The Ben and Emil Show - BAES 83: Why you're wrong about the TikTok ban (sorry)

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

As the TikTok ban looms, we dive deep into the REAL reasons it's being blocked. We'll talk about the arguments heard in the Supreme Court, a brief history of US-China cyber warfare, and how Americans are downloading another China owned app called REDNOTE just to spite the government. The bonus episode is also really good you guys. https://benandemilshow.com Check out  @KylaScanlon  's great piece about the TikTok ban here: https://kyla.substack.com/p/the-tiktok-ban-shows-america-is-at BOSTON! we're almost sold out! https://thewilbur.com/armory/artist/ben-and-emil/ LINK TO OUR DISCORD: https://discord.gg/CjujBt8g Subscribe to Emil's Substack: https://substack.com/@emilderosa Leave a comment! Like this video! Tell a friend about our show! __ MUD/WTR: Start your new morning ritual and get up to 43% off your  @MUDWTR  with code BAES at https://mudwtr.com/baes #mudwtrpod ROCKET MONEY: Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and save money today! Go to https://rocketmoney.com/BAES today! __ Latest MEATBALL SPECIAL HERE: https://youtu.be/Euyfzwmq8WY Last week's episode HERE: https://youtu.be/-NsBAzRAH0U We bought suits HERE: https://youtu.be/_cM1XqA9n2U This episode was edited by Connor Rousseau / @ conrad_roussrad Follow us on instagram! @ benandemilshow @ bencahn @ emilderosa Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's so interesting. Everybody's joking about, like, yeah, give China my data. I don't care. Okay, so now the big tech companies are still allowed to collect all this data and do weird. Well, now you, you're... Uber's allowed to, like, implement God mode and watch where you travel. Wait, so what is your ultimate position on? My position is that if you want to protect consumers' data, do it.

Split pairs. I'm just... I mean, really, truly, I've given you all these examples of this... This TikTok band does not do anything. to mitigate those. You are listing all kinds of American platforms that are compromised by China daily. Yes. Yes. We're going to go in circles.

We're going to make it so that this foreign adversary can't manipulate your data and use it against you. But it's fine if American can't. That's what I've been saying this whole time. And I've been agreeing with you. I'm like, yes, I agree. I'm working down town with it on me. Tell me what's

going on. Tell me what's going on. So listen out of. To be it, tell me what's going on. Tell me what's going on. Nihau. Welcome, Laudeau ben. Hey, I Mir Chu.

We're just going to be an interesting idea of yiji. Nihau. We'll get there. We're working on it. For those of you don't speak Mandarin, I just said, Hello and welcome to the Ben and Emile show. We've got a good episode for you today. It's going to be an extremely...

You know, I did say that something Chinese is coming this year, and I think this... I don't know if this qualifies as it is. I think something Chinese is going, as in we are all going Chinese. We've got a veritable banger of an episode today. I'm going to be... I was up late doing a lot of... Also, before we say anything,

Boston, buy a ticket. Boston, buy a ticket. Check the link in the description. We'll see you there, February 6. Ni'i how to all our Boston fans. Nihau Boston. Let me see what that would be. Boston by,

oops, people buy a ticket for our show. Go-mai Wumang Yangchu de Meng Piao. And that's for our Chinese Boston fans. Fan, probably just one. No, there's a few. I bet how many Chinese people are in Boston? Quite a few. Really?

Yeah. And get out there and smash that buy button on the tickets. We'll see you there. So we've got the, yeah, we've got the Boston show coming up. We're almost out of tickets, so you better, you better hurry up. And I apologize that I've got my computer out. It's just that there's too much stuff. And I'm going to do my best. We don't like to just be reading off the computer, but I did take a lot of notes. Guys, he took notes. I took notes. Take note. He took notes. And so this is going to be all about mostly the TikTok ban. And I've got, TikTok ban. We've all got our opinions on that. this. And I've got one that's, you know, it's not, it's, um, it's complicated because I, I see both sides of this. Opinions are like assholes. It's complicated. It makes more sense if you've seen Ben's assholes. P-U, stinky winky. I haven't seen my own asshole in years. When's the last time

you saw yours? It's a great question. I don't want, I have no interest. It kind of freaks me out. Let's keep rolling. Yeah, let's keep rolling. Let's just go right into the TikTok band. Everyone's talking about it. It's coming. It's huge. Yeah, that Supreme Court. Supreme Court here in oral arguments right now. Well, we've got the SCOTUS blog.com has a great summary of the, this woman, Amy Howe, has this great summary of the arguments that were heard in this case, TikTok versus Garland. Amy said, how? I'll tell you.

I'll tell you, man. And so what's going on is basically they are ruling on the constitutionality of this federal law. that would require TikTok to shut down unless its parent company BiteDance can sell it by January 19th. Yeah, TikTok is the American subsidiary of... I don't know how to say it in Chinese, but the Bite Dance company now.

But, yeah, this is all about a law, was it April or May that this went into effect where they basically are claiming that TikTok presents a unique national security threat and unless they figure out some kind of divestature it's got to cease operations in America. Yeah.

So. But this has also been going on for so long. It feels like, it feels like since 2021, we've been talking about how lawmakers, was it that far back? I think, yeah, Trump. Trump, I mean, yeah, he was the OG.

I want to ban the thing. He's gone. He's flip-flop. We'll talk about that. But yeah, they've been talking about banning this fucking app forever. So it escalated to the Supreme Court, and on Friday, the justices were, the justices were asking questions of both sides about whether the law actually, so this is the crux of it, whether this law actually restricts TikTok's freedom of speech and what will happen if there's no sale by this deadline.

Interestingly, speaking of Trump, he filed a, this woman put it in quotes, friend of the court. brief? Have you ever heard of something like this? No, I didn't even see this. Oh, well, he filed a brief in December asking the Supreme Court to delay the effective date so that he could negotiate a resolution when he takes office.

And I mean, as... Oh, right, I know, yeah. As of this recording, we, I mean, this is what sucks. Anything can happen by the time that this comes out. Also, clips of him have been resurfacing of the way he was talking about TikTok.

during the campaign and everything like that. And it's just, it makes so much sense how he's so much better at just communicating things. And he's literally talking directly to young people saying, like, if you like TikTok, vote for me. I'm going to bring it back. It's just like, if you want this, vote for me. It's just so simple. I am confident that he'd be able to facilitate a thing, a sale, rather, or some kind of compromise. because that's what it boils down to

is bite dance is unwilling to sell it and so they're kind of calling the government the US government's bluff so you've got but I also don't think it matters that much to them it's not like a huge portion of their user base it is it is a lot of yeah you're talking about 170 million they call it monthly users

I don't know exactly how the active users yeah how that exactly equates to but yeah I don't think it's going to make a huge impact on them if Well, I mean they'd be turning down, I don't even know. Is it $50 billion? So spearheading the TikTok side, interestingly, is a man named Noel, Noel. I'm just going to say Noel, since that's how I know Noel to be pronounced.

