The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 8.11 OnlyFans Used Bribes To Put Adult Stars On Terror Watchlist according to New Lawsuit, & More News

Episode Date: August 11, 2022

Go to https://shopbeam.com/defranco and use my code DEFRANCO  to get 40% off your first subscription & 20% off all recurring orders! Get free shipping, a Beam mug, and a frother when you subscribe. You can also use code DEFRANCO to get 15% off a one-time purchase. News You Might Have Missed: https://youtu.be/aXEbSz8ttIA TEXT ME! [phone] Get More Phil: https://linktr.ee/PhilipDeFranco – 00:00 - OnlyFans Accused of Bribing Meta To Shadowban Rival Creators 03:22 - Woman Accused of Using Fake Psychics to Trick Mom Into Giving up $140M in ‘Cursed’ Paintings 05:12 - CEO Shares Crying Selfie After Layoffs 07:40 - Beam 08:34 - Beto O’Rourke Drops F-Bomb After Abbott Supporter Heckles Uvalde Speech 11:04 - Justice Dept. Moves to Unseal Warrant in Trump Search – ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ OnlyFans Accused of Bribing Meta To Shadowban Rival Creators: https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1557112495889956864?s=20&t=psX3OXOReh1yWCuEh5GTVg Woman Accused of Using Fake Psychics to Trick Mom Into Giving up $140M in ‘Cursed’ Paintings: https://roguerocket.com/2022/08/11/woman-and-psychic-con-mom-out-of-valuable-art/ CEO Shares Crying Selfie After Layoffs: https://www.vice.com/en/article/z34mn5/ceo-posted-crying-selfie-after-layoffs-to-show-execs-are-normal-people-too Beto O’Rourke Drops F-Bomb After Abbott Supporter Heckles Uvalde Speech: https://twitter.com/TexasTribune/status/1557769580747055106 Justice Dept. Moves to Unseal Warrant in Trump Search: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/08/11/us/garland-trump-statement-doj ✩ STORIES NOT IN TODAY’S SHOW ✩ House Report Details Threats Against Election Workers Driven by Misinformation: https://roguerocket.com/2022/08/11/house-report-threats-against-election-workers/ —————————— Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxwell Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks Art Department: Brian Borst, William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Maddie Crichton, Lili Stenn, Chris Tolve Production Team: Emma Leid ———————————— #DeFranco #BelleDelphine #LenaThePlug ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup you beautiful bastards! Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show. Buckle up, hit that like button, and let's just jump into it. Yo, first up today we had OnlyFans in the news, not because I'm finally launching one, even though I not-so-secretly wish I could launch one. As I've been losing weight, I've been getting addicted to all the nice comments about my appearance. I mean, it's not anything special, but I'm really fucking pumped about this. And it would be an amazing achievement, because I've always wanted people to just like me for the way that I look, not because of, like, the quality of my character or

Personality it just seems a whole lot less exhausting But I got so sidetracked the reason we're talking about OnlyFans is because of OnlyFans and Meta with a class-action lawsuit being filed in California on behalf of a group of adult content creators who alleged that OnlyFans bribed Meta to put creators posting on rival websites on a terror watch list. So this terror database was allegedly run by the Global Internet Forum to counter terrorism or GIFCT. By landing on that site, creators say their reach was limited and earnings suffered. Notably the founding companies behind the GIFCT being Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube. Places like Jezebel noting that it just takes one of these sites to flag something as terrorism to make that user hashed which then can effectively shadow ban them on other sites. Now this suit was first reported by the New York Post which said that plaintiffs claimed that this started back in 2018 when one or more Meta staffers took bribes from OnlyFans.

