The Daily Show: Ears Edition - No Kings Rallies Can’t Stop CPAC's Trump Glazing & Iran War Hits One Month | Cindy Cohn

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

Happy one-monthiversary of the Iran war! With the Strait of Hormuz still closed, Jon Stewart examines how global shortages are hitting everything from grain to helium to pickleballs. Meanwhile, Americans flood the streets for the No Kings protests while CPAC throws Trump his own Yassss Kings rally. Plus, the U.S. finally has a detailed explanation of the president's objectives and exit strategy... for the White House ballroom. Attorney Cindy Cohn talks to Jon Stewart about her new book, “Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance,” and her work as executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is the world’s biggest and oldest digital rights organization. She recounts the fight against sweeping government surveillance after 9/11, her reservations about internet regulations backfiring if placed in the wrong hands, and why the solution to these problems is a combination of comprehensive privacy law, revised business models of giant tech companies who make money off of user data, and more platform choices for individuals. “A world where there are five big media companies that decide everything that we see and how we see it… the answer isn’t to try to take a dictator and make them a better dictator. The answer is to get rid of the dictators and make them less important.” -- Stream full episodes of The Daily Show on Paramount+ The Daily Show airs weeknights at 11/10c on Comedy Central. -- Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at https://meetfabric.com/daily Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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at the best price. You're listening to Comedy Central. From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central is America's only source for news. This is the Daily Show with your host, John Stewart. Opening of the show is starting to turn into like a wrestling open. My name is John Stewart. Great show for you tonight.

Later on, I will be speaking with civil liberties attorney, Cindy Cohn. She's going to be doing it. We're going to discuss her new book about digital privacy, and then she will show me how to post a close friend's story. I recently joined Instagram and I. But as many of you know, it's the one-month anniversary of the Iran War. And as we all know, one month is the escalated threat anniversary.

If the Strait of Hormuz is not immediately open for business, we will conclude by blowing up and completely, obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells, and Korg Island. Better open that straight. We're going to blow you up. In our war, Trump is threatening to escalate our bombing campaign unless Iran opens the straight that they closed in response to Trump's bombing campaign. I believe we've entered what General Patton used to refer to as the human centipede portion of the war. I urge you not to look that up.

And I understand why the world would like the Strait of Hormuz open. The conflict is disrupting global supply chains for other surprising and essential products. Gray nuts, oil, saffron, dates, paddles, and pickleballs. I'm not sure how that snuck into the essential product story. But I guess we all make sacrifices in wartime. My dearest Eliza. It's been over a month since I've played Well, not tennis, kind of like tennis.

It's baby tennis. It's like, well, it's bigger than ping pong. You really have to try it, Eliza. It's so fun. What else is being blocked? It's getting harder to get food that comes with pistachios. You can't make Dubai chocolate bars. What will our influencers stand in line to pretend to eat? To buy chocolate, my God, that's been an American staple for tens of days.

I can't believe how the news has to frame world events to try and make Americans care. The whole region is being flattened. Innocent people are dying. Their food and fuel are in total chaos. And our news is like, if this goes on any longer, say goodbye to your stuffed crust pizza. Americans losing anything else?

It turns out there is another key material being affected by the war in Iran, fertilizer. There could be healing. shortages. Yes, the gas that's used in party balloons. Helium is a fundamental gas used in the production of advanced chip technology. You don't have to dumb it down to make us. Oh, this war could be even bad for your promposals. Like, come on.

For more on how the closing of the Strait of Hormuz is affecting Americans, we go live to Ronnie Chang, Jordan Klepper, and Michael Costa. Ronnie, I'm going to start with you. What's the latest? Well, John, the latest is the Iranians think they can just close the stray of humus and stop us from eating pistachios. Well, I got a message for them from America. They can come and get these nuts out of my mouth.

That's right. That's right, John. And I also have a message. I just want to add that if the Ayatollah thinks he's going to stop Americans from getting our supply of helium, well, then I've got one thing to say. You pussy pitches can come get it out of my mouth. And Jordan Klepper. Yes, John.

What do you have? Is there anything else that the straight is affecting? Yes. Fertilizer shortage. Back to you, John. Is there any message that you want to send about the fertilizer shortage? Oh, yeah, John, sure. Big one.

If you think you're going to take our fertilizer, well, you're going to have to come and take it from my hands, John. But your hand... What the fuck? Eat it. Jordan, I got no problem sending a message, all right? Hey, yo, these nuts don't run. I'm not taking a bite.