Noel Francisco, who, interestingly enough, was the Solicitor General under Trump. So the lawyer representing TikTok is a guy named Noel Francisco, and then there's this guy, Jeffrey Fisher, who represents a group of TikTok users. they are arguing that it boils down to a free speech issue. They're saying that the government cannot restrict speech in order to protect speech. And they're saying that this is restricting speech because it might so doubt about U.S. leaders. Like they're saying that, oh, just because the government is afraid that it's going to so doubt among the United States populace about its own leaders, that's what our enemies do. yeah but it doesn't seem like it's the most convincing argument it's right they're saying that tic talk is not actually a chinese company it's an american company because it's the american

subsidiary so they're protected by the free uh they're protected by free speech and that users because it's two different people ticot is arguing and then ticot users are also arguing and ticot users are saying that their free speech is being infringed upon but it's not exactly they're not saying you can't the government's not coming in and saying you can't say you can't certain things, they're saying, hey, sorry, this application is a national security that we're not allowing people to use it anymore. Right. Because the, yeah, the United States then was... They're not targeting specific people and saying, hey, you're saying this. You're not allowed to say it. Right. And that's what it like boils down to is the Supreme Court is trying to determine the

constitutionality of the law and whether or not it actually infringes upon free speech by enforcing this law. So they're saying that the United States' position is that it poses is a grave threat to national security because the Chinese, they're saying, and I was listening to the clip of the, there's this woman on YouTube who's been covering this since like a four-hour long video, but she's saying that the Chinese government, the woman arguing on behalf, the solicitor general was saying the Chinese government could secretly manipulate content and all that data would give them a powerful tool for harassment and espionage. And regarding speech, she's saying that users can still have free speech

if bite dance sells and it was interesting because the justices are like trying to they're all asking questions Thomas Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett seemed persuaded and they said hey well the law only targets bite dance and bite dance doesn't have First Amendment rights so therefore hey maybe it's

maybe it's constitutional and Justice Roberts was interested in the national security part saying that the ultimate company that controls TikTok's bite dance is subject to Chinese laws. And he said, yeah, that's an, which includes an obligation to assist the Chinese intelligence apparatus if they are so inclined to, I mean, that was like at the bulk of the, remember the hearings with the Singaporean, I know, it's so hot. I mean, yeah. I mean, Tom Cotton over and over going. Where are you from? Where are you from? Singapore?

You look Asian. Do you ever applied for a Chinese passport? No. Yeah. Huh. You ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party? No, I'm Singaporean. But I'm looking at your eyes.

You ever thought about joining the Chinese Communist Party? No. This whole thing feels so it's obviously we didn't live through it. But any time you watch any piece of media, a movie or TV show where they're kind of cartoonishly representing the McCarthy era or whatever, or just, you know, Cold War hysteria. It feels so similar to that. Yeah. Yeah.

The whole communist scare thing. I did think that Brett Kavanaugh made an interesting point, which was he was saying that he was just kind of wondering aloud that, hey, all this. Because, you know, part of it is, how much he loves beer. Part of it. Part of the issue is data. and he was saying, well, hey, there, there's, it's entirely possible that this data can be used in the future against some of these users who might go on to become U.S. officials, which is a very, you know, that's a very valid. I don't find it persuasive at all. I think that that's a very valid possibility in this day and age.

All of these things are possible with. And there's a precedent for it, and I'll get to it. With, uh, whenever they try to frame it as any kind of privacy concern, it is just, just not persuasive at all. I disagree wholeheartedly. But every tech company has access to the same

data, if not more. They say meta and Google collect more of this tracking data than TikTok even touches. Right. And you're basically just talking about trust. You're saying well I trust these Silicon Valley tech overlords more than the

Chinese government. It's like, well, I don't trust any of them. If you're worried about this, implement some real American privacy laws. They came up and they said, ah, you know what? We'll water it down and then actually we'll just let it kind of disappear because we're not really concerned about that.

That's one of the things that it boiled down to for me is who do you distrust more or who do you trust more? But it shouldn't be that. If it's dangerous in the hands of Chinese actors, it's dangerous in the hands of... Who, like Jackie Chan? Tech overlords. No.

I mean at this point there's no I don't think there's any evidence that China has used TikTok to spy on Americans Hey gang

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Keep your energy natural and refreshing all year long with mudwater because life's too short for anything less than clean. Delicious energy. There's going to be a lot that goes against that. Not necessarily TikTok. No, no, I'm not saying that China's never spied on Americans. No, sure. But I don't think there's evidence that they've used TikTok to spy on Americans.

I don't remember if I've got anything in here about TikTok specifically being used yet. America and China and a lot of countries do all kinds of nefarious things online to spy on people. They're also already using American apps. There's going to be Chinese actors using Instagram, meta, Twitter. or whatever, to influence things. Shutting down TikTok is not going to negate that impact. Sure. I think it for, if I'm understanding the United States's case,

it's just that they don't like the idea of a foreign adversarial government. Oh, no, I totally understand that. They're very clear that their whole thing is like, too bad, so sad. We deem you a national security threat. Yeah. Get fucked. And there is precedent for that. I'm very clear on that.

There's a lot of precedent for that. So that's the thing that I've been seeing. So I'm going to reference. Kyla Scanlan wrote a great piece about this. You guys should check it out. I will link it in the description. But so just real fast, TikTok had argued that if their concern was manipulation, they should try disclaimers. They were tossing around that idea.

Katanji Justice Brown. Right, basically saying you could be exposed to. Hey, let's try disclaimers and disclosures. And then they were saying, well, Shine and Timu have users data too. And it's also, and then they also said, and it's also just kind of too late, right? Like, they've already got all our, we've already got everybody's data. And it's like, sure, but I mean, going forward, there's going to be new users signing up. There's all kinds of things.

So that's the thing. Like, I've been seeing a lot of people joking. It's so interesting. Everybody's joking about like, yeah, give China my data. I don't care. Give it to them. They've, like, I'd rather China have my data than Facebook. And it, it, that's, it blows my mind.

Like, why? Because the Chinese government. But I'm not saying it's good that the Chinese government has, I think it's bad that all these people have our data. I agree. And I don't. Clearly, Mark Zuckerberg, as we've seen, is at the whim of whichever way the wind's blowing. Yes. I don't trust that, like, Mark Zuckerberg is going, it's, it's a,

utmost concern that we, you know, protect our user's data. He could use it in whatever way. We had that with Cambridge Analytica. Sure. But so I don't know, I don't know why I would feel more comfortable with Mark Zuckerberg having it. I'm not saying that's not the binary here. Oh, but you're saying you're seeing people saying I'd rather, I'd rather try to have it. I'm just saying that people are joking about the data. They're just totally fine with it being in the hands of a foreign government ostensibly down the line. I think it's because it's easy to be so cavalier when it's so out of control, when your date is so far gone. I agree. But I don't think that that necessarily, I don't know, that's like saying, hmm. They're going to have it. I mean,

yeah, it's. That's, that's also at the heart of all of this is we've been so, we are the commodity. Yeah. And it's, it's not good. And I think that it's... I'm just saying this doesn't solve that.

It does. It's something. It's something. I mean, it absolutely is because it's a potential tool for use by a foreign government. All of this information and we've seen... I would,

you could classify, you could classify Instagram as that. Yes, but they're not a foreign government. No, Foreign governments use them and influence them in the same way. Right. But so you could call it a potential tool for a foreign government just the same way. Absolutely.

And that's a problem. Yeah. And I think that this is such a, that's why this is such a big deal is because, I mean, so this is a quote from a slate article that Kyla actually referenced that was just put out, Xi Jinping himself. So this is, this is just to speak to how important and crucial data is. So everybody who's very cavalier about it, listen to what Xi Jinping said. After he got elected, he said, whoever controls big data technologies will control the resources for development and have the upper hand. And then he signed the National Intelligence Law of 2017, giving Chinese intelligence the right to private data held within any Chinese company. And there is precedent.

So I'm just going to, there's a ton. But here's some of that I cherry picked. In 2018, a Norwegian nonprofit. Did you know that? I didn't even know this. Grindr used to be owned by a Chinese company. I didn't know that either. I saw it when I was looking into stuff.

