The Daily Signal - #476: This New Social Media Platform Aims to Protect Your Beliefs and Privacy

Episode Date: June 4, 2019

Facebook has become so big that even one of its initial founders says it’s time for government to break it up. But what if the market solved the problem -- and offered users better free speech protection? Enter AllSocial -- a new social media platform designed for everyone, with minimal censorship. We speak to Rolfe Carawan, who runs business development for AllSocial.We also cover these stories:•President Donald Trump talks about Brexit's future.•The Trump administration announces major new restrictions on travel to Cuba.•Virginia’s Gov. Ralph Northam is calling a special session of the state legislature to consider a package of gun control bills. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, June 5th. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. Facebook has become so big that even one of its initial founders says it's time for government to break it up. But what if the market solved the problem and offered users better free speech protection? Enter All-Social. It's a new social media platform designed for everyone with minimal censorship. I sat down recently with one of all-social's developers to discuss it, and today will play that interview.

Plus, a D.C. area pastor prayed for President Trump, but it wasn't without controversy. We'll discuss. By the way, if you're enjoying this podcast, please consider leaving a review or a five-star rating on iTunes. Now, on to our top news. In a press conference in England with Prime Minister Theresa May, who is about to step down, President Trump indicated that he was confident that Brexit would occur. I would say, yeah, I would think that it will happen and it probably should happen. This is a great, great country, and it wants its own identity.

It wants to have its own borders. It wants to run its own affairs. This is a very, very special place. Trump also made it clear he's not kidding about the additional tariffs on Mexico. As you know, Mexico called they want to meet. They're going to meet on Wednesday. Secretary Pompeo is going to be at the meeting, along with a few others that are very good at this. And we are going to see if we can do something.

But I think it's more likely that the tariffs, on and we'll probably be talking during the time that the tariffs are on and they're going to be paid. And if they don't step up and give us security for our nation, look, millions of people are flowing through Mexico. That's unacceptable. Millions and millions of people are coming right through Mexico. Well, the Trump administration has announced major new restrictions on travel to Cuba. On Tuesday, the State Department said that going forward, it would prohibit the most common way that U.S. travelers go to Cuba, organized, licensed tour groups. In addition, passenger and recreational vessels will no longer be allowed to stop in Cuba. That includes cruise ships,

yachts, and private and corporate aircraft. A State Department spokesperson said that the new policy, quote, steers American dollars away from the Cuban regime and its military and security services who control the tourism industry in Cuba, end quote. The new policy caps off a remarkable reversal from the Obama administration, which had eased travel restrictions to Cuba and reestablished diplomatic ties. The House Judiciary Committee, with bipartisan backing, is launching an investigation into whether tech companies are too large. The press release announcing the investigation in hearings states, a small number of dominant, unregulated platforms have extraordinary power over commerce, communication, and information online, based on investigative reporting in

oversight by international policy makers and enforcers. There are concerns that these platforms have the incentive and ability to harm the competitive process. Well, just days after the deadly Virginia beach shooting, Virginia's Governor Ralph Northam is pivoting to gun control. He's calling a special session of the state legislature to consider a package of gun control bills. Governor Northam said, quote, it's time for decisive action. Let Virginia show the nation that we can respond to tragedy with decisive action, end quote. Republicans control the General Assembly in Virginia and a shutdown past efforts to restrict gun rights.

The House Speaker, Kirk Cox, said that Northam's move was hasty and suspect. He also noted that the governor can't dictate what legislation the General Assembly considers. At the Susan B. Anthony List Dinner in Washington, D.C., former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley discussed her husband's childhood while sharing her pro-life But many don't know that Michael and his four siblings spent several years in foster care. Foster care can be amazing, but it was not kind to Michael and his siblings. It was unkind. Luckily, when Michael was five, he and his younger sister were adopted by a kind, loving couple who couldn't have children of their own.

