The Chris Cuomo Project - Social Media Doesn't Reflect Reality and Why We Need More Media

Episode Date: January 4, 2024

In this episode of The Chris Cuomo Project, Chris discusses social media censorship he has recently experienced, the issues with anonymity online, why he believes Twitter does not reflect reality, and more as he argues more media outlets are needed to improve the current landscape. Cuomo shares his stance against censorship and argues for letting the best ideas prevail in the marketplace of free speech and expression. He also urges the audience to be critical thinkers and not assume online voices reflect wider society. Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Social media is getting worse because we are learning more about what they've been doing all along, and I'm spilling the beans. Look, no shame in my game, I've been using AG1 for over five years. Why? It works, it's easier, and it's less expensive. That's why. Since 2010, they've been getting their formulations right and tweaking their formulas. Why? Because the science changes, okay? It's not like politics where people decide to believe one thing and no matter what happens with the facts, they never shift.

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I've been censored twice in the last two weeks. Why? Because AI ain't all that yet, okay? Humans still matter. Also, because there is a culture of suppression on social media. Yeah, I knew it, Hunter Biden, they didn't want that. Listen, I've been in this business a long time. The idea that the government or some political power called a news agency, a media outlet, a social media outlet, and said, let's give you some guidance, is 100% believable. That's always happened. They reach out to people

in the media. What do you think? They all know each other, these people. Now, I'm not saying deep state. I'm not saying conspiracy. I'm saying influence. They call. Stay away from this story. Be careful about national security here. We don't want you to say this because you'll burden the troops. We don't want you to say this because we're going to announce that. And if you wait just a little bit, you'll get all of those conversations have gone on, in my understanding, since I've been in this business. So, of course, I'm sure that the proof is the proof and that you see that there was interplay about the Biden laptop. Now, let me be very clear. You can go back and look. I asked Rudy Giuliani on camera,

let me have the hard drive. Let me have the laptop and I'll have my own people scrub it. I'm not taking your word for it. And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Never happened. Off camera, I made the same request. Never happened. Why? They wanted to control the information, I guess. Now, I don't know that other people at CNN were doing that. I know it's being reported that people said, yeah, we asked to see it. I don't know.

I only know about what I asked, okay? And I definitely would have reported on it. One of the bullshit things that are said about me to make me part of some media complex. Well, you do your research. I've always been an outsider in this business. Nobody wanted to hire me because my name is Cuomo and they thought I would just be a political operative. The irony is now the whole business has shifted and they actually want people with political affinity, absorbing them into their media base. Anyway, I've always been an outsider. I've always had people saying that I was different or whatever. It always worked to my advantage because it motivated me to show that I could be whatever

the standard was plus. And, you know, the career speaks for itself. It's had its ups, it's had its downs, but I've won just about every piece of lucite that they give out in this business. And that is not an accident. My point is this, I'm okay with being the guy who says things that you're not supposed to say, as long as they're to your benefit

and provocative of your interests, okay? Now, two times last two weeks, I've been censored. Why? Because even though the internet, let's say, or those platforms, okay, The internet, let's say, or those platforms, okay, have been given exemption from lawsuits based on their content, all right? Like News Nation, for instance. They can get sued for defamation, libel, slander, based on what they put out.

They're publishers, all right? And publisher is a term of art within the law. X, Twitter, it's the same thing, by the way. I'm not calling that thing anything different until it is different in a way that's actually better. X is just Twitter. It's just shittier than it was. They are exempt from that. So if they're exempt from it, then they don't have to do any content moderation technically. Now, I think they should because I think they are publishers. Look, it's trickier the way their dynamic works than the way NewsNations does or the New York Times or something. It's trickier. Why? Because they're really building the stadium and then all these people are flooding in there with whatever they want to say. But look, they're doing content moderation.

