Human Events Daily with Jack Posobiec - SUNDAY SPECIAL WITH ALX

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00:00:23.620 The Poso Daily Brief.

00:00:30.000 Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard to today's Sunday special here on Human Events.

00:00:41.880 So this week and going forward for a couple of weeks, I wanted to take some time to step back from sort of the day-to-day issues and actually conduct some interviews with people that either I've known or I've wanted to get to know better or I want you to know better.

00:00:56.700 People that have had, in some cases, massive influence from behind the scenes, sometimes massive influence in front of the scenes.

00:01:04.900 And this is one of those individuals.

00:01:07.180 We're going to be doing a few of those here in the coming weeks on Human Events.

00:01:10.460 But for the very first one, I definitely knew I had to get on for a sit-down Human Events special.

00:01:16.100 The ALX himself.

00:01:19.260 The man, the machine, the mystery, the legend.

00:01:24.040 Alex, what is it like, by the way, being back on Twitter?

00:01:26.700 It's actually incredible.

00:01:31.080 I always thought this day would eventually come, but I didn't think it would be as fast as it came to be.

00:01:39.920 So I knew when Elon said he was going to acquire Twitter that I had a chance at coming back.

00:01:45.980 So the story is that Elon held a poll saying, should Donald Trump be reinstated?

00:01:53.920 And this, of course, was right after the Babylon Bee and Kathy Griffin and all of them were reinstated the day before.

00:01:59.560 So the answer was yes.

00:02:02.680 And right after the poll, he reinstated Donald Trump.

00:02:08.000 And then later, I was reinstated.

00:02:10.840 So I was probably the fourth person, I think, reinstated to Twitter after Elon's acquisition.

00:02:16.620 So I didn't think it would be that fast.

00:02:19.700 But since then, it's just been insane.

00:02:23.160 I've grown my following by four times my original following count.

00:02:27.160 And it's just been insane to see.

00:02:30.020 And I always point out that, you know, so my first you and I are kind of interesting in a sense, or we have something in common, I should say, because we both were kind of anonymous when we first started on Twitter.

00:02:45.960 And you started even years before I did.

00:02:48.080 So I was on in 2012.

00:02:49.760 If I remember correctly, you were on in 2007.

00:02:52.140 Yeah, so I, I wasn't very political back then.

00:02:58.060 But that was just, you know, I had an account to follow news, and, you know, other topics, and just like friends and stuff.

00:03:06.720 And then, like, during, like, high school and stuff, I was kind of more of a libertarian, I would say, kind of.

00:03:14.420 We all go through our libertarian phase.

00:03:16.420 Yeah, I know.

00:03:17.740 I know.

00:03:18.580 Yeah.

00:03:19.400 Hate to admit it.

00:03:20.260 But yeah, so Rand Paul was really my guy, because, you know, I wasn't a Kennedy fan, and I wasn't a Romney fan.

00:03:26.720 So, like, I really didn't have, like, a true, like, Republican leader or conservative leader that I looked to.

00:03:34.080 And then, you know, when Donald Trump announced in 2015, that's when I really began social media.

00:03:41.200 And, you know, on Twitter, and then further down the line on Instagram, I wasn't that big in 2015 on Instagram.

00:03:49.280 But yeah, so it was kind of anonymous, because I was in school, and I didn't want, you know, that to jeopardize any future career or, you know, my liberal professors to hold that against me.

00:04:01.740 So I just went by ALX instead of my full name, which is Alex.

00:04:07.440 But, I mean, it's just one letter off.

00:04:09.560 But, you know, it's, I didn't really, like, do people ever, like, ask you, like, what, does ALX stand for something?

00:04:17.600 Does it mean anything?

00:04:18.720 Do they think there's, like, all this mystique behind it, and it's literally you just took one letter out of your name?

00:04:24.020 Yeah, exactly, exactly.

00:04:25.540 So they think it's, like, an acronym or whatever.

00:04:27.700 I'm like, what does it stand for?

00:04:29.380 No, I just, you know, took a letter out of my name.

00:04:33.400 So it was, you know, a way of hiding it, like, my true identity.

00:04:37.760 But then at the same time, it's, like, not too far off from my real name.

00:04:42.900 Yeah, well, that's what they say.

00:04:44.320 Like, when I was in the IC and you were coming up with, like, a cover name, they would always say, you know, pick a name that's close enough to your real name that you'll answer to it, that it appears familiar to you, that you don't have to skip a beat where you go, oh, wait, right, that's supposed to be me.

00:04:57.780 You know, if I'm, if my name's Jack, then you shouldn't be, like, Claudius or some, like, you know, some random thing you're not even going to think of.

00:05:05.840 You know, you'd be, like, Jake, right?

00:05:07.940 Or, you know, something, Jacques, you know, something similar, similar enough that you're going to listen to it, John, even, which actually is my legal name.

00:05:16.700 Oh, no, I'm getting in trouble now, self-doxing.

00:05:20.760 But, but, so, coming up on Twitter, like, before we get into necessarily the Elon stuff, and I want to ask more about Twitter, what, how has Twitter changed in, from the pre-2016 era to now?

00:05:36.240 So, we don't talk enough about it, because I was there, you were there, you were there even longer than me.

00:05:40.740 What was Twitter like in those early years?

00:05:44.660 The really early years, it was kind of, there is a lot of, like, crashing, and I would compare it to, like, Parler.

00:05:53.760 Like, Parler was always down in the early days.

00:05:56.080 People forget that in the early days, Twitter had that whale, the overcapacity whale.

00:06:00.900 I remember that whale, yeah, I do.

00:06:02.580 Yeah, yeah, so that happened a lot, actually, and then, like, so one of, one of my friends online actually posted, like, a screenshot from, like, 2012 or whatever.

00:06:11.500 If you even look at the, you know, the layout of everything in 2012, it literally looks like it's from the Stone Age.

00:06:18.540 So, I think people take for granted how far it's come as a platform.

00:06:23.440 So, at the beginning, it was kind of more like now, where it was, like, getting banned was very rare.

