Pivot - Twitter’s Suing the Government of India and Yet Another Mass Shooting in America

Episode Date: July 8, 2022

Kara and Scott discuss Twitter alleging the Government of India abused their power, and more Government vs. Tech news. And there was yet again, another mass shooting in America. Plus, Boris Johnson will Brexit, and he’s not the only one with secret children. Also, Biden and Bezos have beef, and Gavin Newsom is coming for Ron DeSantis. Send us your Listener Mail questions by calling us at 855-51-PIVOT, or via Yappa at 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. So, Scott, how was your long weekend? It was really nice. The highlight was we're in Colorado,

and the municipality here has made this wonderful decision. They no longer do fireworks. They do a laser show. And for dog owners everywhere, it's just such a gift because July 4th is a day of anxiety and hysteria and fear for dogs. And so we had a wonderful 4th in the great state of Colorado. And, yeah, so it was nice. How was yours? It was good. I was in Vermont. It was nice.

It was nice. It was very simple. A lot of trees. A lot of trees. A lot of trees. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was very lovely. By a nice. It was nice. It was very simple. A lot of trees, a lot of trees. A lot of trees. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was very lovely by a lake and it's very, the kids love it. So. Nice.

So there's a lot of news. Obviously we're going to get to the shooting in Illinois, which was horrible at a parade. I was at a parade like that and I can't even imagine the horror that those people went through, but we'll go into that in a second. Today, governments around the world are coming for big tech. We'll also look at the impacts of this tragic shooting over the holiday. And then we'll take a listener question on Super Apps, Scott's favorite topic. But first, Boris Johnson, Brexit stage right. There you go. He's resigned as leader of Britain's Conservative Party following a flood of resignations by members of his own government.

You know, sort of someone said it was the ship fleeing the rats. Johnson's latest troubles began when he backed an unpopular deputy who was accused of groping two men while drunk. Johnson says he'll remain as prime minister until replacement can be found. It went on and on. He wasn't going to do it. There was a whole thing around Larry the cat online. Some of the best tweets, there's a cat who stands in front of 10 Downing Street, and he was tweeting up a storm about trying to get rid of him and

saying there's food inside, but he'll eat it by morning. So what do you think of that? Are you up for the job, Scott? What are you going to do there in your newfound country? Well, I'm glad you finally recognized that I am the man for the job. I think that just makes a lot of sense. Low bar. Low bar. Low bar. So, look, I think it's a good thing. So, Boris was there three years.

Theresa May before him was there three years. And I do think we have swung too far in the U.S. to seniority and incumbent strength, the incumbents. I mean, think about this. The reasons he's been basically forced to resign would just be like a bad press cycle for a president or a congressman or a senator here. Yeah, well, for President Trump. Now, these days, it used to be what people got resigned for, but not today because Trump has sort of raised the bar. This wouldn't have taken down any president in modern-day American history. I mean, I'm sorry, a cabinet person groped two men and they didn't disclose. They weren't as forthcoming as they should have been. I mean. Yeah, it was on the heels of the party gate.

It was on the heels of all kinds of lies. He persistently lies. Hello, he lied is pretty much what he says. Let me be clear. I think it's wonderful that these ministers said, I am not comfortable with the integrity and the complexion of this administration. I'm going to resign. And so many people began resigning that he resigned. That does not happen in America. No. And when we basically have a nursing home running for president and we have absolutely—we have a—in Germany, their superior court, by the time they're 68 or they've served 12 years, whichever comes first, they are booted out.

You need churn. You need accountability. And one of us, one of us, the Britain and the U.S., has that. The other does not. The other has a level of ossification and a tolerance for just ridiculously insane treasonous behavior, in my view. So I look at, I never thought, I always thought Boris Johnson was sort of a Trump-like figure, incredible political instincts, totally pivoting from one issue to the other with absolutely no ability to maintain any sort of long-term planning or strategy. You know,

he always was going to go down as a function of errors of, you know, self-inflicted errors. But this is what happens in Britain. You do a fraction of this shit and they boot you out. So I think this is a good thing. It's interesting. What's interesting is there's other people up for they're going to they don't vote on the next person. The conservatives will vote and then there'll be an election with labor and conservatives, essentially. There's other parties there.

But I'm explaining your new country to you. But they're going to pick someone. And it's interesting. The whole list contains a lot of people of color and women, but the person who's top for the job is a man, a white guy, which is a big surprise. But there's a very interesting range of candidates, many of whom resigned. One of them is the foreign minister, a woman who actually stuck with him till the end, which may be bad for her. But we'll see. The cat remains. That's all we have to know. And your country is in good hands again. Well, we'll see. But you brought up just one key

point of differentiation, and that is, if you look at Canada, Australia, and the UK, they have a parliamentary system. We have a presidential system. And that is, they elect, really, the primary, the key fulcrum of the key election is they elect a party to power. And then the party picks their leader. Here, we elect a president. And the founding fathers wanted more checks and balances. And what's happened is, as a function of that, we can get nothing done. So when Israel or the UK or Australia or Canada elects a party, the leader of that party can then say, okay, there's been a mass shooting. Why don't we ban assault rifles? And the party goes, yeah, it makes sense.

