The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 8.31 STOP AIRDROPPING ME D**K PICS! Ethan Klein, Doja Cat, Twitter's Dark Secret, China in Chaos & More

Starting point is 00:00:00 Ethan Klein just publicly slapped Triller founder Ryan Kavanaugh in the face with his dick. Metaphorically speaking. Stop it. Get some help. And he did so with the help of Lady Justice. If you don't know, Ethan has a massively successful podcast, the H3 podcast, and Ethan has a relationship with lawsuits, kind of like how I have a relationship with cookies. I know it's best for me not to even have one, but if I'm going to have one, I might as well have seven. Like, I honestly don't know if any other creator out there has had to deal with more lawsuits than

Starting point is 00:00:28 this guy. But I do want to note, he's not the one starting the lawsuits, and he just keeps winning them. With his most recent ones being with Triller and Ryan Kavanaugh. There have been multiple ongoing cases with these two for a while now, with some already coming down in Ethan's favor. Earlier this year, Ethan revealed one case involving a website that he made mocking Triller founder Ryan Kavanaugh had been thrown out. There was also a case where Triller accused Ethan of tortious interference over remarks he made saying that Triller falsely advertised Kevin Hart as a Triller user, with Ethan then filing an anti-slap motion, which was later granted with legal commentator Emily D. Baker explaining that this means the case is dismissed with prejudice, cannot be refiled, and Klein can go after Triller

Starting point is 00:00:58 for all legal fees and costs which they are entitled to based on this ruling. Which brings us to the latest update in this saga because yesterday Ethan tweeted just won 100% of our attorney fees from Triller for their frivolous and malicious lawsuit But adding I doubt I will ever see a scent of that though because they seem to be on the verge of bankruptcy But notably this situation is not over as Ethan himself noted our copyright and defamation lawsuits are still ongoing We will have updates in September Hopefully that copyright suit likely being in reference to one regarding the alleged distribution of a Jake Paul fight, as well as the alleged defamation one likely being one coming from Ryan Kavanaugh. But also taking a closer look at this,

Starting point is 00:01:28 this is not the end of the bad stuff for Triller. What was Ethan talking about with them possibly having to declare bankruptcy? What's the money situation? Are there other problems in Paradise? And as it turns out, yeah, and it seems connected to Doja Cat and Lil Nas X among others. Because while Triller is trying to hit Ethan Klein with a copyright suit, Sony Music's actually trying to get Triller for both copyright infringement and breach of contract, alleging that Triller has failed to pay Sony millions of dollars in licensing fees for songs like Say So by Doja Cat and Old Town Road by Lil Nas X. You know, big, valuable songs that became super viral and popular in content creation. And according to the lawsuit, Sony and Triller began a distribution agreement back in 2016, renewing an amended version in December of 2021, but

Starting point is 00:02:03 Triller allegedly stopped paying fees under the deal. With the suit claiming, while Triller had historically failed to make payments in a timely manner, its failures recently escalated. Starting in March 2022, Triller failed to make any monthly payments required under the agreement, totaling millions of dollars. And saying that after months of Sony Music requesting Triller pay its outstanding and overdue fees and near total radio silence in response, they notified Triller on July 22nd that it was a material breach of the agreement. And adding that after Triller failed to do what they were supposed to do,

Starting point is 00:02:28 Sony terminated the agreement on August 8th, allegedly informing Triller that any continued use of Sony Music content would constitute willful copyright infringement. With Sony Music adding, nevertheless, Triller has continued to reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, display, create derivative works,

Starting point is 00:02:40 and otherwise exploit valuable Sony Music content in connection with the Triller app. And going even further to allege that they actually have money, claiming that during the exact same months that Triller was failing to make licensing payments to Sony Music, it went on a purchasing spree. And noting their recent deals buying Julius and influencer marketing software as well as Fangage, a platform where creators can host and sell content to fans. And so with all this, Sony Music is seeking damages and a jury trial. But also on the other

Starting point is 00:03:01 side of this, it seems like Triller is fighting back, giving a statement to The Hollywood Reporter saying, we have yet to be served, but from what we've seen, this lawsuit from Sony Music grossly mischaracterizes our relationship with them and leans into the bully persona large music labels are often criticized for. Pop meet kettle. We are focused on furthering the creator economy

