The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 12.5 Massive Twitter Plot Exposed, Youtube Lawsuits Pile Up, PETA, Wisconsin Power Grab, & More

Episode Date: December 5, 2018

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Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you're having a fantastic Wednesday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show and let's just jump into it. And the first thing we're gonna talk about today, I think actually justifies bringing back one of my favorite segments, Don't be stupid, stupid. There is a lot of stupid in the world, but sometimes there are those that truly excel at it. They create such a unique, special kind of stupid that they end up bringing people from all walks of life together to mock them. And at the center of today's story today, we have PETA. And the reason for this is that yesterday, PETA put people on notice that they were up bringing people from all walks of life together to mock them. And at the center of today's story today, we have PETA. And the reason for this is that yesterday,

PETA put people on notice that they were being problematic, writing, words matter and as our understanding of social justice evolves, our language evolves along with it. Here's how to remove speciesism from your daily conversations. And they attach this picture, reading, stop using anti-animal language.

Instead of kill two birds with one stone, say feed two birds with one scone into that I would personally argue one of those is way harder than the other let's continue instead of be the guinea pig say be the Test tube instead of beat a dead horse say feed a fed horse Instead of bring home the bacon say bring home the bagels not entirely against that one instead of take the bull by the horn say Take the flower by the thorns in my opinion. This was already stupid enough on its own It seemed like they were just kind of creating a problem. But then to really drive home the stupid, they followed it up with a tweet reading,

Just as it became unacceptable to use racist, homophobic, or ableist language, phrases that trivialize cruelty to animals will vanish as more people begin to appreciate animals for who they are and start bringing home the bagels instead of the bacon. And what I'll say here is if PETA had previously not done the idiotic things in the past that they have done, I would actually be surprised that they were drawing comparison between take a bull by the horns and homophobic and racist language. PETA, how are you this stupid? How are you with a straight face drawing these comparisons? It's like you're not even asking, you're begging to not be taken seriously. But I think that's why in general the reaction from the rest of the internet has been, uh, go fuck yourself with your stupid bullshit. Or I guess to really offend you, go duck yourself you stupid jackasses. Well normally with this segment it would always make sense to end it by saying offend you, go duck yourself, you stupid jackasses. Well, normally with this segment,

it would always make sense to end it by saying, main point, don't be stupid, stupid. I actually find myself wanting to thank PETA for doing this incredibly stupid thing because they accomplished something very hard. I guess in the Christmas spirit, they brought us all together. Although in this scenario,

I guess the present is they're stupid that we got to mock and point at. But yeah, so I guess thank you. Then very quickly, today we got an update on the Rania Youssef story we covered on Monday. She of course was the woman that was facing up to five years in prison for having worn this dress. And the update to this story is that the charges

have been dropped, which is a reason for celebration, but not completely. Reportedly the charges were only dropped by the lawyers because she apologized. And so while I'm glad Rania is not going to be facing prison time, I really do hate the reason for the charges being dropped. Right, the official reason being because she acknowledged that she was in the wrong here, and not that it would be wrong to imprison a woman because she wore this dress.

And I got some shit for this last time I talked about this, but I want to once again reiterate, lean in. Fuck anybody and fuck any society that thinks it would be okay to imprison this woman for wearing this dress. Am I projecting my standards, my morals, that of the society I'm in onto another? Yes. But when we're talking about basic human rights and the oppression of a group, no, I'm not going to say, oh, well, the culture says. And while 99% of the time I'm open to the conversation,

the debate around a topic, as I've pointed out in the past, there are several where I'm not willing to do so, where my general reaction is going to be, what the fuck is wrong with you? Right, the more extreme versions we've talked about in the past are people that are trying to normalize relationships between adults and children, people being arrested simply because of their sexual orientation, and I guess in this still incredibly ridiculous but less extreme case than that,

the imprisonment of a woman because you can see her legs in a dress. And any argument that is meant as an attempt to justify what we were seeing here, it's not worth the oxygen needed to convey the message. But that's my personal take on it. And then I wanted to talk about an update around a big industry story because I don't want this to just disappear. And as you might remember, we talked about a month ago

that Defy Media just shut down, seemingly out of nowhere. And if you're not familiar with them, they were an MCN and a production company. They own channels like Smosh and Clever. And so following this announcement, you had a ton of creators that were just blindsided and a lot of people saying, where's my money? And one of the people bringing up the question

around money was Anthony Padilla. He of course is the co-creator of Smosh and he made a video where he said, I have no idea where all that money went that the company was making, which I also just read had millions of dollars invested into it last year and now it's gone. Where did all that money go?