Let's do that. And they can actually get shit done. So we have a checks and balances system that has created tremendous intransigence, which I think the parliamentary system is showing that in a modern day with this type of information age cycle and polarization is probably a more effective mechanism of governance than one we have. Well, or a different way to nominate the primary system. I think we could probably fix that with a bunch of other things. Anyway, he also was super controversial and sloppy and a liar, essentially. And he had secret children, everything. Oh, my God. Secret children? That was my, I'm just going to let you go. Elon Musk fathered a pair of twins with a top executive at one of his companies. The twins were born in November of last year to Siobhan Zillis, who works for Musk at Neuralink, formerly worked at Tesla. They aren't the only secret children Musk children born last year. In December, Musk had a second child with artist Grimes, which is only revealed in May. Grimes, which is only revealed in May. I don't know what to say. No one's accusing Musk of impropriety. This woman's obviously working with him because they're changing the name of the children to Musk in court. He has triplets, two pairs of twins, and two kids with Grimes. That's what he's got now. But having your kids with your employees is unusual, I guess. It's happened,

though. It's happened at Google. It happened a bunch of places. So anyway, in court filings, Musk and Zillow's both list multimillion-dollar Austin home as their residence, furthering the mystery of where Musk actually lives. So I don't know. I don't know what to say. A lot of people were like, you shouldn't be sleeping with someone at work. I don't know their situation. I don't know the rules at Tesla and Neuralink. I'm certain they're looser than many corporations.

What do you think about this? I'm certain they're looser than many corporations. What do you think about this? So, look, you can't fiercely advocate for a person's right to terminate a pregnancy and then criticize people for having kids. It's his right. If he wants to have kids and women consenting partners want to have kids with him, he has a lot of resources. He might be one of those dads who's able to juggle a lot of balls and still be an engaged father. These kids are not going to want for anything.

I do think it's his personal life. I'm not, I don't think it's right to judge him. I think it's his business. The part that it gets a little dicey is that when he's showing up and telling his workers they have to be in the office full time, even though he has three or four companies, when the president of one of his companies is coming out and saying that payment. This is a flight attendant situation. And that was an allegation. So fine, it's not fair to, but it did come out that they paid them off.

And then just a few weeks later, it comes out that a subordinate gave birth to twins. So the reality is, okay, most CEOs would be out. Any woman who did anything remotely like this would not only be out, but have a scarlet letter on her chest for the rest of her professional life. So it just goes to this notion that he does get to live by a different set of rules and standards. And I got to be honest with me, I mean, really think this through. I don't know why this makes me so happy. I was giddy when I read this. The guy had not one, not two, but three kids within two weeks of one another last year. Yeah, yeah.

The good news is every, I can't imagine every Mormon wakes up every morning and goes, thank Christ he's not a Mormon. Could you imagine this activity if he was a Mormon? Anyway, here's the deal. Here's the deal. We don't know the rules within Tesla. A lot of companies have different rules. You know, Bill Gates met his wife at work. This happened.

Of course, then he had those other issues. It happens all the time, but we don't know the rules and we don't know their relationship. Maybe it seems like they're living together. No rules. We know the rules. There are no fucking rules for one guy. There are no rules. There are only rules for everybody else. Depends on the things. Anyway,

congratulations, I guess. Let me guess. You think he disclosed it and it was... No. And she was transferred away from any influence from him like most companies would do? No. No. No. I don't. I don't know. I have no information. The topper is, okay, no, I don't. I don't. And no information. Okay. Nine kids by three women.

And, and he's got a hermetically signed agreement to buy Twitter for 54 bucks a share. Why does this all make me so happy, Kara? I don't know. Why does this all make me so happy? It's interesting because when he was just having the second kid, I think I joked with him when he had this, the first baby with Grimes. I'm like, I'm almost caught up to you. And he went, huh. Like, now I understand. Yeah, right.

It was funny. And he's been tweeting a lot about how the Western world doesn't have enough kids. Having kids. Yeah, they need more kids. Anyway, speaking of angry Twitter barons, there's a beef with Bezos and Biden again. Like, Bezos is tweeting it up again. Biden tweeted this week that gas stations should lower prices for like the cost of the product.

In response, the former Amazon CEO tweeted, ouch, inflation is far too important a problem for the White House to keep making statements like this. It's either straight ahead misdirection or deep misunderstanding of basic market dynamics. The White House Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre responded by saying, I guess it's not surprising that you think

oil and gas companies using market power to reap record profits at the expense of American people is the way our economy is supposed to work. Ooh. Well, I think, I don't know. Bezos is on his own. He's a citizen. He can say what he wants, although it's interesting. Yeah, but that statement by Biden was populist bullshit.

I mean, companies, he wasn't telling gas companies to raise their prices when the Texas economy wasn't doing well and oil companies were in the shitter. And the notion that all of a sudden he's going to get morally indignant at companies. I mean, the oil industry for the last 20 years has not been – it hasn't been a great industry. And now they're making money. But, again, the primary driver, if he wants to lecture or wave his finger at anybody, he should wave it at Vladimir Putin. I think about 50% of the price per gallon is the price of oil. So to start kind of lecturing U.S. oil companies— No, there's not much you can do.