00:06:30.260 I mean, the first real, you know, bannings didn't start until 2015, around, like, when Milo and a bunch of, you know, other people got banned.

00:06:39.240 Yeah, Milo was really the first big ban that I remember happening, and it just wasn't, with the exception of, like, like, people forget that, I know you remember this, there used to be actual ISIS members on Twitter.

00:06:52.580 Yes.

00:06:52.780 So, you could just go on, and you would find, in Arabic, and they'd be, like, tweeting death threats to people, and then it used to be a whole thing where you could find the ISIS accounts, and you could get them banned, because they were, and I don't mean, like, somebody LARPing, like, there's Taliban LARPers on today. 0.73

00:07:06.960 I mean, like, actual, straight up, in Syria and Iraq, ISIS followers that were on Twitter, and you could get them banned, but nobody, nobody who was, like, a real, like, nobody ever got banned for politics.

00:07:19.480 It was, it was, like, criminal activity or threats, that kind of thing.

00:07:22.780 Exactly.

00:07:23.980 Yeah, and we're getting back to that now.

00:07:26.580 So, actually, just this past week, Twitter announced that they are going to start, instead of locking users out, that they're going to take a less harsh action for policy violations that don't violate the law.

00:07:43.980 They're going to just take an action at the tweet level and not the account level.

00:07:48.040 So, if something is, yeah, if something is seen to violate their hateful conduct policies or whatever, it will just have a label that says this, you know, was found to have violated Twitter's hateful conduct policy, and you'll have to click view to see it, and you can appeal it.

00:08:08.260 So, that's the place of previous.

00:08:10.620 So, they're not even necessarily going to take it down.

00:08:12.840 It will just be, it'll be there, but kind of like, what does that?

00:08:16.440 Instagram is like that, where, you know, if it's fact-checked, you can still click, yeah, like a sensitive content.

00:08:22.680 Yeah, and a lot of people were criticizing that in the sense that it still is censoring the content, but at the same time, you have to take it in perspective that it's in place of locking.

00:08:35.180 Number one, it's going to not take any action on your account level, meaning it's not going to be like a strike on your account.

00:08:42.120 So, if you do it again, you're not going to be locked out for seven days or something like that.

00:08:45.300 So, it's just an action at the tweet level, and then, like I said, you can appeal it.

00:08:50.620 And it wouldn't even, so it wouldn't even necessarily de-boost you in the algorithm.

00:08:54.360 Correct, correct, yeah.

00:08:56.120 So, that tweet, that tweet would be, you know, just hidden, and I think that individual tweet might be de-boosted, but not your account.

00:09:04.300 Well, yeah.

00:09:06.320 Yeah, it's going to be a lot more transparent than in the past.

00:09:09.980 And, like, I put out a tweet on it, it's not perfect, but it's definitely an improvement from, like, my situation and your situation, where, you know, I was locked out for, you know, posting a picture of Zelensky with the Ukrainian flag, and they mistakenly flagged it as nudity.

00:09:28.240 And I would have been locked out for 12 hours had you and other people brought, like, attention to it.

00:09:34.640 So, that would be in the past, whereas, like, this new policy, they would have that label over it, and then I'd be able to appeal it.

00:09:43.380 And then I also would be able to tweet and say, well, this is a clear mistake.

00:09:46.660 In the past, users that were wrongly locked out, they would have to find other users to tweet on their behalf.

00:09:52.180 So, I believe errors will be reversed more quickly as well.

00:09:56.780 Well, I think it's great.

00:09:58.460 And I just, I know that they're, one of the things they're dealing with right now at Twitter is just that there's a lot of automation, because I know, obviously, a lot of employees have left.

00:10:07.780 So, that's one reason you're seeing the mass report bans are kind of back right now, because I think due to the, just due to the employee issues, that they've been relying a little bit more on automation.

00:10:22.200 And it did used to be that you could mass ban people, and that would, that would actually work, like, mass reporting someone to get them banned would work.

00:10:31.420 That was one of the ways, like, my old, old account had something like that happen once I did.

00:10:36.220 I was able to get it reversed, but I remember that happening.

00:10:38.820 Yeah, that was a, that was a flaw in the, in the past, and like you said, it's due to the employee issues.

00:10:45.640 But there are some bans that were due to, like, the actual employee hitting the wrong button or not being trained, I've seen.

00:10:54.540 And so, there was someone who got banned for, like, hateful conduct, and they're like, well, under our new freedom of speech policies, this shouldn't have been actioned then.

00:11:03.220 And Ella Erwin, who's head of trust and safety, had said that they're doing new trainings with, you know, new hires on that.

00:11:10.500 So, hoping to reduce that.

00:11:12.200 We are coming up on our first break here, but really excited to have this conversation.

00:11:17.520 You've got ALX, who, I mean, if you think, if you think I know a lot about Twitter, you have no idea.

00:11:23.240 This guy is like Mario and Luigi going through the pipes at twitter.com to tell us what's actually happening on the inside there.

00:11:31.400 So, stay tuned.

00:11:32.000 Be right back.

00:11:32.540 Human Events Sunday Special.

00:11:36.660 And we're back with the ALX.

00:11:39.980 So, man, we were talking before about just how Twitter has changed over the years.

00:11:44.660 But one thing that I remember specifically that, you know, before we talk too much about the new Twitter, because the new Twitter, you're right.

00:11:51.840 It's all, everything is political, everything.

00:11:54.660 But I remember in the early days, it was like Twitter was, it was, it was like comedy, right, was kind of the main thing.

00:12:04.980 And sort of like freak out posts or, or posting weird stuff was a big thing.

00:12:12.220 And there's sort of those, this element, and you see this in a lot of those early Trump tweets, right, from the same era, from like 2012 through 2015 or so, before he announced, I should say.

00:12:22.520 Where it was kind of like, if, if something was posted on Twitter, it was just assumed that it was a joke, because that was the big thing was like you got you went viral for making jokes.