Also more recently, you had Ryland Adams speak on that. He's a massive creator in his own right and he provided an update when he sat down with his boyfriend Shane Dawson who also actually at one point was a host on Clevver. He provided these updates regarding the money or rather lack of it. They notified their employees that they no longer had jobs and called us a few days later to be like, oh, by the way, not only are we no longer a company, but they held our checks. They chose to not pay us out and then flop

so that all the YouTubers that are under them, all their money could go towards their debt as a company. And also earlier in the video, he hit on why he had not talked about this more in the past. I never got to make a why I left Clevver video because I was being threatened to be sued literally every single day for about three months. In the grand scheme of things,

they just weren't letting me progress like they were letting everyone else progress. And while Ryland was talking about them threatening to sue him, now Defy is facing their own legal troubles. And we're talking several. According to reports, you have Shandy Media suing, claiming breach of contract. You have the View All Investments lawsuit, which claims that they failed to pay invoices.

Additionally, according to reports, there is a third lawsuit coming from manager David Rath. Reportedly, he suggested that Defy Media purposely hid its financial woes, misleading individuals and companies entering into partnerships with Defy. And in addition to those, Defy is now having to deal with a class action lawsuit. And this lawsuit argues that the company violated federal labor law. into partnerships with Defy. And in addition to those, Defy is now having to deal with a class action lawsuit. And this lawsuit argues that the company violated federal labor law. This because they didn't give employees sufficient notice of termination.

And ultimately that is where we are right now. As things develop, I will try to keep you guys in the loop. And as far as my personal reaction, obviously I'm hoping for the best for all of the creators and all of the people that worked there to land on their feet, to do well. But for those creators and based off of the stories out there, I mean, some of these stories are in the thousands

to the hundreds of thousands of dollars. I really don't know if the chances are good that they are going to get the money they deserve, that they are owed. But if there is anything we can get out of this story, I think it serves as a cautionary tale. This story around Defy Media is not unique in our space. It's just the fact that they are one of the largest

that have massive creators. Or I guess considering the situation had these creators. And to echo a statement that Shane Dawson hits in his video with Rylan, most of you who are creating, you do not need an MCN. A lot of these places, in my eyes, and understand on this specific note regarding MCNs, I am incredibly biased,

but a lot of these places usually only benefit the largest creators and the rest, for me, it feels like a skim job. And something that Shane says, once again, if they're providing you money and opportunities and it is paying off, that's great, but that's not always the case. Be very wary, and understand this is me not victim blaming.

It's just an unfortunate reality and situation that people need to be aware of. And then let's talk about a massive cyber security problem no one's talking about. And I'm so thankful that the genius that is Rudy Giuliani exposed this last night. And Rudy Giuliani, who of course now is a lawyer for Donald Trump, he was a former New York City mayor, also, and this is probably why he's such an expert on this, in 2017 was appointed by Trump as a cyber security advisor. He tweeted, Twitter allowed someone to invade my text with a disgusting anti-president message. The same thing, period, no space,

occurred later and it didn't happen. Don't tell me they are not committed card-carrying anti-Trumpers. Time Magazine also may fit that description. Fairness, please. So all of a sudden, whoa, there is this situation where there is an accusation that Twitter is allowing people to go into your tweets, and they can just put whatever they want in there? If you're wondering what tweet in question Giuliani is talking about, he is talking about this tweet that reads,

Mueller files an indictment just as the president left for G20. In July, he indicted the Russians who will never come here just before he left for Helsinki. Either could have been done earlier or later. Out of control. Supervision, please? And as you may have noticed, G-20.in is a hyperlink, which if you click it, brings you to a page that reads, "'Donald J. Trump is a traitor to our country.'" Also reading, breaking, "'Special Counsel Calls Ex-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's Cooperation Substantial.