He wants to look like he's mad at people. I agree. Biden is misspeaking here. But he's made some really stupid. His other stupid decision was to try and have a gas tax holiday. Yeah. Let me get this. We're trying to get people off of SUVs and off of internal combustion engines.

So we're going to give them. A lot of the climate people were pretty pissed about. I think Bezos is taking an easy, an easy shot at stupid policy. I think President Biden on this one issue, I think he's been a fantastic stabilizing force. I think he's a good man. I think he's gotten us, pulled us away from the edge of something pretty dangerous. It is interesting that Bezos never said a word about Trump, even though Trump even attacked him rather viciously. And then suddenly he's Mr. Blah Blah.

But I guess he was the CEO of Amazon at the time. Who knows? Yeah, I think they all, I think when the camera's on or they have an employee meeting and they see how young and how many of them live in Brooklyn, I think they all pretend to be much more progressive than they are. Not all. I think they're closeted. They call themselves libertarians. They're really Republicans. Yeah, yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I agree. I agree. They love their moolah. Anyway, speaking of feuds, Gavin Newsom is coming for Ron DeSantis. Newsom ran ads on Fox Affiliates in Florida telling residents to join us in California over the holiday weekend. Let's listen to a clip. Republican leaders, they're banning books,

making it harder to vote, restricting speech in classrooms, even criminalizing women and doctors. I urge all of you living in Florida to join the fight or join us in California, where we still believe in freedom. That made me laugh. I don't know. I thought it was good. What do you think? It's simple. This is him announcing he's running for president. Yeah, as you noted. There's just absolutely no reason he would do this. He's not trying to raise money out of Florida. He's not trying. There's no reason to antagonize the governor of the fourth largest state when you're the largest state. This is nothing but deciding to play offense and as about as transparent as a press release that I, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California,

am running for president. And I see my competition as you, and I'm going to start shitposting about you. So what do you think of it, though? Did you like it? Did you not like it? I do like it. I do not like all the shitposting

from these tech executives who make all of their money in California. California, in addition to being the most beautiful, if California was a country, much less a state, it'd be the most beautiful nation in the world. Nothing matches the collision of sea, sky, and land. Nothing matches the alchemy that has created the most innovative culture in the history of mankind that has generated so much wealth that white guys from Stanford who conflate luck with talent make billions of dollars and then leave the state to recognize that capital gain at lower tax rate and immediately start shitposting about the problems in California. California has huge problems,

interesting about the problems in california california has huge problems but it is just not when when you have made billions of dollars because of the positives of california regarding the negatives of california keep it to your fucking self yeah it's shabby i you know that you know i'm always like leave your girlfriend doesn't like you anymore anyway i enjoyed it i thought it was very saucy um i think a lot of people liked it because a lot of democrats think biden's not being aggressive enough and so they like aggression. Same thing with Governor of Illinois Pritzker. And there's going to be more of that from Democrats, like more like kicking ass of Republicans, I think, which is fine. I liked it. I thought it was a good ad. He's a handsome man. It worked. You need it. We need a handsome president.

Handsome presidents are more effective. Yeah. Yeah. Again, if it's Mark Cuban, we'll have a good time at the White House. It'll be fun. Are you? Oh, that's right. Didn't Governor Newsom marry you? No. Oh, I thought he married you. No. But I do know him very well. I do know him very well. Yes. Yes. Maybe we'll be seeing him soon at some event that I'm running, but we'll see. Weren't you excited? I was excited to see it. I was excited. It really triggered something. Whoever did it, it was that I'm running, but we'll see. Weren't you excited? I was excited to see it. I was, it really triggered something. Whoever did it, it was a bold, aggressive and smart move. It made me excited about Governor Newsom for president.

Yeah, he's an interesting character. I know there's a lot of hair on that dog, but I do think he's interesting. Okay, let's get to our first big story. Speaking of Illinois and the governor there who gave a very heartfelt speech, there's been yet another mass shooting in America. A shooter killed seven people during the Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois. The alleged gunman planned the attack for weeks and disguised himself as a woman to hide his identity. His online presence suggested he has strong fascination with violence.

There's a ton of online presence for this guy. Two of his music videos depicted shootings. He posted thousands of times to an online forum dedicated to sharing violent content. This guy was deep into tech stuff. Like, it's really interesting. And of course, of course, Tucker Carlson blamed women and the internet, but nonetheless, I think we should blame the shooter. He's admitted to it, apparently. His father also gave him permission to buy these guns after a lot of incidents, a lot of violent incidents. So after Uvalde, we heard unusual arguments about how to prevent mass shootings. Do any of them apply here? You can't harden a parade against shooters.

You can't police every single rooftop around every single gathering in America. No one left a door open for the shooter. This is a really difficult thing. Now, you have talked a lot about young men and their isolation, and this guy seemed deeply disturbed and isolated, especially in the online space. I don't blame online for that, but thoughts on this? Well, just as it relates to mental illness and men who are failing or struggling, there are a lot of reasons, good reasons, to allocate more resources and destigmatize mental illness.