Starting point is 00:03:17 and we will continue to seek a contract that achieves that goal. But adding, if necessary, we will defend our case in court. And claiming that the process of removing a music catalog is not immediate and as of today all identified Sony Music has been removed from Triller. But also with this, I do want to necessary, we will defend our case in court, and claiming that the process of removing a music catalog is not immediate, and as of today, all identified Sony music has been removed from Triller. But also, with this, I do want to note, this is not like the first lawsuit Triller has faced, even in recent weeks. Getting sued earlier this month by Swizz Beatz and Timbaland, who claim that they're owed payments from Triller over its acquisition of their live-streaming rap battle show, as well as last year, Universal Music pulling its catalog from Triller over

Starting point is 00:03:41 accusations that it was not paying artists for music use. But ultimately, that's where we are right now, and as we look to see what happens next, I want to pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts with all of this? Stop airdropping me pictures of your balls, please, is a very simple and very reasonable request that one pilot had to make of his passengers on a recent Southwest Airlines flight. Because reportedly they're all sitting on the tarmac getting ready to lift off for their destination in Cabo San Lucas, and all of a sudden some people's phones ping and sure enough, when they look down,

Starting point is 00:04:07 they're getting airdrop nudes. Also for non-Apple users, airdrop's just a feature that lets you send files to other Apple devices through Bluetooth. But you know, the pilot gets wind of this airdrop. He's seemingly not impressed by their artistic talent, let's call it. And he's also not someone that keeps his feelings to himself.

Starting point is 00:04:20 So he gets on the intercom and what happens next was caught in this viral TikTok. So here's the deal, this continues while we're on on the ground i'm gonna have to pull back to the gate everybody's gonna have to get off we're gonna get spirit involved and it's vacation that's gonna be rude so you folks whatever that airdrop thing is when sending naked pictures let's get yourself to the combo he's like put your phone in airplane mode and stop sending me pictures of your dick and here's the thing this isn't like an outlier or Are the words plane, airdrop, and nudes being used in numerous sentences? Like last June, you saw this flight attendant also with Southwest, which by the way, what's happening on Southwest?

Starting point is 00:04:52 Are y'all okay? But yeah, this flight attendant confronting a passenger who allegedly airdropped his genitals to others on the plane from a device named Larry's iPad. With him heard telling her, and just so we're all on the same page, this is not a way to ever get out of anything, he was quote, just having a little fun. And as it turns out, this whole thing, it's so prevalent that the whole act of sending unsolicited news through electronic means is already known as cyber flashing and it's already outlawed in states like Texas. And just last week, the California Assembly sent another bill to Governor Gavin Newsom's desk that would allow people who receive this type of content to actually sue the sender. Also talking about airdrops on planes specifically,

Starting point is 00:05:23 it hasn't all been nudes. Like last May on this Turkish flight in Israel, it's about to take off when all of a sudden several passengers get airdrops. But the photos weren't of the forbidden coin purse, but rather videos of planes crashing. Which, by the way, should legally allow those people to stomp you out. One woman got so freaked out from this, she had a panic attack and another reportedly fainted. But the flight then halted and the people responsible detained. So I guess to the people that think this is a good idea, I'll just say't be stupid stupid because the law is catching up with you now. And two, can we just not be dicks to strangers nor show our dicks to strangers unless they ask us nicely? Twitter and porn go together like peanut butter jelly, which makes sense.

Starting point is 00:06:00 It's one of the only social media platforms that doesn't crack down on it. I mean you can't even show a nipple on Instagram, and I've just, I've seen things in a Starbucks line accidentally on Twitter that is a bit much. I'll leave it at that. But all of that makes it all the less surprising that Twitter was actually considering embracing that and even launching an OnlyFans competitor. But, in considering that, realizing, oh my god, we have a huge problem here. So according to documents obtained by The Verge, in spring of this year, Twitter was looking into how it could monetize all the porn on the site. With the basic idea being, hey, let's just make a connected OnlyFans clone. Adult content creators would be allowed to sell subscriptions of their content directly on Twitter.

Starting point is 00:06:31 They're essentially doing that already. It would encourage people to stay on Twitter. It would be a one-stop shop. And there's a ton of money in it. OnlyFans is projected to bring in $2.5 billion in revenue this year, which is a fuck ton of money in general, but also for Twitter. But if Twitter were to somehow hypothetically capture all of that, it'd be a 50% increase in revenue for Twitter. So even capturing a small part of that would be a massive win. However, that's where we started seeing concerns and problems. For concerns, are we going to anger our advertisers, which are currently how Twitter makes most of its money? So reportedly they put together a so-called red team whose job was to pressure test the decision to allow adult creators to monetize on the platform.