I often think about what would have happened if Michael hadn't been so lucky. if his biological mother had chosen a different path, if his adoptive parents hadn't been so compassionate. In politics, people assume that if you're Republican, you're pro-life, because that's what the party tells you to be. I'm pro-life because I get the chance to spend every day with my husband knowing that I am blessed. Haley also talked about feminism.

As governor of South Carolina, I was very much. proud to sign legislation that banned late-term abortions, protecting babies from the point in their development where they are capable of feeling pain. Many people praised this action, but many others criticized it. The most strident attacks came from my fellow women. You've heard it all before. Pro-life women are traitors to their gender. If we truly care about, we're not women's rights, we would support abortion rights. Women are expected to support choice, simply because we're women. That's just wrong. We all have to be true to ourselves and to others. Unfortunately, many on the left use the abortion debate to divide women and demand conformity.

They do this in the name of feminism. But that is not a lot of women. But that is not a lot of women. real feminism. The idea that women must adhere to a particular set of values is one of the most anti-women ideas in today's culture. Well, Joe Biden largely considered to be a moderate Democrat, has come out in favor of the Green New Deal framework. The former vice president released his climate plan on Tuesday, which calls for eliminating climate emissions at the latest by 2050. The document embraces the Green New Deal by name and says, quote, the United States urgently needs to embrace a greater ambition on an epic scale to meet the scope of this challenge, end quote. Well, Biden's office also said that he would rejoin the Paris Accord, a global climate agreement

that the Trump administration withdrew from. Next up, we'll feature Daniel's interview about whether there can be a conservative challenger to Facebook. Tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices, and bigger government. become a part of the Heritage Foundation. We're fighting the rising tide of homegrown socialism while developing conservative solutions that make families more free and more prosperous.

Find out more at heritage.org. I'm joined now by Rolf Karwin. He runs business development for all social, which is the newest social media company in America launched in April of this year. Rolf, thanks for joining me on the podcast. I'm thrilled to be here, Daniel. Thank you for.

having me. So all social, this is a new social media platform that has some similarities to Facebook and Twitter, but some key differences. Before we get into those, tell me what was the main motivation for starting this new social media platform. Well, thank you for asking. You know, back after President Obama was so successful at using social media to engage the public, the owners of our company saw how this could really engage the country in a conversation. And we wanted to build our own platform and build our own business, I guess, if you would, to reach them. And so we've got two parts of our business. We have Ali Liu, which is a nonprofit part, and then we have Strategic Media 21, which is a for-profit.

Building large communities probably now between those two, we've got 30 million people in our community. communities worldwide. We've got some publications that have been very successful that we've been really happy about. And we do a lot of marketing for individuals, groups, either promotion or lead generation or things like that that we've done through social media. And so the whole antecedent in the vision was to create a social media company that would really be able to reach all of America and to be able to have a conversation with America so that our views and our ideas and our beliefs could be in the social media realm. Yeah, and of course a lot of folks, a lot of conservatives have had their content taken down.

And I've seen just count, I can't count the number of times I've seen the screenshot. Somebody post, you know, community standards violation at Facebook. And then, you know, once they go public about it, they get a little email that says, oops, that was an accident. Sorry, you're back on. Yeah. So, so none of that with all social. Do you have any standards that censor anything, like obviously, you know, an appropriate material, but anything beyond that?

Absolutely. What we're doing is basically trying to create a platform that would be between PG-13 and little PG-13 plus if some people have salty language. We don't want to be the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, speech police, if you will. We don't want to have to sit there, nickel and diamond and everything. But here's the thing. There will be absolutely no pornography. There will be no incitement of violence or a direct threat to somebody in any kind of thing that you would see that was recruiting people for, say, jihad and maybe showing some of the graphic videos and

things along those lines. Sure. Basically, the company that has done Disney's filtering is, the company that we've hired. Plus, we have a backup company that has about, at any given time, about 20,000 eyes to see the content and everything to flag. And then the best protection we have is our audience and our members themselves, the all social people who have created and see it, and then they can report it and block it immediately. So, you know, nothing's going to be perfect. Sure. And you're not going to satisfy everyone, but we really are trying to make this a winsome, place where people can share their thoughts and their ideas and really express their conscience

without fear of being banned. Yes. Well, one of the things that Facebook has taken so much flack for is selling people's data. I mean, that really is built into their revenue model. They make money from that. How is all social different? What is its revenue model? Well, thank you for asking.