I just killed 10 million brain cells for America. Take a bite. No, I don't want to take a bite, okay? I mean, Jordan, the other guys are making the Ayatollah take things from their mouth. Does feel like you might not be as patriotic. I don't know what putting these things in our mouths proves, John. Yeah, it proves that. we have the resolve to do what we have to.

We die for the cause. They had luxury foods. This is literally processed shit. I mean, the straight is disrupting baklava. Can I have baklava? Let me do baklava. Just eat it, you baby. If you don't, Iran wins.

You want to Trump. Are those my only choices? Take the shit out of my mouth. Disgusting. You know what? This is a metaphor. Because as Americans in this, Quagmire with no end in sight,

we are all shit. Yeah, but you did it for real. Chang, Michael Costa, and Jordan Clever, now meanwhile, and I thank them all three for that brave reporting that they've done. Meanwhile, back on the home front, this weekend offered stark images articulating our nation's deep political divide

as eight to nine million people took to the streets for the No King's protest, a slightly smaller group of, let's call them, Heritage Americans, took to the Reagan Meeting Room 1A on the second floor for their Yas Kings rally. If you want an object lesson on what a strong commander-in-chief looks like, take a look at the current resident of the Oval Office, President Donald J. Trump. What he's been able to do in one year is truly remarkable.

Great president, greatest president of my lifetime. That guy is an energizer bunny. We'll never get another president like Donald Trump. Never. And that's why it's important that we do everything that we can to try to get him reelected. That's Reverend Franklin Graham saying, praise the Lord and fuck the Constitution. Now look, far be it for me to question the wisdom of this year's CPAC convention. But clearly, the vibes this year were slightly off.

How many of you would like to see impeachment hearings? That was the wrong answer. That's a rookie crowdwork mistakes lap. See, they cheered for Trump's impeachment, not realizing that you were calling for the counter, but that's on you. Crowds are like dogs. They react to tone.

You can get them excited about anything. Who wants to go to the vet? Who wants to get the balls cut off? Yes, who do it? See, in Trump land, Old Donald didn't let something as trivial as a war keep him from doing his rounds at the golf course and at a Saudi investment meeting in Miami

because, God forbid, during a war, he let the press, Recipus of World War III, yuck his yum in any way. That was Trump's weekend, and I find it so astounding that this nuclear-armed man baby doesn't seem to have any understanding of the confusion and anxiety that his ill-planned adventure in Iran is causing this country. He's just chucking along like it's any old episode of The Apprentice. Here is Trump last night on Air Force One. Watch him try and focus for more than two sentences on the war. He started before veering off into what really matters. It truly is regime change.

And regime change is an imperative, but I think we have it automatically. I did something today. We just got these in from the architects. A lot of people talking about how beautiful the ballroom. For 150 years, they've wanted to build a ballroom at the White House. Here's another view.

This is coming from right opposite the Treasury building. Here's a view on the south with the porch. This is a view of it from the north, and there'll be Corinthian, which is considered the best, most beautiful by far. Now, I know what you're thinking. How do you get something that size on a plane? But I guess he's allowed.

It's his emotional support ballroom picture. Now, you may say, what prompted this presentation about the ballroom. Well, it turns out this incredibly long-winded visual aid-assisted Timeshare presentation

was spurred by a critical New York Times article that had the gall to suggest that sometimes Trump's plans don't hold up to scrutiny. The Times had architects analyzed plans for the ballroom.

They pointed out design flaws like staircases that seemed to lead nowhere. Okay, woke New York Times. when M.C. Escher does that. It's art. But you put it on an actual building, and suddenly it's,

this doesn't make any sense. And I appear to be trapped. For the ballroom, Trump will pull an all-nighter for a point-by-point rebuttal. For the war, literally doesn't have the focus to answer one question

about the dire consequences of his actions on his favorite network. I think it is alarming that we have not been able to see or hear from any of the Iranian people. And I think there is some general worry about them. Do you have any insight as to how they are doing? Do they have drinking water? Do they have food?

Wow, straightforward question. It asked the president to put himself in the shoes of those purportedly we're trying to liberate and the suffering they may be going through. the Iranian people are hurting, sir. Do they have food? Right, I do. It's upsetting. I do.

But first, you remember when we had lunch years ago in the base of Trump Tower when it was a brand new building? So the point is, the Iranians might not have food, but you remember you and I about 12, 13 years ago, had a club sandwich. You remember that? It's a long time ago, yes. A long time ago, and you haven't changed. You have not changed. Now, I'm not allowed to say this. It's the end of my political career, but you may be even better looking, okay?

