The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 4.11 "Consent Condom" Backlash, Logan Paul Alex Jones Sparks Debate, & WikiLeaks Julian Assange Arrest

Starting point is 00:00:00 Sup you beautiful bastards hope you've been a fantastic Thursday welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show and let's just jump into it The first thing we're gonna talk about today is an announcement I mentioned this briefly on Twitter, but I know that a lot more people follow me here This is the last show this week and next week the Philip DeFranco show is on hiatus There'll still be a Tuesday and Thursday deep dive so you're not completely in the dark Yeah, I'm gonna be taking the week off to celebrate my wife and my young son's birthday It's also kind of perfect timing because I've been burning myself out with you know, in addition to the show We've been doing a lot a lot a lot behind the scenes for that like our big launches. Yeah, I'll have that time to reset

Starting point is 00:00:29 but I want to give you advance notice so you weren't like what the hell's happening? Also, I'm gonna use this moment to promote and shout something out. Of course in the past I've talked about one of the next big pushes is for us to launch our own website which will be RogueRocket.com. There's just been a placeholder there for the longest time. The site's almost there if you've ever made a website, you know when you you fix a bug, then sometimes another one pops up, get unexpected delays. But also part of our strategy moving forward is to put news in every possible place,

Starting point is 00:00:51 which is why today, if you want news that we cover in the show in a different format, as well as a bunch of other stories, I highly recommend you follow The Rogue Rocket on Instagram. We're putting our first test post out today, but you know, I've had this team doing this essentially for three, four months in anticipation of launching the website

Starting point is 00:01:05 Why not also do it there so it's easier to consume and also to share Yeah, be sure to follow us there today and turn on notifications there if you want then we have two kind of quickies one is trouble for celebrity attorney Michael Avenatti He as you might remember is already facing charges of extortion and fraud in New York and LA and now he has also been indicted on 36 counts reportedly this is for fraud, perjury, tax evasion, embezzlement, and other financial crimes. According to Axios, the indictment alleges that Avenatti stole millions of dollars from five clients,

Starting point is 00:01:32 this including a mentally ill paraplegic, and that he hid the money through an assortment of shell companies and bank accounts. Adding at the same time, Avenatti allegedly owed the government in millions of bank taxes while his law firm was just weeks from bankruptcy. And according to the LA Times, if he were to be convicted on all 36 charges, he would face up to

Starting point is 00:01:49 335 years in prison. Remember, that's without even the extortion and fraud charges in New York and LA. So that's going to be fascinating to watch. And the other quickie that had people talking is we had Logan Paul in the news, because if you don't know, he has a podcast. In the past, there's been controversy and backlash around certain things that he said, but this time he received some backlash, but also support for someone he had on his show. And that person was Alex Jones, who of course famously has been banned

Starting point is 00:02:12 from several social media platforms. And I'm only including this as a quickie because it's kind of a story that we've seen, but on a generally smaller scale. Right, there was a lot of praise and backlash when Joe Rogan had Alex Jones on the show. I mean that video has I think over 12 million and that's without considering all the clips.

Starting point is 00:02:25 It's immensely popular and successful. And so very much we're seeing kind of the same reaction, but like I said, on a much smaller scale. Joe's podcast, like I mentioned, has over 12 million views, and the Logan Paul podcast, as of recording this video, has under 300,000. And when I say there are different reactions, I mean, if you go to that video,

Starting point is 00:02:38 it's not generally dislike. There's actually very few dislikes. The comments section, they're kind of like praising either Alex Jones or Logan Paul for having him on. But on places like Twitter, you have people saying that this is very concerning. Right, you have people like Joe Mulhall. He's a senior researcher at Hope Not Hate, and he tweeted,

Starting point is 00:02:51 "'Paul seems to have given a platform to an extremist "'simply to generate more views and appears to have "'portrayed his guest as an amusement.' "'Paul described Jones as quote, "'a far-right conspiracy theorist, "'and yet still decided to have him on his show, "'meaning he knew what he was doing "'and seemingly didn't seem to care.'"

Starting point is 00:03:04 And really, the only thing I can respond to is kind of that first part that Logan Paul brought on Alex Jones as kind of an amusement. There you kind of get into this weird situation where you're pushing intent onto someone. Although I will say with Logan Paul, I'm inclined to believe that he is doing it for the spectacle rather than the hope

Starting point is 00:03:16 to have an interesting conversation. Whereas I would see that being kind of a more Joe Rogan situation. And that's just based on the things that we've seen Logan Paul do compared to what a Joe Rogan would do. But that's my personal takeaway. And if anything anything I just pass the question off to you here What do you think good bad spectacle for the headlines or an actual conversation any and all thoughts?