First of all, we want to protect people's privacy, so there will be no selling of anyone's data. And so we're going to do everything we can to protect that. And the revenue model that we're coming up with is very simple. It's about every six or seventh post in someone's stream would be an advertisement. They can just pass them by or maybe take a look at. And so God willing, we'll be funding this thing through advertisements that will generate enough revenue to keep us going and growing. And I also understand that folks won't have to boost their content. Exactly. See, we feel like that all social is close to the way that social media should be and should have been.

With some other social media platforms right now, we saw them becoming increasingly hostile to people's messages, which you have mentioned. We also saw that the organic reach or the free reach that people were getting by sharing their material was decreasing. Four or five years ago, you'd have 20, 25 percent of what you shared. percent of what you shared would be seen by your people. And so if you posted enough, you know, the majority of people hopefully would see it, at least that's what logic says. But the algorithms now have been tightened down so much that these social media platforms have become pretty much a pay-to-play system. And so we said that that's not right. So what we're going to do is basically you will, you build your audience and we will share 100,

percent of every post that you put out there in sequence and in a timely manner. We've had complaints with people before that missed announcements or missed weddings because the algorithm kicked it back and it didn't show up for days, right? Right. So you're going to see a much different product and a different experience with us than maybe some of these other programs. Well, you mentioned that you've already got 30 million people using the platform, but you only launched in April.

How did you get those people so quickly? Well, let me, excuse me for that. Let me be really clear. And our Ali Liu and Strategic Media 21, we've built communities on these other social media platforms of 30 million. We don't have that many right now. We are growing exponentially, which is exciting. So the whole idea is to get the word out to friends and people who are open. They were just looking for an alternative who would share with their family and friends.

large organizations, you know, that are going on. The Daily Signal is a prime example to be able to have a platform to communicate with your fans and with your audience. And once you, they're a part of it, they're going to see what you have and it costs you nothing, right? And so, and to be honest with you, because you guys are early adopters and early adopters, we've got a revenue share program that we want to use. to help you. So as your people join in, and it's a way for them to, in essence, contribute to the Heritage Foundation and the Daily Signal just by using the platform. So we decided we're going to be the platform, the platform that shares and pays our devoted followers rather than requiring you to pay us. Great. Well, tell me a little bit more about the user experience, because

I know there's some similarities to Facebook and also Twitter, but as you're on the platform, what's it like? What are the key features of it? Yeah, the beauty of it, I think that one of the things we've tried to do, is to make it real simple. And so you go up and you can create your profile, and you can also, when you log on, you'll create areas of just three areas that you may be interested in or something. And then that will help inform us about what you might want to see or make some suggestions for you to do that. When you first log on, you just hit the plus button and you make a little post and it could be something that you're reposting from another platform or originating there. The goal is to get Hootsweet up, squared away and locked into it so that people can put everything on that and then go out to all of their social. Oh, yeah, sync everything.

Yeah, sync it all up. we're just going to make it and when you see the feed it's real clean and it's real nice and you just make your comments or your likes and I guess when I talk to the engineers I said it's kind of like Facebook right and they said no no it's more like Twitter

in that regard and so you can it's friendly to every single one of our current platforms so like where YouTube you can post YouTube matter of fact right now it has to go through some kind of filtration before it can go on our site

And until we get that system set up, we're requiring that you can, you know, just anything you post to YouTube, you can come and put on your all social account. Well, if folks are interested in signing up, how would they do that? Very simple. All social is one word, and you can go to allsocial.com. If you're on your online and you're, just go ahead and sign up, put in your username, your password, your email address. I'll send you an email. Let you go ahead and verify that you are a real person and not some robot, and they'll send it back to you, open it up, put in your email address and password, start posting.