00:12:33.780 There were like people weren't necessarily monetizing Twitter, people weren't using it for, you know, some people would promote articles and stuff.

00:12:40.940 But I really feel like the main thing was just, I don't know, kind of following TV shows and then being funny.

00:12:49.320 Yeah, there was a lot of like commentary, I remember on, you know, celebrities and stuff that Trump had back in the day.

00:12:56.440 Like, oh, yeah, where he would just like, you could tell he was like watching a show or whatever.

00:13:00.740 And he would just feel like tweeting out loud and like his reactions to the show.

00:13:05.540 But yeah, I think you're right that and then like, one of the things I followed early on was just like sports in general, just like, you know, sports, and then, you know, just TV shows or whatever.

00:13:16.980 And it was more laid back.

00:13:18.460 And yeah, like you said, it didn't get very overtly political until, you know, 2015.

00:13:24.040 And then, of course, now in the new Twitter era, everything is, but you're right, in the early days, it was just kind of comedy, you know, having fun with friends.

00:13:35.380 And then just even celebrities like Trump had their famous like Diet Coke tweets, or there was one of them where, you know, he replied to like random sock puppet accounts.

00:13:45.280 He's like, well, why do you follow me around like a little puppy then?

00:13:49.280 I missed the Trump replies.

00:13:50.680 They were so good.

00:13:51.700 Yeah.

00:13:52.600 Yeah.

00:13:52.880 It was so funny.

00:13:53.960 So like that was the vibe.

00:13:54.920 Do you remember the one?

00:13:55.880 I'm not going to give the full context, but it was like, it was like, I can assure you I have no problems in that department.

00:14:01.740 Yeah.

00:14:02.500 Yes.

00:14:04.980 Yeah.

00:14:05.340 And that's what the vibe was on Twitter.

00:14:07.560 Yeah, it was sort of a, it was almost like a party, I guess, like a big party.

00:14:11.700 Because when Jack Dorsey created Twitter, the idea was that it was, it was supposed to be in like an open chat room.

00:14:20.100 Um, so the Twitter, the, the original character limit, which I missed so much, the one 40 Twitter was meant because you didn't want it to be cluttered with long posts.

00:14:32.160 So it was every person was, it was like a chat room that you shared with the whole world in a sense.

00:14:37.680 And then hashtags originally were created so that you could find other people that had, you know, similar interests to you.

00:14:44.940 So I'm, I'm tweeting about a certain, uh, you know, topic.

00:14:50.360 Um, so I'm going to, I'm going to make sure to include that hashtag.

00:14:52.860 So like I used to do my game of Thrones account and I would make sure to do hashtag game of Thrones.

00:14:56.920 So if somebody would go to search hashtag game of Thrones and they would find my account.

00:15:00.860 Um, I remember the big conservative one back then used to be like TCT or something.

00:15:06.580 And I, I don't even remember what it, what it stood for, but it was like the conservative something or other.

00:15:12.220 But that was like, if you were trying to, trying to get ahead in, in that community, you would always post to that hashtag and hashtags that by and large, I kind of feel like they're dead now.

00:15:21.700 I think they're gone.

00:15:22.340 Um, yeah, so I also, I, I share that same sentiment and the fact that like, I don't think normal words could actually trend on Twitter back in the original days.

00:15:34.520 I think it was only trending hashtags and that's why people kind of coalesced around hashtags.

00:15:39.600 But now if you look at the trending topics list, I don't even think hashtags really even trend.

00:15:43.780 It's just words, names, you know, individuals or whatever.

00:15:47.160 And that's what the trending topic list has turned into.

00:15:50.180 But back to your point on the conversation piece of it, I remember like quote tweets weren't really even a thing.

00:15:56.340 You'd physically have to quote the tweet, put like RT in front of it.

00:15:59.900 I remember that.

00:16:00.460 Yeah.

00:16:00.680 Yeah.

00:16:00.900 RT.

00:16:02.120 Yeah.

00:16:03.720 Yes.

00:16:04.320 Cause it, I, I remember there's like, there's some people that confused, like they're not knowledgeable and they'll go back and they'll find a post.

00:16:11.960 And then they'll try and attribute the RT post to the original author.

00:16:16.800 And it's like, well, no, that was like a quote tweet, but that's just what quote tweets looked like back then.

00:16:21.440 Well, a lot of those were also, it was, um, you had these third party apps that were, that were built in with Twitter, which a lot of those features Twitter then later took and reincorporated in and, and said, okay, we need to do this.

00:16:35.100 And obviously quote tweets is one of the most ubiquitous ones.

00:16:37.620 The other one, if you remember was everybody forgets this.

00:16:41.340 Tick tock was not the original short form video platform.

00:16:45.640 I know, you know, this ALX, what was the original short form video?

00:16:50.760 Vine.

00:16:51.420 It's coming.

00:16:52.400 It's going, it's going back.

00:16:54.500 So it's really coming back.

00:16:55.460 That wasn't just like a random tweet by what's going on with thing that they're looking into.

00:16:59.800 Um, I'm not sure like exactly how far along they are, but I know they're looking into it.

00:17:05.920 Um, and I, I think the debate is really whether they're going to have it incorporated in the Twitter app, or if they're going to revive it as its own, you know, separate app, but then you can integrate it into, you know, Twitter.

00:17:19.100 Well, so that's what they do with Paris.

00:17:20.460 Populate better.

00:17:21.680 Yes, exactly.

00:17:22.720 So I think they're just trying to figure out logistically how they want it, you know, to be.

00:17:26.960 Um, but yeah, I, it's very serious that they want to compete with tick tock on that, especially with, you know, talks of the tick tock ban.

00:17:35.260 So I, I think that they're like taking that seriously.

00:17:39.020 So if that's the case, then, um, obviously I think everybody knows that, um, you know, uh, Periscope was one of my all time favorite features on it.

00:17:49.700 Um, that was where I live streamed multiple times a day, um, when it was in its heyday and, uh, you were on there.

00:17:58.400 So many people were on there.

00:17:59.620 So many people got, got big on that.