Starting point is 00:03:31 And then let's talk about this consent condom business That is a lot of people talking if you haven't seen there's this Argentine company called tulip and along with an ad agency called BBDO Argentina that recently released a condom called the consent pack and simply put the put, the Consent Pack has buttons on all four sides of the box, and it can only be opened if all the buttons are pressed, meaning that in theory four hands would have to touch the box. And they think that this will highlight the importance of consent as two people have to open the condom together. Reportedly, they start promoting this condom at the end of March, and since they've been tweeting ads that feature slogans like, If you don't say yes, it's no. Consent is the most important thing in sex. Reportedly, the condoms aren't yet for sale, although right now they are being given out for free

Starting point is 00:04:05 at clubs and bars in Buenos Aires. And you know, at first, there was a generally positive reaction to the product, with one headline saying it was, quote, "'Making a powerful statement about consent.'" But then you had people raising questions as to whether or not a condom that requires two sets of hands to open

Starting point is 00:04:17 actually does anything to boost consent. And people started criticizing the product for minimizing what consent actually means, with people on Twitter saying things like, "'I know this is probably just a way to try and go viral, but one, this dumbs down the idea of healthy communication, re-sex in a harmful way. Two, it's the condom equivalent of dudes asking

Starting point is 00:04:31 for recorded videos of consent. And three, putting on a condom doesn't equal automatic consent of all sexual activity. As well as, how about we teach people that consent is constantly negotiated and can be withdrawn at any time. It is not just about opening a condom wrapper together. How about we stop peddling products that give shelter to rape apologists? Along with this, you have people pointing out

Starting point is 00:04:48 that those who commit sexual assault are not always using protection. Some even going as far to say it doesn't feel like this product's actually made to prevent people from being sexually assaulted as much as it's made to help people be not accused of sexual assault. We also saw the likes of the Chicago Tribune speaking to a sex education teacher

Starting point is 00:05:01 by the name of Kim Cavill, who pointed out that the product can also be ableist, is not everyone can move their hands in the specific way that the box requires. Also saying it's not effective in preventing assault because someone who is trying to force sex on someone can force someone to put their hands on a box. And then you'd have this person who committed assault

Starting point is 00:05:15 saying, well, what are you talking about? We use the consent condom. And Cavill also saying that the key to safe sex is not making a condom that is logistically harder to use. You also have the likes of Mashable making a video debunking the consent pack's functionality by showing that it probably wouldn't be too hard for someone to open it with just two hands.

Starting point is 00:05:28 Although regarding that, they didn't have the actual consent pack in the video, instead just taking a box similar in shape and size. And as of right now, Julepn has not responded to the criticisms. It also, at this point, it doesn't look like they're going to do anything. I mean, a promotion for the consent pack

Starting point is 00:05:40 is still their pinned tweet. And I also imagine, I mean, whenever we talk about things like this, they probably expected some of this, maybe even hoped for some of this. And as far as my takeaway from this, I think the whole situation's a bit ridiculous. I'm gonna make a really controversial stand here.

Starting point is 00:05:52 I don't think men or women should be sexually assaulted. I know, I know that's, ooh, what a brave and controversial stand I'm taking. But this product is, well, it's a failure and a success. In my opinion, it is a failure in preventing what it is trying to prevent, but it is a success in being an idea that sparks a conversation.

Starting point is 00:06:07 Granted, a huge chunk of that conversation now is, "'Wow, that's really stupid,' but that conversation also expanding to the specifics around consent." So there's that. Sometimes we need the stupid to spark a conversation. Right, I think back to great uniting moments like when we had Kendall Jenner and Pepsi.

Starting point is 00:06:20 It brought people together about how stupid it was, and then also separately, it sparked some real conversations about real-world problems Granted some of the real world problems in that situation involve corporations taking on social causes as a way to profit, but also conversations about the relationship with law enforcement, about people with different backgrounds. So I guess maybe the main point of this story is sometimes we need a little stupid. I guess today I'm here to provide it for you. The last thing we're going to talk about today is of course we have to talk about this situation with Julian Assange.