There are a lot of reasons, I think, to make an incremental or bigger investment, not so much in young males, because I think that'll become too politicized, but in our youth, where we have seen there are opportunities for the first time a man at the age or a woman at the age of 30 is not doing as well as his or her parents of the same age, cost of education skyrocketing. Social media has made a lot of them feel very isolated. A lot of young men, biologically, societally, and economically are failing relative to every other cohort.

They are alone, they are broke, and a lot of them turn to very damaging behavior. And the thing I worry about, and I've asked, I think I told you this, I've been asked to go on CNN and other networks and talk about the link between failing young men and their emotional health and mass shootings. And it's dangerous to conflate mental illness and these mass shootings, because I believe it has been used as a weapon of mass distraction from the real problem, and that is in the U.S., we don't really over-index on mental illness. What we over-index on is that the mentally ill people we have have access to weapons of war and care. That is correct. shooters. The majority of them, the day before the mass shooting, would likely not qualify

as mentally ill or at least not reach the qualification where you could incarcerate them or demand, take away their rights. So I find, unfortunately, I think the conversation around mental illness and failing young men in this country is a huge conversation around the importance of our economy, the importance of people's well-being, the importance of people to attach to others, the importance of household formation, the importance of getting young men away from misogynistic and anti-climate and conspiracy content. But I worry that this is mental illness and this discussion is being used as nothing but a distraction. Because here's the reality.

When you're talking about mentally ill, they're more likely to be the subject or the victims of violence than the perpetrators. And so to immediately go to the mental illness card and say, oh, he was mentally ill. Well, that's what the Republicans, come on, that's what they do. They don't want to, I think one of the issues is that this guy got a gun after several disturbing incidents with his family, by the way, which never, they just, you know, he was going to harm them. And then the family said, oh, it's fine. You know, that's which I can see a family doing, you know, after calling the police after being nervous. the police after being nervous. And then the father signed on for a weapon of mass, like one of these, you know, high velocity rifles kind of thing. And so that the age gating of certain weapons seems to be just the way we talk about the age gating of certain social media networks is we gate everything else. Why not this? And that's, you know, they need to be, the ban on assault weapons, maybe not everybody, but certainly people under 25. You could just have the statistics. And that's what it means. And I do think this online radicalization is problematic. I think it feeds into the entire thing. I do not think it's to blame. I hate when I saw all these people. And listen, I'm very critical of these companies. They did have a lot of warning. They just, I don't think they can monitor this stuff.

I don't think it's, who knows what's the line between obnoxious videos and I'm going to act and shoot people. I don't know how you, it's impossible. It's impossible. It's impossible. If you were to attempt to say, all right, we're going to identify young men who are estranged, feel a loss of social status, are behaving strangely, it is very difficult to discern what is truly dangerous teenager behavior from what is just teenager behavior. And it would be incorrect to stigmatize every male introvert that exhibits depressed or lonely or social, you know, stress behavior as a potential shooter. That's going to do more harm than good. And a lot of what you're talking about go to gun control, specifically red flag laws, where we say, okay, if you want to have a weapon, you have to meet certain standards in the household. I also think there's issues around liability. But again, it all comes back to how do we ensure that these guns don't get into the wrong hands?

And it's always a weapon. This guy bought the guns legally. They are weapons of war. They do tremendous. I mean, anyways, it just feels like we're playing the same movie over and over. Anyways, it just feels like we're playing the same movie over and over, and the Republicans and the NRA will go to mental illness, which is a huge problem for our society. In this case, it's nothing but distraction in its attempt to obfuscate from the real issue here, and that is we need much more stringent gun control laws. And you pointed out something, the best regulation we could ever have for guns or for gun control is a 25th birthday. A lot of this would go away. The mass shootings,

not the deaths by suicide, which are the majority of gun deaths, is somebody wakes up and says, my world is black. There is no way out today. And rather than acknowledging what is almost always the truth, and that is you will get better, you will feel better, they think, I know, I have a gun. I can end this right now. So, there's a, you know, it's a nuanced, complex issue, but in this case, the people talking about mental illness aren't really the ones that care about mental illness. They're the ones that care about distracting us from the real issue. Right, they don't. They don't. It's like anti-abortion, people caring about the kids that are actually born, as George Carlin says. I never blame parents for some of these things because you never know how difficult it is to deal with a very depressed child and someone who's troubled. There's a troubled kid in every class, and everybody knows that, at least one,

by the way. And I try not to blame the parents, but in this case, it sounds very much like the parents' father particularly dropped the ball in a way that is significant. And they did not, it was very, they should not have given this kid a gun or let him get a gun. I would, there's no way. Now, kids are going to get guns if they really want to get them, but they'll have to try harder than parents sign off on it. I just, I never blame parents. Boy, is this one moment when you should. Anyway, we'll see. I don't think it'll go anywhere, unfortunately, but it was terrifying. And especially break, what you talk about. They're very, everyone's gathered online and a lot of it's conspiracy theory and other stuff.