The other part of it is with your phone, you do the same thing. Go to your app store and one word, all social. If you divide it up, you're going to see some crazy stuff with all social, but one word, allsocial.com or just all social, and it'll come up to the beautiful icon that has like two pillars with multiple colors on it. It's beautiful. And probably the other part of it is not only are you just posting like you would and sharing your pictures or your stories or whatever you want to share, inviting your friends is super easy. If you go into your profile and you hit the little icon that shows your face, it'll pull down and go profile and go invite friends.

And you can just go in there and if you give access to, you know, your friends, then you just click them off and create a little email and hit it and it'll invite them and say, come join me on all social. And so we've tried to make it as easy as possible for everybody to be a part. Well, it's such an exciting project and look forward to seeing where it goes in the months ahead. Rolf, I really appreciate your time and thanks for sharing about it. Thank you, Daniel. I really appreciate it. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head? If you want to understand what's happening at the court, subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast, breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court.

On Sunday, President Trump went to McLean Bible Church in Northern Virginia, and the pastor there, David Platt, prayed for him. Here is part of that prayer via YouTube user, Truth is Hate for Those Who Hate the Truth. We know, we need your mercy, we need your grace, we need your help, we need your wisdom in our country. And so we stand right now on behalf of our president, and we pray for your grace and your mercy and your wisdom upon him.

God, we pray that he would know how much you love him, so much that you sent Jesus to die for his sins, our sins. So we pray that he would look to you, that he would have done to you, that he would trust in you, that he would lean on you, that he would govern and make decisions in ways that are good for justice and good for righteousness and good for equity, every good path.

Lord, we pray, we pray that you would give him all the grace he needs to govern in ways that we just saw in First Timothy chapter two that lead to peace. and quiet lives, godly and dignified in every way. Platt has since put out a statement on the church's website, explaining he got very little notice of Trump's visit and sharing his thoughts.

Quote, as soon as I heard this request backstage, the passage from God's word that came to my mind was 1st Timothy, chapter 2, verses 1 through 6. First of all then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people. for kings and all who are in high positions that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. Based on this text, Plot continued, I know that it is good and pleasing in the sight of God to pray for the president. So in that moment, I decided to take this unique opportunity for us as the church to pray over him together. My aim was in no way to endorse the president, his policies, or his party, but to obey God's command to pray for our president and other leaders to govern in the way this passage portrays. And joining us to discuss is Thalia Ramprasad. She is one of the producers of the Daily Signal podcast, and she attends McLean Bible Church. So Thalia, I understand you were not in church this particular Sunday.

But what do you think? Do you think Platt should have done this? Do you think this was inappropriate? There's been a lot of controversy, and this has become a national news story. There are thousands of people from all types of backgrounds like David Platt mentioned in his statement. And so the fact that the entire congregation didn't agree with what he did is not shocking. but for what he said and the statement that he made that he solely did that as we're praying for our leaders was not surprising and I agree with. And so if that had been someone from the political party of the Democrats,

I don't ever see him saying, oh, no, we're not going to pray for him. He would have invited them on the stage as well. So I think it's very consistent with what he preaches, which is the gospel. And there was nothing surprising other than the fact that, Donald Trump showed up that day. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with the rationale there. He's looking at this from, I guess this is a bit like evangelical inside baseball. Like some pastors are very openly pro-Trump and others. I think I would put David Platt in this category for sure are trying to stay away as far away from partisan politics as possible.

