The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 10.22 The PewDiePie "Shadowban" Situation, RIP Quibi, Iran Russia Election Interference, &

Episode Date: October 22, 2020

Start your free trial today: http://www.Squarespace.com/Phil & enter offer code “Phil” to get 10% off your first purchase!  WATCH my podcast with Jon Cozart: https://youtu.be/ibHoyBkB-pY Follow me off of Youtube: https://linktr.ee/PhilipDeFranco -- Voting Resources:  http://Vote.org https://www.axios.com/how-to-vote-by-state-2020-307c3d17-ee57-4a1b-8bad-182ca1cdb752.html https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/how-to-vote-2020/ https://nationalvoterregistrationday.org/  -- 00:00 - Quibi Shutting Down 04:44 - Pewdiepie Shadow Banned? 06:13 - A Bad Take On Streamers 08:11 - TIA 09:37 - Evidence of Election Interference -- WATCH Full “A Convo With” Podcasts: https://www.youtube.com/ACW  LISTEN On The Podcast Platform Of Your Choice: http://LinksHole.com WATCH the ACW Clips channel!: https://youtube.com/ACWClips ✩ SUPPORT THE SHOW ✩ ✭ BUY our GEAR, Support the Show!: http://ShopDeFranco.com ✭ Lemme Touch Your Hair: http://BeautifulBastard.com ✭ Paid Subscription: http://DeFrancoElite.com  ✩ TODAY IN AWESOME ✩ ✭ Steve Zaragoza on ACW: https://youtu.be/gIYQVswNw9w ✭ First Look at Tom Holland as Nathan Drake: https://www.instagram.com/p/CGplHJhFf3j/ ✭ I Made A Viral TikTok Song: https://youtu.be/Xa4Ge7E-4ZA ✭ Back to the Future Drinks?: https://youtu.be/uABJYqdDKmg ✭ Matthew McConaughey Eats Spicy Wings: https://youtu.be/sz1ovZUA4nQ ✭ RUN - Trailer (Official): https://youtu.be/lf99oBP5mhQ ✭ SURPRISING BEST FRIEND WITH BORAT!!: https://youtu.be/5S4bm3bAt9Y ✭ Secret link: https://youtu.be/BFcKSfMnKks  ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩  Quibi Is Shutting Down: https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/21/21527197/quibi-streaming-service-mobile-shutting-down-end-katzenberg Did YouTube Just Shadowban PewDiePie?: https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/has-pewdiepies-channel-been-shadow-banned-on-youtube-1437686/ Google Stadia Developer Suggests “Streamers Should Be Paying Developers” https://www.denofgeek.com/games/google-stadia-developer-alex-hutchinson-controversy-twitter-streamer-pay/ Iran and Russia Obtained Voter Data for Election Meddling, U.S. Officials Say: https://roguerocket.com/2020/10/22/iran-and-russia-election-meddling/  ✩ STORIES NOT IN TODAY’S SHOW ✩ Columbia Report Says Tragedy Was Avoidable: https://roguerocket.com/2020/10/22/columbia-report-130k-preventable/ Judiciary Committee Advances Amy Coney Barrett’s SCOTUS Nomination: https://roguerocket.com/2020/10/22/barrett-senate-nom-advances/ “Borat” Sequel Reportedly Catches Rudy Giuliani in Compromising Situation, But Giuliani Says It’s “Doctored” https://roguerocket.com/2020/10/22/borat-giuliani/ ——————————     Edited by: James Girardier, Maxx Enright Produced by: Amanda Morones Art Director: Brian Borst  Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Cory Ray, Neena Pesqueda, Brian Espinoza Production Team: Zack Taylor, Luke Manning  ———————————— #DeFranco #PewDiePie #Quibi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup you beautiful bastards. Hope you had a fantastic Thursday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. Buckle up, hit that like button and let's just jump into it. And the first thing that we're gonna talk about today in news that I don't think anyone saw coming, the juggernaut, the behemoth, that is Quibi, is shutting down just over six months after they launched.