The offline gatherings, like the parade we went to in Vermont was so beautiful. There's so few chances for community that this is another destruction of community-based joining together of people in a happy place. Churches are weaker, workplaces, nobody's going back. We got a lot of reaction to our last episode about with Jeremy. There are so fewer and fewer places to gather.

It goes to the heart of the problems we have as a country, which is we can't gather anymore even. We're terrified of going to the supermarket, doing things in a community-based thing. And a parade, a 4th of July parade really is the top level of that in so many ways for a lot of people. You mentioned a couple of things.

One, you can harden these places and we don't want them hardened. When Newtown happened, I was on the board of my kid's school and there was understandable concern slash hysteria that we immediately needed to have constant armed guards, a gate, a fence around the school. And I'm like, what's the point? I mean, the whole point, I mean, at Columbine, there were armed guards. The whole point, I mean, at Columbine, there were armed guards.

All you do when you arm a guard is ensure that they get shot first because it's usually, the kid usually went to the school. There's just so few instances, and this goes for owning a gun for quote-unquote self-protection. The moment you decide to own a gun for self-protection, you increase the likelihood you will be shot by that gun. It just doesn't, there is no hardening, and not only that, even if we could figure out the level of hardening we want, we don't want that. That's the point of having a joyous, open society where you can walk your kids to school, you can pick up your kid from school in front of the school. But all roads lead to the same place here, and they're just going to try and divert our attention into different off-ramps. We need serious, serious gun reform.

And the other thing we need, and this will be more controversial, or I would advocate, in Israel, when a terrorist would blow up a nightclub, the Israeli army would show up to the house of the family, and they would blow the house up. It was unfair, and I'm not advocating for that, but what I'm saying is there needs to be more liability for the people in the House who know there are weapons of war in the House if something terrible happens. Because no matter what kind of gun regulations we put in place, you cannot supervise millions of people. And parents have to take, parents and family members, when they see a young man, especially, with a weapon of war, or they have access to a weapon of war. You looked at his videos? I think there are, I think, quite frankly, there's criminal liability here. I would have looked at my kids' videos like that and been like, no guns. We're going to therapy.

Who knows? I just, it's such a breakdown of family structure. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. We come back, we'll talk about Twitter suing the government of India, and we'll take a listener mail question about super apps, which is Scott's favorite subject. 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.

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Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home. you know and trust. Art. Word art. Sorry, we have laugh lovers. 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 on our second big story. Twitter is suing the government in India and alleging that Indian officials abused their power. A very important case. In the last year, Indian authorities have requested that Twitter remove hundreds of posts and accounts. Some of those posts challenged the government position on issues ranging from Sikh independence to COVID measures. Twitter reportedly complied with the requests last week and says the government threatened to open criminal proceedings against one of its Indian executives. I think this is a really interesting fight.

The country isn't afraid of banning apps. In 2020, it banned TikTok, WeChat, and a dozen of Chinese apps. India already has a homegrown Twitter replacement called Koo waiting in the wings. Government ministers are using Koo in favor of Twitter, but it's kind of ridiculous. It's manipulating media, really, in a lot of ways. I think this is very important.

Twitter's got to push back in all these countries where this is happening, and so do the other ones. They spent a lot of time in this country where they have pretty much free reign in many ways. Very little is in their way in this country. To have this happen in other countries, I don't know. I think they must, or they become organs of the government, government's in power it doesn't even mean this particular party um and uh and modi using trying to you know they do it duterte in the philippines it's all over the world this happens and so turkey um you can't allow the internet to be balkanized in this fashion i think and you know the same thing is happening these texas decisions it's not going to pass know, these trying to force people to keep things up. These companies should do, run the companies the way they want to, and then they can get, you know, attacked for those

decisions as we've many times have done. But it seems like government getting involved in content moderation is literally the worst thing I could think of more than I'd rather have Mark Zuckerberg at the wheel. Sorry, I hate to say that, but I do not want to have any government official at the wheel of content moderation whatsoever. Look, you're right. This stuff can be weaponized. It's frightening to think that the government is going to start deciding what content can go out on Twitter and what can't. At the same time, companies have to operate within the confines of the law of the domains they want to operate in. So I think it comes down to the decision Google faced and ultimately decided to leave that they

faced in China was, do you want to play along with a government, whether it's an authoritarian government or a government that's trying to weaponize Twitter into a propaganda tool, or do you want to pull up stakes and leave? I don't know the semantics of the case, whether they have a legal argument here, but this is a problem doing business in nations that aren't, you know, I mean, India, a lot of people describe India as the world's largest democracy and that we have no moral footing to stand on. But when the platform is kind of being moderated by government, you kind of have to decide, look, do we want to do business here or not?

