The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 10.22 Why People Are Freaking Out About BTS "Exception", Facebook, & Explaining Trudeau's "Win"

Episode Date: October 22, 2019

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Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you've had a fantastic Tuesday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. Buckle up, hit that like button, and let's just jump into it. And the first thing we're going to talk about today is a story and controversy surrounding the mega successful K-pop group BTS, who, you know, we've talked about on the show before in large part because they're just so massive and popular and it's usually them just breaking or outright destroying records. But rather, the story today focuses on BTS and the South Korean military. And if you're wondering, how do those two things merge? Have they figured out how to weaponize K-pop? No, or at least not to my knowledge.

What we're talking about actually starts in 1957 when South Korea enacted a mandatory service requirement for men between the ages of 18 and 28. Right, so since then, by law, men must serve in the military for two years. And if they don't complete that service, they could face a number of repercussions. And among those,

they could be barred from international travel. And among those, they could be barred from international travel. And you know, when we look to BTS, the timing here gets very interesting because in December, the band's oldest member Jin will be turning 27. Right, so he's running out of time to enlist and the other members of the band will also need to serve

in the next few years. You know, for their part, BTS has said that they will serve when the time comes. In fact, back in April, you had Jin telling CBS Sunday Morning. As a Korean, it's natural, Jin said, and someday when duty calls, we'll be ready to respond and do our best.

But even with that being said, there has been a ton of debate, even with the South Korean government itself, on whether or not to grant the band special exemptions. Right, and so it opens up this question of should celebrities like K-pop stars, especially BTS, which has this massive international fame, be required to serve that mandatory two year enlistment.

Essentially, could fame get you out of military service? And you know, if we look to South Korea historically, there have been a couple of male actors in South Korea to be exempted, but reportedly those exemptions were either because of health or money related issues. Athletes can also be exempted if they've won a medal in the Olympics or the Asian Games. Also musicians, if they've won awards

in specifically classical or traditional music. But I mean, it's rather rare. In the last 10 years, South Korea has only granted 220 such exemptions. Now, a thing to understand is we're not talking about this today because it's just some random hypothetical scenario. Back in September,

the Korean Ministry of National Defense got involved in this conversation, saying that such an exemption for BTS was not possible. Though, notably here, it did say, the Ministry of Defense is currently debating with related authorities on improving the current alternate service program in place of conscription.

But nothing has been decided as to when a change may take effect." And regarding this, if we fast forward to this last Friday, South Korea's Minister of Government Policy Coordination said that a comprehensive review is needed to determine if boy bands like BTS can be exempted, adding that the military system should reflect the current times,

and saying, we need to review the need for an open door policy regarding special exemptions from military service in the K-pop industry in order to provide motives for Korea's expansion as a cultural content powerhouse. Right, so essentially arguing that BTS and other K-pop bands are such a massive driver for industry and success in South Korea, that the benefit that they provide

the country both domestically and internationally greatly outweighs if they were put into the military. Think of it, not to get too nerdy, it's like if you were playing a game of Civ and you're trying to get a cultural win before Gandhi nukes you. That is not gonna make sense to 95% of you watching. But also really in addition to culture,

there's a money thing. According to the minister of Seoul's office for government policy coordination, BTS has had an annual $4.75 billion impact. So it could be argued that an exemption would protect the economy. The main point that was said, but then we see kind of this back and forth happen.

The South Korea's chairman for the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism say that he thought that one of the members of BTS would be enlisting by the end of the year saying, "'It seems like it has been decided "'that they will not get any special treatment "'relating to military service for pop culture artists.'" But then yesterday, BTS's label Big Hit Entertainment

clarified saying that no one in the band would be joining the military this year. Then saying it didn't know why such a story was reported and that the reports were untrue. You know, of course you had a lot of BTS fans saying yes, they should be exempt from serving. You also had some other fans saying that BTS should serve, but let's just knock it out all at the same time. You know, that way it would just be a two-year hiatus for the band, they wouldn't constantly kind of losing people here and there. Then also, of course, you had other people who were not happy at all at the idea that BTS might be exempt from serving. With this story, I'd love to know your thoughts and it's kind of two different separate camps.

One, I know a lot of ARMYs swarmed to these videos when we cover BTS, so I'm definitely interested, since you're a fan, to know what you think. And then also, two, just everyone in general, what are your thoughts around this? I know for a lot of Americans watching, the idea of conscription is very alien. But right, to put yourself in another country's shoes,

do you feel like there should be an exception? Also, I wanna note, yes, I know the United States has had a draft in the past, but I don't think that the generation that lived through that is really not watching me and able to receive that question. But yeah, let me know. And then let's talk about the big news around Facebook. They are your friend and to be trusted.

Thanks so much for watching. No, no one is to be trusted. But actually, we're talking about Facebook for a number of reasons. I mean, yesterday the company posted a blog post titled "'Helping to Protect the 2020 US Election'". And in that they said that they launched several initiatives and programs to do so.

With Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg saying that the reason for this is change. And they say that their first initiative aims to fight foreign interference. Specifically Facebook saying they will combat inauthentic behavior and protect accounts of candidates, elected officials, and more through a new tool called Facebook Protect.

And Facebook Protect will allow people in these positions to have further security protections and will have their accounts monitored for potential hacking threats. Facebook also saying that it will be increasing transparency on the platform, and to do this they will make pages more transparent and show the confirmed owner of a page, label state-controlled media on pages and notably in the ad library, and help users understand political ads which include adding a new way to track the spending of presidential candidates on Facebook. And specifically there, it'll allow users to see how much they're spending on ads

and how that money is being spread geographically. And then finally, the last part of their announcement is their plan to reduce misinformation. They say they're adding clear fact-checking labels to prevent the spread of misinformation and saying these labels will look something like this. And the fact-checkers will come from a third party who is verifying if information is false or partially false.

And along with it, they say it'll also include an explanation as to why the information is false. They also say that they'll be working to fight voter suppression efforts by banning paid ads that encourage people to not vote. Also saying they're investing $2 million in media literacy projects so people can better understand what they see online.

And of course, notably, these plans come at a very contentious time for Facebook and its relationship to elections in the United States. And I'm not even talking about the 2016 election, right? Just yesterday, they disclosed Russian and Iranian operations to influence the 2020 election, saying in a separate blog post that they removed four separate networks of accounts, pages, and groups

for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook and Instagram, three of which were from Iran and one from Russia. According to reports, these posts from those networks, primarily the Russian one, included attacks against candidate Joe Biden and praise for President Donald Trump. Also notably, this move and announcement

from Facebook today comes as Facebook has received a massive wave of criticism for the way that it treats political voices and leaders. If you didn't see, last month Facebook said that it would not remove posts from political leaders that violated their rules. This notably including ones that included false information, which ended up prompting a bunch of backlash

from a wide group of people. Also notably here, to raise awareness on this issue, you had Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren running a fake ad saying that Zuckerberg endorsed Trump in 2020, then adding in the post that this is not true, but saying what Zuckerberg has done is given Donald Trump free reign to lie on his platform

and then to pay Facebook gobs of money to push out their lies to American voters. And at that time, Zuckerberg defended this policy, saying that no private company should censor a politician. But on Monday's conference call, Zuckerberg did note there would quote, "'Have to be exceptions when there is overwhelming risk.'" But he specifically described that

as if a politician is calling for violence or inciting violence, if there is risk of imminent physical harm, and of course, voter suppression. Right, so I mean, if you look at the actual words, it's not really a walk back. That's like a clarification of which disinformation they will allow. And as some have mean, if you look at the actual words, it's not really a walk back. That's like a clarification of which disinformation they will allow.

And as some have pointed out, like that of TechCrunch, from a company that objectively failed to prevent its platform from being misappropriated to accelerate genocide in Myanmar, that's the opposite of reassuring. But hey, ultimately, that's where we are with this story. Although there are a number of Facebook stories today. I mean, just looking at some other key headlines,

they have Zuckerberg appearing tomorrow before the House Financial Services Committee, which a number of people are predicting right now he's gonna be distancing himself from Libra, which is that digital currency. We're also seeing that 47 attorneys general are investigating Facebook for antitrust violations. But ultimately, we're gonna have to wait

and see what happens. And tomorrow might actually be an interesting one regarding Facebook. But I guess the question that I wanna end this story on is, how much do you trust Facebook to not completely fuck things up? Or do you think maybe it's not or it shouldn't be their responsibility? Yeah, really just any thoughts you have on it,

I'd be fascinated to know. And then let's talk about the massive news for our neighbors to the north, unless you're the 35% of the audience that do not live in the United States. We're talking about Canada. You know, we've talked about some of the lead up to the Canadian election on the show over the last few months. You know, a while back, we talked about how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was involved in a corruption scandal. That scandal starting back in February when Trudeau's former Justice Minister and Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould accused Trudeau and his aides of pushing her

to settle a criminal case with SNC-Lavalin, which is a massive multinational engineering and construction firm based in Canada. And here Trudeau argued that settling the case would save thousands of jobs because the criminal case against SNC would have prevented them from getting government contracts. But a lot of Canadians saw this as Trudeau,

a self-described feminist who has claimed to be an advocate of indigenous rights, bullying an indigenous woman to protect a company that financially benefited his own Liberal Party. With others also feeling like it was just a bad look for Trudeau who was pushed for government transparency. And I mean this especially after Parliament's ethics commissioner found that Trudeau broke

conflict of interest laws. And that of course, all on top of last month where there were a series of three black and brown face photos of Trudeau that surfaced. And those drew widespread criticism, also prompting many to speculate about his chances in this election. Many viewing this election specifically

as a referendum on Trudeau's character. And so heading into the election yesterday, Trudeau's future as prime minister seemed up in the air, with polling showing his Liberal Party neck and neck with the Conservative Party as voters cast their ballots. And so what Trudeau ended up seeing was a win, but also not a win. And I'll explain, right?

