The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 11.6 Facebook's Disturbing Chaotic Failure, Tearing Down USA Gymnastics, Idris Elba, & More...

Episode Date: November 6, 2018

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Sup you beautiful bastards hope you're having a fantastic Tuesday Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show and a little note before we get started with today being the midterms I want to make sure everyone on staff including my poor poor editing team had time to vote and actually on that note the first Thing that I wanted to talk about today is vote and where we'll start here is early voting because wow people have shown up Reportedly 36 million Americans voted early and reportedly that is 8.8 million more than what we saw in 2014. Also we've seen numbers coming out saying that early voting in Texas, Nevada, and Arizona have already surpassed the total turnout from the last midterm election.

But also it's important to know that as of right now, all early votes aren't counted yet. So this might be true for other states, some even predicting that it will be for all the states. Also we've seen predictions around total voter turnout being around 105.5 million. And while that would be close to just 45% of the voting eligible population,

that would also be a massive increase compared to 2014. In 2014, we only saw 82 million people vote. And because the numbers are so high, this is not a normal election. Pre-election polls could be completely off. Also, if you're not part of the at least 36 million people who voted early, you still wanna vote today, here's how you can.

For starters, if I actually released this video on time today, and you are also one of the people who waited to the exact last moment you could possibly register to vote. There are 15 states plus DC that offer same day registration on election day. So that means that even if you weren't registered right now, you could go to your polling place,

register and cast your ballot if you live in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, California, and Hawaii. And you'll need to provide proof of residency, a current driver's license, or ID card works in all states. Some states also require documentation to prove your identity. In some states that can mean a photo ID, although some do accept IDs without a photo. But just in general, it's always better to bring more than you think you need. But also, even if you forget everything, your name's been left off of a voter roll, you still might be able to vote. Most states have something called a provisional ballot. You can ask for one if you feel there's been an administrative error or you forgot some documentation. And if

you're wondering what the rules are in your state, it's very simple to find out. You just go to Google, write in how to vote and your state. And if you're one of these people and you watch the video, you're rushing over now to vote. While you're on your way, you can go to Ballotpedia or vote411.org. Those are fantastic resources that try to inform you on what you're actually voting on. But yeah, that's where we're gonna end this voting story. Also, I saw some people asking, "'Phil, are you doing some sort of live event for this?' "'No, I will most likely tonight just be drinking profusely,

"'watching the numbers coming in, "'perhaps live tweeting a bit, so feel free to follow me. "'I'm at PhillyD on Twitter.'" And kind of as last second polling, what do you actually think is gonna happen? Do you believe the previously mentioned polls will be accurate, that we're going to see the Democrats take the House,

the Senate will remain Republican? Some are wrong, all will be wrong, we're gonna be surprised. Main point, let me know what you think. Then we add some entertainment quickies. We saw BTS out there still breaking more records. According to Billboard, they just became the first Korean act to surpass

one billion streams on Apple Music. Also we saw reports of Nicki Minaj making history to become the first woman to be on the Billboard 100 100 times. And that's a massive accomplishment because there have only been four other acts to do so. And those four are Elvis Presley, Lil Wayne, Drake, and at the top you have the cast of Glee.

And the final quickie is that People Magazine crowned the sexiest man alive and it was Idris Elba. And I can't argue against that. Very attractive man. And following this announcement you saw a variety of responses a lot of people pointing to People magazine last year having named Blake Shelton the sexiest man alive in places like the route saying this is the magazine rectifying their error you also have people saying what are you talking about Idris isn't even

attractive and in fact one of those people was a user by the name of Michael Epps who responded to the route saying he's an average-looking black man the kind you see every day riding the subway to work. To which I would respond, what subway are you taking? Just filled with Idris Elba's on their way to work. And then let's talk about this news around USA Gymnastics. And over the past few years we've talked about multiple stories around USA Gymnastics, whether it be the Larry Nassar abuse, the failures of the entire organization. Also, I mean, if you just look at this last year and a half alone, the revolving door of leaders the organization has had,