Yeah, it has 48 million active monthly app users across its smartphone apps in India, according to Sensor Tower. I bet they make no money there. Probably, it's a headache and they have to fight it. I think it's now, interestingly, the European Parliament formally approved the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act

on Tuesday, among other things, legislation to force Apple to allow apps from outside its app store. I think this is precisely the way you legislate these companies. You create competition, and the European Commission is making it easier to quit Amazon Prime. Amazon, for example, agreed to shorten the cancellation process

just two clicks, following pressure from several European consumer groups who said the process was intentionally confusing. What a shock. We'll see how this... I think this is the way to do it. Aim at privacy, aim at business, aim at competition. You do not aim at regulating speech. I think that's where they get into trouble. Sticking to regulating business practices and stay out of regulating speech seems to be the smartest way any democratic government should deal with it. And I agree,

they should pull up stakes if they're not allowed to be who they are and make decisions as businesses. All this says to me, and I apologize for being so cynical, is they make absolutely no money out of India. Otherwise, they wouldn't be taking this moral stand because they failed to take it anywhere else. Well, we'll see. I do think what Europe is doing is much smarter than some other democratic governments in terms of dealing with the business part of it. And that's what our country should do. We're still waiting for the Globuchar bills, the various Globuchar bills, and the other bills in Congress to deal with this stuff. But it should all focus on privacy, business practices, and competition.

And it does take care of itself if you do that. The minute you start wading into this idiotic Texas law, keep them up, put them down. None of their fucking business are government officials about what should be kept up and put down unless it's actually dangerous. And that's another thing altogether. Anyway, we'll see where it goes. It's a very important move anyway, even if it's virtue signaling. But you're right, they probably should leave. Okay, Scott, let's pivot to a listener question. You've got, you've got, I can't believe I'm going to be a mailman. You've got mail. The question comes from Andy in Oahu via email. I'll read it. I love Oahu. I miss Hawaii.

Hi, Kara and Scott. You often mention the lack of US-based super app to rival that WeChat has in China with Amazon Prime now offering free Grubhub delivery. Prime now has its hands in shopping, grocery delivery, streaming entertainment, streaming music, eBooks, gaming, unlimited photo storage and food delivery. If they bought Twitter and or Lyft, who else could even attempt that type of horizontal scale? Thanks, Andy in Oahu.

Kara, we've got a remote desk waiting for you. Oh, Andy, I wish it was so. I have too many children like Elon Musk. And no private plane. And no, here I am without private plane. Talk about this, super app. Get into super app. Well, look, a super app, essentially, first off, let's talk about India and China both have super apps. And whoever establishes super app status, and it's usually three legs of the stool are transportation, social media, and then some sort of payments platform. And then it becomes the operating

system for that nation. And that company becomes one of the five most valuable companies in that nation. And so what you have in the U.S. is you have iOS and Android have a vested interest in ensuring no super app emerges because essentially the App Store and Android or iOS, if you will, are already super apps. Because what happens with super apps is if you have the best payment platform, if you're PayPal and you say, okay, we have a great payment platform

and then you buy Lyft, if you already have gone through the brain damage of putting your credit card information onto PayPal and they'll say, we'll give you $50 in free credits if you use Lyft after they acquire Lyft. All of a sudden, Lyft gains a lot of share. And just as I don't love Apple Music, but I'm already in at the Apple ecosystem, so it gets a little bit easier. So even though it's an inferior product to Spotify, I might use Apple or Amazon Music because they have this kind of super app status. I might use Apple or Amazon Music because they have this kind of super app status.

So whoever is able to establish kind of super app status in the U.S. is going to rival Google and Apple in terms of market cap. And what's interesting is the door through which it could enter. So if Uber were to purchase a social media company or a payments company, it could have super app status. I think the most likely one is a payments platform because of their market capitalization. Well, Amazon has a payments company, it could have super app status. I think the most likely one is a payments platform because of their market capitalization. Well, Amazon has a payments platform. I'm trying to think of the apps I use the most.

Amazon, hands down. I use Uber, certainly. If they owned Uber, that would be great. You know what I mean? That wouldn't be great because I don't like consolidation. But, you know, Amazon is the one I interact with absolutely the most of all of them in terms of many significant things.

And not everyone, but certainly a lot. And he's right. I think Andy is right that this is the closest thing. Probably the constellation of Apple apps, I guess, together, but you would use them separately. They're not a super app. You use them separately. The constellation is. And if you're an Android, they're a constellation of things. But then again, I use Google Docs. There is no super app here. You're right. It's very hard for that to happen.

Well, Apple and Android put their elbows out. They want to make sure nobody gets there. And what I thought would have been interesting, actually, I mean, way back when, pre-Elon, when I was trying to soft circle capital to take a position in Twitter, I thought, okay, if a PayPal or someone were to acquire Twitter overnight, you have a competitor to WeChat. And I always thought the smartest thing that Elon was talking about was trying to incorporate, and he has obviously a background, yeah, payments into Twitter. You had discussed that before he did. Let me just point out. Where's that going? He's been unusually silent. I guess it's moving forward.