So this is a big one, folks. In 2018, a Norwegian nonprofit found that Chinese owned at the time, Grindr was sharing users' HIV status and their last tested date with two outside firms. And the fear there is blackmail. Because there might be fucking U.S. intelligence or apology. Who the fuck knows? it's on Grindr, and if a foreign adversarial government has that data, who knows what the

fuck they could do? There were other issues, and then they were forced to sell to a U.S. firm in 2020. I think you're missing my point, though. This is a big deal. But the better way to go about it is actual consumer protections that protect Americans data. So if a Chinese company wants to operate here, it's not a big deal because we go, oh, yeah, sure, run your company. Just so you know, there's big protections on on what you can collect on our citizens and stuff like that and they go, oh sure, yeah, I guess if we want to

operate here, we've got to comply with that. Yeah. So this doesn't really like, okay, so now the big tech companies are still allowed to collect all this data and do weird. Well, now you, you're... Uber's allowed to like implement God mode and watch where you travel and shit like that.

In your... Aren't you, aren't see, that's the thing. There's so much shit happening about data and I I mean, I usually just say, yeah, sure, take it, do it, whatever. Oh, it's exhausting. It's so exhausting. It's all on you. The little piecemeal things they've implemented just means that like I get a fucking pop up on every site I go on about like cookies and managing cookies. And it's like, I don't want to manage cookies right now. I just want to fucking. And the way they phrase it, they put except all in the like highlighted box to make it look like the website will only function if you accept them.

And if you say no, do not allow. I'm like, okay. well, then it's going to... So I just accept them. Me too. Because sometimes it opens a thing where it's like, well, click which ones you want? I'm like,

which ones are necessary for this fucking thing? I just want to read the fucking thing. But so then you had a Romanian Supreme Court reversed their country's presidential elections recently after their intelligence agencies found that foreign actors used TikTok to give pro-Russia, to give a pro-Russian candidate elite in primaries. We talked about the foreign,

which ones that only... own the Chicago. Oh, that was the Saudis. Saudi Arabia owning the parking meters in fucking Chicago. What does that have to do with? It's just another example of foreign investments in and dabbling in and around American interests and American companies and how it's not, it's not anything new. So like in 2007, this was very surprising to me.

Yes, but like, I mean, we're a global. Exactly. That's going to happen. I mean, we're talking about a very specific thing. And it's not just China. We've gone after India, Japan, the UK, other companies, or foreign... And I think in all of these instances, it's our own leaders, unwilling to take any kind of step to protect us against this. You know, we sold off...

I don't want to get diverted on the parking meters thing, but that's just them selling off to the highest bidder. It's just our own infrastructure. But then you do have... good moments where in 2007, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. blocked a United Arab Emirates firm from buying commercial operations of six U.S. ports, including New Jersey, New York, in Miami. In 2016, Obama blocked a Chinese company from acquiring a United States subsidiary of a German semiconductor company.

In 2017, the next year, Trump stopped a Chinese investment firm from acquiring a U.S. supplier of semiconductors to our military. so like it's always fucking and then I mean I was looking up Chinese hacks there's holy shit man it's fucking mind-boggling there is so much cyber warfare going on between us and them all done without TikTok hey y'all it's time for another ad break today we're talking rocket money rocket money it's a new year it's a new you all right we're trying to help you reach your financial goals. If you're like me, you might got a whole

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With rocket money, go to rocketmoney.com slash bays today. That's rocketmoney.com slash BAES. Rocketmoney.com slash bays. I'm trying to underscore the fact that it's... That what? China is an adversary? Yes. 100%. But that's already clear.

They're listed as a designated... Wait, so what is your ultimate position on this? My position is that if you want to protect consumers data, do it. Yes. Don't do this like dog and pony show and pretend like this one thing because it's owned by a foreign adversary is really the danger. The big danger is big tech and you guys will not protect us from it. Everyone is collecting this data on us and that is not the conversation.

The conversation's like, well, this is, you know, think about how China could use it against you if you run for office later in life. Here's the thing. There can be multiple conversations going on at once. This is an important one, as is the one that I'm on the same pages. You think getting rid of TikTok is like a big... I don't think getting rid of it. I think that it absolutely should be divested from bite dance.

The more I've read about this, the more I'm like, yeah, there shouldn't be a question. I think that it should not be... The buck shouldn't stop at a Chinese-owned company. when there is so much precedent for cyber warfare going on. Like, I wouldn't... Yeah, it's not much better with meta and Facebook, also bad.

Yeah. But I would... I'm just saying there's a way to combat that without doing all of this. I think that we will... I also don't know where I land. Like... And that's okay too, folks.

I was always like pro get rid of this fucking thing. I'm like, I think the way they supercharged the algorithm is not a good thing. I think you can tell there's something different with people since obviously it launched before the pandemic, but it really

went crazy during the pandemic and people are just different. I mean, it's just and I would prefer people to use it. But, you know, I've heard a lot of people to, it's it's changed people's lives.

Yeah. For the good? Yeah. People have gotten used. Yeah, that's what I mean. It's changed people's lives. in a good way, too. People have gotten used to using it and been able to launch businesses, launch careers, launch all kinds of things through this app. I do find it really unfortunate, you know, watching all this people go, you know, I just use this platform to launch, what am I supposed to do when this goes away? Yeah. It is, yeah, I find it very frustrating that

more and more people are kind of left on their own. They're like, fine, we'll use these new ways to fucking do shit. And then the government's just like, eh, you know what? We're going to pull the rug out from you on that one because we decided that it's a threat to us. Yeah. I pulled some pretty big examples of some cyber war that I just thought were really interesting and deserving of talking about. The Equifax hack that we all hopefully remember from 2017 was done by four members of the People's Liberation Army. The Treasury Department was just hacked by Chinese hackers. 2015, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management was hacked. The records of 21.5 million people who have worked for, tried to work for, or currently work for the United States

government was exposed. In 2018, the super micro that we've talked about before was forced by the People's Liberation Army to add microchips with hardware backdoors to servers that were then sold to U.S. government contracts and commercial clients, 23, just two years ago, Microsoft said that a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group called Volt Typhoon, which is really fucking cool. That's a really cool name. Volt Typhoon. So that's the other thing. Had targeted critical infrastructure and military installations in Guam, Hawaii, Texas, and other places. Operation Aurora is a fucking huge one. It was a series of cyber attacks performed. I didn't know about this. Performed by advanced persistent threats, which is an entirely... Do you know about APTs, these advanced persistent threats?

No. It's basically, it's ongoing threats to, like, cybersecurity. And when you go through that list, it includes, here, go back to the thing, it goes back, there's, there's some really cool ones. There's one called Titan Rain. I mean, there's, yeah, APT groups. You've got PLA unit, 61398, Buckeye, Red Apollo, numbered panda, deputy dog, zirconium, APT. These are all just like nicknames for these hacker groups. And it's fascinating, and it's a world that I did not even know existed.

