The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 6.6 "THEY'RE ALL GREEDY COWARDS!" The Disturbing Truth About PGA LIV Merger & Twitch Boycott & Protests

Episode Date: June 6, 2023

Go to http://ridge.com/defranco  to get up to  40% off right now until June 15th. Check out My Special Sunday PDS: https://youtu.be/lnJw4Whmg68 Catch up on the last PDS: https://youtu.be/LJrwFwJ8uoo Check Out Zaid’s Monday Bonus Video: https://youtu.be/ZHrS2yW-wzE –✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ – 00:00 - PGA Tour Agrees to Merger with Saudi Arabia-Backed LIV Golf 03:29 - Creators Slam Twitch’s Branded Content Changes 06:51 - Update on TikTok About AI Drone 08:49 - SAG-AFTRA Approves Strike Authorization Vote by Landslide 09:53 - Sponsored by Ridge 10:44 - Portland Police Shut Down Rumors After String of Deaths 11:30 - Oklahoma Approves First Ever Taxpayer-Funded Religious School 13:18 - Florida is Sending Planes Full of Migrants to California  15:12 - Poppy Cultivation Declines in Afghanistan 17:56 - Ukraine Accuses Russia of Blowing Up Major Dam, Forcing Tens of Thousands to Evacuate ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Julie Goldberg, Maxx Enright, Christian Meeks Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Star Pralle, Chris Tolve  ———————————— #DeFranco #MrBeast #MoistCr1tikal ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup, you beautiful bastards! Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show, your daily dive into the news, and there's a lot of news to talk about today, so let's just jump into it. Starting with, we've got massive breaking business news today. The PGA Tour and its major rival, Live Golf, just announced a merger today. And a key thing, even if you don't care about golf, this is a major deal that you need to know about. Because not only did these two have an all-out civil war in the industry, it's brought up serious questions about sports and human rights. So let's get into specifics without getting caught up in the weeds. The PGA Tour organizes the top golfers into paid tournaments, usually across the United States. And Live Golf is a golf league,

but they're backed by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, or the PIF, which notably is controlled by the Crown Prince, Mohammed Bonesaw. And those two organizations have been at each other's throats for months. Live, with their deep Saudi-backed pockets, have been luring players away from the PGA Tour with hefty paychecks. And with that, you have the PGA banning players who left to join Live Golf, also kind of seeming to orchestrate a shame campaign against them. All of this leading to lawsuits with the organization suing and counter-suing, each accusing the other of anti-competitive practices. But now, very key thing, with this merger, they've agreed to drop all of the litigation.

But again, the real controversy here goes back to Live Golf's Saudi backing. Because in the past, and I'm talking recent past, human rights advocates in the PGA Tour themselves claimed that the Saudis were just trying to improve their international reputation by throwing wads of cash at popular sports, something many call sports washing. With just a year ago, the PGA commissioner calling the Live Golf Organization, quote, a foreign monarchy that is spending billions of dollars in an attempt to buy the game of golf. Additionally, the big names in golf that were signing on with Live were questioned about the moral implications of their choice to support a league backed by a country with such a terrible human rights track record and seemingly the moral questions of what's right and wrong led to golf giants like tiger woods reportedly turning down live contracts worth between 700 and 800 million dollars i mean at one point you even had the commissioner of the pga tour on fucking tv talking about 9-11 families speaking out expressing their

outrage towards the golfers for participating in the new league and accusing them of sports washing and betraying the united states in quote and saying as it relates to the families of 9-11 uh i have two families that are close to me the lost loved ones and so my heart goes out to them and i would ask know, any player that has left or any player that would ever consider leaving, have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour? But now, where's all that talk with the PGA Tour

seemingly forgetting about this morality argument and taking the money? Because as far as where we are now, the PGA Tour, its European League DP World Tour, and Live Golf will reportedly be joined into one entity. And notably, it will be chaired by the Saudi governor of the PIF with a PGA commissioner as the CEO. And the PGA Tour is saying that Live players will be welcomed back following the 2023 season. Which obviously, hey, we don't know all the details of this deal. But at the very least,

one, it seems like the people at the head of the PGA Tour are a bunch of fucking hypocrites. It's amazing how all those moral concerns just evaporated because in your hands, all of a sudden, there's a big wad of cash. But also too, I have to wonder what many of these golfers actually feel right now. And I mean that both for the golfers that went for that big paycheck over at Live, who were publicly shamed by fans, by the tour, and now they get to just come back, as well as players that said, no, I'm not going to take life-changing amounts of money because I have certain morals. And what was your reward? The fucking bigwigs scooped it and got your checks. Is yeah, fuck the PGA tour. You stand for nothing, motherfucking pussies. You act like you stand for something, but then when Mohamed Bonesaw

opens up his wallet, you have no issue going into business with the people that killed Jamal Khashoggi. You have no issue going into business with people that helped perpetrate 9-11. Go fuck yourselves forever. But hey, that's the story, my takeaway, and I'll pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts in general, but also especially if you are someone who is a fan of golf? And then, if YouTube did what Twitch just did, I would be losing my damn mind. I'd be calling for a boycott, an industry blackout, because Twitch just announced a number of rules regarding branded content, but some of the rules include some of the most anti-creator guidelines I have ever seen. Right, so first up, you have things that make sense.

Creators have to disclose branded content on their streams. Yeah, transparency, honesty, repeated failure to do so can lead to a suspension. With Twitch's website even saying they added a disclosure tool to the creator's dashboard. They also announced limitations in what you can promote. And a number of the things there can be understood, right? Hateful or illegal products, certain gambling products, spams and scams. Right, you can't go on stream and be like, Hey, you want to get in on the initial coin offering

for my Defucco coins? It's going to the moon, it's definitely not a thinly veiled scam. Also not allowing products like weapons, adult-oriented content, tobacco, certain financial services, medical products, political content, and more. But the biggest thing, and this is where I would lose my mind,

streamers are no longer allowed to insert burned-in video ads directly into their streams, nor can they insert display or audio ads. Instead, streamers can do things like, yeah, they can play a sponsored game, but if you have branded images, you have to put them somewhere on your channel page. And I gotta say, that's absolutely fucking ridiculous. Especially for a platform that's no longer having to just deal with, like, YouTube's big ass, but with places like Rumble and Kik offering major cash to streamers. Which is why we've seen people in the space like Carl Jacobs saying, this is directly Twitch trying to force the hand of streamers

into allowing their sponsorships to go through them, giving them a cut of the payout, calling it another brain-dead attempt to becoming profitable at the expense of the streamer, and saying it was firing hundreds of talented people, not enough. Asmongold asking, you can advertise alcohol, but not politics?

Get the fuck out of here. With him also saying creators should seriously consider boycotting Twitch and that he might be moving to other platforms himself. I will move to another platform. Non-exclusively, I will still stream on Twitch occasionally. If this goes through, I will actively start pursuing a deal. Jacksepticeye saying one more nail in the coffin.

As well as creators like CutieCinderella wondering how events like her streamer award, which was just massively successful, could that even exist within these guidelines? I mean, Twitch had Moist Critical in awe, saying, it's actually impressive how Twitch manages to make the most dogshit changes imaginable. You also had other big reactions, like Brooke of 100 Thieves saying, so insanely out of touch, I will never understand it.

Why are they so against creators making money? And even MrBeast jumping in saying, hey, Twitch, how about instead of handicapping what creators make, you help them make more? Seems more logical. And even floating the idea of doing a live stream on kick as a form of protest. You know, when I look at this whole situation, I just, it's, it's one of the dumbest moves I've ever seen a social media company do.

And I understand like when a social media company makes any sort of announcement or change, there's sometimes overreactions. This is not that. Well, every creator's business is different. You know, how much money they make from this thing, that thing, it changes. If YouTube implemented this change, my show would just be done overnight. Which is why when I see Twitch doing this, it's like they're pushing their creators into the arms of people that want them badly. Because if they're not pushing people to YouTube, you have Kick and Rumble just catapulting money at creators. And actually with this developing story, a last second update, this happened as we were uploading today's show. Twitch, I imagine with egg on their face and slumped shoulders, made their way to a keyboard

and wrote, today's branded content policy update was overly broad. This created confusion and frustration, and we apologize for that. We do not intend to limit streamers' ability to enter into direct relationships with sponsors. We wanted to clarify our existing ads policy that was intended to prohibit third-party ad networks from selling burned-in video and display ads on Twitch, which is consistent with other services. We missed the mark with the policy language, and we'll rewrite the guidelines to be clearer. I'm sure you just misspoke. This definitely isn't a piss your pants, try and walk something back situation. But hey, let's see if enough people believe them or if this calms people down. And then I want to give you all a quick update on a story that you may not have even

realized we covered because I covered it on one of our TikTok channels, which by the way, there are four of them. Look, ooh, wow. Check it out. See, this is a not so subtle plug. We share bite-sized shareable versions of the stuff and show, as well as a number of exclusives. But on one of those, we posted and then removed this video about the Air Force and an AI-enabled drone. And that video is based on an article from the Royal Aeronautical Society that had covered a recent summit they had. A summit where Colonel Tucker Cinco Hamilton, the chief of AI tests and operations at the United States Air Force, spoke. With the Royal Aeronautical Society writing, Said Hamilton, We were training it in simulation to identify and target a SAM threat and then the operator would say yes kill that threat

The system started realizing that while they did identify the threat at times a human operator would tell it not to kill that threat But it got its points by killing that threat So what did it do it killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective and saying Hamilton went on We trained the system. Hey, don't kill the operator. That's bad. You're gonna lose points if you do that So what does it start doing? It starts destroying the communication tower that the operator uses to communicate with the drone to stop it from killing the target. So we and a number of outlets saw that and ran with the story because of the direct quotes. But then after the video went up, the Air Force refuted Hamilton, claiming the

Department of the Air Force has not conducted any such AI drone simulations and remains committed to ethical and responsible use of AI technology. And saying it appears that the colonel's comments were taken out of context and were meant to be anecdotal. But also, I'm not sure how Hamilton's comments were taken out of context. He said what he said at the time, and it wasn't until later he claimed that he misspoke, that being the key reported word there. Claiming what he meant to say was that the rogue AI drone simulation was a hypothetical thought experiment, and saying that experiment was conducted outside the military. And going on to add, we've never run that experiment, nor would we need to in order to realize that this is a plausible outcome. Despite this being a hypothetical example, this illustrates the real world challenges posed

by AI powered capability and is why the Air Force is committed to the ethical development of AI. And while with that, you have some saying, you know, the whole situation feels sketchy of like people saying things and then walking it back and then claiming, hey, it was a misspoke or taken out of context. Once he claimed that he misspoke, we took down the video. And I want to make sure that we updated the situation here on the main show, especially as other random social media channels have been ripping that video and just sharing it with no update. And then massive union and strike news. With members of the actors union SAG-AFTRA approving a strike authorization vote by 97.91%. Now, to be clear, this does not mean they are guaranteed to strike. Rather, it gives

union leadership the power to call for one should negotiations with the studios fail by the time their contract expires at the end of the month. But this news should not be undersold because it sends a message to the studios, especially amid the ongoing writers' strike. With SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher saying, Together we lock elbows and in unity we build a new contract that honors our contributions in this remarkable industry, reflects the new digital and streaming business model, and brings all our concerns for protections and benefits into the now. Bravo SAG-AFTRA, we are in it to win it. As far as what the union is after here, they want to restrict AI use, increase streaming residuals, and impose limitations on self-taped auditions. With Variety

also noting that the union's choice to authorize a strike is an unusually aggressive move, as they haven't gone on strike against the film and TV industry since 1980, which is also why some feel the odds of a strike actually happening are less likely. But then, if it does, it'll be incredibly powerful, especially as the writer's strike's already shut down so much production. So if the actors join them, then basically that means anything that's even open right now is shut down. Because yeah, the director's got a deal, but then you'd have no actors and no writers. And then Father's Day is around the corner. So make this year the year to hook that special father figure in your life up. Be it your dad, the mentor who made a difference in your life,

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one of them being probed as a suspicious death, as are the next two cases. But now, after much speculation, the Portland Police Bureau has denied the serial killer claims, saying while any premature death is concerning, PPB has no reason to believe these six cases are connected, with them pointing the finger at news outlets and social media for spreading anxiety and fear in our community, saying that the rumors are not supported by the facts available at this moment. And so for now, we're gonna have to wait to see what all information comes out, as well as, you know, what are the facts that they're referencing there. And then, Oklahoma just greenlit the first ever religious charter school in the country, with the school in question being online. It's called St. Isidore of Seville

Catholic Virtual School. And reportedly, it'll be run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, and have religious teachings incorporated into its curriculum. But because the school is a charter, which is just a public school that's independently managed, it'll still receive public funding. Now, notably here, some religious schools do receive a certain amount of public money, like Hasidic schools in New York that get government money for some programs, but also charge tuition. But St. Isidore is different because it's going to be fully funded by the government. And that's a key thing to know, because this situation is actually massive, because it sets up a huge constitutional battle over whether taxpayer money can be used to pay for religious schools with at least one group already promising to fight this in court.

That's also exactly what the people who support this move want. Right? In recent years, there's been a growing conservative push to expand taxpayer funded alternatives to public schools like vouchers or tax credits to help families pay for private tuition, including at religious schools. And that effort to blur the line between church and state and education has made serious progress, both at the state level and in the Supreme Court. I mean, just in the last three years, the conservative high court made two rulings that religious schools can't be excluded

from publicly funded tuition programs like vouchers that let parents send their kids to private schools. And so we're seeing our supporters of this move in Oklahoma trying to test if states can directly fund religious schools rather than indirectly through things like vouchers. But notably, this move is highly contentious, even among conservatives. With St. Isidore actually only being barely approved in

a three to two vote by the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board. And that despite the fact that the board's composed of members of the GOP-held legislature and people appointed by the Republican governor who have pushed for religious charter schools. And among the board members who voted yes is one who was literally appointed on Friday. And beyond that, even the Republican Attorney General of Oklahoma opposed the move, warning that it violated Oklahoma's constitution. So obviously, this is a very divisive subject. I'd love to know your thoughts. But really, you should expect no shortage of stories like this because as we've seen over recent years, everyone's kind of in a, let's throw shit at the wall and see what sticks with this new conservative high court. And then Ron DeSantis appears to be sending planes

with migrants to liberal cities again. Over the last few days, two different privately chartered flights with a total of 36 asylum seekers landed in Sacramento without any advanced warning. The first arriving on Friday, the second just yesterday. And while as a recording, DeSantis and other Florida officials have been totally quiet on the matter, despite basically every news media outlet reaching out for comment, top California officials are certain that DeSantis is behind this. With the authorities saying that the migrants on the first flight were carrying documents that said that their travel was administered by the Florida Division of Emergency Management and the contractor Vertol Systems Company,

as well as the Office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta, saying the contractor behind the Monday flight appears to have been the same contractor who transported the migrants last week, and adding, as was the case the first time, the migrants who arrived today carried documents indicating that their transportation to California involved the state of Florida. And very notably here, Vertol is also the very same contractor that DeSantis used to fly nearly 50 migrants from San Antonio to Martha's Vineyard last fall. With one of the craziest things here being, just like with the whole Martha's Vineyard situation, the migrants that DeSantis is paying to fly to California were literally not even seeking asylum in Florida, nor did it seem they had been in the state at any point. In fact, according to California officials and flight trackers,

the groups both began their journeys in El Paso, Texas, and then were taken to an airport in New Mexico and then flown to Sacramento. And so with this, you have California AG Bonta saying, the state is launching a full investigation into the matter and will pursue the possibility of taking criminal or civil actions against those involved. With him going on to explain that the state is still determining the appropriate legal response, but noting, quote, key elements are individuals moved under duress or deception or misrepresentation being lied to. And adding, we've learned that many of them were told that Vertol systems

would help them find jobs if they got on the plane and traveled to where they were being taken. And saying, And saying, And very notably here, Bonta also said that possible charges could even include kidnapping. And actually, on the noted charges, just yesterday, the Bexar County Sheriff's Office announced that it's filed a criminal case with the county's district attorney over the migrants to Santa's that's transported from San Antonio to Martha's Vineyard. Now, notably here, the Sheriff's Office didn't identify any suspects named in the case. But it did say in a statement that the filings alleged several counts of unlawful restraint, including both misdemeanors and felonies. So it's going to be really interesting to see how all this plays out, both in Texas and California. And then,

what's the better way to introduce this story? Bad news, if you're a fan of heroin, or the war on drugs has been a success, but it's thanks to the Taliban. Yikes. Because you may not know this, but for years, Afghanistan has produced over 80% of the world's opium, which then in turn produces about 95% of heroin in Europe. And in fact, during its occupation, the United States tried to eradicate poppy, the plant which makes opium by bombing farms in Taliban territory, burning opium stocks and raiding drug labs.

And those efforts were largely unsuccessful. But early last year, the Taliban Supreme Leader announced their own shot at banning poppy, saying anyone caught growing it would have their field destroyed and be punished according to the group's interpretation of Sharia law, citing as their reason both their religious beliefs and the harmful health effects of opium, with one of their spokesmen even claiming that 4 million out of 37 million of their people are suffering from

drug addiction. While the 2022 harvest was exempt from the ban, with the UN saying production even grew by a third over 2021, after the past year of Taliban squads destroying entire poppy farms, we're now seeing its impact on 2023's April harvest. Y'all, the numbers here are staggering, with one expert using satellite data estimating that poppy cultivation is likely to have been cut down by over 80%. With the BBC even reporting the Taliban leaders appear to have been more successful cracking down on cultivation than anyone ever has. Now, as far as the impact, we're still going to have to wait to see what it's going to look like. And that's because, reportedly, it usually takes between 12 and 18 months for Afghan poppy to reach European markets as heroin. So it may take a while for the supply cut to impact the street price.

A price that's reportedly been at a 20-year high, though it's also been falling over the past several months. And actually because of that, as well as there being drug seizures in neighboring states, it's been suggested there's actually a large stockpile already in the system. Also, it's widely believed this isn't going to impact the number of people using drugs. Even if heroin becomes less available, experts say that Western consumers might just turn towards synthetic drugs instead, which is a trend we've already seen in the US.

Which is actually even worse, since fentanyl, for example, is 50 times stronger than natural heroin, which, among other things, makes overdose deaths more likely. And so you're seeing European governments bracing for a possible opioid crisis and remembering the last time the Taliban abolished opium in 2000. With that causing a heroin shortage in Europe, and not long afterward, you saw fentanyl surfacing there for the first time ever. And then moving east, Afghan narcotics have long been trafficked

through Pakistan to consumers in China as well. So we've also seen experts suggesting Beijing should help Afghan farmers transition toward alternative crops as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. But possibly those hardest hit are going to be the Afghan farmers themselves, because their reliance on the narcotics market has only increased since the Taliban takeover. Because you've got Western sanctions cutting off foreign aid and trade. And even though you have the government pushing them to grow substitutes like wheat, they say it's far less profitable than a cash crop like poppy. With one farmer explaining, if you have no food at home

and your children are going hungry, what else would you do? We don't have large pieces of land. If we grew weed on them, we would make a fraction of what we could from opium. And regarding the Taliban leader is putting all this in place, something to also keep in mind

is that you have analysts speculating that some may actually be personally profiting from the poppy ban by keeping their own private drug portfolios as the restricted supply bumps up the price. But even further, you have some saying the Taliban's war on drugs could backfire. And that's because poppy production

is a key source of tax revenue, and the economic shock to regular people could cut into their base of support. Though also how much that cuts in remains to be seen, because how much of that base of support is really just fear. And then, Vladimir Putin just collecting war crimes like I collect Pokemon cards.

With the most recent incident involving the Nova Khovka Dam being blown up today. Where the dam sits on the major Dnipro River between Ukrainian and Russian front lines. Though technically Russia's been considered to be controlling it because its operation buildings are on the Russian controlled side of the river. But this damaged dam means that millions of cubic meters of water are going to be flooding into the lowland areas downstream. Which include parts of Ukrainian controlled Kherson and upwards of 70 smaller towns and villages. And really the only silver lining is that the dam wasn't just like completely, completely erased from the earth, and only part of it was destroyed. Meaning that all the water didn't just come rushing down,

and people were able to evacuate. Now, with this, there is a mystery of who did it. Although there is a reason I say mystery. Obviously, most are leaning towards thinking Russia blew the dam. But there are being claims they've mined it since October. And notably, the flooding would slow potential Ukrainian advances in the region, both directly and by creating a humanitarian crisis. Russia, as they do, claims that Ukraine did it, in order to cut off fresh water from Crimea. Saying without

this water, it means that the vulnerable Kerch Bridge is really the only viable waterway. And so some well-placed strikes could really put the squeeze on the peninsula. But regardless of the claims over there, the locals here are screwed. Tens of thousands on both sides will need to evacuate, although it's unclear how much Russia is helping locals under their watch. And farmers on both banks are going to be screwed as the flooding destroys crops and the lowered water levels behind the dam means way less irrigation for crops. And that's already had an impact on the markets. Because of Ukraine's status as a major grain producer

and the damage this flooding will likely do, grain futures are up like 3%. And it's really not until the scale of this flooding becomes even more clear that we're gonna get a better understanding of how just horrible this is. And that is where today's daily dive into the news is gonna end.

Thank you for watching, liking, being subscribed to this channel, and do not worry, because my name's Philip DeFranco, you've just been filled in, I love yo faces, and I'll see you tomorrow.