All right. And they have AI doing a lot of it. And I've been flagged in the last two weeks twice, maybe even less time than that. Why? Loss, hostage, and I guess something that triggers an algorithm that is inflammatory that gets you flagged. So me, a longtime member of the media, okay, who has a nationally televised cable show that is good enough for News Nation to go all over the country, right? As much reach as MSNBC. But I'm getting censored by Meta? Why? They send me a note. Well, I'll give them to the guys so they can put them up on the screen for you. Oh, our technology flagged you. So this is AI. It's

not a human being. First mistake. Human beings judge motivations better than AI, clearly. And I got flagged. Once I was talking to a former special operator about how to negotiate for hostages with Hamas, that got flagged. And then I had a woman pleading the case for her father who's being held in Iran and how horrible it is to be a hostage. And no matter what you hear about people thanking Hamas for how they were treated, they're just saying what they got to say to get the fuck out of there. That got flagged. So what does it tell you? These things had no business being flagged. It just tells you that we don't know how to do it. And it is being done. Okay. And when you look at Twitter, you see the worst of all the different components of what's going on. Elon Musk is a genius, but he's obviously driven by fame and power. So he keeps

making stupid mistakes in the interest of being provocative. Oh, but he's a genius. Listen, nobody is smart in every different kind of intelligence. okay? And he obviously has some gaps. I really respected that he went to Israel to make up for the fact that he was peddling bullshit anti-Semitic stuff. And I'm not saying that he believed it, but he magnified it. And the guy's got ridiculous reach, which I believe is manipulated

because I'll tell you something. How can it be the case that my following nets to almost zero now, ever since I started going after social media like a year or so ago? No matter what's happening on my show, shit's going viral, it's blowing up all over the place. The follows and the unfollows net almost to neutral.

How can that be? Oh, well, they're going through and calling fake accounts and stuff at the exact same rate that my account grows. Some freaking coincidence, isn't it? It's manipulated. It's got to be. If they can give me a better explanation, I'd love it.

You can't even get them on the phone. And they duck this at every turn. They see this. They know what I'm doing. They don't reach out. Why? Ask yourself that. I'm guaranteeing you the answer is not going to be pretty in terms of favoring their interests. Social media is a garbage fire, okay? The anonymity is an issue. Now, it's also a tricky issue.

able to know who you are? Interesting question. Do we protect sources? Yes. Does that extend to all expressions of speech that you should be able to say it anonymously? Maybe. Is that something that these platforms or any new platform could change? Yes. Why? Because I don't think that it is a First Amendment issue because it's not about the government. These are private entities. People always say, oh, it's a First Amendment thing. They're chilling my First Amendment rights. Instagram can't chill your First Amendment rights. They're not the government.

Read it. The First Amendment applies to the government doing things to chill your speech or establishing religion or stopping access to redress to the government, et cetera, et cetera. They could do it. Should they do it? Yeah, I definitely think an outlet should try it. Why? Because I think a lot of the bullshit would go away because very few people want to own the ugly shit that they say. Oh, but they'll be less honest. Maybe they'll be more honest. Because I believe a lot of this, you know, hate that is out there is just people venting. They wouldn't do that at work.

They wouldn't do that with their intimates. They wouldn't do that in places where they could be accountable. But it's a tricky issue legally and philosophically. I agree with that. But the place is a dumpster fire. And now that the media relies on it as Vox Populi, and you guys now have this new and very, very manipulated

and I believe distorted view of what people around you think, it's only fueling the disconnect. Sure, some people find their little freak families and fringe interest groups, and those get magnified greatly on social media. That's why you have these fringy cottage industries, mostly on the far right, becoming so lucrative. And by the way, you're making all these guys rich.

They may say like they're making their witness and they're doing it for you. They're making money. And the reason they're making money is because social media magnifies them. They've always existed. They were just such a small minority that they didn't get out in the bigger media outlets.

You didn't hear about them because they don't represent enough people. But now they can grow followings by manipulating things and finding people who are like-minded or can be made to think they're like-minded. But now that we're all doing this, this is why you have this disconnect. We don't fake the funk here. And here's the real talk. This disconnect. We don't fake the funk here.

