The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 3.27 Fearless Mom Fights Off Daughter's Kidnapper, The War on Cats, AI Joe Rogan Misinfo, & Today's News

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

Get an exclusive NordVPN deal here https://nordvpn.com/phil It's risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee!   Use code “PHIL” for $20 OFF your first SeatGeek order & returning buyers use code “PDS” for $10 off AND your chance at weekly $500 prizes! https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/PHIL Daily Dip newsletter subscribers can win up to $1,000 in SeatGeek credit so make sure you’re subscribed: https://www.dailydip.co/ ==== New drop now available at https://BeautifulBastard.com and text 813-213-4423 for secret alerts. ====✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ – 00:00 - Mom Fights Off Man Attempting to Abduct Daughter 02:53 - The War on Cats 09:55 - TikTok Monetization Program Could Lead to AI Misinfo 13:16 - Sponsored by NordVPN 14:12 - NBC Fires Former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel Amid Backlash 17:43 - SCOTUS Likely to Reject Abortion Pill Challenge 20:35 - Meta Starts Limiting Political Content Ahead of Major Global Election Year 24:54 - Trump’s Truth Social Begins Trading 26:50 - Bolsonaro Potentially Attempted to Evade Arrest in Hungarian Embassy  29:23 - Your Thoughts on Yesterday’s Show How to stop Meta limiting political content on your feed: https://www.npr.org/2024/03/26/1240737627/meta-limit-political-content-instagram-facebook-opt-out#:~:text=Meta%20has%20stressed%20that%20people,click%20on%20%22Content%20preferences.%22  ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxwell Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Star Pralle, Chris Tolve, Jared Paolino Associate Producer on Cats: Chris Tolve  ———————————— #DeFranco #JoeRogan #TikTok ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup, you beautiful bastards. You're watching the Philip DeFranco Show. It's Wednesday. This is actually the third of four road shows I'm putting out for you this week, and I'm going to try and get you filled in before it starts raining again. This is a lot of news that we got to talk about today, so just buckle up, hit that like button to let YouTube know you like these big daily dives into the news, and let's jump into it. This is a news show. We got to talk about this hero mom, Adriana Alvarez, and her 18-year-old daughter, Lex. Because we just got footage of her saving her daughter from being abducted. So while the footage was just released, all of this actually went down in January. Get your fucking car out of here! Get your fucking car out of here!

And so while the footage was just released, all of this actually went down in January. Overduly, Lex had just gotten home from walking the dog when a man shot down and grabbed her, dragging her down. But then her mom came to the rescue. While that is where the video stops, the struggle then continued down four flights of stairs. With Adriana telling Fox 5 in New York that she wanted to pull her daughter and grab her back. But then the man started pepper spraying her and punched her. Then once they got to the first floor of the building, the neighbors tried to help and beat the attacker while Adriana and Lex went into the apartment. But the man stopped the door from closing and started grabbing the mom's hair through the door,

forcing them outside. But then once they were outside, she got the attention of another neighbor, who was able to pin him down so the cops could be called. With all this, Adriana ended up sustaining some injuries, including an orbital eye fracture, nerve damage, and a dislocated shoulder and elbow. But this absolute bamf told NBC News that she was so focused on saving her daughter and she wasn't concerned with her own health or safety at that point. And as far as who the hell this guy was that was attempting to abduct Lex, he's been identified as 25-year-old George Vassalou, Lex's former

co-worker. And he's since been charged with attempted kidnapping, assault, weapon possession, unlawful possession of noxious matter, harassment, and violating an order of protection. Though with that, he pleaded not guilty. Getting some more background here, the mom told the New York Post that while her daughter worked with George at a supermarket, they were friendly until things started getting weird and he'd just stare at her and he eventually asked around. And then when she rejected him, he quit his job and he just started stalking her. So they had to file a restraining order because there were two other times when he tried to grab her, with officers also confirming those incidents to the Post and telling the outlet that ahead of the attempted kidnapping caught on camera,

