The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 8.28 Linus Tech Tips Scandal Updates, Brain Worms, Taylor Swift’s Fast Fashion Problem, Elon Musk, & More

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

Visit https://seed.com/defranco and use code DEFRANCO at checkout to save 30% off your first month’s supply of DS-01® Daily Synbiotic. Catch up on our latest PDS: https://youtu.be/8ZK_nFy3qyY?si=UEK76JSfyp45OZbk Check out our daily newsletter! http://dailydip.co/pds  Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phillydefranco/?hl=en  –✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩ – 0:00 - Linus Tech Tips Addresses Errors in First Video Following Hiatus  02:56 - Parasitic Worm Found for First Time in Australian Woman’s Brain 04:30 - Taylor Swift, Beyonce and Barbie Drive Fast Fashion Purchases 07:07 - Sponsored by Seed 07:58 - Group Protests Self-Driving Cars in SF by Immobilizing Them with Traffic Cones 11:01 - FAA Investigates 5,000 Potentially Medically Unfit Pilots Who Falsified Records 11:54 - Three Dead After Racially Motivated Attack in Jacksonville ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxx Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Star Pralle, Chris Tolve  ———————————— #DeFranco #TaylorSwift #LinusTechTips ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we're talking about huge updates to the Linus Tech Tips controversy and allegations. You've got experts pleading with Swifties and the Beehive to change their ways. The FAA is investigating thousands of pilots who might actually be unfit to fly. We can add brain worms to the list of things we gotta worry about. And we need to break down the tragic shooting in Jacksonville, Florida this weekend. We're talking about all that and so much more in today's brand new Philip DeFranco show. You daily dive into the news, so buckle up, hit that like button, and let's just jump into it. Starting with, we got to talk about big updates to the whole Linus Tech Tips controversy because

they just came back. There were major ethical concerns being raised about how they handle reviews, sponsorship relationships, and error corrections. Not to mention the communication breakdown that led to them selling off products they didn't own alongside allegations that they had a work environment that allowed for sexual harassment. And their new video that they just came back with touches on a lot of these things, but not everything. Such as the sexual harassment allegations, although very notably they did say they were hiring outside investigators to look into it

and they'll publish the results. But what they did talk a lot about was how they want to move forward handling things like errors. First off, saying their team that handles all the actual testing will now be watching review versions of every video to ensure the data is being presented correctly. But also beyond that, there's now a huge set of guidelines in the works that's publicly available to see how they plan to deal with any mistake and whenever they may be caught. Some are considered small mistakes or require no fixes, such as if a sentence is phrased in a way that 99% of people would understand. Or the example they gave was

if they say DisplayPort is better than HDMI. And given their audience, they assume that everyone will understand that they're comparing the most modern versions of those standards. But also saying for different issues, they'll have a huge range of fixes. That includes everything from pinned comments to on-screen fixes to re-shooting sections to just flat out taking a video down. Which one, I'd love to know your thoughts in general, but especially if you're a part of that community,

I would love your reaction to what they're planning here. They also said they're adding a group of 10 or so community members, at least to start, who are experts in their fields, to essentially be a kind of crowd-sourced fact-checking program. You know, while that was about half of the video, it wasn't the only thing they talked about.

Linus also clarified they do actually have an HR team, that it's not just him and his wife handling all the complaints, and it hasn't been that way in a while. He also pointed to benefits that they offer their employees and that they'd be doubling the mental health benefits because... In recent weeks, a shocking number of our team members have been harassed, bullied, and even threatened on social media. So, effective September 2023, we have doubled our coverage for mental health counseling. And all I have to say other than that is that if you're one of the people who engaged in this behavior, I refuse to refer to you as members of our community. You know who you are and shame on you.