And here's the real talk. Over 40 years of age, 52% of us experience some kind of ED between the ages of 40 and 70. I know it's taboo. It's embarrassing. But it shouldn't be. Thankfully, we now have HIMS. And it's changing the vibe by providing affordable access to ED treatment. And it's all online. HIMS is changing men's health care. Why? Because it's giving you access to affordable and discreet sexual health treatments, and you do it right from your couch. HIMS provides access to clinically

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HIMS.com slash CCP. Prescriptions, you need an online consultation with a healthcare provider. And they will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply. You see the website. You'll get details and important safety information. You're going to need a subscription. It's required.

Plus, the price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan. We don't fake the funk here. And here's the real talk. Over 40 years of age, 52% of us experience some kind of ED between the ages of 40 and 70. I know it's taboo, it's embarrassing, but it shouldn't be. Thankfully, we now have HIMS, and it's changing the vibe by providing affordable access to ED treatment, and it's all online. HIMS is changing men's health care. Why? Because it's giving you access to affordable and discreet sexual health treatments.

And you do it right from your couch. HIMS provides access to clinically proven generic alternatives to Viagra or Cialis or whatever. And it's up to like 95% cheaper. And there are options as low as two bucks a dose. HIMS has hundreds of thousands of trusted subscribers. So if ED is getting you down, it's time to pick it up. Start your free online visit today at HIMS.com slash CCP. H-I-M-S dot com slash CCP. And you will get personalized ED treatment options. Hems.com slash CCP.

Prescriptions, you need an online consultation with a healthcare provider, and they will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply. You see the website. You'll get details and important safety information. You're going to need a subscription. It's required. Plus, price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan. Twitter is not reality. It does not reflect how people feel about things in this society. How do we know?

Because you know in your own life that you spend a lot of time looking around at the dialogue that's going on and saying, who are these people? How did they arrive at this? Why are we even talking about this this way? How did this happen? Because being regular is now irregular. Being regular is now unusual. So you will have a plurality of this country say, I am not with the right or the left. I'm not a Democrat or a Republican.

Why? Because we're getting freaked out by the fringes who are dominating the party process, which was inevitable, inexorable. Why? Because a binary system is necessarily zero sum, and it's a battle to the bottom. And as pure basic human psychology, you are geared more towards fear than off advantage, okay? And what that means is if someone says to you, beware of that, it's more powerful than saying, hey, this will be good for you. So when someone says, vote for me, the other guy sucks,

it's more powerful than saying, vote for me, I don't suck. And that's what we're seeing in them attacking each other and showing that the other side's worse. It's a reductive battle to the bottom. That's what's going on. And the new forum is social media, where people manipulate things, take things out of context. They're hard to flag. They're hard to police. They create all these dilemmas about whether or not you give them more attention

in the interest of trying to dispel them, but you wind up magnifying them. It's tricky. And Elon Musk, to this point, is showing us the worst way to be as someone at the head of it, using his own reach to forward his own agenda and his own interests, saying stupid shit that he sometimes doesn't even mean, I think. And I don't know how it's getting us to a better place. And I think we're fortunate that the heads of all these different things don't act the same way he does. Now, look, I understand the suspicions that he's trying to grow this into something. But what I don't think he is, is really a devotee of free speech. I think he's a devotee of more speech, which is what I am, by the way. I believe in more, not less. I do not believe in censoring. I believe that you should expose bad ideas and that helps the best ideas

win, better ideas, at least. And I think that when you censor, you make things the forbidden fruit and you give it power. Hear what they don't want you to know. Even me. I'm the guy who says things that aren't supposed to be said in the media. Now, what am I doing? That's a little bit of a connivance on that idea also, isn't it? Where I'm going to say things that other people won't say. There's something appealing about that. It's the forbidden fruit. It's the taboo. It's the secret.

Now, in my case, it's true. But in a lot of these other cases, it's just hype, where here's the theory of what's going on. You know, the UFO thing, the UAP thing has gotten clouded by this. False reports of people saying what was in the sky, false reports of saying they were abducted. It's not what it's about for me. I don't give a shit if they're little green men in the basement. It'd be cool. I'm open to that. I'd love to know that there's other life. It would make sense. But for me, it's just about transparency. Our government should not be invested with money and power to do things that they don't have to tell you about or your elected representatives about.