Where's it going? Chug-a-chug. Oh, my God. Hey, who's that guy that shows up for every ninth soccer practice? Anyways. That's a lot of soccer practices. Oh, I hate soccer practices. He could spend his life on a soccer sideline. I mean, we have two kids that play soccer, unfortunately, and I am just so sick of it. I hate soccer. It's turned me off the youth soccer. Anyways, he's being quiet, Kara. I have such sporty children. I like basketball. I'm glad Alex is on the varsity team. That's very fun. Yeah, basketball's fun. Basketball's okay. Yeah. I don't like, don't tell them, but I don't like lacrosse. Oh, really? I think about lacrosse. I played

in the father-son basketball tournament just a few weeks ago. And of course, tore my meniscus. Someone tell that guy he's 57. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Elon Musk has been quite about the deal carer because he's trying to, you know, he's doing everything he can. It's already a figment of, it's already in his rear view mirror. He wants nothing to do with it. He's tasked his lawyers with getting him out of the deal for the least amount of damage possible. I saw the most ridiculous statement. Someone was—I forget who it was—was saying that, oh, that Twitter doesn't want to go through this case because it will reveal in discovery their behavior during the process. And I'm like, well, you're right. Someone's going to look really bad in discovery here, but it's not going to be Twitter.

Well, could be. Who knows? Who knows? Jack Dorsey was in there on their pals. Who knows? In any way, we'll see where it goes. We'll see. But we do think Amazon is the closest.

And by the way, Amazon Prime members can now get a free year of Grubhub Plus, offers users free delivery, and other perks usually costs $9.99 per month. In response to the news, DoorDash dropped 11% and Uber dropped 4%. I use Uber Eats. I do. That's what I use. More food. More food in the back of an Uber now than... That's right.

I use it quite a bit. So I guess I do interact a lot with Uber. Anyway, if you've got a question of your own or one that you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. And we'd love to hear your voice. So please do that. All right, Scott, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails. As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month. Every month. At Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and

conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at Fizz.ca. Okay, Scott, let's hear some wins and fails. Why don't you start? My win is I was forwarded this, I don't know if it's a letter to the editor, but a letter by a guy named Tom. He's a retired computer programmer from Baton Rouge named Tom Barton. And I don't know the outlet he wrote in on, but I think it was a local paper. But he basically says, and I'll read some experts from it in this letter, outlying abortion is just a bad idea. I'm an old man who's probably already had his last sex, but that doesn't mean I've turned against it. In my mind, sex is the best it gets. It's fun, good exercise, and free. Most importantly, it's life's most

spectacular form of intimacy. Think of music. Think of poetry. And then he goes on to say, all my life, I've known the difference between a fetus and a baby. Now I'm being told there is no difference. That's a distortion of words and an error. The foundation of a house is not a beloved home. A three-month-old fetus is not a baby. Having a kid shouldn't be a surprise assignment from God. Raising a kid is a 21-year project that's going to take up all of the parents' resources.

Even then, it might never be finished. Pushing people into parenthood is a bad idea. Sex is beautiful. God did give it to us. We should not be asking every man and woman every time they enjoy this gift to be wagering on a lifeline obligation to raise a child. The abortion alternative comes from our friend science. It is not the enemy. Good for you, Tom. I thought he just kind of perfectly encapsulated a side of this issue we don't talk about. And that is sex is a means of saying, I choose you. It's a means of saying our relationship is singular. It's one of the few places I think in the world where you can really be who you are. And to start saddling it with all this bullshit obligation

from people who are kind of, who are probably beyond the ability to have sex and aren't going to be obligated. And usually overseas states where one in four kids are so concerned about are living in poverty. But he, I thought he did a good idea of articulating

the upside of sex beyond just procreation. Anyways, that's my win. Tom Barton from Baton Rouge. I like it. I'm going to do a win and then we can both do fails. I have several wins, actually. Larry the Cat, the chief mouser of the cabinet office, I just literally love every, it was such a pleasure for this cat to be commenting on what was happening. I know it was silly and stupid, but just now wanted. New housemate for Westminster-based feline. Recently decorated house. Includes excellent security.

Lightly used office space and garden. Suitable for hosting parties. Deep clean required. Oh, the cat makes me laugh. And the other person who makes me laugh, Linda Carter. I think she's become a really fantastic tweeter and very smart. She's a former Wonder Woman. And I got to tell her, she's just fantastic.

She's so funny. There's several celebrity tweeters like Henry Winkler's funny and several others. I am just really blown away by her, and I think she's really interesting in terms of how she's doing it. And she wrote one that I think, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on around trans people now, and there was a very controversial piece

in the New York Times, et cetera. And I think she wrote a response that was the smartest response I heard, and I agree with it completely. I cannot think of anything that helps women's rights less than pinning the blame on trans women. They face so much violence and scrutiny as is. Leave them alone and focus on the real war on women. It's happening in the courts and legislatures around the country. I just was like, that is correct, Linda Carter. Why shouldn't, you know, very, she does it all the

time. And I really, she did one around lesbians and Wonder Woman. And she doesn't, She's not always liberal, but boy, is she smart, I got to say. And then The Cat and Linda Carter. That's my positive. You brought Linda Carter to my book party. Did I? Yes. I didn't. Tammy Hadid did.

Yes. And my fail is Brittany Griner in Russia was on trial there. They needed to get her out of there for just having some vape things. And I understand countries have laws, but this is obviously a show. When you say they, who do you mean? The Biden administration should be more aggressive. I don't know, Carol.