And they did all sorts of crazy shit. Operation Aurora, they hacked Google in 2010, and it was a major, major, major deal. The attack was directed at dozens of other organizations, Adobe Systems, Akamai, Juniper Networks, Rackspace, Yahoo, Simintech, Northrop Grumman, Morgan Stanley, Dow Chemical, were also among the targets. Yeah, 2020, FBI director Christopher Ray said the FBI opens a new China-related counterintelligence case every 10 hours. And cited a December 2020, there's this Axios report of this woman named Christine Fang, who was a student in the Bay Area, who had developed extensive ties with politicians between 2011 and 2015, and she was reportedly having sex with at least

two mayors in the Midwest, which is also kind of cool. And then, yeah, the fact that China steals between $200 and $600 billion in American IP every year. So when I was talking about, like, it's not exactly, it's, it's not that crazy and not that wild and outlandish for them to have put, I mean, it's been years for them to finally be like, okay, we got to do something about this. But there is, I just don't know if this is, there's no evidence that China's used TikTok to spy on Americans or do anything like that. That's not true. They spied on, um, they spied on journalists. TikTok did. TikTok did. Yes. Not China. I mean, we're splitting hairs here. I'm just, I mean, really, truly, I've given you all these examples. I'm not saying China does not do

nefarious things. I'm not saying that, like, China is some force for good in the world and would never do these bad things. I'm just saying, this does not solve those problems. This TikTok ban does not do anything to mitigate those. You are listing all kinds of American platforms that are compromised by China daily. Yes. Yes. I think that it's absolutely relevant. Get them off this one. Get them on the ones that they're constantly. I don't think that anybody's arguing get them onto these, except if you're Mark Zuckerberg or if you're fucking good. Yeah, Mark Zuckerberg. Oh, they want this to happen. Oh, yeah.

Absolutely. Snapchat. They all want this happen. I also, you know, I think we talked about it in like April or May when they first passed the law. And I do think a lot of it came out of, not think. I mean, senators like Mitt Romney and other people were explicit about, about, you know, anti-American sentiment, anti-Israel sentiment. Right. And that was what seemed to me like the final push.

Yes. And when you're talking about how they've been talking about this since 2020 and then they can't get anything done and then all of a sudden they're like, I don't know. It seems like we're losing the teens on Israel here. Maybe we should do something about this. That's the thing. That's when I'm like, this is not about fucking protecting Americans here at all.

It's about all these different things. Mitt Romney and some of the Israel lobby absolutely don't want TikTok. Sure. Google doesn't want TikTok. Mark Zuckerberg doesn't. But that's just one of many. That's, there's, it's more than just that. I just, yeah, I just don't think it accomplishes the goals you're talking about.

I think it absolutely does. I think that it, it, for there to be a foreign government, imagine if there was a TV channel that, like, Russia owned. And we had, we've had, like, RT, what is it, Russia today, we've had. Right, but if it was the primary source that 150 million Americans used every, month. I wouldn't exactly be cool with Russia and Putin being the ones where they have the final say on what gets shown to Americans in America. That presents a problem for me. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Like, that's risky. I mean, for them, for everybody's, for them to be able to, like, okay, the Cambridge Adelaidea thing was able to sway an election.

That underscores just how important data is. If you listen to people, they say Russia already swayed our elections too. Right. So for people to be like, I don't care if the Chinese government has our data, you absolutely fucking should because we've seen what people can do with data. Yeah, I do. That's what, yes. We're going to go in circles.

No, but we, so I think we agree. I just would love it if the government was actually talking about protecting my data. I think they also are. I think there's... Is there a big push? Yeah, well, there's fucking... Lena Khan and the FTC. Khan, she's getting the boot.

They're all like... I'm not... I think we're both... I'm saying this is a good thing. I think. I think divesting it, not shutting it down. I don't want to see it shut down. We use TikTok.

I love TikTok for many, many reasons. I think that it's toxic in many ways for the discourse. I think it's bad for critical thinking skills. I think that it has ruined people's brains in many ways. There's a lot of slop on there. But ultimately, I don't want to fucking censor that.

I don't want... I just don't want it to be in the hands of America. Because we live in America, folks. I know that a lot of people are mad at the American government and you have every right to be. But when they say, oh, we're worried, when people are like, oh, the American government is worried about its people rising up against it. Like, you know who wants to see Americans rise up against its government? Fucking China. They want to, don't you think that that would make China and other United States?

enemies extremely happy to see Americans rise up against their own government? Like, that would make them happy. Would it not? I don't know. This feels like Cold War hysteria. But I don't know. I think that there's absolutely, I mean, and then people are now, it's really, really funny. It's the most American thing ever that people are now downloading this Red Note app. And they're having these great- This has been my favorite thing. I mean, there are so many. It's mind-blowing, though, because it underscores how. quick people are to make a decision based off of like a TikTok where they're like, no, I fully, someone says something in such a way that's really catchy and is like, yeah,

that's a good point without doing any fucking research. And like they've already banned LGBTQ people and content on there. They're banning people with women wearing low cut tops. They can access your browser history, photo album, microphone and camera, geolocation. And you all of it whenever they want for whatever they want. But is that different from any other app? No, but I know. I know. This is the thing, though. It just...

Just because it's not... No, no, I know. You just make it sound nefarious when you say it like they're doing this, but I just want to... That's standard practice. Yes. And like, as everyone said, TikTok does it like not go above and beyond what standard Silicon Valley apps do on your phone and social media platforms do.

Yeah. I do think like that's been part of the conference. people are like, holy shit, they've got our, they're not collecting more data on you than your average app. I don't know about that. I can't speak to that. I mean, it gives me chills to think about what data they've got on me out there. TikTok, Google, all that shit. They've got extensive profiles. You guys should also watch that social dilemma documentary on Netflix that talks about all these American companies that misuse our data. Have you seen a social dilemma?

No, I'm trying to watch. I mean, I'm trying to find if, I don't want to say that if that's not true, but I'm trying to find if TikTok is actually collected. I'm pretty sure they're just collecting. Standard stuff, yeah. Yeah. Click that, Jim, can you click that good post, though? This was a great post someone found on Red Note.

Don't get it. Don't get it. People are pointing out that banning TikTok is not going as they expected. Obviously, this is just a handful of things we're going to be showing, but it does weirdly, you know, seemingly pushing some people into the arms of China. Oh, this guy, oh, this is great. Instagram is fun to go out real sad. And watch this, watch this, watch this.

Piao Long, new highs, Anali. These niggas are light years ahead of us. First thing I see on this fucking app is Luigi content and fine shit throwing fits, bro. I saw a fucking post that said, black people are greater than. And it was just a fucking collage of dark skin, beautiful people. Mark Cuckerberg was scared of me giving up my data. Bitch, I'm about to give that shit straight to Xi Jinping and a red fucking envelope, nigger. Oh, tiao y'en, me, go.

The niggas who get it, get it. And the best part is, I don't even got to introduce these niggas of communism. The app is literally fucking Instagram. Tumblr and TikTok all fucking squeezed into one, bro. All I'm gonna say to y'all, though, is come with some fucking respect because I don't give a fuck that they're speaking Mandarin. Mandarin is the most spoken language in the fucking world. I'm gonna need you all to lock in.

But yeah, y'all can find me there. The app is the same. It's just draft Dodger with a zero. The profile pick is the same. I already put up my first post. And niggas in China is liking it. Yeah, they're going to be sick of me. Long live China, nigger.

Long live Xi Jinping, nigger. Beg up to Mao Zerong, nigger. Good God, dude. I mean, yeah, good for him. I also had to point out that it's pretty funny that a lot of people are harping on the free speech thing. When you have to use words like grape instead of like sexual assault. On TikTok. On TikTok or unalive and pew-pue instead of gun.

Which is, you know, that's fine. I get it because you can say those things. It's just going to, the algorithm is probably going to deeing you for it. Yeah. But I mean, and I wrote down how, you know, reminding people that, hey, fentanyl and the precursors for fentanyl come from China. There was the Tiananmen Square is totally fucking blocked anything about it in China. You got the Uyghur situation. I will say.

