The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 10.29 Justin Bieber Fake Prank Exposed, Twitter Reform, Lion Air Flight 610, & The Tree of Life

Episode Date: October 29, 2018

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Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you're having a fantastic Monday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show and let's just jump into it. And the first thing we're going to talk about today is fake news, although it is of the variety that doesn't make me want to slam my head against the wall, but rather just laugh. And at the center of this fake news we have Justin Bieber and the guys from Yes Theory. And if you're not familiar with the guys from Yes Theory, I highly recommend their channel, it's really interesting to watch. A lot of people know them as the guys that challenge Will Smith to bungee jump out of the helicopter. But that said, there's a lot more going on over there. And the way this is all connected is you may have seen a photo several days ago where it looks like

Justin Bieber is eating a burrito from the middle. What kind of monster would do that? The answer is Sean Evans, everyone knows that. Sean Evans, nice guy, fantastic guy, great host of Hot Ones, eats burritos like a monster. And with this new photo being released, it would appear that Justin Bieber was part of this monster club and this

Picture blew up everywhere with viral posts on social media the likes of e-news covered it even Vanity Fair So many people saying what the hell is wrong with Bieber? Well, it turns out that's not Justin Bieber It turns out it was the yes theory guys who wanted to trick the internet and they have since put out a video explaining how They were able to trick people and it was really simple They got a Justin Bieber doppelganger by the name of Brad Souza. They set up the photo, they took the photo, they tried unsuccessfully to put it in the pic subreddit. They then put it in the smaller, mildly infuriating subreddit. It gained some traction, it blew up there, and thus it blew up everywhere.

With it blowing up, and so many people talking about it, it was just accepted as truth by so, so, so many people. Once again, just your everyday people on the internet, as well as news organizations. And so I think first I just have to say, good job to the yes theory guys. And two, I think the reason I love this story so much is, I mean, we talk about news every day. Fake news is just horrible. It's infuriatingly horrible. And as I've mentioned before,

one of my favorite things that I've ever heard is doubt has been weaponized. The term fake news initially was always about obviously fake stories that were meant to promote a narrative that was just not true. It has now unfortunately morphed into for a lot of people just a place that posts things you do not agree with and thus it can't be true.

But what I think this Justin Bieber fake news story does, what this prank does, is that it highlights what I believe to be a fact, and that is the majority of people, if they see something and they want to believe it, they will believe it at the surface level. And the more people you have talking about it, sharing it, especially once you start getting sources that are seen as just at least more legitimate than your everyday random on the internet, by many, if they think this could be a reality, they take it as truth without diving even further.

Which I will say, with the topic being, Justin Bieber eats burritos sideways, I don't know if you're inclined to do a deep dive on that. But it makes me think of how many times have you had a conversation with someone about the news and it's based off of a Headline they saw and that person doesn't know any of the actual details that are being discussed or debated It's literally just the headline I know this is just kind of a light-hearted prank story, but it really hits on something I constantly think about but that said if there is a final note One congrats to the yes theory guys for tricking so many people. Two, question everything you see within reason. The last part of that sentence is incredibly important.

And three, just a reminder, Sean Evans, you are a monster for actually eating burritos like this. You're one of my favorite people on the internet, but true friends call it like they see it. Then in quickie social media news, there are reports that very soon, Twitter may be doing away with the Like button.

According to The Telegraph, there was a Twitter event last week, and at the event, Jack Dorsey, who is the founder of Twitter, brutally said he would get According to the Telegraph, there was a Twitter event last week and at the event, Jack Dorsey, who is the founder of Twitter, brutally said he would get rid of the like function soon and adding he was not a fan of the heart-shaped button. And according to the Telegraph, this potential move is in part an effort to create a healthier environment

for debate. And in response to that article, the official Twitter for the Twitter communications team tweeted, as we've been saying for a while, we are rethinking everything about the service to ensure we are incentivizing healthy conversation that includes the like button. We are in the early stages of the work and have no plans to share right now