Not one of our team members deserved that. We have a zero tolerance policy for any of that crap and we always have with all that you also had linus trying to emphasize that many of the perks benefits hr changes and other things that they addressed have been going on for months or even years so essentially arguing it's not a knee-jerk reaction and as far as the reaction to the video it generally seems positive or their what do we do now video from like 12 days ago has 188 000 likes to 192 000 dislikes but this new video has 167 000 likes to just 18 000 dislikes and but this new video has 167,000 likes to just 18,000 dislikes. And while this new video has fewer views, it seems good for them. Of course, we'll have to look back in the weeks and months and even years to come to see what kind of impact this has. Was it a speed bump

or is this a lasting wound? And then, you know, if I'm being honest, I feel like you don't have enough anxiety in your life. But I'm about to fix that. I'm going to put a new fear in your brain. And that's because there's a 64-year-old woman in the news. She lives in Australia and she complained about pretty much having every symptom you can imagine for three weeks. Right, dry cough, diarrhea, abdominal pain, fever, night sweats. But it wasn't until she came in because she was dealing with forgetfulness and depression that she was sent for an MRI. Which is also when a neurosurgeon working on the case told her colleague, Oh my god, you wouldn't believe what I just found in this lady's brain. And it's alive and wriggling.

Which, hey, I am not a medical professional, but that doesn't sound great. Now fortunately, the doctors were able to get this thing out of the lady's head safely, but they were still at a loss for what exactly it was. They knew that it was a roundworm, but species that affect brains aren't exactly a thing in humans. So they decided to send the still alive worm to a parasite specialist for testing, who then told them it was some worm with an excessively long Latin name. When they identified it, it came as a shock because it's never been recorded in human beings. So the running theory right now is that the 64-year-old woman liked to collect wild grasses for cooking in an

area that's inhabited by pythons, which is the parasite's normal victim. And it's believed that because she used the grasses for cooking, it was passed on to her. So now doctors are moving to try and give her anti-parasite medications to kill off any others that are in her, as well as their larvae. However, they're in a bit of an odd spot. They want to go fast because many organs can be extremely damaged by parasites like this, such as the brain. But at the same time, the body has a tendency to cause massive inflammation in the areas these worms and larvae die, which, you know, swelling in the brain, less than ideal. Yeah, I guess the main point of this story is add worms in brain as a new fun little fear for yourself. And then Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and Barbie have all been boosting the economy this

summer, but have their fans also been killing the planet? That is something that's actually being debated right now for a number of reasons. Because all these events have prompted the millions of people going to them to go and buy a special outfit to match the tour or movie. An outfit that may very well only be worn once, and in many cases, people are turning to fast fashion. An industry that is reportedly responsible for 10% of total global carbon emissions and results in tons of clothes sitting in landfills every year. You know, a lot of retailers have made shopping for these shows a very easy thing to do. And if you're stumped on what to wear to the Eras Tour, you just search Eras Tour on Shein. You get pages and pages of results, some inspired by Taylor's onstage outfits or previous looks,

or just matching certain eras in her career. The exact same also happens when you search for Renaissance Tour or Barbie outfits. And looking back, this is actually kind of a new phenomenon. You know, in the past, people, of course, wanted to look good at concerts. And there have always been people that want to go all out. But this expectation that all 50,000 plus people would be following a strict and extravagant dress code is pretty new. And with that, you actually had sustainability experts telling USA Today that it's tied to a bunch of cultural changes. Where things like post-COVID, you have people extra excited to have some place to go and look good and be a part of something.

And on top of that, social media marketing and the desire to share outfits online have really influenced that. I mean, if you go to TikTok right now, the hashtag eras tour outfits has 1.3 billion views. And that doesn't even include all the related searches having millions or even hundreds of millions of views. Right, so it's this fun thing. It also adds some pressure to do it as well.

And according to one sustainable fashion expert, Alden Wicker, a lot of these outfits just aren't clothes that you can wear in the real world every day. And some pointing out that it's not just influencer culture. You also have artists like Beyonce telling concertgoers herself to match a certain look. But they're asking fans going to shows of fall and Virgo season, which is the end of August or most of September, to wear sparkly silver outfits so the crowd looks

like one big disco ball. And what? You're just not gonna listen to Beyonce? So you have all these fans who are attending shows in just a matter of days going like, oh shit, I gotta do something. And so of course, the thing that's gonna be most accessible is fast fashion. But you also have outlets noting that many are slamming Etsy with orders. So there you're gonna have like a mixture of different production chains. And so all of that is part of the reason you have some experts saying,

hey, if you wanna have your cake and eat it too, look into selling and buying secondhand. You spend less, you give that outfit another life. And in fact, some are already doing that. With Poshmark saying that sales for items with Erez Tour in the description have gone up 350% since March and sales with the term Renaissance have gone up 500% since May. And while personally I I'm of the mindset of like, fuck companies like Shein,