So I don't know what you're doing. But I will not say that. I will not say that because that will end my political career. You're not allowed to say a woman's beautiful anymore. You know, it's funny, Dana. Your question about the suffering of the Iranian people has somehow made me horny. I don't know why. As you asked me, do they have food?

Do they have water? And the whole time, I'm thinking like, what a piece of ass. What a delightful piece of ass. You are. You remember that day? I remember how I made you uncomfortable at lunch? You remember? I do that. I do that a lot to women. I make him uncomfortable.

What was your question? I don't remember your question. The war, other than the occasional tweet, doesn't seem to occupy any space in Trump's brain. And by the way, not just for TV. On Friday, he addressed a room full of Saudi investors, who you would think might be very concerned. about the bombings in their neighborhood. But he wants to let them know,

we didn't have to talk about that at all. I'm asked to take a few questions, and unlike other politicians, they would like the question screened. I don't ask for screening of the questions. You can ask me anything you want. You can talk sex. You can do whatever the hell you want.

We can ask about sex. Or you meant like general sex shit, like loveline shit. Sorry. You know, honestly. his leering behavior is less commander-in-chief at war and more grandpa

who's lost his filter in public. Instead of assuaging a nervous nation, he's just embarrassing the whole family at dinner going, hey, do you see our waitress is a busty one? Just like your grandma was. But like any good monarchy, Trump's loyal henchmen assure you

that it's really the opposite of everything you're seeing. He has an encyclopedia. molecular knowledge. I was on the airplane with them and we were sitting across the table from each other. We started talking about Syria and he got a place mad and he turned it on its back and then he took a Sharpie and he drew a perfect map of the Midees and then he put the troop strength of every country on every border on that map. Has anyone thought about filming that? Let us see that.

Because that's not what we see. What we see as a president four weeks into a war he has yet to fully explain, with objectives he has yet to fully define, only displaying molecular knowledge in a cabinet meeting of his own pen preferences. So I came here to have $1,000 pens. And you know, you hand pens out,

you're signing it, you hand them out, you're handing them with all these people. Beautiful pen brawlpoint. Thousand who's gold, silver, manning out to kids that don't even know what they're. What is this, Mommy? So I take it out. And I saw it and there's no ink.

And I got all you people looking and you say, there must be something wrong with pen right here. This pen is an interesting example. It's the same thing. Here's what I call the guy. I said, I'd like to use your pen but I can't have a gray thing with a big ass on it. Saying Sharpie. You said, why can you die, sir? He said, what can you do?

He said, I'll paint it black, sir, if you like. In gold, almost real gold. That's a cabinet meeting during the table. during a fucking war. Don't tell us what you use to draw the map. Just draw the fucking map. You know, all we keep hearing from this administration is why the American people have to sacrifice

for Trump's vision of America's greatness, that these temporary disruptions are just part of the process. And why can't we be patriots? We have to be patient. We have to suck it up, whether it's high gas prices or whimsical tariff inflation or draconian ice rates or temporary Bill of Rights suspensions.

It's on us to understand. But Trump gets to be just the same old, ain't I a stinker? Utterly self-absorbed. Remember when I used to want a f***ed girl's twat self. Can you imagine any other president, let alone a wartime president, being this fucking indulgent?

And there were $1,000 a piece. Beautiful pen ballpoint. A thousand who's gold, silver, gorgeous. But I'm handing out to kids that don't even know what they're, what is this, mommy? These kids, they're getting a pen for $1,000. They have no idea what it is. Now, to be fair to Trump, pen technology was at FDR's time quite primitive.

But Trump is the guy you want to be your king? That's who you want. It's important that we do everything that we can to try to get him reelected. Really? This is the guy you'll break the Constitution for. the American monarchy begins with this guy. This is the line we face in this country. No kings versus kings.

But a word of caution, generally with monarchies, the first guy is the best guy. It's the guy that's so good it makes the people want a king. Charlemagne and Alexander. or Ralph. But pretty soon, corruption and inbreeding take their toll on the monarchy and turn your king into this guy.

Old Charles II. Yeah, that's his real head. He liked cheese. It was his favorite food. So go ahead. But just understand, we're starting a lot closer to Charles, than Charlemagne.

When we come back, Cindy Cohn will be joining me in the studio. This time of year, the school calendar really starts to fill up, spring activities, testing season, and that final push toward the end of the year. It's a great moment for kids to stay focused and build confidence in what they're learning. That's where IXL comes in. IXL is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand their schoolwork, from math and reading to writing and science. It's designed for pre-K through 12th grade,

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Listeners can get an exclusive 20% off I-XL membership when they sign up today at Iexel.com forward slash today. Visit Ixl.com forward slash today to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. If you've been putting off getting life insurance, you're not alone. Many Americans overestimate the cost believing it's simply too expensive. But protecting your loved ones is more affordable than you think. You can get the coverage you need today with Fabric by Gerber Life.

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M-E-E-T-Fabric.com slash daily. Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company, not available in certain states, prices subject to underwriting and health questions. She's the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and author of the new book, Privacy's Defender, my 30-year fight against digital surveillance. Please welcome to the program, Cindy Cohn.

I want to point out for the people at home who can't see, she is wearing a let's sue the government t-shirt. We have great designers at EFF. They made this special. What is EFF? And what is that? The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the world's biggest and oldest digital rights organization. We are founded in 1990.

Our basic goal is to make sure that when you go online, your rights go with you. So we do things around free speech, around privacy, and around trying to build an Internet. that stands with you rather than against you. How did you know? It's so prescient. The idea, I'm thinking back to 1990. And the internet was you had a little AOL disc, yeah?

Maybe 95 or six, but over that. Right. It might have been, it was just like all binary message boards. How did you all have the prescience to see that this could be turned into a tool of surveying? surveillance and of government repression. Yeah, I mean, the founders of the EFF, John Perry Barlow, John Gilmore, and Mitch Kepor

were involved in some early FBI missteps around the internet. And they worked with the FBI or they were like, no, they were like questioned by the FBI. And there were a lot of raids going on. And there was, they weren't raided, but they were asked a bunch of questions. And they realized that the government didn't really understand how the internet was working either at least the FBI didn't and they thought we need to start an

organization that's going to think about how our civil liberties work in the digital age and a couple of them are pretty geeky and they realized that the internet we were building was not very secure it didn't have a lot of privacy or security in it and the first fight we did was to try to free up a technology called encryption that now is the reason that we have the privacy and security we have online. Most of it is because it's a lawsuit. And you joined this because you're a lawyer and you're interested in this space or you had met these guys. How did your involvement?

I met them kind of by chance. Honestly, they showed up at a party at my house, some of them. But I was doing... This is all sounding very... Where did this take place? San Francisco. Okay. In the hate.

Yeah. Now I'm understanding. There's a tub of Kool-Aid. Somebody puts something and something. It got a little messy. No, I was a human rights lawyer. I had done human rights. I've been in Geneva, and I came back to San Francisco to try to start a regular law practice.

And I met some of these guys kind of really by chance. And they were already online. You know, this was 1990, 1991. They were online at this very early Internet before we had the World Wide Web. But they were doing really cool things. They were collaborating across distance. They were having these long chats back. Stuff that we take for granted now, but it was pretty magical back then.

It's really interesting, too, that they and you decided, because I remember that time as a gold rush. So the 90s, as it started going on, this was when like every internet startup, anybody that you knew that was even adjacent, if they had a word processor, they were a startup. And they wanted VC funding, and they were going to, you know, make a ton of money. and you and this group decide, we're not going in that direction, we're going to go in the protecting citizens' rights direction, where the real money is. Yeah, why would you?

My stock options are so great. Right. Yeah. I mean, look, I think that there are people who, you know, plenty of people in the early Internet were interested in making money. I don't have any judgment about that. But we were thinking about how could this be a technology that supports people, how it could be a technology of freedom,

how it could give people, you know, more power against the powerful forces in their lives. And they were, again, very forward-looking. And they, you know, created an organization to try to do that. I don't know where it comes. So for me, I've always just wanted to make the world better. And then I found, you know, I'm not a technical person, but I kind of landed in this place and this time. And I was able to do it. In 90.

And then so you're working over this sort of decade and you get this great-incritian case and you make it so that people have a right to encrypt their data and these kinds of things. But then 9-11 happens, and that really supercharges the surveillance state. Yeah, after 9-11, the Patriot Act, both the Patriot Act, which they did above board, and a lot of stuff that we later discovered as a country they were doing secretly. These metadata, these hoovering up of all of our data and putting it through process. Yeah, tapping into the Internet backbone, collecting metadata, collecting telephone records. Some of this, you might be able to read in the Patriot Act, but most of it was really under, under, you know, secret interpretations and things like that.