Now, if you're unfamiliar with Quibi or I'm the reason you know about it, yeah, that's part of the reason why it's ending. A lot of people didn't know about it and a lot of people weren't using it. Now for those unfamiliar, and it also kind of touches on why this is such a big failure, Quibi is slash was a short form video streaming service

that raised around $1.75 billion in funding from big players and investors like Disney, NBC Universal, Warner Media, and more. The videos and episodes on Quibi are all around 10 minutes or less. They also, and I don't know if they leaned into this because they had special technology where the framing would change when you turn your phone,

but they also made Quibi exclusive to mobile devices at launch. But it wasn't actually until just this last Tuesday that they launched apps for Android TV, Apple TV, and Fire TV. Also, while there was no free plan or free version of Quibi, they did have a 90-day free trial. While we did see Quibi go after some digital talent

like Liza Koshy, they primarily spent their money on huge, huge traditional stars. People like Chrissy Teigen, Idris Elba, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Jennifer Lopez. And personally, and I've talked about this on previous videos, I think a big part of their failure, yes, was their marketing campaign. Also, either their ignorance or just their unwillingness

to incorporate more digital talent. And there are a number of key players and content creators that fully understand the ecosystem and more importantly, can actually move people to a different platform. One of the most obvious, most notable are people like MrBeast. The guy got over a million people to download an app to their phone.

And it's just a game where you keep your finger on it. Over a million people played and how many people watched individual streams and were keeping up on social media, it became an event. And you know, I really think Quibi could have been kind of the anti Netflix because you know, Netflix doesn't offer a lot of stuff to online digital creators.

And actually on that note, I mean, Quibi didn't even go with the Netflix route, which I will say is hard. I mean, when Netflix, I think truly became the Netflix we know today, it was thanks to House of Cards. I think they spent like around $100 million on that first season, and all of a sudden it was like,

Oh wow, something this premium can exist here. And Quibi really didn't get anything close to that. I mean, they had Most Dangerous Game, but that, no offense to Christoph Waltz and Liam Hemsworth, wasn't the best. But, you know, with this Quibi news, yesterday we saw an open letter from founder and CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman,

writing that despite employee dedication and support from investors, Quibi is not succeeding, likely for one of two reasons, because the idea itself wasn't strong enough to justify a standalone streaming service or because of our timing. Unfortunately, we will never know, but we suspect it's been a combination of the two.

The circumstances of launching during a pandemic is something we could have never imagined, but we suspect it's been a combination of the two. The circumstances of launching during a pandemic is something we could have never imagined, but other businesses have faced these unprecedented challenges and have found their way through it. We were not able to do so." Which may make that the most depressing open letter to investors and employees I've ever read.

They provided an excuse, the pandemic, and then in that same sentence, argued the counterpoint. But other people have been able to get through it, so I guess we suck. Also, I think both of the reasons provided don't make any sense. You launched a new entertainment delivery system ecosystem when people aren't able to go out as much,

meaning that people more than ever need entertainment from their phone, their whatever device at their house. And two, you were offering all of that essentially for free for three months. This feels like an unwillingness to acknowledge the failure that existed at the top level. How many months after launch did people still have no idea what Quibi was?

Why would you lean into something that was obviously not working, remain rigid in an evolving landscape instead of pivoting, trying something new, being more accessible faster? Now, as far as what's next, according to reports, Quibi will be returning $350 million of the 1.75 billion raised, with the company also said to be looking to sell

its content and technology assets. Also, this isn't gonna be the last you hear about Quibi in the news, in part because they were accused of stealing technology and other trade secrets from a company named Echo, with Echo also promising to continue their legal efforts against Quibi. But ultimately, that is where we are.

Quibi gets to be yet another example on the internet that you can have all the money in the world and it doesn't matter if you don't implement a plan properly. But yeah, with that said, maybe I guess to end on a positive note, thank you to Quibi for actually giving us some more Reno 911, which will hopefully be bought up by another service

in the near future, as well as two weird stuff, like a whole series about Anna Kendrick becoming a friend with a sex doll. But yeah, I guess that's the end of this piece where I mock incredibly wealthy, powerful gatekeepers, who, if they already weren't starting conversations with me, never will now. But also, who needs that

when I got this batch of beautiful bastards? Then in, if this is true, a portion of the internet's about to revolt news, today we began seeing people claim that YouTube has shadow banned the biggest individual YouTuber in the world, PewDiePie. Felix, if you don't know, on any video that he releases several times a week,

could get between five to 10 million views. But today, what we're seeing, just a little over two hours after his last upload, just over 61,000 views, 8,600 likes. Felix also putting out a community post writing, "'Yo, for some reason my videos aren't showing up "'in sub box since yesterday, so posting here.'" Also, when I go to YouTube and I type out his name,

his channel icon does not appear. Like if you do that for pretty much almost any other creator. Sad what you get are a number of videos. Yes, some from PewDiePie's channel, but also other people's channels. But if you type another person's name into the search bar, I wrote in Philip DeFranco. Right at the top, you see my channel,

my videos are underneath. There's even a playlist to the right. And with all of this, I've reached out to contacts at YouTube with one responding saying, "'We do not shadow ban people, "'but we are looking into reports regarding his channel.'" Yeah, I mean, for now, that is where this story ends. This is gonna be something that we keep an eye on.

At worst, it is some sort of crackdown that should be very concerning for a lot of people. Or, on the lightest end, and I'm inclined to think that this is the answer, because I don't think they would go after Felix like this, especially because in addition to him being a massive creator, he has a massive YouTube live streaming deal with YouTube.

And so I think it's far more likely that something with his channel and maybe the videos are bugged right now. It sucks. It happens. I'm surprised it's happening with one of the biggest creators in the world and that it wasn't fixed like that. But for now, we have to wait and see. Also, and I'm going to kind of start this story off with my opinion. We saw a creative director at Google Stadia jumping up in the news today. This because Alex Hutchinson seemingly was commenting on what's happening over on Twitch right now. People are getting a ton of their content removed because there was music in it. And Alex wrote,

streamers worried about getting their content pulled because they use music they didn't pay for should be more worried by the fact that they're streaming games they didn't pay for as well. It's all gone as soon as publishers decide to enforce it. The real truth is the streamers should be paying the developers and publishers of the games they stream. They should be buying a license like any real business

and paying for the content they use. To which most of the internet responded and I will join in with them, shut the fuck up, bro. While they very likely will not respond publicly, I do wonder what the people at YouTube Gaming think about this horrendous take. Streaming has changed the market.

Streaming has changed the ecosystem. I mean, just among the plethora of reasons this is a bad idea, you wanna kill the indie market? Boom, congratulations. Even fucking Nintendo, I don't know why I'm so randomly passionate about this right now. Even Nintendo dropped their, "'Hey, look at us, we're douchebags' creator program."

Right, so I think a big part of this kind of comes down to two things. One, why you would decide to kind of talk down to streamers and think that's a great idea, okay. Like that's ever worked out for fucking anybody before. And two, you're saying should, when really the word should be could. Because yes, Nintendo or anyone creating these games

could go after creators. But it is a genuinely understood, and I thought seemingly before this, a solidified understanding that the relationship between the people making and releasing these games and the creators that are streaming it and creating videos on demand, that it's symbiotic. YouTube has one of the most powerful DMCA tools

in the world, but in general, you don't see developers using those tools for a reason. And it kind of boggles my mind that someone in such a key position doesn't fully grasp this. But also, hey, that's a story, my personal opinion on it. And of course, now I pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts here? And then let's talk about

this absolutely massive election news. Right, because yesterday we saw top security officials providing the first concrete evidence that foreign adversaries are trying to interfere in this election cycle. And this huge announcement was made by the director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe in a last minute press conference. We have confirmed that some voter registration information

has been obtained by Iran and separately by Russia. This data can be used by foreign actors to attempt to communicate false information to registered voters that they hope will cause confusion, sow chaos, and undermine your confidence in American democracy. With this news notably coming just one day after it was reported that registered Democrats in four different states, including three hotly

contested swing states, were sent threatening emails as part of an effort to do exactly what Ratcliffe described. And according to reports, those emails came from an address that appeared to be affiliated with the far right group, the Proud Boys, with the subject line being, "'Vote for Trump or else.'" With the body of that email saying, "'We are in possession of all your information, "'email, address, telephone, everything.'"

