Juno News - December 16, 2022


Elon Musk triggers the Canadian left


Episode Stats

Length

20 minutes

Words per Minute

171.52191

Word Count

3,570

Sentence Count

264


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to you all. This is another edition of Fake News Friday as we try to find
00:00:15.040 warmth and comfort and serenity in the midst of the blizzard of lies that is coming at us in all
00:00:21.420 directions from all directions in this day and age and I assure you it has nothing to do with
00:00:26.240 Elon Musk taking over Twitter. I am Andrew Lawton joined by Sue Ann Levy who I believe is unless you
00:00:33.620 are actually sitting on a beach right now a purveyor of fake news with that background of yours.
00:00:39.220 It's very fake. I thought it was appropriate. Fake news. See Sue Ann there you go with the fake
00:00:44.980 news again. You are you are sowing discord in our fragile society. I hope I don't trigger a few
00:00:51.620 people. Actually you're just making me jealous. I would take a fake beach over where I am in Canada
00:00:57.440 right now with the weather that's been coming down. So in any case let's speaking of Elon Musk this has
00:01:03.440 been I think the gift that keeps on giving for Fake News Friday. So Elon Musk a few weeks back takes over
00:01:09.320 Twitter. There's been this perpetual frenzy by a lot of people in media and in politics and yesterday
00:01:15.840 they spoke about on Daily Brief and this I spoke about on the Andrew Lawton show. Elon Musk responded
00:01:22.020 to a tweet of mine and said that he didn't like how it sounded like some of these policies the
00:01:27.880 government is putting forward here are muzzling the voice of Canadians which I think was a very astute
00:01:34.440 and accurate analysis on this. But it's been interesting just to see some of the backlash. Like here was
00:01:40.420 one was one tweet from Brad Redikop and he posted this video of Charlie Angus blaming Elon Musk for
00:01:50.600 anti-semitism. Take a look. Elon Musk's recent purchase of Twitter has shaken up Silicon Valley
00:01:56.200 and the status quo in big tech quite a bit and perhaps breathed some fresh air into what was
00:02:01.760 becoming a stale industry. His commitment to free speech and his willingness to stand up to the powers
00:02:06.880 that be show how big tech can directly influence elections or stay neutral as they should. Of
00:02:13.320 course in Canada this legislation has the potential to tip the scales towards the NDP Liberals during
00:02:18.640 elections. Big tech recognizes that and they don't want to be the tools of censorship in Canada or
00:02:23.560 anywhere else. How about Elon Musk? What a great breath of fresh air. I mean the guy's almost crashed
00:02:29.820 one of the biggest platforms in the world in the space of two weeks. But what's so fresh about Elon Musk?
00:02:35.820 Well the rise of anti-semitism. Oh well geez that's a breath of fresh air. Vladimir Putin's troll
00:02:42.400 armies against the people of Ukraine. What a breath of fresh air for backbench conservatives. And then
00:02:47.580 of course Elon Musk wants to jail the United States most illustrious doctor for the work he did
00:02:55.720 preventing the pandemic. I bet conservatives just love that. What a breath of fresh air. If only we
00:03:02.060 could go after medical science. But then on the other hand we have the big bad CBC running everything.
00:03:08.800 You know I thought it was George Soros. I thought it was Klaus Schwabe. Now I should have thought you
00:03:14.360 know when the leader of the conservative party said he was going to go after cryptocurrency to replace the
00:03:19.140 bank of Canada and shut down the CBC. I didn't know it was because of their conspiracy to control
00:03:23.940 everything. The honourable member for Saskatoon West. This reminds me of a very simple thing. Dad jokes.
00:03:33.380 You hear a dad joke. One person likes it. The next person doesn't even find it funny. Which is my point
00:03:38.260 here that we cannot allow one person or one group of people to control what we see on the internet. We have
00:03:44.820 to allow a broad cross-section. Some people will like one thing. Some people will like another. Some
00:03:49.140 things might be true. Some things might not. But as soon as we try to arbitrate those things
00:03:53.140 we're going to get ourselves into trouble. Thank you. Now I know you Sue Ann are very well aware
00:03:58.020 of anti-semitism. I'm a gentile. You're a Jewish woman. You've seen this first hand. This didn't
00:04:03.940 start when Elon Musk took over Twitter. I don't think we can lay anti-semitism at his feet. Can we?
00:04:09.540 Absolutely not. You know, it's funny because anti-semitism, you know, the left would like to
00:04:16.980 portray it as coming from the far right neo-Nazis. You know, that has waned and it's increased certainly
00:04:26.340 in Europe. But the bulk of anti-semitism currently is coming from the far left. So what I see on Twitter
00:04:34.740 are people who are, for example, proponents of critical race theory and things like that.
00:04:41.860 Anti-semitism is coming from the radical fringe left. And Elon Musk certainly isn't that.
00:04:49.220 So you can call him a lot of things, but not that. No, and that's the thing. And I've never liked when
00:04:54.580 people cheapen what are very serious concepts, whether it's racism or anti-semitism. And they do
00:05:00.340 exactly that when they try to just like shove these things into whatever political point
00:05:05.300 they're trying to make here. So Charlie Angus doesn't like Elon Musk. Okay, that's fine. I don't
00:05:09.140 really care. He can debate that as much as he wants. But then to just say we have to just shove
00:05:14.020 an anti-semitism narrative into this is I find very disingenuous. Well, the word anti-semitism,
00:05:20.260 the word racist, the word Islamophobic, bigot, bigotry. I mean, those words are so overused these
00:05:28.900 days. And I don't know how many times you've been called a racist or a bigot, but I find it hard to
00:05:33.860 believe that a Jewish lesbian, although the far left people who are going absolutely berserk, I think,
00:05:41.620 on Twitter would call me racist or call me a bigot. Come on. You know, I fit into a couple of
00:05:51.620 oppressed groups. I'm also a woman. Yeah, you're the one you're the one that we need. You're the
00:05:56.420 victim of the bigotry in that sense. Yes. So I mean, it's it's just crazy the way and it's become
00:06:02.820 so tiresome. I don't know if you find that, Andrew, but I find it really tiresome when I'm these labels
00:06:08.740 are thrown at me. They mean nothing. They cheapen it, as you said. Yeah, very much so. And I mean,
00:06:14.080 some of the the reaction to Elon Musk as well, it's just it's just not even clever. It's not
00:06:20.980 witty. It's not intelligent. Twenty two minutes, which is this bizarre attempt at Canadian comedy,
00:06:27.620 has tweeted out a couple of Elon Musk observations. One of them, Elon Musk has dissolved Twitter's trust
00:06:34.100 and safety council. He's hoping this will make things safer and restore trust in Twitter. So a
00:06:40.000 bit of a poor attempt at wordplay there. Another one, Elon Musk has revealed that you can now play
00:06:44.800 video games off the screen in your Tesla, which is a great way to keep your mind off your car driving
00:06:50.320 itself into a gorge. OK, a little bit more pointed than the trust and safety one, but still nothing I
00:06:56.760 would say is comedy here. And I'm wondering if everyone is just going to tire themselves out on this
00:07:02.480 or if Elon Musk is just the new Donald Trump in the sense that he lives rent free in all of his
00:07:07.260 critics brains. Well, he seems to be. And there are those who have left Twitter and then come back. And
00:07:13.580 you know, it's it's it's actually quite funny there. And Donald Trump, of course, he announced his
00:07:20.280 reelection and he's not getting the the airtime that Elon Musk is. Look, the guy is very, very
00:07:28.020 successful. I see more and more Teslas on the street. I'm not going to buy an electric vehicle at this
00:07:33.960 point, but he's done very well. He has a very successful model and he bought Twitter. And I think
00:07:41.660 he's let some people back on Twitter, for example, Jordan Peterson. And he's let, you know, Donald Trump
00:07:47.580 back on Twitter. And I think that's a good thing. Free speech. And from what I've read and heard and seen
00:07:55.000 of the people who ran Twitter beforehand. I mean, it was, as we say in Yiddish Shonda,
00:08:00.400 it was disgraceful how they behaved and how they canceled people that they didn't agree with.
00:08:07.600 And it's sort of indicative of society today, isn't it? But, you know, I find it very refreshing that
