids under the age of 18, including this one. And so, but whenever you want to have a conversation like this, it gets people very upset. They don't want to have a conversation. I think more people do. I think you're a broad brush on people. People do want to have a conversation. I think it's just, we've seen this story of anyone who's been around these anti-LGBTQ people. We know them and we know what they're up to. And so this is how they start. And then they move slowly down the stack because they'll never get over gay marriage until they close it down. They will. I know it in the heart of hearts. I know them. And one of the things that's hard here

is that the people that the amount of kids you're talking about is so small. The numbers are so minuscule. The over-coverage of this thing is crazy. And over-politicization is such a small, tiny. And the same thing with detransitioners. I feel terrible if that's what happens. Yeah, a pimple on the pimple of the elephant. Small, small, small. And the abortion issue is bigger. But to me, it's all a part of one package. And I'll tell you what the problem is, getting us back to tech and media, everyone leaves digital breadcrumbs everywhere. And so these states' attorney generals, these Republicans who are heinous for doing this, are going to be able to find.

And literally, as Alex Damos, and I think he's right, you have to comply. He said this. And you have to give them what they want because you don't know what they're investigating. He said the only realistic tech response is the wider use of end-to-end encryption. And that is where we're going.

These companies will have to end-to-end encrypt and then they can go wipe their hands of it. Like, well, we don't have it. So anyway, we got to get to our guest who is actually really good on this topic. Let's bring in our friend of Pivot. Jeff Kossoff is an associate professor of cybersecurity law at the U.S. Naval Academy and the author of The United States of Anonymous, How the First Amendment Shaped Online Speech. He joins us today to discuss how new bills aimed at online speech could challenge the First Amendment. Welcome, Jeff. Thanks so much for having me.

So let's get started. We've been just talking about a bunch of bills around trans issues and abortion issues, but there's a couple of state bills that caught our eye this past week. Help us unpack them. The first one is Florida Senate Bill 1316 that would require any blogger writing about Florida state officials to register with a government office. It's unprecedented, I think. Utah Senate Bill 152 is trying to, say, hold my beer. It would require that minors obtain parental consent before using major social apps. One way of fixing the issue, I guess. Talk about those two first.

Yeah, so I come at it really from the perspective of anonymity. I recently wrote a book about the historical value of anonymous speech, and both of them in different ways really abrogate the ability of people to be anonymous online. The Blogger Bill is terrifying for a variety of reasons, basically requiring anyone who writes about state officials to register, which is really

unprecedented, both for its chilling effect on journalism and the ability to criticize people anonymously. And the Utah bill, that really doesn't directly require people to post under their real names, but you're requiring people to give your identifying information, possibly a driver's license, to an intermediary who could be subject to a data breach, could be subpoenaed, could be hacked, all sorts of things. So it really compromises the ability to be anonymous. things. So it really compromises the ability to be anonymous. And so what chances they have, these things are sailing through all these conservative states, a lot of these things in an attempt to like essentially shut down the First Amendment. I mean, do we have to worry about the bills passing? It seems like an obvious First Amendment issue. Even Newt Gingrich called it insane. Florida has another bill in the works that make it easier to sue journalists, which good luck with that. They've got to get to the Supreme Court, I suppose. So what happens as they went through the system in terms of First Amendment

and being anonymous? Well, so I worry about it at the moment it's proposed. A lot of people are saying, don't worry about it. It's just one legislator who's proposing it. The Utah bill will probably become law. The governor said that he is prepared to sign it. It's just one legislator who's proposing it. The Utah bill will probably become law. The governor said that he is prepared to sign it. The Florida bill, we don't know. But we know that there's a big push in Florida to loosen protections for defamation cases, which is a really serious threat. And I think that there's really this creeping willingness to revisit what we thought were established First Amendment protections. And that should be really scary for everyone. I mean, I was a First Amendment attorney and a journalist, and I really kind of took those protections for