00:18:01.220 And then it just disappeared.

00:18:02.400 It was just basically to end.

00:18:04.280 And I've, I've said publicly that I just, I really don't like the way that it was handled.

00:18:09.560 Um, I don't think there was good transparency.

00:18:12.060 I've tried, by the way, I've tried to download my Periscopes using the functionality and it doesn't work.

00:18:17.900 It just doesn't work at all.

00:18:19.080 Yeah.

00:18:19.860 It said, it said pending.

00:18:21.440 And I had, I had one computer just dedicated to downloading my Periscopes and I, cause I, you know, my setup and I was like, all right, I'm just going to leave this on and see how long it takes.

00:18:30.300 And I went back after like a week and it still said pending.

00:18:33.540 So something obviously not right there.

00:18:36.680 And the fact of the matter is, is that Twitter was so powerful when it allowed you to live stream.

00:18:42.760 That's all Periscope really was.

00:18:43.900 It was Twitter live stream.

00:18:45.040 It was one of the first live streams.

00:18:47.000 If I remember correctly, it predated YouTube live stream, predated Facebook live stream, um, predated Instagram live stream.

00:18:55.120 And the fact that you could share it with everyone in the world made it so incredibly powerful because suddenly, Hey, I'm a guy who is just sitting here talking with my wife and we're chatting about politics.

00:19:09.540 But you can get hundreds of thousands of people watching instantly, even if they don't know the channel.

00:19:16.760 And that's the difference between Twitter and every single other piece of media, because Twitter is an open sandbox or social media.

00:19:24.320 And I guess TikTok is kind of like that, though, to be honest, like I've, I've not, um, spent enough time playing around with TikTok to even understand, like, how do you interact with other content on like what goes viral, et cetera.

00:19:38.960 So it's, it's not, it's still not the same.

00:19:41.120 It's just nowhere.

00:19:41.720 Nothing's the same as Twitter.

00:19:42.660 And, um, yeah, and it's much easier to, they need to bring viral.

00:19:48.040 Yes, exactly.

00:19:49.100 And on platform too, because this is, this is what happened with clubhouse and spaces.

00:19:54.020 So clubhouse was the original audio app, um, where people could go on and it's essentially a group phone call.

00:20:01.660 The problem was one of the big users.

00:20:03.480 Yes, exactly.

00:20:05.620 Um, and, uh, Joe Rogan user.

00:20:07.260 And then, you know, yeah.

00:20:08.720 And then, so the problem with that is you'd have to join the app.

00:20:12.500 You'd have to know someone on the app to give you an invite.

00:20:14.600 And it was this whole hassle by like Twitter spaces it's through Twitter.

00:20:18.840 So the same thing could be true about, you know, bring back Periscope because technically it's separate, but it's through the functionality is like integrated within the Twitter app.

00:20:29.360 So all of your followers and stuff and the potential for new reach all can come through Twitter.

00:20:35.320 It was a little bit weird because you could, I remember, for example, my dad had a Periscope app, but he didn't have a Twitter app at the time or didn't have like, yeah, didn't have Twitter downloaded.

00:20:45.360 So I like, he could go, my dad used Periscope, you know, like it was very simple to use.

00:20:50.460 And that's why it was so great.

00:20:51.660 You've got, you've got, you've got pollen functions.

00:20:54.340 Um, you couldn't really do, you know, I guess what they call them duets.

00:20:57.520 You couldn't, you couldn't bring in multiple people on video, but it was very, very low bar to entry.

00:21:02.980 Um, which I think is the opposite of, I mean, I guess Instagram is pretty easy to use, but YouTube is not the live streams unless you're using it for you.

00:21:10.020 It's not intuitive for sure.

00:21:12.480 But, um, like, you know, my dad used to use Periscope and then I would share his Periscopes on my Twitter and then my Twitter followers could go there.

00:21:21.180 Or you could even go in on Periscope and then just only have that app and go through there.

00:21:28.240 So it was, it was a little funky the way the handoff actually worked, but I don't know, man.

00:21:33.640 I, I, I used to love, and I'll just say it.

00:21:36.060 I used to love going on Periscope and sometimes if I was bored, do you remember the, um, they used to have the global map on it, the global heat map.

00:21:43.080 Yep.

00:21:44.060 Yep.

00:21:44.300 Did you ever used to go in and just find like random people that were live and go in somewhere and like, yeah, yeah, it was amazing.

00:21:51.380 Yeah.

00:21:51.560 You could just go to Thailand.

00:21:52.700 You could go to China.

00:21:53.780 You could, you'd go through.

00:21:55.600 I mean, imagine if we had that right now with Ukraine or anything that's going on anywhere in the world, you know, what's Russia like right now with the sanctions?

00:22:03.800 Are they working or they're not working?

00:22:05.720 Uh, what are conditions like?

00:22:08.440 That's very limited because it's just like story.

00:22:10.860 That's stories and it's locked down and it's, and it only, if I remember correctly, it's, it's only if you set it to public on Snapchat.

00:22:19.080 Correct.

00:22:19.680 Yep.

00:22:20.180 Yep.

00:22:21.300 Yeah.

00:22:21.540 Cause I, I remember that people were doing that a little bit when the Ukraine war kicked off, but then they, they turned it off immediately.

00:22:27.420 Basically like the government.

00:22:31.560 No, I think, I think Twitter is, I mean, when you look at monetization and we're coming up on a break here, but when you look at monetization, I mean, why is not, why is

00:22:40.720 live streaming not one of the first things you're thinking of?

00:22:42.680 That's all I got to say.

00:22:44.580 Yeah.

00:22:45.040 I, I tend to agree.

00:22:46.300 I think they're trying to stem the bleeding from the original advertiser scare, and then they're going to try, you know, live streaming and then in stream ads for video, um, is going to be their next thing.

00:22:57.680 I think, cause that was a lot of, you know, YouTubers want to upload long form content with ads.

00:23:03.560 So, but I hope live stream is high on their priority list.