George rented a car and parked it outside of the building with rope, sleeping pills, and tampons found inside. Which just adds to how utterly horrifying and disturbing all this is. As well as making her mom and all those neighbors that helped even bigger heroes. Yeah, well, the footage and the specifics are just overwhelming here. This is unfortunately yet another story that highlights just how scary the world can be for women. Especially for women who just tell men no. But also on the positive side, it does showcase the good in people when they're called upon in a situation to help. But unfortunately, that is the closest thing we have to a silver lining with this story. And then for possibly our most polarizing story today, we have a guest host, me from over the weekend. So this next story begins with a man just sitting in front of a computer when he stumbled

into a war he was not prepared to fight. Right. and to set the scene for you, it's summer 2022, bombs are falling on Ukraine, and right across the border, our guy is just trying to do his job. Because he's a biologist at the Polish Academy of Sciences, a state-run institution that does many things, but one of them is to maintain a national database of invasive alien species. And according to our guy, the first 1,786 entries in the database elicited no objections. But then when he entered invasive alien species number 1787 it provoked an uproar he could have never expected. Felis catus, otherwise more commonly known as the common house cat, which as it turns out is alien to nearly every ecosystem it inhabits on Earth. But for hundreds of millions of cat lovers in Poland and the rest of the world, their feline friends are

the furthest thing from aliens. These beloved creatures are inside of our homes and by, I mean your homes. Which is not to say I don't love cats. I love cats. Other people's cats. And then I love coming home to my cat-free house. But this biologist and the academy that he works for, they get absolutely trampled by defensive cat owners, accusing him of wanting to euthanize their pets. Which, to be fair, wasn't helped by him admitting that he is a dog owner himself, though he has nothing against cats. This even leading to a local TV broadcaster bringing him on to debate the author of a book titled The Happy Cat, who argues that all the anti-cat hatred just distracts from the bigger drivers of biodiversity loss,

human-caused pollution, and urban construction, and alleging that the real invasive alien species is humankind itself, to which we saw the biologist push back with data of his own, pointing out that cats kill about 140 million birds each year just in Poland. And his academy defended itself too, with a statement on its website arguing that its classification is in line with

the European Union guidelines and stressing that it's, quote, opposed to any cruelty towards animals, as well as clarifying that all it's recommending is that for cat owners to limit the time their pets spend outdoors during bird breeding season. But the reason we're talking about this isn't because I thought it was just a fun story about Poland, but because this story beautifully captures the ongoing global clash between the love for cats and our love for the earth. Or because us and cats, we go way back. Some 10,000 years, in fact, which is when we think that humans first domesticated them. And since then, they've occupied a central place in our cultures.

From the ancient Egyptians, well-known reverence for the felines, immortalized in the Sphinx, to the modern American obsession with them, exemplified by the millions of cute internet videos and funny memes. But despite their symbiotic relationship with humans, these motherfuckers are downright genocidal. They will eat just about anything they can catch in their little murder mittens. Rodents, insects, birds, reptiles, even amphibians. A study published in December estimated that worldwide outdoor cats eat more than 2,000 different species. And that includes at least 347 that are of conservation concern, as well as at least 11 that have since gone extinct. And that, presumably, doesn't count the animals that cats kill without eating.

So in the author's words, all that carnage puts cats, quote, amongst the most problematic invasive species in the world. But it's for precisely that reason that valiant cat loyalists roll out their counter-argument. Cats are actually humanity's first line of defense against one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, disease. With the idea there being that they keep rodent populations under control. And definitely, many people think that human hostility towards cats during the Middle Ages specifically may have contributed to the spread of the Black Death, as opposed to now, where you can kind of just walk into any

New York deli and find a cat skulking around the shelves keeping pests away. But that also ignores a couple of important facts. Like first, cats themselves can carry disease, including ones that they pick up from their prey. In fact, just in February, a man was diagnosed with a bubonic plague. And yes, I'm talking about the same disease that wiped out up to about half of medieval Europe. An official said that he was probably infected by his pet cat, which, unlike him, didn't survive. But also second, the trope that cats are master rat hunters, it's actually a myth, right? It turns out that research has shown that they rarely attack the rodents, but the two species more often just avoiding each other.

And that most likely because of the exceptional size and ferocity of city rats. Because if you didn't know, New York's brown rats, for example, can weigh 10 times as much as the average mouse. Plus, they're well adapted to urban ecosystems. They've coexisted with feral cats for centuries, and they can defend themselves in a pinch. So when given the choice between those beasts and smaller, easier prey like birds, cats usually opt for the latter. And actually in 2013, a study estimated that cats kill between one and four billion birds a year just in the United States, as well as between 6 and 22 billion mammals. So to be fair, cats are great for deterring rodents from entering specific locations by leaving their pheromones everywhere.