granted for so many years. And I never really thought that we'd be in a place where we saw these proposals and we saw really powerful people touting them. So I think the time to worry is now. Jeff, isn't there a difference between a bill that says that journalists could be liable for saying something and that would just have a chilling effect on journalism? And you can see that going a lot of bad places very fast. And then I believe anonymity is a different issue. That in a wealthy society where there's certain legal protections, we have to balance the importance of people being able to criticize people anonymously with what is broken out online. with what has broken out online, and that is the cloud cover of anonymity, in my opinion,

has given a lot of bad actors the power to create divisiveness and rage and shape the discourse in a very ugly way. Isn't there some middle ground here? It strikes me that these first, sometimes under the auspices of First Amendment absolutism, they say it should all be anonymous. And I worry that that actually ends up creating a discourse that's much more coarse and actually turning free speech into just amorphous speech where nothing means nothing anymore. I apologize for the long-winded question here, Jeff. No, I think those are all really valid points. So, the right to anonymity in the United States is not absolute. It's very strong. But the right applies to when the government tries to compel people to provide their identifying information. So platforms are free to set their own policies. And Facebook has long had a real name policy that has drawn a lot of criticism from marginalized groups that don't have the ability,

the luxury to be able to speak under their real names. I would also point out that there have been studies that have found that people actually can be more aggressive online when they're posting under their real names because they take more ownership and they take more offense. So, and it is possible to pierce the veil of anonymity with a subpoena if you meet a First Amendment standard. But I would just point out that anonymity is, for me, unsafe home situations, those are people who don't have that same luxury. And I think that it's dangerous to minimize those interests. And it becomes dangerous when you have the government saying, you must provide your identifying information because we think that people are doing bad things anonymously. information because we think that people are doing bad things anonymously. And I think I completely understand the temptation to do that. But I also think that it can get us into some

really dangerous situations where we're shutting out people who otherwise would not have a voice. We're also putting information in the hands of people I don't particularly trust. We don't trust them to protect our children in general. Giving them more data doesn't seem to be the answer. Can I ask a follow-up, Karen? Sure, go ahead. Is there a hybrid solution where we support the rights to anonymous accounts, but they have higher standards? And that is, if it appears that your content under the auspices of an anonymous account

is just doing divisive things and has no real theme to it and just appears to be focused on stoking rage, it just strikes me that you could fairly easily figure out who is a bad actor here. And by the way, saying really offensive things that you may not believe with or you believe that's one thing. But it strikes me that it would be, there is sort of a middle ground here, that we could have a higher bar on anonymous accounts. Because I just worry that this blanket permission leads to bad places that end up causing, you know, creating more damage than they protect us from. Well, we already do have that. I would say that, I mean, if I were to go and defame you on social media and you were to

sue the anonymous poster, who is me, you would be able to issue a subpoena that would get my IP address and you'd have to meet a high bar. You'd have to show that you have a valid defamation claim. But that still, I think the danger is if you start trying to have the government or someone else judge who's stoking rage, I think that gives a lot of discretion. And while you might trust the person who currently has that discretion, the person who has that discretion tomorrow, you might not trust. It's the same thing. It's the same thing with misinformation. People, there have been proposals to limit misinformation. There have been proposals to limit misinformation. And while I completely understand the motivation, there's a lot of people I don't want defining what is misinformation. That's a great point. So in the Florida bill, if it becomes law, would journalists publish anonymously on platforms like Reddit or Medium?

Or how does the government plan to make people? I'd never register with the government as a journalist. Good luck. I'd rather go to jail. I don't know. I mean, I've seen some justifications that it's akin to the lobbyist registration system. Yeah. Yes. But that really doesn't fly. I don't, I mean, the way that I read it, anyone who receives any sort of compensation, it could be sub stack fees. It could be any Google ad revenue that would trigger this registration requirement. I don't know how they would enforce it.