The sender then going on to claim that they know the recipient of the email is a Democrat because they gained access into the entire voting infrastructure and added, "'You will vote for Trump on election day "'or we will come after you. "'Change your party affiliation to Republican "'to let us know you received our message and will comply.

We will know which candidate you voted for. I would take this seriously if I were you." With multiple outlets reporting that the emails they saw also included the home address of the recipients that they were sent to. And while it is unclear how many were sent out, it does appear that most of them were sent to people in Florida and Alaska,

with officials in both states also announcing that they have launched investigations and that the FBI was looking into the matter as well. Now, as far as how this email came from a domain associated with the Proud Boys, you had the group's chairman immediately denying that they had any involvement saying, "'We don't send emails.

This is someone spoofing our emails and website. We've spoken with the FBI and are working with them. I hope whoever did this is arrested for voter intimidation and for maliciously impersonating our group.'" With him also telling reporters that the group has been in the process of migrating from officialproudboys.com to another site and that that one has not been used

for weeks. And this because that domain was recently dropped by a hosting company that uses Google Cloud services after concerns were raised about the group. And very notably here, according to the Washington Post, when the hosting service dropped the domain, it appeared to be just left unsecured and thus, allowed anyone on the internet to take control of it

and use it to send out the menacing messages. But beyond that, numerous outlets that reviewed the emails also said they came from foreign internet servers. And while experts do note that the IP addresses do not mean that the senders were actually based in those countries because they could have routed those emails from almost anywhere, some cybersecurity experts pointed to the possibility

of foreign interference. Which brought us to yesterday's announcement where Ratcliffe seemed to confirm those suspicions, claiming that Iran was behind a series of fraudulent emails. And while he didn't describe the emails beyond saying that they had been in the news over the last 24 hours, other officials confirmed to the media

that they included the threatening messages. Now, notably, despite the claims in those emails, both Ratcliffe and FBI Director Christopher Wray, who also spoke at the press conference, did not indicate that either foreign country had actually hacked into our election infrastructure or voter registration systems, nor did they say that any election results

or voter registration information had been changed. In fact, intelligence officials who spoke to reporters said that the data they claimed both Iran and Russia had obtained was largely public, right? The names, party affiliation, some basic contact info of registered voters are things that are publicly available. So what they mean here, in other words,

is rather than physically hacking into key infrastructure to try and sway the election, these officials are alleging that Russia and Iran are instead attempting to do so by intimidating voters, sowing chaos and creating uncertainty. And actually, regarding that, Ratcliffe made some very specific claims during the press conference.

To that end, we have already seen Iran sending spoofed emails designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest, and damage President Trump. Additionally, Iran is distributing other content to include a video that implies that individuals could cast fraudulent ballots, even from overseas. Although we have not seen the same actions from Russia, we are aware that they have obtained some voter information just as they did in 2016. What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue?

A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Now, as we talked about earlier this week, many Democrats and former intelligence officials have accused Ratcliffe, who was supposed to be apolitical in his role of DNI, of being a Trump loyalist who uses his position

to promote Trump's political agenda. And those allegations become very concerning when it comes to foreign interference in the election for two reasons. The first is the fact that he has actively spread information that the intelligence community has deemed to be false regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election.

That is on top of promoting debunked conspiracies about the following investigation. And the second is that he has explicitly been accused of selectively declassifying intel pertaining to election interference to help the Trump campaign. In fact, just earlier this month, many former top officials condemned him for doing just that when he released intel about Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign.

Intel that was not only unverified, but that intelligence experts also said could be Russian disinformation. And so that's why with this announcement, we saw a lot of people saying that the announcement was another example of that. It just didn't make sense. With many specifically pointing to his claims

that Iran sent the emails to damage President Trump. And understand, it is true that for a few months now, intelligence officials have said that Iran opposes Trump's reelection, but Ratcliffe provided no evidence for the claim that Iran was trying to explicitly hurt Trump here, with many others saying that the evidence that we have now, it seems to indicate that they were just trying

to cause general chaos. While some did argue Ratcliffe's point that it was an attempt to make the Proud Boys and Trump look bad, it was also still clearly an attempt to dissuade Democrat voters from either voting blue or going to the polls entirely. With people like a manager

for a Democratic state house candidate in Florida saying, "'When you have people who have a voter role "'and then send off emails, they will make a big splash. "'They will scare people. That is without a doubt the intent. Right, and that's something to consider, especially when we're talking about a battleground state, something that is highly contested like Florida.

