The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 12.18 The PewDiePie Situation, Trust Problems, Fortnite Legal Troubles Grow, & Trump's New BAN

Episode Date: December 18, 2018

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Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you've had a fantastic Tuesday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show and let's just jump into it. And the first thing we're gonna talk about today is an update to the Fortnite lawsuit news. When we last talked about this story, you had artists too Millie suing Epic Games. This because the lawsuit alleged that Epic Games for Fortnite stole his Millie rock dance. I will say in that video it stirred up a very interesting debate and now we're seeing more people jump on the lawsuit train. Reportedly Alfonso Ribeiro, of course, Carlton from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. He, of course, did a dance on that TV show,

which has been referred to as the Carlton. Fortnite has the same one under Fresh. And according to Alfonso's attorney, Epic has earned record profits off of downloadable content in the game, including emotes like Fresh. Yet Epic has failed to compensate or even ask permission for Mr. Ribeiro for the use of his likeness and iconic intellectual property.

Also along with Epic Games, he is suing Take-Two Interactive, 2K Sports, and 2K Games for the use of the dance in their NBA 2K line of games. But also of note here, Alfonso is not the last person to sue. Russell Horning, aka the kid from the Katy Perry video, aka Backpack Kid, he is also reportedly suing Epic Games and the makers of NBA 2K for using his dance move without asking for permission or paying him. But following this, there are now people accusing Backpack Kid of stealing the dance. With people linking back to a video from 2012 involving a group called Grantsville West Steak,

where in a One Direction lip dub, we see this. Although it should be noted that Alfonso himself also has a similar hurdle. TMZ has a video where it appears that Alfonso, while talking to a camera, says that he stole that dance. On the Fresh Prince, they basically had a script where it said, you know, Carlton dances, and I went, all right, a Hollywood Carlton dance.

And I said, you know what? I know exactly. I'm gonna steal it. I stole it from Courtney Cox and Eddie Murphy. Okay. Is that a combination of both of those? It's a combo of all of that and a little bit of me mixed in.

But following this video going around, Alfonso's lawyer has defended Alfonso, saying that he used the word stole in jest Not that he was using the word stole in a legal sense adding in his words It was Ribeiro as a professional dancers interpretation of what a white person looks like when they dance that describes a copyrightable Choreographic work ultimately that is a situation we're looking at now and it will be interesting to see what epic games does from here because For them as a company, it's not just about the legality of the situation. Although, obviously that does play a big factor,

but it's also about the public perception. Obviously emotes ripped from or inspired by pop culture are going to be part of their business model moving forward. So do we see Epic Games fight tooth and nail because they don't want to pay out, they want to protect their business model as is, or do we see them set a precedent by having a settlement with people like Alfonso?

Moving forward, maybe the things that they take from pop culture are more collaborative. Instead of this being a situation that currently is somewhat of a bruise PR wise, maybe it could even lead to a better situation, better sales. I don't know. This is gonna be a very interesting one to watch. And then we should talk about the bump stock news. As you might remember after that just horrific shooting in Las Vegas that left 59 dead, there was a lot of outrage about bump stocks. And the Trump administration has now officially made bump stocks illegal. According to the new regulation,

bump stocks are an attachable device that allows a shooter of a semi-automatic firearm to initiate a continuous firing cycle with a single pull of the trigger. Reportedly, people will have 90 days to turn in or otherwise destroy their bump stock from the date the final rule is published in the Federal Register.

And according to senior DOJ officials, that's believed to be this Friday. Also, according to reports, if people fail to do so, we are talking about a situation that involves a felony offense. Also I've seen some people commenting on this news, saying like, oh I can't wait to see what the NRA has to say.

And to that I would say, it's my personal belief that I don't think the NRA is gonna come out swinging against this. And it's not really based on a hunch, it's based off of news we saw back in October. Back in October we saw Chris Cox and Wayne LaPierre, right, your leaders of the NRA, say the NRA believes the device is intended to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations

I think from a strategic standpoint it just makes sense for them. According to most polling Americans overwhelmingly supported a bump stock ban Even a majority of Republicans supported it And so really it would be a pointless hill for the NRA to die on and it also, I mean just from a PR Strategic standpoint, it allows them in the future and other debates to go, look, in the past we've made compromises. Obviously I'm speaking about it from a strategy slash PR standpoint, because I don't know the actual intent

behind the NRA saying these things. But with all that said, of course, I'd love to know your thoughts on this ban. Also, are you surprised that the Trump administration moved forward with this? Yes, no, maybe so, why? Let me know in those comments down below. And then let's talk about trust,

and specifically trust in the mass media. Right, things such as newspapers, radio, maybe so, why? Let me know in those comments down below. And then let's talk about trust, and specifically trust in the mass media. Right, things such as newspapers, radio, and TV. And the reason we're talking about this today is, I mean, for the longest time, but especially the past three years, trust in media has been a massive topic. And according to Gallup survey and polls, we've seen a massive change this year.

