While the counting for the 2020 presidential election still goes on, The Verge's Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, and Adi Robertson discuss what steps social media platforms have taken to limit misinformation.
Additional reading:
- Watch the great people of Philadelphia count ballots live
- Facebook, Twitter take steps to limit the president’s false election claims
- Twitter restricts Trump campaign official’s tweet alleging Philadelphia voter fraud
- Before the votes are fully counted, Trump falsely claims victory
- Twitter restricts yet another Trump tweet for making up election rules
- People are mistaking a Baltimore Orioles meme for an election misinformation botnet
- Facebook shuts down huge ‘Stop the Steal’ group
- YouTube says video claiming Trump won does not violate its election misinformation policies
- Democrats call on Twitter to suspend Trump as election results file in
- Massachusetts passes ‘right to repair’ law to open up car data
- California poised to establish a new privacy regulator with ballot measure win
- Uber, Lyft drivers aren’t employees after all, California voters say
- Portland, Maine has voted to ban facial recognition
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
To have such a rush. Has this week on this episode adhered
britain joins us to talk about the election and all of the efforts made by the big social media platforms to,
control, the spread of information make sure people are getting.
right news at the right time and, quite honestly, moderate the president. That's come up now on the verge. Has hey I'm ryan reynolds at mid mobile? We like to do the opposite of what big wireless. Does they charge you a lot? We charge you a little so naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate our price.
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the
hello, and welcome to the broadcast the flagship podcast of democracy. C, it's topical, I'm neil patel, dear one is here I'm trying to come up with a good greek word for friend, and I got
nothin, I don't wanna daddy Robertson's area- has a greek pretty bad. I think. Probably I love you know,
record for friend, let us now so
two episodes this week
it's obviously election week in america
actually election month in america. We don't really know, there's a
of platform policy, stuff software,
it's why I always reporter on our positive there
also a lot of tat muse to talk about.
Five review, xbox ex boxes, review apple that next week so
I set us on the other absurd to, but we couldn't quite forgotten
damn both those things in one episode, if you can come up its transition,
You never really special edition. Where I've I make the transition we couldn't figured out so
Tom more and we did all the technique,
who's in another episode? That's in the feed right now, if you are aware,
and out you just want to hear about gadgets goes
that one. But alas,
a very meaningful tech news
whenever you're on the show. We are talking about foreign policy, how?
moderating I
This is the disk
formation content moderation nightmare to to end them all right now ongoing in america, the platter,
taking all kinds of steps there being very
aggressive they're, changing the rules as they go a lot unpack. But let's start with the begin,
and right before he started recording at ease.
Something which I think the whole thing in a context ever was
and for the worst in the worst immediately happen. What what do you mean by that? So
before the election we had just weeks of I'm going to primarily just talk about twitter facebook youtube here, because they were the ones that made a bunch of preparations,
they are talking about a look. What happens if somebody preemptively calls the election we're going to have a bunch of
on balance coming and it's weird huge chaos moment, so we're gonna put in place all the safe
We can add all these banners. We have these rules where we won't let people preemptively call. The election
but hopefully that won't happen, and then it was. I forget exactly what time I think was maybe around two a m on election night. That happened yet a key piece
contractual information. We listeners where court
thursday night five, twelve pm eastern.
We still do not know who has won the presidential election in. It appears that show.
Might by the time you listen to this. You might know, but just keep in mind that right now we're still not limbo here
and limb appeared really began sorted out at the end of the night on Monday, when
I'm just gonna say: I think the cable news networks did a kind of a horrible job explaining the thing
Everyone knew what was going to happen to them.
Coloring their maps in and being like trot trump as winning again and then there are like
hold on work and explained that are infographic is wrong. I thought that was very confusing for a lot of people.
We all knew that there was this huge amount of mail in ballots. That's why trump had been talking up million dollars for ever and ever and ever so. The calls had largely not been made, and two thirty in the morning tuesday morning,
trot made a speech reset. I've won and I think that set off just like the panic buttons in every platform. What happened
static, yeah, interestingly enough, he did in fact not make this claim on social media. Like you mentioned, he made it on tv, which has proven to be sort of pertinent.
but immediately trump has basically gone into two modes. One is claiming he won the election
two is claiming that there is a bunch of fraud and the elections being stolen and a bunch of nebulous things are happening that he cannot actually expect.
the details of
and so platforms have pretty much guy into overdrive, trying to contain those two things we can't with prompt and then just a bunch of trump surrogates and general other republican
and the general uncertainty of the whole election has occasionally also meant that, like Democrats get wrapped up in it, like someone preemptively
wisconsin and they had to label it. But this is largely a republican phenomenon at this moment cannot just real, quick there's a phd
utter thesis to write about how tv it was easier,
for the misinformation tickets stated directly on tv than
and social networks has tv at most can do maybe two things and why
but it's generally linear. So, like one thing happened,
then you come in and the thing after the thing they can put up a cairo- that's like we don't
Is that what this person is saying, but on social
the networks there they can put all of it
meadow stuff on the thing itself. So twitter can like hide behind a warning. Facebook can put a thing at the top of the feed.
or whatever, so that the linear nature of traditional television meant that the misinforming
and was able to be stated in a context that is completely different on a social media because they actually have the ability to put stuff around it. So you could draw a line from like scroll to a book.
something something something and the ability to put marginal. Your meadow information on top of the information that you're trying to fix, is really fascinating to me relative to how the cable networks handle it, which was led him, say stuff and then freak out, because he said
stuff after he said, I think it might have a slightly different point of view that have not yet
Many phd is www written about the selection, many dissertations for decades to come any books. We read about this election. I dont think we quite know the answer, but with
twitter. I think everyone kind of nose in admits that the effectiveness of these labels in combating disinformation misinformation is unknown
but the argument that you're making is, I think, a good one which is
we're going to slow down the potential vitality of the presidency. He's one or its being stolen. We're going to labels
If you're gonna, look at if he'd right now it is just a wall of labels. I think we figured out
was almost one third labels yes, tweet is made since the
since very early morning on november forth, which is very remarkable for in particular for twitter.
Wallace to these companies the most exposed from like a revenue perspective. They have the least money coming.
if a hearing about their supposed censorship of the president, they did not back down right, there is aggressive as ever,
But that's a strategy is happening with twitter and facebook
on cable news dinner? I think
My disagreement is sort of it didn't quite happen. The way you're saying because they let it run, live
in every other time. It was referenced some
on, would show up and say. This was us bizarre
in threatening moment in american democracy. This is bad look at the bad thing, whereas on twitter, because its
like an atomic unity of information,
What has to go along with it but you're? Not you, don't always hear about it. In that context,
I dont indicate when these outworks acquitted themselves well on monday, with their presentation of how they work.
we're coming in and what that might mean and, as we say,
on thursday, it is very clear
everything that has been communicated to us about electronic transfer on on Tuesday night didn't make any sense rashly didn't have any particular variants or what
they happen. What has happened since then? Is
the cable networks unanimous and receive fox to susan
as degree have like.
you're, not the narrative of the basel committee in the counting all that and the social platforms
twitter started at the most aggressive and continue to be aggressive. Facebook has been agreed
and you too largely, has failed
in a slow, we got more aggressive because they see the By of disinformation coming up
it's already said given its this, like extended republican network of people, saying things like,
twitter and facebook to change their policy around election claims to say it's not
the candidates that we're gonna moderate its end
What else? Notable and one of the factors is how viral the postmaster- and I really when faced
that sounds like other security, ready, giuliani role. Yes,
like rhodesia, he's gonna, gotta, pennsylvania and start treating nonsense about like anti found the streets
they were saying we're in a shot of tat, which is like very real.
Yeah I mean. How is that play an I'm? Looking at our list of have on facebook and twitter take steps to limit presidents.
while selection claims twitter restricts,
from campaigns. Official lodging philadelphia, voter fraud
restricts. Yet another trumpery from making up election rules to face was shut down a group
stop the steel that was organizing process. It hit the street after a year of covering content moderation, a hearing where
labour like wasn't. Might we redefined censorship is putting a label on things like they
I came into it. Knowing the scrutiny was on them. Do you think they're doing a good job? I mean they're moving really really fast. I will like say that in their favor over the last day or so,
if something shows up and they're going to act on it. Facebook and twitter have largely acted very quickly. I think
what has been really aggressive. Facebook. I think it was smart, too preemptively say: look we're just going to try to make clear that you always
no, that the results are still coming in. I think that the fact checking in general, like when it comes to the claims that someone's trying to steal the election, those are the places where I am most curious about the fact checking efforts that they're making, because the network's approaches- largely just it's not like they're, going to do a politics,
check of a lot of this stuff. It's that they're just going to add a banner that says hey. This is probably generally like, not necessarily true. This is disputed and I'm curious how that's going to turn out
There is some evidence that say exposing people to correct claims about something it like can actually change their mind. I am a little bit less confident that
what saying actually mail in voting works under a thing about it,
Male and voting fraud is necessarily going to help people, but there is just this man
if the amount of data and, in addition to like the semiotics dissertations people are going to write. I really hope somebody is scraping all of this and trying to like play with it to figure out how fact checking works.
and the other thing I really want to know is it. This is the truly black box part of both of these platforms.
They have set their limiting the reach of some of these posts there tamping down on how viral they can go
we are writing or, as always, slightly more transparent they're, not letting people reach weeder like certain these pose. This will just saying it. That is, data, sets
But I think after all of this, both platforms need to release. So we can see
if that actually had an impact beyond just making us feel good, that they understand that there is a difference between speech and reach, which is the framework that even operating in for a long time. But what really gets me is twitter has been this aggressive
having facebook is right in that middle zone and then youtube just doesn't, it seems. Ok, plated is news, neutrally
possible. Casey wrote an issue a flat
him his newsletter about it is like youtube, is try to have it both ways. They put ineffective labels on everything to claim that they're doing something, but they are not
actually serve adjudicating. What isn't isn't bad so everything gets a label, but the label doesn't mean anything
green as even watching this play out. Have you seen each you get more aggressive, I'm sure it's real,
hard to tell with you too, but it seems like convey avenue
certainly like their feet kind of got held to the fire after there was.
a very mislead
video. That said, that basically said trumpet won the election and it seems like they have like they removed ads from it.
don't turn I mean there is most crushing punishment. Youtube can do its work for its wanting to there
approach to election. Misinformation is the same as light.
creator who says something kind of problematic
it's also the same as you accidentally included an audio clip from a music video, because it was on a tv in the background, and you know all the same solution I mean youtube seems like it is much less prepared to act like it is a disseminate or of news like a news network, a thing that twitter is totally adapted to because that's what it is and facebook has gotten closer to but youtube,
like it's just, not really acknowledging that. I don't know it has never really wanted to. Actually, if you look at the youtube app on tv,
They have more and more often made the second or third row just be news and they're just putting live news, clips news and think
information from a b c cnn, all blah blah blah blah. They are
We do know that people are coming to it, for news are not blind to the release of people that make the tv apart,
I think I definitely do it. That was their strategy beforehand was look we're just going to make sure that there's this carousel, where you can always get a like a large feed of news networks that we trust and be more going to feed in like a eighty results and give you facts
information right, but if the algorithm has taught us anything over the past couple of years, is that people end up and
sources of information and videos that you would not expect they'd. You can go very quickly from something that is relatively mainstream, that youtube is pushing directly in its carousel, too
something pretty whacker do so. I guess one there's multiple threads here there,
is the EU.
For moderation taken to its
most extreme point which, as we have to moderate the president, because he is the single
the source of this information and it's like a whole conversation to have to be had
and there's the the algorithms you into believing conspiracy theories piece of this and then there's
kind of like this moment, which it we're talking about who the pressing I'd say is going to be like,
The end of the day. This will be the most known fact like we can have in some kind of philosophy
Other two pieces of the puzzle,
in the background it in a way on these platforms, just by the nature of the controversy Ben smith, who's, the he's the editor in chief of Buzzfeed southern media critic of the times is like it
impossible to overstate, like the bizarre outsize influence of the tv networks,
right, like if CNN just says, Biden is the president that becomes real in a in a way
like no amount of twitter bought nets can ever hope to achieve right. Do you think that that is playing?
like a role in this like they just can't get over. The hump of you can convince people that pizza gaiters real because there
no other source of information.
here you're trying to convince people that something is real,
face of liking insurmountable amount of
double information about a single fact. I think it depends on what you think the goal is like if you think that the goal is just too literally make people believe that trump is the president then like yeah, that's that's gonna, be kind of hard to keep reality away from forever. If you believe that the goal is just to deal which the
higher decision making process and to sort of erode the general consensus reality or just took like let trump avoid saying he's, not the president. If he's not for a while, because he doesn't want to then diana
I think that social media is very good at mud at like muddying waters, and that seems to be the thing that people are going for right now. So what
saving energy pieces in turn that there are two thirty puzzle. This is the
most aggressive, sir, we
two thirty moderation ability we ve ever seen.
where, where literary moderating the president, by putting labels on his stuff and we're happy to do it,
twitter things morally their obligated to do it. Do you think this play
into the next round of two thirty debate about?
you, thirty takes like that that twitter account, as I can barely keep up our mike. I guess I don't know because again, if we're looking at a worlds
we're trump is not the president. Then it becomes a little less
or how much dr there's gonna be behind any of this, like, if Biden has the president, the thing he's really upset about it like, yet he hates to thirty
hates it because they're not like moderating enough, so that's probably going to look very different and and if trump wins, the weird thing about this is that it feels like the social networks have actually just managed.
You received to the level of like conversation, influence that kind of makes sense for websites on the internet, but like everyone's talking about the fact that
picking a president, so I don't know it's hard to tell how much the attentions going to focus on them in like the coming weeks, or so. If say, trump does
like easy, just gonna, be so caught up with a bunch of other enemies that he's going to forget about them for a while.
or is it just going to go on this scorched earth campaign, along with the rest of the republican party, to like burn them to the ground
if he loses and again I'm just reminding the audience that where we set right now, five twenty eight p m on whatever data's.
we don't know the president. It's a thursday at five twenty eight pm on thursday. We, we still don't know the answer, but even if trump were to lose the Josh hawley's that ted cruz's, the brandon cars of the world are motivated to say that
companies are so much power speech, and now they have pages and pages of moderated tweets
President of the united states alleging election fraud. The twitter is like nope, you shouldn't get to see that
doesn't it doesn't seem like that? Will just become fodder forever. I'm sure it will, but I think we're things just anything they do have.
kicked over for so long, and they spent so
at the time beforehand. Saying hey! Look it's going to be pretty weird. If he does this thing, what's warn about him doing this thing, it's going to be complete nonsense, we're going to moderate it, because it's ridiculous. I feel like that kind of actually serve them well, like that they set a baseline for
is behaviour that we're just not going to accept because it is corrosive to democracy. Like that's relatively sympathetic- and I say this as someone who is often pretty uncomfortable with the power of social networks, I would actually give credit to
The american people on this that I think the level of media savvy is
a higher than I think we'd by default. Assume and people get it when Donald trump goes off a tweet, something we ve, we ve
enough of that to know that a well. We shouldn't take this seriously quite yet riders it. We don't know if this
angry we or are at our terms, into something? There's gonna, be a healthcare plan, we're building an lcd factory in wisconsin for
five million google engineers are building websites, sophisticated, really low content materials. That thing it's not like. Hemp is tweeting a thing out, usually in being like yours, a detailed thing that people should look out for fraud he's just like stop the count
yeah. So it's interesting moderate to start the count. One right,
and this is where I wanted to
moments of tibet? Funny is we now we go
When asked twitter like tell us about these tweets and then a reply
I just noticed over the past couple days that the replies have become template it later.
Regarding this tweet in an accuser rule, and it's like oh we're at the point where there just doing macros
they just now. They are there and answer. So stop the count it. They did not moderated, which makes sense to me x y know, and so let me actually just I didn't pull up his twitter feed, so I dont get the words for on, but there are three tweets that I think it is instructive to look at the first
tweet. Let's stop the count which is not was not moderated or called misleading, because
I'm just saying hey: we should not do this thing. It's a general policy wish you'd like we should stop doing this thing. That, like the thing is calling for, is like a thing that you can't do. It would be illegal if he were actually doing it, but he is just making a general policy wish. The speech act is
you're request, it could be a command, but even if it was a command italy on you, dont make man's by treating and therefore it is not a statement of fact. It is a statement of opinion or its essence command, which versus a tweet. He made very shortly before.
which was any vote that came in after election day will not be counted and that one is flagged as being misleading, because it is because he is making a statement about how the law actually works and that's not true, and then the
if the tweet is one of the more recent ones and it is stop the fraud and this one is also flagged as misleading, and I don't have the exact length the like the language twitter used there, but that also makes sense to me because it is claiming hey there is fraud happening. We have to stop it, which is different. Like everyone agrees that there's a vote count going on like that's, not controversial,
This controversial ikey claims that there is fraud. I was just one up also that if we stop account at this
exact moment in time he will lose out,
there's a whole other can of worms, there's a whole logic puzzle of chaos. Here. That makes no sense, but
just find that one of the things he's asking for would result in his losing.
Secondly, as a number of excellent motion, parties in europe needs to follow that radical, but
I want to just say, focused on.
platform, moderation, that's that's where we live. It's where you been focused on so much what
all those examples is they are
extremely subjective, judging calls.
All those cultural made relatively fast winners and twitter in particular, in moving very quickly. I dont know
if they were expecting this expression of chaos, rightly everyone's expecting chaos
you might expect from to say: I've won the election, but stop the count. All caps exclamation points like
was that on their like big board of possibilities, and they just like ran through their flow chart,
they're. Having meetings are making decisions on the fly,
Do we think those decisions have been relatively consistent? Have they expressed sort of coherent policy view from twitter?
or is it a scatter shot? As we have seen, the platforms in the past twitter seems fairly consistent. Facebook facebook has had a slightly different issue, which is that it has all the misinformation stuff, but then it also has organizing on
at forum, so they banned a group that was called stop the steal that people were organizing on because there were like calls for unlawful activity. I believe violence they, so they are also having to deal with like organizations of
people and to that end they also like these seem like there at least trying to address it, but they are running into the problem of just it's really hard to stop normal people from saying stuff on facebook and connecting with each other cause. That's just literally the goal of facebook.
get out of here if you like in the market for some other people to be mad about vote. Counting like facebook is a product is a very complicated product that is designed to bring you together now sculpture. My wife works for me
natty. What to call the group facebook reality lab reality labs the thing it baffles me up:
a bunch of the reaction of the general populous but aspire
the social networks. As it's hard to know, we spent the last six months in something like this is probably to happen. You should be ready for it and now it's happening
It's not clear if they were ready for it, and I think the facebook organizing is a particular instance that facebook has been
groups for a very long time. There have been no shortage of stories about facebook groups being problematic and being
source of organizing for potentially very dangerous people.
Very dangerous groups. It should have been
blindingly obvious from the jump that that it would be
used in the way that facebook is used to organise people to connect people together to do that and its it that the questions are they are they reacting,
They don't have enough people. How much of this is coming as a surprise to them, because we could have predicted all these things? Last week we can have
I think you have to make an extremely negative inference
very uncomfortable way to say,
We know there will be this kind of organizing.
and we are ready to shut it down, because we think it will lead to political violence.
I don't think anyone in america until recently has been
to go from zero to one thousand. In that way, around political, organizing, a platform you can have a group called stop the steel.
All in all, it is a bunch of conservative lawyers. Do
in our best to make the lawsuit slightly more viable than they ve been in, I think that's a totally fine use of facebook. I think they would absolutely not be acting as fast as they did on this if it were not for that Canosa militia incidents and a bunch of cuban on recommendation stuff and just this whole organizational nightmare that they have been dealing with the last six months, likely honestly move faster on this thing I kind of expected them
yeah, I think, that's what's underneath- that is the quickness to make the negative inference around this particular kind of energy.
from we found each other on facebook, too.
We're gonna show up in a rally with guns right, we're gonna show
outside the maricopa county polling, place in such threatening fashion. That cnn leaves the building
have tv. Now, the threatening fashion was very funny because
their m c aid, which is a very dissonant kind of threat
they were armed and they were there and they were angry and culture there in the media,
People watching that the council were asked leave that's the danger of facebook, bringing people together in a way that eventually led them to shut down the group. I just don't know
any platform with any. Even if you are the most moderators, you have the best lawyers that speech exports you
you brought in your way
outside facebook oversight group that calls itself the real face of everyone's in in the room together. I still
you just make the gas before something
shows you you it's bad about. A group of people saying here is our political opinions
I could not tell you when you should be able to do so as to be doing you're. Saying I like face would move faster than we thought
but I do know that any faster, like is comfortable. I absolutely agree with that and yeah. I think the thing that makes us hard is that there are such clear calls for violence and a lot like a lot of facebook groups that, like a lot of these things,
and not seeming like edge cases, but I do em at least like happy that facebook made the call that, like the thing that we're doing this is because I just looked up their quarters, we saw worrying calls for for violence from members of the group. Like that's a bar,
that I am willing to have them act on, and I am ya think glad that they took as long as they did to at least make sure that that bar was there
do we see I usually when we have these conversations? The big platforms are moderate
hard they're doing things it
Some people find
worrisome in terms of their power over speech? Stuff is
the moment furred parlor, to like ride
like shouldn't trailer. We having its women, are receiving any that jump to the other, apply former's. All the action happening on the sort of the big three
I mean I went into under parlor this morning and like checked this, stop the steel hashtag. I wasn't super exciting. It was like
some, I don't know. I think that first of all, the facebook really good at organizing like facebook groups, I dont think,
programme is a thing that lots of people are wondering about like clear, organizing on but again so much of this stuff has not been sort of shadowy mulish active.
It's been very kind of
I used to mainstream organizing and that's put a lot of it on facebook, and I just
I still haven't really seen by the alternative platforms in that particular way shine like. Obviously the cool thing is that people are actually working on like going to other platforms to communicate about the election like there was a good piece in the times about tick, tock watch parties. There are people watching on twitch and there zoom like election watch parties and a bunch of other platforms, but for the things that are just supposed to be x, implicitly, alternatives to facebook and twitter
I dont think with necessarily seen those really like break out during this gets anatomy. Is it cuts both? What
like one. I'm very happy that the well moderated platform seem to be the centre of the information universe online on the earth
like if you're the press,
you ve got this message to spread and he keep getting blocked. Why do you
keep combat back. What is the thing that will make parlor useful,
not for we're, just not allowing this kind of speech radical does,
exist over there and I'm not saying that's like the market opportunity. You want. I doubt as even the market opportunity parlor team once, but it is in as we talk about competition like nothing can break
way from twitter. Even this moment when twitter is saying stop we don't want this year as aggressively as it can. I mean I think, trouble a little bit of a special case like he has just his freely. Clearly.
this addicted to twitter. I can say this as someone who can't leave twitter. I guess it's just used hooked into it, so I think there is a different president that maybe, if they were just genuinely more devoted to pure demagoguery than like getting re tweets and like getting attention that,
Maybe they would move onto a different platform so as recline retreat
a segment of fox news work
Imagine aim is to present
such areas saying we want to have the votes, counted in literally fox news anchors or like what are you talking about and address point was
what's interesting here is not the attack.
see it's coming out of cayley? It's that there's push back on fox now,
everyone is pushing back on the job
oh vibe here is we're gonna. Do the count, we're not gonna to allow this crap and, like maybe that's,
three and a half years and change of just lying
and ever since I tired of it and credibility shot. But there is an argument to the plan.
Limiting the reach and potentially amplifying more reasonable voices
is allowing everyone to exist in a more commonplace. Stephen combats like working itself out, I'm not sure I I may get we don't know,
how much this is limiting the reach of anything. But I do. I think I could see an argument that, if nothing else they are setting norms that they are willing to establish like hears what we consider to be the bounds of reasonable conversation. If you are the president of the united states,
and our platform, and I can see that like. I can understand the idea that that would give everyone else the ability to kind of decide. Ok, we're just gonna work within those norms, but it could also kind of be the other way round that just there is this. Everyone is really sick of having two makes
stop constantly and the platform tired of that, and they are adopting these norms in response
The farthest push we ve, seen as a group of Democrats write a letter
on twitter, saying. Ok, it's time just
spend trumps account just call carded night we're done the sky, giving that appropriate.
The weird thing is that I am in a lot of ways, I would be so much more comfortable
with platforms just saying: okay, look political figure, you screwed up so many times that you clearly just like do not belong on this platform, because you have completely different views of what is acceptable than us. We're going to kick you,
I feel like I'm in a lot of ways more comfortable with that, in the end, with this incredibly precise, like litigation of the acceptable bounds of speech like the former, a kind of feels like you're, just twitters, a restaurant and trample stop like
on tables and throwing things like now. We're twitters for man we're gonna banjo versus trying to come up with this incredibly full featured like we're going to define what political discourse
and like how international relations and the state monopoly on violence should work and like why it's ok to like for a nuclear war, but not do this other thing
I don't know what a lot of ways I find that more troubling, but I also know that there is no wastewater ban him like wally's president, like that, would just be such a nightmare for them, and I think it's weird for other politicians to call for it. Also
like. I don't know. I think this is a thing we're. If twitter made this decision unilaterally, I would one hundred percent back them up, but doing it,
chauncey political pressure means is whole. Other thing is happening,
but don't you kind of need built out,
rules to say, like hey
given. Our rules may times were banning you live listings.
working connection
I agree with that, but I think like after a certain point now, it's just clear that it's not like. Oh you broke these rules. You shouldn't do this, we're going to punish you. It's just like it's like trump has just agreed to pay parking tickets over and over and over again for in perpetuity and so twitter's. Just like constantly setting the boundaries of what trump can say,
kind of just letting in him break the rules. I don't know this is my relationships and the campus police and thus avoid a definite part. My car, in the quota
every day and are they going to do everything it? What are you gonna get me out of school and they never like. Eventually, your rules kind of me, nothing if you're just going to let someone break them over and over. I was
I was I they threatened to not let me gradually
I didn't return my outstanding library books, but the parking tickets never came so
What, at whatever metaphor that connects to with twitter? That's how they should decide to ban trump.
So that's a content, moderation self. There were some things actually
some new regulations and laws paso inside what does we'll take a really quick break? Come back to one thousand, rather than a re reynolds at mid mobile, we like to do the opposite of what big wireless. Does they charge you a lot? We charge you a little so naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate up
ices, due to not hating you, that's right. We're cutting the price of men, unlimited from thirty dollars a month to just fifteen dollars a month, give it a try. It meant mobile dot com, slash, switch new activation and prompt payment for three. My plan required taxes in these extra additional restrictions apply, seem mobiles outcome for full terms. Support for the show comes from the pile.
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Let's talk we ve got to just a few minutes. I have some things and a policy side did pass
We do know some answers. We still do not know
president is massively
its past a pretty comprehensive rights. Repair law, pretty focused on cars,
are you just ass? The eye fix it. Folks, I saw kyle tritium up ass. He was very excited about it and he in particular background here they are hoping it can become a
model for other states, I think there's like I'm not fully caught up on
particulars of this law, but it was like you need you get access to your telemetry. They can't hide it behind some proprietary thing and you're able to now do it with an app all of which is great, and so the the the question is.
will this expand beyond massachusetts and if it doesn't car companies?
forced to follow the rules of massachusetts, while they just say screw it. We're not going to. You know, try and break those rules elsewhere in the country in the same way that you know
most cars follow. California's emission standards, and so the most cars you buy in the u s and of just having california's standards, it's possible that massachusetts is big enough and powerful enough that a car may cause it's like. Well. If we have to unlock the telemetry for massachusetts,
It's it's more work to lock it down for everybody else, so screw it. So that can be fun it could. I have my eye, that's the optimistic type and I hope it happens.
right, like every website answer right now is like has a button that says: don't don't sell my day.
Click it and we have detected that you are not in California yeah
Please try again when you move to california like software
and features are not hard for a car makers to get around, whereas I think
Is shipping different emissions hardware is different kind of cost. The law that I do think is going to end up being a model for the rest of the country is prop twenty two here in California.
This is the the proposition that allows companies over and left to continue to treat people that uses by firms as contractors and self employed,
Yes, there was a massive amount of money that I think there are two hundred million dollars was spent to get the same past who were left. They put me in a little
adds inside their apps, just electioneering inside the app so it passed, and I think that
if you're over and you ve got. You got a lot
Long history of playing fast and loose with law, and then you got a long history of like dealing with regulators after that period. You look at your win here and you use that as a model to try and spread the
anywhere anywhere else, where they try and force you to make your employees, employees
that one, I think we're added, extremely see how plays out.
I was in reaction to eighty five. This is it
labour law conversation, but eighty five was passed
it's you just in immediate, like
It was just like a bomb that went off in the california labour market and, like all sorts of ways. So affected us was like we couldn't hired a freelancers that we were
used to, because there's a cap on how much freelance work you could do as a journal unexpected
sequences oliver. Eighty five- and I think that played a little bit into-
remove getting this moment, but I didn't
The is also going to have a huge set of unintended consequences, but it is true that they politics their way into a win using their apps using their works ass. They they bought a bunch of endorsements, we'll see, that's it
one. It was not. I think that one can again either way, but you were unless care that one california another one point.