Right, and to that point, regarding intent, you have others also pointing to the video that Ratcliffe said Iran sent voters with disinformation about fraudulent ballots. With a post which actually reviewed the video in question saying that it showed Trump making disparaging comments about mail-in voting, followed by a logo with the name of the Proud Boys.

This before documenting what is supposed to appear as a hack of voting data in an effort to produce a fraudulent ballot. Right, and again, while some have argued that this was meant to make Trump look bad, others have pushed back on that by saying that it only does so by using things that Donald Trump has literally said

to sow doubt about mail-in ballots and undermine confidence in these systems. And that general idea about undermining confidence is also another reason used to dispute Ratcliffe's claim that this was meant to hurt Trump. This is a man who has spent months trying to undermine the election results so that he can question them if he loses.

And that's why so many people agree that these alleged attempts are clearly just Iran or other players trying to play off the distrust and discord that he has already created. And that is something that we saw numerous officials backing up, including the likes of Chuck Schumer, who said that based on a classified briefing that he received,

I had the strong impression that it was much rather to undermine confidence in elections and not aimed at any particular figure. And I'm surprised that DNI Ratcliffe said that at his press conference if he did. And that is also something that we saw the official Twitter account for the House Homeland Security Committee hitting on.

Directly contradicting Ratcliffe's claims and calling his credibility into question. Tweeting, these election interference operations are clearly not meant to harm President Trump. Ratcliffe has too often politicized the intelligence community to carry water for the president. And adding that while the threat of foreign interference was real,

you can't emphasize one threat over another to suit the president's ego. And actually regarding that last point, many people also accused Ratcliffe of playing down Russia's role in election interference. Right, Ratcliffe mostly focusing on Iran and claiming that while Russia had the same information, they were not using it the same way.

But multiple US officials who spoke anonymously to the post stressed that Russia still remained the major threat to the 2020 election. And that's also why you have people arguing that Ratcliffe should not be trusted here because he's not only downplayed Russian interference in the past, but he's also spread outright misinformation about it.

And actually notably there, we did see Schumer as well as Marco Rubio releasing a joint statement urging officials to release more information about the threat. But officials so far have refused saying that they can't share too much information with the public. So that's pretty much all we know about it right now. And as far as their part, both Iran and Russia

have disputed the claims that they are interfering in the US election. An Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson saying, "'The country strongly rejects American officials' "'repetitive, baseless, and false claim.'" A spokesperson for the Kremlin making a similar statement saying, "'The accusations are poured out every day. "'They are all absolutely groundless.

"'They are not based on anything. "'Rather, it is a tribute to the internal political processes "'associated with the upcoming election.'" You know, with all that said, I think maybe where it makes sense to end this story is actually with something from FBI Director Christopher Wray, especially considering the nonstop fire hose

of misleading claims and outright lies from President Trump and his administration about the validity of the vote and mail-in ballots. We've been working for years as a community to build resilience in our election infrastructure, and today, that infrastructure remains resilient. You should be confident that your vote counts. Early, unverified claims to the contrary should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism.

And that may also be part of the reason we're starting to see reports that Trump and his people around him are thinking of possibly firing the FBI director after the election. Yeah, with this story, of course, I then pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts on the story in general? What are your thoughts on Ratcliffe's kind of narrative and framing?

Or do you see him as a Trump loyalist who's kind of trying to craft wins for the president or no? And that is where I'm going to end today's show. As always, thank you for being a part of my daily dives into the news. Also, if you're new here, you wanna join the family, definitely hit that subscribe button, maybe even tap that bell,

or maybe just text me at 813-213-4423. I'll text you when the shows come out, some behind the scenes, some secret stuff. But with that said, of course, as always, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love yo faces, and I'll see you next time.