Right. But they had really flipped from the idea that, you know, you needed probable cause, you needed a warrant, you needed individualized suspicion to doing mass surveillance first and figuring out what they need second. And that has only increased as the technology has increased. Was it that they had decided to treat virtual world as separate from physical world? In other words, the rules of like the Fourth Amendment might not apply to your digital life in the way that it would apply to your house. Yeah, although they were using some earlier stuff that's in the non-digital world, this idea that metadata isn't protected but the content of YouTube.

Metadata meaning like the date and time and location and the other things that go along with your digital life. Correct. But they were using an analogy from envelopes and letters in the actual physical world. But in the digital world, the metadata is much more powerful. It can tell you a lot. There's a very famous quote from a member of the NSA

saying, we kill people with metadata, right? Because when you are able to collect it at scale and analyze it, you can do a lot more with it than kind of the old school envelopes and you know and I don't remember anybody saying we kill people with envelopes. It hasn't happened and I know it. So but so this is one of the things they took this distinction that is actually an offline distinction that may have made some sense, I'm not sure it did, but in the online world

it really has eroded our privacy and it's being used in ways now that are increasingly visible, right? I mean, you know, there's testimony in Oregon just last month from an ICE agent saying they They used a Google-like thing to identify where people were that they ended up doing an ice raid. So that's- And the company Palantir was very proud of the fact that they're sending metadata to accomplish those things, that these large tech companies are working with the company. So now is your fight, are you fighting two behemoths? Are you fighting the government and also,

the tech companies. Absolutely. I mean, we kind of always were, right? If you think about the post 9-11 surveillance, they didn't come to us and ask us for our telephone records, right? They went to the telephone companies. That's where they got it. So they've always gone through the companies that provide us services in order to get information. But now the number one purchaser of information from data brokers is the government. And, you know, FBI director Cash Patel just said to Congress, we're going to keep doing it. So it was something they were doing a little of, and now they're really supercharging it

and doing it at a level that's much greater than it was before. But you're right, we don't really have the luxury of a choice about whether we care more about government surveillance or private surveillance. They work hand in hand and kind of always have. How receptive have the courts been to the arguments that people's privacy is part and parcel to their security?

I mean, good and bad. I think we've got a Supreme Court that's somewhat hostile to the idea that privacy is a harm at all. But we see a lot of lower courts, yeah, being courageous. I mean, in many other issues, we're seeing the same dynamic where we've got a lot of lower courts who are worried about people's privacy, both in the commercial context and in the law enforcement context. We've been chipping away at this post-9-11 surveillance. We've made a lot of progress over time, not kind of in a – you know, one fell swoop, but chipping away and chipping away, and Congress has stepped in and done a little.

They need to do a lot more, and there's a big vote coming up in April on some of the mass surveillance. It's called FISA Section 702. So it's, we're continuing the fight. We have to continue the fight, but we've also come quite a ways from where we were right after 9-11, where all this stuff was secret and massive. What do you want people to know? How are we culpable in the dismantling, of our own security. And by that, I mean, I don't understand at all. I just click, sure. Like, whenever it always comes on and like, you know, is it okay if we try?

And I'm just like, I just want to buy shoes. So I just click and I do things. And I'm just, I don't know what I've given up. Yeah, I really think that's blaming the victim. You're the victim here. Oh, thank God. This is cooked. This is not set up so you have a real choice.

Don't. Thank you. So we need to fix this, but we need to fix it with law, with policy, maybe with better technologies. But, like, I think that the idea that individuals should bear responsibility for this, it's pretty down far on the list of things, because it's not like we have other options, right? I mean, we do for some things. I think it's great if you want to use an end-to-end encrypted tool like Signal rather than, you know, a tool that's not. There are tools that can help you. But I don't think that you should be blamed because the game is rigged against you on a lot of these privacy things.

And, you know, the original, I think one of the original sins of the Internet is everything is these little click wraps where I think somebody did a study. It would take you 37 years to read all the terms of service that you agree to in an ordinary Internet experience. That's crazy. Because I'm halfway through. I'm about halfway through. It's not fair and it's not right. We have to fix this with something other than personal responsibility. So who bears that responsibility then?