I think a big part of the road of success, or at least mitigating the negative, is definitely going to be the secondhand market, because it is kind of just fun to dress up for something. Like, I live in my beautiful bastard gear. Like, it's 101 degrees outside. I'm wearing my hoodie inside. It feels like the hugs I wish I got as a child. But going to the theater and seeing people dressed up for Barbie, it felt like, oh, there's something happening. When I went to Taylor Swift, it was like, oh, we're all a part of something. And, you know, I could be a wet blanket about it and be like,

everyone needs to do better. And it just doesn't feel like you're setting yourself up for success and mass adoption if you're just like, stop having fun. So, you know, you navigate accordingly, and I think that's a secondhand. But that said, what are your thoughts here? And then I want to take a second to talk about today's fantastic sponsor and something that's been a game changer for me, Seed's DS01 Daily Synbiotic. We're all hearing a ton about gut health these days. With over 3.8 million

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a supremely awkward moment to millions of people during a demo of Tesla's FSD, or full self-driving beta V12 software. With him seen driving the vehicle toward an intersection, but when the car tries to run straight through a red light, he has to step in. Like I said, this is a little slow because we're driving around

and basically rush hour. Oh, intervention. Sorry. Okay. So that's not post intervention. Now in his defense, the software on display in that video isn't available to the public yet, so they're still working out the kinks. Plus Tesla and other autonomous vehicle companies argue that their self-driving cars are safer than the human controlled alternative. But notably, this is not an isolated incident and incidents like this have still produced a chronic PR headache for the companies. In fact, according to a Washington Post analysis in June, there were 736 US crashes since 2019 involving Teslas in autopilot mode, and that number growing faster in recent months. It was also including at least 17 fatal incidents,

11 of which happened since May of 2022. And so we've seen a growing chorus of voices demanding a number of things. Some just want regulation, other want complete abolition of self-driving technology. And one of the biggest hotspots of anti-autonomous vehicle activism has been San Francisco, which you know has really emerged as a testing ground for the technology. Right there, the two big companies are General Motors, Cruise, and Alphabet's Waymo, both of which offer driverless taxi services throughout the city. And in the past several months, we've seen them run red lights, block crosswalks and bike paths, get stuck in newly poured concrete, and hit and kill a dog. And in fact, just recently, San Francisco police and fire services counted 55 incidents over

the past six months where self-driving cars got in the way of rescue operations, with them doing things like refusing to move for first responders, driving through yellow tape, blocking firehouse driveways, and running over fire hoses. And in one instance, a car reportedly failed to stop while advancing towards firefighters battling a blaze, with one of them even having to smash its window to make it stop. But despite all the issues and the complaints, the California Public Utilities Commission

voted three to one to let the two companies run their vehicles at all hours of the day. And at the time, crews said that it ran 100 vehicles in San Francisco during the day and 300 at night. But then just a week later, the Department of Transportation forced crews to cut that number in half after one of its cars crashed into a fire truck last week.

And now we're also seeing things like an anonymous group of activists called Safe Street Rebel carrying out dozens of so-called coning stunts and protests. Or you might have seen things like people wearing dark clothes and masks darting out onto the road, placing a big orange traffic cone on the car's hood and then running away. And then if all goes to plan, the vehicle's side lights should start flashing orange and it just sits there completely immobilized until someone comes and removes the cone. With one of the organizers explaining that it's meant to create this captivating image. Where you have one of these self-driving cars with billions of dollars of venture capital investment money and R&D just being disabled by a common traffic cone. But notably, all of this happening

as these cars are spreading out nationwide. Waymo is already giving rides in Phoenix and is testing human safety drivers in Los Angeles and Austin. And Cruise is offering rides in Phoenix and Austin and testing in Dallas, Houston, Miami, Nashville, and Charlotte. And so as far as if this industry is going to be boom or bust and how many people do or don't die in the process, we're going to have to wait to see. Because I will say, it feels like it's all but guaranteed that this is going to be a part of our future. And so it feels like in the meantime, the only question is, what is the road going to be like? How paved or unpaved is it? And then air traffic controllers are short-staffed and overworked. Planes are having near misses multiple times a week,