and the news that we're seeing this week is that the United States Olympic Committee has taken steps to dismantle USA Gymnastics. And essentially how they're doing this is that the USOC gives recognition to organizations as national governing bodies for particular sports. And getting that recognition is how you become the organization that gets to decide who goes to the Olympics for your particular sport. And while the USOC can giveth, they can also taketh away. And that's exactly what they're trying to do via section 8 of their bylaws and regarding the situation with USA Gymnastics We saw an official statement from USOC CEO Sarah Hirschlund saying today the United States Olympic Committee has filed a complaint initiating a section 8 proceeding against USA Gymnastics seeking to revoke USA G's recognition as a member national governing body of the USOC saying they didn't come to this conclusion easily, adding in the short term,

we have to work to ensure that USAG gymnasts have the support necessary to excel on and off the field of play. We are building plans to do just that. And so it's a big move and announcement that brings up the question, well, what happens next? Well, the CEO gave the complaint to the board and now the board decides and they have to vote.

And so while Hirschland's complaint says to revoke, it's not completely guaranteed. But if the USOC does go forward and they revoke USA Gymnastics' NGB status, then they'll have less than two years to build a new gymnastics organization before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. And they'll also need shorter-term fixes like a new central training center. This after they abandoned their Karolyi Ranch National Team Training Center where many of Nassar's abuses occurred. Also, if you're wondering why now, Hirschland addressed this in an open letter to Team USA Gymnast, saying, "'The short answer is that we believe

"'the challenges facing the organization "'are simply more than it is capable of overcoming "'in its current form. "'We have worked closely with the new USAG board "'over recent months to support them, "'but despite diligent effort, "'the NGB continues to struggle. "'And that's not fair to gymnasts around the country.

"'Even weeks ago, I hoped there was a different way forward. "'But we now believe that is no longer possible.'" And as far as the responses we've seen from the move as a whole, well we saw USA Gymnastics releasing a statement of their own, mainly noting that this move is allowed by the bylaws, then trying to outline how the board feels

the organization has dramatically improved since they took over in June 2018. On the other end, you have people like Allie Raisman. She of course a former Team USA gymnast, vocal critic of USA Gymnastics and their handling of Nassar as well as one of his victims. She tweeted to the gymnastics community, "'I believe this is a significant step forward that is necessary for the overall health and well-being of the sport and its athletes.

Change is not easy and the unknown can be scary, but we need to do whatever it takes to ensure nothing like this ever happens again. There are so many amazing, talented, and kind-hearted people in this sport, and it's time for them to lead us into the future. And thirdly, of people like John Manley, who's a lawyer for dozens of former gymnasts who are suing Nassar, including Ali. He welcomed the move, but also said this doesn't shift blame, saying the fact is USOC is as responsible for Larry Nassar's abuse as USA Gymnastics. But ultimately, that is where we are right now. It will be very interesting to see if the NGB status is revoked, which actually, on that note, while rare, this would be the first time the USOC has dismantled a ruling organization. Back in 2006, they tore apart the NGB for handball, then administering the sport themselves

until they built another one up. And I'm personally left wondering, if this change goes through, will we actually see a better tomorrow? And I'm left wondering, is this going to be a real and meaningful change, or is this essentially the USOC doing a PR move? Is it just rebranding?

And personally, while I find hope in Ali Raisman's words, I really wouldn't question anyone that is skeptical of this move. But with all of that said, I do wanna pass the question off to you. I mean, what do you think about this move? You're for it, you're against it. You think it will be meaningful or it won't.

Let me know in those comments down below. And then let's talk about Facebook in the news, although they were in the news for several reasons. The main reason I wanna focus on is Myanmar. If you didn't see, Facebook announced that they had commissioned an independent human rights impact assessment of their presence in Myanmar. This is coming after widespread violence against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar, which we've covered several times in the past. That violence has caused

700,000 people to leave their homes for refugee camps in Bangladesh. And reportedly Facebook has been used by some of its 18 million users in Myanmar to spread hate and misinformation about the Rohingya people. And this assessment was performed by Business for Social Responsibility, or BSR. They're a non-profit organization with expertise in human rights practices and policies, and it was based on the UN guiding principles on business and human rights. According to the report, Facebook has become a means for those seeking to spread hate and cause harm.