Recommends no jail time.'" And that links out to a Reddit post. And so it turns out this story could just be boiled down to the headline, "'Crazy Old Man Screams Because He Doesn't Understand the Internet.'" No one invaded Giuliani's tweet. Giuliani accidentally made a link boiled down to the headline, Crazy Old Man Screams Because He Doesn't Understand The Internet. No one invaded Giuliani's tweet. Giuliani accidentally made a link

because he followed something up with.in. .in is a top level domain for India. It's just like if you had written out a link that ended with.com,.gov,.net,.org,.whatever is a valid link. And Twitter then makes that text clickable because it looks like you're trying to link to something. And as far as Giuliani's claim that he did it

somewhere else and there was no link, yeah, because you're an idiot, you wrote Helsinki dot either, but insert anything dot either is not a valid link. That's why no link was created, you absolute nut. You accidentally linked down to a site that didn't exist, but someone very quickly registered that domain, and then instead of looking like a guy

that just accidentally made a link because you can't type, you decided to lean in and rattle off some crazy conspiracy theory and look like the stupid schmuck you are. How do you run a cyber security firm? But anyway, if there is anything I do want to say, it is Giuliani, congratulations on just drawing more attention to that site. In addition to you just once again reminding people should not take you as a credible anything.

And then let's talk about this wild and deeply concerning situation out of Wisconsin. And to really talk about what's happening now, we need to look back to the midterm elections from last month. One of the most hotly contested races in the midterms was the governor's race in Wisconsin. You had Republican Governor Scott Walker against Democrat Tony Evers, who is currently the superintendent of Wisconsin's public schools. And if you don't know, Walker is one of the most polarizing political figures in the country. He has a base that deeply supports him and others that just outright hate him and his policies on things like labor unions and healthcare. And in fact, even before these midterms, as a result of strong mobilized opposition to his leadership, he even faced a recall election

back in 2012, which he ended up surviving. But in these latest midterms, he wasn't as fortunate and Evers beat him by a razor-thin margin of 1.2%. But even though Evers won, Republicans maintained control of the state legislature, which is an important point that we're gonna touch on in a minute. Now one of the biggest issues during the governor's race

was the Affordable Care Act, which many people know as Obamacare. And specifically, Wisconsin's participation in a lawsuit looking to overturn the ACA, which would also eliminate the protections it provides for people with preexisting conditions. And throughout the campaign, the issue led to a war of words between the two candidates,

with Evers releasing this ad. For eight years, Scott Walker has worked to sabotage the Affordable Care Act and undermine its protections for the 2.4 million people in Wisconsin with the preexisting condition. And Walker responding with an ad of his own, denying those claims.

So enough with the scare tactics. In Wisconsin, preexisting conditions are covered. And as long as I'm governor, they always will be. So the election happens, the people speak, Scott Walker is not reelected, and all of a sudden we see something. Support begins to grow in the Republican-controlled legislature

to enact measures that would limit the powers of Evers and his Democratic attorney general Josh Kahl even before they take office in January. And the most significant of these measures included giving lawmakers rather than the governor or attorney general the power to decide whether to withdraw from federal lawsuits. Which would of course include the state's Obamacare lawsuit. Also in addition to this some of the other power stripping legislation being considered included. Giving lawmakers the power to limit early voting to two weeks even though a similar limit was found unconstitutional in 2016 Taking away power from the Attorney General to decide how state court settlements are spent Requiring Governor Evers to get permission from lawmakers to ban guns in the state capitol building Giving the legislature more power over the state's job agency

Expanding the power of lawmakers to block rules written by the Evers administration to implement state laws And even requiring Evers to get permission from lawmakers to make any changes to programs that are jointly run by the federal and state government, which would effectively limit the governor's power to decide how to run state public benefit programs. And over the last few days as momentum has grown to pass this legislation, hundreds of protesters took to the state capitol building in Madison, and they were saying that lawmakers are trying to ignore the will of the voters. Listen to the people and what they said on November 6th. And the idea of taking power away from the governor and the attorney general, it's just bad sportsmanship.

Protesters even flooded legislative meetings and interrupted Republican lawmakers. If we can stop about the attack on democracy, because that's not true. Do I have to make myself clear? I'm clearing the room. because that's not true. Do I have to make myself clear? I'm clearing the room. And last night we even saw Governor for now, Scott Walker being booed at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony. But with all of that said,

it brings us to this morning where the Wisconsin legislature officially passed a series of bills that will limit the power of the incoming governor and AG. The state senators passed the legislation 17 to 16 with one Republican joining the Democrats in opposition. As far as the state assembly, they passed the legislation along party lines 56 to 27. And in addition to this, in another move, the Senate also passed a bill that prevents Evers from reversing the state's requirement that recipients of Medicaid and food stamps actively work. And as one would expect, Democrats have obviously reacted harshly to these moves.

In fact, Evers himself went on CNN last night as a legislative session move forward and said this back to the matter is this is Bad bad public policy and it's telling the people of Wisconsin that their vote doesn't count We also saw a Democratic state representative Katrina Shanklin say this that's what this is about How are hungry politicians using their grubby hands in their last-ditch effort to desperately cling to power? All we've seen demonstrated today and over the past few days is a contempt for the public. However, on the other side of this, Republicans have claimed that this is all about making sure the branches of government have a balance of power. Republican Rob Voss, the Speaker of the Assembly, saying, We have allowed far too much authority to flow to the executive. To you, this is all about politics. To me, it's about the institution.

And he also claimed that the Democrats are making these bills into a far bigger deal than they actually are and creating hysteria, saying, You are grossly exaggerating the words of this bill, it makes me sick. And as to whether Governor Scott Walker will sign this legislation, that remains to be seen right now. He has ten days to decide. But, based on what he said to reporters earlier this week, it would be shocking if he didn't sign. And that's because he said, I actually think if you look at much of what they're talking about is codifying practice. Much of what we did over the last eight years is work with the legislature, not at odds with the legislature. For all the talk about reigning in power, it really doesn't. But that really doesn't make sense. This is an obvious grab for power that they did not have a problem with when they knew that Scott Walker was gonna be in that position.

People elected a person to a certain position based off of what they would be able to do in that position, and you are reigning that in. And even saying reigning that in, that doesn't even feel like the appropriate thing to say. You are stripping power. But on that note, this is also not the first time we've seen something like this. Right, this kind of move from an outgoing legislature from the opposite party as the incoming governor. In 2016, the North Carolina state legislature also stripped the incoming Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, of several powers.

And this even included forcing him to get approval from the Senate to appoint members to his cabinet, which was not the case before. And in fact, this year, we're also seeing similar moves taking place in Michigan, a state where Republicans are trying to shift the power to intervene in state litigation from the governor's NAG's office to the GOP state-controlled legislature. But also it's not something we've only ever seen from Republicans.

There are some comparable instances of Democrats enacting big legislation during lame-duck session, such as in 2010 when congressional Democrats voted to end the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy for gay people serving in the military weeks before the Republican majority took control in the House of Representatives. But at the state level, it has almost been exclusively Republicans that have done this. And as far as the why, a good amount of it is probably due to the Republicans controlling many more state chambers compared to Democrats. To be exact, following the midterms, it is 67 to 32.

But with all of that said, you got the story, some of my opinion, and I wanna pass the question off to you. What do you think about this move from the state legislature? In your eyes, is this fair game? It is the proper checks and balances of power, or is this a transparent kneecapping? One that denies the majority of voters what they voted for.

I'd love to know what you're thinking and why in those comments down below. And that's where I'm going to end today's show. And remember, if you like this video, you want to show it that support, hit that like button. If you're new here, you want more of these daily dives into the news, just hit that subscribe button. 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.