Yeah, I know it's hard. I get it. I get it. I've been thinking a lot about propaganda and I'm writing about it. And I actually think that TikTok is an existential threat and should be banned unless they can spin it into a U.S. operation. And the master, the seventh level, you know, grand chess master, Jetta Yoda, you know, of propaganda and geopolitical play is

Putin. And notice who he has incarcerated, a woman who would immediately absorb or invite all kinds of support from the gay community, from the athletic community, and immediately put pressure on Biden to get her out. And what are they asking for? They're asking that in exchange that we give up and release a global arms dealer who has been trafficking in weapons in and out of Russia. You're right. I just feel that. This is nothing but superior calculation on the part. It was no accident who they took, when they took her, and incarcerated her. And I'm not saying—I think it's abhorrent she's been incarcerated. I think we should do everything we can except create more incentive for them to continue to take people of color, people from the LGBTQ community here.

So I think the Biden administration is in a tough spot, but we should absolutely – I think they're doing the right thing. They should not give into pressure that he is clearly predetermined would come to bear on him and give up an asset that is causing huge damage. I just feel terrible. She just admitted she brought it in and it's 10 years. I just feel like this is like, I feel like I'm back at Midnight Express or something like that. Anyhow. God, that movie freaked me out. Do you remember that movie? Freaked me out. Freaked me out. Freaked me out. Freaked me out. All right. Your fail?

My fail, and you're going to hate this one, my fail to date is Vice President Kamala Harris. Freaked me out. All right. Your fail? going to go down is nearly insignificant because I don't think Biden is going to be the president in 2024. My sense is so far, her vice presidency has been, in a word, underwhelming. Yeah. I think most vice presidencies are underwhelming. Let's be clear. There's very little. If you want to get on with, you have to go against the West Wing, and that's an issue, right? I don't even think she comes. Yeah, but they're at least likable. I don't even think, I don't think her likability, I think her likability and approval ratings have even gone down. I think she's seen as totally ineffective. And there's rumors that her staff doesn't like her. Yeah, they've had a turnover. But that's always with women. Give me a break. Give me a, that one I'm not going to go with, you know, tough ladies. Same thing

with Amy Klobuchar. She's so mean. I'm like, oh my God, really? I agree. I don't know. I think it's, I think, I think she's in a, she's in a jam and she has to pull her, she's got to like, if she,

she just decided she wanted to be vice president or president someday. Well, she's, she made that decision

a while ago. Remember, she ran for president. So, yeah, she did. She like, she,

she needs to find an issue and own it. And the West Wing needs to support her. Supposedly the West Wing just does not like her at all. And they need to support her. And they need to say, all right, this is an important issue. We're going to give this to you.

We're going to support you. And she needs to get all over it and start actually making some progress. Because she's going to go down as just a trivia question. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom, also in her state. You said he wouldn't do it because it's in her state. I don't agree with you. I think Gavin's an ambitious man. I didn't say he wouldn't run against her.

I thought it was you who said he wouldn't go against her. Oh, no. I don't think. They all wake up and say hello, Mr. and Mrs. President in the morning, and then they look in the mirror. Meanwhile, your best friend, Pete Buttigieg, is quietly being competent somewhere right now. Yeah.

No, they're all running. I think it's going to be super interesting. Anyways, but again, my— Another one, Mitch Landrieu is another name. That's right. I had lunch with the most interesting woman. Do you know Jessica Yellen from News Not Noise? No.

She's another Twitter friend of mine. News Not Noise is this fantastic news service that mostly distributes through Instagram, and it just breaks down the news in a quick bite kind of distilled fashion, and she does her best to call balls and strikes and just get you to the news without the noise. And it's kind of become my go-tos. She is interesting.

She ran, she covered the White House, I believe for CNN. Very interesting woman. You like her a lot. I'm shocked you don't know her. I don't know her. You guys will have her on. I know a lot of people. All right.

My lunch with Jessica Yellen. And guess what? It's all coming full circle. You know who I saw at that lunch that I was having with her, but I was too intimidated to go up and say hi? Who? Linda Carter. Oh, my God. She was at the same restaurant as us.

She is hopefully going to be a guest host when you're away. Scott Free August. Anyway, maybe I'll have her on when you're here. Scott Free August. That's good. That's what we're calling it. We're calling it Scott Free August. Please send in host suggestions.

We want very different and interesting. We've had some great hosts in the past. But who would you like to take Scott's place during Scott Free August? Who would you like? Yeah. Let me know, and we will have them on, and we'll try to get them on. Anyway, okay, Scott, that's the show.

In fact, I've got to get on a commercial flight for California. I'm taking my boys, and we're going to the wedding of their longtime babysitter when they were kids. That's nice. Her daughter is getting married, and we're very excited.

Leah Rivera, congratulations. She is wonderful, and we are excited to. Leah Rivera, congratulations. She is wonderful and we are excited to be there for that event. We'll be back on Tuesday with more Pivot. Scott, read us out. Today's show is produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Enchitot engineered this episode.

Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Neil 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 next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Sex is a gift.

Right on, my brother, right on. That's good.