People have tested that out. It's a very strong. I don't want to be like a fucking a Chinese apologist over here but I do think as I've talked about on the show so much I think there is so much synophobia in American journalism that it's hard to tell

what is actually real and so it just it's yeah I don't know those reports are basically someone just like typing in Tiananmen into the search bar clicking the first thing and then just like scrolling through shit it also is showing you it's not like a regular fucking

search function. It's showing you things based on your algorithm and stuff. So I don't know. It's, can I tell you what my, so my friend who, my Chinese friend, by the way, I love China. I went once for a couple days in one part of China. I had a great time. With a very specific. With a very specific. Mill you. Yeah. And I asked my friend about the Uighur situation. and it was pretty shocking to hear his explanation of it. He said, you got to realize that these are, I'm paraphrasing because this was like a year ago, but he said, you got to realize that these are people who they don't have modern beliefs and they are being reeducated.

And that's what China's trying to do is re-educate these people and bring them into the modern world and have them abandon these essentially wrong beliefs. And he said a big catalyst for that was I guess some Chinese Muslim guy stabbed a bunch of people, did a stabbing attack. And so they were like, okay, we got to fix this. We got to fix these people's beliefs and re-educate them.

And I was just sitting there stunned. I'm like, oh, that's what you think? That's what's going. Is that? I mean... Yeah, I'm not going to comment on that because I have no idea. Yeah, same. I have no idea.

It's bananas. I also just wanted to point out the fact that we all have a problem with, like, Twitter being owned by one guy and the algorithm being owned and dictated to us by one guy. I mean, that's a perfect example, right? A guy basically bought Twitter, bought himself an election. It's just like state-run media. It's just... Yeah. And I just also... People are out, including us, as we should... should. We should always hold the government accountable. We should always be on the government's case about stuff for not doing enough or not doing their job. And now that they maybe are in one way, people are losing their shit over it. And it's like, it's just, it's weird that people seem to anecdotally. No, but they're not losing their shit over that. I think, I think there's a ton

of young people who are really pissed about it. They've either, like I said, found success, career, uh, business socially. Some people have built out weird communities on there and all that kind of stuff. They're not like pissed that the government is trying to protect them. I think they're pissed that they're taking away this tool that they used. And they don't feel that the government is really trying to protect them. Yeah. I don't necessarily, I think if the government wanted to protect people, there's much better way to do it. Yes. I think the government. And that's how, like, I don't want China and have all this shit. I don't want Mark Zuckerberg to have all this shit. I don't want Elon Musk to have access to all this shit. I don't want Google to have it all. Uber,

all these people. I mean, they know so much about me. And everyone's like completely fine with it. It's just so bizarre that people have become comfortable with it in the American sense. I think if the American government was collecting that kind of stuff, everyone would be up in arms. Oh, yeah. Americans. Yeah. But for some reason, they're like, I don't give a shit if Jeff Bezos knows how my entire life operates. Yeah, has this entire profile. I don't care if I put his fucking ring cameras all over my goddamn house. He knows what time I shower. He knows when I'm getting food deliveries.

Yeah. But if the American government had any kind of this, any amount of this data, they would lose their fucking minds, but they're just totally willing to sell it off to the highest bidder. And they, I mean, doesn't the American government kind of, isn't that how they found fucking Luigi Mangione? Isn't that kind of what we've all kind of gleaned that, yeah, they're probably using parts of the NSA. say it's unclear but yeah but it's i mean i think we know i think that that's at the heart of it for me is also we don't know if luigi manjoni did it so i want to that's a good point innocent

to proven guilty he said not guilty i don't think he did it but to to quote kaila from her her article again great read i'll link it in the description she says it's the collapse of information hierarchies the compression of complexity into entertainment units the privatization of public discourse and the geopolitical struggle over the most powerful commodity of our time, attention. We're debating which company gets to manage our attention addiction rather than questioning the addiction itself. I mean, that is... That's profound. I mean, yeah. We have drastically lowered our standards for what constitutes being informed. There's also that. I mean, I guess my hope was to try to give a little bit more context to... It's kind of like a thing

within a thing in that people are just like, oh, the government says that they care about our data. No, it's more complex than that. The government doesn't want that data in control of an adversarial government for its potential use against the United States and its interests now or in the future because, as we've seen, they can and will and do those kinds of things, both to the government and to private companies as it pertains to military and just stealing state secrets and stealing technology. It's not, it's not unusual. Also, if you're so worried about China and want the government to do stuff about that, I mean, there's just so many things they could be doing. Elon Musk, most powerful man in the world right now, extremely cozy with China.

Dude. Also, not just like best friends with Trump and bought the election, but also maybe the, like, depending on how you slice it, the largest government contractor at the moment. So satellites, rockets. But it just all seems like get real when you're talking about national security concerns. Yeah. And again, I think that just because they're focusing their attention on this one thing does not mean that they are not elsewhere. I think that there's so much more as it pertains to national security that they are working on all the time that we are not privy to. Oh, I mean, we're not privy to a ton in this. That's what's very funny. You see a lot of

lawmakers and stuff go the CIA has shown us stuff you wouldn't believe and it's like okay then show it to us and maybe we'll go like oh yeah ban the fucking app but they all I mean even TikTok

and their lawyers don't get to see all the stuff they get handed long documents with full pages just fully redacted out and they're just going but trust us it's bad you're doing nasty stuff At the end of the day, what I would like to see happen is for TikTok to stay on, stay on our phones, have everybody have the freedom to continue using it.

I think that it's high time that, and I think it might be too far gone, but we need like a collective kind of, maybe it starts in the public education system. part of the curriculum for America's students to learn just about how to conduct oneself on the internet how to protect yourself on the internet how to it does feel like it's too far gone

I think I forget exactly how you put it in that Kylo quote but it is just like a yeah I don't know people we're too far gone on. Obviously, people need to conduct themselves differently online. It's so detrimental to us in so many ways. And I mean, yeah, you know, you can't get the toothpaste back

in the tube, but it's just, yeah, I don't know. Maybe they can figure out a way to discourage this monetization of our attention and all of that. But the last week here has been such a clear example of... Remember when they used to say like Twitter's not real life, but now people kind of think that Twitter is real life? It's just very important to remember it's not. I mean,

being here while all this stuff is going on, it feels great. You're encountering people in your everyday life who are just they just want to help. They just want to be put to use. If they can donate, they'll donate. If they can go drop shit off, they'll drop shit. Whatever they want to do, they just want to get out of the way, make sure, like, firefighters have whatever they need. You go online and it's just people screaming, fighting, doing takes

bullshit, calling people fucking DE. I have not heard DEI. I don't know if I've ever heard DEI in real life. Dude, me either. I don't know. I haven't, it's been, when did the fire start? Last Tuesday, it's been a full week at this point. I have not heard one person point out that the chief of fire. If only we didn't have this lesbian. Yeah. It's not part of the conversation. None of these things are real outside of that app. And we all

go to this place where we go, I want to go to the crazy making place. I want to just like fucking injected into my veins. Let's go fucking insane right now. Yeah. And it's just not happening. And if you talk to someone who's like not on Twitter what? What are you saying?

Yeah. Who's pissed? What's DEI? I mean, it's so far. Like, it's when a black person flies an airplane it's it's it's it's solely i mean it's not just your attention i mean it is your attention and but like they go to great lengths to piss you off so you stay right and like when things don't work is is christopher rufo that right wing guy is that who i'm thinking of i don't know i think so it's one of the i know that name which is sad because i'm like yeah that's a name i've seen on the fucking thing he you know because he's not drumming enough drumming up enough with the DEI bullshit and the lesbian firefighters and all that.

So now I saw him tweeting about how, have you guys noticed how the sign language interpreters? Oh, yeah, I saw that. They're way more animated than I ever remember them being. Why is that? I mean, I got to say. And someone. Someone took the time, like, God bless them to explain it to them. And I could have told him that, fucker.