00:08:13.740 he's back and let the people's leftist heads explode. I really don't care. I think, by the way,
00:08:20.420 I learn a new Yiddish word every time I co-host this show with you, Sue Ann. So thank you for that.
00:08:26.080 Yeah, a couple of the reactions here. Kurt Petrovich, who I had never heard of, but apparently
00:08:31.700 he works for CBC, has said he bought an electric nearly three years ago and had test-driven a Tesla.
00:08:38.580 But Musk then was already known as a COVID-denying, union-busting, narcissistic, ego-driven
00:08:44.100 fabulist. So he bought a Hyundai Kona electric vehicle instead, saved money, great service and
00:08:50.280 nearly 500 kilometer range. Brad Wheeler, who is with the Globe and Mail, he tweeted out that
00:08:56.620 Elon Musk is effectively like Dr. Evil. So Elon Musk, just because he was tweeting about how the
00:09:04.940 branch Covidians were getting under his nerves, he's now the sinister cat-petting villain in the
00:09:12.880 Austin Powers movies. So I, you know, I, maybe they'll tire themselves out and, you know, we can
00:09:17.980 have a reset in new year on this, but I'm not optimistic of that happening. Well, and all I
00:09:23.400 would say to these people who are tweeting, leave Twitter if you don't like it. Number one, nobody's
00:09:27.980 forcing you, you know, pulling your arm to be part of it, pulling your laptop fingers. And the guy is,
00:09:36.040 you got to respect him. He's a really successful entrepreneur. And I just laugh at some
00:09:42.800 of these people. I mean, they obviously have, well, I want to, don't want to say no life,
00:09:49.040 but my goodness, to get yourself all bent out of shape over Elon Musk, surely to goodness this time
00:09:55.140 of year, there are better things to do. Like, you know, putting up a Christmas tree, whatever.
00:10:00.920 Yeah, exactly. It's like this time of year, the last thing I want to do is start getting into Twitter
00:10:05.980 fights about billionaires whose lives are very different than my own, but to each their own,
00:10:11.220 I guess. And you know, if that's what gives them joy in the holiday season, who am I to rob them
00:10:15.540 of that? Let's talk about a little bit of a news development this week. The House of Commons passed
00:10:21.380 Bill C-18, which is the bill that if it goes through the Senate and gets royal assent and all that,
00:10:27.680 will force social media companies to subsidize news companies in Canada. So it'll force social media
00:10:34.880 companies to pay news companies for the privilege of letting news companies post their content to
00:10:42.520 promote it on social media. It's a very bizarre convoluted bill. I talked about it on my show
00:10:47.840 yesterday. It's basically trying to get the government to offload subsidizing journalists
00:10:52.640 to tech companies instead of using taxpayer money. But what was interesting is a liberal MP
00:10:59.000 tweeted a thread about how proud she was of this bill passing. And she completely, it seemed like,
00:11:06.960 doesn't understand what her bill is. So this is from Lisa Hefner, who's an Ontario Liberal member
00:11:13.000 of Parliament. She says,
00:11:14.000 As a former journalist, I've always understood and appreciated the importance of local community news.
00:11:19.520 I've consistently been a champion of journalism, which is why I'm so pleased to have worked on a piece
00:11:23.840 of legislation that will ensure more revenue for news outlets, more transparency and the protection
00:11:30.080 of independent of journalistic independence. She goes on and says, our government will always support
00:11:37.220 quality fact based Canadian journalism in a fair digital marketplace. This bill makes it harder for
00:11:43.780 big digital platforms like Facebook and Google to steal local journalist articles and repost them without
00:11:51.160 credit on one of their networks. Nowhere has the government even talked about this being a bill to
00:11:59.660 prevent the theft of content, which is already covered by copyright laws. This is about content that news
00:12:05.860 outlets are voluntarily posting on Facebook and Twitter, because they want people to see it. So
00:12:12.060 they're using social media to promote it. This is now theft? It's bizarre. I mean, but when what is this
00:12:19.120 the first time that an MP's not understood a bill, a piece of legislation, a budget?
00:12:24.720 That's true. And a former journalist, no doubt. I don't think, you know, the industry is happy to or sad to
00:12:30.160 have lost her.
00:12:31.360 But, you know, it's, she's got everything reversed in our upside down world. Okay, so it's going to
00:12:39.680 protect the independence of journalism? Give me a break. Journalism, I mean, once the mainstream media
00:12:46.200 started being bailed out and started getting grants and bailouts and monies, they lost all their
00:12:53.380 independence. I mean, that's the value of independent journalism, like True North. I mean, we're not getting
00:12:59.960 government bailouts. I mean, we've seen it in real time. And transparency? Please. I've never seen an era
00:13:09.860 so lacking in transparency as currently in Canada and at all levels of government and journalistic
00:13:17.360 independence. Well, I already referred to that. So, you know, we use these digital platforms, you do,
00:13:25.220 I do, extensively to promote. Because we're a digital platform, we use social media to promote.
00:13:31.860 That's where we promote our, you know, our reports. So I don't know what this woman is talking about. And as
00:13:39.300 you said, thank goodness, she's out of the journalism field. Yeah, although we're stuck with her as the
00:13:44.500 seat of government instead. But, you know, it's, it's weird to me, because what's happening is
00:13:50.820 government is, well, journalists are, let's go back to this journalists have this inflated sense of
00:13:56.020 self importance, as you and I both know. And the media industry thinks it's a lot more relevant
00:14:01.940 than it than it is to a lot of Canadians. And anytime these fights have come up between the
00:14:06.260 media companies, and the tech companies, the tech companies have said, listen, like,
00:14:10.420 sharing news is five, 10% of the content on our platform. It's all cat gifs and memes and all of
00:14:18.180 that that people care more about than they care about journalism, which is why Facebook played hard
00:14:22.820 ball when Australia was trying to do something like this and said, fine, we're just going to ban
00:14:27.220 links to Australia news stories. And they did this in a bit of brinksmanship. And I actually,
00:14:32.660 not that I'm a big fan of Facebook and Google and all these companies, but I hope they continue
00:14:37.700 to push back against this. Because if news outlets want to use social media platforms to promote their
00:14:43.380 work, that is a service that they are voluntarily engaging in and getting a benefit from. It's not
00:14:50.180 something they can then turn around and extort these social media companies over.
00:14:54.820 And I can give you an unscientific experiment.
00:14:58.900 When I post my stories as brilliant as they are, or your stories or whatever,
00:15:03.860 I get far less clicks on Facebook than when I post a picture of Frida playing my new little puppy,
00:15:10.340 or playing with Mr. Mom, Monty. People, this is what people follow Facebook for Twitter is a little
00:15:18.100 different. But my goodness, you're right about journalists having this inflated view.
00:15:23.780 And I am, you know, very, very self deprecating. And I realized that my story is not nearly as
00:15:31.140 important as my little puppy on Facebook, at least. Brian Lilly does that as well. He started
00:15:36.580 using his work page to share pictures of his dog and pictures of the various types of scotch he's
00:15:42.020 drinking. And I'm like, wow, why is Brian not doing any journalism? And then I go to his page and
00:15:46.260 I realized, no, he's sharing all his work as well. But the Facebook algorithm is promoting the dog
00:15:50.980 pictures and the scotch pictures more than it's promoting the journalism.
00:15:54.980 Exactly. And that's what people and you know what, it speaks to what I just said before.
00:16:01.860 Our colleagues take themselves far too seriously. And certainly, instead of tweeting about Elon Musk
00:16:08.180 this time of year, he probably has a gazillion dollars to spend on Christmas presents. Enjoy the
00:16:13.860 season. My goodness.
00:16:15.540 Well, we always try to end things on a bit of a lighter note here. And sometimes I think a video
00:16:22.020 is worth I mean, a picture is worth 1000 words, a video is worth 1000 pictures. Here is Jagmeet Singh,
00:16:28.420 the leader of the NDP in the House of Commons this week.