00:23:08.060 I mean, I would, I would say that too, that it's, it's, and we'll come back in a second here.

00:23:12.720 Since speaking of ads, we're going to be taking a little bit of a commercial break, a, a gratuitous profit break, uh, or as a rush limbo used to say, but I got to say folks, I know I'm getting a little,

00:23:23.760 little waxing nostalgic here on, on Periscope, but you don't understand.

00:23:28.780 I would love to be able to do this show right now on Periscope, sharing it out with the hundreds and thousands coming back here.

00:23:36.160 Human events, any special Alex.

00:23:40.540 And we're back, you know, Alex, we were just talking about, um, Periscope, but you know, the other thing was, I remember, you know, what else I loved about Periscope was.

00:23:48.880 If there was something happening out in the world, um, summer of 2020, there's a riot going on somewhere.

00:23:56.180 You could pop on Periscope, look for that red dot in that city.

00:24:00.040 And then boom, suddenly you're in the middle of it.

00:24:02.700 Um, if there was a terrorist attack in France, you could fly over, you could fly over to France from your, from your phone sitting in your hand.

00:24:12.040 You could go immediately there and you could see what was actually going on.

00:24:17.260 And then I think it would save for like 24 hours and you could go back and watch if anyone had been there.

00:24:22.560 And so it was just, it was incredible.

00:24:25.660 The level of connectivity it gave you.

00:24:27.640 And I've never seen on any other of these apps that are out there, that level of global penetration, taking you directly straight to the action, wherever it was in the world.

00:24:40.800 And like you said, Snapchat is kind of like that, but I think, uh, even then that's, that's, that's heavily locked down.

00:24:46.480 So think about it from, from a news perspective, right?

00:24:50.480 The, uh, the, about the, uh, and Elon talks about this, that Twitter is the news now, right?

00:24:55.400 Twitter's main competition is not other social media apps.

00:24:59.120 The Twitter's competition is mainstream media is something that Elon actually said this week.

00:25:04.080 And I think that's exactly right because you can go on there.

00:25:07.540 Actually, I remember trying to explain it to my, um, my division officer when I was in the Intel community once and the Hong Kong protests were going on.

00:25:17.140 And I said, look, this was the umbrella protest in 2014.

00:25:20.080 And I said, look, you can go to Hong Kong right here and look at the protests.

00:25:24.820 We don't need to need some like classified special, whatever.

00:25:28.680 I can do this in real time.

00:25:30.380 And he had no idea what I was talking about.

00:25:33.300 Yeah, it's pretty funny to like how you explain it that way.

00:25:36.780 I feel like, I don't know if Elon is fully aware of the functionality of Periscope as like a separate app as well.

00:25:44.080 I think he is aware that they acquired it and that it was their live streaming capabilities.

00:25:48.760 But I think if explained like that, he might be more likely to bring it back because like you said, he's touched on the fact that Twitter is the news now.

00:25:57.680 And how you'd like to democratize reporting.

00:26:00.740 So he wants Twitter to be a source of truth.

00:26:03.760 So having basically an eye on the ground in any given news story, I feel like would be the closest way to get the truth out there.

00:26:14.960 And it's not through the lens of corporate media.

00:26:17.320 So I think, yes, it explained that way to Elon, who I feel like would have a renewed focus on bringing that back possibly.

00:26:26.640 Plus, I always said, you know, with live streams and I remember being in situations where people said, hey, can you turn that off?

00:26:32.240 And I said, no, I'm not, because this is protecting both me and you.

00:26:35.460 Right.

00:26:35.880 Because this is not edited.

00:26:38.000 This is raw.

00:26:39.200 Yeah, it may look like, you know, potato quality or whatever, but it's it's real.

00:26:44.120 And everybody knows it's real as opposed to something that like like you and I are sitting down right now.

00:26:49.200 This is pre-recorded.

00:26:50.160 It'll be it's going to air on Sunday.

00:26:51.400 And so now, of course, the team's not going to like edit us out of context or anything, but it's different from something that's live on the scene.

00:26:59.160 And you look at how many people got got big out of just going to stuff and then being able to film it while live on the ground.

00:27:05.660 Right.

00:27:06.460 That that started a whole industry into itself.

00:27:09.600 And so I know that he's trying to work on subscribers and subscriber content.

00:27:14.620 Well, it would certainly be a whole lot easier to push that if you included live streaming.

00:27:20.820 Correct.

00:27:21.400 Yeah, that's that's actually a really good idea to start to start pushing him in that direction and maybe worth like a tweet and explaining like exactly what it was that made Periscope so valuable and the fact that they own it already.

00:27:37.400 And it's probably an easy, you know, infrastructure fix on their end where they have to, you know, just turn something back on.

00:27:46.180 I don't know exactly on their end what it would what it would take.

00:27:49.140 But yeah, when put like that, I think that it would incentivize more people to subscribe to on the ground reporters like I know, like Drew Hernandez, like those types of that go out on the scene.

00:28:04.140 I feel like that would be an entire new market of, you know, people going out and making money for it just just by using the in app function of the subscribers, which now they're they're really pushing because it's relaunched this past week.

00:28:23.980 So, yeah, I think that would be an excellent idea to include.

00:28:27.600 Right, because there's already there's there's even something so like I qualified for it.

00:28:33.040 I got the email the other day and but then in the back of my head, I'm thinking, well, what do I want to put behind a paywall?

00:28:39.560 Where do I what do I want to add?

00:28:41.160 What do I want to do?

00:28:43.160 And the question so you remember Periscope had the stars system so you could tip someone a star, which was crazy because I used to get stars, but then it wouldn't even pay them out to me.

00:28:55.300 So I never even got a sign out of it, but it was like it was kind of like super chats, I guess, on YouTube.

00:29:00.800 And I, you know, I'm guessing that they would take like whatever percentage of every transaction would go to the app.

00:29:07.040 Well, boom, there you go right there.

00:29:08.640 And then you add in this becomes a question.

00:29:10.860 This becomes a comment.