Also, if this sounds vaguely familiar and I'm not saying this is happening because of him But if you look back to just last month This was kind of a thing that Kanye West was championing on Twitter If you don't remember he tweeted having your amount of likes on display for the world to see and judge is like showing how much Money you have in the bank or having to write the size of your dick on your t-shirt speaking for myself I personally want to participate in social media with the option of not having to show my followers or likes. And in another tweet writing, there are people who are committing suicide due to not getting enough likes, seeking validation in the simulation. The main point with this recent Telegraph report,

it seems that Jack or at least part of Twitter is on board with the idea of hiding these metrics. And so I was intrigued by that mindset around the removal of metrics, specifically likes. Now we're seeing this Telegraph article, that might be something else we see. While I initially thought the idea of removing likes was stupid, I do also wonder how much they actually matter. I mean, if you're one of the people that like stuff on Twitter because you want to be able to remember it, go back to it in an orderly way, I mean right now they have it so on mobile you can bookmark something. If you think something's funny or you want to show appreciation, instead of hitting the like button, you could just tweet at that person, or you could ret retweet or quote tweet although there are people that also want to get rid of those that could arguably generate more Interaction and I guess that then leads us to the thought of why do we share anything is it and should it be about the actual

Interaction with other human beings or has it simply evolved into this number system where based on these numbers That's where a lot of people get their self-worth put out something It gets a lot of likes to get self-worth. You put out something that gets a lot of likes, you get that dopamine drip, you feel Good about yourself, then you put something out, you don't get as many likes, that's viewed from the outside in, you're judged or mocked But at the same time as a company it probably makes sense to show levels of engagement I don't know, I think there's a deeper conversation about how and why we interact online But with all of that said that's why I want to pass the question off to you with what are your thoughts around this? Right as far as this specific topic Let's separate any of the you know who's verified who verified, who's getting kicked off, who's whatever.

Likes and the displaying of the number of likes. What are your thoughts about keeping them, removing them, why, why not? Now with all of that done, unfortunately, the show just kind of gets worse and worse from here, and I don't mean in quality, but in the stories that are happening. First up, we should talk about on Monday morning local time,

a new Boeing 737 MAX 8 took off from Tangerang Airport in Indonesia Reportedly 189 people were on board, 8 crew members and 181 passengers which included 20 Finance Ministry officials The local airline Lion Air was reportedly taking the passengers on a short one-hour trip But 12 minutes after takeoff the flight asked air traffic control if they could return to the airport and just one minute later air traffic control Lost contact with Lion Air flight JT610 and following, radar showed that the flight hadn't returned back like requested. 250 rescue workers were sent to the area the place was last reported on radar, and unfortunately, it was quickly figured out that the plane had indeed crashed into the ocean off the coast of Jakarta.

Workers were able to find debris, including things like life vests, baby shoes, pieces of cell phones, and sections of the plane's tail. And right now, workers are still searching for the plane's main section and most of the bodies, although they do fear that everyone died in this crash. And the operational officer of Indonesia's search and rescue agency hit on that note saying, "'I predict there are no survivors "'based on the body parts found so far.'" And as far as the search itself,

right now the search is spanning nearly 150 nautical miles. Also some bad news here, rescuers are reporting that the seas are rough, further leading to the possibility that no one survived. Also in this search, they're trying to locate the plane's emergency locator transmitters, which are currently not transmitting.

But of what has been found so far, we had CNN reporting that six bodies have been recovered thus far. Reportedly, those bodies are being sent to a hospital in Jakarta to study any causes of death and for identification. Now as far as what actually happened, as of right now, it's currently not known.