That's also different than actually getting rid of them as one study's author explains, saying, people see fewer rats and assume it's because the cats have killed them, whereas it's actually due to the rats changing their behavior. The results of our study suggest the benefits of releasing cats are far outweighed by the risks to wildlife. Also, regardless of their effectiveness, some argue that using feral cats as pest control is inhumane. Right, because as many of y'all know, life on those streets, it's not easy when you're a pussy. It's wet, it's cold, there are endless life-threatening hazards. You've got to survive cars, other cats and predators, toxic plants and poison, sick prey and diseases. Though also you have animal rights groups actually split on the question of feral cats' quality of life,

with others arguing that in reality, they live relatively healthy, happy lives on par with their indoor peers. But either way, we know that there has been a considerable increase in feral cats recently. And this because the pandemic led to a boom in pet adoption, some one in five households taken in a new member. Fortunately, that was then followed by a boom in pet abandonment, with animal shelters across the United States running out of space. So now you got cities grappling with how best to get feral populations under control.

Because handing out cat condoms and dishing out sex education to cats, not gonna work. No amount of babbles fixing that. So at least in the US, the most popular method is known as trap, neuter, return, or TNR. It involves what you'd imagine, trapping the cats, neutering them, and then tossing them back onto the street. The people who do this are typically volunteers, and surgical sterilization is expensive. So now, instead of surgery, you have some researchers looking into easier methods like

gene therapy. And in fact, last year, a study showed that a single shot of an experimental drug prevented pregnancy for at least two years. Though notably, the sample size there was small and more research is needed. And then, in other countries like Australia, the federal government actually devotes a considerable amount of resources for managing feral cats, with them literally declaring war on them last year. But when it comes to part of the problem, free roaming domestic cats, they still fall short, leaving a job to state and local governments instead. So while some municipalities do things like issuing fines for outdoor cats, mandating sterilization, putting out cat traps, installing trail cameras, and building caged enclosures,

these measures have been haphazard and uncertain to work. And then the whole thing gets even more challenging when you go into more remote indigenous communities where cats have boomed. Because there, different cultural beliefs clash with top-down policy. With Dr. Brooke Kennedy, an indigenous woman who studies the topic, telling the New York Times they believe that every female animal

should experience birth before it dies. Strangers hunt, bait, kill, and even eat adults, but they spare the kittens and often take them in as pets, which also makes it harder to convince people there to sterilize their cats. With Kennedy even describing how she went door to door asking if they'd like their cats to be de-sexed with the answer routinely being no.

But then adding, you come back, they've had a litter of kittens and now they're happy for the cat to be de-sexed. She argues that by making people aware of just how fast cats reproduce and how destructive they are for the local environment, and by reminding people about the option of sterilizing their cats

and making veterinary services available, you can persuade them to bring their pets in for an appointment, explaining relationships are so important. I can come in there and suggest de-sexing their cat, and they'd think about it. Whereas if you turned up tomorrow and said, hey, de-sex your cat, they'd tell you to piss off.

And I also suspect that many cat lovers out there are gonna have the same reaction to most of this story, because as that Polish scientist discovered back at the beginning, people just don't take kindly to the suggestion that their cats are anything but adorable little fur balls which is why i am not going to say make sure your cats are neutered and keep them indoors both for its own sake and for that of the planet but people smarter than me uh they are saying that to you and then a

new revamped tiktok program could lead to a whole new onslaught of ai misinformation that's what this new report from axios is suggesting right now with them pointing to the recently unveiled creator rewards program which is a monetization program that's focused on longer form content That's what this new report from Axios is suggesting right now, with them pointing to the recently unveiled Creator Rewards program, which is a monetization program that's focused on longer-form content that'll, quote, continue to reward high-quality, original content that is over a minute long using an optimized rewards formula focused on four core metrics. Originality, play duration, search value, and audience engagement. And so with these core metrics, TikTok will be looking at watch time and finish rate as well as things like likes, comments, and shares, and how well content aligns with popular search terms. And in a report today,

Axios argued this could speed the spread of spammy misinformation on the platform as video makers lean on AI to hook viewers with outlandish images, conspiracy theories, and hokum. Or because generally speaking, the crazier the video, the higher the engagement. And for creators, that means more money. With the outlet adding that engagement and search optimization are all things that AI can streamline. And then pointing to a piece in 404 Media titled Inside the World of TikTok Spammers and the AI Tools That Enable Them. With that report noting, there's just an entire industry full of people selling templates, stock clips, TikTok account creation services, low-wage editing, AI voiceover and editing tools, and strategies to make content viral enough to earn money from TikTok's program.