00:29:11.860 But I'm getting into like just the memes and different things that have gone on over the years.

00:29:19.900 And there's been some trouble in the meme trenches lately.

00:29:25.800 And you have brought that trouble to Elon Musk's attention.

00:29:30.680 And I'd like to play.

00:29:31.640 We have a clip of that right now, guys.

00:29:33.500 Play that with ALX is questioned, Elon Musk.

00:29:36.240 And the thing is, like, even I even get trolled.

00:29:39.000 And I'm like, God, like, why did I get trolled again?

00:29:41.940 That was really right.

00:29:43.200 Yeah, I get every day.

00:29:44.420 And it's like, well, you know, part and parcel of being on Twitter.

00:29:47.340 Yeah, totally.

00:29:49.900 On that note, did you see the guy who got charged for a meme on Twitter?

00:29:55.800 What were your thoughts on that?

00:29:56.920 I know you commented on it.

00:29:58.280 I didn't know if you got to look more into it.

00:30:00.380 His name's Douglas Mackey.

00:30:02.240 Oh, that's the guy who, I guess, was accused of election interference or something.

00:30:06.440 Yeah.

00:30:07.560 Even that's a counselor from South Park.

00:30:09.920 You'll vote or something?

00:30:12.080 Yeah.

00:30:12.680 Like, people shouldn't believe everything that they see online.

00:30:16.480 And, you know, I don't think that should be criminal.

00:30:18.760 No, I think criminal is over the top there.

00:30:22.320 I would agree with that.

00:30:23.300 They went too far.

00:30:25.840 You know, if that's the standard for throwing someone in prison, then there should be a lot of people in prison.

00:30:32.120 Yeah.

00:30:32.300 What are you in prison for?

00:30:33.360 Oh, meme crimes.

00:30:35.660 Exactly.

00:30:36.060 So why did you ask him that question and what do you think of his answer?

00:30:41.040 Yeah.

00:30:41.620 So I asked him that question because me and him are always up at like two in the morning.

00:30:47.520 And one of the times was just before, like, just before while the trial was going on, somebody had posted like an entire thread on Doug Mackey's case.

00:30:59.880 And then he replied, is there a criminal complaint online for this?

00:31:03.740 Because he was probably, you know, shocked that it was an actual thing.

00:31:08.300 Like, I need more information on how this is going on.

00:31:11.840 So I replied with the criminal complaint, a bunch of other users did, but he had never followed really back on it to see, like, we didn't know if he actually saw the tweets and read the criminal complaint.

00:31:23.820 So that's why I asked about it and also because he owns the platform.

00:31:29.900 So I kind of wanted to get his answer on what he thinks of a user in the past on the platform that he owns being criminally charged for something that went on on the platform that he currently owns.

00:31:43.680 So I agree with his answer in the sense that it goes way over the top.

00:31:49.900 And I asked him it, too, because he said, I get trolled all the time and he's laughing about it.

00:31:55.040 So that goes to the sense that the owner of the company doesn't think it's Twitter's role to tell you what the truth is and, you know, what you should believe.

00:32:05.740 You should go online thinking, I shouldn't believe everything that I see online.

00:32:10.980 And it isn't Twitter's job to tell you if it's true or not.

00:32:14.860 So having the owner of the company have that same mentality and being, you know, tricked by memes or whatever or being trolled online shows that he's just another person. 0.93

00:32:26.900 And he has a tendency to agree with that more than the fact that the entire case was predicated on the fact that Hillary Clinton voters are stupid enough to take their voting advice from in a non-account with Charlie Sheen wearing a MAGA hat. 0.93

00:32:42.520 And that's how they get their advice, how to vote. 0.95

00:32:45.860 And it's a meme saying, text your vote.

00:32:48.900 So that was the entire trial.

00:32:52.100 And now we have the owner of the social media company that we're talking about sharing our sentiment, saying, OK, I got fooled.

00:33:00.840 And not everything online is true and it shouldn't be criminal.

00:33:06.440 Right. And that's to the point.

00:33:08.520 Plus, Elon Musk, I mean, he's a little bit more than he's not just the owner of Twitter.

00:33:12.600 He's one of the richest men in the world.

00:33:14.180 You know, it's kind of fluctuating state by state, a richest or number two.

00:33:17.240 But certainly someone who's got massive amounts of influence in the nation, but also someone who I think has become kind of a cultural figure in his own right, because there are people who follow him that aren't necessarily, you know, right wing or left wing.

00:33:34.480 They're just they're they're Elon fans.

00:33:36.180 He's got this huge center right kind of even on some issues.

00:33:42.080 I mean, this is the green car company guy.

00:33:44.280 So, you know, there are people that, you know, that funded Tesla, that backed Tesla because they love the environment and climate change type of guys, even though I don't recall Greta ever thanking him for anything.

00:33:54.500 But I want to come back in a second because we've got our last break and dig into this a little more what it means to live in a country where people can go to jail for memes they post on Twitter, what we do about it.

00:34:10.480 Stay tuned, folks.

00:34:11.060 Last segment coming up with the ALX.

00:34:14.280 So, Alex, I got to ask you, man, you and I have known each other for a minute.

00:34:23.180 Did you ever think that Twitter, this app that you signed up on, would attain the level it has now?

00:34:33.760 Because we complain about Twitter all the time.

00:34:38.040 We we have issues under Jack Dorsey, et cetera, et cetera.

00:34:41.960 We have issues now.

00:34:43.240 We talk about those.

00:34:44.160 And I feel like we spent a lot of time doing that.

00:34:45.660 But I feel like we don't take enough time to step back and say this is the most influential app that's ever been created.

00:34:53.500 It's obviously going to be in the history books because of 2016 and so many things that happen afterwards.

00:34:59.480 It has become the global public square.

00:35:02.700 And it's it's kind of hard to explain how it happened.

00:35:06.260 But did you ever think that when you signed up for Twitter originally all those years ago that this is where it would be and this is where it would take you?

00:35:13.980 No, not at all.