With those bribes allegedly coming via Phoenix International, OnlyFans' parent company, which then allegedly used a secret subsidiary to send money to offshore bank accounts set up by the Meta employees. And the Post going on to say that the suit claims that by October of 2018, people who used rival sites to OnlyFans saw a, quote, massive spike in content classification slash filtering activity that limited their reach, but OnlyFans creators had a mysterious immunity to this. The class action suit is being led by competitor JustForFans with attorneys in the suit saying, the blacklisting of plaintiff and others has caused OnlyFans to achieve a drastically enlarged market share while its competitors stagnated or declined. The defendants engaged in a scheme to

misuse a terrorist blacklist to obtain a competitive advantage, with a law firm saying that they have a list of over 21,000 Instagram accounts that were unfairly tagged for terrorism. And the creators levying these accusations say they have suffered real consequences with Alana Evans telling the Post, When I heard that my content may be listed on the terror watch list, I was outraged. I was angry because it affected my income when my social media traffic dropped significantly, and I was angry because I am the daughter of a veteran who fought for this country.

And something that is really important to note here is that this isn't the only lawsuit of this kind. In fact, there's another suit in California filed by the Adult Performing Artists Guild with similar accusations. And back in February, a massive BBC report outlined another suit filed by rival site Fancensure that involves similar allegations involving an unnamed social media company. Though, that report did note that Facebook, which is owned by Meta, has been hit with a subpoena in that case. And as far as what OnlyFans is saying here, they gave a statement to the Post saying, We are aware that these cases have been filed. We are not aware of any evidence which supports these allegations. The alleged participants have all publicly stated that these cases have no

merit. While Meta has not responded to this latest round of reporting it told BBC earlier this year, these allegations are without merit and we will address them in the context of the litigation as needed. But ultimately, that is where we are here. We're gonna have to keep our eyes on this, see what other information comes out. But no matter what, this is a wild story. And we're going to reserve judgment for now. I mean, it's also not the craziest thing, because anytime you're talking about something

that involves just absolutely insane money, absolutely insane things can go down. I mean, we've talked about the individual creators bringing in millions, if not tens of millions of dollars a year, right, the Belle Delphine and Lena Plugs of the world. So just think about how much money is at play for entire platforms. And then throw into the mix an allegation

that a platform is abusing a terror watch list to get a competitive advantage to a competitor, but also potentially like ruining people. This bell can't be unrung and I think it's gonna be very important to find out if these allegations have any basis or not. And hopefully time will tell. And then let's talk about committing the perfect crime. Also in case I find myself for some reason in a court, this is all hypothetical

and for entertainment value only. Are you sure about that? So let's say your elderly mother is living alone after her husband died. He was an art collector, and now she is in the possession of millions of dollars worth of artwork. How do you get all those valuables from her hands into yours? You've got burglary, but the art's going to be reported stolen. You might leave evidence behind. You're going to have to fence it and not get as much value out of it. Murder is just downright messy, and that'll attract a lot of police attention. Well, this woman in Brazil actually found herself in such a situation, and she comes up with a plan far more creative. So this starts back in 2020, and she knows that her 82-year-old mother is prone to mystical beliefs. So she finds an accomplice who pretends to be a psychic, who then allegedly

approaches the mother with the news that her daughter is sick and doomed to certain death. Unless, of course, the mother pays exorbitant amounts of money for her daughter's spiritual treatment, which the daughter also backs up, feeding personal information to several more supposed psychics who corroborate all this bullshit. And so with this, not only do they get some cash, but also a foot in the door. So they proceed to phase two of their plan, telling the mother, oh my God, your art collection is cursed. I hate to say it, but it's cursed with negative energy that needs to be prayed over.

While this is happening, the daughter fires the domestic employees at the house, so her accomplices can start moving in and hauling out the artwork. Though, the mother starts eventually getting suspicious, leading to the masterminds to proceed to phase three, with the daughter going pure evil and allegedly confining her to her home for months

while the group physically threatened her. And all in all, in the end, they allegedly stole over $140 million worth of art, cash, and jewelry. But some of the paintings from renowned Brazilian artists, including three from an especially famous modernist, valued at almost $138 million. With one of those actually found stashed under the daughter's bed, which you can see here with the police holding it up.