So even outside people in the actual program itself, there's just an entire ecosystem of people cashing in on viral AI content. And as Axios noted, AI tends to open the door for misinformation, according to a Media Matters report that highlighted how AI conspiracy videos have just taken off online. And specifically, he's saying that because TikTok's new rewards program creates an incentive for low-quality, high-engagement content, these videos, quote, can be highly profitable according to content creators. Unsurprisingly, these conditions make the perfect environment for conspiracy theories to thrive. And you know, it is true, there is no shortage of conspiracy content out there. With, for example, Axios searching conspiracy theories videos 2024 and finding AI content of Trump and Biden as well

as Joe Rogan. When we did a similar search, there were similar results, right, a decent amount of Joe Rogan content, like AI-generated videos of him discussing conspiracies about supermarkets and the Simpsons. And while some of that content ends up getting flagged as AI, either in the tags or by a content label, even in the best of situations, you see they still rack up tens of thousands of views, and it looks like not everyone in the comments is aware that it's fake. Though with this, you had a TikTok spokesperson telling Axios, "...conspiracy theories are not eligible to earn money or be recommended in 4U feeds on TikTok. Harmful misinformation is prohibited, and we apply firm account standards to our rewards program to encourage high quality original content. But you also had Axios noting

that sometimes this kind of content straddles the line of total bullshit and parody. And also saying too, TikTok's moderation is just not that strong. Pointing then to a 2022 NewsGuard report that found that when searching for news related subjects, 20% of TikTok's results contained misinformation. And because TikTok's new program rewards both longer form engagement and search ability, Axios argues this creates an even more perfect storm for AI misinformation because people who qualify for the program will want to churn out content and mess. And this is due to places like Business Insider reporting that there are many creators that are not happy with TikTok prioritizing searches. And that's because the app has recommended searches

that push false or sensational topics. So for me personally, I think a lot of this comes down to how well they're able to crack down on misinformation. Like I think Twitter has become a great example of what happens when you reward engagement, while at the same time often failing on cracking down on misinformation. Because while you sometimes see community notes popping up on tweets that have misinformation, right, and that can kill monetization, that doesn't really seem to be the norm. So you have a platform that's often filled with engagement bait misinformation. So I think it all comes down to a balancing act. Creators should absolutely be rewarded monetarily for bringing value to your platform. But also you have to have good effective safeguards in place because there's going to be no shortage of bad actors when money gets involved.

Hell, they even exist when the money is small or non-existent. But meaningful money just adds fuel to the fire. Did you know that some cyber criminals can set up their own hotspots in hopes that people nearby will use them to get online and then expose their data in the process? Public Wi-Fi is notoriously risky because these routers are often unsecured, making them ideal for hackers. So listen, we all need cybersecurity, and you can get what you need

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if a hacker manages to intercept your data, all they have access to is a meaningless code. When the encrypted data reaches its destination, the VPN server or your device, it's unencrypted. So y'all, it's time to protect yourself and fight back against hackers. Just go to nordvpn.com slash phil to get a huge discount on a two-year plan plus an additional four months free. It's NordVPN.com slash Phil, the best deal on the internet, and it's risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee. Then we've got to talk about the wild bombshell backlash and backtrack we've seen with NBC News over the last five days. Because if you didn't hear, on Friday, the network announced that it was hiring Ronna McDaniel, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, as a paid

contributor. And this after she, quote, stepped down from her post to the RNC earlier this month. And I say stepped down like that because it's pretty clear that she was pushed out to make more room for hardcore Trump loyalists. And so apparently NBC thought she'd make a great voice to represent the Republican perspective on national politics going into the election season. But then everything fell apart on Sunday when she went on NBC's Meet the Press for an interview. Because the host, Kristen Welker, absolutely made her squirm, confronting McDaniel with past statements of hers, saying that the election was rigged and Joe Biden wasn't elected fairly,

as well as bringing up a November 2020 call in which she and Donald Trump reportedly urged GOP canvassers in Michigan not to certify the election results. But to most of this, McDaniel answered the questions like a politician, dodging and hedging, saying one thing, then giving credence to something else. Like, for example, when she admitted that Biden was fairly elected, but repeatedly stressed that there were big issues with the election. Because I do think it's fair to say there were problems in 2020. And to say that does not mean he's not the legitimate president. When she claimed that she only told the election officials to, quote,

vote their conscience on the November phone call. Our call that night was to say, are you okay? Are you all right? Vote your conscience. Or when she night was to say, are you okay? Are you all right? Vote your conscience. Or when she condemned January 6th, but argued other issues like immigration and crime are more important. I don't think there's any choice but to vote for the Republican, even though you may have disagreements. And so after all of that, McDaniel left and Welker turned to a panel of journalists, including

Chuck Todd, NBC's chief political analyst. And he did not hold back. This man let the missiles fly straight for his own employer. I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation. Because I don't know what to believe. She is now a paid contributor by NBC News. I have no idea whether any answer she gave to you was because she didn't want to mess up her contract. She has credibility issues that she still has to deal with.