00:35:17.080 Like you've mentioned, it was a place to make jokes, a place to just hang out with friends and open group chat, if you will, in a public forum.

00:35:25.560 And over the years, I think this really started it's really started when celebrities and public figures started using it as, you know, their platform to get their message out, their official statements.

00:35:40.160 And then later, government officials, like you had Obama as the first president to use it, and then other government officials like senators and congresspeople using it as their official means to communicate with their constituents.

00:35:56.080 I believe that's how it became kind of the global times square, if you will, because that's where leaders are, that's where celebrities are, that's where athletes are.

00:36:10.720 And therefore, everyone else in the public are going to be looking to Twitter for that.

00:36:16.300 And now it's become a source of news.

00:36:18.720 It's like the new media.

00:36:20.140 So now people are looking to it to find real time information.

00:36:24.440 Um, so that's how I believe it has become the public times square.

00:36:30.680 And, you know, I didn't think it would reach this level of importance when I first signed up.

00:36:36.360 Definitely not.

00:36:37.640 I mean, none of, I just thought it was fun.

00:36:40.740 I actually had a buddy who was super into it and he kept saying, oh, you got to sign up.

00:36:44.540 I think you'd be good on there.

00:36:46.400 Um, it's really great.

00:36:47.720 Cause I had a buddy who signed up in like, oh nine and he had been using it for a couple of years and had been saying, Hey, you should get on there.

00:36:53.860 You should get on there.

00:36:55.080 And that's, I started my GOT account on that game of Thrones to just make fun of the TV show.

00:37:01.620 And, uh, you know, and I had like, you know, a couple of thousand followers, but that's back in those days, like having a couple thousand followers was meant was pretty big.

00:37:11.180 Right.

00:37:11.700 That it, you know, people didn't have these huge follower counts.

00:37:14.540 Like getting a hundred thousand was a huge deal or in like, even as, as late as 2015, 2016, having over a hundred K was massive.

00:37:22.620 And if you had told me back then that I would have what I have now, I would like, are you kidding?

00:37:28.600 That was like the only things that ever, that when it went over a million were, um, because so many people came on after Trump, right?

00:37:35.840 This user base came on and just massively shifted the audience.

00:37:40.100 But at the same time, people forget too, that, uh, the United States, isn't the only market for Twitter.

00:37:46.100 They're massive in India and they're also massive in Japan.

00:37:49.040 Japan is a huge user base for Twitter.

00:37:51.420 And I always wonder, I thought this during the Jack Dorsey era, and I certainly even think of it more under Elon is, do you ever think that he sits there and goes, you know, these guys are like, you know, what, whatever percentage of my user base.

00:38:03.980 And yet they cause all of the problems and all of the headache.

00:38:07.740 That is, yeah, that is a good perspective to say.

00:38:10.240 Like, I haven't heard of like anyone other than maybe like the Germans or whatever, or the EU that complained.

00:38:17.040 Um, like in any other country, like you mentioned Japan, like complaining about the new leadership.

00:38:21.420 Or the new rules or whatever.

00:38:23.420 There's like, it's just, you know, the way the platform is changing, like any other platform changes.

00:38:29.740 Uh, but yeah, the U, the U S is full of complainers.

00:38:32.840 Of course, Canada is going to be full of complainers.

00:38:35.100 And then, uh, it's like the EU.

00:38:37.080 Those are like the only and loudest voices on the platform or outside of the platform criticizing everything.

00:38:45.460 But I would also point out, and this is something that, um, that Elon has mentioned a number of times.

00:38:50.740 Is that the EU has actually passed laws to protect users on there.

00:38:56.380 Now they do also have hate speech laws, which is something that I completely oppose.

00:39:00.520 Um, but they do have laws that prevent you from like viewpoint discrimination, various things on Twitter.

00:39:06.820 Uh, they have data laws with what, what Twitter's allowed, what they're allowed to collect, what they're not.

00:39:10.860 But, and so Elon's whole point has been, and he says it over and over in these, in these videos, like when he had the BBC interview, which also took place on Twitter, on Twitter spaces that, which, you know, you're talking about the live stream.

00:39:23.340 I think they could just, just add live streaming to Twitter spaces.

00:39:25.800 It would be good to go.

00:39:26.500 I just add video to it.

00:39:27.400 And that's all you really need.

00:39:28.500 If you don't have to change everything out.

00:39:30.320 But he said, if, if you really have a problem with something, then change a law.

00:39:34.080 But I think his, what he's pushing back on is this idea that he's going to take action.

00:39:38.860 That's not required by law.

00:39:41.600 Yes, exactly.

00:39:43.220 Um, that's, that's, I think the good viewpoint on it in the sense that I think the BBC interviewer was like, oh, wouldn't that incentivize people to pass bad laws or whatever?

00:39:54.960 I'm like, well, think about what you're saying.

00:39:56.480 It's like, you know, how hard it is to pass a law and the thought that people are going to pass it just for, you know, Twitter is absurd.

00:40:03.680 That was his follow up question, I believe James Clayton to Elon saying that, but it just, his point is the fact that if a collection of people in a country feel so strongly about something on Twitter or whatever,

00:40:20.760 that should be reflected in their laws before they're required to take action on a social media platform, that's supposed to be the public Times Square,

00:40:28.220 because it's supposed to be reflecting as close as, you know, general life in that country as possible.

00:40:35.560 The popular.

00:40:36.040 So if it isn't, yes, exactly.

00:40:38.320 So if it isn't required by law, he, you know, doesn't have to take action against it and doesn't feel compelled to.

00:40:45.800 Um, because, uh, but like I just said, if, if a populist feels strong enough about something that they're going to elect leaders that are going to take action and make it into a law, if they feel so strongly about that.

00:41:00.620 Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:41:01.880 Because, you know, and, and to be clear, you know, he does have the community notes now, which is an interesting function.

00:41:07.440 I don't think it quite gets everything right, but it at least performs some kind of fact checking.

00:41:12.040 I think it's hilarious when they do it to like, uh, you know, corporations like Howard or Glenn Tesler.