Like, it's to emphasis, it's... Yeah, they basically explained to him that a lot of hearing challenge, people said, it's, that's not good sign language, just doing it like this. It's much better when there's expression, just the way when we talk to each other, we get... Look, my, you know, we're taking a lot of it away because we're all getting Botox and stuff, but, like, I get use of my eyebrows and I'm, you know, using all these things. They want the same amount of communication.

through their language. It's italics. It's bold. It's just like... What a fucking moron. It is fun to watch those ASL people. Remember that one woman who faked it in New York? I think it's because a lot of them read lips also. It's supplementing.

They do the sign language and they can read lips of the person going like... Expressive. So this is Christopher Rufo. I genuinely don't know what this guy is. I don't want to. I'm sorry, but we have to stop with the ridiculous sign language interpreters

who turn serious press conferences into a farce. There are closed captions on all broadcast channels and streaming services no wild human gesticulators necessary. You have to be such a baby to get pissed about this

that there's a guy doing sign language. It makes it better, man. Also, for getting people information about an active fire. Yeah. It's just... It's too distracting.

Well, in coordination with our federal and state partners, how we can... I love watching the guy. It's also completely fine. Yeah. That are not being initiated by a human action. Because sometimes I'm like, is this another instance of someone faking it? And then doesn't really know. Close captioning can be unreliable.

It can be slow. It can be inaccurate. Yeah, and probably going to be, probably going to have AI. implemented into it. It's super inaccurate. Oh, okay, right? So he said, dear friends, am I missing something? Is closed captioning not sufficient? Why did these live interpreters suddenly appear everywhere right at the moment in which CC and AI, close captioning AI, made this obsolete? And this woman, or this person said, sign languages such as ASL are distinct languages in their own right. They are the first language of many deaf people and are not signed versions of spoken languages.

Deaf people might prefer to receive important information in their first language, even if proficient in English. He said, there are more native Chinese speakers than native... This is Christopher Rufo. The native ASL speakers. So wouldn't that standard might prefer to receive important information in their first language, even if proficient in English, be a justification for having side-by-side Chinese and other languages? Jesus Christ. He said...

And this patient man is still... Two people speaking over each other in different spoken languages would be an issue for comprehension. A sign interpreter does not impact your comprehension. There's also only one sign language with widespread use in the U.S. but many immigrant languages. And then he just stopped responding because it's just like, dude, he answers your fucking question.

Just fuck off. Why is it so bad to make life a little easier for some people? Yeah. Because it's a distraction. It's annoying to me. Plus he's DEI. He's black.

Right. He only got hired to do that because he's black. And you're doing it for disabled people. So that's too compassionate and we should stamp that out. Yeah. I will say this.

I just find all of this interesting. I mean, it is, I don't, I wouldn't call it nerding out, but I like, it tickles some part of me when it gets specific. It's definitely fascinating. It's, it's, I find it all very unfortunate. I, like, you know, the, I don't want to live through this, like, bullshit saber-rattling, cold war. And obviously, there's, there's a argument for protecting America.

I just don't know if that's what's happening. Or America. Sure. That's what I, I'm more focused on. It's not, it's not necessarily Americans, but it's America,

it's America the country. And, yeah, I am just, again, the Cambridge Analytica thing. And the reason I pointed out like fentanyl is because, like,

there's clearly. But that's a funny one, because that's like a clear instance where Zuck did not give a shit about Americans. Yes, true. Absolutely. And got quote unquote punished for it, aka a fucking fine.

Right. His net worth has 10xed since then, I'm sure. And so... That's what's... That's the big joke. Yeah, that's what I'm... Oh, we're going to make it so that this foreign adversary can't manipulate your data and use it against you.

But it's fine if American companies... That's what I've been saying this whole time. And I've been agreeing with you. I'm like, yes. agree, but I don't think that I just, yeah, I think it's like, all right, let's deal with these one at a time. But I don't think that thereafter it's going to get any better because fucking Zuck, who is it? It's not going to. Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are all going to be at the inauguration. It's just like, hey, we got the three most wealthy, powerful

guys alongside the, what is that signaling to America? That, like, that's, hey, We got all the new leaders in place. They've finally, you know, taken the leap to merge, which, I mean, it's always been this way, but it's just so blatant now, this merge between government and business. It's one and the same. And, yeah, they're all falling in line in a way that's wild, dude. But Mark Zuckerberg just has no intrinsic set of beliefs. He will just.

They'll just roll with it. Like Jiu-Jitsu. He'll roll with it. God, what a fuck. The only real solution is, honestly, like, people... Sending packages? Stepping off the... Stepping out of the social media space and getting back in the...

Oh, yeah. Getting back into real life. I'll tell you what. It feels good in there. That shit is not real, and it's poisoning your fucking brain. I hate to say it, but I saw some conservative account weeks ago saying... Because, you know, I think it's good to... to check on what the ops are doing

and see what they're up to and what they're thinking about. I think that makes you crazy. We've talked about it on this where I'm like, dude, that's not real. But sometimes there, well, wait to hear what I'm saying. This guy was saying,

the future is real life spaces. The future is creating. The future's real life. Like real, like actual places where you can go. And he was saying, we need to get, we need to start,

here's a billion dollar idea is create space. He's essentially reinventing like coffee shops. Which is fucking crazy. Cigar lounges. Do not let tech companies reinvent a pub. Yeah. It's just fucking insane.

But, I mean, that's, that's, it's a good, it's a good fucking point. It's like, yeah, that's probably the next thing is how you skirt the algorithm and get around the data collection and all that shit. Is get off it. Don't give them your, um, I remember when we went, I went, but don't stop listening to the show. of hopes who don't. Don't stop watching. Subscribe and like a comment. That's an important thing.

I kind of started thinking about myself in the situation when I'm thinking about these people who are who are getting their businesses basically shut down because of No, because of TikTok potentially going away. And, you know, we are all at the mercy of these things. You know, what if YouTube or, Trump decides he's pissed at Google, they shut down YouTube or whatever.

Not going to happen, but like, you know what I mean? Like, we've all built livelihoods on this new frontier of the internet, and they all are just, it's like if one pissed off guy gets. It's not only that, it's just tweaking of the algorithm. Sure. I mean, that's another work. Remember Facebook with pivoting to video? Video is going to be the next big thing and all these businesses. Basically destroyed journalism.

yeah um which and then it ended up being bullshit it ended up being bullshit because they found out that all the numbers for these videos they were reporting to advertisers were inflated right so um oh god damn dude sorry folks I know that this is uh it's fucking so I have something funny uh remember how I was joking you know I you know I tweeted about running for political office I had a guy DM me and he's like hey I um I'm part of a here's the thing it's a crypto group he's like I'm part of this crypto group

this lobbying I don't know this sucks but he was like willing to talk to you about what if I use what if I just use you're not going to be able to use him oh yeah

I'll do it yeah sure yeah I'm in Congress and I'm like fuck you even people with good intentions can't get anything done You backed by, like, nefarious actors. That's just so depressing. I just, it's just going to be a... That he's like, hey, let me help you.

Completely... I'm not going to run for Congress. Who am I kidding? Just puppet state ran by crypto and tech billionaires who... Oh, this is just... That's apparently what their... The whole philosophy... That's what pisses me off.

They should be protecting us from these kinds of harms. Who the government? Yes, and I don't think this is a move to do that. and it's just fucking infuriating. Yeah. I mean, look no further than the way Zuckerberg is like pivoting just to cater and kowtow to the incoming administration. It just shows that they don't have any kind of moral backbone.