Is she speaking for herself or is she speaking on behalf of who's paying her? And look, there's a reason why there's a lot of journalists at NBC News uncomfortable with this, because many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting, have been met with character assassination. With Chuck Todd adding that it would be more acceptable if she was brought on as a technical advisor to the RNC or if she was vetted first by journalists within the network to see if she brings any actual value to the table. With then the other panelists just absolutely ripping into McDaniel's credibility.

I know that she habitually lied. She habitually joined Trump in attacking the press, members of the press, including this network, in a way that put journalists at risk, in danger. She not only presided, but directed, drove, the QAnonization of the Republican Party during her tenure. But also other big names at MSNBC like Joe Scarborough, Joy Reid, and Rachel Maddow also directly calling out their employer for bringing on McDaniel.

You wouldn't hire a pickpocket to work as a TSA screener. And so I find the decision to put her on the payroll inexplicable. And all of that bringing us to yesterday where NBC ultimately buckled, dropping McDaniel as a contributor, saying in a memo, no organization, particularly a newsroom, can succeed unless it is cohesive and aligned. Over the last few days, it has become clear that this appointment undermines that goal. And so now, reportedly, McDaniel is getting a lawyer to deal with contractual issues. Though the fallout from this stretches even beyond NBC,

with a Hollywood reporter now revealing that CAA, the talent agency that got her the gig in the first place, has now also dropped her as well. And so while we wait to see how the rest of this plays out, I gotta pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts here? Whether it be with the McDaniel situation specifically, and or the general dilemma that seems to be playing out, where there's a desire to have a diversity of perspectives included, while also now platforming bad actors, right? Crazy people, election deniers. And then, we've gotta talk about this absolutely huge news around abortion access and the Supreme Court.

Because just yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in an incredibly consequential case that could totally upend access to abortion. And this will sound familiar to some, but just to give you the TLDR if you miss those shows, a group of anti-abortion doctors filed a lawsuit claiming that the FDA failed to properly consider safety concerns when it approved the first of two pills taken for a medical abortion. And this, despite the fact that the drug was approved more than two decades ago, has been authorized in dozens of other countries and has repeatedly

been proven by research to be safe and effective. And after a ton of legal back and forth, the Supreme Court agreed to take up the case. But the key thing here, the court said that it wouldn't consider challenges to the FDA's approval of the abortion pill over 20 years ago. Instead, it would just look at a number of more recent FDA actions, like allowing providers to prescribe one of the drugs used in medication abortion virtually and send the pill by mail. But still, those efforts have had an enormous impact on access, and limiting them would drastically cut it. Like, literally just last week, the Guttmacher Institute published a new report that found that medication abortions, they increased massively since Roe was overturned, with it making up nearly two out of every three abortions in 2023, with that being not only a huge

jump from 2020, when just over half of all abortions were done via medication, it's also the single highest figure on record since the FDA approved the pill over two decades ago. And the report specifically pointing to the FDA's more recent changes is a driving factor here. But here's the thing, with many worried that this would go the same way as Roe,

a majority of the justices signaled yesterday that they are skeptical of the effort to limit access. With many of the justices questioning why anti-abortion doctors have legal ground and standing to bring a lawsuit challenging federal regulation, if they have shown they actually suffered real concrete harm from the abortion pill being made widely available. And very significantly, that included some staunch conservatives like Justice Neil Gorsuch.

We issue and we say over and over again, provide a remedy sufficient to address the plaintiff's asserted injuries. And this case seems like a prime example of turning what could be a small lawsuit into a nationwide legislative assembly on an FDA rule or any other federal government action. That was also echoed by other judges who took issue with one of the main arguments made by the anti-abortion doctors. A big crux of their whole case here is their claim that caring for patients who have taken abortion pills goes against their own personal moral beliefs. With that, we saw Justice Katonji Brown-Jackson poking a huge hole in that argument. The obvious common

sense remedy would be to provide them with an exemption, that they don't have to participate in this procedure. And you say, and you've said here several times, that federal law already gives them that. So I guess then what they're asking for in this lawsuit is more than that. They're saying because we object to having to be forced to participate in this procedure, we're seeking an order preventing anyone from having access to these drugs at all. But then on the other side, we also saw Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito signaling that they might dissent to a majority opinion striking down the case. But for now, we're going to have to wait to see what the actual opinion and the split on the vote is. With that expected to come at the end of the term in June. And then Instagram's users