But again, I've seen a lot of people saying, let's not worry about it. But I'm worried about it because it's something that the states are laboratories for democracy and also for really bad ideas. And I'm worried that some of that is playing out right now. Yeah, and it also is a hand wavy thing. You know, let's attack trans people and now let's attack journalists. Now let's attack this. It's part of the entire, you know, menu of hate that they seem to be enjoying. It's ironic that Republicans want to claim journalists are lobbyists when we learned that Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, gave unaired Biden apps to Jared Kushner. It does get to the idea of what Scott was talking about, that anonymous speech does make some people uncomfortable. But will it always be part of the internet? You're seeing more and more, register for this, use your real name. Facebook is about to do this with a new Facebook Plus, essentially. You know, obviously, many people have criticized the real names policy.

How long is this going to go on before everyone does have to be identified? Do you think that will change or is there always somewhere to be anonymous on the internet? Well, I hope there will be somewhere to be anonymous because there are a lot of people who really need it. I think that right now we really leave it up to the marketplace in the United States to determine whether there will be a requirement for a real name. There are other countries like China where you have to register your real name with the government before you use social media. I don't think, hopefully we won't get to a situation like that because we know exactly why they're requiring people to register their real names with the government. And it's not to maintain civil discourse. My next question is in terms of, it says deterring aggression.

And you're a First Amendment scholar. Do you think that speech and social media and the algorithms here, I mean, a lot of people would argue we're eating the greatest threat to America. It's not external, it's internal. Just what is your view of how we correspond or information in the media internally? And do you see it as a national security threat? I think certainly, I mean, one of the reasons why I spend so much time looking at free speech in the law is because I think there are some very vital national security concerns with a lot of the discourse. I think that my immediate impulse is not censorship because I think that's not going to be terribly effective in a whole variety of ways. I mean, I think when you're talking about algorithms, I think having a privacy bill, a privacy law that's actually effective would be great. I mean, what we have in the United States is really, frankly, garbage in terms of the privacy protections. I mean, we have California doing

something that's not terribly effective. But I mean, I think we need to be very specific about what companies can and cannot collect. And I think that would go a long way in addressing the broader problems without getting into censorship of speech. Because that's where you mess up. Speaking of which, we were talking about this earlier, does a TikTok ban run afoul of the First Amendment? Speaking of one of the bigger issues, obviously they're going to defend themselves via the First Amendment, presumably, but maybe not.

Yeah, I mean, I think there would be a strong argument. I mean, we've obviously not seen any analog that we could easily apply here. So a lot of it will ultimately come down to which judges hear the case. But I mean, I think that shutting down an entire venue for speech would absolutely raise First Amendment concerns. And then what? And I mean, that could result in the ban not being permitted if it's found to be a violation of the First

Amendment. But I mean, I think it really is going to be so judge dependent because this is really getting into unprecedented territory here. So what do we need to protect speech online in the future besides those privacy bills, transparency bills, algorithmic transparency bills, things like that. I'll give a plug for my book that's coming out in the fall called Liar in a Crowded Theater, which addresses misinformation, explains why we our legal system protects a lot of falsehoods, not all of them, and looks at ways to address misinformation without censorship.

And I think President Obama spoke at Stanford last year, and he made a really good point where he said, we focus so much on the supply, and we don't focus much on the demand. And I think other countries are doing better than we are in terms of addressing things like media literacy, civics education, figuring out some sort of sustainable model for the news media, just making people more discerning and building trust. I think Denmark, for example, did an excellent job in public health messaging by admitting during COVID what they know and what they didn't know. I think we didn't do all that great of a job on a variety of fronts with that. And I think if you look at what DHS did with unveiling a disinformation

governance board in the clumsiest manner possible, that's not how you do it. And I think that we can do a lot of things to make people better judges without immediately saying we are going to have the government be the arbiter of truth and censor. That's a great name for a book. By the way, you can yell fire in a crowded theater if there's a fire. People forget that. Yes. People forget that part. Scott, last question.