Starting point is 00:06:45 So if you don't know the Julian Assange story or you need a quick refresher, here is a quick TLDR. Assange is an Australian computer programmer who created the website Wikileaks back in 2006 with the intent of publishing classified information in news leaks. And Wikileaks received international attention in early 2010 after it published a series of leaks

Starting point is 00:07:00 that included footage of US soldiers in Iraq shooting civilians from a helicopter, tens of thousands of US military logs and field reports from the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, and diplomatic cables from the State Department. Following the leaks, the US government launched a criminal investigation. Later that year, Sweden issued an international warrant for Assange's arrest for sexual assault and rape. Assange denied the allegations and said that if he went back to Sweden, they would send him to the United States. A month after the warrant was issued, he was arrested in London, but released on bail. Then in 2012, the United Kingdom ruled that Assange could be extradited to Sweden to face the allegations in court. Shortly after that announcement, Assange was granted asylum by Ecuador and went to live in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Starting point is 00:07:32 And because embassies are considered sovereign parts of the countries that they represent, they are given immunity from the laws of the country they are based in. So, as long as Assange didn't leave the Ecuadorian embassy's property, he couldn't be arrested. That is, of course, under the condition that the Ecuadorian government continued to give him asylum. Which on the note, according to some reports, as the years went on, some thought that Assange was starting to overstay his welcome. For example, back in 2018, the Ecuadorian embassy laid out a set of house rules for Assange

Starting point is 00:07:53 if he wanted to keep his asylum. This included things like not engaging in political comments online. They also reportedly told him, and I'm not making this up, that he had to, quote, clean his bathroom and take better care of his cat or risk losing his pet. Assange then responded by filing a lawsuit against Ecuador for violating his, quote, clean his bathroom and take better care of his cat or risk losing his pet. Assange then responded by filing a lawsuit against Ecuador

Starting point is 00:08:07 for violating his, quote, fundamental rights and freedoms with his lawyer saying, quote, he has been held in inhuman conditions for more than six years. But it turns out that biting the hand that gives you asylum might have been a bad idea, because today, Ecuador's president, Lenin Moreno, announced in a video posted on Twitter

Starting point is 00:08:21 that he was revoking Assange's asylum. In that video, Moreno says that Assange repeatedly violated the provisions of his asylum by meddling in internal affairs of other countries. This despite being asked multiple times posted on Twitter that he was revoking Assange's asylum. In that video, Moreno says that Assange repeatedly violated the provisions of his asylum by meddling in internal affairs of other countries, this despite being asked multiple times to play by the rules. And following that announcement, the British Metropolitan Police were invited to the embassy

Starting point is 00:08:33 where they finally arrested Julian Assange, with the Metropolitan Police Service saying in a press release that Assange was arrested on a warrant from 2012 for failing to surrender to the court. Then Assange was sent to the Westminster Magistrates Court, and there he was found guilty of failing to surrender to the court back in 2012. But that charge is really the least of his worries.

Starting point is 00:08:48 The police also issued an updated statement that said that he had been further arrested on behalf of the United States authorities on an extradition warrant. And a few hours after his arrest, a US federal court unsealed an indictment from 2017 charging Assange with one count of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.

Starting point is 00:09:01 And according to a statement from the Department of Justice, the indictment alleges that in March 2010, Assange engaged in a conspiracy with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the US Army, to assist Manning in cracking a password stored on US Department of Defense computers connected to the secret internet protocol network, a US government network used for classified documents

Starting point is 00:09:17 and communication. Manning, who had access to the computers in connection with her duties as an intelligence analyst, was using the computers to download classified records to transmit to WikiLeaks. Cracking the password would have allowed Manning to log onto the computers under a username that did not belong to her.

Starting point is 00:09:29 Such a deceptive measure would have made it more difficult for investigators to determine the source of the illegal disclosures. The statement also going on to refer to the leak as one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States, and adding that he will face a maximum penalty of five years in prison if convicted.

Starting point is 00:09:43 Now, of note, the indictment doesn't actually include evidence that Assange and Manning's efforts to crack the password was actually successful. But, according to the indictment, before the password cracking, Manning gave Assange hundreds of thousands of classified records. And those materials reportedly included 90,000 reports from the Afghanistan War, 400,000 reports from the Iraq War, and 250,000 State Department cables. Which is why back in 2010, Manning was charged with violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses for giving those materials to WikiLeaks and was sent to prison for seven years. But regarding that, the fact that Assange wasn't given an espionage charge is significant, which will likely come as a relief for his supporters and press freedom advocates. Which actually, on that note, we've seen a lot of people coming out in support of Assange and criticizing his arrest. Edward Snowden, of course the former CIA employee who leaked classified information from the NSA, tweeting,