It just is, okay, what's going to keep my business alive? What's going to keep my business from being broken up? You know, forced to sell off assets, any number of things. And it's like, my guy, you fucking. one you're worth over a hundred billion dollars why do you need to keep doing this more money you got to build more bunkers the ends are the end times are coming um i think i think what you're going to see is uh them finally realize that if we want to navigate this climate crisis what we really need to do less really bring the population

population down and we're going to have to hide out and that's what you use the when they say you know AI is going to solve the climate crisis um they're just going to come up with some kind of uh they're going to put in AI's hands who they um who they mass execute and stuff so they'll be like look our hands are up the AI says this is the best way to fight climate change we got to fucking execute you and you're like yes daddy suck I'll I'll do it for you turn my fucking body into a paper clip for you. Have you seen the TV series Utopia? No. It's several years old. It's British. It's phenomenal. Highly recommend to all you guys. The original one. I think it came out in like 2011, but it's all about like a secret shadow group trying to call the population of the

world and this other group trying to stop them. And it's really, really good. And really, really what's that? Thanos style? No, there's no. There's no. snapping but it's really really pertinent to what's happening today and it's um it's a worthwhile but then it's like Elon Musk is saying no we need more people so I don't know what to think he's trying to get them off the trail he's trying to throw them off the scent yeah they're like Elon you do your weird uh population stuff and have 17 kids to keep it yeah kosher meanwhile speaking to Zach let's let's go a little long today he um he went on Joe Rogan last week and man, dude, I think he really did a lot of work by going from nerdy Mark Zuckerberg to

like fuckable, sexy Mark Zuckerberg that everybody was like, oh yeah, I kind of dig it. He's being himself. Well, and you know what I think a big part of it was? He also, when did he announce the Metaverse? Was that 2021, 2022? I think it was 21. He's been such a, we kind of thought of him as such a joke he was when I mean yeah you know he's going on with uh stock was in the toilet stock was in the toilet he's going on with what's that woman's name gale king and they're like oh yeah they've got the and they're like oh and i'm in the metaverse yeah uh and facebook was it no one used

facebook we're like this guy's a joke he's instagram but every he's just stealing other people's products and acquiring things and then all the sudden he does jujitsu he's yeah Yeah. And he rides a surfboard and drinks a beer or something. Yeah. But he was trashing Apple as being like not innovative and haven't done anything. Which he's not right about that, but he is right about, because he also calls them out. Yeah.

Over the, which is basically him just signaling like, hey. I'm a cool. I'm one of the cool ones. No. Well, he's saying, don't regulate me. The real issue is Apple with their monopoly. That's who you guys should be thinking about antitrust stuff with. he was saying that the workplace needs more masculine energy and he says that corporate culture is neutered

and that the intent is good behind like having more female energy and he said let's just I'll just play this play this one clip starting at a minute 57 here oh their background or gender you know but um but I think these things can always go a little far and I think it's one thing to say we want to be kind of like welcoming and make a good environment for everyone. And I think it's another to basically say that masculinity is bad. And I just think we kind of swung culturally to that part of the kind of the spectrum where it's all like, okay, masculinity is toxic. We have to like get rid of it completely. It's like no. Like it's both of these things are good. Right. It's like you want like feminine energy. You want masculine energy. Like I think that that's like you're going to have

parts of society that have more of one or the other, I think that that's all good. But I do think the corporate culture sort of had swung towards being this somewhat more neutered thing. And I didn't really feel that until... The most annoying thing about this is that he was part of that fucking swing. Because it was fucking Obama years. He got himself, what was her name, Cheryl Sandberg? She fucking wrote lean in. They basically define... Which you hated. I did fucking hate lean in.

It's not fucking... It's bullshit. Yeah. And... But he fucking ushered in what they considered modern feminism and all this fucking shit. Yeah. And now he's just like, you know what?

I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to do that. I thought that that was a bad idea. He was reflecting on how he started hanging out with more guys and schmoozing around with them and And then when he started doing martial arts is when he started to realize, oh, I forgot what masculine, which, you know, as someone who wants to try that, I'm like, I'm sure. He's martial arts curious. I'm B.J.J. Curious. I kind of want to, I would do kickboxing instead. Because I want to know how to defend myself.

Number one. And my future wife. Run. Yeah. But if push comes to shove, if I get pushed and then shoved, I want to be able to. going, hey, you push me? Don't shove. You better not shove, bub. Oh, that's a shove. Put your dukes up. I'm going to take old-timey boxing lessons that are way, way, woefully outdated and utterly useless. Uh, no, I just want to learn a couple takedowns, man. I just want to know how to wrestle someone in his submission. For sure. Apologize. Apologize. Um, what were you going to say about Zach? Oh, just, uh, I hear what he's saying about, you know, it's a yin and yang thing. It's a, there is room for both.

And I think that culturally there has been a pendulum swinging a little far one way from being too far in the other direction. And it's just like, I just, it's all connected because it's all part of the social media apparatus and how everybody's got to take and everybody condenses, otherwise very, very complex topics into a single sentence or a single infographic about things that require. just much that deserve much more conversation and nuance and it's all damaging and i blame you mark suckerberg i think we should kill him i think it wait wait what wait i think he nothing he said there is like explicitly but it's just very like dog whistly right and then while at the same time he's saying this and everyone's talking about the culture shift and the vibe shift you have i had to find the article and read it but this you know financial times article where uh there what is it called it's um is corporate america going maga and it has you might

have seen it on twitter by now it has one of the most insane lines oh yeah yeah it's from the financial times um it's a quote i feel liberated said a top banker we can say retard and pussy without the fear of getting canceled. All right. It's a new dawn. Hell yeah, brother. And I think when he talks it, I mean, it's fucking insane. It's so funny.

A top banker, too. I know. Oh, hell yeah. Name your source, financial times. I need to know. We need to know. What guy said. But I think this is what Zuckerberg is referring to when he's like, we just need masculinity back in the workplace.

It's guys like this being like, you know what? For the last eight years, I felt like I might get in trouble if I called my co-worker gay. And now, I'm going to call him gay. I can do that. It's like, fuck off. Also, I dare you. Go ahead and try it. I mean, honestly, you're still getting in trouble, too.

That's what I'm so confused about. Is this going to get brought to HR and HR is going to go, look, employee, Trump's in office now. Get used to it. You didn't do your work. And that's gay. truly actually you are a big retard and actually now we're going to fire you because what you did was gay is that what's going is that is that is that what's going to happen at meta people are just going to be like you're a pussy dude

honestly i hope so i hope we start seeing on Twitter people screenshoting emails from actual meta employees being like you're acting like a total pussy in that meeting well let's look up the leaked doc with some of the things that you can so obviously meta's got a there's a leaked meta rules thing because they've got to dictate

what you can say like define the limits of it and the Intercept basically got the you know because Mark Zuckerberg's talking about his new what do they call it? Privacy no moderation efforts and all that

and so this is from the Intercept leaked meta rules. Users are free to post Mexican immigrants are trash or trans people are immoral. I'm a proud racist. Black people are violent than whites. Who are coming who are immigrants are grubby, filthy pieces of shit. These are examples. Examples of newly permissible speech on Facebook and Instagram highlighted in the training. I cannot believe

they had training materials. Yeah. Look guys if you turn to page six you'll see we've got some newly permissible speech that includes immigrants are grubby, filthy pieces of shit. Yeah. We're all good with that now. Wait, so I have a question. Yes. Can I can someone say that gays are freaks? Allowed now.

What about, uh, I don't even want to say this one. Go ahead. Don't be shy, pussy. There's a photo. This is meta now. Okay, so I see a photo of a 17 year old girl. Sure. What if someone said, look at that tranny. Is that loud? In the clear. Cool. Got it. Fuck. That felt bad.