Who is, if I'm the victim, who is the party that I'm going after? Am I going after Palantir? Am I going after? You know, they just had this big lawsuit where I think Meadow was held responsible for certain. So they get held responsible for that. Or is it that what am I trying to prevent? Am I trying to prevent the government from getting access to all of this data that should be proprietary for me? Am I trying to keep meta and X and Instagram and all those other mega corporations or Palantir from being able to, or even AI?

Look, AI supercharges. Here's what's crazy. So AI basically runs on, it's basically strip mining, the totality of human existence. It basically takes everything that we have ever accomplished through chemistry and poetry and art and music, and it's fed into it. And it gets to take everything that we are, almost our essence. And then if you ask OpenAI, well, what are you doing with it? They go, that's proprietary. Well, so there's a few things there.

And there's a lot going on in that question. Sorry. I'm the victim. I'm sorry. You are the victim. And the first thing that you need to say is I want a comprehensive privacy law. I want a law that limits what these companies can track us. Just limits it. We can do this. We don't need a surveillance business model.

You know, Moses didn't come down from the, you know, from the mountain with stone tablets. It says the only way to make money on the Internet is by spying on everyone. So that's the good news. We can do better. But he was, to be fair, wearing those meta glasses. He was recorded. No, well, because he wanted to know who people were. But I think that there's that.

I also think, so a comprehensive privacy law that says when information is collected from you for one purpose, it can't be used for another purpose without a lot more than a click wrap here and a very, very high standard. And one of the things that can't be done is just handed to the government without a warrant. Who fights that? The government or the tech company? They both do. We got to take them both on. But I think we have to. Otherwise, we're, you know, we can lose now or we can fight and lose later. I think we need to fight.

Why is this technology so difficult for the government to wrap its arms around? You know, there were very clearly guardrails put into place for radio and television and the airwaves, and it was considered a public good and it was a certain utility. And there were a lot of responsibilities associated with it. Why has this been so much more difficult to wrap our arms around? Is it because it's faster? No, it's because it's not, I mean, the airwaves are regulated because there was a minimal amount of them. That's why cable doesn't have nearly the regulation that the broadcasts does.

Oh, bless your heart, that is correct. Yeah, I mean, so, but the Internet wasn't, it isn't limited. It doesn't have limited, you know, broadcast airwaves or things like that. So it could let everybody speak. I think that's a good thing. And I especially think that with the current regulators we have in power, we should be very careful about, arguing for a new regulatory structure over the internet. I think that I'd like to see a comprehensive privacy law.

There's plenty of laws that we could pass, but I'm not sure granting, you know, creating a second Brendan Carr for the internet is good for the internet. Right, right. Well, it's hard because, you know, what you hope is that regulation is written, you know, the difficulty sometimes with government is

they write regulation, and then the courts to our textualists, like for instance, there's these immigration cases that are now rolling through the courts. And the idea for immigration is the phrase, arrive on America's shores. And they're all arguing about, does that mean you're first in line at the port of entry? Does that mean if you're fifth in line, is that okay? And it's really a failure of the imagination of Congress to write these laws. But we have to guard against these false choices, I would think, of I don't want to regulate harm reduction because I'm worried that the government may not be what I like

if they misuse it. Well, I mean, I think that's right fully. I don't think it's a regulator-not kind of choice. But I think you do need to think about what you're regulating and why and who you're empowering. And a lot of the things that we see coming out of Congress right now that are regulation would either entrench the current tech giants and make it impossible for somebody else to start a different kind of social network.

Talk about that. What do you mean by that? I mean, some of the stuff that OpenAI said they wanted to do for AI that was regulatory, basically would mean that we could never have civic AI. We could never have a, you know, community kinds of, of. They would monopolize the space because they would have the power to build in the loopholes or fight regular or do any of those things. But don't they really have, I mean, doesn't that exist now? Well, it exists now, but we could make it worse, right? We don't double down on that.

So here's an interesting one. I'm curious what you would say about should we hold social media companies liable for harms, or do you consider that? Where does that fit on your shouldn't restrict free speech with should protect Americans from harm? I mean, I think that one of the worries that I have on the regulatory, on the legal side, is that the Republican definition of harm, and the Democratic definition of harm are very, very different, right?

The Republicans don't think any LGBTQ content. They think that harms kids. Right. And so we're seeing a couple of laws being floated in Congress now that will hold the companies responsible for harms. And what that's going to mean is they're not going to let any of that content on it

because if somebody claims they were harmed because their kids saw a trans person, they're going to be able to sue the company. So I worry about, until we get really clear on what we mean by harms and shared agreement, I right now I think you really have to ask yourself like why are the Republicans supportive of this and how are they defining this and some of the some Democrats should know better in my in my opinion because I think they're getting played I think that for you know that's that's a kind of different question than your social media question the the individual liability questions I think that's a hard one too sometimes because I think that it's easy to blame technology for what are kind of complicated human problems? I'm not saying it doesn't have a world.