Forget that part. Scott, last question. I would just love to hear your pitch to parents for why they should be excited when their daughters and sons decide they want to join the Navy. Well, if they want to go to the Naval Academy, we have a top tier cyber operations program that is an interdisciplinary major that teaches both technical skills, law, policy, ethics, and human factors engineering. I mean, the Navy is crucial to our national security, and we are adapting to the cyber age by preparing on a variety of fronts. And when you teach at the Navy, do you have to learn how to sail? I know that all the- Scott, no, I'm not- Stop, Scott. Stop. I'm going to stop, Scott, right now.

I'm a civilian, but I will say that— You have to learn how to sail when you go into the Navy. No, you don't. I didn't know that. So my first day of class, all the students stood at attention, and I didn't know they were going to do that. And I was looking at them, and I said, how do I get you guys to sit down? And then I learned that I have to tell the Mattys. That's great.

So that was—yeah, that was a learning experience. My father was a lifelong Naval officer. So I have some knowledge of Navy. I'm going to give you a last question on the speech thing. So what to you is the most dangerous thing happening, the most problematic thing for online speech right now? problematic thing for online speech right now? I think the most problematic thing is the attempt to abrogate the protections in defamation cases. You see it in Florida, but it's not just Florida. You have two Supreme Court justices who have called to revisit New York Times v. Sullivan.

And I think this Florida bill, if it passes, and it very well could, will be a vehicle for the Supreme Court to do that. And I think that would be devastating for speech, both online and offline. And I worry that the standard editorial pages and so forth are not paying enough attention to that, because I think it is just really coming down the road and it will be a real threat if this happens. And I think when you look at what the Supreme Court has done in recent years, I don't see any reason to doubt that this is a possibility. All right, Jeff, that's dire, I think. I think you're absolutely right, though. Jeff Kossoff is on Twitter at jkossoff and his book, The United States of Anonymous, How the First Amendment Shaped Online Speech is Available, his new one is coming when?

In October. In October. Thank you so much, Jeff. Thanks so much. Thanks, Professor. All right, Scott, I'm going to call you Popeye the Sailor Man. You have so many interesting questions about the Navy. Well, I think I've told you this.

When I was 17, my father took me on a college tour. And our college tour was going to Annapolis to take a tour of the U.S. Naval Academy. My dad was in the Royal Navy, and he pitched it real hard. And he gave me a hard sell and said, if you go to the Naval Academy, I'll buy you a Trans Am. And he gave me a hard sell and said, if you go to the Naval Academy, I'll buy you a Trans Am. I'm like, oh, a Trans Am. My dad, the cheapest man in the world, is pushing so hard for the Navy. And then I found out there's no tuition.

If you get in, you get to go for free. I remember saying, what do you need to get in? They're like, well, we look for academic achievement, athletic achievement. I'm like, okay, no and sort of. And also, you have to get a letter from your senator. And I'm like, dad, we don't know senators. I mean, who are you? What do you think? We're like, I'm just not getting in here. I'm not outstanding and we're not connected. And then that same week I went to these parties, fraternity parties at UCLA during sorority rush.

I'm like, I'm going to go with this whole UCLA thing. But my dad tried to pitch me on Annapolis. Yeah. Well, it's a great school. It's a really great school. Yeah. Amazing school. Jimmy Carter, John McCain. Jimmy Carter, John McCain. 20 or 30 astronauts, 50 Nobel Prize winners. I will say my own dad was in the Navy. He did not go to- That's not your dad. He did not go to Annapolis, but it paid for his college. He was a doctor, right?

He was a doctor. And college and medical school had paid for it. And then he served almost until he died. And he really, I think, liked it. He seemed to – it was a great way to come up from a middle class upbringing. His mom was a teacher. What type of doctor was your father, Kara? Anesthesiologist, just like Dr. Jeff. Oh, he was an anesthesiologist.