It felt awful. Well, it shouldn't because that's allowed now, all right? You don't have to worry about some pussy canceling you. Some gay retard saying, hey, that's not allowed. So they're not the only ones doing that. Amazon has ended their DEI programs. Meta, obviously. There's a shareholder measure to eliminate some DEI initiatives at Apple,

but Apple itself is opposing that Pfizer is facing a lawsuit over its diversity program. So it's definitely in the ether now. It's definitely a new day. Yeah. It's funny when they were... It was probably the day after the election and people were like, there's a vibe shift coming. And I was like, okay, shut up, whatever.

It is, Trump has not even been inaugurated. Yeah. It is crazy how quickly people are like, you can call people gay now. Like, at work. It sounds like a Shane Gillis line. You can call people gay now at work. That's fucking wild, dude.

It's, uh... Yeah. I mean, dude, that whole interview with Zuckerberg was... Did you watch the whole thing? No, I watched parts of it. The whole thing is so frustrating. He's playing dumb in some parts. He talks about the consumer financial protections board. I don't even know what they do. What do they even do? Get the fuck out of here. And they're coming after us. Like, we're not a bank. Yeah, but your information, your fucking data. Not only that. So he's pretending he doesn't know what

the fuck it is. They're being investigated by them for good reason, because there's data. Not only that, he's saying, like, we're not a bank. Meanwhile, he wants to turn on, he wants to have meta payments, like all these people do, like Apple Pay, all this fucking shit. They want to have their own payment system, but they don't want anyone to, like,

have any kind of regulatory system that looks into it. They want to start their own fucking currency with Libra. Suck my fucking dick, and you can say that now at work. I'm going to start one called Sagittarius. also a lot of people had a really interesting funny take also joe rogan is fully just fucking all he does is sanitize these fucking tech morons

literal billionaires oligarchs and if you're eating that slop up i don't know what's to tell you i hope you like the taste of boot my man yeah probably taste good they smell good i mean you ever smelled a new boot i wouldn't lick it though it's kind of the opposite with chocolate chocolate smells like Poops. I just don't get how they... It tastes good. I don't get how they've done it. They've successfully made it seem cool and based to be like a billionaire overlord. Well, because everything is just gay and against them.

So they're like, actually, all this stuff that the government's been doing against me is pretty gay and I'm a victim of it. And that's like a winning message. Truly. I mean, Joe Rogan, I know how this sounds, folks, but the Joe Rogan of like 10 years ago would, not even 15 at this point. I was listening to him in the double-digit episode era. So one made a very funny point. They were like, Joe Rogan is not a Republican now. He's just had the last 20 or so guests be somewhat right-wing.

And he doesn't critically think. So he just accepts that information. It's whoever he had on last, he's like, wow. He's like, if we get left-wing people on there or something, he's going, whoa. And he'd have his pronouns in his bio within two episodes. Yeah, I saw that. It's great. But yeah, it is wild that someone pointed out that it's just now a place for these guys to go to clean up their reputations and be reborn.

Yeah, Matt Stoller called it state propaganda. I was calling it like Pravda. It's just ridiculous. Would I go on there? You bet. Let's cut the knife thing. Yeah, let's cut the knife thing. But leave us saying let's cut the knife thing.

so people are like, what the hell was the knife thing? Yeah, yeah, that's right. Hopefully that's not too complicated. Well, let's leave it on a somewhat funny note. So there's these employees at Apple that scammed Apple. Did you see this? No. It's really, really good.

So Apple, so there were these workers, basically Apple matched charity donations up to $10,000 a year. So if you're an employee and you donate to a charity, Apple will match it up to $10,000. So some of these workers created fake charities and donated to themselves and then Apple matched them. And they just got the money back and Apple caught them. And they were charged for fraud, defrauding Apple and defrauding the state of California. It's going to be a big salute from me. I love that. I think that that's great.

But, you know, just in this day and age, you're not going to be able to get away with shit. So just keep it to stealing pens and paper clips and shit. I mean, come on. Go classic style. Yeah, go classic style. Man, when my dad used to take me to work with him, when he would work the graveyard shift, I would go around to all the different desks that were empty,

and I would just be like, you can take pens? And he'd take me to the office supply room. And I was fucking like 10. What am I going to do with like a folder? But it felt like, this is free. I got to take something. But what are you going to do with the Sharpie?

Potentially stick it up your ass, wrap it in toilet paper, leave it in your dad's waistbasket. That's true. Yeah, I did do that. What was cool, what was cool, you don't know that story? Jesus. That's for another time. What was cool is, since it was a shipping company, you know, the stickers that you see on like the backs of trucks? Do I know the stickers on the backs of trucks? It'd say like corrosive or flammable or gas. Makes frequent stops. All of that stuff. They had a wall full of all of those stickers. A little boy's dream. Oh, man, I took home so many. Me and my brother, we would have them on our wall.

explosive gas because you know fart they also had the suction tubes do you know about the vacuum tubes in some of these old like office buildings where like say you've got a document tubes yeah is that what they're called a series of tubes pneumatic tubes it'd be this like fucking it's like the fucking member at the bank teller yeah you it was a I thought it was the coolest thing he'd be like oh I got to sign this and send it off to another part of the uh that's what tech company should be just creating dumb shit tubes we've got a new tube design there was a kid walking in front of me today when I was walking Doug go ahead Doug's Bobby for this you don't know he was walking in front of me blasting classical music and I just thought man how funny would it be if society and culture

never progressed beyond classical and it was just all classical all the time that just reminds me of the Fred Armisen has that great bit where he does um he talks about how you know people had never heard and a good example of this was I was trying to explain like my brother was asking about the Bob Dylan movie and I was like well I think it's it chronicles him going electric and whatever my brother was like I don't really get the big deal and I was playing him stuff from his folk days and stuff from the electric period and he was like but I don't know and I was like yeah but you're listening to it in 2024. It's insane.

But he does, he plays like something from 1950s. That's considered rock and it's like, Bebapaloo or whatever. And he's like, it's funny that people were going nuts for this. And so he plays it and he's pretending to be someone just like. Yeah, I've seen that clip.

Or it's just, well, I love my baby. Yeah. But like it must have felt insane. Well, I love my honey. I love my baby and I'm going to the store today. Yeah.

If you were to play some like death grips to those same people, their heads would pop. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It just wouldn't went, right. It's like Marty McFly playing, is it Van Halen? Johnny Be Good. Oh, yeah, he plays Van Halen for his dad.

Yeah. To convince him to fuck his mom. Exactly. You better fuck that lady or I'll kill you. My name is Darth Vader. Anyway, folks. Spoiler for Back to the Future. So do you want to make a prediction before this comes out?

Is the Supreme Court going to uphold it, or are they going to issue a stay and keep it? I think it will get banned only for Trump to bring it back somehow. I agree with you. That's my prediction as well. This man is going to be so popular. Yeah. I mean, it would be... Trump...

He'll figure something out. Yeah. They were already talking about doing some kind of firewall, I don't know, or base. it in Austin, Texas and having like Cisco systems run the fucking server. I don't know. Anyway, folks, this is as close as we're probably, maybe next week with Kyla

will go two hours. There'll be a lot to talk about. Or maybe we won't. Maybe we won't. But if you do want an extra hour, I got great news for you, Ben andamilshad.com. We shouldn't go ahead of the top of the episode, but Ben andermilshad.com, you can get some extra episodes where we just goof off, pal around.

And we just got the good word that we can say all the bad words. So we'll be doing that in the bonus episode. Oh yeah, we're going to be seeing so many naughty words. But we love you. Like always, stay safe out there. Stay safe out there, everybody.