Lion Air has tried to cut off the possibility that it was pilot error, saying in a statement that the pilot and co-pilot together have around 11,000 hours of flight time. There is, of course, the other possibility that there was a technical issue. The CEO of Lion Air mentioned in an interview with TV One that the night before the same 737 MAX 8 had a technical issue that was reported. However, he also claims that engineers and technicians looked at the plane and allegedly fixed the issue. Also as far as Boeing, the manufacturer of the 737, they issued a statement where the company said it quote, stands ready to provide technical assistance to the accident37, they issued a statement where the company said it, quote, stands ready to provide technical assistance to the accident investigation, adding,

we express our concern for those on board and extend heartfelt sympathies to their families and loved ones. And if it was a technical issue that did take down the flight, it would actually be the first time for a 737 MAX. The plane is an upgraded version of the Boeing 737, the most prolific commercial plane ever,

and arguably the safest. And as far as this particular plane, it was brand new, and since being acquired back in August, it had only flown 800 hours. And also part of this particular plane, it was brand new and since being acquired back in August, it had only flown 800 hours. And also part of this story is the reputation of Indonesian Airlines. And the reason I say that is Indonesian Airlines for many years have had a bad reputation when it comes to safety. And this includes companies like Lion Air. 2011 and 2012, a number of pilots for the company were found to be in possession of methamphetamines. This including an instance of having it in their system a few hours before a flight. In 2013, the company crashed a plane off

the coast of Bali, although fortunately all 108 people survived. Also until 2016, they were actually banned from flying in European airspace because of their poor safety record, but improvements had been made and it was removed from a blacklist of banned airlines. Although that story is not extremely unique, as a matter of fact, in 2007,

all 51 Indonesian airlines were banned from flying over the European Union. There were major reforms within the Indonesian flight industry that forced companies to improve their safety record and actually by early 2018, all of them had been unbanned. And I mention this just to kind of give you from flying over the European Union. There were major reforms within the Indonesian flight industry that forced companies to improve their safety record, and actually by early 2018, all of them had been unbanned. And I mention this just to kind of give you a general understanding of the feel of flights in Indonesia.

And really, as of right now, that's where the story ends. The search is still on. Hopefully we can find more information. But for now, we have to wait for more information to come out. And the last thing we have to talk about today is just the horrible news coming out of Pittsburgh over the weekend.

And if you didn't see the news, there was a shooting that took place Saturday morning at the Tree of Life synagogue in the neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, which is known for its Jewish presence. And Saturday mornings are the middle of the Jewish holy day, or Shabbat, which lasts from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown every week. And at this synagogue, there are typically three different congregations on Saturday mornings for Shabbat services. And so in addition to the Tree of Life congregation, the New Light and Dor Hadash congregations were also reportedly holding services in separate rooms. And as far as what happened, according to the criminal complaint filed against the shooter, services started at 9.45 a.m. The shooter entered the Tree of Life synagogue

at approximately 9.50 a.m. He then opened fire and by 9.54 a.m., 911 dispatch had received multiple calls. And reportedly two officers arrived soon after and they saw the shooter exiting the synagogue. He was armed with an assault-style rifle and opened fire on the two officers who then returned fire. Those two responding officers were injured. The shooter then retreated back into the synagogue. He was armed with an assault-style rifle and opened fire on the two officers who then returned fire. Those two responding officers were injured.

The shooter then retreated back into the building. A small SWAT unit arrived and then entered the synagogue. And they found that 11 people had been killed inside and that two more people were injured who they helped escape. The shooter then continued to the third floor of the building. SWAT officers then reportedly followed after him where they engaged in another firefight.

During that exchange, two officers were wounded, one critically and another hit multiple times. Reportedly, the shooter was also wounded here. And during that exchange, according to the Pennsylvania criminal complaint, he said that he, quote, wanted all Jews to die and also that they were committing genocide to his people. But ultimately, the shooter eventually surrendered to police and he was taken into custody and transported to the hospital where he was treated for his wounds. And in total, officials believe the shooter was in the synagogue for just 20 minutes. But during that time, he killed 11 people and wounded 6 others, including 4 officers. As far as the weapons he used, officials say that he was armed with 3 Glock 357 handguns and 1 Colt AR-15 rifle.