and now we're finding out that many pilots may actually be unfit to fly. With the Washington Post reporting that the FAA is looking into nearly 5,000 pilots suspected of falsifying their medical records to conceal mental health disorders and other serious physical conditions that would bar them from the cockpit. And reportedly about 600 of these pilots are licensed to fly for passenger airlines, with most others holding commercial licenses for things like cargo firms, corporate clients, or tour companies. And as far as how this was uncovered, many of these pilots allegedly downplay their medical conditions at the FAA, and then exaggerate them to the VA to maximize their benefit. And so VA investigators discovered

these discrepancies when they cross-referenced federal databases more than two years ago. But up until now, the details of the case were just hidden from the public. So now the FAA has reportedly closed about half of those cases, And with that, has ordered about 60 pilots whom the agency called a clear danger to aviation safety to cease flying on an emergency basis while their records are reviewed. Many of them also being considered for prosecution of their alleged disability fraud. And then we have to talk about the tragic mass shooting

that happened in Jacksonville, Florida this weekend. Because on Saturday, a 21-year-old white man with tactical gear donning an AR-style rifle and a handgun entered a Dollar General. And there, he shot and killed three black people before taking his own life in an attack that authorities have said was racially motivated. Officials saying the gunman first drove to Edward Waters University, a historically black college, and parked on campus but was denied entry. With the school saying in a statement that a security guard spotted the shooter and asked him to leave after he refused to identify himself. And notably here, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said during

a news conference yesterday that it remains unclear why the gunman chose to park at the college, which is near the Dollar General. Right now, he does not believe that the gunman actually intended to target anyone at the school, saying, it looks to me that he went there to change into whatever he needed to change into. The shooter being seen putting on a bulletproof vest and latex gloves before driving away, which the college also reported in a call to police, notifying them of a suspicious person. But after that, he drove to the Dollar General near campus and entered the parking lot, firing 11 rounds into a car and killing the first victim. He then entered the store and opened fire using the AR-style rifle, which authorities said was painted with white swastikas. And while in the store, he shot and killed two other victims,

including one man who entered the store with his girlfriend. Very notably here, Sheriff Waters said he didn't shoot at anyone in the store who was white. And reportedly, at one point, he even allowed several people, including some white people, to leave the store during his rampage. Police then arrived 11 minutes after the attack began, which is when they believe the gunman killed himself. Also, according to the sheriff, the shooter texted his father during the shooting and told him to break into his room and go on his computer, where the father said he found a suicide note, a will, and racist writings, with his family then calling the police. But of course, by then, the shooting was already underway. And in the presser yesterday, Waters described the racist writings as manifestos that detailed

his hatred of black people and saying, Also now, very significantly here, police have said that the gunman was involved in two concerning events prior to the shooting. The first taking place in 2016 when police received a domestic violence call over an incident concerning the attacker and his brother. Though there, no arrests were made. And then a year later in 2017, he was committed to an involuntary 72-hour psychiatric evaluation under a Florida law that allows people to be held for examination during a mental health crisis. But despite that, he didn't have a criminal record and so officials said that he was able to legally purchase both guns used in the attack. And Waters saying, There was no criminal arrest history. There is nothing we could have done to stop him from owning a rifle or a handgun.

There were no red flags. But to that, you had a lot of people saying, what the hell are you talking about? How are those two incidents not the definition of a red flag? Many others calling for more to be done, though the more to be done means different things to different people. With conservatives in the state saying this is a mental health crisis. Many people arguing back, racism isn't a mental health problem. Instead saying it's a symptom of deeply rooted hate and white supremacy, which is even sometimes amplified and promoted by the same people fighting common sense gun control, which is also why we saw tons of social media users taking direct aim at Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a man who has actively undermined gun

control restrictions while also passing policies and using rhetoric that many have condemned as racist, which is also why we saw videos going viral of DeSantis literally being booed when he showed up at a vigil for the victims yesterday. And that is where today's daily dive into the Thank you for doing this. I wanted to say to the council women, council women. And that is where today's daily dive into the news is going to end. But for more news you need to know right now, you can click or tap right here to watch, or I got you covered in those links down below. And if you've already seen everything, don't worry, 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.