And I don't know if the president knew that when he showed up at his church. I don't know if he expected kind of fanfare prayer or if it was just a more reserved prayer that he got, but I mean, I do think it makes sense, given, like you said, just the size of the church that a lot of people in a church that big are going to have different political persuasions and different backgrounds and, you know, might take it differently. Also noteworthy, I think these days, because of the partisan divide, a Democratic president or Republican president are going to be prayed by for different kinds of pastors. So, like, obfuscary. Obama, you know, you would not see him go to a largely white, you know, a megachurch.

You just would not see that happen. He would go to a black church very often and get prayed for there. Likewise is the Republican president. It goes to this kind of place. So I think because of that, just the connotation there, maybe some folks who are in the congregation who might consider themselves Democrats would get just by his very presence there, would think, okay, this is kind of an endorsement of the Republican Party. And I think David Klatt's warranted to make clear that he's not doing that.

Yeah, and of course this occurred on a day that Franklin Graham had called for pastors to pray for President Trump, which I believe David Platt acknowledged in a portion of the video we didn't play. But it didn't sound like he just was saying it was outday. But I mean, I think in general, I mean, it's not in Catholic worlds. I can't recall any instance of a politician showing up and being prayed for. I think, you know, our liturgical style is a little different. It doesn't maybe lend itself the same way. But we definitely pray during Mass, especially in D.C., it's frequent that you'll say when we state our intentions, like, you know, for political leaders that they show wisdom and be good people.

And, I mean, that seems like a good thing. And I think, too, with the way the media landscape is right now, of course, we're not going to see the media focusing on headlines saying President Trump went to a church to get prayed for. like that's not going to be the headline. They're going to be focusing on different aspects of maybe the history of the church or what David Platt's true intentions were. And that can only be taken for what his statement was said. I also think Trump should have showed up for the whole service, but that might just be me. I think what is odd, though, here is that what sets this case apart is that David Platt,

the pastor, came out afterwards with a statement. Because in so many of these cases where Trump has showed up at a church had been prayed for, it's also kind of been perceived as a Trump pep rally and like the pastor will sometimes play into that and we'll see no need for an explanation afterward because obviously we're all Christians and we're pro-Trump and David Platt I think just doesn't he's just in a completely different mold than that and so that is what kind of sets this case apart and I think it's good for the president to get exposure to these different kinds of churches yeah but I just find it I mean I have no I believe it's near a golf course that Trump.

Yeah, he was at his Trump National Golf Course out there. But I would just love to know the White House conversations because I would imagine they could have found a pastor in the area who is more enthusiastic about Trump and would have prayed a less reticent prayer for a better term. Well, maybe he'll show up at your parish next Sunday and he'll ask the priest to bless him.

I can't wait to see those headlines. The pictures would be very interesting. I honestly don't know where in a Catholic service you would like work that in. Maybe after the problem. It would be a little more complicated. But, hey, I am all for praying for Trump. Well, thanks, Leah, for your insights and commentary as a member of this church. Oh, yeah. Wait, Philea, are you on any secret, like, Facebook groups for this church? Like, are things lit? Is everyone fighting with each other? I've seen the conversation be pretty in line with what Pastor David Platt was saying in his statement that he had no other intention than to

strictly pray for him. And he saw an opportunity to pray for the leaders of our country. And that's exactly what he did. And it's a very tough situation. He was told he had like less than 15 minutes before the president was just going to show up. Exactly. And so what do you do in that situation? And he, I think he made that emotion pretty clear in his statement that, you know, sometimes you don't have the opportunity to really kind of mull over a decision and are put in a position where you have to make an immediate decision. And that's what he did. And he did it to the best of his ability. And he also, right before they came out there to pray, he did share the gospel with him behind the stage, which I think is pretty interesting. Yeah. Well, that is where we're going to leave it for today.

Thank you for the Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud, and please leave us a review or a five-star rating on iTunes. We'll see you again tomorrow. You've been listening to The Daily Signal podcast, executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. Sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and Thalia Rampersad. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.