Well, the reason why I say it is, is because in my mind, meta, Instagram, Twitter, are not free speech. They're algorithmically driven speech. It's processed like in the way Doritos is food. So it strikes me as like, that's actually not because free speech doesn't have a hierarchy. There is not blue checks on free speech. There's not ways to that their business model does not monetize hostility or other things. Like I don't consider those social media companies free speech. I consider it monetized, incentivized, algorithmic cluster that exist to create.

I mean, I think that might be a difference where we disagree. Because I really think that you decide who gets to go on your show every night. You decide what goes on the front of your show. Newspapers decide what goes on the headline, and they do it based on how to try and sell more newspapers. I'm not defending everything. I don't like these companies. Don't give you a no.

I want to undercut their entire business model. Sure. But I think that when your strategy for doing that is encouraging censorship, there's a lot of people who don't get to speak. They don't get to be on your show. They don't get to be on the New York Times, but they get to speak. Here's the flip side of it. And I would just push back gently.

is that I think the current toxicity of social media is far more censorious of free speech. Most of the people that I know don't want to engage in that toxic soup. And immediately they do. They're hit with all kinds of terrible, terrible things. And like Reddit's an example. Reddick was a sinkhole.

Like 10, 15 years ago, that was a shithole. And they cleaned it up. And you can actually go on it now and have a huge human experience. Right. And I think that it's important to continue to foster places for people to go so that when you look around and you realize you're in the Nazi bar, you can leave and go to another bar. But the thing is, you don't know. The algorithm doesn't tell you that they've notified the Nazis that you're there. It's not transparent. Like on a newspaper, when they say, our top story, you see it. But it's like with advertising, they outlawed subliminal messaging.

because it's not conscious. The algorithm is unconscious. It's doing things to you that you don't see in the way that you don't see that in a food lab, they're taking a raccoon's anus and turning into raspberry flavoring. I think that the worry that I have is that if you want somebody to develop a better version, you can't create instant liability anytime somebody gets mad that their kids saw trans content. But that's a false choice. We need, no, we need better options and people are developing them, right?

There's the whole Mastodon universe. I know it's not very big yet, but it's a decentralized place where people can build safe communities for themselves. There are, you know. But think about it as environmental protection. Can't we just view it as in the same way we view environmental protection? If there are toxins, we put it in the air and downstream of those are decisions that we make. And when you put those regulations in, you could say, well, that's just going to help the big corporations. and all that. But don't we have to at some level use regulation to mitigate very real-world

harms that are occurring at this moment through those companies? I think that when you pick censorship as your strategy, you are dealing with, no, that's what you want to do. You want to create liability for the company based on things that people say to each other on the network. And what you're doing is you're saying you should make sure that those people can't speak on your network because they're causing harm on your platform. And I worry that. But we do that, don't we do that already with all forms of communication? I can't, I mean, there are liable laws. There are slander.

Isn't that censorship? I can't say things on this show that are patently untrue with malevolence because we regulate that harm. Well, I mean, you can always sue the people who are harming you on the platforms. The question is secondary liability. Cat turd-161? Yeah, honestly. But also, I just want people to be able to leave.

And I think that if we, you know, we wrote a paper a little while. ago called Privacy First. And we did a little thought experiment about all of these social harms that are happening in other places and what the world would look like if we just cut the knees out of the business model of surveillance. And, you know, they don't go away, but they get a lot smaller. And I think that there's a lot of things that we could try. I'd like to see a lot more support for kids.

I really think that a lot of the cases that are horrible, that we're horrible, that we're we're seeing there's usually a lot of other things going on in these kids' lives, and we don't do a good job of taking care of them. But I also, I worry, I think that the censorship strategy feels really easy, and it feels really powerful, and I worry it's going to backfire. I really do. Yeah, yeah. I understand. I guess my only point is, I think we define censorship slightly differently. We might. And we always go, and I look at it more as like with cigarette smoking. like social media to me is like secondhand smoke sometimes in that I didn't choose to do it but because of the algorithm it still shows up for me and if you shipped over to blue sky you don't

have an algorithm feeding you things I mean if I shipped over to blue sky then the world no longer makes sense I'm sorry about that I mean honestly but I think that the answer is more options for people I think that a world in which there are five big media companies that decide everything that we see and how we see it. The answer isn't to try to take a dictator and make them a better dictator, right? We've got these social media dictators. The answer is to get rid of the dictators

and make them less important. All right. Well done. And we do that through the Privacy Act. A Privacy, a real privacy act. And defending our data. And defending our data. I love it.

