The Young Turks - All The Same

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

The Congressional Progressive Caucus has agreed with Nancy Pelosi’s plan to enforce Biden’s rail deal. Mentally ill individuals will now forcefully be taken off the streets of New York City. Tucker Carlson tells his viewers that Apple is always watching, and sending your personal information to the Chinese government. Host: Ana Kasparian Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Woo! It's up! Welcome to TYT. I'm your host Anna Kasparian, and we have a massive show ahead for you today. Some pretty big and unfortunately disappointing updates on the rail. strike and how Congress has intervened to prevent the strike from happening.

At least the House has so far. We'll tell you the details on that. Later in the show, we will also talk about algorithms snatching up more single family homes, turning them into rentals for private equity firms, who then, you know, don't even waste a single moment having face-to-face meetings with the tenants that they rent these apartments to. So it's an incredible story. You don't want to miss it. That'll be in the second hour, and John Ida Rola will be here to talk about that story with me. Also, sexism on the world stage when it comes to female world leaders.

That's a story that broke pretty soon before we went on air, and we're going to share that story with you. It's incredible. And probably one of my favorite stories of the day, not because I enjoy what's going on, but because I think it's important for you to know about, has to do with this right wing war on Apple. What is leading to it? What are the motivating factors behind it? It's important to know what's really going on. So we'll discuss that as well. All that good stuff is coming up. Don't miss it. And as always, you can like and share the stream if you are watching us on YouTube or on social media. and that helps to get the message out for TYT and the progressive message is important to get out there,

especially when we're competing with moneyed interests and corporate media. Without further ado, let's give you the rail strike update. Well, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi certainly followed through on her promise to President Joe Biden to essentially assist rail companies in screwing over their workers as the employees just keep asking for the bare minimum in paid sick leave. Four days, that's all. But these companies refuse to do it. And since the unions have not reached a deal with the employers in this case,

there's this looming rail worker strike that could occur as soon as December 9th. Well, earlier this week, President Joe Biden stepped in and asked Congress to intervene to essentially prevent these workers from striking. And unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, Nancy Pelosi did deliver. Now, before we get to that devastating update, it's important to understand the background to this story, especially if this is the first time you're hearing about it. We have covered it in the past, but just quick summary of what's transpiring. So the nation's 115,000 rail workers currently receive no paid sick leave.

Zero. Major railroad companies could provide every worker with a week of pay. paid sick leave for just $321 million, which doesn't sound like, you know, it's a small amount of money. But then you consider the fact that it's less than 2% of their annual profits. Judd Legham doing great work over at Popular Info. Definitely subscribe to his substack. I love the work that he does. In addition, rail workers have been asking for just four days of paid sick leave, but railroad companies are offering none. So the workers are threatening to strike starting on December 9th. Now, if they were to strike, that would be disastrous for

the economy and certainly politically disastrous for Joe Biden, which is why he completely changed his tune from who he was in the 1990s when he was not in favor of Congress intervening to prevent a rail strike and decided to pressure Congress to pass legislation preventing the rail strike. And again, Nancy Pelosi did in fact deliver. Now, it's important to keep in mind that the White House had previously negotiated a new union contract that the union members rejected because while it included a pay increase, which is a good thing, it did not include paid sick leave. And that's really the biggest issue for the workers here. Because who doesn't get sick? I mean, they just want to be able to take the time off should they get sick without being

penalized. And they have been penalized in the past. That is the issue here. Now, several House progressives had tweeted that they are not in favor of voting on legislation that would prevent a strike from happening. Late Tuesday, though, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House representatives would hold two votes. Two votes. Okay, interesting. What are the two votes? The House will first vote to impose a contract without sick leave. That's an important part. And that contract is part of the legislation essentially that would prevent them from striking. Then it will hold a separate vote to add seven days of paid sick leave to the agreement.

Now usually when they separate bills like that, they do so knowing full well that the second bill is unlikely to pass. But that's not what happened here. Okay, so let's get to the details. What did happen? Well, they did vote on both bills, wait for the outcome of those bills, but something to keep in mind. Breaking. After some talk that progressive Democrats would torpedo Biden's rail deal, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, just issued a statement signaling that members will go along with the Pelosi plan to enforce Biden's deal, plus vote separately on Bernie's request. And this is really, Bernie's work here. Bernie's request to add seven sick days. Okay, so the vote in the Senate

hasn't happened yet. But this concession by Pramila Jayapal is the most Jayapal move of all time. It really is. And what I love is seeing corporate Democrats on Twitter say things like, you know, Jayapal really should be considered as Speaker of the House or the next Democratic leader in the House of Representatives. Interesting how they're all like rallying in support of her all of a sudden. It's going to be Hakeem Jeffries, but nonetheless, I digress. Let's move on. Now, now, per se.

Progressive lawmakers postured as warriors for the rail workers yesterday. I'll give you one example. AOC, for instance, again, yesterday tweeted, railroad workers grind themselves to the bone for this country as their labor produces billions for Wall Street. They demand the basic dignity of paid sick days. I stand with them. If Congress intervenes, it should be to have workers backs and secure their demands in legislation.

I agree, AOC. See, I totally agree with you on that. So I was really happy to find that you voted no on the legislation that you spoke out against just yesterday. Except you didn't. You voted for the legislation you spoke out against on Twitter yesterday. See, I hope people understand that tweets don't necessarily translate into actions. And in this particular case, the only progressive who voted no on preventing the rail workers from striking was Rashida. Talib and she deserves a world of credit for that. Now, let's get to the other part of it, right?

The other part of this effort was to vote on legislation, a separate bill that would provide some paid sick leave. How did that do? Well, as David Dayan wrote on Twitter, the paid sick leave amendment got three Republicans in the House, hard to see how it'll get 10 Republicans in the Senate. But as you can see from the graphic that he embedded in that tweet, you have the majority of the votes in favor of paid sick leave for the rail workers. So in other words, both bills did in fact pass in the House. It's good that they passed the legislation that would provide the paid sick leave. I'm happy about that. But I am not happy that Congress did in fact vote in favor of preventing the strike from happening in the first place.

And if I were one of the progressive lawmakers, I would have voted no on one of the bills, the one intervening. And I would have voted yes on the other bill that provides an amendment that provides the sick leave that the workers not only demand, but absolutely deserve and should have as part of the new contract. And when it comes to the Republicans, I want to focus on that for just one minute, because I think that's an important angle to the story. It gives you a sense of some of the strategizing that Republican lawmakers are doing, certainly in the Senate. And the strategizing,

in my opinion, has more to do with messaging than outflanking the left on labor issues. Okay, so I'll give you an example. So Senator Josh Hawley claimed for an administration that claims to be pro labor, it seems like a bit of a pickle, meaning the Biden administration wanting Congress to intervene to prevent the strike. And Holly had signaled that he might consider voting in favor of Bernie's amendment, you know, to provide seven days of paid sick leave. Okay, I'll believe it when I see it because if recent history indicates anything at all about Josh Hawley, he is already on the record voting against paid sick leave for federal workers.

homeboy doesn't care about sick leave. Homeboy likes to position himself in posture as some sort of economic populist. But when push comes to shove, he's a good boy for his corporate donors. And he does what they ask him to do. And there's no way I'm going to believe that he's going to vote in favor of providing sick days until I see it. I hope he proves me wrong. Another tweet that I want to draw attention to. So Senator Cruz, meaning Ted Cruz, of course, calls rail worker demands.

for more paid sick leave, reasonable. Oh, wow, wow, everybody. Wow. Ted Cruz says that four days of paid sick leave for rail workers is reasonable. Great. So while I see all of the positive headlines in regard to these Republican senators, I would just ask reporters. I would ask these publications to maybe find the two brain cells to rub together

to determine whether or not these individuals are just looking for the positive press, or if they're actually willing to do the work necessary to get these workers, the four days, seven days in this case, seven days, that's the Senate bill, seven days of paid sick leave that they're asking for, that Bernie Sanders is asking for in the legislation. The workers are asking for four days of paid sick leave, and they have been denied the sick leave. It's just such an insane story, and it gives you a sense,

of how far corporations are willing to go to maximize their profits. Because since 2018, the four major rail companies in this country, and there's only two on each coast, have fired 20% of their workforce, 20% since 2018. You know why they did that? Cut costs, maximize profits. They see labor as a massive cost that eats away at their precious, precious profits. And by the way, they're doing real well when it comes to their profits.

I mean, record profits, they're doing stock buybacks, they're paying dividends to their investors. But, you know, they just can't afford to hire more people to give their rail workers four days off if they get sick per year. That's what this is really about. When you have cut down your workforce so significantly that the remaining workers are forced into overtime, they're forced into working shifts that they can't work because they might have a family emergency, they might get sick, they don't care about any of that stuff. And for anyone who's wondering, well, okay, so Congress voting to prevent a strike from happening, like what does it matter? How much of an impact does it have? can't these workers still go on strike? Well, if they decide to strike in solidarity, regardless of the legislation, it would be considered a wildcat strike. Keep in mind that

the rail companies would be free to hire anyone to replace them. I mean, there are 115,000 workers, so they would have to go on a hiring spree, and it would take some time for sure. But since it's a monopolized industry, the companies don't care. If they're there's some sort of issue as a result of a strike, because what are we going to do if they do go on strike? What are we going to do if there are supply chain issues, if the economy takes a hit to the tune of $2 billion a day as a result? There's nothing we can do about it. It's not like they're going to be punished for it. It's not like we have any other options. Again, when you have a monopolized industry and you don't have options, these companies can do whatever they want. And the workers know

that. And so the likelihood of them doing a wildcat strike is, in my opinion, low. And I'm not basing that off of nothing. Jonah Furman over at Labor Notes has been doing really great reporting on this. Follow him on Twitter, follow his work over at Labor Notes. And he said something similar. I think the fact that we're dealing with a monopolized industry is really putting these workers at a huge disadvantage if they're considering, you know, engaging in a wildcat strike. But I mean, we'll see how this all plays out. These industries, these companies, these corporations that have their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders that seek to maximize profits will do anything and everything necessary to ensure that they do

maximize their profits, even if it's incredibly cruel to their workers to deny them just four days of paid time off. It is insane. So that's where we are with that story. I would argue one of the most important stories in the news today. And we'll keep covering it. We'll keep giving you updates as we learn more. For now, though, we are going to probably take a break. Let's do that. Let's take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about a controversial issue in New York City where the mayor, Eric Adams, is proposing involuntary custody of individuals suffering from severe mental health issues, that story and more coming right up. by Glenn Greenwald for saying that he never says anything relevant to the average American

anymore. Such a pro free speech kind of guy, guess he was extra mad because I got Twitter blue and still called him out. It's amazing. Yeah, he gets real sensitive on Twitter. I've definitely seen that happen. Anyway, let's get to our next story. This is a controversial one that, in my opinion, deserves a lot of nuance. And you're not going to get that on Twitter where a lot of the conversation about it is taking place. So let's get into it. Let's talk about what Eric Adams is up to and what his latest directive is in New York City. New York mayor, Eric Adams, has announced an effort to involuntarily commit people who have

severe and untreated mental illnesses. And he is facing a lot of backlash as a result. And to be quite clear, the backlash in a lot of ways is accurate because of the vagueness of what he's proposing here, the lack of resources that I'm noticing when it comes to treating mental health patients, and also just the factors necessary to determine whether or not someone should be involuntarily committed. These are questions that need very specific answers to, and unless he can provide those answers, this could be a disaster. But with that said, for everyone who thinks that involuntarily committing someone is always wrong and

you should never do it, I do disagree with them. And so let me make my case, beginning with the details of what Eric Adams wants to do. So the effort will involve hospitalizing people involuntarily, even if they do not pose an imminent risk or harm to others. And his argument here is Why do we have to wait for them to hurt others to give them the care that they so desperately need? And I hear you on that, but you also have to balance the fact that people have civil liberties and it is very serious for the state to control a person's body. It is very serious for someone to lose their bodily autonomy. And that is essentially what happens when someone is involuntarily committed. Let's be real about that.

So the factors in determining who should be involuntarily committed need to be very specific. They need to be clear. And I'm not really seeing that here. And I'm concerned about that. Now, according to Adams, the common misunderstanding persists that we cannot provide involuntary assistance unless the person is violent. This myth must be put to rest. Going forward, we will make every effort to assist those who are suffering for mental illness and whose illness is endangering them by preventing them from meeting their basic human needs.

So I've said this before, I'm going to say it again. We've gotten to this point where a lot of these big cities do have people living on the street suffering from severe mental health issues, partly because we don't have a health care system that works. It's a privatized model that price gouges the hell out of people. And if individuals were able to get basic yearly checkups, if people felt comfortable going to the doctor, if they notice that there's something wrong, there's something going on, maybe they're not feeling so great. That would, in my opinion, solve a lot of this. And we could have prevented getting to the point where we're at now, okay? But with that said, again, I just, I'm uncomfortable with,

Well, I mean, even if the person isn't really posing a threat to anyone else or themselves, if we see that they're suffering from severe mental illnesses, we're going to decide that we're going to involuntarily commit them. I don't, I don't think that's a good idea. I'm just being honest with you guys. There are instances in which where it does make sense, and I'll get to that in a moment. But let me give you more details about what Eric Adams has said and what he plans on doing. There are other issues as well. So the city said it would roll out training immediately to police officers, let's pause right there. Let me read that again, actually. The city said it would roll out training immediately to police officers. Okay, the NYPD has not been reformed

in any way. A lot of the issues that we've had with the NYPD persist. So, okay, you're talking about training. What does that training entail? Because the idea of having the NYPD respond to people who are suffering from severe mental health issues is already a major red flag for me, but I'll continue. So immediately to police officers, emergency medical services staff, and other medical personnel to ensure compassionate care. But the city's new directive on the policy acknowledges that case law does not provide extensive guidance regarding removals for mental health evaluations based on short interactions in the field. So you guys are seeing the red flags, right? I mean, I don't think I need to spell it out for you. When it comes to something as serious as

someone's bodily autonomy, we need to be very clear about what the factors are. How do we determine that someone is a risk to themselves and to others? The idea of just having police determine like, oh, that person looks like they might have a mental health issue, let's involuntarily commit them. That doesn't sound like a good idea to me. We need specific we need clarity, we're not getting that here. Now, Adams partly addressed these concerns during a lengthy press conference yesterday. Watch the whole thing. Here is a snippet where he addresses issues with civil liberties.

I know some people may look at what we're doing, saying that we are trying to do something to take away the right of people. No, we're not. The right is that people should be able to live in dignity. There's nothing dignified about living a month without having a shower. There's nothing dignified by using the corner of a tent as a restroom or having smote old food sitting there or talking to yourself, being disillusionable, or waiting until you carry out a dangerous act before we respond. That is just so irresponsible that we know that this person is about to probably go off the edge

and harm someone, but we're going to wait until it happened. So I partly agree with what he's saying there. Everyone deserves to have dignity, to have a safe place to live, healthy, clean food to eat. Everyone deserves that. So I do not agree with the libertarian approach that's masquerading as progressivism in some of these big cities where it's like, you know, I mean, they want to, they want to like live on the streets and they want to, you know, this is what they want, then you should, you just let them do what they wanted. No, I don't agree with that. But at the same time,

if we're talking about involuntarily committing people, I mean, there could be a lot of cruelty in that as well, which is why, again, there is a place to involuntarily commit some folks, but you have to be clear on who that would entail. What would the factors be again? Now, there's more to this. He also makes clear that he intends to get law enforcement involved, and that does open the door to some serious civil liberties violations, considering that cops have not been reformed.

So I just want to play this video because he's very specific here. He is very clear that he intends on using the NYPD to carry this out. Let's watch. You can't solve the problem from an ivory tower. And so we're saying to our responders that we want you to be engaged, make the right determination if a person is not taking care of their basic needs. And if you can't answer the question, call the clinical experts and use your FaceTime, use whatever devices you have to go a video and show. This is what I have in front of me. Does this meet the criteria that police officer on patrol in the subway system on the street?

They're going to be handing it off to the professionals, officers who are trained to use the sensitivity, they care. You know, because taking the officer off patrol to spend an hour and a half, an hour to engage this person with the necessary care and patience that's needed, that is not a good use of manpower. So that officer comes into a condition that needs to be corrected, they're going to hand it off to the team of officers, police officers, who have a deeper training than the surface training that an everyday police officer would work. So it's about the coordination. Look, I have to just address the incredibly big distraction behind Eric Adams. Like the beautiful woman behind him who looks very uncomfortable, but also kind of looks like she's posing for the camera. It's amazing. Anyway, this is a serious story.

Let's move on. I didn't mean to bring that up, except I did, because it's again, very distracting. But yeah, look, again, okay, what is the training though? Who does the training? What inform the training? What kind of resources are being allocated to ensure that there's not only training but clear oversight of the police as they engage in this activity? There's a lot of questions here, but let me continue.

Right now, if someone is suffering from an episode and they have a severe mental illness, they'll be taken to a hospital, they'll be like a 5150 hold, but that's only for 72 hours. After that, they're just released back out onto the streets where they're very likely to suffer from another mental health issue, another episode. So the system that we have right now certainly does have some issues. I'm not denying that. Now, Adam said the city would direct hospitals to keep those patients until they are stable and to discharge them only when there is a workable plan in place to connect them to ongoing

care. That sounds good, and there is a little more clarity on that in the next clip. So let's watch that, and then I'll discuss some of the other issues I have. I think one of the tricky things about this is that you're really going to have to look at the cases case by case because we're really looking at people who not only can't make their basic meet their basic needs, but also that's causing them to be in danger. So right now we have hundreds of outreach workers at the Department of Health, folks in H&H, also in the police department and EMS, who get to a situation and feel like they need a little bit more clarity. So today we

want to give them some more clarity so that they can make that good assessment to be able to transport that person to the hospital. But to remember, that's only the first step. The next step is that you need to go to the hospital. It's going to be a doctor who's going to make that evaluation and to see whether or not the person needs to be kept or not. Okay. She certainly does a much better job explaining how this will work than Eric Adams does. And I would like to hear more from actual mental health professionals on this matter

and how this is really going to be carried out. But the final part of this that I have an issue with is the lack of resources. So for instance, Eric Adams was asked, okay, well, do you have enough hospital? beds for this? And he's like, oh, don't worry. Kathy Hokel, governor of New York, she's committed to providing 50 additional beds. What? That's your answer to a very important question, by the way. Good job to the reporter who asked that question during that press conference, by the way. Great question about the resources and the need for beds. That's your answer, though, 50 beds that Kathy Hokel said like, sure, yeah, yeah, no, I commit to that.

We'll get around to that eventually, sure. You're not going to be able to carry this out effectively and in a way that is really considerate of people's civil liberties, that's compassionate, that actually offers the care that people need if you're not ensuring that you cross your T's dot your eyes and have the resources and training in place to ensure it's carried out appropriately. And so far from what I've seen, there are too many red flags. And again, I think that there is a place for policies like this, but you have to be super careful because civil liberties are important, bodily autonomy is important, and involuntarily

committing someone is not a small deal. It is a big deal. And we have to protect people and their rights. Now, at the same time, I completely disagree with those who say there is no place ever for involuntary commitment. And while I don't live in New York and I don't have specific instances to bring up right now, I do have some specific stories that have occurred in Los Angeles over the last few months that I want you to consider if you are just a zero tolerance type of person when it comes to involuntarily committing people.

Just a few days ago, there was a woman on the five freeway in Los Angeles. So let's go to this headline. It's from CBSLA. Naked woman on five freeway near Gorman area detained following crash. She was completely naked. She was carrying a teddy bear. She's literally walking on the freeway. And that leads to a crash. Originally, I thought no one was hurt, but it turns out that one person died as a result of that crash. So this woman could have been hurt.

One person did in fact die as a result of the car crash. And so what is the compassionate response to that? Really, I want you guys to consider it. Is the compassionate response to just leave her alone, where she's, she most certainly eventually will die or get hurt from her clear mental illness. I don't think that's compassionate at all. And so I would prefer for her to get the mental health treatment that she so clearly needs. But again, the devil is in the details.

And if Kevin Newsom was proposing what Eric Adams is proposing in New York, again, I would have issues with it because there's a lack of clarity, a lack of resources, and it's just, it feels like he just wanted to roll it out without thinking it through and being careful about how this would be implemented. I'll give you another story. There was another recent incident in Los Angeles and it was pretty close to where I live. So I got to be honest, I've been thinking about it a lot, even though it happened a few months ago. The Los Angeles Police Department said in a release that on October 10th at 1130 a.m., a 22-year-old woman,

was walking down Lancashem Boulevard in North Hollywood when an unhoused man who authorities identified as Jonathan Cole walked in her direction. As the two passed each other, Cole, without provocation, stabbed the victim in the head with a pair of scissors. They were actually gardening shears. The victim with the scissors embedded in her head fled to a local restaurant where she asked for help

and then collapsed on the floor, according to the LAPD. She had to have surgery. There were skull fragments incredibly close to, like close to her brain that they tried to, they were trying to remove, but they realized it was actually more dangerous to remove that bone fragment. So they left it there. And look, clearly a guy attacking a 22 year old woman without any provocation has mental health issues, clearly. So is it compassionate to him and to the community to just say, like,

I don't know, he's got mental health issues, but it's super cruel to involuntarily commit him? Just ask yourself that. I don't know, you might, you might disagree with me, but I think it's actually a lack of compassion to let people, like, wither away and die on the streets from their mental health conditions. Because some people are going to deny the help. Some people are going to reject it. And that's, it's not uncommon. You know, my best friend's a social worker, one of her clients in his early 20s was diagnosed with schizophrenia and he was in denial about it. He didn't want to accept it and refused to get treatment. He came from a wealthy family too. And he ended up on the streets because he did not want to take medication and he didn't

want to accept that he had a mental health condition. So in some cases, as difficult to as it is, I think the state does need to step in and provide the care, even if the individual who desperately needs it is rejecting it. But we have to do it in a way that keeps people's civil rights in mind, because that does matter. It's important. And then there are two other things I'd want to bring up that happen in L.A. There was a teenage girl who was shot and killed by police at a Burlington Coat factory in North Hollywood, California. I believe it was last year, if I'm not mistaken. And the police got a lot of backlash because they arrived at the scene after there was a call

regarding a man who took a bike lock, one of those big, heavy bike locks and was beating customers at Burlington Coat Factory with it. The video was horrific, really difficult to see it. When the cops arrived, they start shooting at him and one of the bullets went through a dressing room and hit the 14 year old girl and she died. And while I think it's totally fine to criticize the way police handle that situation, no one wanted to focus on what started that story in the first place, which was a mentally ill individual who was beating the crap out of random people at a Burlington

coat factory with a bike lock. So these issues matter, they're difficult, they're uncomfortable to talk about, but we got to be real about it. And I think in these extreme cases, involuntarily committing people make sense. But we got to ensure that we've thought through, carefully thought through all the details. And unfortunately, I'm not really seeing that with Eric Adams and what he rolled out just recently. all right the new bemo

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in your first thirteen months terms and conditions apply visit bemo dot com slash the i porter to learn more. You gotta take a quick break. We're doing some deep dives today. When we come back, Elon Musk has been going to war with Apple. Why? What's motivating it?

We've got the details on that and more coming right up. Quick comment from our viewer, Pumpernickel 33, who's a New Yorker, and this has to do with the last story I covered in the last segment. Hey, Anna, New Yorker here, not understanding why Eric Adams is involving the NYPD and not the Department of Homeless Services or Mental Health and Hygiene. Plus, NYC government has a hiring freeze. So what about staffing? Really, really great points. and did not realize that NYC was in the middle of a hiring freeze. That is an important factor to take into consideration when it comes to this policy.

All right, well, let's move on to Elon Musk and his war with Apple. So would Apple do this well? Several tech developers are coming forward to confirm that this is exactly how Apple operates and has for years. So when Apple threw the social media company parlor off the app store, remember that because they allowed Donald Trump to speak? You thought it was an anomaly, but it wasn't. Tucker Carlson is joining the chorus of right wingers who have gone to war with Apple over claims that Elon Musk has made about Apple on Twitter. Now, Musk claims all sorts of things, including the fact that Apple has threatened to withhold Twitter from its app store, but won't tell us why. Now, is there any truth to that?

We don't know because there is no confirmation of that. Apple has not said anything publicly about taking Twitter off of its app store. There's no indication whatsoever. And Elon Musk, I mean, I don't know if I'm just going to take what he says at face value. Now, Apple does have strict rules for its app store that limits objectionable content. So that includes discriminatory content related to religion, race, and sexual orientation. It also restricts overly realistic violence and pornographic material. So there are some standards for Apple's app store and maybe Elon Musk knowing full well that he likes to harbor all sorts of hate speech and unsavory individuals on Twitter is concerned that Apple might ban Twitter from its app store as a result of what he's fostering on.

on the social media platform. But regardless, this has, in fact, sparked a cacophony of right-wing backlash from people like Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida, and yes, Tucker Carlson. So let's hear more from him and why he's so, so concerned about Apple. Even the most cynical observers assumed that big tech companies like Apple, censored speech, yes, they do, but only in extraordinary circumstances. Oh no, they do it all the time. In fact, Apple engages in large-scale secretive censorship,

and always and everywhere, Apple helps the Chinese government. So preventing American citizens from saying what they believe or getting to the truth about something while bolstering the power of one of the most repressive governments in the world. This summer, for example, an FTC commissioner called Brendan Carr went to Apple about TikTok. TikTok was and is on the app store. No threat of TikTok being kicked off. And the FTC commissioner told Apple that TikTok was likely harvesting private user data from hundreds of millions of Americans and sending those data back to China. Now Apple must have known that what

Carr was telling them was likely true, but Apple ignored him anyway and did nothing. Fascinating. Well, update to this story that I just learned about, because Elon Musk tweeted this 39 minutes ago and I was already on air. He says, good conversation with Apple. Among other things, we resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the app store. Misunderstanding, interesting. It seems like you just accused Apple of wanting to do something when you had no indication

that they were planning on doing it. But he continues to say, Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so. Cool, so why did you think they were considering it? Did you just make it up? Seems like you made it up. Now going back to Tucker Carlson here, who's very concerned about TikTok. He is very concerned about data harvesting. You guys were all concerned about data harvesting.

I mean, TikTok's, oh, TikTok's doing data harvesting? Whoa, okay, it's true, and you should be concerned. But my argument is you should be concerned about every website doing the same thing, literally every website. So over, and by the way, you should be concerned about not only TikTok, doing it, but you know, companies like TikTok doing it as well. Over 571.8 million dollars of Twitter's revenue in fiscal year 2021 was from data licensing and other sources. Data licensing means they collect your data as you use the site or the app.

They then take your data and they sell it to third parties, including advertisers, data brokers. Revenue for the segment grew 12.3% compared to the previous. here. Twitter also sells data licenses that enable its data partners, meaning the third parties, to access and analyze historical and real-time data on the company's platform. So data harvesting is not good, regardless of who does it. Whether it's the Chinese government, whether it's TikTok, whether it's a U.S.-based social media platform, I don't like it when Twitter does it. I don't like it when TikTok does it. And it's just so fascinating that as soon as their daddy complains about Apple, oh, the right wingers line up. Yes, Daddy, yes, yes, yes. We will go

to war with Apple, Daddy. We will do it just for you. Elon Musk is such a genius. He's such a genius that he fired people that he desperately needed for the company to run smoothly. But let me continue. Oh, by the way, for Tucker, you know who else does data harvesting? Fox News. So let's get to those details, and this is from foxnews.com slash privacy dash policy. When you access and interact with the Fox News services, Fox News and its service providers may collect certain information about those visits. If you access the Fox News services from a mobile or other device, we may collect a unique device identifier assigned to that device, geolocation data, including your precise location, or other transactional information

for that device. Cookies and other tracking technologies such as browser cookies, pixels, beacons, local storage and other mechanisms use various approaches to collect and store data. These technologies may also be used to collect and store information about your usage of the Fox News services, such as pages you have visited, search history. No, no, bring it back up. I'm not done yet. Bring it back up. Search history. Mm-hmm. And the video and other content you have viewed. There we go, that's the graphic. Okay, so the last part.

So, wow, data harvesting sounds like a big deal, everybody. Right? I'm sure Tucker will do another lengthy, whiny monologue about data harvesting that's happening at the company he works at, the company that signs his paychecks. I'm sure you will, right, Swanson Boy? Looking forward to it. But let's move on.

Fox News, by the way, may share your information with business partners to permit them to send you marketing communications. It's part of the part of how they make money. It's part of their business model. This is how it works, folks. And so when people are easily doxed because their private information is all over the internet, this is why. Now let's move on.

Here's what's really going on with Elon Musk, if you ask me. Musk made a really dumb decision, okay, in overpaying for Twitter. He overpaid at a minimum to the tune of $22 billion. So he's desperately trying to make money. He's trying to turn this around, make it profitable. And one of the things that really bothered him about Apple was this. And this is actually accurate. Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter.

Do they hate free speech in America? You know what? Yeah, yeah, they do. As most corporations in this country happen to hate. And why do I say that? They hate it because free speech means that people sometimes will say awful, terrible, hateful things. And they don't want to advertise on platforms where they will then be associated with hate speech

or with any speech that might alienate a portion of their customers. They're not doing that because they're moral or because they're concerned about hate speech. they don't actually care that much. What they do care about is alienating customers, because they want to make money. So when you think about the adpocalypse on YouTube, it's not that YouTube decided out of nowhere, like we're just going to demonetize people just to mess with them, because we just want to censor people. It's what we want to do. No, it's because their advertisers were tired of their pre-roll ads and their mid-roll ads

showing up on white supremacist content. They didn't want it. That's what partly led. No, that's what led to the apocalypse. That's part of it, right? And the same thing is happening over at Twitter with Apple. Now, a person familiar with the matter confirmed that Apple has paired back its Twitter ads. The company holds meetings with Twitter to discuss various issues roughly once a week,

just as it does with other major social networking apps, including Facebook and Instagram. Now, the iPhone maker was consistently one of the top advertisers on Twitter, which had, which had, keyword here, an entire team of employees dedicated to helping maintain the relationship, according to two people familiar with the matter. When you fire the team that maintains the relationship with Apple, that might lead to some consequences, including Apple, pairing back their advertising on your platform. You know, Elon Musk is a genius, everybody. He's a genius. He's like the smartest man in the world. He's so smart that he fires the team that he needs to maintain relationships with companies that advertise on the platform. So smart, really, really smart.

And Apple isn't the only company that's reconsidering advertising on Twitter, in fact. So I'm sure there will be many other right-wing meltdowns about so-called censorship regarding some of these companies. A number of large companies have pushed, have paused. their ads on Twitter since Musk took over the company. The exodus included General Mills and Pfizer, and the billionaire acknowledged that the defections led to a massive drop in revenue. Now, why did they do that? It's weird. Is it because, you know, his whole subscription model where you can pay $8 for a blue check mark led to a bunch of randos impersonating real companies and real people

and corporations to put out ridiculous tweets and that turned some of these brands off? Yeah, I think so. I think that that has a lot to do with it. So real smart. And by the way, Phil Schiller, the longtime Apple executive who oversees the app store, deleted his Twitter account after Musk reinstated Donald Trump's account who had been booted from the platform in the wake of the January 6th, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. So I'm sure that hurt Elon Musk's feelings as well. So, I'm just going to leave it there. What this is really about is Musk not wanting to take responsibility for his poor decisions once he acquired Twitter that led to a massive drop in revenue. And he wanted to blame the companies who pared back their advertising on the platform as a result of his decisions.

Look, while all of us keep getting told over and over again by right wing elitist that we really need to take personal responsibility for our lives. Like if we're suffering from poverty, if we're unable to find affordable house, it's really our fault, it's our fault, we need to take personal responsibility. But have you guys ever noticed that these genius billionaire CEOs never want to take personal responsibility for their poor decisions? and they're constantly looking for a scapegoat, they do, right? It's almost as if the whole notion of a meritocracy is BS, really is.

And the whole notion of us needing to take personal responsibility while they allegedly do BS. Anyway, it is frustrating to say the least. All right, I did three stories in that hour, which is, I love Jank, but it is definitely Jank Uyghur territory, and I apologize for that. But when we come back, John Iderola will join me to talk about killer robots. They do exist and they will be deployed in San Francisco. And a whole host of other stories, don't miss it. We'll be right back.

I think they should stop picking on Elon Musk. Elon. Elon! Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Huger, and I'll see you soon.