The Chris Cuomo Project - Why Hillary Clinton Is Wrong About Punishing Misinformation

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

Chris Cuomo tackles one of the biggest threats to democracy today: the growing push to control what we see and hear. Chris explains the difference between misinformation and disinformation and why punishing speech, no matter how inflammatory, is a dangerous path. Reflecting on recent comments from Hillary Clinton and the dangers of social media, Chris argues that censorship is not the answer to dealing with bad ideas—defeating them is. 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 Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. Here is the threat to democracy. I'll start with what it is not, okay? Kamala Harris is not a communist and not a threat to the democracy on that basis. You can like her policies, you can not like her policies. Tim Walz is not a Manchurian candidate, okay? Just because you want that to be true,

because it makes it easier to campaign against them, doesn't make it a fact. It's not even a good feeling. They are not a threat to democracy. Maybe the country does better, maybe it does the same, maybe it does worse, but it's a good feeling. They are not a threat to democracy. Maybe the country does better, maybe it does the same, maybe it does worse, but it's a different proposition. Donald Trump is not a threat to democracy. Project 2025, it's conservative values. Like them, don't like them. Unitary executive, giving a president more power. It's not the same as making him a despot or a dictator, okay?

Getting rid of the Department of Education. I don't like the idea. It's not destroying democracy. And the distinction matters. Neither is a threat to changing America's institutions. I don't believe that. But Project 2025 says he wants to replace the bureaucracy with his own people.

Yeah, it's also not gonna happen. And even if it did, it wouldn't destroy the institution. It would just put a bunch of people in there. And by the way, he could barely fill his judgeships. He barely staffed his administration. Go back and look how many open places there were. They'll say, oh we reduced the size of government. No, you were inept at hiring. It's harder to do than saying it. So I don't believe in the threat. Now you may

find that unsatisfying because you want Trump to be bad. He gives you enough ammo. The truth is enough. Don't stretch it and pervert it because then you are becoming what you say you oppose, which is a sub-theme to the threat to our democracy. So what is the threat to democracy? People on both sides, people in power, saying out loud that they want to control what you get to hear and see. It is real. It is a threat. And it is happening and growing. And I'll tell you what, punishing thought is on the agenda. And I just heard it from someone who's not a coop, is on the agenda. And I just heard it from someone who's not a Coupe, not Alex Jones, not Tucker Carlson,

one of the most sober and intelligent politicians of our time, Hillary Rodham Clinton. I think it's important to indict the Russians, just as Mueller indicted a lot of Russians who were engaged in direct election interference and boosting Trump back in 2016. But I also think there are Americans who are engaged in this kind of propaganda and whether they should be civilly or even in some cases crimin charged, is something that would be a better deterrence.

Now, interestingly, people are saying that she wants to punish misinformation. She never uses that word. And here's why I'm not just playing too cute by half. Misinformation versus disinformation, okay? Is there a difference? 100%. Do we often make the distinction properly? No, but a lot of us are stupid and clumsy and lazy.

Misinformation is they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats, they're eating the pets in Springfield. That is misinformation. Oh, but three people alleged it, and there's a picture. The pictures are not what they were said to show. The people who have said it did not come forward in any real way because there is no scourge of Haitian migrants eating dogs and cats. That is dogs and cats. That is misinformation.

Now when you know that it is untrue, the basic difference is, the short answer is, is it wrong or is it a lie? If it's wrong, it's misinformation. If it's a lie, it's disinformation. You know it's wrong and you're saying it anyway to deceive. Is JD Vance engaging in miss or disinformation? Disinformation. Trump, disinformation. People who were reporting it early on on the basis of what was being said, misinformation. Well, but what if they knew that it was bullshit and they just liked the headline? Disinformation.