And to really understand how big of a change, we have to look back to 2016, which was really a low point of trust, with at that time only 32% of Americans saying that they had a fair amount or great amount of trust in mass media. But then we jump just two years, and we now see that at 45%.

And obviously, while that means that they are not in the majority, that is a massive recovery. When I first heard those numbers, I thought, okay, well, most likely that's from like a big surge in Democrats, and while it is, we also saw an increase with Republicans. In 2016, the great or fair amount of trust for Democrats was 51%. For Republicans, it was 14%. For Independents, it was 30%. Then fast forward to 2018, and both see essentially a 50% bump in their numbers. And also what was really interesting from this data was that younger people were far more distrusting of mass media than their older counterparts.

But, that said, as far as the reason for this recovery, there are several thoughts out there. As Axios explains, There was a poll by Gallup and the Knight Foundation this year that found efforts to restore media trust among most Americans can work, particularly if those efforts are aimed at improving accuracy, enhancing transparency, and reducing bias. The study also saying that it looks like there is a benefit for these news organizations to transparently address these claims of bias. There have also been studies like the one from Louisiana State University's Manship School of Mass Communication,

and it says that journalists need to defend their profession, writing, "...bias accusations have eroded trust in journalism to impartially check facts. Traditionally, journalists have avoided responding to such accusations, resulting in an imbalanced flow of arguments about the news media." And the general idea behind the conclusion was that if journalists are not defending their pieces, the public will see that as them conceding the point. And as far as getting the public's trust, and obviously I'm using a very broad brush there, there are going to be a lot of people

that do not trust or believe you no matter what you do. It at least appears on paper that the door is still open, that there is still potential. Because according to an indicators of news media trust study, over two thirds of the US adults who say that they have lost trust in the mass media over the past decade say that it can be restored. But it also brings up the question of, is that really possible since more and more as we get further along, people are incentivized to kind of lean one way.

The news in general is not as advertiser funded as it used to be with many moving to a subscription model. So whether it be things like New York Media or Fox Nation, which was recently launched by Fox, while that allows companies to not be influenced by outside factors, it also incentivizes them to lean into whatever bias their audience may have. At the same time, I would argue, it's just another reason on top of all of the other reasons these outlets might have a reason to lean in.

Right, the pursuit of more eyes, thus more money, these are not two completely separate bubbles, they're just now more entwined. And following all of this, as far as my personal reaction, I am always consistently worried. Because while I do believe there are actually a good number of people out there that want the truth, that they compare, they contrast, they have some,

you know, they have a healthy skepticism about the news. And I think that's good. I don't think that you should just eat up whatever is said, especially when it just, it matches with what you want to be true. Have a healthy skepticism. What I personally get worried about are people that say like, I don't trust the mainstream,

but then they follow an extremely biased independent organization. And people are like, well, this is obviously true because it's what I feel and believe. Please understand, this is really to my detriment to point this out. Please understand that independent people, independent outlets, they are still susceptible to the same pitfalls of the mainstream. And I also think it's important to point out that individual outlets, individual people at those outlets, they are still susceptible to the same pitfalls of the mainstream. And I also think it's important to point out that individual outlets, individual people at those outlets,

they are not representatives of the entire thing. I think we, and I'm even bunching myself into this group at times, I think sometimes we paint everything with a broad brush. I think there are tons of fantastic people trying to get the truth out there, and they end up getting muddied up by some of the people around them.

But with all that said, it will be very interesting to see how public trust in general is. Right, does this trend continue to go up? Does it ever end up being the majority of Americans again? We'll have to wait and see, but while I have your ear, I'd love for you to let me know in those comments down below, you know, what do you trust? Why do you trust?

Where do you trust? While the audience of the show is like 65% American, I'd love to know your thoughts from wherever you are in this world. And then actually kind of related to trust in mass media, we had the Wall Street Journal and PewDiePie in the news. And PewDiePie, AKA Felix, of course, the most subscribed YouTuber on the planet

with over 77 million subscribers. Right now, he's still battling it out with T-Series for that number one most subscribed spot. And when we last mentioned this story, one of the things to pop up is that YouTube announced that they would be doing a spam subscriber purge. Many people are wondering how this would affect the fight, and T-Series ended up losing around 300,000 subscribers, and PewDiePie only lost around 80,000. And there is a pretty decently sized buffer between the two channels now.