Yeah. Anyway, he had just gotten out, and he died very soon after. But I know it was a great experience for him. How long did he serve? Oh, since he was in college. We know he was in whatever the equivalent of ROTC. And then went to medical school. So he was in the Navy for medical school, but, of course, didn't serve.

And then after he got out of 10 years, it must have been 10 years, at least. 10 years. Anyway. And where was he stationed? Different places. He was in Santa Domingo. That was an action we had there. He worked on the NASA program a little bit with the astronauts, picking them up. He worked all over the place, in Philadelphia, all kinds of places. I mean, you know, they didn't move a lot because the doctor doesn't have to. But nonetheless, he was, I think it did a great, it was, I thought about joining the Navy and I couldn't because I was gay. Because people hate gay people, just so you know.

Let's get back to that. Anyway, I could have been in the Navy. I would have been an admiral right now. I would have been Top Gun or whatever. Anyway, I have terrible eyesight. I wouldn. I would have been an admiral right now. I would have been Top Gun or whatever. Anyway, I have terrible eyesight. I wouldn't have been Top Gun. All right. When we take one more quick break, we'll be back for wins and fails.

Okay, Scott, why don't you start? Wins and fails. My win is I wrote a post on affection this week, and it's one of my favorite posts. And just as I wrote it, I got an email from a woman named Jennifer Wallace, who's a reporter with the Wall Street Journal. And she wrote kind of the post I wish I had written. It's so lovely. And there's a lot of research around specific gender roles and how dads are too emotionally guarded in terms of emotional caregiving. And I'll just read some of the senses from her article. between a parent and a child acts as a protective buffer against the day-to-day challenges of life. Sociologists have found that warm, caring fathers produce what they call the good father effect. Researchers found that closeness with fathers was associated with fewer weight concerns,

higher self-esteem, and fewer depression symptoms for both boys and girls. Close relationships with mothers provided positive benefits, but for a narrower range of ages than fathers. In the context of two-parent families, the protective effects of father-youth intimacy may be more apparent than those of mother-youth intimacy, mostly because it's more variable. And what I found was so inspiring about this and tragic is that there's, I don't want to say there's fault, but there's places that both, and I recognize I'm talking about a traditional heteronormative household here. Sure, you are. And so- Although last night Alex called me dad for taking him to the basketball game, but go ahead.

Well, I believe two-parent households, and sometimes the dad can take on more feminine attributes and the mother more masculine. But anyways, point is, there is real tangible benefits to having two adults, two caregivers. But anyways, having said that, I find in the article points us out that men are emotionally stunted and raised to believe that being the emotional caregiver for the child is a sign of a lack of strength. And it can oftentimes be, it can make all the difference in the world in a child's life. And I fell into the same trap,

and that is until they were really kind of 10 or 11, I always thought my job was to be the disciplinarian and the heavy. And to not, you know, and now what I've found a lot of times when my kid's upset, I don't say, well, actually you screwed up. I'm just like there to like tell them they're wonderful and ask them how they're doing and try and be really just emotionally, be that emotional buffer. And it's not only made me much

closer with my children. I think it's going to make them more confident as they get older. And I try not to coddle them. I try to be upfront, especially as they get older about what's required of them to be successful. But I also think there's some, and we never like to put any sort of blame or suggestions on mothers, but the article goes into this notion that a lot of mothers ring fence the emotional relationship with the child because they're better at it. I've seen it. They're better at it, and they develop this protective immune response of no on emotional stuff. I handle it, and you're Homer Simpson and an idiot around this stuff.

So just stay the fuck away. I've seen it. I've watched straight couples a lot. And actually, I've seen mothers. It doesn't happen with lesbians, I'll be honest with you. But the swooping in effect, the swooping in, I can handle it. If it's important or involves tears, it's mom steps in. Or diaper, or you're doing it wrong.

I was always like, just let them do it wrong. And here's the real tragedy. I think men, I think a lot of us, really have those inclinations and those emotions. I think we want to be there for our sons and our daughters. It's been taught out of you. On a deeper emotional level. It's like we have these instincts. We want to just grab our kids when they're not doing well and let them fall into our arms and just be very

supportive. Yeah, they're there. It's taught out of you. Interestingly, Louis B. Swisher would prefer to be a caregiver of the kids. He wants a hot investment banker wife, and he wants to take care of the kids and do the garden and cook and stuff like that. We talked about it a lot, and he feels great about it. But he would be a better caregiver than most people. He's a fantastic brother, and I have to say, he's not even slightly embarrassed by it. But I'll tell you, other men certainly would be, right? Well, just to summarize what we're talking about from this article, when women take on the role of being the sole emotional caregiver, the only one who can comfort a child, the one who talks about emotions, it further entrenches the idea that the expression of vulnerable feelings belongs

to the domain of women. And anyway, so my win is just this wonderful article. It's actually in the Wall Street Journal of all places. There's one by Jennifer Wallace. And my call out is for us men to say, give in to those wonderful instincts we have to sometimes just not guide your child, not coach them, not discipline them, but just in a very raw way, love them and emotionally support them. Yep. And also that couples need to ensure that no one partner is sequestering the other from emotional support. Yep, agreed. What's your fail?

That literally has taken up all my bandwidth. That's all I have. All right, okay, all right. Ah, gosh, fail. Well, all these bills. I mean, the Tennessee one, whatever. We won't do drag for you. They all, of course, dress up quietly

in their basements by themselves. That's what, you know, one of the things I always noticed about San Francisco is the freak was on the outside and the normal was on the inside. And their freak is hidden deeply and it's going to create such hatred in that state. I'm not going there anymore.

That's ridiculous. Did you see Jon Stewart's piece? No, what did he do? What's the leading cause of death amongst children in this country? And I'm going to give you a hint. It's not drag show readings to children. Correct, yes. I'm trying to think if my kids have ever been exposed to it.

I would like them to be exposed to it, but I don't think they ever have. What is it that triggers them so? They're fun. They're so sick in the head. They're so deeply, deeply sick in the head. And it's a disease that they need to... And they have legislative power. And boy, would they like us back into the even worse... They want us to go back even further than we've come far. But you know what? We're not dying quiet deaths anymore, as they used to say in Angels in America.

You can fuck yourself. We're not going anywhere. When? I would say everyone needs to see everything, everywhere, all at once. Great movie. I did interview Jamie Lee Curtis, but I've also interviewed Michelle Yeoh and others in it.

And it's a fantastic, talk about a life-affirming movie. What a life-affirming movie about grief and also about happiness and about feeling frustrated in our different lives. If you want to experience life and enjoy a session with hot dog fingers, you will enjoy it. Can kids watch it? Yes, yes. It's wonderful. You know what? There's some dildos.

I'll be honest with you, but they're funny. You'll like it. It's worth it in every way. I do have another fail. Twitter has experienced another outage, and Elon Musk replied to a user saying, and let's do a deep sigh here, and let's pretend he's doing a deep sigh because he wrote it. This platform is so brittle, sigh, will be fixed shortly. Okay. It's not your fault. You're the owner, sir. Fix it. This platform is so brittle, Cy, will be fixed shortly. Okay. It's not your fault.

You're the owner, sir. Fix it. Fix it. Fix it. Fix it. But he can land a rocket on a surfboard. He can land a rocket on a surfboard and drown puppies. You can fix Twitter. Anyway, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions about business tech or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVID. Scott, that's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more. What a full show of things. And I like our little back and forth about trans issues. But I appreciate the debate in any case. So read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Intertot engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Emil Silverio. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Dads, surrender to your instincts. Be there emotionally. Express your emotions and your love for your kids.