I wish the privacy regulator this one is a tough one, because it there is.
pretty strong privacy law. Here this amended it in
in certain ways or changed in certain ways, and it seemed like the tech companies were generally behind it, and so you could make the case. I think
So you ain't even dared that this law.
Has some benefits, but on the whole we should vote against it, because what its into what it's doing, as it's like ensconced in the privacy framework that tech companies feel a cupful with and tech companies come forth privacy framework epa,
Shouldn't trusted yeah, there's a lot of like corporate capture regulation happening in California.
If the two of you together and then lastly, I think my favorite one is portland. Maine has voted to ban facial recognition by public agencies by publicans.
it is now just like in general, like I'm, I bought it faces in the first place so to having just its content. Be great. I think this one's really interesting lake. We
just seen. The police are
said, miss in general. Many kinds of obligations is urged. The messenger
We ve seen a little bit of corporate self regulation
microsoft has said: hey we, we don't want to do this until there is a law in place. So having doing tampa township by township is one approach that's happening here. The question is whether this filters into the the bigger ecosystem, but
technically it's off stuff on the ballot sort of across the country this
a few days of we
The answers- and they were now if you weren't answers is discover,
are we missing anything? What what mean? I usually and conversations like this by saying things like what happens next, but that
seems ridiculous as possible will know what happens next by the time the sky ass, happy ass, I didn't a big.
For me, the outstanding question for me is:
whether this level of moderation is the new normal for the platforms or whether,
if they're, in a heightened state because of elections, democracy, how much they all got criticized and twenty sixteen and then they're going to draw it back down.
No honestly, don't know, there's a part of it
as twitter is like feeling pretty comfortable
I should like the waiter behaving there com there not freaking out there.
ask them why they did a thing.
Generating answers and being public with like theirs,
it says this is just how they act now, I'm curious to see if that that persists yeah, I think maybe it was Russell who is saying like we're, seeing sort of two big norms on twitter and the first is that, if you are a really big account, you are held to a higher standard, and the second is
If they're, there are topics that are just so important that we're going to hold everyone to a higher standard around them like the election, and it would be interesting if that is sort of the new organizing principle for the site. It's in particular
you're, saying shrub hesitated addicted to twitter. I mean you're, the one who makes this point. I think the most of anyone twitter is the smallest one it.
It has the most to lose and they
It is also the most aggressive there's an interplay there. That, I think, is super super interesting, but will see us
ok, hopefully, by the time you listen to this, we know the president is
It's maybe we're going to do two episodes next week to who knows what's going to happen, but hopefully, by the time you're. Listening to this, we know the president is
this. Conversation is still contractually meaningful, but will
world policy team members back lot of atty back to talk about the aftermath of all this platform work very soon. So thanks a lot, Eddie yeah! Alright, that's our show. Micro episode. Number
to complete the somehow thought you and me listen appears five this whole time. I applaud you for sticking to stick it out. There is
appears five xbox apple preview episode in
right now you know it's not someone's earnest, it was great other than that. We're back.
on tuesday, with my new showed decoder happening, were watching it
Tuesday, new interview show from the verge called decoder, I'm very excited about our first guest. I'm still hyping it up not going to say on as it, but it's good.
that's! Coming on tuesday, we'll be running some episodes in this feed, but eventually it's just going to be nuts on feed tuesday and I'm really hyped for it. It's hard to see past
today, but I promise you next tuesday is coming it's what I've been telling myself ass, a check that out, you can tweeted us, I'm at reckless address at the dexterity dears at back on we'll see hope we will now when timeless in this room, where a mask
a hayride reynolds at mid mobile. We like to do the opposite of what big wireless. Does they charge you a lot? We charge you a little so naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate our prices,
do not hating you that's right. We're cutting the price of meant unlimited from thirty dollars a month to just fifteen dollars a month, give it a try: men, mobile dot com, slash switch new activation and upright payment for three month plan required taxes, and these extra additional restrictions apply seem at mobiles outcome for full terms. Support for the show comes from the
cast this small business next generation in this new donkey series from amazon follow for teams of aspiring entrepreneurs as they compete in the rice, university business plan, competition pitching their best business ideas to top theses and investors for a chance to win up to three.
In dollars for their start. Ups, co, host, andrea Marquez and miss gilbert are your guides. Who will have what it takes to succeed? This is small business
next generation is out now go! Listen on your favorite podcast app and subscribe to keep up to date.
Transcript generated on 2023-08-24.