But also, as a side story to this, there has been a hacking slash kind of trolling angle. There, of course, before was what was being described as a PewDiePie printer hack, because printers were printing something encouraging people to unsubscribe from T-Series and subscribe a PewDiePie printer hack because printers were printing something encouraging people to unsubscribe from the T-Series and subscribe to PewDiePie. And then yesterday it looked like the Wall Street Journal was hacked with a sponsored post that apologized for the news site's coverage of PewDiePie in the past

while encouraging people to subscribe. If you don't remember, back in February 2017, the Wall Street Journal was one of the first people to really take aim at Felix. This led to a wild string of events. Felix ended up losing his YouTube Red series, scare PewDiePie, he ended up being dropped by maker studios. Just even mentioning that thinking back It was one of the weirder things I've ever seen and understand that's not me saying it was unexpected

I think a lot of these outlets were like all his blood in the water jump on it But there was all this talk from a lot of organizations where they were just like he's over He's too toxic meanwhile if you looked at the actual community here on the platform you looked at his videos He got a lot of support. If anything, I think he grew in a positive way because of it. And in fact, thinking back to it now, I would credit the initial Wall Street Journal articles as well as several of the other outlets that, in my opinion, misrepresented Felix and took things out of context. As the reason today, in my opinion, Felix is essentially bulletproof. Just kind of random thoughts popped in my head.

Main point, the hack post ended up reading, Wall Street Journal would like to apologize to PewDiePie. Due to misrepresentation by our journalists, those of whom have now been fired, we are sponsoring PewDiePie to reach maximum subscribers and beat T-Series to 80 million. But then also adding, we also need your credit card number, expiry date, and the lucky three digits on the back to win the chicken dinner and Fortnite. And that was then followed by a link to subscribe and a few memes. Now the post was quickly taken down by the Wall Street Journal, but there is an archived version still up for you to look through and as far as the Wall Street Journal response spokesperson for them said we are aware of the issue and the page has been taken down. The page was owned by Wall Street Journal

Custom Solutions a unit of the advertising arm, which is not affiliated with the Wall Street Journal newsroom We have launched a full investigation. So that's happening, but also at the same time there is still once again another somewhat related story There's a now viral video going around where it appears that some students recorded their teachers saying that supporting Felix meant supporting anti-semitism Every time you retweet one of these things or every time you promote this idea You are promoting ignorance racism genocide anti-semitism

These are all things that you are putting forward when you are doing anything that promotes PewDiePie. So be careful about this. If someone decided to, if something were to happen and PewDiePie were to be sued for this, you could be complicit. If you retweet it, they could make you pay a fine as well because you have officially published anti-Semitic things. So if you are republishing this stuff you could get in trouble for it Be very aware that that is a real thing. So two things I want to know what is on the board and or screen and two how did this rant start and also three know if you Support Felix that does not automatically somehow make you an anti-semite or pro-genocide What how do we even get here once again?

Just to like really consolidate what we've seen over the past two weeks He looks at a video where he promoted 28 channels, one of which it was pointed out had some anti-semitic content. He removed the part of the video where he promoted out to them. He removed the link in the description of that video. He was like, if I had seen that I wouldn't have done it. How is this still a thing and how is it escalating even more? And while I don't even know what the hell to say about that video with the teacher or what's going on, if there is a note that I can end on, I'm not saying I'm some genius and that this is the definitive answer, but in my opinion, I think it would be of great value if you

are at any news organization and you have any say, any control, or even just the ability to raise a hand and say, hey, what if we insert blank? I would highly recommend that if you are part of any news organization that is going to continue covering this space and you have not already, I would highly recommend you try and recruit people from this space. Because a good number of people on this platform, consumers and creators, see a lot of these pieces as outsider hit pieces. Even if the person you're recruiting is not the person that you are going to have as the actual journalist, just someone to help with a piece, I think that it could prove helpful. Like obviously if you're going to review or talk about a piece of bread, you don't need to be a baker. But a baker is gonna be able to give you interesting or important insight regarding

pieces of bread. And here's the thing, maybe it's a stupid idea, but let's be honest, whatever the hell has been happening for the past two years, that's not it. But with all of that said, I obviously want to pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts regarding this situation? And also, what do you think are the best steps moving forward? And that's where I'm going to end today's show. And remember, if you like this video, you like these daily dives into the news, hit that like button. If you're new here, you want more, be sure to hit subscribe,

ring that bell to turn on notifications. But with that said, of course, as always, my name is Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow.