The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 12.9 What They Aren't Telling You About This New Ban & Today's Ws and Ls: Valkyrae, SCOTUS, &

Episode Date: December 9, 2020

Go to http://www.vessi.com/defranco to get Vessi’s Holiday Sale and use code ​DEFRANCO to get $25 off of your Vessi shoes if you miss the sale! ​Free shipping to CA, US, AUS, NZ, JP, TW, KR, SGP John Green Opens Up... : https://youtu.be/I8qjpIiVy_w  WATCH My Podcast: https://youtu.be/T34mowNvSfE  -- WATCH Full “A Convo With” Podcasts: https://www.youtube.com/ACW  LISTEN On The Podcast Platform Of Your Choice: http://LinksHole.com WATCH the ACW Clips channel!: https://youtube.com/ACWClips -- 00:00 - YouTube Gaming Reveals Huge Numbers 03:52 - Pornhub Won't Allow Unverified Users To Upload Anymore 07:59 - Sponsor 08:54 - SCOTUS Strikes Down Challenge To PA Vote and more -- ✩ SUPPORT THE SHOW ✩ ✭ BUY our GEAR, Support the Show!: http://ShopDeFranco.com ✭ Lemme Touch Your Hair: http://BeautifulBastard.com ✭ Paid Subscription: http://DeFrancoElite.com  ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩  More Than 350 Gaming Creators Hit 10 Million Subscribers In 2020, YouTube Says: https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/youtube-gaming-2020/ New York Times Exposé Results in Policy Change at MindGeek Website: https://roguerocket.com/2020/12/09/mindgeek-changes/ Exposé:  https://nyti.ms/3mFuTc8 Supreme Court Strikes Down GOP Effort to Overturn Biden’s Pennsylvania Win: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-trump-pennsylvania-election-results/2020/12/08/4d39e16c-397d-11eb-98c4-25dc9f4987e8_story.html https://www.texastribune.org/2020/12/08/texas-ken-paxton-election-georgia/ https://apnews.com/article/safe-harbor-law-locks-congress-joe-biden-119b6e1570f33af0baee1493cbbe012b ✩ STORIES NOT IN TODAY’S SHOW ✩ Democrats Reject $916 Billion White House Stimulus Proposal That Trades Weekly Unemployment Benefits for One-Time Checks https://roguerocket.com/2020/12/09/916-billion-mnuchin/ Hundreds Sickened By Mysterious Illness in India:  https://roguerocket.com/2020/12/09/mystery-illness-india/ ——————————     Edited by: James Girardier, Julie Goldberg, Maxx Enright Produced by: Amanda Morones Art Director: Brian Borst  Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Cory Ray, Neena Pesqueda, Brian Espinoza Production Team: Zack Taylor, Luke Manning  ———————————— #DeFranco #Valkyrae #SCOTUS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup, you beautiful bastards. Hope you had a fantastic Wednesday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. And a quick note, after today's show, if you're looking for something else and maybe something that is not as heavy, right before this episode over at youtube.com slash ACW, I uploaded my brand new podcast with John Green.

It's a fantastic, fun, and thoughtful one. The link will be in the top description. But that said, welcome back to this Philip DeFranco Show. Buckle up, hit that like button, otherwise we'll punch you in the throat and let's just jump into it. The first two things are interesting pieces of entertainment slash business news.

The first one, more interesting. The second one, more concerning. With the first here being in the avenue of one of the fastest growing and most exciting spaces right now, gaming slash live streaming. One of the things that is stand out here is success at different but notable levels. Huge and also decent. One of the things that is stand out here is success at different but notable levels.

Huge and also decent. Or one of the silver linings for creators during this pandemic is you have more people consuming content at higher rates. We know this for a number of reasons, including a newly released YouTube blog post where they announced that this year, 80,000 YouTube gaming creators hit 100,000 subs,

over 1,000 gaming creators hit 5 million subs, and over 350 reached 10 million. Those are absolutely crazy numbers, but also more understandable when you get into the even more mind boggling numbers. Right now there is something like 40 million active gaming channels globally and 100 billion hours of content watched.

But also one of the things that is very interesting is when you think of the top creators on YouTube, they're not actually who you would think. When you say top creator or more specifically, top not actually who you would think. When you say top creator, or more specifically top gaming creators, you might think PewDiePie, you might think Markiplier, Jacksepticeye, Running List. But rather what you end up seeing

are creators in channels like FGTV, which is a nearly 18 million subscriber channel geared towards children. The top list also including the likes of Jelly, Flamengo, Robin Hood Gamer, It's Funny, Laserbeam, as well as a number of other channels, some of which I'm only aware of because of my son. As far as the games that dominated, Minecraft is still king. That game bringing in 125 billion more views than the next few,

which are Roblox, Green Afree Fire, Grand Theft Auto 5, and Fortnite. When it comes to live stream games, that list is nearly identical, though we see PUBG Mobile replacing Roblox. As far as the breakout creator list for this year, we did see names that you're probably more familiar with, people like Valkrey and Corpse. Valkrey specifically has been very interesting to watch this year. She recently switched to live streaming on YouTube

with an exclusive deal at the start of this year. And unlike a number of exclusive deals that we have seen in the past, it is paying off probably in dollars, but also she is considered one of the fastest growing creators on the platform. And then there are creators like Corpse is considered one of the fastest growing creators on the platform. And then there are creators like Corpse, also one of the fastest growing channel,

but embracing an older school model, still using Twitch and then uploading highlights to YouTube, which actually kind of on that note, we should talk about live streaming in general, comparing platforms because for example, over the last year, watch time on video game live streams has increased over 10 billion hours on YouTube. And to compare Twitch, according to twitchtracker.com

has had a little less than 20 billion hours watched in 2020. Also something that's very interesting because we often just kind of think of ourselves. Turns out the vast majority of top live streamers on the platform by total views aren't even English based channel. There we see that India dominates the list followed by Spanish speaking countries.

In fact, only Laserbeam from Australia does English based content. Also, throw mobile games aren't real gaming out the window. Mobile games were prominently featured in a lot of the top content on the platform. Yeah, main thing here is it's an exciting space. It is gonna be interesting to see what happens in the next year, the years to come.

Also, because they're not the only players they have won afterthought for many, Facebook gaming has actually become a rather decent sized competitor, but who wins, who stays, who grows, we're gonna have to wait and see. But actually the question I'll pass off to you is over the last nine months,

how has your viewing habits of content online or entertainment in general changed? Are you consuming more? Is it more a video on demand, right? Something that is not live, or have you all of a sudden found yourself more interested in live entertainment? Or hell, are you one of the people that decided

I'm also going to be a creator and try? I'd love to know what has really changed for you there. And then in a different form of entertainment involving a website that you would probably never heard of, let's talk about this huge news involving Pornhub. For everyone unfamiliar, I mean, probably a majority of you, it is a website that hosts explicit videos, both free and paid.

And they came out and made a massive announcement today saying that for the first time, they would no longer accept uploads from unverified users. And that is a rather big deal for a platform that has basically built itself up on non-professional uploads. So with this change, uploads can only be made by content partners

and members of Pornhub's model program. Though the company also says that it plans to roll out a broader verification process for regular users sometime next year. And with this announcement, they also said they'll be blocking downloads of content effective immediately with the exception of paid downloads within its verified model program.

As well as announcing additional content moderation efforts alongside manual and AI tools that it already uses. For instance, the company says that it has formed something called a Red Team, which is dedicated to proactively sweeping content already uploaded for potential violations and identifying any breakdowns in the moderation process. And finally, pledging to publish

its first transparency report in 2021, which details the results of its moderation from the previous year. But with this announcement, I would almost argue that it is more important to talk about why the company is announcing and making these changes. Because while the company attributed these changes

to an independent review that it launched back in April aimed at eliminating illegal content on the site, what they didn't say is that this move comes just days after an explosive op-ed came out in the New York Times just last week. With that report highlighting a number of incredibly troubling stories of young girls who appeared in videos on the site without their consent.

Stories like a missing 15 year old whose mother found her after she appeared in 58 videos, or a 14 year old whose assaults were found on the site and were reported to authorities by a fellow classmate, or with other exploited victims saying things like Pornhub became my trafficker. Also noting, in some cases, even after the videos were flagged and removed,

downloaded copies continued to circulate and bring these victims more harm. And as the writer notes, though offenders are sometimes arrested for the assaults, the website ultimately escapes responsibility for sharing and profiting off of them. Also of note, and possibly the reason that the website is acting like this is an important deal to them now,

Pornhub's business partners have faced a ton of pressures to cut ties with them, with many saying they too were profiting off of abuse, which is why we saw payment processors like Visa and MasterCard promising to investigate and potentially end their relationship with Pornhub's parent company, MindGeek. And since MindGeek is a Canadian based business,

we even saw Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, expressing concern about what was written in this piece, promising to work with police and security agencies to address the larger issue. Cite and company for their part have denied the allegations saying they were committed to combating this type of illegal content, which of course brings us to the changes that we saw announced today.

Also in response to this, we saw the Times reporter who published the expose tweet about the new policies and say, a great deal depends on how responsibly they implement these and it hasn't earned my trust at all, but these seem significant. And adding a great deal will also depend on whether past content already on the site is vetted or removed.

With him noting continued monitoring and pressure will be necessary. Also saying this lens should be widened to other companies as well. And you know, in the meantime, I would recommend you check out the expose. I'll link to it down below. I also think that over, especially the last two years, there's been a lot of education about the ethics involving sites like Pornhub. As we've seen more and more people and often it's young women speaking out about being on this site exploited a number of the times it's illegal content that is not sufficiently removed.

And connected to that, it also makes me wonder if that is also leading to the rise of platforms like OnlyFans. Right, if we're talking about the consumption of explicit content, and OnlyFans is a little bit like farm to table ethical dining. But also I'm not saying that is the final solution

because with the system as it is now, there is always going to be a massive demand for free content. I mean, it's part of the reason that Pornhub is the 10th most visited website in the world. And so with a spotlight now on some of these horror stories, it will be interesting to see, will there actually be some sort of moderation

that is effective, that isn't easily skirted? Will there be regulation? What happens from here? And the question that I'll pass off to you here is, do you trust the company to actually make changes here? Will this impact your viewing habits or where you take your business? Should the government get involved in some way?

Any and all thoughts you have on this, I'd love to know in those comments down below. And then finally, let's talk about what is happening with the election lawsuits and I guess more generally, Trump world's attempts at overturning the election. Starting with the big news yesterday that the first election lawsuit brought by Trump's allies that actually reached the Supreme Court

was officially rejected. That lawsuit specifically brought by a group of Republican candidates and Trump allies in Pennsylvania who argued that the legislature had violated the state's constitution last year when it passed a law to allow no excuse mail-in voting and saying that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had also violated the plaintiff constitution last year when it passed a law to allow no excuse mail-in voting and saying that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had also violated the plaintiff's

individual constitutional rights in its decision to throw out the case last week. Right, and the key thing here is the Republicans had argued before the state court that because the 2019 mail-in law went against the state's constitution, the only way to fix it would be to either invalidate 2.5 million mail-in ballots cast in the general election

or discredit the election results entirely by letting the Republican led legislature choose its own state of electors to send to the electoral college. But in the ruling we saw there, the justices cited a well-established precedent that courts should not consider legal claims against perceived wrongdoing so long after it was committed,

especially when that action had been relied on by others, i.e. millions of people voting by mail under a law. With the justices noting that not only did the plaintiffs wait until after mail-in ballots were cast under the law in the Pennsylvania primary, but they didn't even file the case until November 21st, well after the general election. You know, they basically waited until the state

was called for by before trying to overturn the will of the people by challenging a law that was in place for two major elections. And even beyond that, the justices also noted in their decision that some of the Republicans who brought this lawsuit had literally urged their supporters to vote by mail using the 2019 law. And all of that brought us to the Supreme Court appeal

where Republicans asked the court to block Pennsylvania from certifying the election results until the case was dealt with. But ultimately the high court there rejected that call, issuing a simple one line ruling that didn't explain their reasoning or list any dissenters. But also understand that this was expected. This appeal was considered at most a long shot,

largely because the Supreme Court almost never hears disputes over state law decided by a state Supreme Court and no court has ever nullified a governor's certification of their state's results. But I mean, in 2020, you can never be 100% certain on anything, especially in this instance, because for a lot of people, you look to the Supreme Court and you're like, I don't know what they're going to do.

It is strongly stacked to the conservative lean. It has three Trump appointed judges, but still what we ended up seeing was them dismiss it in such a manner that it does not bode well for other attempts to overturn the election results. And that is incredibly significant because while this is the first election related case that this court has considered, it will not be the last.

I mean, just yesterday, Texas's Attorney General, Ken Paxton filed a complaint directly with the Supreme Court asking for them to overturn the election results in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia, all states, of course, that Biden won. With Paxton arguing that, da, da, da, without any evidence that all four states

violated federal law when they enacted pandemic-related elections measures and accused election officials of failing to protect mail-in votes from broad despite the fact that there has been no evidence of widespread fraud. And this diminishing what he said was the weight of votes cast in states that lawfully abide by the election structure set forth in the constitution.

With Paxton specifically asking the court to order the Republican held state legislatures in each state rather than the voters to choose electors to send to the college. Or more simply put, they're essentially asking for the Supreme Court to erase the will of millions of voters by letting to choose electors to send to the college. Or more simply put, they're essentially asking for the Supreme Court to erase the will of millions of voters by letting Republicans send electors who will cast their state's cumulative 62 electoral votes

for Trump, even though the voters in those states chose Biden. And if that sounds like absolutely insane bullshit to you, it is because it is. Tons of legal experts have said this is totally bogus, and not only is there not any evidence of Paxton's claims, but there's also no legal ground here, including the likes of Paul Smith,

a professor in election law, expert at Georgetown University's law school, who said, "'There is no possible way that the state of Texas "'has standing to complain about how other states "'counted the votes and how they are about "'to cast their electoral votes.'" With others also noting that this lawsuit is being led by a guy who has been under indictment

since 2015 for felony securities fraud charges. And as a very recently is also facing new criminal allegations from eight of his top deputies who have accused him of doing political favors for a donor. Some going even further saying that he's doing a lot of this in hopes of maybe getting a pardon before Trump is out. Right and to that point, we saw leaders

and election officials in all four states also hitting back against the lawsuit, calling it undemocratic. Michigan's Attorney General Dana Nessel calling Paxton's motion a publicity stunt, not a serious legal pleading, and accusing him of eroding confidence in democratic systems. Wisconsin's AG Josh Call echoing those claims,

calling the suit genuinely embarrassing. Colin Nessel also releasing a joint statement with Pennsylvania's Democratic AG, saying it's well past the time for the president and our fellow states and elected officials to stop misleading the public about this year's election. And even had Georgia's Republican elections officials condemning this move with the deputy secretary of state

calling the case false and irresponsible. With a spokesperson for the state's attorney general saying Paxton is constitutional legally and factually wrong about Georgia. But despite all of that, we've seen the attorneys general in Alabama and Louisiana saying they want to join the suit. Also Trump this morning posted a tweet where he seemed to say that, we've seen the attorneys general in Alabama and Louisiana saying they want to join the suit. Also, Trump this morning posted a tweet where he seemed to say that he was jumping on the case

as well, writing, we will be intervening in the Texas plus many other states case. This is the big one. Our country needs a victory. With him also describing it as the case that everyone has been waiting for. But right now, everything is pointing to this case

just being another dud. Despite repeatedly touting the validity and strength of numerous lawsuits, political analysts have estimated that he has lost almost 50 lawsuits and only won one. Pretty horrible win-loss record and the L's keep coming. I mean, just yesterday, in addition to the Supreme Court ruling, the Arizona Supreme Court unanimously shut down

a challenge to the vote in the state, with the court saying the suit failed to present any evidence of misconduct, illegal votes, or that the Biden electors did not in fact receive the highest number of votes for office, let alone establish any degree of fraud or sufficient error rate that would undermine the certainty of the election results. And literally the same day,

Nevada Supreme Court also ruled unanimously in a similar case brought by the Trump campaign that was also asking them to overrule the election results in their state. With that court as well ruling that the campaign did not present any evidence of fraud or wrongdoing. And once again, these are just some of the lawsuits that we've seen struck down with absolutely scathing

decisions in the last week alone. And also here's the thing, even though this seems to be never ending, it is actually coming to an end. And that's because yesterday was the safe harbor deadline, right? The date by which all states are supposed to resolve their legal disputes,

certify their election results, and finalize their electorate slate. This deadline is massive because while it does not technically end the last few existing lawsuits, it makes any new legal challenges basically impossible for three reasons. First, election results that have been certified by states that met the deadline are now officially considered conclusive, meaning that states are largely protected

from new lawsuits and most courts would have to throw those challenges out. Second, the electoral college is set to meet in less than a week, which it really narrows the legal paths because once that is done, all that's left is for Congress to officially confirm the results on January 6th. And finally, three, Congress has to accept the electoral votes cast by states

that meet the safe harbor deadline when it goes through that process. And that is incredibly significant here because according to reports, every state except Wisconsin met the deadline yesterday. And this just because Wisconsin has not yet resolved a case filed for the Trump campaign, challenging its election results,

though, like the other cases that is expected to be rejected by a judge. And even though it missed the deadline, it's not really that big of a deal because as the Associated Press explains, "'Missing the deadline' won't deprive Wisconsin of its 10 electoral votes. Biden electors still will meet in Madison on Monday

to cast their votes, and there's no reason to expect that Congress won't accept them." But also adding, in any case, Biden would still have more than 270 votes he needs, even without Wisconsin. Right, so in other words, even though the electoral college hasn't met yet, now that we've passed this deadline,

Biden's victory is essentially locked. And all of that is another reason why this case from Paxton is almost certain to fail. Though notably there, Paxton's case does try to address this by asking the court to push back the date of the electoral college, which is a date that has been set in federal law since 1887. Yeah, that is where we are here.

The Paxton case really seems to be Trump's last hope, though it does not seem geared for success. But like I've said in the past, even though it appears that Donald Trump is going to try to do everything he can to overturn the will of the people, even though he appears doomed to fail here, it's important to note that there has been damage done.

There is a huge chunk of the population, not a majority, which is the reason we're even in this situation There is a huge chunk of the population, not a majority, which is the reason we're even in this situation, but a decent chunk of the population that believes the president and believes that the election was actually stolen. And so while it appears that democracy and our systems in place have been able to withstand,

just barely, that is a reason for concern. Not only has trust in democracy been hit, but the virus that we're dealing with here, it's not gone. If this anti-democratic virus had more time in our system, had deeper roots, we might have then been looking at a far different and scarier result here. And so I guess all of that is to say, remember this, do not get complacent.

While there are stories and news that will understandably take our attention away in the moment, remember that this is lingering. Because trust me, it is. And that is where I'm going to end today's show. As always, thank you for being a part of my daily dives in the news here. If you're new here, definitely hit that subscribe button.

And for everyone, if you're looking for more to watch right now, I got that brand new podcast with John Green, or I have that brand new personal video. You can click or tap right there to watch those right now, or they're in the description down below. 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.