Well, thank you for a really thought-provoking and inspiring conversation that truly does make me look at it. in a different way because I'm coming at it from this way, and now I'm seeing it a bit from this way, and I appreciate it. This was fun. This time of year, the school calendar really starts to fill up, spring activities, testing season, and that final push toward the end of the year. It's a great moment for kids to stay focused and build confidence in what they're learning. That's where Iexel comes in. IXL is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand their schoolwork,

from math and reading to writing and science. It's designed for pre-K through 12th grade, with personal interactive content that adapts to each child's level and pace. I-Excel makes it easy to stay on track with instant feedback and clear explanations, skills organized by grade level, and simple progress tracking. It fits into even the busiest spring schedules. It's also trusted nationwide. In fact, I-XL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get I-Exel now. Listeners can get an exclusive 20% off I-Excel membership when they sign up today at Ixel.com forward slash today. Visit Ixel.com forward slash today to get the most effective learning program out there at the best

price. This time of year, the school calendar really starts to fill up, spring activities, testing season, and that final push toward the end of the year. It's a great moment for kids to stay focused and build confidence in what they're learning. That's where IXL comes in. IXL is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand their schoolwork, from math and reading to writing and science. It's designed for pre-K through 12th grade, with personalized interactive content that adapts to each child's level and pace. I-XL makes it easy to stay on track with instant feedback and clear explanations, skills organized by grade level, and simple progress tracking. It fits into even the busiest spring schedules. It's also trusted nationwide.

In fact, I-Exel is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get I-Excel now. Listeners can can get an exclusive 20% off I-XL membership when they sign up today at Iexel.com forward slash today. Visit Ixl.com forward slash today to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Before we go, we're going to check it with your host for the rest of the week, Ms. Desi Liding. Desi!

What do you have for the people this week? Oh, big holiday week, John, Passover and Easter. And I, for one, could not be more excited, which is why I brought some delicious chocolate eggs for me. Yeah, yeah. And for you, a traditional Jewish shank bone. Oh, you, that's, thank you. You shouldn't have.

Aw. Try it, John. Try it now. It's not really. May I have one of the chocolate eggs? And ruin your appetite for the shank bone? No way. Come, on.

Cheers. Happy holidays. Back on Venezuela, where Chris and I have both had a chance to be there. I literally think they're going to put up a statue to President Trump lowering the price of gas in America. So it's a... Forget that. When are they going to do the statue?

Yeah, how many others? Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching The Daily Show, wherever you get your podcasts. Watch the Daily Show weeknights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast. This time of year, the school calendar really starts to fill up.

Spring activities, testing season, and that final push toward the end of the year. It's a great moment for kids to stay focused and build confidence in what they're learning. That's where IXL comes in. IXL is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand their schoolwork, from math and reading to writing and science. It's designed for pre-K through 12th grade, with personalized interactive content that adapts to each child's level. and pace. I-Excel makes it easy to stay on track with instant feedback and clear explanations,

skills organized by grade level, and simple progress tracking. It fits into even the busiest spring schedules. It's also trusted nationwide. In fact, I-XL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get I-Exel now. Listeners can get an exclusive 20% off I-XL membership when they sign up today at Iexel.com forward slash today. Visit Ixel.com forward slash today to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. This time of year, the school calendar really starts to fill up, spring activities, testing season, and that final push toward the end of the year. It's a great moment for kids to stay focused and build confidence in what they're learning. That's where Iexel comes in. Iexel is an award-winning online

learning platform that helps kids truly understand their schoolwork, from math and reading to writing and science. It's designed for pre-k through 12th grade, with personalized interactive content that adapts to each child's level and pace. I-X-L makes it easy to stay on track with instant feedback and clear explanations, skills organized by grade level, and simple progress tracking. It fits into even the busiest spring schedules. It's also trusted nationwide. In fact, I-XL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S.

Make an impact on your child's learning. Get I-Exel now. Listeners can get an exclusive 20% off I-XL membership when they sign up today at I-XL.com forward slash today. Visit Iexel.com forward slash today to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price.