We saw the Liberal Party win a majority of seats, and so Trudeau, as a leader of that party, secured a second term as Prime Minister of Canada. According to the election results from the CBC, the Liberal Party won a total of 157 seats, with the Conservative Party taking home 121 seats, and smaller parties grabbing the rest. Right, and so Trudeau and his party,

they win the most seats, but they also didn't win enough seats to get an outright majority. Canada's parliament has 338 seats, so to have a majority, the party needs to win at least 170 seats. So that means one, the Liberal Party doesn't actually have a majority here,

and two, they actually lost seats that they held previously. Back in 2015, when Trudeau was first elected prime minister, his party won 184 seats. And also of note here, while we're comparing, even though the Conservatives lost to the Liberals here, they actually gained more seats than they did in 2015 when they only won 99.

Right, so even though Trudeau has been reelected, he has survived, he and his party are coming out of this election significantly weathered. And so, what happens from here? Well, unlike some parliamentary systems such as Israel's, which we've talked about a number of times, Trudeau doesn't actually need to formally build coalitions with other parties to form a majority to lead the government.

Instead, he'll just be leading what they call a minority government. And here's the thing, while minority governments are not uncommon in Canada, it still puts Trudeau in a pretty dicey position. As many have noted, minority governments in Canada often do not last more than two years, so Trudeau will have to fight hard to maintain power.

It also means that he will need the support of other parties to pass legislation, which is something he didn't necessarily need before when he had an outright majority. Which on that note, if we look at the numbers, the Liberals are only short 13 seats. So here, Trudeau would really only need the support of one of the other mid-sized parties to pass legislation. And so as a result, many experts believe

that the Liberals should be able to find allies. As Laurie Williams, a political analyst at Mount Royal University in Calgary said, he should be able to put together some kind of agenda where he can get the support he needs on an issue by issue basis. And arguably the most logical partner for the Liberals is the left-wing New Democratic Party, the NDP,

which won 24 seats. Though they're further left, the NDP has a history of working with the liberals to keep power. You know, you just look back to 2005, the NDP helped prop up a liberal minority government to prevent being defeated by conservatives. The two also have a continued vested interest in working together to keep conservatives out of power,

which regarding, I mean, the holding of power, the NDP also has a big incentive to prevent another election. They took a massive hit in yesterday's election, losing almost half their seats. And speaking to supporters this morning, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said his party would play a constructive and positive role

in the new parliament. Trudeau could also find an ally in the Bloc Québécois, a party that promotes Quebec's independence from Canada. They, in this election, jumped in power from just 10 seats to 32. We saw the leader of that party saying that the party would be open to working with the Liberals. Quote, if what is being proposed is good for Quebec,

you can count on us. And notably both the Bloc and the NDP are generally in line with one of Trudeau's biggest legislative issues, climate change. And as far as what Trudeau had to say about what the people of Canada had decided last night in his acceptance speech, he said, quote, from coast to coast tonight, Canadians rejected division and negativity.

They rejected cuts and austerity, and they voted in favor of a progressive agenda and strong action on climate change. I have heard you, my friends. You are sending our Liberal team back to work, back to Ottawa with a clear mandate. We will make life more affordable. We will continue to fight climate change.

We will get guns off our streets, and we will keep investing in Canadians." As far as the Conservative response to this, we looked at Conservative leader, Andrew Scheer, who seems to be kind of eyeing Trudeau's spot, saying in a speech last night with the election results, quote, conservatives have put Justin Trudeau on notice, and adding, Mr. Trudeau, when your government falls,

conservatives will be ready and we will win. And I will say, it is gonna be interesting to see what happens here if it truly ends up being an issue by issue basis. If we see certain parties holding certain legislation hostage if they do this other thing. Right, and what I'm talking about here is, right, some believe that the NDP could push the liberals further left.

Right, speaking this morning Singh outlined some of the NDP's top priorities, like a single payer universal drug program, as well as more ambitious carbon emissions reduction targets. But on the other side, some believe that the liberals could actually push the NDP more to the center. Though others have also noted that the more progressive parties could prevent Trudeau from going forward

with the oil pipeline expansion plans. Right, which could hurt him with the voters from the area the pipelines would be built. Which I will say, notably, Trudeau and the liberals didn't win any seats in the oil-rich provinces Alberta and Saskatchewan. You know, ultimately, we're gonna have to wait to see what happens from here. That said, of course, I love to know everyone's opinions. If you live in Canada, I would really love to know what you think from this election. There's just a lot of interesting power swings happening internationally. And that's where we're going to end today's show. And hey, if you like this video, of course,

hit that like button. Also, if you're new here, you want more of these dives into the news, be sure to hit that subscribe button and definitely tap that bell to turn on notifications. Also, if you're not 100% filled in, you're looking for more to watch, I have that, of course, podcast with Mia Khalifa.

We have also a new one coming out tomorrow. And, or maybe you just missed yesterday's Philip DeFranco show, you wanna catch up, you can click or tap right there to watch either of those. 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 tomorrow.