Starting point is 00:07:02 And to do so by specifically focusing on what it would look like for Twitter to do this safely and responsibly. And almost immediately, they slammed the brakes on this. Finding that Twitter, as is, actually lacked the ability to police porn on the platform. And of particular concern was the fact that Twitter cannot accurately detect CP and non-consensual nudity at scale. And the red team also concluding that a subscription service would just make this problem even worse. So because of this story and the documents, it's put a spotlight back on the fact that

Starting point is 00:07:26 over the years, researchers have shown that CP and revenge porn have been ongoing problems for the platform. Especially when you consider that much of the content is reported to a database called Photo DNA and used by platforms to quickly match identifying photos and delete them. But obviously that's a situation that just looks backwards. And some reports have found that nearly 84% of the exploitive content on Twitter is new, meaning it's not in the database until they put it in there. And unlike Google or Facebook, both of which have to deal with these same issues, Twitter doesn't have nearly the same resources to automate ways to automatically detect this content as it's failed to turn a profit in eight of the last ten years,

Starting point is 00:07:55 meaning that it actually relies on a team of people to manually sift through all of this. And based on reports right now, it doesn't seem like Twitter is going to do much to expand its abilities. With that being said, some solutions were just way too expensive or could put people's real identities at risk if they were as a data breach. And what appears to be the real nail in the coffin here was that on August 23rd, a group that was looking into how to combat exploitive content allegedly had its priorities changed to stopping spam accounts amid pressure from Elon Musk. But ultimately, that's the situation as it appears now, and we'll have to wait to see if anything changes. Reports of separation anxiety in dogs has spiked over the past few years as pet owners are spending more time at home amid the pandemic. And that's why I want to mention and thank the sponsor of today's show, Cradle. As many of you

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Starting point is 00:09:22 There's a war going on in China right now, and it's being waged between the government, the banks, and a whole lot of fucking furious people who just want their money back. So the story begins with four rural banks in the central Hunan province, where last month we saw hundreds of people protesting outside the local branch of the People's Bank of China,

Starting point is 00:09:36 which was the largest demonstration since the pandemic. And all those people were there because those banks had frozen their deposits since April, leaving as many as 400,000 people unable to access their money. We're talking day-to-day surviving money as well as people's life savings. So understandably, they want their money back, but police and plainclothes security personnel show up and absolutely brutalize them mercilessly,

Starting point is 00:09:55 dragging some downstairs, throwing others into buses. And at the time, nobody knew for sure why these deposits were frozen, except that the government was investigating the banks for illegal fundraising. But now we seem to know more because local authorities announced they have arrested 234 people allegedly involved in China's largest banking fraud scheme ever. Saying that a criminal gang took over the four banks and offered depositors false promises of annual returns as high as 18% or it was basically a Ponzi scheme. And adding that they illegally marketed their services online via third-party platforms even though village banks aren't supposed to take

Starting point is 00:10:23 deposits from outside their local area. Which also isn't too surprising, since small lenders in China tend to be more corrupt, with more opaque ownership and governance structures. And competition from bigger banks has pressured them to seek other ways to attract investors, hence the absurdly high returns. Now, as far as the victims here, the authorities are compensating some of them, announcing the first round of repayments to those with less than $7,200 in deposits right after last month's protests. And now this week, saying depositors with between $58,000 and $72,000 would be the focus of a second round of repayments. With the authorities adding,

Starting point is 00:10:50 after this round of repayments, the centralized repayment work will be largely completed and further matters will be dealt with by the four rural banks. But not everyone has gotten their money back and it is unclear whether or not they will. And very notably, all of this comes as the coronavirus has slowed economic growth in China with a bubbling real estate crisis also threatening to sink the property sector. And that's without mentioning President Poole Bear moving to secure an unprecedented third term at the 20th Party

Starting point is 00:11:11 Congress later this year. So social stability is especially important leading up to that. But ultimately, that's where we are for now, though. I want to go back to China in future episodes to talk about the real estate situation there and what it could mean for the global economy. There's a lot to talk about. Why are people so mean is a real fucking question Donald Trump asked yesterday. The least self-aware man on the planet's like, they didn't let me overthrow democracy the first time. Now we gotta wait a few years to try again? Now, as far as what that's in reference to,

Starting point is 00:11:40 it may be some of the very important news that we need to talk about today. But to where we'll start is the Justice Department has now provided its most detailed account so far on evidence that Trump and his team obstructed justice in the criminal investigation into the classified documents improperly kept at Mar-a-Lago. With the details being laid out in a court filing yesterday, which very ironically was only made by the DOJ in response to the fact that Trump requested to have the seized documents be vetted by a third party. And in this devastating filing,