and creators right now are pissed off for a brand new reason. And this time it's because the company has very quietly started limiting political content on Instagram and threads. And more importantly, doing so automatically without informing users that they can opt out. Because last month, Meta announced in a blog post that it would stop recommending political content from accounts users didn't already follow. And notably here, the platform said this policy

doesn't change how we show people content from accounts they choose to follow. But still, this is a massive shift, especially because Meta defines political content as posts that mention government, elections, and social topics, with it also refusing to clarify exactly what is considered political content under the insanely vague and broad definition. Beyond that, while Meta said in his blog post that people who still want to be recommended political content from accounts that they don't follow will be given a control that will allow for that option,

it didn't specify when this would be implemented, saying, We'll roll out these changes slowly over time to get this right. But seemingly, that's the exact opposite of what actually happened. Right, just this week, several media outlets that had asked the company about the policy were told that Meta had actually started widely rolling it out last week. But that doesn't seem to have been made clear to users at all. The Verge, for example, reporting that as of Monday, the company hasn't sent any in-app notifications alerting people to the setting and the fact that it's on by default. And so unsurprisingly, you had a ton of people mad at Meta, saying they felt blindsided because all of

a sudden they started stealth blocking whatever they deemed political content. And this including one street artist who regularly advocates for Palestinians on her Instagram, telling NBC that many of her followers have found her through recommendations and saying, you can't just essentially put a blindfold on people who may not realize it. It's just so appalling to me to do something like this at such a political moment in our lives, not just internationally, but also within our country with this being an election year. Right, and that last part's been echoed by many other users who have condemned Meta for limiting political news in a year where the U.S. and many other countries are holding insanely important elections. And especially because they made this move as the default,

with almost no warning, and they started implementing the policy without telling anyone. And this is experts and strategists who said this move will hurt political outreach. Noting that for the political world, the whole point of social media is to reach audiences that might not otherwise hear important messages about elections and voting issues. Meanwhile, others have specifically taken aim at Meta's incredibly vague definition of political content, arguing that it'll result in broad censorship because so many things can be classified as political, some wondering where the line will be drawn. Right, could members of the LGBTQ plus community have their posts limited because they're talking about being gay? And that extends to all people whose identities are politicized, with a black

content creator telling the Washington Post, some people's entire existence and their perspectives are going to be deemed political, like me as a black woman. This is going to silence a lot of marginalized people. And to that point, people have also noted that this will seriously limit the spread of crucial news and information. Instagram has actually become a huge source of news and important perspectives that you can't get from mainstream media, with a recent study even finding that 16% of American adults regularly get their news from Instagram, which is a bigger share than even TikTok or X.

That's especially key for topics that don't get the proper mainstream coverage, like Palestine. Right, credible accounts on Instagram have become essential sources for many who want to get a more well-rounded, unbiased account of the conflict. And so this move by Meta has been criticized by many as undermining those trying to spread the truth at a time when the company's already been repeatedly accused of shadow-banning pro-Palestine posts. While Meta has denied those

claims, chalking some up to a bug, this isn't new. We've seen complaints about this for years, including from big names like Bella Hadid, who said her posts about Palestine were shadow banned back in 2022. Writing my Instagram has disabled me from posting on my story. Pretty much only when it is Palestine-based, I'm going to assume. When I post about Palestine, I get immediately shadow banned and almost 1 million less of you see my stories and posts. Though this, of course, is meta has denied that. But this move from meta isn't shocking. Right, it's just simply a fact that the company's been steadily moving away from promoting news and political content on its platform. And the company, for its part, has tried to attribute this shift to consumer demands.

Which is exactly what it did for this latest policy, claiming that many people have asked to see less political content. But this is it's also been widely reported that they just don't want to be responsible for the misinformation, polarization, and hate speech that comes with political and news content on the platforms. And some top executives have even said as much publicly with the head of Instagram arguing that the blowback and risks just aren't worth it. But ultimately, that's where we are with this one for now. I'll also be sure to link to resources

explaining how to opt out of Meta's new policy blocking recommended political posts if you want. I'm also very curious to know what your thoughts are with all of this, especially because I'm of two minds on this. As a news creator myself, I think it's important that stories have the ability to spread. But as a consumer, I also like the idea of having certain places where I don't have to worry about politics. So even with that, because there was a standard, it feels like something that I should have to opt into. So like