And according to a Facebook post that accompanied the report, the report concludes that prior to this year, we weren't doing enough to help prevent our platform from being used to foment division and incite offline violence. We agree that we can and should do more." Facebook also saying that in the last year they've invested heavily in people, technology, and partnerships to examine and address the abuse of Facebook in Myanmar.

Also, one of the issues is actually a technical one. Myanmar is one of the largest online communities that is not standardized on Unicode for its text. And this is something Facebook is looking to change. Unicode is the international standard for encoding, representing, and handling text. But instead, most phones in Myanmar use Zoggy, which is an encoder specifically for Burmese. And so reportedly, this makes it harder for Facebook to detect hate speech and problematic content. So moving forward, Facebook isn't going to offer new users the option to use Zoggy. And they're also going to try to improve font converters for existing users.

Also, despite having 18 million users there, Facebook doesn't have an office in Myanmar. Instead, they're building out a remote team. Facebook saying in their post, Earlier this year, we established a dedicated team across product engineering and policy to work on issues specific to Myanmar, and said that we plan to grow our team of native Myanmar language speakers reviewing content to at least 100 by the end of 2018. We have now hired and onboarded 99 of these reviewers. Going on to say that their dedicated teams will continue to work on issues specific to Myanmar, writing, this includes our work to root out abuse in the run-up to the country's 2020 elections. But also, the report goes on to say that Facebook alone is not to blame for this situation,

saying, There is potential that the extensive public interest in the role of Facebook in Myanmar may divert attention away from the unwillingness of the government and the military to recognize human rights challenges and address their root causes. Ultimately, it is the state that has a duty to protect human rights under international and domestic law. However, you also have Jess Peterson, the CEO of accelerator firm Fandiar,

which is part of a civic advisory group to Facebook in Myanmar, is critical of the report, saying the report does include some good recommendations, but this is what everyone told them three years ago. Also, it doesn't touch on the fact that there's been a systematic failure on the part of Facebook to address those issues, and that hasn't changed.

It establishes an assumption that they've engaged with Myanmar strongly before, but they haven't, only in the most cursory way. Adding, there's an absence of real action from Facebook so far and a risk they'll continue to not really care at all. And what will happen if they continue to not care? And ultimately, we're kind of left in a position

like with the US Olympic Committee story. Do we believe going forward things will actually change or is this just PR? And it's hard to say because I feel like Facebook has kind of given us reason after reason to be distrustful. Although over the past two years, I believe Facebook has been given reason after reason to care about fake news in all places.

And not just in the United States, where Facebook makes a ton of money, but in places like Myanmar. And I mention the money because I mean, if you look back most likely when you're looking at where can we put money, resources, the first place to think is probably not Myanmar. I mean, Facebook makes their money from ads.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say they probably weren't making much money out of Myanmar, so they probably didn't see a reason to put resources there. But due to all of the bad press, they are now incentivized to handle the situation, otherwise it could hurt them in other markets. Although maybe that's just me having my kind of cynical moment that big companies

will not make a move for the moral good And that ultimately it comes down to PR and money You know the question I want to leave you with with the story isn't even specifically about Myanmar Do you believe that this kind of massive fake news surge that we've seen over these last kind of three four years? Do you feel like there is any raining that in? Alright we see announcements made like actually one I didn't even mention from Facebook yesterday Where they blocked 30 Facebook accounts, 85 Instagram accounts because they were involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior. We're seeing articles like this one from Fortune that reads, fake news trolls are complaining privately that Twitter is blocking them more effectively, report says.

But do you think we will ever be able to fully or mostly rein it in? And personally, I don't think so. And I could fill a whole video with me kind of debating it back and forth in my head. But you know what? I want to just pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts on that and why? And that's where I'm going to end today's show. And remember, if you like this video,

you like what I try and do on this channel, hit that like button. If you're new here, hit that subscribe button to make sure you don't miss these daily weekday videos. Also on that note, if you missed the last Philip DeFranco show, you can click or tap right there to watch that. Or if you wanna watch the last Morning News bonus video,

you can click or tap right there. 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.