Starting point is 00:10:21 Images of Ecuador's ambassador inviting the UK's secret police into the embassy to drag a publisher of like it or not award-winning Journalism out of the building are going to end up in the history books Assange's critics may cheer But this is a dark moment for press freedom Ben Weisner director of the ACLU speech privacy and technology project giving a statement saying that if the u.s. Decided to prosecute Assange it would be quote unprecedented and unconstitutional and adding more, prosecuting a foreign publisher for violating U.S. secrecy laws would set an especially dangerous precedent for U.S. journalists who routinely violate foreign secrecy laws to deliver information

Starting point is 00:10:51 vital to the public's interest. And we saw WikiLeaks themselves tweet, "'This man is a son, a father, a brother. "'He has won dozens of journalism awards. "'He's been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize "'every year since 2010. "'Powerful actors, including CIA, "'are engaged in a sophisticated effort

Starting point is 00:11:03 "'to dehumanize, delegitimize, and imprison him. Hashtag protect Julian. And going on to say, if President Moreno wants to illegally terminate a refugee publisher's asylum to cover up an offshore corruption scandal, history will not be kind. But also at the same time, you had some applauding the arrest.

Starting point is 00:11:17 For example, you had UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt taking to Twitter to say, "'Julian Assange is no hero and no one is above the law. "'He is hidden from the truth for years. "'Thank you Ecuador and President Moreno "'for your cooperation with Foreign Office "'Julian Assange is no hero and no one is above the law. He is hidden from the truth for years. Thank you, Ecuador and President Moreno, for your cooperation with foreign office to ensure Assange faces justice.'" Theresa May also saying,

Starting point is 00:11:30 "'This goes to show that in the UK, no one is above the law.'" U.S. Senator Ben Sasse tweeting, "'This arrest is good news for freedom-loving people. Julian Assange has long been a wicked tool of Vladimir Putin and the Russian intelligence services. He deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison.'" And looking at the situation, I mean,

Starting point is 00:11:44 it appears that Assange's legal troubles are just beginning. And based off of what's happening, it seems pretty likely that he's gonna be extradited to the United States. And it's gonna be really interesting to see what comes from all of this. I mean, just to mention a few things other than the conspiracy charge.

Starting point is 00:11:55 Although the sexual assault and rape charges in Sweden were dropped back in 2017, according to NPR, the lawyer representing the woman who accused Assange told them that she and her client would do everything they can to get the Swedish police to reopen the investigation. And of course, it's worth mentioning that Assange is one that she and her client would do everything they can to get the Swedish police to reopen the investigation. And of course it's worth mentioning that Assange is one of the many people involved with the investigations into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. WikiLeaks is responsible for leaking DNC documents as well as emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta during the campaign.

Starting point is 00:12:17 And special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation alleges that WikiLeaks worked with Russian officials to do so. And as some of you might remember, that's something that Michael Cohen even brought up during his testimony, saying that former Trump strategist, Roger Stone, who has been indicted on Mueller's probe, spoke directly with Assange on the phone about the leaks, and saying that Stone relayed that information to Donald Trump. But on that note, Stone and Assange deny

Starting point is 00:12:35 that they ever had a phone conversation about this. And of course, it's important to note that as of right now, Assange is not facing charges pertaining to 2016. But that said, many think that this could change and that charges could be added. Which actually, on the note of Trump, Trump spoke at a press briefing about this arrest. In the past, Trump had praised Wikileaks,

Starting point is 00:12:49 specifically after they released Podesta's emails. There was also a report that said he mentioned Wikileaks 164 times just in the month leading up to the election. But when a reporter asked him if he still liked Wikileaks today, he responded. I know nothing about Wikileaks. It's not my thing. Yeah, that is where we are as of recording this video.

Starting point is 00:13:04 Keep in mind, this is still a developing situation. It's gonna be really interesting and honestly historic to see what happens from here. But with that said, of course, I am very, very interested in what your thoughts are around this. Are you happy he's been arrested? No, you think this is incredibly concerning. Why, why not?

Starting point is 00:13:18 Any and all thoughts, let me know in those comments down below. That's where we're going to end today's show. If you liked the show, hit us with a like. If you're new here, be sure to subscribe. If you're not 100% filled in, you wanna catch up, you can click or tap right there to watch the last Philip DeFranco show,

Starting point is 00:13:29 this morning's deep dive. Also, if you wanna get some news, stories I didn't get to today, I have some special links in the description today. 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 soon.

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The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 4.11 "Consent Condom" Backlash, Logan Paul Alex Jones Sparks Debate, & WikiLeaks Julian Assange Arrest

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