Do you punish either? In my opinion, no. Now, if you are an agent of an inimical force, foreign agency to the United States and you engage in disinformation, you can be civilly and criminally liable. Now look at what is going on with the Russian dupes, right? Big deals for you guys here in digital media getting stuck as being Russian pawns, right? Dave Rubin. Had him on the show. Respect where he's coming from. Don't love the libertarian label. I still believe it's a way of bragging about yourself while having

no accountability for your beliefs. And Tim Poole. He's been making his name for his little beanie cap and being a crank and being a disruptor. Was he also a dupe? Maybe. He says he didn't know. Great. It shows his lack of sophistication. That's exactly what it is. That's the problem with digital media. That's the problem with not having layers of editorial staff

and accountability and just caring about clicks and being provocative and pretending you're pissed off about everything. And he is, and they are, and there is a culture of pretension. It's what works here. That's disinformation. Russians putting out things that they know to be untrue, but advance their cause, which is to divide us and these guys just happen to love to do that anyway, so it worked perfectly and it never raised their eyebrow that they were getting paid so much.

Now if you're working for a foreign agency in that regard and I don't believe Rubin or Poole or the others have had any proof shown that they knew what they were doing and were actively trying to work for Russia or inimical American foreign interests. I don't see the proof, I don't believe it therefore, okay? Just because I like or dislike somebody doesn't mean I'm gonna lie about them. Tim Poole I know comes after me,

that does not make him special in my mind or estimation, but know, comes after me. That's, you know, that's does not make him special in my mind or estimation. But just because he treats me that way does not mean I'm gonna treat him that way. Why? Because I believe piece of shit though I am, flawed though I am, I try to not be like what I oppose.

And I oppose people who are bullshit just to be provocative and just to stoke your anger through exposing ignorance. And I'm not doing that. So they don't have proof against him. I take him at his word. And it just shows that there's an unprofessional nature to what he does. And there's a lack of sophistication to what he does.

But I don't think he should be punished. And I don't think the ideas that he normally puts out should be punished by society as in terms of law, but by society in terms of consequence, absolutely. That's the marketplace of ideas. And I can't believe that Clinton got this wrong. I can't believe it. I can't believe that she is actually gonna lend credence

to the idea that people want to use government, use the administration of justice to advance injustice, unjust ideas, notions and propositions. There has to be a civil or a criminal, no there doesn't. You have to be better at defeating bad ideas and exposing them as bullshit. Yeah, but people are believing them.

Look, this is a challenge, okay? But you have to be very careful that the cure isn't worse than the disease. You have to be careful that your proposed cure is not more toxic than the disease. Misinformation, disinformation, bullshit, hate, malice, social media has magnified all of it. The good news is that social media is not reality.

It is an exaggerated form, a hyperbolic form, an opportunistic, exploitative form of society. That's why you feel less connected to what you see in our politics. I don't get where these people are coming from. I don't get why they're saying this. They seem nuts. Because they are compared to you. You're a critical thinker. You act out of compassion and community and mutual concern.

Maybe that's because you're Christian. Maybe it's because you're an ethical humanist. Maybe it's because you're religious. But that's how you live your life. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Help where you can. Cooperate. Listen, understand. That's real life. That's what you teach your kids.

That's what you want in the workplace. That's why you have the relationships that you do. That's not politics. Politics is all about advantage, and it has been turbocharged by a binary bullshit zero-sum political system of just two parties that have gone to the bank, taken to the bank, this proposition of which is worse. And social media has magnified it. So our dialogue is now dominated about what gets the most resonance, most clicks, the easiest to cover, right? For people like me, social media. We use it as a proxy for vox populi, the voice of the people.

It is not that. It is the voice of the fringe. So you do have a lot of shit that advances fringe agendas being dumped on you as truth. And sometimes the media plays into it and sometimes they play against it, but the media is caught up in it and has been diminished by it. Support for the Chris Cuomo Project comes from 120 Life. I got a member of my family that's got high blood pressure. We are using 120 Life.

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That's one, two, zero, life.. Use the code CHRIS, 15% off. Support for the Chris Cuomo project comes from Shopify. Now let me tell you something about what I've learned about business, okay? Very often when it comes to success in selling, it is often not just about the business doing the work to commit to a product, market it, and get it to consumers in a way that they want it. It's who is helping them do that. The business behind the business.

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Get the same checkout that Untuck It uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash Chris C, all lowercase, and upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com slash Chris C. So what do you do about it? That's the tricky part. I'll tell you what you don't do

is to make it illegal to say shit. You have to have very narrow categories on that. Let's look at the law and how we've dealt with this over time. Slander. Defamation is libel and slander. Okay. Slander is yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap. Libel is chachachachacha.

Okay. That's the difference. You write it, it's libel. You say it, it's slander. On TV, it can be both. It depends on the application. Okay. Two categories. per se and per quad, Latin, per se means as it is. Per quad means as it is this. Okay, per se is certain categories that if you say something about someone and it is untrue, it is automatically deemed damaging and therefore punishable.

Civilly. Always civilly. Never criminally. The idea that it should be criminal, we have been reducing over time. How so? Fighting words used to be illegal. I hate speech. Used to be illegal. I hate speech used to be illegal. No, not so much now.

Not really. The Supreme Court has softened it, has expanded freedom, has expanded it. You can't say fire in a crowded theater. Yeah, you probably can. Google it. You have to do a little bit more to be seen as posing imminent threat by speech.

Okay? So we've been expanding it, but culturally we're starting to contract because of reaction formation to social media. So per se are these categories. You want to hear an interesting one that doesn't apply anymore or shouldn't? What they used to call moral turpitude. You say someone's a hoe and they're not a hoe, you got a problem.

You say someone's gay and they're not gay. You had a problem in the per se categories. See, we've made some progress, okay? Calling someone gay is no longer seen as a slur or it should be. This is one of the things I dealt with with my kid's friend group growing up. At some point males start to have to figure out

their alphaness, their maleness. And all of a sudden they get into like the gay bashing because they don't wanna be that. And there was a real parenting situation there for me because not only do I reject the idea of less than on the basis of being gay as I have known many gay men and women who will whoop your ass. But it's about teaching kids how we want to be

and what we want to be. Per quad is you have to make the case that this person said this, they published it, they put it out there, it's untrue and it hurt you, okay? That's how it breaks down in the law, traditionally. What we have never punished is any of it. Civilly, you could have to pay. But in terms of putting you in prison, no.

Now, the suggestion that you should be put in prison because it's more dangerous and damaging now, I get that the challenge is more scary. Social media is scary. The amount of bullshit is frightening. What do you do about it? Okay, legit question. I'm not sure about the answer,

but I can see when an answer is wrong. And Hillary Clinton is wrong about this. You already have civil protection for defamation, but this is something different. These are ideas that aren't specifically destructive to you. It's not Kamala Harris is a commie. And by the way, why can't she sue if she's not a commie? Because she's a public person.

There's a different standard, okay? And then what did the law decide? Reckless disregard of truth. New York Times v. Sullivan is the seminal case for malice, a forethought of reckless disregard of truth. What does that mean? You said something, you reported something that you knew was untrue and damaging and did it anyway.

I believe I've been victimized by this. Doesn't matter, I'm a public person. It's very hard to prove that people knew that what they were saying about you is untrue. And public people, this is what they signed up for, including me. I want an audience. I want you to regard what I say.

So I have signed up for a level of scrutiny that you don't have to tolerate as a private citizen. And I think that's okay. It can be really frustrating, maddening even, but I get where the law is on it. So now we want to change it. How? Well, what do we do about all this bullshit online? I think part of it goes to the platforms.

And I think they get too much of a pass. And here's why I always understood the initial reckoning of section 230 in the federal law, which is what It gives platforms like Facebook or Metta or whatever you call them now or Twitter or X whatever you call it now a Release from being seen as publishers Like News Nation is a publisher, ABC News, CNN, publishers, and you have a responsibility under law,

an extension of a liability under law, and they were released from that. Why? Because it was deemed that they can't control the content that comes in. They're not putting it out. They're taking it in. And it's coming from all these different sources. I don't think it's as true anymore.

Why? Because these mofos know how to put their ads and maximize search engine optimization, SEO, so they have some way of knowing what kind of content is coming in and understanding it in areas. And I believe they can do more and do better with content moderation. And I think that they should be transparent about it and we should know what it is and you should make decisions about where you want to be and don't be because they have their right. No shirt, no shoes, no service. That's a real law.

This is a private place. Oh, but my First Amendment rights. We don't understand what that means. I don't like that you won't have me on your show. You're bridging my First Amendment rights. Is it PBS? No, you don't have any right. You don't have any right.