And of course, the good news here is that we wouldn't know or be talking about any of this if the authorities hadn't arrested the daughter and several accomplices yesterday. And of course, we're going to have to wait to see what kind of punishment they get, but in the meantime, these are our douchebags of the day. Initially creative, yes, but just downright horrible people. You know, there's no good way to fire employees. There are best ways, but there's no good way.

It sucks for you, it sucks for them, but most importantly, it definitely sucks for them more. And the reason I'm talking about this today is because yesterday, the CEO of Hypersocial, Braden Wallachie, he decided to do a very, very interesting thing. After a round of layoffs, he decides, I'm going to go to LinkedIn and post this. It's a photo of him crying with the text. This will be the most vulnerable thing I'll ever share. I've gone back and forth whether to post this or not.

We just had to lay off a few of our employees. I've seen a lot of layoffs over the last few weeks on LinkedIn. Most of them are due to the economy or whatever other reason. Ours? My fault. And in this, he wasn't completely clear about what led lot of layoffs over the last few weeks on LinkedIn. Most of them are due to the economy or whatever other reason. Ours? My fault. And in this, he wasn't completely clear about what led to the layoffs, only mentioning that he made a business decision back in February that didn't seem to pan out. And writing, Making it very clear that he loves them from the bottom of his heart.

So Braden's intentions seem clear here. He's trying to make clear that he is not a heartless business owner. Or because we've covered stories like a Better.com CEO in the past firing a ton of people through a Zoom call, also just making it all about him. But still, Braden's post was taken more as disingenuous and self-fulfilling, with people writing things like, how about use your network to help those employees find new jobs by tagging them and putting them in the spotlight as opposing to whining about making difficult decisions as a leader and posting a crying selfie. This is one of the most out of touch-touch posts I've seen in a long time.

As well as, yikes, I was just laid off along with many others. If my CEO sent this, I'd probably lose my mind. You're crying, I'm crying, we're crying. You still have your job. Put those tears in a jar and make a potion to help the people's lives you laid off better. This isn't how you show empathy. Do more for your employees that were let go and those still existing. And over on Twitter, you had people mocking the entire platform, saying it was peak lunacy or LinkedIn is not a real place.

Now, in an attempt to be fair to Braden, I do want to note he did make another posting and praises about the individuals that were let go and trying to help them get new work. And while I understand that he was trying to like share this unique thing to him and maybe some of the people that follow him because there are other CEOs, that's a private select group of people conversation. No one needs to see this publicly. Like once again, I get it. It sucks to fire people, especially when you're laying someone off.

It's not because like they did something wrong. But their job, the thing that enables them to live and support themselves because most Americans don't actually have any money in their fucking savings account, it's gone. Like there's a way to be vulnerable and honest about this, but don't turn it into a fucking pity party about you. Like if you wanna think of yourself as a victim in this situation, you are the lowest priority victim.

But anyway, I thought the fun way to end this story isn't going to be like, what's your opinion about this CEO? I think most of us are on the same page, but feel free to correct me. My question instead is, what is the worst way you've ever been fired or let go? But from that, I want to take a second to tell you how I've improved my sleep with today's sponsor, Beam. Quality of sleep and energy levels are very important to me at this point in my life, which is why Beam's Dream Powder has been the perfect addition to my nighttime routine. And Beam's new flavor, Apple Pie Dream Powder, is the season's most delicious nightcap yet. It's just 15 calories, no added sugar. It's got five natural sleep-promoting