Also, he appeared in court this afternoon to face charges after being released from the hospital. And he's facing charges at two levels, federal and state. Pennsylvania have filed 36 charges against him and federal officials have 29 charges against him. And according to reports, federal prosecutors are also looking to seek the death penalty against the shooter. Now as far as who is the shooter, if you're unfamiliar with my show, I don't like to showcase faces or names here. I think a lot of these shooters want to be martyrs, they want their name and faces everywhere. And I don't want to add to that, nor do I think it's necessary to properly talk about the story. What we do know is the shooter is a 46-year-old white male and resident of the Greater Pittsburgh area.

Law enforcement reportedly had no prior knowledge of the shooter. Mike Doyle, representative for Pennsylvania's 14th District said that the shooter had 21 guns registered to his name. He also reportedly had an account with the social network Gab, which is popular among alt-right and some fringe groups. Also on that note, Gab reportedly confirmed the account

with the shooter's name, archived it, and shut it down. And on that account, he had voiced hate for Jews and immigrants and parroted other anti-Jewish conspiracy theories. While federal officials haven't publicly discussed his motives, some posts on the social media site seem to indicate a specific motive. A few weeks ago, his account reportedly linked

to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. They're a Jewish affiliated group that advocates for and protects refugees. And the link reportedly showed that the group was planning Shabbat ceremonies for refugees around the United States. And the shooter's post said, "'Why hello there, HIAS.

"'You like to bring in hostile invaders to dwell among us?' And reportedly just before the shooting, his account posted again, writing, "'HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. "'I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. "'Screw your optics, I'm going in.'" The shooter also reportedly criticized the president in another post, saying,

Trump is surrounded by a slur for Jewish people. Things will stay the course. And following this horrible act of violence, this domestic terrorism, we saw responses come out. We saw the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan A. Greenblatt, saying in a statement, "'Our hearts break for the families of those killed and injured at the Tree of Life synagogue and for the entire Jewish community of Pittsburgh. We believe this is the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the history of the United States.

It is simply unconscionable for Jews to be targeted during worship on a Sabbath morning, and unthinkable that it would happen in the United States of America in this day and age. Unfortunately, this violence occurs at a time when ADL has reported a historic increase in both antisemitic incidents and antisemitic online harassment. We also saw after the incident, President Trump tweeted out saying, "'Events in Pittsburgh are far more devastating "'than originally thought.'

Spoke with Mayor and Governor to inform them "'that the federal government has been "'and will be with them all the way. "'I will speak to the media shortly "'and make further statement at Future Farmers of America.'" Also, before he departed for that speech, he spoke with reporters and said this. If there was an armed guard inside the temple

They would have been able to stop him. They also saw the president tweet All of America is mourning over the mass murder of Jewish Americans at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh We pray for those who perished and their loved ones and our hearts go out to the brave police officers who sustained serious injury This evil anti-semitic attack is an assault on humanity It will take all of us working together to extract the poison of anti-Semitism from our world. We must unite to conquer hate." Also, the Sunday evening vigil, Rabbi Jeffrey Meyers said, It starts with speech. It has to start with you as our leaders.

My words are not intended as political fodder. I address all equally. Stop the words of hate. We also saw Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeting out that the perpetrator of this attack must actually hate Trump in response to the Washington Post coverage of the bombings and the synagogue attack, both pointing to Trump. She wrote, Is there any tragedy the Washington Post won't exploit to attack President Trump? The evil act of anti-semitism in Pittsburgh was committed by a coward who hated President Trump because POTUS is such an unapologetic defender of the Jewish community and state of Israel. And kind of on the other side of that argument, we saw Abraham Foxman, former director of the Anti-Defamation League, telling the Jerusalem Post,

Trumpism legitimized the bigots to come out of the sewers and gave them a platform to play on And regarding Trump Foxman added he has said the right things on anti-semitism this week But he needs to change the rhetoric he uses to explain his policies which gives millions of bigots a rationale for their bigotry also while Talking about this story. I want to hit on a note regarding terrorists because while terrorism is on the decline in most of the world It's actually on an upswing in the United States There were only six terror incidents in the United States a decade ago But in 2017 there have been 65 and the number of deaths have also been increasing.