00:41:18.580 Um, I've pretty much every time I upload a deep fake, they add it to there and it's like, well, you're really, you're going to do it on jokes.

00:41:23.880 This is a meme.

00:41:25.180 Yeah, exactly.

00:41:26.720 Right.

00:41:27.260 Yeah.

00:41:27.580 Um, but the other part is, no, he has changed the doxing policy, which, you know, to take down a lot of those, those, uh, trackers like the jet tracker that he, that he really didn't like.

00:41:39.240 Um, though I've yet to see it actually be enforced against, cause he said it's supposed to be like real time doxing, um, with the standard, but I yet to see it actually be enforced against some like them real time, like a paparazzi picture or something.

00:41:52.300 Yeah. And I think the distinction, uh, that was made too, is cause James Clayton also brought this up, um, after the interview, cause he cut into the spaces questions was he's like, Oh, what if somebody is just in a picture at a concert?

00:42:07.200 If it isn't at a public setting, like a political rally or a concert or whatever in a public space, it's not considered doxing because you're attending a public event.

00:42:16.780 Um, I think the distinction is posting real time travel location, like as, as it's happening, because you're basically reporting to the public, the, the real time location of a person rather than, you know, you just saw someone on a street corner.

00:42:35.060 It doesn't really give the coordinates. There's ways to figure out like by location of like a photo of like, if you see a street sign or whatever, but like that, that takes more effort than having a dot on a map.

00:42:47.960 Um, which is kind of like what the Elon jet tracker did, um, was a counter argument against that because it just showed the airport location.

00:42:57.980 And if you like, if you say, Oh, this person is at LAX, even if you went to LAX, there is no guarantee you're going to, um, but I do see the concern in, you know, reporting location by location in real time on a map.

00:43:14.720 Um, so I, I think, I think that's the distinction there.

00:43:19.960 If somebody is in a public setting and is pictured somewhere, um, that is, that's a lot different than a real time map with a tracker.

00:43:28.800 We are coming up on our last couple of minutes. This has been an incredible conversation. Everybody needs to follow you at a LX.

00:43:36.640 What are your, just as we wrap up here, where, where do you think Twitter goes from here? Do you think Twitter is here to stay?

00:43:43.360 Elon's talked about, uh, evolving it into this sort of everything app under X, um, sounds ambitious. He's talked about, he's compared it to WeChat. Do you think that's his, his ultimate plan?

00:43:57.000 Yeah, I think to start, he's going to increase the functionality on the app itself. Um, and then, uh, it's going to, I believe be maybe a separate app.

00:44:07.540 Um, I know the news came out this week that they officially changed to X Corp. Um, so Twitter Inc. no longer exists. So it's going to be X Corp, but the app is still going to be called Twitter for now.

00:44:18.880 But I think the first step in making it the everything app is the enabling of payments, like a Venmo, um, alternative as, as you know, like he helped found, uh, PayPal.

00:44:30.120 So he has some, you know, history there. And I think like Twitter payments and Twitter coins are in development currently. Uh, so that also goes back to the Periscope thing you were talking about, about awarding stars and comments.

00:44:44.400 So that's actually, um, that's in the process. I'm not exactly sure on the platform, how it will work, but there are going to be ways to, you know, send stars or coins or peer to peer, just like Venmo transactions on, on the Twitter app.

00:45:01.900 Um, and I believe eventually it will evolve into a larger app with different functionality.

00:45:09.640 Yeah, no, I, I think that's great. I think it's awesome. I think we need it.

00:45:13.260 I would love to see it. I love the fact that, that Elon, what he's doing with it. Um, I do also think, and I sort of had this debate with destiny last week on this.

00:45:23.140 I do think though, that being said, just because Elon has it now, it doesn't mean he'll have it forever.

00:45:28.280 And I do think that there still needs to be a role for some type of public regulation.

00:45:33.920 Um, I was actually, Alex Jones was on my panel, um, as sort of a surprise guest.

00:45:37.680 And we both agreed that it should be given the same kind of rules as a utility.

00:45:41.840 Yep. I agree with that. Make it a public utility. I fully agree that these, yeah, the section two 30, it's too nebulous.

00:45:49.900 It's, it's not applied evenly. And I don't think that makes sense. Make it a public utility and put it under the common carrier anti-discrimination laws. Simple.

00:45:57.920 Mm-hmm a hundred percent. Agree with that.

00:46:00.380 Where can people follow you?

00:46:01.920 Um, at ALX on Twitter and true social, and then ALX the Lord on Instagram.

00:46:07.760 All right. ALX, one of my oldest Twitter buddies and now longtime actual friend folks, ladies and gentlemen, as always, you have my permission to lay short.

00:46:17.680 kind of answer, but there is aksi bottom, the general team

00:46:18.400 to begin to answer your questions.

00:46:22.160 A notification, uh, you will be moving forward

00:46:23.020 Please, please, please, please, thanks.

00:46:24.300 Bye-bye.

00:46:25.380 I have my, uh, uh, helpful來了?

00:46:25.500 Bye.

00:46:26.080 Bye.

00:46:26.280 Bye.

00:46:27.440 Bye-bye.

00:46:27.800 Bye.

00:46:28.500 Bye-bye.

00:46:29.620 Bye-bye.

00:46:31.060 Bye-bye.

00:46:32.760 Bye-bye.

00:46:33.200 Bye-bye.

00:46:33.960 Bye-bye.

00:46:34.960 Bye-bye.

00:46:36.380 Bye-bye.

00:46:37.000 Bye-bye.

00:46:38.000 Bye-bye.

00:46:38.800 Bye-bye.

00:46:40.000 Bye-bye.

00:46:40.020 Bye-bye.

00:46:40.460 Bye-bye.

00:46:41.540 Bye-bye.

00:46:41.880 Bye-bye.

00:46:44.980 Bye-bye.

00:46:46.060 bom-bye. 0.98

Human Events Daily with Jack Posobiec - April 23, 2023

SUNDAY SPECIAL WITH ALX

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