Starting point is 00:12:03 the DOJ also presents the clearest picture of the extensive efforts investigators took to have the seized documents be vetted by a third party. And in this devastating filing, the DOJ also presents the clearest picture of the extensive efforts investigators took to obtain the documents Trump was wrongfully holding at his estate before they launched the raid. Congratulations, you played yourself. With the DOJ stating that the FBI first reviewed 15 boxes of documents containing 184 classified documents that the National Archives had seized

Starting point is 00:12:19 from Mar-a-Lago back in May. And that only after extensive delays because Trump and his team refused to give them to the archives for several months. with them then attempting to block the FBI from viewing those documents once they finally were obtained for several more months. And following that review, the DOJ developed evidence indicating that dozens of additional boxes remained at the premises that were also likely to contain classified information. So it was only after a result of all of that that they obtained a subpoena to collect the remaining documents.

Starting point is 00:12:41 And after Trump's lawyers requested an extension to turn over the materials, the DOJ went to Mar-a-Lago on June 3rd, and the former president's counsel gave them a single accordion envelope of documents. And, very important here, one of Trump's lawyers, who the DOJ identified as the custodian of records produced, literally signed a letter certifying that, to the fullest extent of their knowledge, there had been a diligent search conducted on the boxes Trump took from the White House. And that, quote, all documents that are responsive to the subpoena had been turned over to the authorities

Starting point is 00:13:05 in that one accordion envelope. But of course, we now know that was not all the documents that Trump had taken, and far from it. With the DOJ explicitly saying that the FBI later uncovered multiple sources of evidence that indicated Trump's team hadn't given them everything, and that classified documents remained at the premises

Starting point is 00:13:19 despite the lawyer's sworn statement. And that investigators had also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the storage room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government's investigation. With all of that, of course, then ultimately leading to the officials to obtain the warrant for the FBI raid with the DOJ going on to say that in just a few hours of that search, the FBI had recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the supposed diligence search at the former President's Council and other representatives had weeks to perform saying it calls into serious question the Representations made in the June 3rd certification and cast doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter filing also

Starting point is 00:13:51 Provided new details about the extent of the classified documents Trump had kept and how secretive they were with agents ultimately taking more than 100 documents in 13 boxes with classification markings including some with the most restrictive top-secret Classifications and writing in some instances even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review, they were required to get additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents. And the DOJ has now even further revealed that the FBI found three classified documents stashed in desks inside Trump's office. It's a ridiculous and damning shit. Also, it's massively consequential for a few reasons. First of all, it gives us some incredibly key insight

Starting point is 00:14:25 into the investigation. Keep in mind here, Trump is being investigated for three violations of federal law, with the first pertaining to the Espionage Act, which covers matters of national security, while the other two pertain to matters of improperly processing and concealing government documents, as well as doing so with the intent

Starting point is 00:14:38 to obstruct an investigation. While the classified documents will likely play a big role in questions of national security, the most important revelations in this new filing concern whether Trump and his legal team intentionally misled the DOJ while continuing to illegally possess and conceal these documents. And another reason this is so crucial is because it also directly contradicts many of Trump's arguments in his defense. Since the raid, Trump has repeatedly claimed that he cooperated with the DOJ, but this filing clearly shows that not only did Trump and his team not cooperate,

Starting point is 00:15:02 they pulled out every stop to prevent officials from seeing and obtaining these documents. They even potentially lied about giving up all the documents they had literally been subpoenaed to give up and concealed hundreds more. And beyond all that, Trump has also continually asserted that the documents were declassified, which is also something he pushed again on Truth Social today and that some were protected by executive privilege. Though, very importantly, his lawyers have never said the files were declassified and top officials have actively refuted that. Now the DOJ has also revealed in his filing that Trump and his lawyers never said that the documents contained both in the boxes seized by the archives nor in the envelope they later gave,

Starting point is 00:15:32 investigators were declassified or protected under executive privilege. So at least the way it looks, looks very fucked up and bad for Trump and his team. But also I will not hold my breath to see him actually held accountable for something. Like I know the reality of most things is like something seems impossible until it's done. But so far, no matter how egregious shit around Trump has been, it feels like people are just trying to like grab water.

Starting point is 00:15:53 And so for now, we just have to wait and see. And that's actually the end of this story and today's show. As always, thank you for watching and being subscribed to my daily dives into the news. No matter what day it is, you can just type in phillyD.tv and there's a new video. We've been posting shorter ones over the weekend in addition to the full-size shows. But of course, as always, my name's Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in. I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow.

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The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 8.31 STOP AIRDROPPING ME D**K PICS! Ethan Klein, Doja Cat, Twitter's Dark Secret, China in Chaos & More

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