00:16:31.380 Remember for Burnaby South, when I'm Prime Minister, I will keep my promises.
00:16:36.420 Now, another promise. Let me try again.
00:16:50.900 Order.
00:16:52.580 You know, I criticize the 22 Minutes Twitter account for not knowing real comedy. That was real comedy.
00:16:59.460 Jagmeet Singh starting a sentence with when I'm Prime Minister. If CBC could produce that level of
00:17:05.140 comedy, we'd be in a great position as a country.
00:17:08.260 Exactly. He'll be Prime Minister when the world is flat.
00:17:12.580 He'll be Prime Minister when the media gets over itself. That's about as likely as that is.
00:17:17.620 I love that now like the pretense is gone. Everyone in the House of Commons just bursts into this like
00:17:22.260 uproar when he says this because they all know just how absurd it is.
00:17:26.100 Well, you know, and again, it speaks to the disconnectedness of politicians like him,
00:17:33.300 and a good number of the members of the NDP caucus with they actually think they are going to govern
00:17:39.780 one day, please. He has none of the charm and charisma of Jack Layton. I was not a fan of Jack
00:17:46.580 Layton when he was at City Hall. But at least he had charisma. And at least he knew how to bring people
00:17:51.700 together and make a statement. This guy has been absolutely useless. He is, you know, he wears nice
00:17:59.140 suits. I like his different color turbans, but he's been useless.
00:18:03.380 Yeah. And it was an odd sort of like you and I, I think, have talked about this in the past. I
00:18:07.780 certainly have on my show as well that he's given away everything for nothing when it comes to
00:18:12.820 this non coalition coalition agreement, the supply and confidence agreement he has with the Liberals,
00:18:18.420 where he jumps up and down all the time and talks about how terrible the Liberals are.
00:18:22.660 And but he doesn't say the quiet part out loud, which is that he's the one keeping the Liberals
00:18:26.980 in power right now. And he could actually cause the government to topple at any moment if he wanted to.
00:18:32.020 Yeah, that's the great irony. And yes, exactly. So you can't kvetch. I'm giving you another Yiddish
00:18:38.100 word. You can't complain. No, kvetch I knew. That was like, that was like three lessons ago.
00:18:41.780 OK, excuse me. But you can't kvetch and about how the Liberals are doing it for you. You haven't
00:18:50.260 really made that many demands. You just sort of make these token press conferences and then continue
00:18:55.700 to prop them up. So what are you getting from this sort of arranged marriage? What are you actually
00:19:01.300 getting? I have no idea. It's so bizarre. Oh, well, you know what? Like I said earlier,
00:19:07.460 at the very least, that was a nice bit of levity. I think Jagmeet Singh should start all speeches
00:19:12.100 with, you know, with that boilerplate when I'm Prime Minister. It's a lot funnier than anything else
00:19:18.500 we get from politics. And it's less insufferable than the never ending land acknowledgements that
00:19:23.700 are done in such a disingenuous way. So that's how all NDP speeches should start. When I'm Prime Minister,
00:19:29.140 then we can all have a laugh and forget that they exist. It was a simpler time when that was the case.
00:19:34.260 Sue Ann Levy, I hope you are enjoying the beach, even if it is fake. We can all just live in that
00:19:39.860 fantasy there. It's just so hot. Is it a human fake beach or is it a non-humid fake beach?
00:19:47.140 It's a fake. It's a real beach, but it's, you know, it's a fake. I'm not really sitting on a beach,
00:19:54.420 of course, because you would be hearing the roar of the waves. But anyway, it's making me feel hot.
00:20:02.100 Okay. Well, instead I have like a tree and freezing rain coming out outside. So
00:20:06.580 I can live in the fantasy as well as you can. We will be back next week with a very special
00:20:12.340 fake news Friday that you won't want to miss. Sue Ann Levy, thank you so much as always.
00:20:16.580 Have a great weekend and happy Hanukkah as well. I know that's coming up.
00:20:19.940 Hanukkah starts on Sunday and I'm going out to get my Hanukkah bush right now.
00:20:26.420 All right. Well, safe, safe travels and happy shopping. And we will talk to you all next week.
00:20:42.740 Thank you.
00:20:46.980 Yep.
00:20:47.880 Good morning.
00:20:48.800 I'm finished.