And according to a court's analysis of the data from the Global Terrorism Database, it shows that 37 of the 65 attacks were motivated by right-leaning ideologies. Those right-leaning ideologies including racist, anti-Muslim, homophobic, anti-Semitic, fascist, anti-government, or xenophobic motivations. There were also 11 motivated by left-leaning ideologies

and seven inspired by jihad or reaction to anti-Muslim sentiments. And according to the ADL's 2017 report on murder and extremism in the United States, four of the five deadliest years for domestic extremist killings have been in the last 10 years. And there's a lot of interesting information

regarding left-wing extremists, right-wing extremists. I'll link to the document down below. Another thing to look at here are religious congregations being targeted. I mean, this one's just the latest. In November 2017, you had the attack on Sutherland Springs, Texas, which left 26 dead. You also had the 2015 attack in Charleston, South Carolina that left nine dead. And as far as the end of this story, my takeaway, I guess the first thing I want to hit on here,

we're gonna show names and faces. I want to show the names and faces of the victims of this horrible attack. These are people aged 54 to 97 who on a Saturday were just engaging in their community, engaging in their religion. Not anyone aiming to do harm, just innocent people trying to live their lives and they're not here anymore. And so these are the people that I want to see and remember. And so my heart goes out to them and my heart and my well wishes go out to family and friends and my thanks and all of that from before. It goes out to law enforcement for going out there and putting their lives on the line to save people. Also with that said, I think one of the last things I want to cover with this story is the blame game that's being played out. Obviously this shooting didn't happen in a bubble. There

was the Kroger store shooting. There were also those bombs that were sent out. So you had people pointing to the suspected bomber being a Trump supporter. People arguing that Trump's rhetoric, his villainizing of his opponents, led to something like this. You often see people arguing about whether that was an opening of the door sort of situation. You also had past incidents like the president's comments after Charlottesville. And it's been interesting to watch Trump work and kind of who he's blaming about the anger in America. Taking aim at the people he's in the past called true enemy of the people. Tweeting, there is great anger in our country caused in part by inaccurate and even fraudulent reporting of the news. The fake news media, the true enemy of the people, must stop the open and obvious hostility and report the news accurately and fairly.

That will do much to put out the flame of anger and outrage, and we will then be able to bring all sides together in peace and harmony. Fake news must end." And so I guess the final note that I want to hit on here is the only person I personally hold responsible for these acts of violence and terror are the individuals involved. But to deflect blame to the media, and I know that the argument is all, well he's only talking about the fake news media. Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended the president today saying he's talking about individual journalists, not media as a whole. Which I personally find to be an invalid defense because the president of the United States has called things fake news and those things then have been later proved. But then adding that after we fight this fake news, then we can bring all sides together for peace and harmony. And so regarding that note of fake news must end, I would love if fake news ended.

And understand, fake news is not limited to just one side. It is infuriating to me the number of people that legitimately think that Donald Trump said in an interview that Republicans are the dumbest group of voters. That really didn't happen. That is fake news. But also Donald Trump should understand that if we were

going to get rid of fake news, that means that we have to ban random people. That means, yes, some journalists are going to be fired. That also means that several members of the Trump administration need to be fired, and I that several members of the Trump administration need to Be fired and I don't even know what to do about your rallies or tweets I'm not saying all of them, but you have put out documented fake claims And once again, this is not me blaming Donald Trump for what just transpired

But this is me scoffing at President Trump calling for peace and harmony and essentially united I mean we even see in the tweet where he calls for peace and harmony that he's putting it on He says fake news which is used broadly and inaccurately though defended as very specific towards individual journalists And that's where we're going to end today's show with of course this being the PDS I want to hear from you whether it be this last story the first one anything in between Let me know what you're thinking in those comments down below also while you're at it If you like these daily dives into the news you want to support the show hit that like button if you're new here hit that Subscribe button to make sure you don't miss future episodes. Which actually,

if you did miss the last Philip DeFranco show, you want to catch up, you can click or tap right there to watch that. Or last week, we tested a bunch of morning news videos. You can click to tap and watch those. But that's it, of course. As always, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love your faces, and I'll see you tomorrow.