No, yes I do. I have the right to say whatever I want. No, you don't. And the First Amendment protects us against the government making laws that abridge our speech, which is what Hillary Clinton is talking about right now, which I find very threatening. That is First Amendment. The idea that you shouldn't get beat up on social media for saying something, you don't have any right to be free from consequence of what you say.

That's not how it works, and we need to magnify that. The marketplace of ideas. Nickel John. Look him up. The best idea must win. No censorship. The best idea must win. No censorship. The best idea must win. And it is easier to win when you have this flood of effluvium, of bullshit being out there.

It should make this easier in one regard. It is easier. There should be more of a commodity. I've actually thought about doing a show like this where all I do is fact check. What's true, what's not. What's true, what's not. And I don't even think it would be that hard to do. I think you could do it every night.

I think there's enough out there that you could do it every effing night. And maybe that show will come up and maybe it'll become marketable and then everybody could do it every effing night. And maybe that show will come up and maybe it'll become marketable and then everybody will do it. And maybe that will be what gets us to a better place. But I'll tell you what won't. I'll tell you what won't.

AI is a challenge. Social media is a challenge. We identify it as an exaggeration. I know that there are clips of me out there saying things about products and it ain't me. If you don't see an ad on this podcast, it ain't me. Okay? You will never see me.

You'll never see me really being an ambassador for a product anyway. Would I? Maybe, but I never have. So they're all fake. What can I do about it? Almost nothing. That's frustrating as hell. We need solutions.

I do not think we will find them by punishing ideas. I don't know why Hillary Rodham Clinton is saying that. I get that it is playing to an appetite on the left. There's some of it on the right as well, but it is wrong and it is anathema to true liberalism. My father, you people love to bring up his name and use him as a cudgel against me, and it makes me sick and it makes me feel sorry for you. But let me give you a little bit of a truth bomb about Mario Matthew Cuomo.

He'd be disgusted by the state of the Democratic Party, who they're fighting for and what they're about. And as a classical liberal, he would be completely against any idea of censorship. And the idea that it's even being bandied about, look, I get that the challenge is real and we have to do something, but you can't just run to the law. You gotta deal with culture.

You gotta deal with the private sector and find ways to make things better. Dogs and cats are being eaten. That's bullshit. That's a problem. People coming at me and saying I was wrong to reach out to Trump and say, I worry for his safety and I'm sorry about what he and his family are going through because he deserves it, because he puts hate out into the world.

So this is what he gets? That's only half right. It's only half right. Trump puts a lot of hate and shit into the air and it is a reason to disqualify him from your vote. 100%, all day long, he has disqualified himself in my opinion. He has given you ample reason not to vote for him.

So then why is it so close? Because people are more disgusted about what I'm talking about right now than they are by him. And they see him as an agent of their animus, a spirit animal for their grievance, and he wants to break and bust up and fuck with the same things and people that they want. And that matters more to them than his value as a human being.

That's the truth. And that's on you. You want to oppose him, then don't be what you oppose. Be better than what you oppose. That's hard. I know. You have two choices. Beat him at his own game or beat him at the polls

by being better. And I do not think Kamala Harris wins with the former. I do not think she wins by being in the who's more pissed off game. I don't. If this stays a grievance election, well, I'll talk about that another time because I now know what's gonna determine this election. If this stays a grievance election, well, I'll talk about that another time, because

I now know what's going to determine this election. But I'll tell you what will not determine the longevity of our democracy? Punishing thoughts. Best ideas have to win. That is the burden of democracy. That is the burden of democracy. And if you start punishing ideas, you will become what you oppose. And we will be an oppressive state.

We will not be a democracy. And we sure as hell will not be America. What do you think? Are you in favor of punishing speech? Let me know. I never will be. Thank you for subscribing. Are you in favor of punishing speech? Let me know. I never will be. Thank you for subscribing.

Thank you for following. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to exercise my voice and being a fair arbiter for me of what ideas work and do not. Thank you for checking out News Nation. We are trying something different there. We are transparent and we are authentic. You may like, you may dislike, but you will know. And it will be clear where it's coming from, and then you get to decide. I believe that is the main proposition of fairness.

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