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your first month's subscription and 20% off all recurring orders. Plus, that's right, not over, free shipping, a Beam mug, and a frother with your first order. Get in, because this offer is only gonna be available for a week. And then, we should talk about why Democrat Beto O'Rourke, who's running to unseat Republican Governor Greg Abbott

in Texas, said this. It may be funny to you, motherfucker, but it's not funny to me, okay? And as it turns out, that was not O'Rourke's reaction to someone yelling that they find Big Bang Theory funny, but rather he was talking about Uvalde

when someone laughed. I'm gonna make sure that now 11 weeks since we lost 19 kids and their two teachers shot to death with a weapon originally designed for use in combat, legally purchased by an 18-year-old who did not try to obtain one when he was 16 or 17, but followed the law that's on the books, ladies and gentlemen, that says that you can buy not one,

you can buy two or more if you want to, AR-15s, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and take that weapon that was originally designed for use on the battlefields in Vietnam to penetrate an enemy soldier's helmet at 500 feet and knock him down dead. Up against kids at 5 feet. It may be funny to you, motherfucker, but it's not funny to me, okay? You know, all of this ended up sparking a number of debates online, one being about the language that he used. Some happy to see it, saying, fuck yeah, we need more politicians being real with their constituents.

But others saying, no, even if the heckler was wrong, we should do our best to preserve civil discourse. So there you had people pushing back, saying this is just Democrats doing what essentially Donald Trump kicked off. Sir, I'd hit him on the left, I'd hit him on the right. I'd hit him in the fucking center, sir, right center. We'll beat the shit out of them. Let them beat the shit out of ISIS also. They're ripping the shit out of the sea. We're gonna knock the shit out of ISIS.

We're gonna knock the shit out of them. You're not gonna raise that fucking price, you understand? Like if Donald Trump kept a swear jar, there'd probably be enough money in there to pay back all the banks and insurers he defrauded. But I mean, really, as it turns out, ever since Trump did arrive on the political scene, vulgar language has skyrocketed. With a study by GovPredict finding that politicians

swore on Twitter just 193 times in 2016. But just a year later, that number jumped to almost 1600 and then nearly 2600 the year after that. And it's not surprising, in general, people love cursing. Like still to this day, and it's usually new viewers, I still sometimes get shit for how I talk, but this is how I talk in day-to-day life. And personally, if we go back to the specific Beto O'Rourke situation, I'm far more bothered by the fact that someone would laugh or, like, heckle while he's talking about kids being murdered

by essentially weapons of war. The story's obviously different, but it's like we talked about yesterday. People are, like, attaching and getting, like, big reactions on the wrong parts of these stories. And then finally, today, we should talk about the potentially huge, but so far underwhelming update to the execution of the search warrant on Donald Trump's residence at Mar-a-Lago. There have been a lot of questions regarding the specifics here.

What was the probable cause? What did they find during the execution of that search warrant? Because really, for the most part, we've only heard from Donald Trump, who issued a statement after it happened, which is also why you had people saying, hey, Donald Trump and his people, they are in possession of the warrant. They can share the specifics. But so far, despite all the conversation around this, they have kept that to themselves, which may be the reason we saw Attorney General Merrick Garland today issue a live statement

saying, just now, the Justice Department has filed a motion in the Southern District of Florida to unseal a search warrant and property receipt relating to a court-approved search that the FBI conducted earlier this week. With Garland further adding, copies of both the warrant and the FBI property receipt were provided on the day of the search to the former president's counsel who was on site during the search. The search warrant was authorized by a federal court upon the required finding of probable cause. Also going on to say that he personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant. And adding that the department doesn't take that decision lightly. And going on to defend members of the

FBI and DOJ who have been getting attacks since this happened. Right, and so with all that, this is without a doubt big news, but also at the same time felt like this could have been an email. This is the Justice Department saying, okay, you're trying to form a narrative because there's not more information out there. Let's get the information out there. And there may be a legal back and forth here, right? Trump's likely going to want to delay this warrant's release for as long as he can, which would also kind of confirm that the DOJ is just calling Trump's bluff here.

But for now, I think until we actually see the warrant get unsealed, I feel like people are going to be kind of underwhelmed. Or Garland kind of clickbaited us. Or he put out a thumbnail, big news! But then the content of the video is like, is coming soon. So for now, we're going to have to wait and see. But ultimately, that is where that story and today's show ends. As always, thank you for watching, being a part of that conversation down below,

being subscribed to these daily dives into the news. But as always, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love yo faces and I'll see you next time.