for me personally, I think my issue is it being a default, not just a feature you can enable. Because for me personally, based off of my specific preferences in regards to Instagram, that's something that I would enable. But I also know, you know, my situation's unique. That's my personal preference. And of course, whether you agree or you disagree with me, I'd love to hear from you. And then Donald Trump just got several billion dollars richer. That's because Trump Media and Technology Group,

which owns a social media platform, Truth Social, went public yesterday. Meaning now that anyone with enough money can buy and sell shares in the company on the Nasdaq stock exchange. And as soon as trading opened, these stocks surged all the way up to a valuation of nearly $11 billion. With it then swinging up and down, even leading the exchange to halt trading due to volatility. Then settling on around $9 billion as of recording this. So that's also likely to change by the time that you're watching this. By all accounts, this makes Trump Media and Technology Group kind of a meme stock. But as of many, he's saying the numbers just don't make sense.

Like, one, a lot of people don't actually use Truth Social, but I'm only having 494,000 monthly active US users on iOS and Android combined in February, which also meant that its monthly active users dropped 51% year over year in February. And in the first nine months of last year, Trump Media's revenue totaled a puny $3.4 million. Or from another angle, it lost $49 million. And to make some comparisons, Twitter had 75 million monthly active US users

and Facebook had 142 million. And Reddit made 160 times more money than Trump Media did. Yet its value was little more than a half of Trump Media's peak when it went public last week. Which is why you have many saying this is essentially a meme stock right now. With a finance professor who studies initial public offerings having said the stock is pretty much a divorce from the actual performance of the company. But regardless of why the stock is so high, for Donald Trump, this is fantastic for him. He owns 79 million shares in the company, which were worth nearly $5 billion when trading halted yesterday.

Though also, a key thing, he's gonna have to hope that things stay rosy for a while because there's lockup restrictions that likely prevent him from selling those shares or even using them as collateral for at least the next six months. But in the meantime, we're gonna have to watch to see if the hype continues. Does it stay strong or even rocket and rocket

higher and higher? Or will it eventually join other meme stocks that had insane peaks and then crashed back down to reality? Or at the very least, something closer to reality. But regardless of which way it goes, I imagine some people are gonna be making some bank. While others, unfortunately, will lose it. But that's stocks for you. And then, Yair Bolsonaro is in some fresh legal trouble again.

With the New York Times this week publishing video footage from security cameras that showed Bolsonaro having spent two days hiding out in the Hungarian embassy in Brazil from February 12th to the 14th. Right, just four days after federal police seized his passport and named him as a target in their investigation into whether his government had plotted a coup to keep him in power after the 2022 election. While I reported more in detail on this last month when it all went down, the very top level TLDRs at federal police launched a massive operation targeting the former president and nearly two dozen of his closest allies, some who had even been arrested. And while Bolsonaro wasn't among

those arrested, documents released by officials have showed that he was deeply involved in the coup effort. And beyond that, he was also ordered to surrender his passport to authorities, indicating that he could be arrested. And since then, even more details have come out, with Brazil's Supreme Court releasing documents showing that military leaders had told police that Bolsonaro had presented them with a plan to overturn the results of the election. And these are just some of his legal woes. He's also the target of numerous other investigations, including accusations that he plotted to sell jewelry that he received as state gifts and he faked his COVID vaccination records to travel to the U.S., with federal police just last week recommending that he face criminal charges for the latter allegation.

And so it seems like he knew that the writing was on the wall, with the Times reporting that he went to the Hungarian embassy in an apparent bid for asylum, noting that Bolsonaro cannot be arrested at a foreign embassy that welcomes him because they are legally off-limits to domestic authorities, and adding that the stay at the embassy suggests that the former president was seeking to leverage his friendship with a fellow far-right leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, in an attempt to evade the Brazilian justice system as he faces criminal investigations at home. And actually, in a statement to a Brazilian news outlet, Bolsonaro confirmed that he had stayed at the embassy, but refused to say why,

saying, I won't deny I was at the embassy, but then just saying I have a circle of friends with some world leaders, they're worried. And this is meanwhile you have his lawyers refuting allegations that there was a hidden agenda for his stay, with him telling reporters, in the days he was at the Hungarian embassy by invitation, the former Brazilian president spoke to countless authorities from the friendly country for updates on the political scenarios of both nations. Any other interpretations constitute an evidently fictional work with no connection to the reality of the facts. But, big shocker, Brazilian officials aren't buying it. And so now, Brazil's Supreme Court has ordered Bolsonaro to explain why he'd spent those two nights at the Hungarian embassy, with Brazilian federal police also launching an inquiry into whether those sleepovers violated previous court orders against him. And what's more, Brazil's foreign ministry also says that

it summoned the Hungarian ambassador to explain why Bolsonaro was staying at his embassy. But the actions against Bolsonaro specifically are very notable because some experts say that Bolsonaro could be arrested for his apparent bid for asylum if they believe he's likely to be hit with criminal charges and could try to avoid future detention. And in fact, we've already seen some leftist members of Brazil's Congress filing requests with the Supreme Court and Attorney General asking that the former president be given pretrial detention. But for now, we're gonna have to wait to see how this plays out. It does seem like some big shit could be about to go down. And then, finally, today, we have announcements in Yesterday Today.