It's wrong. And it exists in a lot of ways. It's just exaggerated in this space because they don't tell you anything. And they then leak out that there's nothing to say. But then they classify an inordinate amount of the information. Doesn't make any sense. That's what it's about for me. And social media is getting worse.

And the censorship is real. And I know it because I've been censored twice in the last two weeks for no good reason. When does it get better? I don't know. I think that for all the outlets we have, we actually need more. And I think people have to do it differently and let the marketplace decide. I really thought that threads was going to have more impact. I think they needed to do more things differently than Twitter than they did other than just

being an alternative. And I know that usage of it has really dropped. Does that show that there's only space for one? Doubtful, doubtful. And because really there isn't one. I get as much traffic on Instagram as I do anywhere else. It's just more real-time immediacy with Twitter than it is the other ones. And I think that'll be matched in time.

Look, it's just like network TV. Why is CBS always asked third when it comes to the morning shows and the evening newscasts? Well, I think they're not as entertaining, but also, and the talent's not as good, but also it's because it's a two-way race. It's hard to have a third. So maybe you'll just have one come up that really challenges Twitter in the same regard and way, but does it in a better way or creates an alternative

that's seen as a value proposition for people. But I think that we're very early in the stages of how social media is gonna be valuable in our society. And I'll tell you what, I remember my parents saying that the TV was the boob tube and it was sucking your brain out and all this other bullshit. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't.

Gen X has turned out to be pretty sturdy, certainly compared to the generations that came after it. And I am more worried about the phone and screen time than I think my parents even were about television. Why? Because it is not a distraction anymore. It's a main activity. And their attention span is shorter.

And maybe it's progressive or regressive, or maybe it's entirely different and new because of how different it is. But I'm telling you, my kids don't absorb information the way I did. They don't have the attention span that I did. And everybody has a diagnosis now, I know, and I respect that. But I think there's so much coming at us that it is hard to focus on anything and to keep things straight. And I think a lot of people who are exploiting social media,

including our enemies within and without, know that. And we're going to get more manipulated by more people and more entities and more countries because they know it works, especially in our politics, because we're so suggestive and we're so susceptible to messaging. Because we're so suggestive and we're so susceptible to messaging. Censorship is real. It is happening. It is wrong. I am against it. I believe in the marketplace of ideas.

Let the best idea win. What they're using with these algorithms to catch content isn't getting it done. I am proof of the problem. We can do better. And we have to see the problem and we have to beware. Beware of what you're reading. Legacy media, mainstream media, established media. Establishment is the new dividing line. And I'm okay with it. Not everything that is established is bad, but I'm okay with insurgents. I'm okay with disruptive business models. I think it's big. I believe in blue oceans. Google that, the blue

ocean strategy for business. I believe in that. But caveat emptor, you know what that means? Buyer beware. Look at whose sources you're trusting. Look at where they get it from. More media is not necessarily better. Independent media that has no accountability and no system of vetting and no checks on whatever that person decides to put out that could be based on one source that goes bad on them is not the same as the standard

that I have to live by at News Nation. Do we get things wrong? Yup. We also admit it. Do we get things wrong for bad reason? No. Not in my experience. Certainly not me, not my team.

Okay? And that's a fundamental difference. And all of these challenges are getting exacerbated, not improved, by social media. And the people who are telling you differently are selling you something. So beware and be aware that censorship is going on. People are manipulating ideas and they're doing it because they want you to think a certain way. Be a critical thinker, multiple sources, listen to what you disagree with. Okay?

Be a free agent. Get away from them damn political parties. And I appreciate you giving me an opportunity. I'm Chris Cuomo. Thank you for subscribing and following. The Substack is just getting going. There are no ads and you're going to get access to me to be able to ask questions, have conversations, and get content that is much more of a personal nature of my own development or lack thereof, what I've learned in professional life, fitness, and I'm willing to share. And I hope that you are as well. There are a lot of troubles, but we know one thing for sure.

Life is short, so let's get after it.