With the big announcement being that we've actually announced seven winners of our weekly $500 giveaway towards any available tickets on SeatGeek, and entering couldn't be easier. The SeatGeek and the Daily Dip are giving away up to $1,000 in tickets every week for just a few more weeks, so don't miss out. You just gotta add code PDS to your SeatGeek app profile. That gives you a chance at the weekly $500 prize, no purchase necessary. $1,000 prizes are available to Daily Dip subscribers who add code PDSNEWSLETTER to double entries and winnings. Get in on it and thank me later. Then as far as yesterday, today, right, jumping into the comments on yesterday's show, there's definitely a fair share, a conversation around our special guest, the birds. Anguished Media saying, the sweet birdie is a fabulous touch. It's like, the world is breaking,

but nature's still beautiful. And Lollipop saying, there's something so nice about having the news outside and being able to hear birds and nature in the background. It really helps take the pressure away on hard news. It's like having class outside, but there being no shortage of references to the birds really just singing during that ditty story. And Dane saying, we need more bad news delivered from serene places. A cozy bed and a quiet garden with birds chirping in the background. We also understandably saw a lot of conversation around the Ruby Frankie update. Bonton Bunny saying, honestly, Ruby Frankie has always been a horrible, horrible person. Her being a true monster sadly didn't surprise me. She hoped her young child

would starve at school and no one would feed them because they forgot their lunch. She took her son's bed away after sending him to a troubled child boot camp for a tiny prank. Her thinking they deserve the abuse totally isn't a surprise. And Serenity Wolf saying, Ruby Frankie shouldn't see the light of day for a long, long time. There's no way that she suddenly realized what she was doing was terrible after months and months of thinking like this. She 100% still thinks this way and is just trying to save her own skin. She's a fanatic and fanatics don't change that quickly. She just realized she needs another mask to put on to try and get some sympathy. There was also a lot more conversation around the affordable connectivity program that we talked about yesterday than expected,

with Sear Go-To saying, hey, Phil, I'm actually the operations manager for an affordable connectivity program provider. The FCC has told us that, as it stands, if Congress does not associate additional funding towards the program, the funding will not last for the full month of May, and then customer bills could increase anywhere from $40 to $100 a month. This for the same service that they were, in many cases, receiving completely free while enrolled in the ACP. Most people who are eligible for the ACP just flat out cannot afford that much of an increase to their monthly bills and general costs of living. And loud and deadly saying, I work for an ISP and I see on a daily basis how much the ACP helps people. I talk to families and the elderly where this is their connection to the world. This is a great program

and it needs more support. And ex-Viber sharing, I'm part of the group that is potentially getting kicked off of the ACP. $30 off your internet or phone bill every month is huge when you're barely making it financially already. That's $360 a year, which would go to saving up for a new microwave or no longer dealing with a mini fridge. Maybe you just want to be able to save up to wash your clothes at home instead of going to a relative neighbor or laundromat. And adding, I'm already dreading this summer

because I know that my electric bill is going to double the amount even if I use it sparingly. And then, of course, finally, there were people sharing their thoughts on the Key Bridge collapse. with Vision of Ryan saying, I work literally across the river from the Key Bridge and see the whole rescue effort around the bridge. It's no longer there, and it's more than surreal right now. Helicopters have been flying over all day, and the rescue response has been huge. And Billabong saying, thank you for covering the Key Bridge story. Baltimore is my city, and it's wild to see a staple of the landscape

and infrastructure crumble in literal seconds. I have friends who live nearby who said it felt like an earthquake. Supposedly, the loss will cost the city $15 million per day. And going on to say my heart goes out to those who lost their lives. But that is where today's show is going to end. As always, thank you for being a part of the Daily Dives into the News. And don't worry, you'll be seeing my dumb face again soon, because my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in.

I love your faces, and I'll see you right back here tomorrow you want my mind a lot don't need no time watch i don't know how i got you in my pocket spot yeah this babe with you every day you like my oxygen